Chapter Text
A week had passed on the planet called Remnant since the latest weirdness.
A green starfish had arrived in Atlas, visited General Ironwood and told him in fluent Remnantian that his planet had been selected to join some kind of pandimensional social media forum, and delivered a Scroll device to access it. Naturally, this incident had bewildered the general beyond words.
Atlas military analysts had raised several questions to ponder — was there really a multiverse? Why something as mundane as social media for it? Where had this alien obtained technology capable of this?
In hopes of answers, the general had asked Winter to use the tablet in her spare time. Best case was that this could help the world. Middle-case was that it was just some weird prank or role-playing game.
Now was her first evening with the tablet and a lie-down on her room's couch. Winter had found that it was... the social media forum that the creature advertised. The subforum for newcomers surprised her somewhat.
The page before her held a stickied thread titled "Newcomer's Guide to the Multiversal Forum: If you have no idea what you are doing here". Figuring that it applied to her, she clicked in and swiftly loaded.
The guide was just a bland list of instructions and notes — firstly that she should make an introduction post in this subforum, second that a "Multiverse Registry" was unviable due to scale so people shouldn't, thirdly a list of forum-wide rules to follow.
Winter couldn't help but smile. This forum was so matter-of-fact about the multiverse. If it was a joke, it was turning into a good one.
"This might be worth a shot," Winter thought indifferently. She wasn't about to go for an account without confirming it, though.
Her fingers raced to click back and check on the first/newest introduction post listed. It was from an account named "The Superman", with a profile photo of a muscular man in a flamboyant blue-and-red suit, and written in a fairly relaxed style. One of its tags was "Universe-1".
"Hi, y'all. Superman here, and honestly don't know much more to say. Hope we can all get along," Winter read, then continued.
"Hey, Superman. Fancy seeing you on this thing. Haven't seen you since the Grandmaster-and-Krona situation," Winter read a post from somebody going by the "Captain of America", her gaze mildly curious about his profile picture of a man in blue, red, and white.
"Same to you, Captain. I hope we can all get along better this time around," Winter read Superman's reply back.
"Welcome to the Multiverse Forum, Kal," Winter read the next post from somebody called "Diana the Wonder Woman"... and studied her profile image. Winter suspected strongly that this woman had seen the inside of a surgeon's office.
After reading a few more replies, Winter decided to check the second intro-post. This one was from somebody going by "Ben 10" and tagged as "Universe-510", which raised a question.
"Is everybody in the multiverse going by comicbooky names and titles?" Winter wondered dryly, then read on.
"Hey, everybody. Name's Ben Tennyson. Recap of my life, six years ago when I was just ten years old, this alien device came crashing out of the sky and put itself on my wrist. Naturally, I used it to be a superhero," Winter read, unphased.
The first reply to Mister Tennyson was from The Superman. "You were only ten, Mister Tennyson? That sounds very young for these things, even with super-powers. I'm glad to see you've survived, but..."
The second reply was from someone named Generator Rex. "Are you the same Ben I met those two times? Asking because Doctor Holiday told me to consider the chance of parallel versions. If you are, s'up, dude."
Winter read Ben Tennyson's reply back. "Yeah, I'm the same Ben. How're you holding up, Rex?"
Winter was starting to sense a pattern — the so-called "Superman" and "Captain of America" had apparently met before across dimensional boundaries, and so had these Ben Tennyson and Rex people. Was interdimensional travel common?
Deciding to shelve it, Winter continued to the third intro-post thread. This one's author was somebody named Shathra, and it was tagged as "Universe-616" for some reason.
Winter's eyes widened as she read the opening post. "Greetings. I am Shathra, elder goddess of insects, and it is an honor for you all to meet me. I look forward to mingling with you, and feeding the Spider-people to my children."
The first reply to this thread was more understandable and from "Spider-Woman of Earth-65". It was simply that Shathra should stay away, and Winter could only agree with that.
Eventually, Winter decided to look around. She made a quick switch over to the general forum, and skimmed the posts.
The first thread was titled "THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS IS UNFAIR!", from a user named Ultimate Warrior Samus. The second was from The Superman and titled "Pandimensional superheroics idea". The third was called "Two Earths-65?" from "The Ghost-Spider"
The other twenty-two seemed in much the same vein from their titles, people asking questions about the other worlds and things in them.
If this was a prank or role-playing website, Winter thought idly, the people involved certainly had put effort into making it real.
Curious, she clicked on the thread about two Earths-65. The opening post there was the "Ghost Spider" expressing her confusion that there were apparently two versions of her homeworld around in the multiverse.
The first reply was from a user named Miguel o'Hara whose profile pic was a red and dark-blue superhero.
"Yeah, I'm aware of the conundrum. I propose for current purposes that we simply renumber one of your worlds to Earth-66 or higher. Is this acceptable to both of you?" Winter read Miguel's post.
The second reply came from the Spider-Woman. "Yeah, sure."
The third reply was from Ghost-Spider and in the same vein. "Yeah, sure."
Winter smiled faintly. Both of these women seemed rather laidback and at ease. If only she and Weiss could be...
She dismissed the thought, and resumed browsing. Eventually, she noticed that the time was... twenty minutes past her self-given hour, and quickly shut the tablet off.