A/N: Well, I know I already have one Worm story out there, but muses are what they are, and so I'm writing this down before it fades. It's something like the one-shot where Saitama ended up on Earth Bet, but taken a tad more seriously. And I'll probably explore the results in more detail, since Anos is a much more complicated character than Saitama and can be used in more ways than just, "dude who never loses in a fight because he's bullshit like that." I mean, with Anos there's actually some ambiguity about whether or not he could take Scion in a fair fight, since Anos's power is based more around outthinking his opponent and overwhelming them with his destructive magic rather than pressing the instant win button and having done with it.

I mean sure, Anos never loses a fight either, but since Anos was nominally a villain for most of his life and yet still doesn't regret a single action he's ever taken I think his reaction to Earth Bet will be a lot more nuanced than Saitama's. He certainly seems to exemplify one of Worm's taglines, namely "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Arguably Kanon exemplifies that even more, but Anos is just cooler than Kanon.

Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong. It'll be amusing to see if you can convince me that hero-man 7000 is more interesting as a character than the self-aware Demon Lord of Tyranny that gave his life to bring peace to the entire world. And then reincarnated 2,000 years later to make sure that his sacrifice hadn't been in vain, successfully derailing multiple plots to mess with his country and his life in the process.

Anyway, it's storytime. Once upon a time, in a probabilistic multiverse not so different from our own…

Anos Voldigoad stood before the God of Time, the God of Reality, and the God of Infinite Probability. He suspected that the God of Time was behind this, if only because they'd never gotten along. Then again, Anos had made enemies of practically all the Gods he'd ever met. They were powerful to be sure, but also far too stiff and set in their ways for it to be worth the effort of keeping them happy.

ANOS VOLDIGOAD. DEMON LORD OF TYRANNY. As usual when deities worked together, the three spoke with one voice to demonstrate their synchronicity and utter agreement with one another.

"What do you want this time?" Anos asked. There was no reason not to be polite, after all, even if the last time he'd seen these three working together it had been an attempt to kill him and he'd been forced to kill their mortal avatars and scatter their divine essence so far that it had taken them weeks to recover.

YOU AIDED THE HERO OF HUMANITY, KANON. YOU DEFIED THE MAGIC AVATAR, JERGA ASC, They stated.

"I did," Anos agreed mildly.

The Gods conferred briefly between each other, and for once Anos found that he was unable to eavesdrop on their thoughts. What do you know; even the Gods could learn new tricks. It had only taken them 2,300 years.

YOU ARE NOT A WORTHY SOUL. TO PROVE YOUR RIGHT TO ENJOY THE PEACE YOU HAVE CREATED, YOU MUST PROVE YOUR WORTH.

"Oh," Anos said, allowing a hint of annoyance to creep into his tone, "and who is going to judge my worth exactly? The only hero I would consider worthy of such a task is more than just a little bit biased in my favor at the moment."

The God of Time chuckled, for once acting without the direct support of His two fellows. That is not for you to know, Anos Voldigoad, He said. And then, quite abruptly, with a barely perceptible distortion of space Anos was standing Elsewhere. He examined his surroundings, cloaked in the darkness of night as they were. Streetlights were placed at regular intervals along a road made of some black, rocky material and he stood on a sidewalk made of a slightly harder gray material. The surrounding buildings were mostly composed of a similar material to the sidewalk, though some were constructed in a more familiar brick-and-mortar style.

"What is this street made of?" he wondered aloud. "And these buildings…was the stone that makes them liquefied during the building process? They certainly seem more precisely crafted than any non-magical building I've ever seen." Infusing his eyes with magical power, he peered deeply into the nature of his surroundings. What he found was both interesting and perplexing. The laws of reality that he could observe in action were no different in this new place than they had been on his world, but the entire planet was different. The landmasses were laid out differently, the nature was completely absent of magic, and the people were exclusively human. Some were certainly mutated in interesting ways, but they were clearly human at their core. And yet, despite the absence of any other races to clash with the humans were divided up into countless smaller nations. "I don't suppose I'm going to get an explanation for all of this," he said. As expected, the Gods were silent.

Oh well. It wasn't the first time he had found himself in completely unfamiliar surroundings. And if he was being judged for his worthiness, he might need to act more circumspectly than usual. At the very least he would need to get to know this new world before he acted too drastically. Ruling a population was so much easier when you knew all their fears, desires, and other various quirks. You couldn't always rely on the ability to endlessly resurrect your enemies until they submitted to your reign when some of those enemies were stubborn enough to stop fighting and submit until they could find an opportunity for revenge.

He had barely walked 10 feet when an explosion of time magic enveloped him. It was nothing like Rivide, it was gradually slowing the flow of time around him and attempting to draw him into the center of its effect, where time was flowing the slowest. Casually shattering the magic, he examined the device in the epicenter of the magic's radius. It was hidden behind a wall and traces of magic lingered about it, but it seemed to have expended all of its energy on the one pitiful attack. "That's odd," he said aloud, "I thought this world was all but devoid of magic. I wonder what sort of artificer created such a trap. And why?" It couldn't have been to target him specifically, after all. Anyone who was aware of his arrival before it happened would have been well aware that such a petty attack wouldn't even inconvenience him.

In the distance, he heard a high-pitched howling noise, regularly raising and lowering in pitch. It was growing nearer to him quite rapidly. Some kind of follow-up attack? Or was this a response by the authorities of the land to the commotion caused by the time-manipulation device? He decided to wait for the arrival of the vehicle he could sense coming his way to find out for himself.

When the peculiar vehicle finally arrived, he was once again struck by the oddity of the materials used in the construction of this world. Metal for the body, but some sort of soft and flexible material for the wheels? It might result in a smoother ride, he supposed, but with streets so smooth already he didn't know why they would need to bother with such luxuries.

"Greetings," he said to the two humans who got out of the vehicle. They eyed him warily, and one said something to the other. It was in a completely unrecognizable language that Anos had never heard before. How interesting. Eavesdropping on the humans' thoughts very quickly provided him all the necessary context and dictation to speak, read and write their language. "My apologies," he said in their language, "that was a greeting in my native tongue. How may I help two fine officers of the law tonight?"

The two policemen, a word he had pulled from their heads, looked at each other before the more experienced officer stepped forward. "We heard reports that one of Bakuda's bombs went off in the area. Did you see or hear anything unusual?"

A bomb? A bomb was an explosive device. The time magic hadn't been explosive at all, though he could see how a layman might make the mistake of thinking that it was. Especially as these humans seemed completely ignorant of magic's inner workings and didn't even believe that magic was real.

"There was a temporal effect originating from that wall," he said, pointing directly at the wall that concealed the 'bomb.' "It was weak, and I shattered it with ease."

The officers tensed noticeably. "You-you're a parahuman?" the less experienced officer asked fearfully.

Anos considered the question. A parahuman was someone who wielded power that ordinary humans did not, and though it implied an underlying humanity, he resembled a human closely enough to avoid suspicion. "Yes, I suppose you could call me that," he stated carefully, "whatever the device was that caused the temporal effect, it was likely made by a parahuman. Not a very nice one, either, the temporal field was slowing time to a near standstill and would have lasted for several years at least if I hadn't broken free of its influence."

"You some kind of time-manipulator then?" the more experienced officer asked.

"It's one of my many talents."

The officers looked at each other. "Do…you think you could break the effect of other time bubbles?" the less experienced one asked, "This wasn't the first time bomb Bakuda's set off, and you're the only person to escape one so far."

"I could lend my services to you, yes. How many of these bombs are there throughout the city?" Anos didn't mind a little altruism, but he did have his own investigations to perform.

"A lot more than we've found, that's for damn sure," the more experienced officer said. "At least 10 time bubbles that have gone off so far, last I checked."

There were more devices than just these time 'bombs?' That was interesting, even if their effects were likely to be similarly weak. "Very well," he said, "If you will escort me to these time bubbles, I can break the effects and free any victims who were trapped."

There was little conversation as the two police officers escorted Anos to the nearest time bubble. One asked if he wanted to hide his face, as seemed to be the practice for parahumans on this planet, but Anos scoffed at the notion. What need had he to hide his face? The time bubbles were quite easily dealt with, and the majority of the time was instead spent dealing with the panicked occupants of said bubbles. Many of the former occupants of the bubbles were incredibly gracious and grateful to Anos when he explained what had happened to them and that he had rescued them from several years at a minimum spent trapped in time.

The only truly interesting thing to happen was when they visited the final time bubble, which looked to be in a centralized commerce district. A large building entirely dedicated to trade of goods and services, it had been a total slaughterhouse when the 'bombs' had gone off. There wasn't just a time bubble in this location, there was also leftover evidence from more conventional explosives, evidence of melting ice, blood spatters as though the people themselves had ruptured, and many other esoteric effects that reminded Anos of a novice magic fight gone wrong.

When they reached the time bubble, it became clear that not all of the devices had gone off simultaneously. The people inside the bubble were bleeding, panicked, and one was missing an entire arm at the shoulder. Anos turned to the heavily armed and armored 'PRT' agents who specialized in parahuman dealings and had long since replaced the police officers as his escorts. "Do you want me to tidy this place up?" he asked. He would resurrect the dead in any case, but repairing an unfamiliar structure like this would actually be a fun challenge.

Their leader muttered something into his communication device that Anos didn't bother to eavesdrop on. "How would you go about cleaning this place up?" the man asked carefully.

Anos looked around speculatively. "I think I would start by resurrecting the dead, just so that I could safely remove the bloodstains. I might need to make some changes to the damaged superstructure, but the rest can easily be managed with simple creation magic."

A shocked silence met his words. "You…can resurrect the dead?" the leader asked in a choked voice.

"Of course," Anos said, pricking his palm to create a drop of blood as he casually shattered the time bubble. As the drop of blood rolled off his hand and hit the ground, he case a wide-ranged Ingall to resurrect the people who had died in this place recently enough to have left bloodstains or bodies. As an afterthought, he cast some healing magic on the victims of the time bubble to heal their wounds.

"Holy shit," one of the heavily armored men said. Confused noises began to echo throughout the building as the recently deceased and even more recently resurrected took in their surroundings.

Broadcasting his voice, Anos said, "Everyone, there is no need to panic. The attack is long since over, and there are officers of the law here to ensure your safety. Please remain where you are until they can collect you and take you to a more secure location for processing." The habits of these law enforcement agencies were something he could learn from. In an incident like this under his reign, the citizens would simply have been told to remain calm and return home, but these officers took the time to question ever single citizen for information about the attack. Even those who likely had no additional information were questioned in case they were secret co-conspirators or had noticed something out of place.

The leader of the PRT troops reacted quickly. "Squads C and D, start rounding up civilians. Squad E, set up a first aid center and get them processed." He turned to Anos. "Fixing the building can wait. My superiors would like to talk to you."

"Very well," Anos said, following them as they left the building. If they didn't want him to fix the infrastructure that was their decision to make.

...

Director Piggot was an interesting woman. Anos could see steel in her gaze, but her body was weak and flabby. A trickle of magic to his eyes allowed him to see permanent damage done to her muscles and internal organs. Enough damage that she should have long since died, actually. Her continued survival spoke volumes of her willpower, and likely of the technical prowess he had observed in this world since his arrival. Though the inhabitants lacked magic, they could perform feats without magic that no one on his world would have thought possible. Most were easily imitated or surpassed with magic, but some were complex enough to be truly fascinating. And then there was the armor and weapon on the warrior who guarded Piggot as she attempted to glare Anos into submission. Anos could feel the magic used in its construction, twisted and contorted though it was. But from what he could tell, these humans seemed to think that such devices were some form of technology that they didn't yet understand. Even those who built the devices didn't understand what they were doing. It was a most intriguing phenomenon.

Piggot paused in her intense staredown to sigh wearily. "Anos Voldigoad, you have created no small number of problems that I have to deal with," she began. "But since you have been genuine in your efforts to help the citizens of this city, I must nevertheless offer my thanks."

Anos raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Are you grateful for my help, or would you prefer that I had left you and your people alone?"

The woman very professionally refrained from rolling her eyes. "I don't care for parahumans, Mr. Voldigoad, nor do I care for the problems that they always bring. That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the solutions they sometimes offer to the problems they brought with them."

"So your thanks are genuine then? In that case, I accept your thanks most graciously. But that was not what you called me here to discuss, was it?" If Piggot wanted to dance around the topic at hand, Anos was more than willing to dance with her.

"No, it wasn't," Piggot agreed, narrowing her eyes as though trying to peer into his thoughts without even the smallest hint of magic to aid her. "As I said, your actions have caused a great deal of uproar in my organization. I was hoping to discuss your actions with you and ideally work out some way to move forward without toppling the house of cards that is this city."

Anos frowned as he stole the context for that phrase from Piggot's mind. The city was fragile and precariously built, ready to come crashing down at the slightest push or jostle? He could certainly see how his actions would cause problems in such a scenario. "Very well. What do you propose? I suspect I came to be in this place for a reason, but I must admit that I still know very little of your world."

"Our…world?" Piggot asked slowly, leaning back in her chair as she absorbed the implications of his statement.

"I suppose I haven't actually told anyone yet," Anos said, "it simply hadn't come up. I was displaced from my home by three entities of such power they call themselves Gods, and arrived in your city earlier tonight. I nearly immediately walked into the radius of the device you call a time bomb, and from there I suspect you know the rest."

Piggot looked to the warrior, and the man nodded.

"That…would explain a great deal about you, Mr. Voldigoad. And while it will no doubt cause me even more problems in the future, I suppose you can't be blamed for any of that. You literally didn't know any better." The woman sighed weightily. "This is a little outside of my area of expertise. I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. Nevertheless, judging by the way you carry yourself, I think we can come to an understanding. Or am I mistaken in assuming that you were a soldier yourself, where you came from?"

Anos hummed noncommittally as he considered the question, before simply saying "I suppose you could call me that." He had fought alongside his army in several battles, after all, and he was far from ignorant of the realities of combat.

"From the way you act though, you weren't ordinary. You're too self-assured for that."

Anos smirked at that. The woman was perceptive. "I ruled one of the four nations of my world for nearly 200 years, and I did so by being strong enough to crush all of my enemies beneath my heel if they dared to challenge me. Here, on a world so devoid of magic, I'm actually surprised that life has managed to flourish at all. Your technology is truly impressive, and that no doubt plays a role in your survival, but by the standards of my world this place is still populated by beings so weak it's almost laughable."

The warrior tensed noticeably, and while the woman's reaction was less obvious, she was still clearly unnerved by his blatant honesty.

"And what exactly do you intend to do here, Mr. Voldigoad," the woman asked after several seconds spent very carefully pretending she wasn't recollecting herself.

"Oh, I'm not really sure. The Gods seemed to think I needed to be judged for worthiness or some such, but I suspect they really just wanted me out of their way for a while. I've certainly caused them enough trouble in the past to merit such a response, and they seem to have finally learned that killing me will do them no good. If I'm honest though, I don't much care what they want. My goal for the past 250 years has been to see my people living in peace and comfort, and despite a few hiccups I think I finally managed to win them their peace before I was so rudely abducted. I would prefer to find some way to get back to my world, but this one is fascinating enough to hold my attention in the meantime. I mean, you've managed to somehow find a mechanical process that liquefies stone without melting it, from what I can tell of your buildings' construction. A place capable of such innovation is definitely worth exploring."

The woman and her warrior guard were silent for almost a minute before the woman said, "You mean to tell me that someone of your power and capability, who has ruled an entire nation, has become interested in Earth Bet because of concrete?"

Anos smiled magnanimously. "It's a fascinating material. My world has long since mastered bricks and mortar, and with magic to aid in the building process and reinforce the results there was never a need to innovate further. But from what I can tell, your world has not just one, but many materials of equal or greater strength to a brick wall in common use. I may be a brute who is most at home on the battlefield, but I'm also experienced enough in the oversight of large building projects to know the value of such novel building materials. And that's saying nothing of the ways you've harnessed electricity. If I didn't know better, I might have assumed that your 'electronic' devices were using some foreign magic that I had never heard of before."

"You…call your parahuman abilities magic?" the warrior asked skeptically.

"They are magic," Anos corrected, "though they're hardly parahuman in nature. Most of the magic I'm capable of humans of my world were also quite capable of performing with adequate training. Here that may be different, as there is no magic to take advantage of in your nature and something seems to have gifted twisted magical abilities to a small portion of the population in what I can only assume is a bizarre experiment. Nevertheless, I think that with adequate training and in a properly magical environment the humans of this world would be capable of harnessing the holy, spiritual, and arcane magics that the humans of my homeworld are known for."

"Hah!" Piggot scoffed, "if superpowers were that easy to acquire, we would all be doomed."

Anos raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Parahumans cause nothing but trouble wherever they go," she said simply, "If we had to worry about every normal citizen learning how to run around and be a superpowered vigilante or a gangster we would be overwhelmed inside of a month."

Anos frowned. That didn't sound right. "But you have police forces, do you not? Their response times are admirable. Forces from my own world would be hard-pressed to respond so quickly even with the use of teleportation and flight magic."

"And what good would that do anyone? From the way you've been talking you could probably gut them with your pinkie."

Anos smirked at the thought. He'd never tried that particular form of execution, but it might be amusing to try out the next time someone crossed him badly enough to deserve an agonizing death. "Well it stands to reason that if the common scum on the street are capable of learning magic, disciplined and well-trained police officers of the law like those that greeted me would be even more capable of learning such things. Such was always the case in my world. If someone was foolish enough to think they could use their meager power for crime, they were foolish enough to neglect their combat training and set out into the world woefully unprepared for the reality that awaited them." The stunned look they both gave him was priceless. "The authorities of your world must truly be a disappointment, if you have so little faith in their agents even in a place like this which ostensibly serves under their aegis."

"What are you saying, exactly?" the warrior demanded.

"I am saying," Anos replied calmly, "that any governing body that has failed in its duties so severely that even its own enforcers no longer believe it capable of handling the common criminals deserves whatever happens to it. Personally, I've never witnessed such ineptitude first hand. Nevertheless if the situation is as dire as you make it seem, I'm surprised there hasn't been rioting in the streets already."

"What good would that do?" Piggot asked bitterly. "Parahuman are here to stay. We learned that the hard way a long time ago. And it's a rare parahuman who's interested in anything other than starting trouble. That may not be how it is where you come from, but that's how this world has operated for the last 30 years."

30 years? This 'parahuman' phenomenon was new to this world? Fascinating. He would have to investigate this further. "Regardless, we seem to have drifted from our original topic of discussion. Was there anything else you wished to discuss with me, or have you sufficiently gauged the threat I pose you your society?" Ah, the shocked reaction once more. Anos had come to relish his ability to put people on edge over the years, even if he'd recently found that something as simple as a careless act of kindness could bear similarly amusing results. "Did you really think I was ignorant of your purpose in summoning me here?" he asked pointedly. "As I told you, I governed a realm of my own for well over 2 centuries. I'm quite familiar with the trouble that a new piece on the board might cause, especially one with skills and abilities like my own. I certainly can't begrudge you the desire to get to know me under such circumstances, and since you even asked politely I'm more than willing to answer your questions. I may have been known as the Demon Lord of Tyranny, but I have always taken pride in myself as a reasonable man."

…

Not long after that, Anos was escorted from the premises by the same armored soldiers who had escorted him in. As there were no more time bubbles to pop, they left him to his own devices after that. He wondered idly to himself whether that reflected more on their sense of hospitality or their fear of his power. Their leader was certainly aware that he wouldn't have any place to stay in a new world, but they had been afraid of him even before he told them about his past.

As he was musing to himself and walking down the sidewalk, he felt space fold itself most curiously in an alleyway in front of him. Peering through the wall, he saw a man in well-groomed attire step out of a doorway that hung in midair and led to someplace so distant it was almost beyond comprehension, and yet so close that it was hardly distant at all. Most curious. Some form of teleportation magic similar to Gatom? The doorway closed before he could examine it more closely. The man stood in the alley, clearly waiting for Anos to pass by, and while he was armed with several blades concealed in folds of clothing and underneath the layers of his well-groomed outfit, he made no hostile moves. Deciding to humor the man at least a little bit, Anos turned the corner into the alleyway.

"That was a neat little trick there," Anos said, "a fold in space connected to someplace far removed from here."

The man's well cared-for eyebrow raised into his perfectly trimmed bangs. "Oh, so you can see through walls as well? We'll have to revise your threat ratings."

Anos smiled malevolently. It had been too long since he had matched wits with a man like this one. "If you think any threat ratings you have collected are accurate, I'm afraid you'll be sorely mistaken."

"Oh? Your 'magic' is so powerful that it defies all attempts to classify it?" the man asked without a trace of belief in his tone.

"Hardly." Anos replied easily, "There are so many classifications and categories of magic that it would take nearly an hour just to list all of the important ones."

"Ah," the man said, "so your magic is nothing more than a science that we do not yet understand."

Anos considered that, but it didn't quite sound right. "No, I don't quite think so. Science is the art of understanding and manipulating the world around you through careful study and replication of past experiments. Magic is the manipulation of forces beyond the reach of common understanding without any emphasis on fact, logic, or experimentation. If I had to guess, that would be why your world has so many technological marvels that the people of my world never thought of; when we wanted for something we could turn to magic to accomplish our deepest desires but when you wanted for something you had no choice but to manipulate your magic-deprived environment in a way that produced a favorable result."

"So magic is less of a science than an art?"

"Yes."

The man considered that for several seconds before staring Anos directly in the eye. "Would you care to discuss this in more detail at a more…secure location?"

"Oh?" Anos smirked. "You must be pretty confident in your 'secure location' if you think it can hold me."

The man chuckled. "Not really. We're just quite confident that you won't present a danger to us even if we invite you into our inner sanctum. I've been informed that nothing we can do would seriously worry you, but you appear to confound our resources so thoroughly that not even that is certain."

Well that was an interesting way to say that they had no idea what he was capable of. It seemed as though they could predict his actions, but not his exact ability. So their clairvoyants were trustworthy, but either imprecise or specifically confounded by the fact that his magic worked differently to any of the twisted magics he had observed on this world so far. "So this is yet another attempt to get to know the new player on the board, and not some high-handed abduction attempt."

The man smiled. "We have been reliably informed that abduction is both impossible and inadvisable in the extreme."

"But you did consider it."

The man inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of the accusation. "As I'm sure you understand, every possible action must be carefully considered when dealing with someone who is so completely unknown to us."

Yes, it wasn't like Anos could claim the high ground when it came to hostile abductions. More than one hero had met their end at his hand because they had failed to take such an avenue of attack into account. But this…was different. The blades the man carried were mere playthings to someone like Anos, and the man himself seemed well aware of that fact. Or, at the very least, he had been told enough to curb the thinly veiled violence Anos could feel emanating from the man's posture. This was different from Piggot's invitation, however. Piggot and those who served her seemed weary and worn down by the trials of their daily life. But this man and whoever he represented were self-assured and respectful in a way that no one ever was except those who believed that they rested at the very pinnacle of the food chain. Piggot commanded warriors and soldiers, but this man's organization commanded the fate of the battlefield itself.

Well, if nothing else it would be interesting to see what the true rulers of this world looked like in person. "Very well," Anos said, "take me to your leader."

A/N: Well, this is a thing now. Merra Crimbo Two, Electric Boogaloo.

Don't expect updates to start overwhelming you just because I did two in one day though, I happen to have had more spare time recently for some strange seasonal reason and that left me with enough spare brain cells to get the writing implements back out. I'll do my best to keep writing, but after the New Year it'll be right back to the grindstone again and we all know how that story goes. (I mean good Lord, I didn't even realize it'd been nearly half a year since the last time I updated a story. The time didn't so much fly by as I did my level best to ignore it as it passed.)

Hope y'all manage to make 2021 better than 2020. It's not like that will be terribly difficult.

~feauxen