(The flashback portion is a collab between myself and Letter Bee.)
San Fransokyo, a few hours ago:
For a global center of technology, San Fransokyo still had a surprising number of slummy areas. These types of neighborhoods were practically a breeding ground for illegal bot fighting. Personally, Mackenzie never did understand why bot fighting was illegal. It wasn't like anyone was actually getting hurt. Really, the only actual legally questionable thing about bot fighting were the people who bet on the battles, since gambling was illegal in California and all. But that was no reason to punish the actual competitors, or so Mach believed. Not that he himself was into Bot fighting, but he did find himself spectating a few matches over the internet on occasion. Bot fighters were a surprisingly good source of inspiration for his prosthesis project, and in fact the current one he possessed was inspired by a particular fight Mach had watched. Speaking of that, it was that very prosthesis Mach was currently fidgeting with. He was in the garage, his suit taken part and its segments spread out on a worktable, with Mach himself hunched over it on his wheelchair, picking and prodding here and there with various tools, a laptop with a blueprint image of the suit sitting not too far away as a reference guide.
"Alrighty..." Mach muttered to himself, "...just a few more calibrations and then we'll see what these babies can really do."
Suddenly, behind him, he can see a portal of pure darkness, from which emerged a young boy, with black hair and eyes, wearing a black-and-silver coat, carrying a blade that was a hybrid of key and sword. Before Mach can set off the alarms, Tocsax - we all know him by now - said:
"I don't think bringing others here would be be necessary; if I wanted to hurt you, I would not have spoken and instead attacked." He then smiled.
"Anyway, I come here on behalf of someone else, someone who needs your help."
In all honesty Mach barely even registered that someone showed up. He thought it was one of his parents at first and wheeled his chair around to tell them that he would eat dinner later, stopping when he realized it was a stranger. The strange kid carried some kind of key-shaped club weapon and basically may as well have said that he came in peace, "Riiiiight," said Mach, his sarcastic skepticism rearing its head, "and I suppose you want me to take you to my leader, then? Well, sorry, but I'm not personally acquainted with the guy, so I guess that means you'll be going to find someone else, right?" then he just... turned his chair back around and went right back to work.
"Zero Gravira," said Tocsax, pointing at the chair, which began to float up, with Mach still sitting on it.
When his chair suddenly rose up from the floor, Mach let out an exasperated sigh. The stranger was using Magic. Which meant he was one those types, the cool and hip kids who played with magic because they had the money to spend on it. Mach personally disliked Magic, instead firmly believing that his tech could do anything a spell could do, "Okay, so you know a little magic. So do lot of the hip kids on the block. Not impressed."
Tocsax opened an arm-sized portal, stuck his arm through it, then drew out...a small cube, which he then tossed at Mach.
"The Escafil Device, aka the Morphing Cube from Animorphs. Pure Technology that draws on Z-Space, not Magic; that said, though, it had to be modified to use other dimensions, as Z-Space doesn't exist here or any other universe."
"Uh huh," said Mach, staring incredulously at the cube, "and I helped Alice slay the Jabberwocky the other day and together we saved Narnia." he responded, then added with a completely deadpan tone, "See? I can pretend that fiction is real too."
In response, Tocsax, with surprising strength, grabbed ahold of Mach and tossed him into a Corridor of Darkness, which led him to a large, garden-like area filled with large fields of flowers, where the sky above was dotted with artistically shaped clouds and colors. But the beauty of this place was not the most surprising part, but rather the fact that the area was filled with centaur-like blue aliens with no mouths, four eyes, two of them in antler-like stalks, and whose tails ended with a scythe.
Oh, and they were also invisible.
"The Andalite Home World," the young boy said, lying down on the grass. "Happy?"
He went to grab something to defend himself with, but was too slow. No, instead he was torn from his wheelchair and essentially kidnapped into another dimension. Granted, it was a very tranquil and pretty looking place, but that didn't matter in the slightest when Mach was just kidnapped from his home, so one couldn't possibly expect his response to be happy in the slightest.
"What the hell, man?" he shouted, finding himself on the grass and unable to get up for obvious, "You just freakin' KIDNAPPED ME! How the hell do you THINK I feel? What kind of jerk kidnaps a HELPLESS CRIPPLED PERSON, anyway? So I guess all that crap about you coming in peace and meaning me no harm was a giant load of bullcrap, right?"
"You wanted proof, I gave it," Tocsax was deadpan. "And excuse me for my lack of social graces; I spent most of my life as a child soldier, and one third of that without a metaphysical Heart." He then opened another portal, then, instead of using Magic, lifted Mach up and put the latter's arm around his shoulder, opening another Corridor, and dragging the tech-wiz back to his room, setting him back on his wheelchair.
"Look, Mach," the boy continued, "I'm a dickhead. I don't like it, but that's what I am. But, I genuinely have this Multiverse's best interests at heart, and I want to save it, and it's super urgent that I do."
"Sounds like you need some kind of warrior." responded Mach, still miffed by the whole kidnapping thing, "But, just in case you didn't notice..." he gestured down to his chair in a matter-of-factly fashion, "...wheelchair? You know, as in I can't walk... or fight... so I don't know what you think I can do for you. Like I said in the beginning, you've got the wrong guy."
Okay, fine, Mach was lying. His prosthesis suit did allow him to walk and fight and everything, but Tocsax didn't know that, and Mach sure as hell wasn't going to trust his kidnapper with his secret identity.
"Escafil Device; heals people after morphing and demorphing," said Tocsax, "of course, your pride might prevent you from using it." His tone then softened.
"Look, fact of the matter is, there are probably hundreds of kids like you, people who like Magic, people who are eager to fight for a cause. But, no offense, most of those aren't smart, most of them just coasting on people who are. You have brains, and a stronger Heart than you think. You break the traditional 'mold' of a hero without being a gun-toting serial killer killer, and, well, I like that. The person whom I was split off of was a person who tried to bring traditional hero tropes into a modern, real, world, and he suffered for it."
"But enough tangents. I'm sorry for kidnapping you, and for forcing this on you. But, there's an entire existence out there that needs to be saved."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought. Now why did his jerk of kidnapper have to go be so sincere? Of course, ever the snarky bastard, Mach couldn't help but point something out, "Pretty sure morphing doesn't work that way. According to the books I read, I would need a DNA sample of my past self*, from before I was put in this chair. I'm pretty sure even you can't travel through time, otherwise you would have just used it to prevent your catastrophe from ever being possible." as he said this, he glanced over his shoulder at the suit in pieces on his table. Then he gave another exsperated sigh, "...Can't believe I'm doing this." he turned his chair around and, in moments, finished the calibration of his prosthesis.
"Okay, so, I may have been a little less than honest about the whole "I can't walk thing", but after kidnapping me I don't think you'd be in much of a position to hold that against me, right?" as he said that, he was gathering certain compents of the complex device on the work table. When he wheeled the chair back around, they were on his lap, "Just one moment..." he muttered, now fiddling with various pieces of the components, appearing to attach them to his legs, starting with his feet and working his way up to just past his knees, "...and Christ said, let the lame walk again." with those words, he stood up from his wheelchair.
"It's my own personal project. There's a bit more to it than just the legs, but I can put those on later." he turned around and started gathering the remaining pieces from the worktable and packing them into a storage unit that he then set on his wheelchair, "It's like I always say, anything a spell can do, my tech can do better. That includes healing."
"Point taken on the DNA stuff," said the boy, "and, thanks for agreeing to help me. It means a lot." He then opened another Corridor of Darkness, and led him through.
"You'll love the palace; there we can do some more exposition." Tocsax was happy, almost chirping. "We can also have a Gyro and some coffee together - not that way, just as acquaintances. And of course, the view is awesome..."
(*We changed how Morphing works so as not to provide an easy solution to the 'crippled party member thing'.)
Now:
By now, Mach had been introduced to the rest of his companions for the journey. There was Jupiter who, apart from a few small differences, was pretty much exactly like Mackenzie himself. Well, at least he knew there would be at least one person who might understand his technobabble... maybe. Then there was Ninty who, in all honesty, Mach didn't quite get. She was an elf, which in itself was strange, but she also came off kind of abrasive. Then again, Mach had basically taunted Tocsax into kidnapping him so he didn't exactly have a right to judge. Finally, there was Henry, or Hank, as he apparently preferred to be called. Hank looked like he was brought in as muscle, supposedly from a Post-Apocalyptic version of Nevada. All of them, except Jupiter apparently, could summon and wield those Key-shaped things that were supposedly swords of some kind, although Mach swore up and down that there was no way those clunky looking things could actually cut anyone, the physics just didn't make any sense. Then again, it was magic, so trying to explain it with logic was probably an exercise in futility.
After a few hours, the group found themselves on the first stop of their little adventure. The Reign of the Confederacy was, according to the Emperor, a version of the world where the South won the Civil War. Didn't exactly sound like a pleasent place to visit or to live, but the first "Princess" they needed was apparently some escaped slave on this world. Finding said girl wasn't the difficult part, no that would be successfully convincing her that they weren't raving lunatics and that their story about a multiple universes being threatened by a megalomaniac trying to become God was true and not nearly as insane as it sounded. But while the others discussed how they could approach the girl, Mach had his own idea. Best way to prove a case was to provide evidence, and Mach's mechanical legs were a pretty convincing piece of evidence that he wasn't from around here, "You know, my prosthesis would probably do a pretty good job at proving our story to her," he said with a shrug, "just saying..."
