[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/UQuTKNr.png[/img][/center][center][h2][b]The Mandela Effect: Part 9[/b][/h2][/center] [center][b]Odysseus Laërtiades[/b][/center] [center][b]Pacific Point, CA[/b][/center] Odysseus felt entirely out of place waiting in the lobby of the Pacific Point S.P.A.R.K. facility. Whenever the Immortals needed to deal with this organization, one of Odysseus’ other teammates would have come. But considering the circumstances, Odysseus was the only one available to make the drop-in visit. The Son of Osiris was out of the country in Egypt to resort his mystic powers or whatever magical mumbo jumbo he does. Neither Gajana nor Talus were fit for the task, either. Something strange had happened to them and Odysseus had a feeling that this device that Christopher Arthur had sent might help explain what had happened to them. Firefox, on the other hand, had not responded to Odysseus’ calls. Odysseus almost had tried to reach Arachne, but she specifically requested some personal time. She was going to owe him big time for this. Even though it was well past midnight, the S.P.A.R.K. facility still had heroes filed in and out of the building. It was not as packed as it usually was during the day, but that was reasonable for the time. Odysseus could not stand seeing these heroes, walking about as if they were playing some kiddie game. He even would have wagered money that many of these rookies had never seen any series action before. None of them knew the burden of fighting the good fight. “Hey, handsome,” a woman’s voice echoed into Odysseus’ ear. In his annoyance, Odysseus barely tilted his head to see who was trying to annoy him. There stood a young woman dressed in a magical princess outfit. She wore this stupid grin on her face, as if she expected him to be talkative all of the sudden. She obviously did not know him well. “Go away,” Odysseus mumbled as he tilted his head back to its upright position. “Oh, come on! I’m looking for a partner to fight some crime tonight," she said as she threw some shadow-boxing punches to show her enthusiasm for crime fighting. "A strong man like you is just what I need!” “Go,” Odysseus once again repeated himself, hoping the extra gruffness in his voice would make her get the message “away.” “Party pooper!” the young girl pouted and marched off away. But as soon as she caught sight of a cute boy across the room, her peppy spirit instantly reappeared. Odysseus was just relieved that she was bouncing away from him. “Excuse me, sir?” Odysseus sighed before turning his scowl towards this next person. This time, however, it was not another super trying to get him to team-up with them that night, but rather one of the S.P.A.R.K. lab techs. Because of how late it was, the Pacific Point location only had a skeleton crew to man the place. As soon as the lab tech saw the annoyance on the hero’s face, he shrunk away from him, as if he thought that the grizzly man was about to beat him up. “It’s about time,” Odysseus said once he recognized that this guy worked for S.P.A.R.K. He shifted his weight off the wall on which he had been leaning against. Odysseus towered above the lab tech. This definitely did not help the young man be any less scared of the hero. “I assume [i]that’s[/i] what I’m here to pick up,” Odysseus said as he pointed towards the device that the S.P.A.R.K. lab tech was holding. Yet not a single word escaped from his lips. He only could reach out the device to the hero. His arms shook as he stretched them out in front of him. “Hey, handsome! Still looking for a partner?” Odysseus heard that magical princess girl spoke from behind his back. “I already told you. Get the fu—” Odysseus began to say as he turned around. But when he caught sight of the girl standing behind him, he initially thought this was an entirely different person. However, he recognized her face and the design of her costume, although it was slightly different. This girl almost looked like as if someone had photoshopped her face onto a more mature woman’s body. Odysseus blinked several times as his brain tried to comprehend the situation. But he soon turned back to the lab tech and took the device out of his hands. “I just need to press this button, right?” Odysseus asked the lab tech before turning back to the magical princess girl. The lab tech in turn merely shook his head in agreement. When Odysseus pressed the button, the screen on the device flickered on. Three dots appeared on the screen, each representing Odysseus, the girl, and the tech. The device indicated on its interface that it was initializing a scan, which did not take long. Almost immediately did the dot representing the girl ping, indicating that the frequency of the atoms in her body did not match the rest of the matter from their universe. Although he did not have much time to dwell on it, because his dot did not change at all, Odysseus knew that at least he was normal, whatever normal was. “You might want to have this lady checked out,” Odysseus told the lab tech after showing the results from the device. “We might also need a house visit from you guys. I don’t need this gadget to recognize that two of my teammates have been fucked up.” Before the lab tech could make a response, Odysseus already started to walk away, device in hand. He heard the girl protested against the hapless lab tech as he tried to convince her to allow him to run some more diagnostics. A rare smirk appeared on Odysseus’ face when he heard the girl complained that Odysseus did not have a restraining order against him and the lab tech vainly tried to explain that had nothing to do with anything. [hr] “You got to be kidding me,” Odysseus muttered under his breath as he came to a stop on his motorcycle. This was the exact reason why he always took the long way back to the Immortal’s base. What’s the point of a secret base when you let people follow you to the front door? If Talus and Gajana were not affected by whatever was turning people into strange versions of themselves, he probably would have given them an earful once he got inside. Off the coast of the outskirts of Pacific Point, there lies Ithaca Island, a small, deserted isle. Before the Son of Osiris had recruited Odysseus to the Immortals, he operated his crusade against crime in Pacific Point from a base built underneath the island. Once he was recruited, the Immortals took up shop there. Since then, they instituted a dual authorization to ensure only members of the Immortals to gain access to the base. Initially, each member only required a specific id code to get inside, but once they learned from Arachne that some shapeshift had impersonated her civilian identity, the Son of Osiris incorporated what was essentially a magical identity checker. Although there were several entrances to this subterranean base, Odysseus had taken a backroad to what looked like a small, abandoned dock. In this location, the dual authorization had been hidden in one of the dock’s wooden posts that lined it. What concerned Odysseus was that the people he had stumbled upon at the dock were examining that exact post, just as if they knew about it. Something seemed familiar about these two, as if he had seen them before. “God, it would be my luck that all this bullshit would be going down while I’m the only one here,” Odysseus said as he began to connect the dots. He had indeed seen the redhead woman. She was with Arachne back when the Hounds had unleashed those roided out metahumans upon Pacific Point. So that meant that the dude in the scarlet and gray tights was… When the two superheroes heard Odysseus’ voice, they immediately rotated around to face him. At first, they had taken a fighting stance, just in case a villain had gotten the jump on them. However, when they saw that it was only Odysseus standing there, the two relaxed. The redhead leaned over to the man and whispered something to him. Although Odysseus was still within earshot, he was not sure he heard her right, as she mentioned something about a ‘Peter Tingle’ and why it was not working. “I don’t know why, but the scanner isn’t recognizing me,” the guy in the scarlet and gray costume finally responded to Odysseus, who at that moment was stepping down from his motorcycle and deploying the kickstand. “Probably because you have turned into a scrawny-ass boy,” Odysseus answered back. He marched over to the wooden post and grasped it with his hand. As he did this, he ignored the clear irritation that the guy wearing the scarlet and gray tights felt after yet again being mistaken for his girlfriend. He had zero clue how people keep confusing him for Arachne. He was not even a drider! The redhead, on the other hand, just had an amused look on her face. “Code athanatos beta,” Odysseus uttered. Once these words escaped the hero’s lips, an eerie glow emanated from the wooden structure before vanishing just as quickly as it had appeared. [i]Identity confirmed. Welcome, Odysseus.[/i] A disembodied voice echoed after this small light show had finished. Then, there was movement in the water next to the dock. Out from the dark waters arose a concrete structure. Once all the water had poured back into the sea, the heavy-duty entrance doors slide open. “You two better wait inside. Some S.P.A.R.K. techs are supposed to come soon, so they can also fix Arachne and turn her back to normal while they’re at it,” Odysseus told the two other heroes on the docks without making any eye contact. Instead, he was heading straight back to his cycle and wheeling it towards the entrance. “For the freaking gazillionth time, I’m not Arachne!” the man in the scarlet and red costume, that happened to look awfully similar to Arachne’s, if it had been made for a normal human instead of a drider. “How the heck can people keep saying that?” “That’s exactly what I would expect someone in your state would say,” Odysseus responded while pulling out the device that S.P.A.R.K. had provided him with. He flipped the on switch to the machine and allowed it to do its thing. “See? This gizmo shows that whatever has been messing with people’s memories and appearances has affected you,” Odysseus remarked before peering down back at the device’s screen. “Oh, and it looks like she’s also affected, too.” “Wait, what?” the redhead gasped at this unexpected news. “Hey, don’t be changing the subject,” the guy totally dressed up like Arachne complained, “There’s no way that I’m some weird, gender-bent Arachne!” “Just get inside,” Odysseus grumbled. All of this was turning out to be too much for him. Why could the Son of Osiris not be the one dealing with this fiasco? Or even Firefox? Odysseus was supposed to be crushing the skulls of the criminal underworld, not baby-sitting strange versions of his teammates from parallel universes! “It’s impossible! She’s sound asleep back in her apartment. Something strange has also happened to her and I’ve been trying to figure it out all night,” he continued his protest. “This just keeps getting better and better,” Odysseus sighed. “Well, you two better get inside anyways. Besides waiting for S.P.A.R.K., I need you two to distract the two others who have been fucked up like you while I drown all of this madness out with some liquor. There’s no way in hell I’m playing their Axels and Alleys game with them.” “You mean [i]Axis and Allies[/i]?” not-Boy-Arachne corrected Odysseus. “And what’s wrong with your buddies?” the redhead asked. “Besides looking like comic book caricatures of themselves, they also have developed an almost comically ridiculous bias against Communists,” Odysseus answered while continuing towards the entrance. “God damn it, why am I’m the only normal one here. Where the hell is Firefox.” “Hey, what does the whole anti-communist thing have to do with that board game,” the redhead whispered to the spider-themed hero. “They’re probably looking for someone to play the Soviets because neither wants to be a commie,” he whispered back with an answer. [hr] [center][b]A suburb of Columbus, OH, Earth-201[/b][/center] [center][b]October, 25th, 2008[/b][/center] “I can’t believe you were afraid of this show when you were a kid.” The television screen displayed the show’s end credits: a black background with white print, nothing unusual besides the green, 90’s era CGI slime slowly oozing down the screen, along with the show’s weirdly upbeat, yet creepy, theme song. “If my parent’s generation were freaked out by the Flying Monkeys from [i]the Wizard of Oz[/i], I think I had every right to be a little scared of [i]this[/i] show when I was five,” Will defended himself to his girlfriend after they had finished marathoning several episodes of the [i]Goosebumps[/i] television series. It was almost Halloween and what better way is there to get you into the spirit of the season than the creation of R.L. Stein. “Sure, you scaredy-cat,” Kyra told her boyfriend with a smile on her face. The two teenage metahumans had been sitting on a couch in front of the television. Kyra had her nine fox tails wrapped around Will’s back and resting over both of their legs, like a warm, fluffy blanket. The tips of her tail even gave off a faint glow, as they were providing just enough heat to keep the two of them warm without causing the couch, or their clothes, to catch on fire. Will then reached up with his hand and began to rub gently the back of Kyra’s head, right between her two large, fox ears. “Stap,” Kyra complained as she recoiled to the feeling she experienced on the back of her head. “Alright, you’re not a scaredy-cat!” Will immediately stopped and then planted a quick kiss on Kyra’s check. As that was happening, Kyra had pulled out her cell phone to check the time. “We better get changed. We’re going to have to leave for the Halloween party soon,” Kyra told Will once she saw what time it was. She unraveled her tails that had been covering both of their legs before standing back up. Once on her feet, she tugged up on the jeans she was wearing before heading to her bedroom. After Kyra had clicked shut her bedroom door, she activated her power nullifier, which caused her fox ears and nine tails to disappear. She then plopped down onto the side of her bed and started to brush her dyed red hair, which she had colored specifically for her costume. Whenever Kyra would switch between her kitsune appearance and her regular self, she would always have to redo her hair, as it lay differently when she has two fox ears crowning her head. Once she had fixed her hair, she then went to her closet and retrieved yellow jump suit that would have looked awfully plain if it did not also include red gloves and boots that were tipped with orange flames. After Kyra had placed the red mask that went with this costume, she had completed her look. Once dressed, she exited her room and returned to the living room where they had been watching tv just minutes before. “So, how do I look?” “Like the hottest girl I know,” Will complemented Kyra, although he seemed quite amused by the pun he had just made. “Like that one hasn’t gotten old already,” Kyra said as she rolled her eyes. “Well, you are the girl with fire powers dressing up like a fictional superhero with fire powers,” Will replied. “Says the boy with spider powers dressed like Spider-Man,” Kyra answered back with a smile, since he was in fact wearing a Spider-Man costume. “Touché.” “Thank goodness Matt doesn’t have ice power. That would totally be too obvious,” Kyra told her boyfriend. As if it happened right on cue, the doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil,” Will mentioned once he heard the doorbell. “I guess it’s that time.” “This is going to be a night we’ll never forget,” Kyra muttered before the two of them headed to the front door.