Chapter 1: Pulled into the multiverse

It all started on a rainy day. Yes a rainy day in the middle of June. I was walking along the street listening to music and enjoying the feel of the rain on my skin. I yawned and stretched as I walked then I found myself meeting someone I'd never seen before. Not much of a surprise since I lived in the city and couldn't possibly meet everyone but this person was remarkable. He had navy blue hair, that was messy, crimson eyes, and almost pink skin. I stopped as he walked up to me and asked “Excuse me think you could spare a few bucks to get a guy a cup of coffee?" I shrugged and he said “Is that a good shrug or a bad shrug?"

I chuckled and said “There's a cafe a few blocks from here if you're willing to walk with me we can grab a bite and I'll pay since you kinda look like you fell on hard times." He did indeed look like he fell on hard times. His shirt was black as a moonless night with specks of silver like stars but torn up, his pants were an earthy brown color and looked more like shorts with how torn up they were but you could tell they were once pants, and his boots were coming apart at the soles. I walked him to the cafe then let him order and ordered a slice of cake and a cup of hot chocolate. He got a coffee, two creams one sugar, Arabian beans, and a slice of cheese cake. I paid as they brought over our order then the man started eating while I sipped my hot chocolate and waited to hear what he had to say about how he got into such a state, before realizing I'd never introduced myself. I said “I'm Jake Wolf, and I guess I should have introduced myself before taking you to the cafe." At the time I was a five foot nine, short cut blonde haired, gray eyed, twenty something year old wearing a t shirt with a band logo on it, jeans, and black sneakers.

He chuckled and said “Bruce Santiago, nice to meet you. I must look like a real mess if you were willing to help me out though I'm surprised you didn't just turn me away. Anyway nice to meet you Jake. Quick question, have you ever thought about traveling to new and exotic locations no ones ever seen before?" I nodded and he said “Cool, very cool. I do that for a living. Honestly it's getting tiring but I'm still trying to find my way home after all this time. It sucks not having controlled travel." I blinked wondering if the guy was a psycho and sighed realizing I shouldn't have helped him because now he was going to rope me into whatever he had planned. He seemed to see the look on my face and said “I'm not crazy Jake. I just have been away from home a long time. I'm a traveler you see, and honestly I am about ready to say fuck it and settle down somewhere new. I'm not an alien or anything, more a member of the multiverse. You do know multiverse theory, correct?"

I nodded sighing and said “That everything creates a universe whether it be the flip of a coin, the decision to walk one way and not another, whether someone lives or dies, whether a certain race is in charge, etc, yes I know about the multiverse, it's just a theory though." He raised an eyebrow and I said “What it is we don't have the technology, magic, or whatever to travel between parallel universes, let alone completely different ones that are across the chaotic divide. Hell we're barely traveling to celestial bodies in our own galaxy. It's been theorized that it's possible to travel to other universes through wormholes or possibly using quantum physics but that's all it is it's theory. Why do you ask Bruce, your not going to tell me some crazy story like you're from another galaxy or something right?"

He laughed and said “Not another galaxy per se, but I'm not from here that's for sure." I sighed thinking “Damn it this guy's crazy. I should have known by how he's dressed but I just had to be a good Samaritan fuck my life. Ah well maybe I can get out of this without him trying to get me into whatever bullshit he's a part of or whatever drug he's taking. If not then at least I can fucking go out fighting." He seemed to read my mind through my expression saying “ I'm not full of shit." He studied my face and said “I'm serious I'm not full of shit. I literally come from another dimension. The dimension I'm from is one where my race are common, I'm not even human. Do humans have naturally pink skin and blue hair? Do humans have the ability to turn into animals?" I shook my head and he said “Good then I can show you if you take me somewhere we can be alone."

I sighed knowing this was a bad idea but decided to humor him. I paid for our stuff then we finished eating and I led him to a part of the park only I ever came to. I motioned for him to change and he said “This is going to blow your mind Jake." I hummed in acknowledgment and he stretched then slowly started to turn into a pink alley cat. I chuckled and said “Alright I believe you kitty cat. I don't know anyone who can change into an animal let alone one with pink fur, blue tail tip, and silver eyes. This is something from a fantasy or scifi story. So how did you get to my dimension?" He turned back h is clothes reforming mid transformation.

He sighed and said “I've been jumping universe to universe, dimension to dimension, and world to world, to get to my home universe. Sadly it's getting tiring. I don't know why I trust you but you give off a unique universal signature."

I blinked and said “Unique how?" He smiled and said “Unique as in there is only one of you. I don't think there are parallel versions of you. If there are they have completely different universal locks on them. Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if you were an anomaly, or someone who is destined to travel from universe to universe. I have to use magic but anomalies tend to grow and change as time goes on in each universe they interact with and do great or terrible things there. The last anomaly I met had changed his universe for the better before he had his second in command put a bullet in his head to protect the populace from a monster that was taking over his body. The bullet was specially crafted to kill this thing so it did the job but it took him down with it. He died smiling though. Other dimensional travelers have similar stories. Anomalies are born in a main universe and their counterparts are weak imitations until they're reborn in that universe or they themselves go there and destroy the universal lock."

I whistled softly and said “You think I'm an anomaly because of my universal signature?" He nodded and I said “What is it then?"

He sighed and said “Four digits. Six, five, nine, three, everyone else has at least ten digits. Even dimensional travelers. This universe is even odder because it has twenty digits to a person. You have four only. Just by having four that means you are an anomaly other anomalies always had less than ten. The max an anomaly has ever had before leaving their primary universe was seven. His digits were seven, five, three, eight, two, nine, one. He was the first dimensional traveler. He opened the gates the rest of us travel by. I actually met him in his last moments. He and a team of three others were sealing the gods of the multiverse. Yes gods are real, he was sealing all of them. It hit each universe at different times. Yours it hit just around the time the messiah of the christian faith was born. He was a real son of his deity but he was just a demigod not a reincarnation. When his father died he was cut off like any one else. Doesn't mean anything about the afterlives, they all exist they're just patrolled by lesser creatures like demons, angels, Valkyries, spirits, and the reapers of the multiverse. Wouldn't want any of their jobs."

I nodded and said “So every god was real for a time but they're all sealed away. Are new gods being born?" He nodded and I asked “Locked away as they're born or allowed to interact with the world?" He held up one finger and I said “The first one right. Who relegates the souls if there is no primordial gods or anything?"

He laughed and said “The souls relegate themselves to their own afterlives. Evil is weeded out by reapers and everyone else is taken in by the benevolent spirits. Actually to be precise the gods are ironically all female. I know most think they're male in your universe but in the multiverse the gods are female. Like women they have tempers, like mortals they can be corrupted, like all things they are prone to make mistakes. However they chose female forms because they wanted to be protective of their creations. They took on the forms of males in lore and what not because they are shape shifters. They can take any form but their base is female. I found this out from Argen himself. Argen was the one who opened the multiverse to travel, the first anomaly. The son of a god, the brother of a beast, the champion of life, and the protector of the dead. Argen was all these and more. Everyone of us knows he destroyed himself to seal the gods but it's said he made a prophecy about an anomaly releasing the gods and ushering in a new age. It's why so many travelers try to stop anomalies from joining the multiverse at large."

I nodded and he said “I don't suppose you want to travel the multiverse?"

I laughed and said “Hell no, I'm happy being ordinary and living with the lives of my past stuck in my head. I did my fair share of breaking things and fixing things. I don't want to be a multiverse fix it man. Plus I bet your not saying something about the multiverse and why it's dangerous to travel it. You can't trick me. I want nothing to do with traveling from world to world." I may have said all that but in reality I was curious what was out there. I was curious about Argent, why he would seal away the gods, and so much more. However I couldn't tell anyone that. I believed Bruce about a lot but I thought there were two sides to every story and that Argent had only told his side. I know gods can be as petty as humans because they were like us just longer lived. I couldn't see locking up humanity for interfering in a computers programming and changing things but maybe there was some kind of war that wasn't talked about. Anyway back to that day. I sighed and said “I don't want to be the next Argent."

Bruce nodded and said “Well then I guess I won't be seeing you. I finally got a lock on the next dimension in my travels and I'm going to go there. Good luck Jake Wolf, anomaly Six five nine three. You're going to need it if Argent's right and his universe is the one that the anomaly will come from." He vanished in a black light and I sighed.

I muttered “Well that was interesting to say the least. I wonder what could possibly go wrong now. Ah well who cares." I walked back to my apartment and kicked off my shoes once through the door then threw off my shirt and plopped on my couch. I pulled out my phone and checked it seeing I only had one message I'd missed from a friend who was just checking in. I admit I had to be checked up on by my friends because I wasn't the most sane. No joke. I had moments where my madness would corrupt me completely and leave me a gibbering mess. I thought maybe someone or something in the multiverse could fix it but why would I want to leave my home world? I couldn't risk causing problems on or for earth. However I wondered what if armies had multiverse traveling tools. It wouldn't be a big stretch that Bruce wasn't the only one able to travel from dimension to dimension.

I wondered if maybe I should find a way to prove the multiverse was real. I mean I knew it was real but Bruce just proved you could travel it to me. Then again I believed that anything was possible with enough energy even time travel. I sighed and muttered “Damn it Bruce you had to get my head on this topic now I can't get it off. FUCK!" I sat up and turned on the TV to a music station to think. I knew that not all dimensional travelers were as kind as Bruce it was just impossible. There had to be groups of them that wanted nothing more than to see the strings that were the lines between dimensions break apart and possibly just for the chaos cause them all to compress into one universe. They probably wanted the gods free for their own reasons.

Of course I could be wrong and maybe they were all like Bruce just trying to get home. I doubted it, I highly doubted it. I knew mortals and immortals we were all greedy, proud, arrogant motherfuckers deep down. If you weren't it meant you weren't sentient or you just hadn't found what would be what you wanted yet. I'm cynical like that. I lit a cigarette as I sat on my couch listening to music, I'd thought I'd quit the habit but this had brought it back full force. I put the cigarette out on my palm letting it join the myriad of scars on my hands then through the pack in the trash. Like I said I knew it was a bad habit but it just had to be used and that was the last I would smoke for a long time. I reached into my fridge and pulled out a bottle of coke then started drinking it. I guzzled it down thoughts flowing through my head with every gulp.

I don't know why but I had a feeling I'd be leaving my home dimension soon enough. The multiverse was huge and honestly, I couldn't see how I could be missed if I really was an anomaly. I figured both sides of the coin had trackers for us. The good guys, the bad guys, the guys who didn't care, and the ones that wanted to set the gods free for whatever reason. I didn't care I was going to prepare a bag and keep it by me at all times. Better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not be prepared. I packed a bag and put it at my feet then collapsed back on the couch and passed out. Nothing else happened that day thankfully. Nothing meaning I just slept the rest of the day.

The following day I did my usual routine and even talked to a few old friends on the street. They asked about the bag and I just said it was in case I went camping or something. They nodded and said that sounded like me. Guess that proved my thoughts that I was a little too paranoid, ah well. I stretched and popped my back as we talked then mentioned the fact that I was wondering if they'd heard about anything involving the multiverse. They mostly shook their heads though one of my friends said she saw a documentary on it. I asked what it was about and she said it was all theoretical science. I nodded and agreed that the multiverse was still theoretical though I'd seen first hand it wasn't I didn't want them thinking I was off my meds again.

After that I just enjoyed my time in the city when not working. I worked as a shrink at a nearby clinic so most people around there knew about me. Hell most of the city knew about me. I had helped out with a lot of stuff from kids little league to arguing with the mayor about plans for the city. Most knew I was a goody two shoes but some said I had ulterior motives. I wish, I just had a hero complex that wouldn't go away no matter what I did. I had to help people no matter the detriment to myself, at least in those days I did. As time went on it got better but it was only because the risks were to high for me to save every little kid that was pretending to play dead.

After a week of no multiversal problems I saw no reason to keep the bag on me anymore. My paranoia was satisfied and my irritation with the bag was helping with that. I was tired of carrying ten pounds to work, the market, home, the park, etc. Yes my bag weighed ten pounds because of all that was packed in it. I did however keep my knives on me, my lighters, and my medication. I didn't want to be without just in case my paranoia was right. It wasn't a big deal to most people to see me with full pockets so they didn't say anything to me. Eventually I calmed down and just figured that I'd hallucinated it all. However something told me I hadn't so I didn't completely forget about my talk with Bruce. Especially when the cafe asked me if the homeless man I'd helped out was ok. I told them he moved out of the city and they said it was good work I had done that day.

I sighed on the day I was abducted. I was walking down the street humming and stretching my arms over my head. I hadn't smoked since that first night after talking to Bruce and I hadn't turned to alcohol other than the occasional beer. I suddenly felt something open up under my feet and felt myself falling. Around me were all sorts of colors, from the brightest yellows to the darkest blacks. Eventually I ended up falling out of the sky into a ship. This ship was the NSS, or Navori State Ship Elucidator. I sighed when I found the top opening up and called out to the sky “I SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED MY DAMN PARANOIA!" That was how I was pulled into and introduced to the multiverse.