Ever present and ever continuing to fascinate the masses is the concept of other worlds, struggles beyond our own in worlds beyond our grasps. Many people have struggled to prove the existence of such worlds on both ends. Scientists send the world's greatest to the stars and spend time with philosophers arguing the idea of the multiverse. Little did they know, they would never find the answers, the answers would find them.
A man dashes through calamity as fast as he can, barely dodging arrows and fireballs. The forest is burning around him, logs crashing down and tearing down other trees and setting them ablaze. Behind him, his assailants. Several shadowy figures with axes lead by a grizzled man, with no other goal than to seemingly tear this man asunder.
The man is soon cornered, as his running leads him face to face with the abyss. Though despite this, he remains calm as he looks back to see his chasers. As he stands, the scruffy man comes forward, jabbing his finger into the air towards the man.
"Told ya we'd get ya old man!" He yells in self-proclaimed victory. "We've done this way too many times to count so I'm not even gonna ask ya to give me that thing you made. I'm just gonna rip it from ya." He barks, walking forward.
The old man smiles slyly with his eyes closed, reaching into one of his coat pockets and pulling out a bizarre device. A sort of weird buckle and a box attached to it.
"This one?" He inquires, almost mockingly. "I was just about to get rid of it. So, don't mind me!"
And with his last word he jaunts back off the cliff, the other man and his posse trying to reach for him and failing, watching their target vanish into the clouds below.
"Oh dammit to the hells!" the man yells, throwing his ax to the ground and slamming on it with his foot. Then yelping in pain as it sticks him through his boot!
"You think you get 'im and then he up and flings himself away… boss is gonna be ticked…" he adds, picking up his ax as he walks back away from the cliff. "We're really in the Pegasus dung now."
All the meanwhile, the other older man laughs as he plummets.
"Oh. I got 'em good, that bunch ain't getting their hands on this prett-" he stops himself as he looks into his hands. The item he was holding was gone. It and its box had fallen out of his hands during the fall. That had to be the case as there's no way that amateur could've snatched it off of him. He loudly curses his slick fingers as he plummets into a fate unknown.
"Oh DAAAAAMN IIIIIT!"
Some Time Later, Elsewhere
"Stingray! Hey! Flynn Stingray! Listen to me when I am talking to you!" A perturbed voice pierces through the darkness of his mind as he wakes up from sleeping, causing his eyes to open slowly, revealing to him his boss complaining at him for the umpteenth time.
"Alright alright! Off my case, Ashley, I'm on my day off. I think I earned time to lounge." He says in the same annoyed tone as her. "I spent all of yesterday walking dogs, and might I add, my hands still have leash handle marks."
Ashley looks down at her worker again. His sunglasses pushed down showing his chestnut eyes in all their sassy lowliness, despite sleeping on the main couch in the living area, he hadn't even taken his jacket off. Or that stupid scarf.
"Look. It's not that. It's that you have your own bed and yet you choose to sleep in the middle of the living area?" She replies. "You have a whole bed which you talked about spending a lot of money on."
"Well." Flynn snidely said, putting his hands behind the back of his head as he crossed his legs. "Sometimes you can't really beat the feeling of relaxing on a living room couch. Besides, I pay my dues."
Ashley just stares at him, unamused, and then squeezes the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "... Fine, just… Scoot your legs over a little. I wanna sit there too, ya know." She pushes his legs out of the way and sits on the couch, grabbing the remote from the nearby table and turning the tv on.
The TV silently turns on, showing off a basic news network rambling on about various happenings. Local library events, weird animal activity like squirrels chasing dogs, and the usual spiel about the weather being clear skies for the 3rd day in a row. Nothing special until the end of the hour.
"We end this afternoon with a story of strange phenomena occurring in Werlos, Texas. Many witnesses have reported seeing a large comet passing by, creating a series of waves across the night sky. We reached out to NASA for comment, but have not received a response yet. For future updates, visit our website or tune in for our 7pm news program. I'm Mary Marymore and this has been the afternoon news." and with that short diatribe, the news signs off and changes to the next program.
"Oh well that's just great." Flynn remarks, jumping off the couch. "Another weird thing is happening in this town. We don't have enough of those." He walks off towards the kitchen and opens up the fridge, gazing as he asks "Tell me, Ash, do you think anything normal will happen here, like a guy winning the lottery or something other than crazy events?"
"Don't make me answer that." She sighs in a confused tone.. "Things just happen here and you just gotta accept that. Besides, didn't you move here due to wanting a more interesting life?"
Flynn thinks on it for a moment. That was his original plan, but it seems the older he gets, the more exhausting all these crazy events become, to the point where every day feels like an event in and of itself. He doesn't hate it persay, but a normal day would be nice once in a while. "Yeah but… don't you think it'd be nice to have an uneventful day? Like when we were young?"
Ashley paused for a moment, contemplating his question before answering "I suppose. But I guess that's part of growing up." Ashley's thoughts were interrupted by the door bell ringing loudly. "Oh! Go get that. I think my favorite game show is coming on."
Flynn takes a deep nasal breath and walks towards the front door. "She may have a point." He thinks to himself. "Growing up does wake you up to the world. But you think others would try to keep the peace and not let ridiculous things happen. Granted, none of the stuff on the news today was really by people but still. Maybe I can be a change. Make things easier for people and try to make the world as bat crap crazy."
He opens the front door and sees in front of him what looks to be an actual robot looking at him.
"Or maybe not." His thoughts then trail out of his mouth as he looks at what's before him.
It's a robot alright, or at least it looked like one. Humanoid in shape but definitely not human in any other way. A little bit taller than Ashley, with some sort of screen with eyes where its face would be. He had a shiny orange coat of paint with some sort of thunderbolt insignia on his chest.
"Hey there bud! Uhhh sweet costume… you… headed for a convention?" Flynn inquires with a confused face.
"No, sir. Weirdly, that's the 5th time I've been asked that." The automaton replies in a slightly baffled tone of voice. It pulls out a piece of paper, holding it out to Flynn. "My name is Commander Proton and I've been sent on a mission looking for an item similar to this."
The paper shows a picture of a bizarre item. Some sort of a small rectangular with a sword running through it. Flynn tries to think of what it could be. But It's hard to really guess what it is from some sort of crummy drawing.
"Uhhh what is it?" Flynn asks. "And better yet, what are you? One of those A.I. bot things they have in Japan?"
"No. Actually. And the thing I'm looking for is an artifact that caught a few of my higher up's eyes. Something about it gave off a weird signal, similar to weapons they saw before. However, they haven't been able to find it since then so they sent me with permission from my professor to track it." He proudly says, putting his hands on his metallic hips. "I am the universe's greatest soldier after all. Makes sense they hired me."
Flynn looks at him in confusion, still not really believing his story. But the artifact story did pique his interest, as well as the amount of commitment this guy had to this bit, so he asks curiously "Well… I don't think I've seen anything like what's in that picture… is it a sword and sheath or something?"
The two are then interrupted by another individual who just ran up, a blue haired man in a tracksuit. It was Flynn's Coworker, Tonio, looking completely exhausted as he bent over panting. "Hey. Uh. Flynn. Is Ashley still here? We got a bit of a problem."
"What is it?" Flynn responds, looking a bit perturbed. "Can't you see I'm busy with uhh Captain Neutron over here?"
Proton looks at Flynn with an annoyed look on his face as Tonio responds, very clearly winded. "Well. huff The local bakery that hired me had a bit of an upset and now they're down a worker. huff huff Was wondering if anyone else was currently at the company house available."
Flynn claps his hands together and sighs again, rubbing his face with frustration. "Well the only one here is me on my day off." He took a deep breath before lowering his hands, a look of resigned acceptance on his face. "But I know how this goes so I'm just gonna cut the middleman." He cracks his knuckles and stretches, as he forgot to do that. "Which way, Tony?"
"Hold on!" Proton butts in, clearly annoyed at being ignored.. "You could at least give me a good direction to go towards looking for that thing?"
Flynn shrugs. "Don't know, man. Best I can give is maybe you can follow us and ask people there. Talk like that usually screams rush hour."
Proton crosses his arms and thinks on it. The way he sees it, he's really gotten no leads so far and no other places to go. Populated areas would be the absolute best bet for this. "Alright. I'll come along then."
Tonio then looks at Proton in a little confusion. Clearly he didn't notice the robot earlier. "So Flynn, aren't you a little concerned about how like an actual robot he looks?"
Flynn seems to shrug again, a look of acceptance on his face. "A lot's been going on man. Besides, he seems friendly. If he wasn't I'm sure he would've hurt me by now." Flynn responds a little kinder in his inflection. He turns back to the main lobby and screams to his boss. "OI! ASH! I'm back on the clock. Tonio's got a problem!" And with that the three run off to the bakery.
The bakery was in fact busy, with people bustling in and out of the place with baked goods, much to the chagrin of the workers inside.
"The hell is happening there?" Flynn inquires. "Usually never gets this busy."
"The place had a Buy One Get One deal." Tonio says, suddenly regaining his stamina to blab about food. "For those new apple pastries. You know, the ones with the big amount of Apple filling And the whipped cream on top? Or you can get salted caram-"
"Okay. Okay. That'll do it. Big product. I get it." Flynn responds, then looks over at Proton. "Alright buddy. You can ask around here."
He nods at Flynn. "Alright. Best to do it before anything else happens. Thanks for the help." And after saying that he goes to ask the people exiting the bakery.
The two men approach the baker's inside as the owner points at them. "YOU! Here! We're practically drowning in customers!" It's a miracle he was able to see Tonio and Flynn as they squeaked through the door, but that didn't really matter to them as they both went over to the owner and began to get to work..
It was in fact hectic. It was a miracle Flynn survived that kind of customer influx. Impatient adults, sad kids, and grouchy grandparents alike. Hours went by and both Flynn and Tonio felt ragged. But it at least helped that the manager was understanding of their exhaustion. After all this is a group they hired to help their workers. In the end, as the final customers leave and the manager puts up the "closed" sign, both simply slam down on the seats in the bakery and exhale. Another job adequately done.
"Alright. Damn! That sucked. Are you doing alright, Tony?" He says looking at his coworker, being surprised to see him back up and buying a single pastry for himself and happily chomping into it. "Well you did almost talk my ear off about those so-" Almost as if it was karma for cutting Tonio off earlier, Flynn is cut off by a sharp sound cutting across the sky and the ground beginning to shake.
"Eyack! Almost choked on this. What was that? We can't get earthquakes here, right?" Tonio asked in small anger slowly turning into panic, causing him and in turn, Flynn to run out the door of the bakery, looking up to the sky.
It was dark, freakishly dark, like to Flynn at least, not even night time was this dark. The sky was not the only weird thing, looking back down in front of him, the road seemed weird… grassy. Like nature wasn't waiting for the apocalypse to start growing in the streets. Or maybe this was the apocalypse.
That thought of Flynn's is cut off by screaming in the distance and looking towards it revealed the scariest thing Flynn had seen. A hoard of weird looking people, dressed like old bandits with bizarre masks. They were causing chaos, charging forward towards people and smashing them in the face with axes or picking them up and throwing them off the streets. "Oh… hell." Is the only thing that can manage to slip from Flynn's mouth.
Tonio, on the other hand, took it as a sign to get the hell out of dodge, dragging Flynn with him. At least, he wanted to, only to see that the darkness in the sky wasn't the sky, but some sort of barrier locking them inside. "Oh God! We're trapped. What are we gonna do?"
Flynn tries to think, but the shock of the event is messing with his mind. He can't think of anything other than what could've led to this. Looking around again he sees a familiar orange figure in the distance. "Hey hey!" He shouts angrily towards him, dashing over and confronting who he now confirms as Commander Proton from earlier. "Did you cause this?!"
"What?!" The robot replies with a scowl on his screen. "No way! This is clearly the work of another group of sorts. Usually, at this point, we have to wait for the authorities to break in with their dimension drills and combat the suspect with their energy batons." He says with confidence, then looking over at Flynn, who now looks completely gobsmacked. "What?"
"The best our boys can do is a tank. I don't know what half of that stuff is." Flynn responds after squeezing the bridge of his nose.
"Oh. Well darn. Thought this earth would have that by now but I guess each one is unique. Still it's best to stay calm and-" Proton replies as Flynn then shouts at him.
"WHADDYA MEAN THIS EARTH? No Earth I know of has laser batons and…" Flynn's yelling is cut off by a group of those masked people looking in their direction, led by some sort of bearded man, dressed about the same as those surrounding him. The trio didn't want to get in his way so they hid behind a nearby building as he approached.
The man stopped near the bakery looking over at the baker coming out of his shop, brandishing a shotgun and aiming it at the man.
"Strange… Didn't expect you wimps to carry stuff like that. You got a death wish, boy?" He says sneering at the baker, walking towards him with confidence and arrogance in his step.
The baker shakes a little as he holds his gun, backing up. "Stay back! Ain't seen a single man survive a shot from this thing! You don't want this!" Despite the hesitation in his voice he pulls the trigger, blasting the man clean in the chest.
Despite the clean shot. The man doesn't seem to even flinch, seeming more ticked off than anything.
"Oh that's hilarious. Thought that would hit harder, ya know. I could help you with that." He says, laughing as he forcefully grabs the baker by the color. He sets his own ax aside and reaches into his pocket. Pulling some sort of blue glass item.
"How 'bout this for a little pep In your step!" He says as he slams his hand into the baker's chest, causing him to scream In pain.
"Boss said these have a fun reaction wit' humans. So why don't you show me what she was talking about." He adds on, throwing the baker to the street, leaving him to writhe in pain and beginning to change. His human body began to crack like a shell, and with a final scream and an explosion of dark colored light, a dark cloaked figure, wearing what looked like a plague doctor mask,emerged where the baker stood, slowly rising from the floor almost like a zombie, much to the horror of the only three onlookers.
"Hahaha! Look at that." The man laughs at his handiwork. Which slowly reaches back down towards its gun, slowly morphing it into what appeared to be a jet black tome.
"How horrifying." Proton quietly adds. "Haven't seen something like this in a long time." This comment causes Flynn and Tonio to continue to look at him confused, wondering how he can even begin to be so calm about this.
Meanwhile, the creature created from the baker stands silently. While the one who made him gave a command. "Why don't you have some fun young boy? Blow this place sky high! Doesn't matter as long as we find that thing the lass sent us here for."
And with that the creature held up a hand towards the bakery it once owned and with a flash of light, the bakery was blown to smithereens. With other buildings and unlucky people around soon to follow.
"No!" Tonio cried out. "The bakery!"
"Forget that!" Flynn yelled back. "If we let him keep going, he'll turn the whole block into powder! We gotta do something!" Flynn jumped out from their hiding spot and charged at the monster.
"Are you out of your mind?! Don't try that!" Proton shouts at Flynn, who recklessly charges at the monster and slams it in the face with a right hook.
The monster wasn't even phased. Simply pushing Flynn off of him and forcing him away with some sort of magic shove towards a nearby wall. The big bandit near him laughs.
"Oh! Now there's a boy with no fear! Tell me boy, what'd you expect trying to do something like that?"
Flynn stood himself up, clenching his fist. "Not sure… but I ain't gonna let you do whatever you want… whatever that is."
"Oho!" The bandit replied slyly. "You got guts kid. Too bad my new friend here is gonna blow them right out! Let 'im have it, pal! Make sure the name Gazzak is the last name he ever hears!" His hand signals the monster to then fire yet another blast at Flynn, who narrowly gets out of the way, slamming against a wall of another destroyed building.
Flynn was struggling to get up, thinking about how stupid of a decision this was. "I'm a damn fool. What the hell was I thinking? Well I went down fighting. I can at least live with that." His silent words barely stay in his mind for a second before thinking about it more. "Oh, who am I kidding. I still feel like a moron for-" his pessimistic thoughts are cut off by his line of vision. In it, something sparkled right next to his hand. Something he couldn't really see at first. But after taking off his now cracked sunglasses he looks at it again.
"Wait a minute… this is that thing that one guy was looking for… if it's something that important then…"
Flynn picks it up and slowly manages to raise himself off the ground. Battered and bruised, but not out. He looks at what he has. It was a sword alright. But it looks to be attached to a buckle or something. And to that Buckle, a box was attached that he struggles to open, and pull out something from inside, a card, on it was some sort of man Flynn didn't recognize on it. But what Flynn did recognize was that the card could fit in the buckle. With a newfound smirk on his face, he walks out of the rubble and faces the monster again, staring it down.
"Really now?" Gazzack says, crossing his arms. "Thought that would've kept you down for sure. But if that doesn't work," he picks up his ax and aims it. "How about I kill ya myself?"
"I don't think so." Flynn replies, holding up the artifact. Much to the surprise of both Gazzak and the onlooking Proton.
"I think that's it! That's the artifact." Proton proclaims looking back down at his drawing of it. "The question now is how did he find it, and what's he think he's doing with it?"
"You had your fun, buddy." Flynn added, sneering. "It's my turn now!" And with that Flynn slams the artifact to his waist, and with several clicks, the artifact is now attached to his waist. Almost like a belt."
"Ready! Set!"
The item roared aloud as Flynn slammed the card inside.
"Marth!"
Flynn looks down at the belt as he sees the sword begin to glow. He places his hand on the hilt of it. "Marth, huh? Well. Better show me what you got!"
Flynn yells aloud as he draws the sword from the artifact, just in time as Gazzak flings his axe at Flynn with absolute precision, causing him to almost instinctively block it with the now drawn glowing sword that he slams into the ground, cracking the earth open with an equally enchanting light. Trying to pull the sword up led to him pulling it across the ground and the light beginning to envelop him.
"The Strongest King! The Hero King! Maaaarth!"
Within an instant, Flynn had transformed. He looked down at his hands to see them. They were covered in a blue armor of sorts, with plating and what appeared to be leather laces crossing over the arms. But more than that, the glowing sword in his hand had changed into an almost beautiful longsword of sorts. And most intriguing of all he felt completely rejuvenated.
"Oh hell! What kind of luck do you have to have to be the one to find that bloody thing?" Gazzak barks.
He couldn't believe it. The item he was sent here to find. And he was willing to tear this place to shreds for it. All for it to land in the hands of some nobody.
Flynn sneered. "Probably the Devil's own!"
Gazzak grimaced as he raised one of his hands, calling the other soldiers that came with him to his side.
"Don't just stand there lads, slaughter him! You too, beaky!" He adds looking over at used to be the baker. Who all follow his advice, charging towards Flynn.
Flynn wasted no time testing out the sword in his hands, slashing at two and kicking a third one out of his way to get towards the big monster. Despite how it turned out last time, this suit seemed to help him rip through these soldiers. The soldiers kept coming and he was able to combat them. With a punch he was even able to knock some flat to the ground. With that though came another weird quirk of these people, they didn't stay down or even get split when he cut through them, they seemed to crumble away like they were made of clay or something. Though he didn't have time to think about that as another blast from the now mage monster came his way. He slammed his sword against it and managed to reflect it off, causing it to blast some other soldiers as Flynn charged forward.
"Hey! Listen to me! Snap out of it." He yells trying to wrest the tome out of his hand.
The monster doesn't respond, yanking the tome back and aiming an attack, causing Flynn to slash at his face and take his mask clean off. There was… nothing there, just a black fog creeping out of where a face should be.
Gazzak laughed. "Oh that's what she meant. Man ain't there anymore, chump! Thanks to that little addition my boss gave me, that bloke and his gun are no more. All there is now is another crook for my crew.
Flynn stood back, shocked. The baker who he was working for only hours ago was gone, changed for no other reason than to destroy. He gritted his teeth in anger. "You… heartless bastard! All you did now was give me no reason to hold back!" With renewed anger he slashed into the monster and charged towards Gazzak.
They trade blows, blades clashing as his other mooks try to ambush Flynn, only to be slashed away. Flynn tried to push advantage with his sword, but while the mooks didn't stop him, the monster with the tome certainly did. He had to do something about the magic before dealing with tall, bulky, and loathsome. But part of him didn't want to. Knowing that it was a person that was changed like that sat horribly with him. But in his mind, it'd be worse to let him keep suffering like that than to let him keep serving that big oaf.
He changes his blade's trajectory and lunges towards the mage. Slashing into him and causing him to almost drop the tome. Flynn then punches him and sends him flying back.
"As one last job for ya, I'll put you out of your misery!" Flynn says as he slams the sword back into the belt and draws it again, one again bathing the sword in a divine light.
"Dancing Blade Finish!"
With that announcement he slashes into him twice, sending him back once again as this time Flynn flips towards him, slamming his foot right down through the monster and cleaving it in two, causing a violent explosion behind him that even managed to throw Gazzak off balance.
"Hells below!" He yells as he's launched back.
He was bewildered at such power. Was this the reason the boss wanted it? Whatever the reason, he didn't want to stay any longer to find out. He scrambled to pick up his axe And cut the air in front of him with it, opening a small portal.
"You may have driven me off this time, runt! But there's others, and they won't be as kind!" He adds as he cowardly flees into the portal, which closed behind him as the barrier blocking the sky seemed to shatter like glass.
Flynn sheathed the sword again, the armor now disappearing off of him as he takes a deep breath. The world around him seemed to return to normal, no grass growing out of the floor and the sky was now visible. Tonio and Proton walked over to Flynn, amazed.
"That was amazing!" Tonio said. "You got him to run away and you had that cool armor set on! You were like a knight or something. What even happened there?"
Proton chimes in, "Well, Mr. Big shot. I thought you said your world didn't have technology that advanced."
Flynn turned around and took the device off his waist, putting it back in his coat pocket sadly. "I thought it didn't either… More important than that. He killed that poor man. Just turned him into his slave and-" Flynn jumps in surprise as he hears a loud groan from behind, looking back to see the baker somehow still alive, though holding his stomach in pain.
"Oh lord have mercy! That hurt Like hell!" The baker said in agony.
Tonio helped him up, asking "Are you alright, sir?"
"As alright as one can be. I think that bastard cracked one of my ribs, but I'll live. I think he knocked me out with that hit of his." The baker adds taking a deep breath.
"Yeah… He got ya good, sir." Flynn replied, still trying to metaphorically pick his jaw off of the floor. How did he survive? Especially when he was explicitly told he didn't. Would he believe him if he told him what really happened? Hell, Flynn hardly believed it himself. So it's probably best to not be called crazy and play along.
"Well it's good to see the people here help each other out so well." Proton added happily, his eyes reflecting his words.
"Yeah… always got that Werlos hospitality around here. You two boys did a good job today. Sorry about the sudden call." The baker happily says though wincing a little at the sharp pain in his chest.
"Uhhh.. No problem… It's…uh…what we do at the USAnything!" Flynn says, trying to pull himself back to reality and say their line.
"But Flynn, shouldn't we-" Tonio is cut off by Flynn patting him on the back and leading them both off.
"Yeah we should be going! Best not to keep Ashley waiting with a mess like this here that that guy left." Adding that, Flynn rushes him and Tonio away from the bakery owner. "Catch ya on the flipside, Muffin Man!"
Proton trails after them, still curious about the artifact that Flynn just happened to find that took him days to even locate.
"Hey! Wait up! I have questions!"
The baker turns around to look at his store, in shambles and the sign falling off of what little remained of the roof.
"God, I hope this is covered in my plan."
Gazzak returned to his boss, absolutely unsettled by what happened today. The best he could hope is his boss not being crossed.
Her voice rang in, "Gazzak, darling." She sat daintily on her throne, crossing her legs and looking down at him. "Well you look upset, so I'll ask this first. What's the bad news?"
"Well," He said, scratching the back of his head. "The invasion of that Realm of Steel you keep talking about was a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"Oho… And just when I thought my magical gifts to you and the others would make It easy enough." She looked at him smugly, laying her chin on her hands. "Annnd the Good news~?"
"We finally seem to have found that thing the old geezer made after losing track of him months ago, the Emblem thing or whatever it's called. Unfortunately, it landed in the hands of a passerby and he took out our army there."
She giggles with a surprising glee. "Interesting. So it does work. Well, we now know where it is and it's got a holder too… Gather the others. Soon we'll begin our true strikes on that world."
"Yes, Lady Loki, I'll see to it." With that he runs off as her presence seems to overwhelm him. Despite her happy talking, there was a bizarrely commanding aura in the room.
"And so… our game begins~." She says as Gazzak trails off, laughing loud enough to fill her entire castle.