Chapter 1: A World Without Doors
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Alexandria, the strongest cape in the world. The invincible woman. Champion of humanity.
If anyone saw her in that moment, they would never have guessed she was any of those things. Hunched over and shaking, taking deep desperate gulps of air between powerful full body shudders.
She'd died. Alexandria knew this like she knew everything else. With utmost certainty and unerring accuracy.
The taste of chitin and silk still filled her mouth. Her airways spasmed in phantom memory.
Alexandria clenched her eyes shut, desperately trying to push down her terror. Like a muscle atrophied from disuse, she found it exceedingly difficult to grapple with the alien emotion bubbling in her chest.
Even in her panicked state, she was still cognizant enough to acknowledge what was happening and why.
Decades spent as the pinnacle of strength and durability had atrophied certain emotional responses. The Siberian had shaken her when she'd torn out Alexandria's eye. But it had been quick, painful no doubt, but still quick enough that all she had felt was a spike of fear before she had been whisked away to safety.
This on the other hand was markedly different. It had been slow, slow enough for her mortal terror to mount, painful enough that she had begged, prayed to a God she had long since abandoned. Long enough to realize that no one would save her, not Contessa, not a friendly cape, and certainly not any would be Gods.
Long enough to die scared and alone. Her perfect memory, once a gift, now a malicious curse. Every haunting detail of her death, preserved in the finest amber.
Things moved in her chest, they were in her lungs, she could feel them writhing, moving, binding-
Alexandria screamed, long and loud until her voice petered out and she had to draw in more air to do it again, not because she had to, but because she could. To show her rebellious body, that no, there weren't any bugs inside her. Not anymore.
Eventually it worked, her body and mind calmed. No longer being strangled by phantom bugs. She took a deep breath of the clean crisp air. She savored it like one would a fine wine.
Much calmer, she took in her surroundings properly for the first time. Loamy earth underneath her, moist and dark, dense trees for as far as she could see. A canopy of green above her, so thick that it blocked out everything except a few scant beams of sunlight. Bird calls resumed once more, no doubt they had been frightened into silence by her prior racket.
She remembered the world going dark while she was still above Brockton Bay, and she knew Brockton Bay had no forests like these anywhere near it. Absently, she noted that she was completely naked as well, her crisp suit she'd been wearing was gone.
Was this the afterlife? Cancer had damaged her faith, and Cauldron had done its damndest to vaporize it. But dying and waking up somewhere else held certain implications. She reached out and scooped up a pebble, easily crushing it between her fingers. No, not the afterlife, she still had her Passenger.
"Door me." Nothing.
"Door Me." Birds chirped and leaves rustled.
Her lips pursed. Either she was in a new world outside of Doormaker's grasp, or Doormaker had died while she was passed out. Neither were technically impossible, Number Man had mathematically proven the existence of universes outside of even the Entities' reach. And with Contessa and Doctor Mother looking after Doormaker's health, she didn't see how he could die.
She caught a falling leaf, it was a genus she was entirely unfamiliar with. Hints of pinus silvestris with bits of quercus robur shining through. The fact that she couldn't definitively pin it down lent credence to her being in a different world. She'd read enough books on botany to confidently say she could recognize every tree species on Earth Bet, especially if there was a forest of them.
"Door me." She spun around in a circle, just to make sure that it wasn't behind her for some reason. Nothing but trees greeted her.
A world without Doors. What did it mean? Was she still on The Path? Was this all part of the plan, was she meant to accomplish something here? That had to be the reason, right? Contessa wouldn't let her die.
His golden armor gleamed, iridescent force fields fizzling out as a black and white hand reached out and-
Why wouldn't she let Alexandria die? If it was for The Path, Contessa would do it. She knew this, she had experienced it. Everyone at Cauldron had committed atrocities for The Path. Why should her death be anything of note?
Her brow furrowed, but she clearly wasn't dead. So what was going on? Someone had saved her, the fact that she no longer had any bugs in her mouth proved that something had happened after she had passed out.
An unmistakable sensation ghosted across her hand. Her gaze snapped to the limb. An ant was making its way across her skin. Suddenly, it was impossible to breathe. Every muscle in her body tensed, if her heart had been capable of it, she was certain it would have been pounding.
Ruthlessly, she smashed down her initial instinct to flail about in panic. She was Alexandria, she categorically refused to break at the sight of an ant.
Slowly, she raised her hand to her face. Glaring, "You are nothing." she hissed at the Formicidae member. Predictably, the ant said nothing, mindlessly walking across her hand.
Crushing it didn't accomplish anything, it didn't change what had happened, but it did make her feel marginally better.
Alexandria floated off the ground, eager to get away from any more curious bugs. She shuddered involuntarily. The lack of bodily control was… a distressing novelty. She'd had perfect control of every single movement for decades.
She flew up into the canopy, continuing until she breached the layer of wood and leaves. The clear blue sky was a welcome sight. Alexandria continued her ascent until she would have been amongst the clouds if there had been any.
Up there the wind was much stronger and colder. The odd feeling of cold air catching on her eye socket made her pause. Her hand tentatively flew up to feel her face, her artificial eye was missing, leaving the gaping hole behind.
She shook her head, just another oddity to add to the growing list. Either whatever method was used to transport her to this world was so violent that only her invulnerable body could make the journey. Or whoever had stolen her from Earth Bet had taken the time to divest her of her possessions, it certainly sounded like an oddity born of The Path. How her being naked and lacking an eye would help The Path, she had no idea, but considering she'd once seen Contessa tell Eidolon to hop on one foot for an hour…
Alexandria studied the landscape, for miles around, there was nothing but the tops of trees. Assuming the sun of this earth still rose and fell like she was used to, there were distant hills to the north.
She ignored it all, looking specifically for the telltale signs of water. A river would have been best, but a coast could work just as well. If there was any intelligent life on this Earth, then following either of them would be her best method of finding it.
All civilizations were built around the life sustaining liquid. It was the one commonality that could be relied upon between the countless Earths she had been to.
Unfortunately, she found nothing. But this failure didn't put her off overly much. Flight made such minor issues irrelevant, especially with the blistering speed she could bring to bear.
A minute of flying 'north' had gifted her with the sparkling water she had been searching for. A river, just as she had hoped to find. Following it at a much more sedate pace, her eyes tracked the shores for any sign of life.
Only a few minutes had passed before she found her first sign of life. A old abandoned canoe had been run aground on the shore. The wood was rotting and moss had overtaken it, but it was unmistakably a man made object. Emboldened, she continued onwards.
After many minutes of following the river, she came across a stone bridge. Alexandria eyed it, evaluating its construction. It looked similar to the construction methods used in the early twelfth century.
All roads lead somewhere, so she abandoned her original quest and followed the dirt road instead. The indents that had been worn into the path were consistent with wagon wheels. It looked more and more likely that she was on a medieval Earth.
Any hope that she held for being wrong were dashed as she saw the castle on the horizon. With her goal in sight, she rocketed upwards. Alexandria wanted to get a lay of the land before she was spotted.
Even with how high she was, the castle appeared massive, completely dwarfing the surrounding city. The castle almost appeared buried in neatly manicured hedges and vines, the green only broken up by stone terraces. Sprawling farmland stretched all around outside the city walls.
Horse drawn carts filled the main throughways, and she couldn't spot any overt signs of technology. It seemed it truly was a medieval world.
Though she was unfamiliar with this particular world, the concept of first contact with a medieval society was not nearly so foreign. Medieval worlds were a favorite of Cauldrons, they were very easy to manipulate and take advantage of.
As she floated far above the city, she weighed her options. She knew nothing of these people or their ways. She needed information and from her experience with dealing with medieval people, she knew that the ones at the top generally were the most informed.
Alexandria needed to know if this world had parahumans or not. Its lack of Doors implied that it was outside the reach of the Entities, but her powers proved that it wasn't impossible. For all she knew, she was the only parahuman in this dimension, but she had nothing to back that theory, yet. And she needed to know, it was pertinent information that would dictate her course going forwards.
When she descended towards the castle, she accelerated briefly, just enough to cause a sonic boom before slowing back down. The people below would mistake the sound for thunder. But with such a cloudless blue sky, such a sound would grab attention, forcing curious eyes upwards.
As the scent of roses hit her nose, she couldn't help but reminisce and compare the differences to the last time she'd done this.
Last time, she'd held the role of a warrior goddess seeking soldiers to fight a holy war against a gold-skinned demon. Now, for the first time in decades, she didn't know what her part in the play was.
When she finally alighted in front of the startled guards, her expression was a resolute mask carved from stone, not a trace of her uncertainty visible.
With or without Contessa's hand holding, she was still Alexandria, and that would have to be enough.
She would endure, like always.