You fall for an eternity through a nameless void.  This gives you plenty of time to review the mistakes that led you to this... place, or this lack of place.

You crash into the white hot desert sand once again, unharmed, and the six of you are facing each other once again.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:32, Fri 24 Sept 2021.

Rising from the sand, brushing it off of her, Sue's voice held incredulity and outrage:

"You've got to be kidding me!  Don't tell me it's cosmically needful for us to be slammed into the sand each time.   Somebody is f--king enjoying that!"   She gazed at the five of them.   Five...

"Wait - what happened to Rocket?"

They had succeeded.   Had that success come with a price-?

"I was in the middle of a conversation!  We can't get 10 minutes to wrap things up and say goodbye?  What an ass."  Then Gwen hears Sue's question.  She looks around.  No rabbit, no old guy with the implants and the shield.
 "He was at Pete and MJ's condo just before the attack.  Do you think Timebroker just left him there?  Nomad too?"

"Wherever they are, something tells me that's out of our hands now."

Having landed much less gracefully than a seasoned martial artist might have been expected to, Danny pulls himself to his feet. Running a hand through his blonde hair to shake loose the sand-- again-- he looks around at his allies.

"Everyone OK? The last thing I remember was that... unpleasant screaming in my head."

"I didn't get hit with that.  It looked awful.  But thank goodness briefly awful. You all dealt with it pretty quick, it seemed. Which is impressive, if that was a telepathic attack."   

"Nomad...I almost forgot; he wasn't around too long.  And, he never came here to Limbo Beach with us.  But, Rocket - he was one of us! I want an answer.  Tallus, requesting update on teammate Rocket Rabbit; location, status, that kind of thing."   

She really was kind of fond of Twig Daddy, as she'd called him, and hoped they weren't about to get any bad news...

"Thanks," Danny grunts. He wonders how quickly he folded under the telepathic attack, but he isn't going to open his mouth about it. "I'd thank my sensei for the psychic defense training, but he's kind of an asshole." A dead one, in fact, but he'd fill them in on all of that when the time came. For now, he stands by, waiting to hear if the Tallus has any updates on their missing ally.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:45, Fri 24 Sept 2021.

The Tallus makes a woeful buzzing sound. "Error: eXile designate 'Rocket Rabbit' is not a member of this team."

“Bugs is gone…? Bummer!” Sally shook her head sadly as she pushed up off the sand dune. She seemed glad to see everyone else, though. She brushed sand off herself, then hugged Sue, Danny, & Grant. She gave Wade & Gwen a friendly smile and wave.

Then, she got down to business, too.

“I’m glad the rest of you guys came through okay. Looks like we lost that old soldier, though. The real threat didn’t even come from their ‘civil war’, it came from a maniacal red haired witch,” Sally said with a hapless shrug. “What was the whole point of our involvement?”

"She came from another reality.  Just like we did."  There's a slight pause.  "I don't really know what that means.  Another Timebroker, trying to mess things up?"

"We lost Rocky? That's a shame." Funnybone had finally pulled himself free of the sand where he landed. "He looked tasty."

Funnybone then began to twitch and shake as his skeletal frame began to rapidly grow organs, muscles, and skin. Within a few seconds, it was Wade standing there.

"That's enough out of him," he said. He looked around at the depressing vista of endless sand dunes and sighed. "Would it kill the Timebroker to get us a suite at the Plaza?"

Sue returned Sally's hug, glad she had come through the mind-screech no worse for the wear.

"Yeah, no kidding, right?" she answered Wade, as to the suite.  Then frowned some.

"Well, that's odd about Rocket.  And I guess it means any of us can get fired - or disintegrated - at any time." She shrugged.   Then took in what Gwen related about 'Goblin Girl.'

"Wow. You think?  This is already complicated enough.  But I knew there was a third party --  I just wasn't expecting anyone like her."      Sue ran a hand through her hair, gave a sigh that was some mix of frustration and resignation. Then her face lit a little.

"Oh, hey;  I've been waiting to try this - and now's the perfect time!    Tallus, can you produce a joint?  A marijuana cigarette?"   

The Tallus, again, sadly declines: "Error: the Tallus cannot manifest physical objects while Outside of normative reality."

"So we have to blaze up while we're on the job? Weird policy that thing has, but I guess I'm game." Wade shrugged. Funnybone was immune to drugs, so it wasn't as though he could go into a major fight impaired. "Not that it really matters. When it comes to the holy trinity of Sex and Drugs and Rock-and-Roll, Drugs actually ranks down at number three with me."

The Tallus chimes hopefully. And begins emitting instrumental music... a song all too familiar to eXiles of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

And then it starts to sing along.

"On a dark desert highway,
Cool wind in my hair.
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance,
I saw a shimmering light.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim.
I had to stop for the night..."

"Ohh," bemoaned Sue, "That's right, we learned that already, didn't we?  We don't get the good stuff in abnormative reality, where we could really use it! Like you said Wade, only on the job. I miss the warehouse, damn it!  It was starting to feel a little like home.  I thought we'd get to hang out some." 

"I don't go for the heavier stuff," she said regarding drugs. "But Mother Nature, she's my friend. Tine and time again." In truth, she'd been legitimately addicted, at one point.  And wasn't so sure that it wasn't still the case.   She listened to the song that followed.  And looked concerned of a sudden.

"Hey, are those mission parameters?  We don't get those here -- right?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:46, Fri 24 Sept 2021.

Danny arches an eyebrow as the music plays. That song is so nostalgic... But why? And then, with a wry grin, he remembers.

"This was Shang-Chi's favorite on karaoke nights," he says, to no one in particular.

"No, that's a song called 'Hotel California'," Wade explained. "The Tallus is just giving us some rock-and-roll. If it offers sex, I quit."

"You gotta pick something that hasn't been done by six other people that night.  Too boring otherwise.

Maybe they sent Rocket home?  He really wanted to get back to Quill and Groot.  Even though he didn't even seem to like Quill."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:55, Fri 24 Sept 2021.

Karaoke, as such, was in its infancy where Sue came from.  Enough so she'd never heard of it.

"What do you mean by 'Carrie-okie'?"

"I sure hope so, Gwen," she replied as regards Rocket. "That'd be the nice alternative. I hope he's okay, somewhere."   

To Wade, concerning the Tallus' 'services'.    "Well, Tallus sounds like an adult toy, doesn't it? I thought so the whole time.  I mean, pretty clearly, the name's a mesh of Titan, and...you know.  Nothing comes between a girl and her Tallus!" she declared in fake ardor.

"Karaoke is when drunk people sing in public for the entertainment of other drunk people," Wade explained. His head was still trying to absorb the concept of the Tallus as a sex toy. "Usually it's a couple of hours of strangers butchering their favorite songs until it's your turn, and then you butcher yours. But, because you think you sing great when you're drunk, you feel like you've given the world a blessing, and everyone should fall at your feet and weep.

"When they don't, you sign up for another turn, and really crank it up. Eventually someone sings 'Stairway to Heaven' and then everyone passes out."

“Nothing but a sexy man…or chick, if that’s how you swing,” Sally said with an inclusive smile at Gwen. Wade’s explanation of karaoke grabbed Sally’s attention.

“So, it’s, like, a singalong party?” She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s called ‘Communal Life’, man.” Her eyes shone as she recalled a particularly festive singalong with the Brotherhood (she would petition for a name change if she ever made it back). “You just need a bonfire, a few instruments, some grass, and a starry night!”

Gwen barely reacts to Sally's comment - she's not really in a great mood with the sudden transfer to the 'un-place'

"Look, I get that we all want to unwind after... everything that just happened but it's clear that Timebroker isn't gonna make us anything but sand.  So did anyone hear about what specifically an 'incursion' was?  Because I think it's us."

"I think it was Goblin Girl and some demons," Wade replied, going off of the things he'd heard while waiting to do anything in the last universe they'd visited. "I don't think it meant us.

"Not that it matters. We're going to be an incursion — or whatever we are — every time we go on a mission, whether we like it or not."

Sue had strong feelings as regards that topic --  incursions.   Based on certain events in her life.

"Yeah, you're both right - we are going to be that, in every place we enter.   But, it's the lesser of evils, I suppose.  We were instrumental in ending a worse incursion.  Like fighting fire with fire, I guess." She shrugged, wishing she could resume the kind of super-heroing she used to do.

"Stairway to Heaven -- is that this song?" meaning the one the Tallus was singing. Zepplin had released only that monster first record, in her timeline, so far.

She knew all the words to 'Good Times, Bad Times' and 'Babe I'm gonna Leave You,' (and god, had she sung the shit out of that one, while contemplating leaving Reed) but Stairway was every bit as future-tense as 'Highway to Hell.'

Her eyes lit up at Sally's mention of the sing-along party "Oh, those are the grooviest!  I was planning to go to my first one in months, right after I moved, and right before -- before - "   her expression fell, and she sighed, ran a hand through her hair again.

"Shit.  Anyone know any good jokes?"   She quickly waved her hands in Wade's directions, a canceling gesture, "Not your alter-ego! Let's save his jokes for psychos in need of cheer; like Goblin Girl." 

“‘Stairway To Heaven’, huh?” While she listened, Sally perked up. The Tallus played a band notable for an impactful transition in Rock music, one that Sally only missed out on because of one bad time trip. She hummed along, then squeezed Sue’s hand after her request for a joke. “Let sleeping demons lie. I’ll get that singalong party together, Sister, first chance I get. I’m not missing out on a chance to hear Gwen jam in person!”

Sally stepped away from Sue. She looked upward and peered around the desert sky. “Hey, Timebroker! We need to talk about a better hangout between missions! I’m not digging this slice of Mojave, and the ‘No Drugs’ policy is the pits.”

"Right on!" Sue exclaimed, nodding enthusiastically, waiting to see how Sally's exhortation might be answered...

Gwen makes a mental adjustment about how old Sue and Sally are.  Classic Rock is too new for them... do they need to start with oldies stations?  It's weird when people in their twenties say something that makes them sound older than your dad.

"Is Timebroker even listening to us?  Or is he gonna leave us sitting in the desert for a week before he remembers we're here?"  Gwen asks.  she sits down on the sand.

"Beats me," Wade said with a shrug. He sat down on a sand dune and leaned back. "Maybe if we get comfortable, the Timebroker will chime in and tell us it's time to get to work again. Seems like the kind of guy to do that.

"Oh, and what the Tallus was playing is called 'Hotel California'. It's by a group called The Eagles."

"Oh, I know the name of it," Danny chuckled in reply to Wade. "I only heard it at every 'heroes' night out' event for the better part of a decade."

Kneeling down, he adopted a cross-legged position. If they were stuck here a while, it couldn't hurt to try and meditate. He'd expended quite a bit of Chi back there during the fight with the Goblin Queen.

"Sue asked," Wade replied to Danny, stretching out on the dune in a reclined pose which certainly looked comfortable. A new mission was probably going to pop up any minute now (because why leave them hanging with nothing to do?), but for the moment he would relax.

"So did anyone else run into weird alternate versions of people they know back there?

I can't tell if Timebroker is trying to show me something or torture me."

"Why does it have to be one or the other?" Wade asked. The Timebroker might have been trying to show her something and torture her.

"I've met a few of the faces we met on this ride, but none of them felt the least bit familiar," he continued, tucking his hands behind his head. "I just tried not to think too much about it. I mean, the Hulk is a guy where I come from, just like Tigro is a chick named Tigra where I come from. I don't need to be thinking about who's got what junk."

“It’s funny that you ask, Gwen. Captain America in that world called me ‘Lorna’. Everyone kept confusing me with that Lorna chick. When we weren’t conspiring against The (Iron) Man, I liked her up. She’s pretty, and the green hair was out of sight…and maybe we could have been sisters in another life, but it wasn’t as if we were twins.”

Sally looked at Gwen, Wade, Danny, & Grant one at a time. “You all talked about your other dimensional counterparts, even ran around in that world at the same time, and they knew Gwen, and Danny, and even Wade…but I guess I didn’t exist at all there. Like, Mesmero & Irene taught me to let go of Ego hang ups. That we all get a turn on the Wheel of Time, and probably even another turn again. Except me…? Was the world I came from it for me?”

She looked at Sue with plaintive eyes. “I think of everyone here, you’re the one who gets me the most. Am I just being dumb with some silly ego trip? Should I be freaked out that if I fail the Timebroker, it’s curtains for little Sally Dane…?”

"A number of people recognized me. Including Cap, who was little different from the guy I know back home.  There was a Sue in that world. And, I can't help note these other Sues tend to be a lot more famous than me.   I mean, I am known as Unseen -  I have a costume, with a mask. Something these others don't see as a necessity, apparently.  But it is for me; I like being able to lead a normal life." She made a scrunch face expression, shrugged;  "Kind of normal."   

"You know, the weirdest is that the Reed of that world seemed like a decent guy," she added with a more pensive look.  "Less cool, more square than the one I know, was my impression.  But that would be an okay trade, I've got to say.  We didn't see each other; spoke over a kind of phone. But he never questioned I wasn't who I said I was. And I knew it was him."   

Sue turned to Sally.  Who had been something of an anchor, amidst odd and alien settings. People whose slang and manner were unfamiliar, at times confusing.  Along the lines of the slightly-younger sister she used to wish for, as a child and adolescent.  Or the friend she might hang out all day with. Running off on some crazy, memorable adventure...

"I'm -- not sure if I'm clear what you're asking, but I think I get it. My understanding is, any of us might be kaput, if we don't fix things the right way.  But, you're worried you might cease to exist, on some more fundamental level - because you haven't met another you?"   Sue shook her head.

"I don't think we've been to enough places, for it to be conclusive. And personally, I'm not sure I find other versions of me to be consoling.  Especially when they take names like 'Dr. Doom,' - and do depraved things, with the same power I use to protect. And, even the good ones -- their life's not mine to live, if I lose the only one I know."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:18, Mon 27 Sept 2021.

"You know, there's another possible explanation if she looks like you..." Gwen says to Sally

Time seems really weird between the worlds.  Not just you and Sue being old-timey.
 Like, Gwen died in 1990 in that mission and I wasn't even born yet.  And Sue was married to Reed Richards where she comes from but he's 12 years old in my world.

Did you look into who Lorna's mother is?"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:15, Tue 28 Sept 2021.

Sue glanced to Gwen as she voiced her thoughts, then back at Sally with a 'well, it could be, there ya go' sort of expression.

And a thought struck her then.  A little over two years ago -- she had miscarried.   And had suspicion that Reed may have arranged it.

Was it possible -- the child she lost -- was alive, elsewhere?

The idea made her heart soar and sink, both at once...

"I knew a Lorna Dane," Wade said. He was still stretched out on the sand dune with his eyes closed. He yawned, then continued, "Sort of. She was the host to a psychic entity called Malice, like I'm the host of Funnybone. Except Malice never took any time off.

"Never really met Lorna, I guess. Never mind."

Nope, Wade’s anecdote didn’t help, but Sally was distracted by Gwen’s leading remark. She fixed her eyes on the blonde. “Will you please stop calling Sue and me ‘old’ or ‘old-timey’?” Her voice held a little exasperation. “Look, I get that we’re from what would be the past in your world, but we’re hardly cavewomen!”

Sally sighed, shook her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked at Gwen with a softer expression. “I’m sorry for snapping at you, Gwen. This entire debacle has me bummed out, but it’s not fair to take it out on you.”

After an awkward pause, she bit her lip as she pondered Gwen’s question. “My mother is Suzanna Dane. My dad is Arnold…but the Captain America we met said something weird. He said…almost insisted that Magneto is my father.” She looked puzzled, her denial of such a possibility holding firm. “I know we have the same powers, but…that can’t be right…”

"Am I the only one who doesn't know who Magneto is?". Gwen feels out of it - people keep mentioning names she's supposed to know, like when Pete was talking about Scott and Jean's baby.  "The born with powers thing is new to me - there are less of us in my world and it's all accidents or experiments or just tech."

"Really? You don't have mutants on your world?" Wade cracked one eye open and looked over at Gwen. A world without mutants sounded really fucking dull. Mutants rocked. "Mutants are people born with powers. In my universe, they're met with open hostility... while people who get their powers some other way get a free pass. It's bullshit, but that's how it is, for some reason.

"Anyway, Magneto is a mega-powerful leader of mutantkind. He's not the only one, but he's probably the most powerful, and he's definitely the most vocal. Magnetic powers, mostly like yours... except at a power level that would make you brown your britches."

"We could do karaoke at some point, might be fun--but on a world with a more nightlife than this, limbo."  Tigro smiles "Sorry, I do try and talk my way out of situations rather go straight to the break people part, breaking people is far far too easy. I feel I let you down back then, but reasoning or maybe getting some people a therapist would be more helpful than claws and teeth."

"Tigro... the Goblin Queen opened those portals and sent Peter said she stole someone's baby last time, and this time she took a symbiote from someone it was bonded with.

The symbiotes amplify what you put in... she almost destroyed that timeline.

It was way past the going to the breaking things part."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:08, Wed 29 Sept 2021.

“Wait,” Sally said with a thoughtful frown. “I’ve got a hunch that the Goblin Queen was important. That I should know her…”

"Thanks for that Wade.  I'm gonna need to figure these out.  It was already weird at the end since Tony Stark runs a coffee chain in my world.  She-Hulk is a pro wrestler that paints herself green, and did I see Luke Cage?  Is he an actual robot from the future?"

Then Gwen turns back to Sally.

"I didn't get her actual name, but she fought the X-men - I think I heard someone here mention them.  She stole a baby from 'Scott and Jean' and took it through one of those portals."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:09, Wed 29 Sept 2021.

"You'd be surprised at what kind of conspiracy theories people spread about the guy," Danny murmurs, eyes closed as he performs his breathing exercises.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:15, Wed 29 Sept 2021.

"No, he's an actor.  Well and he was Governor of California for a little while.  I'm talking about a movie series he's in, but obviously you don't have 'The Eliminator' in your world."

Danny lets out a low whistle. "Governor Cage? Sweet Christmas."

“He’s got my vote,” Sally said, forcing a smile. She couldn’t fully shake her lousy mood, though. Her thoughts turned back to the Goblin Queen, as she ruminated on her threat, and the Timebroker’s warning before their first mission. “I just can’t help but feel that they’re connected,” she muttered, as she paced the sand.

"In my world," Wade said, his eyes once again closed, "Luke Cage is an escaped convict who ran away to a lost city in Asia. Learned some funky martial arts, and came back calling himself Power Fist."

Wade yawned.

"I'm gonna take a nap until the Timebroker gets around to plunking us down in another disaster-in-the-making. I suggest you all do the same, since you never know when we're next going to get the chance. If anyone's interested, I happen to be extremely cuddly."

He pointed at Danny, and added, "Not you."

To Tigro, he further added, "Maybe you, if I get to be the big spoon."

Gwen pointed out that Goblin Queen kidnapped Scott & Jean’s baby. The Timebroker warned Sally that Alex fell into the clutches of “his brother’s ex”, but pointedly avoided any mention of Jean. It dawned on Sally that the woman they’d just fought uncannily resembled Jean Grey. Much more so than Sally resembled  her alleged “twin”, Lorna!

Sally gasped. “Oh my God.

The Goblin Queen. She’s the woman the Timebroker warned me about!”

Something Gwen had said clicked amidst a lot of other people, places, and things that meant nothing to her.

"Scott and Jean...like Scott Summers and Jean Grey?"   And then:

"Oh Jesus," whispered Sue, as she too realized the Goblin Queen had looked familiar.  And wondering how she had not earlier thought of it. Except that her attention had been diverted toward the minions...

A memory assailed Susan -- one she loathed:

A once compassionate activist gone full out anarchist.   Ally become assassin.  Withering, white-hot plasma, cascading over and around her force field, as she recognized that it would fall to her to put an end to that rampage...

She bit her lip.   Attention then diverting to Sally; recollecting that chat she'd had with the Broker about her own world, and several of the people she was close to.

"What did he tell you she was going to do-?" she asked, unable to remember exactly had been said, but pretty sure they all needed to be reminded.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 22:38, Wed 29 Sept 2021.

The Timebroker has always existed here.

"Oh, our eXiles, congratulations, congratulations! Your first mission was a huge success! We cannot overstate our satisfaction. In the corrected timeline, the Spider-Man does not kill..." he starts counting on his fingers."... Bullseye, Wilson Fisk, Tony Stark, Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn, Reed Richards, Thor Odinson, or himself. This prevents the Web of Life from being corrupted by murder, and it passes through the line of his successors uncorrupted until the recycling of the timeline in 2107."

"Ooooh, we just wish we could pinch your cute widdle cheeks!"

Before Sally could answer Sue, the Timebroker interrupted them. “What about the Goblin Queen?” Sally faced their hosts with hands on her hips and a withering stare. “Did you know that she would invade that world with her own ‘incursion’? Is that woman the one who corrupts Alex back in my world?!”

The Timebroker tuts. "All of this talk about 'did you know' this and 'did you know' that is so very linear of you. You're going to have to outgrow it eventually. What we know from our perspective outside the progression of normative time is practically unlimited, but what we're capable of expressing within the confines of a linear narrative is sadly quite limited-- and what we're willing to tell you when we estimate a high probability of compromising your mission, and thus your second chance is even more limited than that."

He looks around at everyone, and then straightens his tie. And then pauses. And then continues, "She's not exactly the woman who led your sweet Mister Summers down the wrong path in your timeline-- merely a cognate of her, like the 'Lorna Dane' of that timeline was to you. She was alw--"

A shooting star has always existed far above the desert. In an instant, it collides with the desert in a blinding flash of light and heat and a defeaning roar.

When the stars clear from everyone's eyes, and the ringing in their ears subsides, the Timebroker is staring at Sally expectantly.

"Well, does that help?"

Gwen ignores the crash for now.  She directs her attention to the Timebroker.  Figuring out whatever that was and who Scott and Jean are can wait until later.

"So, if MJ is so important in that other timeline, why is it ok to just leave her in an exploding building in mine?

Can't you pop me over to my timeline just before the explosion for a few minutes so I can get her to safety?  It's not like I could stop you from bringing me back.  ...and that's fine?  Fixing these worlds is the right thing to do.  You don't need to blackmail me."

"Well, so much for that nap," Wade said, getting up and brushing the sand off his ass. "Where the hell is Chicken Little when you need him?"

He approached the crater with the same level of caution he applied to all other situations... which was to say very little at all.

"I admire your focus," he said to Gwen as he passed.

Sally leaned toward the Timebroker, interested in hearing his explanation. At least until a random shooting star decimated a sizable chunk of desert near them. “No,” Sally said impatiently. “Couldn’t hear you over the meteorite crashing nearby. What convenient timing!

You don’t want to give us any real answers, though, do you? You’re just a puppetmaster making us dance on his strings. No better than a Cosmic Tricky Dick Nixon.”

"Somehow I'll live with that," Danny had muttered in reply to Wade. Then, finding he disliked the thought of any one of them going off alone, he jogged to follow the mercenary.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:05, Thu 30 Sept 2021.

This was making Sue's head hurt...

During her life, she had studied the sciences as well as a number of Eastern philosophies.  And believed those disciplines intersected in the things that mattered most, if you cared to look for their junctures.

She had at no point ever thought 'I've got it!' as regards the nature of reality, and the cosmos. But she'd had a fuzzy, abstract concept -- one which brought her peace. Made her feel a part of a blessed whole.  Even when the world seemed to be going to hell on a Honda.

Some of what the Broker said resonated with her -- and some of it -- it was like  -- what?   She recollected another broker -- one who worked in real estate - who tried his damnedest to get she and Reed into a particular mortgage.   And the recruiter her brother had parroted, while he'd been convinced (for a very short time) that he wanted to go fight in the war.

And Reed...who'd come close to persuading her into a different perspective, more than once.

It sure felt like someone was deceiving them.

The last thing they’d known was the explosion.   The factory had detonated as expected … well, They had expected the detonation; but not an explosion as it had come.   Big and more fierce than They had been prepared.

The next thing They knew, they were hurling through … space? … towards a land that hadn’t equated to the city They’d been in.


When the stars clear from everyone's eyes, and the ringing in their ears subsided, what was left in the resulting crater was a skeleton.
Whomever, or whatever it had been, looked disintegrated.

But then, the skeleton twitched.   It flinched.   Then it began the process for rising from the earth:  getting up from where it had landed face down deep in the earth.

"It's not your fault that you don't understand, but to be honest it is getting really annoying. Mary Jane Watson is critical to the vast majority of timelines she exists in. Saving the Mary Jane in that timeline was critical to your mission in that timeline. The Mary Jane Watson you care for-- she is critical to your timeline as well, but she is not critical to your mission from your current chronological perspective. We are going to save her. We are already in the process of saving her. We have already saved her."

"We are observing Mary Jane Watson from a countless number of futures. There is no future when her rescue is not successful."



"No. We've determined that this is mathematically sub-optimal to your mission performance-- including your mission performance in every potentiality in which you participate in the mission to rescue Mary Jane, which is currently 96.7% of all potentialities proceeding from this point. We would offer to demonstrate, but compromising your irrational belief in 'free will' would also be suboptimal for mission performance. Please continue subscribing to your theory that we are 'deceiving' and 'coercing' you into doing what you consider 'the right thing'."



The Timebroker turns to address Sally, using both hands to make exagerrated finger quote gestures on either side of his head. "Yes. 'We are not a crook.'" The impression is uncanny.

He smooths his vest and straightens his tie. "The Madelyne Pryor you just encountered is very similiar to the one your Alex Summers encountered. She's a genetic duplicate of Jean Grey designed and created specifically to manipulate Scott Summers and give birth to an even more persistently irritating chronological deviant. You'll be dealing with both of them quite a bit."

"As for the incursion... yes. The portal to Hell wasn't actually significant, but we knew that she was going to lure the Thunderbolts into a trap, steal the much more dangerous Carnage symbiote-- who is also a royal pain in our ass-- and set off a chain of events that turns the Spider-Man into a murderous supernatural predator."

"That's why we sent you."

"Oh, hell no," Wade said as the skeleton began to rise from the ground.

He burst into flame, and Wade's flesh boiled away to leave Funnybone behind. The flaming skeleton took an aggressive stance, hellfire dripping from the chain now in his hands.

"Who are you?" he demanded, "and how dare you steal my schtick?"

"Let's bury this thing," Danny nodded to Wade. He reached again for his pistol. "I forgot to mention, I have a strict 'no zombie' rule when it comes to these team-ups."

Realizing Funnybone might actually fit the description, he quickly added, "Present company excluded."

Sue had come over to look by this point, and put a hand to her open mouth once she caught sight.  At first, she thought it the remains of some poor soul who'd been incinerated in the blast.   But, the bones weren't charred.  And then it moved...

Somehow, it was more macabre than Funnybone.  Who at least had being wreathed in hellfire as a means to explain being animate.

Just when she thought she was sort of acclimating - something else to test the limits of her stretched sanity.

She laughed anxiously at Wade's and Danny's banter.  Thinking they must be crazy to be cracking jokes, and she more so to laugh at it.   Naturalist, biologist, time-lost flower child --  she was out of her depth.

"Maybe - maybe worse than a zombie!  Haven't you seen horror movies about the undead?  They start as skeletons, and then -- " 

She turned and called:  "Timebroker!  Who the hell is this-?"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:34, Sun 03 Oct 2021.

Sally opened her mouth to rebuke the Timebroker’s cavalier attitude toward their plight. However, her friends went off to investigate the crash. “We’re not done, Mister!” She pointed at the Timebroker to emphasize her vow. Then, Sally walked off to join the rest of the “Exiles”.

Sidling up alongside Sue, Sally gasped at what she saw. A skeleton rising from the crater. Unlike Wade, this one didn’t crack jokes or burn with hellfire. This skeleton just looked burnt up from a catastrophic entry into their atmosphere. She gripped Sue’s hand as she stared at the skeleton, somehow horrified and fascinated at the same time.

“Can you…understand us? Are…are you okay…?” Sally felt foolish even asking, but the strange newcomer managed to get to his—or her—feet despite such a traumatic arrival. She’d heard of a mysterious mutant up North who could regenerate from injuries that would annihilate other people. What if this was someone similar?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Sun 03 Oct 2021.

Sue glanced to Sally, recognizing that compassion was the heartfelt and right response here.   She tried to regain her composure, and muster her own.   She nodded, saying:

"Once we get back to normative reality, we can make bandages.   Lots...and lots.. of bandages?"   

Sally nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re right, of course. But the creep who brought us all here can’t even be bothered to give us shelter, or even chairs to sit on. When will he send us somewhere we can make bandage? What if he sends us on a mission with even less time to prepare…?”
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Sun 03 Oct 2021.

Sue turned and gave a narrow eyed look at the creep in question.

Yes...surely, they'd be hurled into a mission at any moment...it was par for the course, at this point...

The skeletal form, hearing voices called down to them from above, slowly turned hollowed out eye-sockets towards those gathered above.
The dust was still settling.

It nodded.  It was a slow nod.

Then, as those gather above watched, insects ... thousands of insects ... from all about the skeleton in the crater, and even beyond it, began buzzing all over the skeleton, as though like flies to a corpse.

The humming in the air in all directions increased, to audible (and annoying?) levels.

3.3% of timelines must involve trying to punch the Timebroker in that smug  face when he says shit like this.  Or dying before before this is all done.

Gwen nods towards Funnybone as he passes.  She suspects that it's Rocket and the old man crashing into the desert behind them.  She knows from last time that nothing can hurt them in this stupid desert so as long as someone else is dealing with it, it's fine.

Only one person from Gwen's timeline has been to other ones and Captain America doesn't like to talk about the years she was lost.  "I knew almost nothing about other dimensions until yesterday and I am not sorry if my caring about the people important to me annoys you or isn't fucking optimal.  I made a difference in that last world because of my connection with that mirror where Gwen died instead of Peter."  She takes a breath.  That jump had touched on a lot of really personal stuff for her.  Was being thrown off a bridge by a supervillain a worse fate than turning into a mindless lizard?  Nevermind that fear of a partner being attacked was part of why she didn't date much.

"I can fight better if I'm not worried about what's happening at home and if you can't see that you don't know as much as you think you do."

She looks over towards the crash site for a second, then back at Timebroker.  "Wait... who's that?  Where are our other two teammates?"

"You seeing this?" Danny grimaced. Whatever clear shot he had at the zombie was just obscured by a crowd of insects that had appeared from nowhere. "Zombies and bugs... Great, just what we needed to really round out our little vacation here."

“Wait,” Sally said softly, holding out her hand toward Danny and Wade. “It…He…hasn’t done anything except stand up and gather a hive. Bugs are yucky, but they’re not inherently evil.” Sally stared, the Science student and budding Mystic in her wondering at what they were all witnessing. She addressed the strange being. “Can you talk…?”

As she awaited a reply, she hollered back at Spider-Women. “GWENNY! You might wanna see this!”

"This is me waiting," Funnybone said, still dripping hellfire. "Attacking would involve screaming and dying and other fun stuff like that."

Among her studies in biology, entomology had never been a favorite.   She wasn't afraid of bugs, per se.   If she had been, that foray into the N-zone alongside the Aegis and the Defenders, to face the hordes of Lady Dread, bride of Annihilus, would have forced her to purge it.

Still, it was hard for her to feel any enthusiasm for this.  Impossible not to think of her experience in the N-zone, and several B-grade horror flicks to boot.

Once Sally called back to Gwen, she did as well and added:

"Too bad your friends don't share the diet of most arachnids!   If they did and could build webs, this would be good eatin' right here!" 

Growing impatient, Funnybone reached out and snatched a bee from the air in front of him. He looked at it buzzing in his fleshless palm and demanded, "Who are you? Where are you from? Where is the rebel base?!"

The skeletal figure in the crate stood looking around, while insect from ... miles around? ... flooded into the hole around him.

Between the dust still in the air, and the swarms of (almost every type of) insect, it was hard to see the figure within.
But those who could would notice it seeming to 'fill out'.

And soon enough, climbing out of the crater was a living, cohesive swarm of insects.
It stopped at the lip of the crater, and turned to those gathered.

"Who am I?  Who are you?  And where are we?" its voice seemed to be the orchestrated buzz and hum of a thousand tiny creatures, rather than a voice in the traditional sense.
There was no discernible mouth.
It's 'body' (for whatever that constituted) was a million minute creatures, swarming and crawling over one another in a constantly seething mass:  though it held a vaguely humanoid shape.

As it looked apon them, it thought maybe some of them looked somewhat familiar, but ... not.

The Desert is not miles in diameter. Swarm is more keenly aware of this than the others, but the Desert itself is not much larger than the range of visibility, and its topography is irrational-- moving away from the center (where you are) eventually leads to moving back towards the center from the same direction you left.

Swarm consists of every single insect in the Desert.

"I'll just allow the rest of you to sort yourselves out. Good luck next Mission, gang, the Multiverse is counting on you!"

And then the Timebroker had never existed at all.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:39, Tue 05 Oct 2021.

Nonplussed by this new arrival, Sue wasn't sure where or how to begin.

They had all died coming in -- but what of this entity?  Plainly it was alive -- collectively speaking.   But, in a very different way than any single organism.   She turned toward Funnybone.  Saying softly, "C'mon - be nice! Let him go. None are free, unless all are free, and all that!" meaning the captive bee.

"It's...complicated," she said to the new arrival. "But let's ask the expert, and learn who you are first, since you don't seem to know.   Tallus, who is this being?  And what are they, exactly?"

The Tallus chirrups: "The indicated being is designated as eXiles Operative: Fritz von Meyer, codenamed Swarm. They have successfully completed zero missions and have been extracted from zero unsuccessful missions. They are a composite being consisting of numerous Earth-local subsentient species. Does the Bearer require a specific listing?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:35, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

"I know who I am", he considered, then realised, "It was a response to her demand of my identity".

Then, after a moment's thought, "This world is ... small.
I can normally sense for ... miles.   Every insect within that range.
Here:  I can sense very insect of this world ... and this world is small.

I ask again, where are we?"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:41, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

She had not expected a human name. Human skeletal structure notwithstanding. It was no little chilling to hear one...

"It's small because it's not a world," she answered.  "More of a funny little break room, where we hang out inbetween missions. And make no mistake, you are here to be a part of those missions."     

God, what process or situation turned a human being into this?  she could only wonder.  And could think of no kind or polite way to ask.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:54, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

It listened to her, then nods.   "Yes,  I can see that now".

Then, as an answer to her unasked question, "I am a product of my own nature" as it began to walk casually around, looking at this 'break room'.   It needed flowers.

It turned on Unseen, "Who are you?   Who are you to demand such of me?"
He seemed genuinely intrigued, rather than antagonistic.

The blonde girl in the vaguely Spider-themed costume stops talking to the person that's not there.  Maybe it seems familiar, maybe it doesn't.

She walks over to the others.  "We can't eat anything in this stupid desert anyway, remember?"

She addresses Swarm  "The cosmic entity that just left is the one that can really answer your questions.  He took us all from our worlds, and wants us to fix timelines in order to get home."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:52, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

The insectoid human looked around, then up, as though looking for the 'the cosmic entity' of which this Gwen spoke.
He knew of the Spider-folk, in their various persona.  And he knew of their ... enemy-allies.

A million tiny eyes looked her up and down for a long time, before the mass seemed to nod.

"We have been ... forced into servitude", it buzzed.    "Summoned and bound", it considered, "... caged here till required", as it looked around at its not-so-gilded cage.

Then, to the Spidery-woman, "We can ... eat ... each other".

"Yeah, we're all stuck doing whatever Timebroker wants.  We had two more with us, they weren't there at the end of the mission and we don't know what happened to them."

She makes a face.  "Let's um... let's not do that.  We'll get you something to eat when we get to someplace that exists."

The world vanishes in a flash of light.