Arrival

[Dick Howland]

Dick raced through the city skyline, sprinting across a building top before leaping towards another, starting a burst of speed mid-air to propel himself forward to another building. His first night back on the job. It was strange: it had been so long, yet it felt as though he had just been doing this days ago. Howland burst forward with another flash of speed, but soon he flashed away from the familiar lights of Empire City and was thrust into a blank black void, seemingly infinite. He furrowed his brow, looking around. The work of a criminal? Some illusion, made by one of his old enemies? But suddenly, a figure appeared, only a silhouette but filled with some uncanny replication of emotion, an unflinching and unchanging grin.

 “My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.” 

Dick scowled. Almost certainly work of one of his enemies, some trap to get him back out of heroing. He tried to lift up an arm to blast the "Omni," but couldn't move. Disoriented, he was unable to resist as his arm went up, extending toward the silhouette. The white figure handed him a glowing, rainbow-coloured orb, before beginning to speak.

 “This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most." 

Dick looked curiously at the orb, the "Omnilium." Something that would create what he desired: yet could it bring him out of this world? Howland dismissed the thought. This was no world, it was an illusion, and he was going to get out of it. 

 “You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn.  That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.” 

Just as the figure finished speaking, the darkness disappeared as soon as it had come into existence, and Dick braced himself to begin battle. But what appeared was a blank white expanse, a large fountain in the centre. Oddly, it was just like one in Empire City, a statue of Guardian, the greatest hero to appear in Empire City, water flowing from hand to hand and coming to a small pool on the bottom. All around the white space were strange looking people, some not even appearing human. Some new kind of Supers? Possibly. Or possibly just part of the illusion. Confused, Dick wandered off into the crowd of people, preparing to learn as much as he could of this world.

[Dick Howland]

Dick walked warily into the crowd of people, looking around as he did. Apparently, there were gates on the edge of the void, though where they led Dick had no idea. He began to walk toward the edge, ready to go through one of the gates, when suddenly he got a glimpse. A projectile, heading toward his left. He quickly lifted his arm and focused to summon a shield, but nothing happened. He only felt a slight discharge of energy. Confused, he tried again, but again there was nothing. In the middle of his second attempt, the bullet he had sensed came racing forward, and he was only able to duck down. The bullet grazed through his hair, and he immediately darted his eyes into the direction it had come from. Standing there was a man wearing a blue coat, a thick white beard on his face and a gun in hand.
"Ah, dammit!" he yelled, before breaking into a sprint. "Get back 'ere, ya bastard!" Looking on in confusion, Dick saw that he was chasing a woman carrying a stack of papers. Immediately detecting that something was amiss, Dick ran over to the man and began to speak, seeing that the man was already out of breath.
"What happened here, sir?" he said curtly, looking at the woman as she made her way to another area.
"That wench stole me papers! Tryin' ta rat me out to her little gang, no doubt!" Not waiting for any further explanation, Dick rushed forward toward the woman, letting out a burst of speed to catch up to her. After several seconds of running, he caught her near a gate and rushed in front of her.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Stop running, and listen. Why are you trying to get away from this man with those papers!" She began to panic, looking around hastily before trying to run past him and shoulder-check him to get away. But he caught her by the arm, pulling her toward him. "Alright then, we'll do it this way." Dick dragged the woman toward the man from before. Just as he got near, the man heaved a sigh of relief.


"Thank ya! She coulda ruined the whole thing, gotten me killed!" 
"Hold on, I'm not just giving her up without any reason. What happened? Why was she running?" Dick looked at the man as he questioned him, hoping to glean some truth about the situation from him.
"Because I was trying to keep my friends safe!" she said loudly, trying to get away from Dick.
"Now that's a loada bullshit! She's trying ta' keep her gang safe!" 
"We're not a gang! We had to steal, we couldn't get food any other way!"
"Then why'd ya kidnap one of us?" The two continued arguing for several seconds before Dick interrupted them.
"Both of you, stop! Start from the beginning. You first." He pointed at the man with the gun.
"She's part of a gang, ya see. Dirty lil' thieves, they are, stole a good haul from us!"
"Wait-a haul of what?" Dick interrupted.
"Fish, what else! So, we had gotten plenty a' fish to bring back an' sell, when those little rats sent one of 'em into our boat, some kinda teleporter! He stole half a' our load and then flung off back to their ship! So, what do we do? We send one of our own men to go get it back! And they kidnapped him! Those papers have our plan for the raid on their boat, to try ta' get our crewman back, but apparently, she was a spy!" The woman scoffed at his words.
"Yeah, five fish is half of your load. Lousy load, then. Listen, man, we're just a group of freaks. All of us got weird shit we can do: like he said, one of us can teleport. I can manipulate water close to me. We used to live in Coruscant, but we figured with my ability we could do more out in the Deeps. So we save our money and come out here, buy us a ship and all. But fishing just didn't work, so we send Johnny into other fishing boats and get him to steal a few-not so many that they don't have enough, but enough for us to live. But this time, they sent out a guy to try to stop us. Capturing him wasn't hard, and we figured we could use him as a chip to get them not to turn us in. But we wanna make sure they aren't able to attack us first, so they send me on board. When I heard they were planning an assault, I grabbed the papers first chance I got and ran, 'cause if I make it to Coruscant I can use a dataverse terminal to send the plans out, hopefully, save my friend's asses." Dick considered both of their stories for a moment. Yes, one group was criminals, but a part of them reminded him of himself: turning to crime due to an inability to survive legitimately. Thinking for a moment, he came up with a solution.
"Alright! Take me into these 'Deeps'. I'll go in, get your crewman, and bring him back. And you, I'll buy you some nets so you can properly make a living fishing. So where's the Deeps?" The man groaned at the solution, but, realising it'd be worse if he didn't go along, led Dick to a nearby gate.
"Right in 'ere." So Dick stepped inside, awaiting what would come next.