by Prometheus X, Zod and Fahrenheit 451
The stranger's hands hung loosely from the lapels of his coat; it was a coat much in the way a physicist's intelligence was his thinking cap. Opal eyes, that were in the strictest definition not eyes at all, gazed with an ambivalent stare at the myriad collage of fractal images that swam through sixteen of his natural senses.
A prismatic fold of seven timelines weaved around the physical representation of what, in a normal spatial continuum, would be his body. Images, alternating between the second and sixth dimensions, painted a dichotomy of existence within a thousand-year time ratio.
Voices filtered in and out of his consciousness, speaking the answers to riddles that had not yet been asked. Two voices described the creation of a fifth universe, due to implode three million years ago. Melodies were sung in the language of shimmering starlight, a crescendo that inadvertently caused the birth of wind. A cold voice whispered a description of the stranger's future death, while another, shouting, denied it as a lie.
His feet stood on nothing; his head grazed a quantum singularity. Yet he was not alone here.
"You're going to let this happen, aren't you?"
Prometheus X: "It has happened. It will happen. It is happening right now. It is, and is not, the same as it always was and is."
"Oh, cut the crap, Pro! That might have worked while I was... well... while I was with the MBL, but now it's different. I see things from your point of view. I'm beginning to understand it all now. YOU are giving me this! I didn't ask for it! So, just cut the metaphysical babysitting, because there is no reason any more to be vague."
Prometheus X sighed. "Perhaps, my friend. But I need you to let go of it all. Your duty is done on the physical plane. There lies only one destiny for your essence now."
"You are still insistent on this, aren't you? What if I refuse?"
Prometheus X: "There is no choice here for you, as there was none for me. It will happen. It has happened."
"So you keep telling me..."
Prometheus X: "Can you not already feel your coat growing around you? Do not your eyes begin to speak to the spatial world around you? It is happening. This is the way it must be."
"But... why? Why me?"
Prometheus X: "Time... is a circle, my friend. As are all things. When you left your corporeal body, the fate of your soul was already apparent."
"That's why you were always so interested in me all those years? Because I am to take your place, right? I'm to be the new... stranger...?"
Prometheus X: "The time approaches shortly. My ending comes... and your beginning."
"But... it's all so hard to take in. I mean, you're trying to tell me that... you... that I... will be... YOU?"
Prometheus X: "Correct, my friend."
The stranger slowly turned to face the voice behind him, removing his low-brimmed fedora for the first time, revealing a familiar face. The figure behind him stared into an older, wiser reflection of himself.
Prometheus X: "Once... long ago... my name was also... Gooz."
Gooz, recently deceased, stared in awe at the kind mirror that stared back at him. "Oh... my... God..."
Prometheus X, smiling, said, "God, my friend, has nothing to do with it..."
In Earth's orbit, out of range of the planet's sensors, floated a large ship. In front of the ship was a figure covered in a shimmering blue force field.
Zed scanned the ship to find its communication frequency.
"Alien vessel. This is Corpsman Zed of the Matter-Beam Corps. You have illegally entered the Sol System. Please state your reasons."
The vessel fired on him. His shield held.
Zed scanned the ship again and found that the ship was full of the Boull, nasty shapeshifters, and one human. "Curiouser and curiouser."
He found an airlock and pried it open. As a swarm of shapeshifters massed on his location, he created a large plasma cannon in each hand and began blasting his way to Smasher's location.
Back at MBL Headquarters:
Dragnet Zero: "So who was attacked by these gerbils?"
Lava Dust: "Me, Hero, and Flintlock."
Hero: "Also, we found this hologram."
Lava Dust: "Yeah, what happened to that guy?"
Flintlock: "Well, during that gerbil attack, a gerbil ripped off that H on his head, and he and the ball disappeared."
Lava Dust: "Didn't you say that the ball belonged to the Insane Rabid Militia Gerbils?"
Flintlock: "Well, apparently, the IRMG were tricked, like they were pawns in something. Well, I still have the H from the hologram's forehead... Wait, there is something written on the back... 'Support your workers, remember to buy Boullish.'"
Disco Stave: "What the heck does that mean?"