113 - Murica's Time
Year 53
The Vaults.
Any multiversal society worth their salt knew about the Vaults.
At the boundary between the Strands and the Great Void, there was a chain of universes. One, the entrance, was connected to several other universes and had been known for as long as any Class 2 could remember. It had been conveniently part of a ‘neutral territory’ between different Strands powers, creating one of the lesser-known outposts: Mogadrel.
And then Mogadrel discovered the first Vault Door. A gigantic, circular construct composed not of physical matter, but universal filament – so strong it could not be smashed with any weapon. The Class 1 weapons that might be able to break it open would likely destroy the universe, so nobody was going to try that. So the Vault Door became a tourist attraction – a strange hole in existence that could not be opened.
That was, until someone cracked the code. There were several glyphs inscribed on the Vault Door that, as it turned out, represented numbers. It was a simple math problem. The solution was nineteen, and tapping the glyph that represented ‘nineteen’ nineteen times was the answer. It opened, revealing another universe – one only about the size of a small moon. It was filled with gold, jewels, and other precious riches.
On the back wall was another Vault Door, this one with another puzzle. Now that they knew it was a puzzle, it only took three days for them to crack it – a relatively simple riddle about mathematical coordinates in space and the shapes they formed.
The universe behind that one had even rarer materials and metals. Still things you could find on a standard Earth, but the tiny capsule that held a single atom of antihydrogen was an indicator of things to come.
As they moved further and further, puzzles got harder and harder – but more and more people took notice. The treasures stopped being precious materials and instead became pieces of technology, some of which were rather advanced. As higher societies began to look into the Vaults, they discovered that every universe-room was connected only to the Dark Tower, the room before it, and the room after. Dimensional travel was freely allowed through open Vault Doors, but closed ones blocked both physical and dimensional travel no matter how hard anyone tried to bypass it.
Puzzles began to get more complex as time went on. The only pattern was that they got harder and harder. Some were complex quantum mechanics problems that demanded a deep understanding of standard physics. Others were block puzzles that involved moving objects around the universe in a particular fashion. Still others were about emotional understanding and poetic riddles, or even logic puzzles. A couple had been trials of combat, but those were by far in the minority.
In the modern day, virtually every puzzle was faceted – several riddles would reveal clues that the solution might be a logic puzzle, but as it turned out the partially solved logic problem needed to be run through a multiversal physics analyzer to get a coordinate in the Sea of Infinite Possibility. Create that universe and then analyze the connections between it, the Dark Tower, and the Vault to find the answer required to open the door.
But the rewards were always greater and greater. Devices that could create and destroy universes. Tremendous stores of knowledge about how the multiverse worked and what sorts of worlds existed in the deep meta-past. Materials that made no physical sense in any universe yet maintained their properties no matter where you took them. Whenever a door was opened, it was a free-for-all to see who could grab what the fastest. Lethal force was not allowed by treaty within the Vaults, but anything ELSE was.
Luckily time travel was not present in any Vault universe, and all agreed that altering the Vault universe would just cause it to collapse, dropping all the deeper Vaults into the Sea, never to be recovered… The same thing would happen if any Class 1 used their dimensional technology to force the doors open.
It was tempting to try though. After all, many people believed that in the back of the Vault was a Wishing World that held an infinite number of wishes, unlike all the others that had been found, which were just one-and-done things. There was no evidence for this, and nobody knew how deep the Vaults might be, but surely such a thing would be the final treasure, right?
The last time a Vault Door had been opened was over a decade ago. The current puzzle had confounded everyone in a major way.
Door #827…
It hadn’t taken as long as the longest door (#789, a total of twenty-four years) but it was getting up there. The main issue with #827 was that nobody had any idea what the first step was. The Vault Door was oddly blank, and the only structures that weren’t loot were six large statues of different birds, each one in a different pose. That was it.
The room had once been filled with shiny, powerful technology. It had all been cleaned out years ago, leaving only the statues and the Vault Door.
Many civilizations had grown bored with attempting to open up the latest Door, leaving only a small contingent to see if someone else managed to open it. There wasn’t a crowd of people, just a handful of fanatics who couldn’t leave the mystery alone or bored people keeping tabs.
Vriska was not either of those people. Vriska had just thought of a way to completely blow them all away. It was horribly illegal and went against the general ‘neutral territory’ understanding of the Vaults, but they didn’t have to know it was her doing it. She’d bothered to make a disguise – contacts that gave her blank eyes and a reality anchor that all Skaian’s had to wear.
She walked across the empty, dark gray ground past all the various camps, heading right for the tremendous circular structure that was Vault Door #827. It was still about a mile away, but it was huge.
She closed her fingers around her infinite-sided die. All she had to do was use all the luck she had been accumulating to throw something that would either bash the door down or just solve the puzzle…
But then a hook made of blood grabbed her by her orange hood and dragged her into a tent – the Merodi Universalis tent.
“Question. How stupid are you?” Velvet asked Vriska, pinning her to the ground with her blood. “Because throwing an infinite-sided die – hell, even having an infinite-sided die – in a neutral universe is going to get you killed!”
“Psh, wouldn’t be heroic or just.”
“There are workarounds!”
Lady Rarity used her magic to pull out Vriska’s contacts. “It’s actually Vriska. You were right, Velvet.”
Vriska folded her arms and huffed. “I have so much luck right now, I was going to open the Vault door and nobody was even going to know it was me. I’d get away with everything!”
“Um…” Insipid rubbed her head. “If you’re like, so lucky right now, how did Velvet grab you?”
“Simple,” Nae said, cleaning her gun. “Her luck foresaw that if she was allowed to roll that die, there would be no ‘fortunate’ outcome. So it stopped her.”
Vriska stared at her. “…Maybe you’re right. …Wait, who are you again?”
“Nae. Ga. Psychic. Liberator of Pokèmon.”
“Oh, was that what that big deal on the news was about?”
Curaçao nodded. “Yes, zat was us. Well, us and Alushy, but Alushy never sits still.”
Vriska pulled herself up and dusted herself off. “You guys sounded like you had fun.”
“People died,” Lady Rarity spat. “A lot of people that we got to know well. Including one of our number.”
Vriska’s smile vanished. “Look, sorry, I didn’t know…”
“You saw the news reports,” Velvet muttered.
“Didn’t really pay attention.”
Curaçao sighed. “Look, it’s fine, and we did have a lot of fun there – but it was a brutal campaign. We’re ‘ere because we needed something simple and mindless to do that wasn’t pure vacation time.”
“I get you,” Vriska said, nodding. “Need some time to yourselves.”
“And you’re here about to fuck everything up,” Velvet muttered, prodding Vriska with a bloody tendril. “So don’t.”
“All right, fine, I won’t,” Vriska muttered. “Yeesh, try to do something fun…”
A humanoid frog with red on his face and a yellow rodent on his shoulder poked his head in. “We’ve got something interesting going on outside.”
“How interesting, Ash?” Lady Rarity asked.
The Greninja that had taken the name ‘Ash’ said nothing, simply gesturing for them to follow him. They all came outside – including Vriska – to see what the deal was. They scrambled through a crowd up to a large dish-like machine run by the Merodi – used for scanning purposes.
“Pidge…?” Vriska said, blinking.
Technician Pidge popped her head out from the dish’s console. “Oh. Hey. Uh, why are you at scanning dish number seven-billion-and-boring?”
Ash pointed. Pidge followed his finger. “…Huh. Didn’t notice that…”
~~~
The Vaults didn’t notice the small crew when they first arrived. A portal appearing near the back of Vault Universe #827 was nothing to be interested in – though these days it was usually someone leaving rather than someone arriving. There were a few who bothered to check who the newcomers were.
There were three. Ambassador Funny Valentine, perhaps the most influential member of the USM when internal affairs weren’t considered. The face of a Class 3 civilization. Nothing special. A few even laughed – what could a Class 3 even hope to do here? The puzzles had gone far beyond them at this point.
The second person was easy enough to find as well. Tornado, a high ranking member of the USM task forces with impressive telekinesis. Nothing all that interesting.
The third individual would take some digging to find. Most didn’t bother – who cared who a Class 3 tag-along was? He was some sort of ‘caped baldy’ dressed like an annoyingly generic superhero. His face was simple and his expression completely flat. Those who did bother to find out who he was found ‘Saitama,’ a hero from the same world as Tornado. Reports said he was ‘strong’. Nothing else was available.
They walked for a while. Occasionally someone rude would jeer at them, but for the most part they were ignored.
And then they walked by the Flower encampment and all sorts of alarms went off.
An Ice-blue Tulip floated out of the collation of PPC agents, using her mastery over ka to scan the three of them.
Funny Valentine: Idealistic Antagonist: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Steel Ball Run.
Tornado: Anti-Hero / Huge Bitch: One Punch Man.
Saitama: Protagonist Hero / Force of Narrative: One Punch Man.
It took the Ice-blue Tulip all of seven seconds to realize what Saitama was. There was no Mary-Sueness around him. There was just an aura of pure victory.
One Punch Man!? She shouted mentally, drawing everyone’s attention. How did he…
Suddenly, everyone cared a lot more about the little Class 3 walking by. While Saitama’s personnel file was blank, it wasn’t that hard to find an Internet that mentioned One Punch Man. Murmurs began to spread. Pieces of information began to be passed around.
Curaçao took her team out to see this – handing them one of the data pads that she had been given. It had an image of Saitama on the cover of a manga entitled One Punch Man. The whole gimmick was that Saitama had the superpower to defeat anything in one punch.
“…He’s going to punch the fucking Door,” Vriska said, blinking. “…This’ll be interesting.”
“There’s no way,” Pidge said, rapidly clicking buttons on her dish’s consoles.
“Like, you aren’t Starbeat,” Insipid commented.
More information went around. There had been other versions of One Punch Man found before. Often, those worlds were destroyed from outside so not to let such an absurd force out. A few cases told of versions being used in armies and laying waste to all opposition, only to decide they didn’t care anymore or that they had been on the wrong side the entire time. None of them had gotten to the Vaults before, as far as anyone knew.
The idea of One Punch Man was one the multiverse feared. It was one of the few powerful ka manifestations the Flowers wouldn’t deal with. For he was a parody, and a parody was sanctioned.
But when he was outside his universe…
Well at that point the information devolved into contradictions and arguments about what Saitama actually meant. There was no way he could just brute force his way through a Vault Door – he was just part of a Class 3, and didn’t have anywhere near the scanned power level of an eldritch abomination.
But they still walked – walked right up to the Vault with a small crowd of people forming. The Xeelee ships floating above watched him with curiosity, while the Celestialsapiens hadn’t decided if they wanted to watch or not yet.
Valentine and Tornado stood back as Saitama walked up to the Vault Door.
Valentine looked at the back of his head. “Take as long as you nee-”
Saitama pulled back a fist and rammed it into the Vault Door. There was a tremendous clang that had enough force behind it that the shockwave pushed Valentine and Tornado over, as well as most of the crowd.
The Vault Door didn’t even have a dent in it.
The first one to laugh was one of Them. “Did you really think your power would mean anything outside your world? You’re just a rule there! Everything supersedes out here!” As the crowd stood up, much of it began to laugh as well.
Saitama ignored them.
“Serious punch,” he said. He pulled his fist back harder. Unlike the first time he had punched, his face showed some actual strain. He pushed forward.
The shockwave was so large any tangible being went flying backward – kept from being crushed only by a courtesy Xeelee safety net since Tornado’s telekinesis failed to block the rush.
The Vault Door rumbled, a dent having formed in its bottom. It seemed, at first, that ‘One’ Punch Man would have to punch multiple times.
Then the entire Vault Door unceremoniously fell backward, revealing a new universe of the Vault filled with crystalline technology.
Saitama turned around, holding up his fist. His expression was very apathetic.
Everyone who hadn’t passed out from the outrageous display of force was staring at him with their jaws open.
Valentine stood up and dusted himself off. “Saitama, there is another door.”
“Eh, sure,” Saitama said. “Looks like there’s cool stuff behind these doors anyway.” He took off at a run and was at the next Vault Door in an instant, pulling back a fist.
Valentine snapped his fingers – and all the USM operatives that had been in the universe, preparing for this moment, surged forward and started looting the new universe.
The new gold rush had begun.
~~~
The USS Love Train was one of the USM’s more advanced ships, often chartered by Valentine himself should he have need for one, and when that wasn’t the case it was almost always captained by Navy ‘Lucy’ Heartfilia, from one of the USM’s newer members.
Against Navy’s wishes, at the moment the Love Train was in the command of one Gyro Zeppeli, on a return trip from the Pokèmon world Curaçao’s team had spent years on organizing great societal change. The USM had gotten involved in that world as well, and due to some confusion involving the nations of the world, the world was now aware of both the USM and Merodi.
Which had been an interesting mess, to say the least.
I CANNOT SAY I WAS EXPECTING THAT, Death admitted, the comment directed to Gyro. I WAS EXPECTING FEAR OF ME. NOT ANGER AGAINST THE MERODI.
“Huh. I got something different where I went,” Froppy said. “They loved all interdimensional travelers so much it was a little freaky.”
YOU WERE IN A POKÉMON-CONTROLLED AREA. THAT IS TO BE EXPECTED.
Johnny Joestar grunted. “Great, you all did stuff. Remind me why I’m here again?”
“Company,” Gyro said with a smirk.
Johnny let out a sigh. “I don’t even have a horse…”
“But you have that fancy-dandy wheelchair!”
“Yes. I do. It’ll let me come over there and knock some sense into that golden mouth of yours.”
Gyro chuckled. “Don’t you fret none, we’re going home. Nothing’s going to stop us.“
“What about all those USM ships that have been vanishing? Hm?”
“I won’t even let that stop u-”
The engines cut out and they appeared in a black, empty universe.
Another ship had suffered the same fate. The Austraeoh’s Prism Drive sparked and dropped off, forcing them to take a position next to the Love Train.
Gyro and O’Neill called each other at the same time. “WHAT DID YOU DO!?”
A unicorn – Clandestine – tapped O’Neill on the shoulder. “I think our engines were just too close and interfered with each other.”
Gyro glanced at the science station of the Love Train. Nobody was at it. With a sigh, Froppy bounced over and pressed some buttons. “Yep,” she confirmed. “That does seem to be what happened. Engine’s working fine now.”
Gyro blinked. “You’re telling me we just passed too close to each other?”
“Space is big,” Clandestine said. “Really big. Chances of anything passing by that close are pretty minimal. Not to mention the chances of dimensional travelers taking the exact same pathway… Tiny.”
“Astronomical,” Froppy said.
“Oh, so we’re probably in some kind of story then?” O’Neill asked. “Wonder what it’s going to be this time.”
“Could just be us talking like a bunch of confused sheep,” Johnny commented.
OR A GREAT FIGHT FOR THE FATE OF EXISTENCE, Death suggested.
O’Neill shrugged. “Eh. Maybe it is just talking. We’re heading to that… Uh… Are we calling it Poké Revo? Or….?”
“We have it as Terra-PM4,” Froppy said.
“Terra?”
“Earthlike worlds that aren’t Earths and don’t have an official designation.”
O’Neill pondered this. “Hrm. You know, that sounds like a good one.”
WHAT WERE YOU PLANNING TO DO THERE?
“More diplomacy!” O’Neill said. “Because we were invited to half the places there and told to stay the hell away from the other half!”
“The cost of interference,” Froppy said.
O’Neill shrugged. “Eh, they don’t have slave-trade fighting-rings anymore, so it’s a success. They’re also doing pretty well, considering.”
EMOTIONS ARE JUST PARTICULARLY HOT.
“You could say that again.”
I WILL NOT.
“Smart skeleton.”
Gyro let out a chuckle. “Nice talkin’ to you, General. But we’ve got a home to get back to and it doesn’t look like anything’s going on here we need to deal with.”
O’Neill saluted. “Seems to be the case. Guess this was just another pointless meeting. Stay frosty my f-”
The feed cut out. On the screen that displayed the Austraeoh, every single light on the beautiful ship faded to nothing. The brilliant white craft became dark.
Gyro blinked. “…Nani?”
~~~
Saitama punched down the third Vault Door. “They aren’t getting any harder, what are people talking about?”
“You’re showing the entire multiverse what we’re made of,” Valentine told him. “To them, everything really was harder. To you, it’s all just another door to punch down.”
He turned around to those that were watching Saitama’s progress rather than ransacking the last three universes for the loot. “Behold! The power of One Punch Man! Used not by the great Class 1s, not by the humans of the TSAB, not by the masters of time themselves, and not even by the Flowers! – It was a lowly Class 3 that ‘can’t stop arguing with itself’ who found the solution to the Vaults!”
He spread his arms wide, summoning D4C behind him.
Everyone saw the might of the USM.
“Give it a rest,” a Them jeered. “You’re just a small-time boy who found a little exploit. News flash, your little exploit is just a human with a weird power. This is all brute force.”
“And yet your kind couldn’t punch through.”
“We didn’t decide to mess with the forces of ka.”
Valentine raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t your kind known for that sort of thing?”
The Them laughed. “Foolish Ambassador! Only the Flowers will manipulate ka on this level! Or are you not aware of the idea of karma? Or balance? The more you exploit, the more a balance must be struck.”
“Can confirm,” Vriska said, raising a hand. “Fought a war where ka was heavily considered. There was a huge deal made about the balancing in order to get the best possible outcome.”
Valentine glared at the detractors. There was a flash as they all appeared next to the new Vault Door. Saitama pulled back, punched it down, and strolled over to the next. “That pensive attitude keeps you back.”
They are correct, the Ice-blue Tulip said, floating to Valentine. We had access to such devices of ultimate victory and endless success. We could have always done what you are doing now. We chose not to because this level of brazen spitting in the face of what is meant to be is bound to have consequences.
Valentine’s glare didn’t falter. “He has never suffered negative consequences before.”
He is a force of nature from a world where such things are accepted. This is the greater multiverse. Gods become men out here, those who are unstoppable always find something above them. And Saitama is not supposed to be here. You are asking for trouble, Ambassador Valentine.
“He’s bashed down seven doors and I’ve gathered many ships full of high-end treasure for my society. Nothing bad has happened. The Vaults are a series of puzzles, not a secret superweapon.”
“How stupid are you!?” Vriska blurted. “You’re arguing ka physics with a Flower!? Maybe she’s trying to save you some heartbreak, you know?”
Valentine considered this. If I call Saitama off now, we won’t have enough treasure to expand the USM. There will still be stagnation. We need more. “Perhaps they are trying to get me to stop because it makes them look weak.”
We’ve never been all that involved with the Vaults. We are just Flowers, here to watch and rarely interfere unless there is something unsanctioned. You, Valentine, are sanctioned. You can’t escape the traditions.
They were teleported to the next door just before Saitama punched it down. “Oh, this one’s extra shiny on the other side.”
Valentine noticed Insipid light her horn. She appeared behind Saitama, hoof outstretched – but Tornado grabbed the duplicator unicorn and smashed her back into the crowd.
“Aw, come on! That would have been the best power ever!” Insipid whined.
“The power belongs to the USM,” Valentine muttered, glaring at Insipid. “Do not attempt to take it again.”
“Ugh, this blows.”
“Go out and forage for some new treasure. There are several open rooms. I’m sure there’s something of use to you there. But stay away from Saitama.”
Insipid grunted, crawling back to her team.
“One punch versus one punch…” Pidge muttered, blinking. “Do they both kill each other? Can they hurt each other at all? Or does the universe explode?”
“Questions we don’t want ze answer to,” Curaçao commented.
“Why wouldn’t you want that answer?”
The conversation fell silent. Valentine turned his attention to the chaos - over the last ten minutes, news had gotten out that the Vaults were opening, allowing everyone to come in and seize the ancient treasures. What had once been USM-dominated treasure efforts were now filled with people of almost all societies – Xeelee, Beyonder, Them, Horrorterror, Gallifreyan, TSAB, Merodi, USM, Void, the Combine, and a handful of other lesser Class 2 and 3 civilizations. Valentine was mildly surprised the mythical White Nettle hadn’t dropped by, possibly searching for the lost relics of her people.
Valentine had no idea of what most of the machines did. He’d been told many could shape universes and alter reality – nothing on the scale of the Shaping Mechanism yet, but they were getting there. And if he could get one of those for the USM… Well, any ka-based punishment from using Saitama to do it would be worth it. They didn’t have anywhere near enough yet, and with the Class 1s actually paying attention it was getting harder to capture the really good things hidden within the Vaults.
But there was always more treasure. Every universe could take days to sort through. Soon there would just be too much to police. And since this was a neutral set of universes, nobody could claim anything until they took it out of the Vaults. There just had to be a lot for it to be worth the USM’s trouble.
They would rise up. They would. Valentine was certain of it.
They were teleported to the next door. Saitama punched it down.
On the other side was nothing but pitch black darkness.
“Huh. That’s new,” Saitama said. He shrugged, taking a step forward.
“Saita-” Valentine called out, his proud feeling turning to one of internal fear the moment he saw the darkness.
It was too late; Saitama had already reached his hand in. A beast lashed out from the misty darkness. It couldn’t cut Saitama – but it didn’t need to. It went through his ear and into his brain.
Saitama slowly turned around. His eyes were no longer apathetic – they were angry and solid black. He didn’t speak. He simply pulled back his fist, aiming at Valentine.
Valentine’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks as he was smashed to oblivion.
~~~
“This is the Love Train to the Austraeoh, please come in,” Gyro said. “O’Neill? What happened?”
Froppy checked the console. “The power levels of the ship have fallen significantly. It’s also not giving off any light – though heat signatures suggest its producing power other ways. Several systems are down – shields, communications, weapons. There’s no sign of any attack or forced entry. There’s dimensional surges, but that is likely just because their Prism Drive is not meant to be off.” Froppy blinked, processing this. “Hold on, the way I understand their Prism Drive is that it’s a law of nature that it’s always active, and it gives the back end the rainbow color. It doesn’t even make sense for it to be off unless physics was altered.”
PERHAPS IT IS NOT OFF, MERELY DARK, Death suggested. EVEN WITHOUT POWER THE AUSTRAEOH SHOULD STILL GIVE OFF LIGHT IN SOME AREAS. THERE IS SOMETHING NEFARIOUS GOING ON OVER THERE.
Johnny turned to Gyro. “…What are we going to do?”
Gyro grunted. “Politically speaking we should probably just leave them there and not risk valuable USM property.”
“But…?” Froppy said, encouraging him to go on.
“But rules are for chumps.” He grinned. “Froppy, Death, you’re up. We’ll teleport you over and see what you can find.”
“Not you!?” Johnny said, surprised.
“Do I look like I can make my way around somewhere that’s pitch black? Those two have senses. Ball Breaker and Tusk can’t really help us see now, can they? Plus, you don’t have a horse.”
Johnny nodded slowly. “…I wasn’t asking for me.”
Gyro smirked. “Yes you were.”
Froppy bounced off her chair, standing next to Death. “Ribbit. Ready. I already have a mundane radio for communication.”
WHERE WILL WE BE APPEARING?
“Safest spot is one of their cargo holds,” Gyro said. “I trust you’ll be able to bash through any bulkheads if you need to.”
Froppy nodded in assurance.
A few moments later, the duo was teleported into the Austraeoh. It was pitch black. Froppy turned on her flashlight just to see if it would work. For a few seconds they were able to see the abandoned interior, but soon all the light was sucked away.
That is, except for the two blue pinpricks of light in Death’s skull. Those remained – but they couldn’t really illuminate much beyond the edges of Death’s eye sockets.
Froppy closed her eyes and used her ears. One of the lesser-known aspects of Frog biology was that they had an interesting sense of sound. They were able to hear things with their lungs. It wasn’t as good as, say, bat echolocation, but she knew where she was and where Death was.
Death could just see in complete darkness. Because he was Death.
He took point, Froppy hopping along behind. They reached the door of the cargo hold, not surprised to find it wasn’t working. The manual open worked just fine though – all Death had to do was pop open a hatch in the wall and turn a crank a dozen times. They entered a hallway that was just as pitch-black as before.
“I’ve got nothing,” Froppy whispered. “You?”
I SENSE LIVING SOULS ON THE SHIP, BUT NOTHING IN THIS HALL.
Froppy nodded. “Which way?”
MOST DIRECTIONS. A LARGE SQUAD IS MOVING TOWARD US VIA THE LEFT.
“That way,” Froppy said, gesturing with her arm. Death went where instructed, his bony feet scraping against the metallic floor. Froppy followed along easily despite the darkness, keeping a mental map of where they had been in her mind.
THEY HAVE STOPPED MOVING
“Wonder why…”
Death opened the next door manually as well. He walked in…
…and they started shooting him. The plasma weapons were absolutely useless in the darkness, and the bullets hit him and did nothing.
DO NOT BE ALARMED: I COME FROM THE USM.
“…Death!?” O’Neill blurted, “Stand down!”
O’NEILL, IT IS GOOD WE FOUND YOU.
“So you guys actually came to rescue us?”
“Ribbit,” Froppy said, hopping into the room. “Yeah. Just the two of us though. Everyone else won’t do well with the dark.”
“Don’t I know it…”
“Here, we can send your coordinates back to Gyro and get you teleported out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” O’Neill said. “Not until my entire crew is safe.”
“Don’t push it,” Clandestine said, revealing herself. “He really isn’t going anywhere.”
I CAN DETECT THEIR “LIFE SIGNATURES”. WE CAN BEGIN TO ROUND THEM UP. YOU ARE WELCOME TO HELP IF YOU CAN MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH THE DARKNESS. BUT WE DO NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.
“Gah. The Dark Side of the Moon,” O’Neill muttered.
Froppy looked at him – even though there was nothing for her to look at. “What?”
“This thing came out of nowhere, appearing in the engine room. It was a creature made of black prisms – and it just ate the light. The entire ship went into darkness. Then it started killing people.”
“What did it look like?” Froppy demanded – voice wavering.
“Uh… I didn’t see it before the lights went out. I was told it had two big arms that didn’t look like it belonged on its body. Too large to deal with. Why?”
Froppy sighed. She turned on the radio to call Gyro. “Hey, we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” Gyro asked.
“It’s Necrozma.”
~~~
Whenever Valentine went into an area of the multiverse where D4C wouldn’t be able to access an alternate version of himself, he always brought along a couple of backups. They were clones rather than full alternate versions, but the principle was effectively the same.
He rarely had to actually use them, but you never knew when someone would think they could assassinate him if D4C couldn’t translate.
So he was a little annoyed when D4C affixed itself to another Valentine sitting in the middle of the universe, looking right at the portal of darkness in the far distance.
He wasn’t wearing a pink suit – but rather a brown cloak, so he could remain more anonymous. He took off the hood, allowing his golden locks to spill over his shoulders, letting everyone know who he was. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated indeed.
He had been lucky Saitama had punched him and not his Stand. There was a nonzero chance his punches could hit the intangible, and if D4C was destroyed… Valentine couldn’t come back from that.
He pulled out a phone and called Tornado. “Report.”
“You should be able to see everything that matters from where you are.”
A Beyonder ship flew through the air, landed behind Valentine and exploded in a twisted mixture of rippling blue-purple energy. “I see…”
Valentine watched the shapes of Horrorterrors, Beyonders, and Them fly over his head – leaving the Vaults the physical way, not willing to risk themselves by being anywhere near what was going on. Valentine briefly wondered why they were flying away rather than using dimensional portals but he quickly realized that any non-physical connections must have been blocked the moment the door to the darkness was opened. They had to fly out the normal way.
The Gallifreyans and Flowers followed suit – leaving only the Xeelee and TSAB as the higher civilizations willing to stay and defend against the One Punch Man.
Valentine began to walk toward the battle. As he did, thousands of fleeing people ran past him – anyone who didn’t have a ship or couldn’t procure transport on one was left to their own two legs. Flying and magical creatures passed by first, eventually followed by just humans.
Eventually he passed the majority of the fleeing crowd so he could see the battle himself.
It was hardly a battle at all.
“ENIGMA MECHANISM!” a male TSAB mage shouted, unleashing a complex series of spells at Saitama. He shrugged them off without showing a scratch, driving his fist through the green magic matrix and smashing the mage – and his device – to bits.
“FULL POWER…” another mage shouted, this one a woman with bright white hair standing on top of a Xeelee ship.
Saitama saw her. Unlike his normal self, this version was tactical. He saw something trying to execute a plan – and he didn’t waste a moment in stopping it. He punched through both the Xeelee ship and the mage before the spell activated.
Valentine knew the Xeelee were trying to use their signature ‘piano wire’ devices to keep Saitama in place. They must have been doing nothing, because Saitama’s movement didn’t look hindered at all. Not even anti-life cannons were doing anything against his complete invulnerability.
The Xeelee tried something different – luring Saitama to them, and then running away. Saitama let them go – attacking whatever entity was closest to the black void instead.
Clearly, the TSAB and Xeelee noticed this, starting to fire into the black void, but they couldn’t confirm if they were doing anything, and it was leaving them open to more of Saitama’s attacks. As powerful as he was, it still took time for him to punch something apart. If they focused on the darkness, that time dropped considerably.
By the time Valentine got close enough to talk with anyone, the Xeelee and TSAB forces were almost completely gone. Granted, they hadn’t been full military forces, but that was still impressive. The most technologically advanced society and the largest human one were being beaten by a single man.
Valentine walked up to Tornado – she was talking with the Merodi and a few weaker TSAB mages. “Hey.”
“I wondered if you had a backup,” Vriska said, smirking. “So, Ambassador fucking idiot, have any suggestions?”
Valentine folded his arms. “Tell me what you’re thinking first, and what resources we have.”
Pidge cleared her throat. “The question is ‘how do you defeat the unbeatable’. Clearly, mind control was the first option, but we’ve already lost that way out.”
Vriska nodded. “That mind is sealed off with tar. There’s no way anyone’s getting in there.”
“Direct power is not an option unless you can match Saitama’s power,” Tornado added. “We cannot get another ‘One Punch Man’ here with the dimensional lock. It’ll take time we don’t have to walk out of the vaults.”
“Fleeing isn’t an option either,” Lady Rarity said. “He’s more than strong enough to pick us all off before we get out. Fleeing might actually make it take less time.”
“He’ll pursue us?” Valentine asked.
They watched as Saitama shifted locations in an instant, moving through the previous Vault door where the Xeelee were constructing a giant laser. He punched it into nothing and returned to protect the darkness in less than a second.
Valentine’s frown deepened. “Ah.”
“He’s bloodlusted,” Velvet said. “He’ll attack everything he sees until the Vaults are devoid of life.”
“And I can’t, like, go copy him because you didn’t let me earlier!” Insipid whined. “Now he’s too smart to touch!”
“I’ve also got this,” Vriska said, producing the infinite-sided die. “Totally illegal, I know, but I feel a little safer knowing I’ve got it. I have enough luck to make it do just about anything once. We’re pretty sure it can’t beat him, though.”
“Because ‘beating’ him in a standard fight just isn’t possible,” Velvet said. “If it’s a test of strength, he wins. Universal manipulation could probably work, yes. If he looks like he’s going to kill everyone, the Xeelee are prepared to just destroy the universe to take care of him – and lose whatever’s in the deeper Vaults.”
“Last resort,” Valentine said. “Clearly, force is not the answer to face him. Emotional manipulation?”
“He’s a bloodlusted servant of some mysterious darkness. What do you think?”
“Then we have to outsmart.”
“He’s pretty smart right now,” Ash said.
“Pi-KA!” Pikachu punctuated.
Valentine furrowed his brow. He shuffled what they had – some Xeelee, some TSAB, Insipid, an infinite sided die, Tornado, a handful of other warriors…
Slowly, a plan began to take shape in his mind. He snapped his fingers suddenly. “I have an idea.”
~~~
‘Terra-PM4’, a few relative months ago…
They had tried the peaceful route – the route without war, the route without needless bloodshed.
But that had all fallen apart when the world figured out who Nae really was, and the strange pony ‘Pokémon’ that were with her. Beings from another world. Beings that wanted to manipulate things to serve their own ends.
Terra-PM4’s version of Arceus had taken issue with this. He was nothing like the nigh-godlike counterpart that had sent Ash, Nae, and the others on this mission, but he was still a jealous deity-level being. He had triggered a worldwide war, and the USM got caught in the middle of it since they had been working on Terra-PM4 as well.
However, the USM was not looking to change Terra-PM4’s society, or anything involving the spread of democracy. They were here to research the amazing powers of the Pokémon. The capture technology allowed deity-level beings to be subject to humans in every way – and that included testing. There had been a few disasters, but nothing terrible.
But the war, Merodi, and USM testing came to a head in the middle of the ocean on the Alolan islands. Over time, it had become apparent that those islands were the source of many naturally-forming multiversal portals, and every side involved in the war decided it was worth fighting over. Everyone discovered it at about the same time.
Except the USM, who had been working there for years and even had a secret research base.
Froppy had been there during the last hours of the war. As explosions raged above them, the scientists of the underground USM facility had lunch and placed bets on who would win. Froppy found their apathy somewhat appalling, but she wasn’t here to judge them. She was here to check on one of their bigger projects.
At the bottom of the facility, there was a teardrop-shaped enclosure made of one-way mirrors. They could see into it, but what was inside couldn’t see out.
Which was good, because if it could it would be devouring all the light around them.
“What do we have here?” Froppy asked, hopping next to the technician operating the cage.
He munched on a donut. “Necrozma. One of the interdimensional beasts. Say what you will about the rest of the stuff we do here, keeping this thing locked up is a gift to the world.”
“Why?”
“It’d eat the light of the sun if we didn’t.”
Froppy nodded. “And the research we do on it is payment for keeping it from eating everything?”
“Exactly!”
Froppy frowned. At least they were doing some good by keeping the monster locked up.
It truly looked like a monster, too. It was made of solid black crystal with two stumpy legs that led to a large central body, where an angular ‘head’ protruded. Two thin rods stuck out from its top, connecting it to arms that were as long as it was tall, ending in three pointed fingers.
Froppy swore it was staring right at her.
“What are the chances it gets out? Because of the fighting.”
“Almost none.”
“Then it’s going to get out. Where’s the kill switch?”
“Uh, you don’t have the-”
Froppy flashed him a badge Valentine had given her. “I am one of the Confidantes. I can do what I think needs to be done. Where’s the kill switch?”
The man nervously shifted his weight but pointed to a large red button underneath a plastic cover. She flipped up the cover and lifted her finger.
The ceiling exploded in a crash of immense proportions. Froppy saw Ash, Pikachu, and his Greninja fall through, all riding Insipid – who was glowing with some godlike power she had procured that Froppy didn’t care to identify.
They had been knocked out of the sky by some human with absurd hair riding a dragon of some sort.
Neither of them mattered. What mattered was that Ash, Pikachu, Insipid, and Greninja smashed into the container hitting Necrozma.
Froppy pressed the button. But it was too late – all the lights went out. She couldn’t see anything.
But she could hear. She could hear the yells, the screams. She heard the technician get his brains blown out by Necrozma. She felt space rend around her. The calls of minor gods filled the space as a war erupted above them. The fighting continued despite Necrozma’s darkness.
“Ash!”
“PI-KA!”
“Like, no! Not happening!”
Necrozma’s call was deep and destructive. Froppy heard blood splatter all over. Some deep, draconic being roared as well. Everything shifted… She heard a portal open…
And the lights came back on. Insipid was breathing heavily. “Got him out of here! Like, totally g-”
She saw the dragon they had been fighting and its rider, both dead from Necrozma’s claws. She also saw the technician, skewered by a stray crystal.
She saw Ash torn in half and Greninja convulsing next to him.
“PI-KA!”
“Ash!” Insipid shouted, scrambling over. She took one look at him and decided she didn’t have the skills or the power to bring him back – it wasn’t in the power she had absorbed. Instead, she tended to Greninja. He had been in-tune with Ash when it happened… Couldn’t be good on his psyche.
But she was able to keep him from falling into madness with her power. He remained partially fused with Ash - some part of the man must have remained.
And that was the point Froppy left the room. As she did, she noticed technicians opening dimensional portals and getting out of there. All operations had been terminated and the place was being abandoned. So her visit had been rather pointless.
But it had let her see Necrozma.
And that, in the end, was enough to get her to read its file later. A beast from another universe that devoured light itself. It continually hungered for the intangible substance.
But before that day it was released, it had never just drained all the light from a small area at once. It had always sought large light sources… like all the light of a star.
The USM must have done something to it…
Froppy shook her head – she didn’t tell everyone all of this, she didn’t have the time. “We’re facing Necrozma, an interdimensional being that was once held by the USM on Terra-PM4. It had the power to open portals and was on the world to devour all its light, if it could. We stopped it, but during the war it escaped to another realm.”
“So why is it here?” O’Neill asked.
“I’d like to know that too,” Gyro said from the radio.
“It might be upset with the USM for trapping it,” Froppy said. “A lot of USM ships have been going missing lately… My guess is it somehow followed the Love Train here, but boarded the Austraeoh by accident.”
WEAKNESSES? Death asked.
“You wouldn’t be able to guess from looking at it, but the testing revealed that it’s sensitive to dark energies – and spiritual ones.”
THEN IT SEEMS AS IF I AM ITS KRYPTONITE.
“Yeah. Think you can find it and take it out?”
IF IT IS ONE OF THE LIFE SIGNATURES IN MY SENSES, YES. GIVE ME A MOMENT.
“Good, take care of it so we can g-” Gyro’s voice was cut off.
The lights in the Austraeoh came back on.
Froppy looked at the radio with a shocked expression. “It must have followed the signal…”
~~~
Brute force wouldn’t do it.
But they needed the thing controlling Saitama to think that was what the plan involved.
One of the last remaining Xeelee constructs had flown ten universes away, to the point at which it was difficult for the human eye to make out the dark portal. The Xeelee had no difficulty though – they had their targeting systems ready.
Their upload transmissions were ready as well. They knew the ship wouldn’t be surviving this, but they would like to.
Saitama wasn’t paying any attention to them right now since the remaining warriors were facing off against him at the gate. But that was about to change.
The Xeelee activated several useful little items they had picked up over the course of their journey – ancient weapons of varying kinds just left as loot to be picked up. Using their unparalleled technological prowess, they fused the weapons to the ship’s hull. Nanobots sure were useful.
All the weapons began to glow. The Xeelee created a gravitational lens in front of their ship. They would have preferred some kind of cosmic construct to really pack some punch, but they were a little low on resources at the moment. They had to make do with what they had available.
All the weapons fired, the gravitational lens forcing all the attacks into a single point that shot forward – directly at the darkness on the other side of the portal.
Saitama stopped it with his fist. Then he punched across all the universes at once, continually stopping the beam from going anywhere.
The fist hit the Xeelee ship dead-on and destroyed it in one hit – precisely as expected.
Valentine began his move. He ran from the group toward the darkness, reaching into his coat to pull something out.
Saitama sensed this, so he flew back.
But in the fraction of a second it had taken him to reach the Xeelee ship, a magic barrier had been erected between Saitama and Valentine – courtesy of the TSAB and Merodi Unicorns.
He punched right through it like it was tissue paper. He felt it try to shock him and inflict statuses on him, to do anything to slow him down, but he wasn’t going to let it.
Valentine would have needed a full ten more seconds to have gotten close enough to the darkness to do anything. Saitama’s fist hit him from behind, shattering his body into a million pieces.
But this, too, was part of the plan. And Saitama’s darkness knew it the moment it realized Valentine hadn’t been holding a superweapon of some kind – just a simple gun.
Saitama didn’t have to whirl around to see Insipid charging at him, fist pulled back. “ONE PAWWWWWWNCH!” She called.
Of course. When the barrier had been trying to inflict status effects on him, it had also been connecting to him. Transferring Insipid’s nature to him – allowing her to become him, courtesy of TSAB bonding magic.
She had gotten close enough to touch him without being in danger of the death punch.
Tornado and the remaining TSAB mages started using telekinesis to pull everyone as far away from the two as possible, as quickly as possible.
Saitama met Insipid’s front hoof with his fist. Both of them put as much effort into the attack as they could.
Everyone held their breath – this was the moment they saw if the universe blew up or not.
It didn’t. Anything that didn’t have a shield of some sort or other was completely incinerated, including a large chunk of people that Tornado and the mages weren’t able to evacuate, but they were essentially just Redshirts. The walls of the Vault shifted – but the structure of the universe held.
One Punch Man and One Punch Mare entered a true standstill. Normally, Insipid would have to think about how to use her power, or use her cluelessness to come up with creative new solutions. There wasn’t anything complicated about punch to win. He punched, she punched. He punched and she didn’t block, but she was just able to take it. She punched, and he didn’t block – he just took it.
Neither of them could get out of the other’s attacks.
Which allowed the real attack on the shadow to happen.
Vriska flew over the two of them, heading right for the darkness. She lifted the infinite-sided die, flooding as much luck as she could manage into it. It soon didn’t look like a die anymore – it looked like a miniature sun.
The darkness lashed out at her, physically manifesting the claw for the first time since Saitama had opened the Vault Door.
Vriska threw the infinite sided die into the darkness. “Buh-bye now! You have the right to scream in terror.”
The darkness made no noise. The infinite sided die activated, creating a White Hole.
“Well fu-” the intense light packed enough of a shockwave that Vriska went flying backward.
But it was nothing compared to the stress the darkness in the other universe got. The cosmic power of pure light dissolved the darkness in a matter of seconds, like a superheated knife cutting through ice in all directions at once. There was a moment of black steam and then nothing.
The White Hole vanished and the infinite-sided die returned to Vriska. “Whew…” she said.
The Vault Door on the far side of the newly-revealed room opened. Good thing too, because the White Hole had melted away most the treasure in the previously-dark universe, coating the walls in a glassy substance.
“We diiiid it!” Vriska shouted.
Valentine, in another backup clone body, nodded. “Dojyaaan.”
Insipid punched Saitama across the face. Saitama rubbed his head. “Ow! Hey! Why’d you do that!?”
“Oh, you’re done being evil now?” Insipid asked. “Sweetness!”
“…I was evil?”
“Mind controlled, killed a lot of people,” Vriska said, walking up to him with a slight limp. “But we stopped you and killed the darkness! Woo!”
“You stopped me!?”
“Tsk,” Insipid said, fluffing her mane. “I stopped you. I had to take your powers to do it.”
“…Woah.”
“I know, right? Cha!”
“…Wanna fight?”
“…Like, uh, bro, I just spent the last minute punching you. It wasn’t exactly the nicest experience. I don’t think I’m going to bruise, but, yeesh, ow.”
“I mean later. It’ll be nice to have a challenge.”
“How about we not give the Merodi access to our strongest weapon, hrm?” Tornado called.
“Oh come on, I don’t get to have any fun these days!” Saitama complained.
Tornado sighed. “Oh for the… You know what, Valentine, you deal with him.”
Valentine adjusted his coat and said nothing.
~~~
“We need to teleport to the Love Train’s bridge, now,” Froppy said.
O’Neill tapped his communicator – which was working fine. “Bridge of the Love Train, everyone in this room – stat!”
There was no response.
“Well that’s just delightful, it probably got the transporter team.”
Clandestine walked up to a terminal. “The computer’s been scrambled as well. We’ll have to make our way to the actual transporter systems.”
“MOVE IT!” O’Neill shouted, running down a hallway, Clandestine, Froppy, Death, and the rest of his squad behind him. They ran through doors easily now that they would just slide open. It was less than a minute before they arrived at one of the main transporter terminals.
Clandestine moved quickly – overriding the security systems with her hoofprint. She set the coordinates. “It’s going to be dark over there, so be ready!”
They jumped to the Love Train’s bridge. It was pitch black, just like the Austraeoh had been moments before.
Except this time Froppy heard Necrozma.
“BALL BREAKER!” Gyro shouted, trying to punch the creature in complete darkness. It clearly wasn’t working, since the next thing Froppy heard was a ‘Gah!’ sound from Gyro, followed by the sound of him hitting a wall.
FACE ME, MONSTER, Death said. He could see just fine and met Necrozma with his scythe.
After the fighting lasted for more than a second, Froppy sensed something was wrong. “…Death?”
I DO NOT THINK IT IS ALIVE IN THE TRADITIONAL SENSE, Death reported, the sound of Necrozma’s prisms making it difficult to focus on his words. THIS WILL SIMPLY TAKE LONGER.
Froppy heard a scream in front of her – there was still collateral damage. She didn’t know who had just gotten heavily injured, but the longer this lasted the more people would get hurt…
Asking Death to suspend his namesake would only make him less effective against Necrozma. So Froppy needed to think of something fast.
What did they have at their disposal? Some Merodi, and the bridge crew of the Love Train… What Stands were there? Crimson Sushi wasn’t going to be helpful without light, Ball Breaker had already gotten his turn, Tusk…
“Johnny!” Froppy shouted over the din of the battle. “Where are you?”
“Bleeding out on the floor,” Johnny muttered, barely two feet from her.
She looked down to him out of habit. “Think you can still fight?”
“Of course I can, I’m a Joestar, do you think a little bleeding out is going to stop me? I’m going to kill that thing…”
“Good to hear. Clandestine! Over here!”
Clandestine teleported right on top of Froppy. “Here.”
“Gah… I need you to get Johnny on your back.”
“…Where is he?”
“Here,” Johnny said, muttering. “This may take some doing…”
Mounting a horse – even an intelligent one who was completely willing – was difficult in complete darkness. In the time it took Johnny to get on top of Clandestine, Froppy heard two more screams.
“You’re bleeding,” Clandestine said.
“Just a flesh wound,” Johnny said. Froppy knew he was smirking. “Right, so, in order to get the Infinite Spin, I need to feel the Spin within your body. Which means you’re going to have to start moving around.”
“How am I going to move around in the dark!?”
“I don’t know, find a wall! And… Shit, I’m going to have to shoot something I can’t see…”
Froppy knew exactly where Necrozma was in relation to her, and in relation to Johnny. “Okay, Clandestine, I’m going to need you to levitate yourself and run in midair.”
“I don’t have enough magic power to do that!”
“Right then…” Froppy took her position in front of Clandestine and put her hands on the unicorn’s face. “Run into me. I’ll hold my ground.”
Clandestine did as instructed – trying to push Froppy. The small woman kept her ground, using the strength in her frog legs to keep from sliding.
Johnny felt the Spin move through Clandestine. He let out a laugh. “Got it!”
“Good…” Froppy grunted. “Now… point right in front of you… and I’ll adjust your aim…”
Johnny pointed his finger forward, his front nail spinning with the power of Infinity. “Ready.”
Froppy wrapped her tongue around Johnny’s arm and aimed it, focusing intently on the noise of Necrozma and Death.
She couldn’t tell who was in front right now… The clashing was too intense…
But Necrozma was significantly taller than Death. So there was a safe bet.
She slipped, struggling to hold her footing. She had to shoot now before she lost it completely.
She directed Johnny’s finger slightly upward. “NOW!” she blurted. It didn’t matter if she pronounced the word well or not – Johnny got the message. He fired at the perfect instant.
The nail hit Necrozma near the very top of its body, just above the angular protruding head. It let out a strange grating noise and fell backward, grabbing at its upper body in panic.
It lost its focus on draining the light, revealing the state of the bridge.
A few crewmembers were dead. O’Neill, Johnny, and Gyro were heavily injured, while Death was standing strong over the form of Necrozma – the monster heavily bruised and battered from its prolonged fight with Death. Its black prisms were shaking as it grabbed its top – the area where Johnny’s nail had embedded itself and was using the Infinite Spin, twisting the body of Necrozma so much that it became like a black whirlwind.
The parts of its prismatic body under the most Spin stress began to shatter. One of its arms just fell off, hitting the ground with an impressive thud. It struggled to put the arm back on, finding that its shoulder was now Spinning too much. It would be shattered soon.
Its head began to twist back into its body just as its second arm fell off. It tried to reach toward Johnny, but it could no longer move properly. It struggled, twisting, shattering as too much stress was placed on other parts of its body.
As its head shattered it let out a head-pounding SCREECH. Then it stopped moving.
The rest of it Spun into oblivion without a fuss. It became nothing more than a collection of loose black crystals.
“Destroy all of those,” O’Neill muttered, falling onto his back.
“Get the medics up here!” Froppy shouted over the intercoms. She ran to Gyro, checking his pulse. He was hurt badly with a gash across the chest, but he was going to be fine.
She let out a sigh of relief.
IT TURNS OUT I WASN’T SO USEFUL AFTER ALL.
“We still got it,” Froppy said. “…You did good. All of you did.”
~~~
“Would you look at this,” Froppy said, handing Valentine a data pad. The two of them were sitting in his personal lounge on Earth-ST1, his homeworld. USM flags were everywhere, and the couches were even red-white-and-blue-themed.
Never before had Valentine found this so annoying. He turned his focus to what Froppy had handed him. “Hm…”
“A world where a version of Arceus moved all his creations instead of just making an entirely new existence. The pony interactions have been rather interesting a-”
“Let the Merodi have that one,” Valentine said, placing it down. “I think we’re done with the Arceus worlds.”
“…Necrozma?”
“Yes. And… other things as well.” Valentine gained a distant expression on his face. “You know, I didn’t think we lost that many in the Vaults. It seemed like everyone who mattered survived. …I didn’t realize the toll it had on our people. I had a lot of us there, ready to loot the place. Most of them are dead by collateral damage.” He clenched his fist. “I wanted to bring the USM to glory. I didn’t listen.”
“You got the Merodi banned from the Vaults. That die was used very publicly.”
Valentine nodded slowly. “Not even a victory. The cost was too great.”
Froppy sighed. “Look, Ambassador? Maybe we just have to accept that we’re going to be second fiddle. That we are weak. It does go against a lot of what I was raised to believe, but… maybe it’s okay. We don’t have to be the heroes.”
“We’re the villains who want to fix their own problems,” Valentine said. “Don’t you see? If the Merodi are the heroes, we are the enemy – or at the very least the rivals. In their story, we are the ones who do the terrible things. Necrozma… Saitama… All our fault. All our fault…”
“…You made the wish that took the Collector down.”
Valentine nodded. “And I imposed sanctions on their people, tried to manipulate their government, and any number of other things. We’ve always been at odds, Froppy. And we’ve lost.”
“…As I said earlier. Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes,” Valentine said, walking toward a window, looking outside at the endless city he lived in. “It’s a bad thing. It’s a horrendous thing. One we can’t change. We are the United States of the Multiverse, and we are a Class 3 power growing in the shadow of greater events.” He pressed a button on his personal data pad. “…Today was our spotlight, Froppy. We spent it cleaning up problems we made.”
Froppy nodded. “Maybe we should change, then.”
“Even if I wanted to.. Which… I might - I can’t do anything internally. My power is purely external. The president and his Cabinet have all the power in that regard. Makes me wish I could run again.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ambassador,” Froppy admitted.
“There’s nothing to say,” Valentine said. “We just have to live with the knowledge that we are not destined for greatness.”
Froppy was silent.
“…I’m going to go find a place to take a vacation. One I haven’t been to before. Would you like to come?”
Froppy looked up at him, gauging his face. She smiled warmly. “Sure.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.067 seconds
Total duration
970 users online
152,262 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Warning. Warning. Warning.
God Ash Didn't last 1 adventure
And therein lies part of the problem. The puzzles exist to ensure only those who are ready for the contents of the Vaults can access them. Serious-punching them down leads to a "monkey with a nuke" scenario. And that's before the avatar of gag victories gets mind controlled.
Oh. Wonderful. It's the plot of the Detective Pikachu movie, only with f
ing Necrozma.
Radio waves. EM radiation. Photons. Light
Given that she's a pony, I choose the believe the OPM theme song started playing diegetically at this point.
Death used Death!
It doesn't affect enemy Necrozma!
And Froppy provides the Sutra of Luigi. There is no shame in the second banana position. The spotlight can blind you to many possibilities.
And right now, it's shining bright enough to burn. It's only a matter of time, and there isn't much left...
9781491
huh. in that case, earth ponies tho
9781572
This whole chapter is based off of a popular animation software, and the animations that spawned from it. The name "SFM" is involved somehow.
There's a bookmarking system in FIMFiction itself. Click (or touch on touchpads) a paragraph, and it'll give you an option to place a bookmark. When you leave and return to the page, it should bring you all the way to that bookmark. Then you have to click the paragraph to remove the bookmark. It's also supposed to place bookmarks automatically, but that might not have happened if you're asking about it.
9781548
There are at least some Equises where one or both of the royal sisters are ascended earth ponies. For all we know, Equis Vitis could be one of them.
But yeah, strict canon doesn't offer much there.
Now that's some bullshit.
see? I told you I wasn't the worst version of myself
Congrats. You win the 'not as big a jerk as you could have been' award
9782182
Also a dick move they consider that a victory
9782708
I don't know whether to be happy or sad that the Orz won't show up. On one hand, the Orz have always been really creepy to me. On the other hand, they have always been really creepy to me.
Edit: Or would it be it? I mean, technically, isn't the Orz supposed to be one immensely massive extra-dimensional being? Or would it still be they?
As for what makes them creepy, the way they talk and the background story that you get from those six (I think, haven't played in forever) green stars. And what happened to that one crew member that gets sent to retrieve data, and then ends up telling everyone that he was seen by it, and that he had to destroy the knowledge so that nobody else would be seen by it, and then he started getting injured by an unknown source. It's just, creepy. After first encountering them, I actually didn't sleep all night because I was terrified and paranoid.
And this was when I was around fourteen, imagine what it would have been like if I had been younger when I first played. I was already glancing at the corner of my room every fifteen seconds. I knew it was fictional, but that didn't make it any better.
9781542
Regarding the OPM thing , while reading it , the music was playing in my head. So i basically heard the music while she screamed that , and tthat was totally intentional ! Oh and by the way... FIRST REALLY GOOD CHAPTER THIS ARC!
9782182
The die was forbidden from even enter the vault, once it was discovered vriska brought one, they were going to be banned.
9783656
Yes, Vriska should have been banned. Not entire Merodi.
9783917
I imagine Merodi bargained about not allowing vryska, considering the debate is between civilizations and not individuals, but considering the greed of the societies, they just banned merodi, so one civilization less to compete xD.
Accent grave and extra space.
Its > It’s. Alternatively, if “suggest” is taken to mean the heat signatures are literally listing different ways to market producing power, you could change “other ways” to “in other ways.”
Hooboy. That was not a happy chapter. Also wew, big 18 year time jump.
So yeah, it might as well have been printed in a bright pink neon sign that brute-forcing through the doors was going to bring out some kind of karmic balance in the form of painful consequences. And boy did it ever. I suppose it might have been okay if it was just the one door but then Valentine got greedy. Hopefully lesson learned.
Looks like the pokemon liberation adventure came to a conclusion during the time skip, but not without cost. I had a feeling something happened to Ash when his Greninja appeared taking on his name and speaking with Pikachu really close. What a nasty end.
I pieced together that Necrozma might have been involved about the time that Froppy mentioned that Austraoh's Prism Drive by nature was always supposed to be lit, and tying that in with what happened with the University of Doors and all the darkness stuff that had just happened with Saitama. That last one looks to have been unrelated, though. Not really sure what that was.
Huh, looks like that factoid did get brought up after all.
Well, stagnant and gloomy times ahead for the USM it seems as their role ever diminishes. Should've kept their hands out of sketchy stuff.
Sucks though that Merodi got banned from the vaults after that crud.
...Why is Curaçao speaking in level 3 header format?
11828618
No clue, but it's easy to accidentally format things without realizing. Fixed.
-GM, master of forms.