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TEN YEARS AGO
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It was a clear, warm night in the Utopian Parallel, the stars above shining down upon the island community. On any other occasion, people would be out late enjoying the beaches and playing music. But the usual laughter that permeated the air had been replaced with horrified screaming as an army of werewolves were currently ripping their way through the neighborhoods.
The invaders were known as the
Patriot Pack, and were deeply involved with white-supremacist ideologies and far-right extremism. Hiding from the chaos in a basement was a young
America Chavez, huddled with her mothers.
“We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die…” the girl was repeating in a terrified whisper.
“It will be okay, Mer-Mer. They won’t find us here,” Elena insisted, though the fear in her eyes betrayed her words.
“You grabbed the ring Miss Amora gave you like I asked, right honey?” Amalia asked. America nodded.
“Put it on just in case, okay?”“But it can’t make us all invisible, only me…”“That’s okay, honey. Please, put it on. For us? It will make us feel better.” Elena added.
The young girl reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring, and was about to slip it on as they heard a loud crashing upstairs.
“I smell them!” came a deep, bestial voice from the floor above.
“They’re hiding! Rip everything apart! Check every room!”“Put the ring on, now. Put it on!” Amalia demanded in a loud whisper. Too scared to speak any further, the girl just nodded rapidly and slipped the ring on, vanishing from sight. A moment later, a group of werewolves smashed their way into the basement, and the poor child watched in utter horror as her mothers were slaughtered.
“NOOO!!!” she screamed out, unable to contain herself. The monsters spun around sharply and sniffed in her direction.
“Another one! In that corner! They’re invisible!” The wolves charged her position.
“No! No! No!” America scrambled to her feet and tried to run around her attackers to flee up the stairs, but they heard her movements. One of the wolves turned and backhanded the air, impacting the girl and causing her to stumble. She fell to the ground, the ring falling off her tiny finger and sliding away.
“She’s a little one. Only a snack! But meat is meat!” America jumped back up and grabbed the ring, but she was knocked over yet again, pinned to the floor. Looking up at the drooling fangs as the monsters hovered over her, she felt herself overcome with a strong urge to escape. Just then, a warm energy began to bubble up inside her, exploding outward in a giant blast that knocked all the wolves back and ripped open a star-shaped portal directly under her.
“What?! AAAHHH!” she screamed out as she suddenly found herself falling through a blue sky, away from the star portal that showed her basement. The wolves looked out through the rift in shock as the girl continued to drop into an entire row of portals, passing between at least a dozen different Earths in quick succession.
She finally came to a stop in a dead forest underneath a reddish sky, and immediately noticed the air seemed dry and harsh, burning her throat and nose. Before she could fully take in her surroundings, she felt an energy source moving rapidly towards her location. This was a sensation she had never felt before, but she knew immediately that this entity was pure darkness.
Still gripping the ring tightly in a closed fist, she frantically slipped it on as she felt the strange being getting closer. It rushed into the sea of dead trees, and although America could not see this entity, she could feel it floating around just above her.
“Interesting…” came a booming, distorted, disembodied male voice.
“You shield yourself from my view, but I know you are there. I can… taste your energy. A very young soul, yet so much power, laying dormant. You are not from this world, and I sense fragments of spacetime from multiple universes all around you. Come, show yourself to me, child.”America stayed still and quiet, hoping the entity would go away.
“I promise, I won’t hurt you, little one,” he added, his voice gentler.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. You see, some very bad people trapped me in a void between worlds long ago. They were bullies and very mean and unfair to me. Imprisoning me for ages in this… this Beyond-Realm… Able to see and speak into the Material Plane, but never to experience it directly again…”The girl refused to speak, so the being continued.
“Are you still scared, child? Would it help if you knew me better? My true name cannot be pronounced in any mortal tongue, but you may call me… the Beyonder. Catchy, isn’t it? What’s your name? Still nothing? Okay, I’ll use a nickname for you as well. I’ll call you the Cosmic Traveler, since you hop across worlds. See? We’re friends now, right?”America maintained her silence.
“I’m pouring my heart out here, at least say hello!” the entity was becoming agitated and impatient.
“Maybe it would help if we could speak face to face! You know, I bet if you tried really hard, you could open a portal to me here in the Beyond-Realm! Then I can join you there in the Material Plane and we can be real friends! What do you say?”There it is, the girl thought to herself.
He wants to use me to free himself from his prison. He was probably put there for a good reason. I gotta get out of here!Clenching a fist to keep the ring firmly on her finger, America got up and started running through the dead trees. She immediately felt the entity chase after her.
“Where are you going?!” he cried out angrily.
“Don’t leave yet! Please, release me! It’s so sad and lonely here! Please set me free!”The Beyonder came to a stop above a rapidly shrinking Star Portal, through which he could see an invisible person moving through tall grass on another Earth. He tried to dive for the opening, but it closed before he could get to it.
“AAARRGGHHHHH!!!” he screamed in utter frustration.
“I will find you, Cosmic Traveler! I will find a way to rip open this scar left behind from your portal! One day your power will belong to me!!!”~~~~~~~~~~~~
PRESENT DAY
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A now-adult America was enjoying a morning coffee on the patio of a small diner in the metropolitan center of the planet Xandar. Once learning to control her powers, she had expanded her exploits beyond just alternate Earths, visiting many different worlds over the years.
“What’s going on?” she asked a patron at the next table as everyone began to panic looking at their personal holopads.
“The Nova Corps broadcasted an emergency alert. Apparently an unidentified ship has appeared in orbit,” the woman explained. Just then, a group of seven-foot-tall Stark-Tech Sentinels teleported down into the middle of a nearby park.
“This Traveler Scar is fresh!” one of them claimed in a mechanized voice as it scanned the area. America realized they were standing right near where her portal had opened just an hour prior.
“The Cosmic Traveler must be close! Capture everyone within a one mile radius! Mark anyone within the designated age-group as a Traveler Candidate and send them to the Inquisitor! Send everyone else to Battleworld!”Suddenly, hordes of additional Sentinels began teleporting down, accompanied by hover platforms carrying cryogenic stasis pods. They began restraining people and placing them in the pods, and the local police force responded swiftly.
“Shit!” America cursed as she jumped to her feet. People were screaming and running chaotically in every direction as the Sentinels were chasing people down and snatching them up.
That name they used… The Cosmic Traveler... she thought to herself, then gasped as she remembered that encounter a decade prior.
The Beyonder must have set himself free somehow and is looking for me!As one of the robots came barreling in her direction, she almost slipped on her ring again to hide, but then she dropped it back into her pocket.
No, I won’t run from this. He doesn’t know what I look like, so maybe I can get close enough to banish him back to his prison…Turning back towards the Sentinels, she walked forward and allowed them to capture her. Soon she was placed into one of the cryopods, and everything faded to black…
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Elsewhere in the Multiverse, similar incursions were occurring anywhere there was a Traveler Scar.
Teddy Altman had been enjoying his eighteenth birthday party on Clearwater Beach when the Sentinels teleported down onto the sand and began capturing people.
“Let them go!” he screamed as he powered up and dove at one of the robots. Despite his strength, he couldn’t even dent their metallic exterior. He unleashed a flurry of punches, but the Sentinel was unaffected. It was then he realized his stamina was draining fast.
Crap! They must have local power dampeners built into their bodies! I gotta hit them from a distance!Turning and running the other direction, Teddy leapt into the sky and flew up sharply before turning around and preparing a massive energy blast between his palms. But before he could release it, the Sentinel he was aiming for fired up its own blast, causing Teddy’s to explode in his face.
The teen crashed back down onto the sand, and before he could catch his bearings, he was being shoved into a cryopod…
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On yet another Earth,
Loki Laufeyson was sipping a cocktail as he relaxed on the beaches of Ibiza, Spain. He lifted his sunglasses and looked down the shoreline as he heard a commotion, and noticed the Sentinels capturing people.
“Well, shit…” he groaned and sighed. He took a deep breath and then jumped to his feet, tossing his sunglasses on the ground. With a flick of his hand, the Bag of Holding sitting next to his beach chair flipped open and his scepter floated up into his grasp. He magically extended it to the length of a quarterstaff, summoned an ice spear in the other hand, and ran towards the robots.
“Bloody hell!” he cried out as he, same as everyone else who faced the Sentinels, got his ass thoroughly handed to him. He struggled as they restrained him and dragged him towards a cryopod.
“Piss off you damn metal wankers! Oi! Are you listening to me? I bet your mother was a toaster, and a broken one at that! Let go of me! Release me straight away! Are you really that daft? Arrgh! Choke on rat dung you damn bloody sods!” He managed to swipe his things and cloak them before he was placed in stasis as well…
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