Chapter Text
You’re back up here. On the other side of the pit of the gravity well. Looking at…
No. No, not this. You must have caused some...some sort of unstable universal singularity. You fell in! You fell into the pit, you know you did! You failed, because of that-
...That.
What was it, a rocket? No, you didn’t...you decided against bringing the rocket today. The cannon? No, same problem. Too destructive.
A bridge? No, because you couldn’t think of where to put it. Same with the, the catapult, and the vaulting pole.
The go-kart? No, because you already had your scooter! And you wouldn’t just jump like an idiot, that may have worked on the Airship, but not here!
You…
How many times have you been here?
There’s something in your hands. How long have you been holding something?
You look down. It’s…
The teleporter.
You remember using this, now. Six different times, in fact, and only one of those times did you any good at all! Even then, you didn’t even need to use it! This thing…
It’s completely useless! 0/5 stars!
You don’t even think before smashing the emergent piece of junk on the floor of the catwalk. All you can see is the sheen of the green buttons splintering upon contact, the bright red GO button cracked and half-pressed. There. You never had to deal with it again, and neither would the rest of you.
As if it was responding to your wishes, the teleporter crackled with green energy and warped out of sight. And then, so do you.
You feel your body fragment and rip itself away from its previous location, the canned air of the satellite being replaced with rushing wind as you fall from the sky. The ground is far below you, and then it isn’t as you land on soft snow and not as soft stone. It’s all replaced by hot sand in an instant, both familiar and not.
You try to pull yourself to your feet before the sand below you is replaced by cold concrete. There are people- oh god, the military. You’re still wanted! The troops are shocked and they pull their weapons as you leap to your feet, hands raised, and your shoes land in lava instead. It’s so hot, too hot, you leap from the magma,
And smack your head on a tree branch, landing in the cold and briny depths of the ocean. You didn’t get a good breath in, so you’ll probably drown if you don’t get to the surface. Or suffocate if you stay in space for much longer.
Thankfully you’re rescued from space and dropped in front of the city hall of West Mesa, lying prone on the road and hearing a truck coming for you. It’s replaced with the arid wastes where the Toppat airship had landed, and then-
Where was this? A painting?
Is this where the rocket launched?
You were going to have fever and chills by the time this was done-!
Space was cold,
You were alone,
This was a bad time,
It’s too much!
Too fast!
It was just a pit,
You didn’t-!
You shouldn’t have tried to rob the bank in the first place!
The industrial hum of an air filtration system fills your body, and doesn’t go away. You were...stable. Alive, even. And…
In the vault, with the Emerald.
...You’d have the time to process the trauma from seeing dozens of universes converging at once when you weren’t in a heist. For now, you’re powered by adrenaline and the desire to complete your collection.
Now, how to get this Emerald...