Somewhere outside continuity...

Graviton was fucking bored. As a (size-altering) superhero, he didn't like saying nasty words like that. But, as Dr. Augustus von Braun, a scientist, he felt he had describe his situation as accurately as possible. And, in this case, that was: "I'm fucking bored."

His eyes stared at the monotone stream of data in his computer screen. In the old days, when the numbers bored him he could look out the window of the Strikeforce's satellite and marvel at the beauty of earth or the glory of the sky. If he was lucky, he could use the ultra-prismatics of his invention and zoom in on a naked colony. Though he was still in the same satellite, if he looked out the window now all he would see would be the grey nothingness that had surrounded the place for so long now. If he zoomed in on it, the luckiest he could get would be some grey-on-grey action.

It had been almost a year since the SF satellite, and all the Strikeforcers inside it, were transported to this place. Nobody was sure how or when it happened: they just faded away from existance and appeared in this limbo. At first, Graviton found the grey void outside fascinating to look at during his moments of idleness, but after months of nothing but that, he really started missing "Friends" reruns.

Sitting in the satellite's Monitor Room (where, appropriately, they kept all the monitors), he was absent-mindedly staring at his favorite screen (the one on the lower left corner) as he ate a cheeseburger, when he noticed a sudden shift in the data had occured few moments ago. Not believing what he saw, he rubbed his eyes and looked at the screen again. All he could see was yellow. He wiped the burger's mustard from his eyes, and took another look.

"Dear Gob..." he said to himself.


Brandon Mullarney, also known as Hero, the caped strong man with more powers than fingers (19 powers), was having some private time in his chambers: he was sitting in his sofa eating chips and dressed in shorts while watching "Seinfeld". He kept his "Seinfeld" tapes a secret from the rest of the Strikeforce, especially from that sitcom nut Graviton, because if they learned about their existance they would start borrowing them, and there was a high chance he would never see most of them again.

"Hehehe... that Kramer..." he whispered, so the people in the next room couldn't hear his enjoyment.

An annoyingly common ring-tone you've probably heard at least 500 times in your life let Hero know someone was trying to reach him through his SF communicator. (He didn't know exactly who, though, since he hadn't discovered the amazing world of personalized ring tones yet.) There was a time when the sound of his comm would have sent him into a state of alert, but these days, it usually means someone's run out of barbacue sauce.

Sighing, he pressed "mute" on his remote and answered the call. "Yep?"

"Hero, you've got to come to the Monitor Room!" Graviton's voice exclaimed.

"What is it now? Did your favorite monitor break again?"

"Now, it's much more important than that! We're... We're in continuity!"

Hero's eyes widened. "What do you mean..."

The comm hanged in the air for a couple of seconds, like all sorts of communicating devices do in these cases, as Hero moved to the bathroom in super-speed. He put on his pants, slicked back his hair and brushed his teeth, all in less than a second. He slowed down to floss, though, because the last time he flossed in super-speed he lost two teeth and both of his pinky toes.

"...in continuity?!" he finished, now standing behind Graviton's seat in the Monitor Room.

"Well, not exactly in continuity..."

"Damn you, you made me get dressed for nothing!"

"...but finally outside it, which is a step up from being in limbo, as we have for the past year."

"What in Gob's name does that mean, Augie?!" Hero was starting to get anxious, as he does when he doesn't take his pills. Not crazy pills, mind you. Just pills to prevent him from yelling at people.

Aug... Graviton was used to the role of the scientist guy who explains shit, so he sat back and got comfortable. "Well, allow me to start by saying that I've finally figured out what happened to us:

"About a year ago, for reasons I can't begin to understand, our universe's continuity split into two timelines. From the little I've observed, it appears one of these continuities... let's call it 'Earth A'... is the one where our old 'Vanguard' friends reside, albeit in a very different form than when we met them. The other continuity, let's call it..."

"Elsinor."

"What?"

"Let's call it Elsinor."

"Why such a silly name?"

"My mother's name was Elsinor. She was a saint. I've always dreamt of naming a daughter after her, but since we appear to be stuck here and I'm not too popular among the team's females... they make me nervous, so I yell at them... it appears that I won't have any daughters, or even sons, to name Elsinor. This is why I've recently decided to bestow that honor upon something else, to make peace with my late mother and, ultimately, myself. I thought about suggesting the name for your pet screen, but this is even more fitting..."

"How come?"

"She was a big woman."

Graviton cleared his throat and moved in his seat. "Well, eh... Ge-Getting back to what I was saying... Earth, uh, 'Elsinor', appears to be protected by a group of metahumans calling themselves the MBL. See, what I think happened is that the... 'gods' or whatever that rule these two realities each took the elements of their predilection from the 'old' Earth and buildt new universes around them. The problem was... nobody wanted to take us, so we're stuck in the middle."

"Oh. That's kinda insulting, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is. HOWEVER, the unexpected result is that we're not merely outside those two continuities... we're now outside every continuity that exists, and capable of observing the endless realities that reside there!"

" So, you can look into any of these other realities?"

"Yes, that's how I saw the current state of the two timelines that used to be our universe... I can tune the monitors we used to watch newsfeeds to show us instead any reality we can imagine! But here's the better part... with some adjustments to our teleportation technology, I think I can allow us to not only observe these realities, but to enter them!"

"Great! This means we can come back home, doesn't it? Or... whichever of the two timelines resembles home the most..."

"Weeeeell... In theory, yes... But, do we want to come back?"

"What do you mean, Augie?"

"Think about it: nobody wanted us there. Not Vanguard, not the people... Not even the 'gods' of that place. I say screw them. Not to mention that we would be redundant in any of those places, since they already have superhero teams protecting them... What about the countless other realities without superheroes, or with lame ones, where we could really make a difference?"

Hero looked at Graviton for a second. "What about them?"

"We could go there!"

"Oh! Ohhhhhhhh! Yeah, you're right! That'd be cool. Shall we tell the rest of our teammates the good news?"

"Well, as the one who made this discovery, I'd like to..."

"Fine, fine, I'll tell them. Where's the mic?"