Flashes of light illuminated the otherwise dark room, wrapping the circular room in a band of holographic screens that created an enclosure around the central circular light gray tabletop that hovered in the center of four executive style black chairs.

Diagrams of a solar system were displayed on the screen beside images of wooden crossbows, as information surrounded the four inside the room, two of which were Juno and Calypso whom both were already seated on the chairs around the table.

Standing in front of the table by the circular holographic border was Razi, his arms behind his back as he stood facing the other three, eyeing the two empty chairs. On the opposite side of the table also stood Meditat, his face still masked beneath the hood as his arms remained by his side as his lenses observed the screens on his feet.

A sudden blue blur emerged through the holographic wall between Razi and Meditat, zooming into one of the chairs as sky blue streams of energy sparked out of the residual trail. In an instant that chair was occupied by Flynn’s body, who spun in the chair with a cylindrical silver cup in his left hand and a silver circular plate in his right hand. On the plate were four stacks of large donuts the size of a hand, and each stack held three of them.

Each of the donuts had a glazed bottom half which revealed the light bread, with the upper halves uniquely decorated as some had dark brown chocolate icing and others had sprinkles of various colors on a pink icing. Several traditionally had holes in the center as the donuts were ring-shaped, but others were entirely filled more like a disk.

Flynn placed the plate and cup on the table before leaning back on the chair which responsively reclined to endow him with relaxation. He then bounced back up which too caused the seat’s back to pull up, and grabbed one of the chocolate donuts which were filled before taking a bite out of the corner, exposing a lemony custard inside the bread. He shutted his eyes before releasing an, “Mmm mmm!” and proceeding to continue eating.

All four of the others cast a judgemental glance at Flynn, who took a couple more bites before taking notice of the watch. His mouth chomped into the donut, he glanced around the room to see all the eyes on him. He then began to speak, but his words were muffled heavily before he took his mouth off the donut to then exonerate clearly yet with speedy speech, “Hey, I didn’t have breakfast today, and I can’t run on an empty stomach!”

He then glanced at Meditat in particular before grabbing one of the pink-iced rainbow sprinkled donuts from the stack and extending it towards him before proffering in rapidly spoken words, “Here, you want one? Strawberry is one of the best flavors objectively speaking!”

A few moments of pure awkward silence followed the odd attempted exchange, to which Juno swapped glances from Meditat to Flynn to Razi, who moved his to Meditat before offering, “You can take the other seat, I won’t be using it anyways.”

Meditat shook his head lightly before politely following up, “Thank you, but I’m fine standing here unless my body is going to cover up the screen or something along those lines of inconvenience.”

Razi sighed and shook his head back before assuring, “It won’t, no worries. Well then, it seems everybody is here, so let’s not waste any more time.”

Flynn lowered his arm and placed the donut back on the stack after being inadvertently rejected, and he muttered quietly, “More for me then,” before resuming his consumption, speedily biting the custard donut until there was no more left to which he grabbed the next one on the unhealthy pile.

Trying to ignore any disturbances, Razi stepped to the side as an image appeared on the screen beside him, displaying a portrait photograph of an elder Chinese man with a large bushy beard and a yù zǎo on his head, a rectangular hat with jade beads hung off the top.

The portrait only went up to his shoulders, which was garnished in black robes, and the portrait remained on screen capturing the attention of the four observers including Flynn who was midway through his second donut.

Initiating the brief, Razi primed in a grave voice, “Our mission is both Dismantlement and Extermination; the organization we are to dismantle being the Qin Dynasty and the target we are to exterminate being Qin Shi Huang.”

Flooded with bewilderment and perplexity, Meditat instinctively impeded the brief by inquisiting stunned, “Wait, this doesn’t follow any logic! Isn’t that the name of the first Chinese emperor, the one who lived and perished about three thousand years ago? And the Qin Dynasty collapsed not long after him, also multiple thousand years ago? Neither of those exist or have existed in our lifetime, before the birth of the Superverse, before…well, you understand my point. Are these names coincidental or meant to create a resemblance? Sorry for interrupting but I do not follow.”

Razi turned to face Meditat after the interjecting confession of confusion, and he sighed softly and lowered his head. Behind him, a lengthy linear diagram of a solar system appeared with a hundred green circles along a line to the right of a notably larger cyan circle, and each of the smaller green circles was neighbored by an even smaller gray circle hovering by. The centermost green circle as well as one of the other ones farther down the right became surrounded by a red circle, and the two circles were then connected by a dotted red line.

Below the diagram another image was displayed, albeit this one was a photograph of an isolated wooden crossbow taken at an angle which revealed a symbol ‘淼’ embedded in a purple glow on the side of the crossbow’s barrel.

Befuddled once again specifically by the image on the bottom, Meditat leaned forward before recalling curiously, “I’ve seen that symbol before, they were also on the crossbows from those invaders earlier. But what does this have to do with that?”

After raising his head, Razi first pointed his hand up to the diagram of the solar system, specifically the planet farther on the right side. He then elucidated, “You are partially right, on this Earth Qin Shi Huang did indeed perish about three thousand years ago, living a reasonable lifespan for the time and passing away specifically when he consumed a liquid he expected to be an elixir capable of immortalizing him only in fact for it to terminate him. I bring that up because I am not speaking of the one who was born in our world but the one who was born on Earth 59. Contrary to Earth 50’s history, on Earth 59 he managed to discover a unique substance that, after trial and error, eventually granted him a concoction that manipulated his biochemistry which halted his body’s aging process thus extending his life infinitely. He also learned that this substance, if used properly, could be used to enhance other items by providing them with properties beyond nature, such as the crossbow you faced earlier today which was capable of generating arrows to be fired in rapid succession. With this substance he went on to colonize the entire planet as at the time no other nation had anywhere near the military capability of combatting him, and it was said that Qin Shi Huang was gifted these abilities from God so it would be unholy to oppose him. His rule has never ended, and in the past several years he has begun attempting to colonize other Earths, but we have been able to manage dealing with them. Now however, it seems that he’s noticed us as an obstacle, and is making us a target. The EGA has chosen not to take action as it’s ‘not a threat to them,’ typical, so like usual it’s up to us to deal with it. Up until now we’ve found it adequate to simply terminate their invasions, but now we realize action needs to be taken.”

“Mmm!” exclaimed Flynn as he bit into another donut with white icing and black cookie crumbs sprinkled on the top. He pulled his mouth away from the donut, dragging a strand of white custard encased inside the donut before it detached from him and swung downward.

Standing near him, Meditat stared blankly at Razi for a few moments, taking in the huge dump of information dropped on his head. After a few long seconds of silence dragged out over the room, he then raised finger up before quietly attempting to query, “Wait…so they’re from off planet? How did they even travel…wait…what substance did they…huh?”

Juno turned her gaze to Meditat before giggling softly, to which he turned his face to her and tilted his head in further bewilderment. Juno continued to giggle while covering her mouth and lowering her head, ultimately stopping herself before shaking her head.

She gulped and raised her head back up to greet him before earnestly apologizing, “Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you, I promise! It’s just that I sort of forgot, you’ve never really left this Earth, have you? I mean that’s not a problem, many people don’t leave their Earths! But hearing you try wrapping your head around this, sorry, I’ll stop now.”

Sighing from Juno’s explosive burst which she had contained too late, Razi placed his arms behind his back and attempted to cover for her himself by stating, “The Superverse is a bizarre system that defies logic itself. When you’ve jumped around it for so many years you somehow become unfazed by it, but in reality it requires a mindset to interpret which simply can only be gained through experience. Many people never do leave their Earths, for them their planet is enough. You happened to be born into a world that was already substantial enough on its own in fact, many people come here from other worlds to settle down so you have little reason to ever need to leave. But for us whose job it is to deal with dilemmas across the Superverse, these situations become a regular basis. If I may offer my own advice, try to bury any thoughts beyond what is necessary to complete the mission, and wait until after the task is complete before letting yourself go mad over its complexities. Or do what Flynn does and simply don’t think about it at all.”

Ripping his current donut out of his mouth in harsh reaction to the remark, Flynn glared at Razi before contending, “Excuse me, if anything I’m the one who does the most research on those things!! What are you even talking about old man, have you forgotten who does most of the technical work here?! You’re completely wrong on every basis!!”

Razi waved his hand back and forth innocently and faced Flynn as he assured, “I’m just joking, I know. No need to get so worked up.”

In a pout, Flynn leaned backwards, reclining the seat back, and grabbed the small remains of his donut while irritatedly murmuring, “Well your jokes suck. Hmph,” before taking another bite.

Fazed out of the argument, Meditat had his head lowered staring at the table in front of him, as while his face was masked there was a clear indication that he was deeply entranced in thought. His arms remained by his side as he stared blankly, flooded in his own head and losing touch with the reality outside.

“Meditat?” implored the soft and concerned voice of Calypso, who took notice of his stressed expression.

Through the darkness of the barrier insulating him from the world, the voice breached every wall, capturing Meditat’s attention as he raised his head to turn to her. He then, having snapped back to reality, shook his head twice to place his train of thought back on rails and turned his gaze back to Razi, who turned to face him after also hearing the call.

Meditat stared at Razi for a few seconds before then cautiously inquiring, “Wait…if the mission is to exterminate this group and their leader, but they’re all on a different Earth…then doesn’t that mean we’re going to…I’m going to have to….-”

After burning through the final donut on the plate in seconds with speedy bites, Flynn spun his chair towards Meditat and stood up from his seat instantly, excitement gleaming through his sparkling eyes as he was filled with a newfound energy.

“Meditat-is-going-to-have-his-first-out-of-world-adventure,-and-it’s-going-to-be-with-us!! And you know what that means, he gets to fly in The Box!” joyfully exclaimed Flynn in rapid speed, bouncing up and down in such succession that he was blurry to the naked eye.

As Flynn now was the one to be isolated in his own mind’s domain, both Calypso and Juno stood up from their seats while Meditat shook his head in even greater confusion, swamped repeatedly to the point where there were so many questions that he realistically had to make selections if he wanted any answers.

Facing Flynn once again as diagrams and images began vanishing from the screen to prepare shutdown, Meditat chose the first question in his mental stack, which ended up being: “What’s the box?”

Show, don’t tell, that is the best method to answer a question.

That answer was in the form of a huge metallic object with a satin black exterior that resembled a container in the shape of a rectangular prism with greater length than width. That was what it was, flat faces, perfectly sharp corners, no further detail beyond the satin black body. It was what it looked like: The Box.

In front of The Box staring blankly at it was Meditat, his cape flowing and his head glued to the construct. He stared in silence as he stood confided in the white walls of the garage, speechless while observing the simple box. The box was far larger than him, in fact it was nearly the size of a truck. It resembled a truck in basic dimensions, but that was only as far as the resemblances with anything could go, as beyond that it looked nothing beyond abstract. It felt like a painting if anything, a strange painting with no intended meaning but to exist and be observed in a subjective way with no true correct analysis. It was simply there.

Behind him stood Flynn next to Razi, Juno, and Calypso, all of them observing Meditat’s observation as they await for a verbal or even visible reaction after an awkward pause after bringing him to the answer.

Finally, they receive that response.

“What.”

Zooming around in a blur, Flynn appeared in front of Meditat, bouncing up and down avidly before elaborating, “The Box! It’s our team’s pod, we use it for all of our out-of-Earth missions…which is basically all of them. It’s great, probably the best pod you’ve ever seen!”

His body remaining still but his neck turning to swivel his head around behind himself to stare at Razi, Meditat exhorted for clarification, “This…this is a pod?”

Following up as Razi stepped forward with his hands by his side, he elaborated “Yes it is, likely our finest piece of equipment here. Here, let’s go inside so we can better explain it,” before continuing forward past Meditat as he approached the box.

Standing in front of The Box, Razi raised his hand, to which an aperture unfolded near the front of the pod the size of a door. On the foot of the door a black energy plane projected forth at an angle that hit the ground, being as wide as the doorway and angled in a way that it functioned as a ramp, although it wasn’t even a foot tall and appeared rather unnecessary.

Razi stepped up on the ramp and entered the Box, followed by a blue blur as Flynn seemingly vanished. While Meditat remained standing frozen, Juno passed him to enter the box, and following her was Calypso, who stopped to stand beside Meditat after noticing his lack of movement.

She glanced at Meditat, her purple eyes reading him through the lens. Her expression initially was one of confusion but it morphed into a solemn one as though she sensed a discontent with him. She lowered her head to think for a moment before raising it back up, and softly assuring, “It’s better on the inside, trust me.”

Passing Meditat, Calypso entered the box, leaving Meditat left. He stared for a few seconds, still stranded in the island of disbelief, unable to accept that the single chunk in front of him was a vehicle as complex as a pod.

“Come on Meditat!” shouted the voice of Flynn from within, reawakening him as he knew he had to follow along, there was still a mission.

Every step was reluctant, but it had to be taken, as Meditat journeyed the few steps up in through the doorway, entering what at first resembled a traditional pod with two leathery seats facing the front wall of the pod, which in this case was entirely transparent to provide a view of the outside garage which also extended a few feet down the sides of the vehicle to provide adequate side views. However, there were only two seats, further tanking Meditat’s impressions of the supposed vehicle as there should be at least four if it’s a team of four.

However, upon turning to his left was when Meditat’s low expectations were shattered, as right in front of him were black leathery couches along one end with several hovering footrests accompanying it, as rather than two more seats there were instead something that belonged in the room of a house rather than a vehicle. Three were several fur rugs as well with a white one being by the couches which faced a black board on an otherwise white wall.

Farther down was a long white marble table with several small doors below similar to counters in front of another transparent window, which resembled a small kitchen with another tabletop in the center. Right past the kitchen was a square shaped white table top with two long white leathery chairs on opposing sides like a dining table, each long enough to sit two people with a wide window beside it to give another view. Above Meditat along the entire interior ceiling was a transparent roof as well, extensively bearing visibility to the pod’s surroundings to the extremity that it seemed the pod was lacking a ceiling, which hopefully it wasn’t.

Stepping slowly down the interior in complete speechless astonishment, Meditat glanced at a long white table along the wall faced by several hovering black executive-styled chairs. Passing the table and casting gazes at the large flat couch that resembled a bed although leathery, Meditat found himself walking inside a home rather than a vehicle.

He also noticed that farther down was a narrow hallway leading up to what appeared to be another set of rooms, as it felt far longer inside than it seemed from outside.

Juno smiled softly as she watched Meditat observe the interior, noticing his intrigue in the further rooms. She clapped her hands together and pointed them down the hall before explaining, “Oh, the restrooms and bedrooms are down there. Also Razi’s personal office and other things, oh and the gym and arsenal.”

Almost petrified from the sheer quantity of features inside this seemingly dull box, Meditat swiveled to face Juno before catechizing, “Gym? Where do you fit in a gym?? And bedrooms as plural?!”

As Razi stepped up to the front left chair, the doorway that they entered through is closed as the aperture is covered by a suddenly materialized wall. He sat on the chair and stretched his arms while Meditat continued to study The Box. As he eyed the material of the kitchen tabletops, a beastly roar coming from below caused him to stagger in surprise before immediately regaining ground in hopes to not have been seen.

He then turned towards the window to see that the pod he was inside was lifted off of the ground, levitating in the air and gradually ascending, indicating that it truly was a functional vehicle against all odds. He stepped towards the window by the dining table, watching from inside as the pod rose through the ceiling, passing a thick layer that emitted a nearly blinding white light.

The light did pass soon after however, yielding a view high up from the expansive green forest beyond the mountain peak. Trees stretched out to the horizon as there was seemingly no end, for the forest was massive, cloaking the base in a natural shield that hid it well from the civilized world by residing far from its domain. Meditat viewed the forest for a few seconds as the pod continued to climb higher and higher altitudes beyond the peak, climbing to the clouds.

A sudden thought struck Meditat, who moved his attention off the sight and onto Razi. The windshield in front of Razi also had projections displayed onto it with a square map on the upper left hand corner of the windshield with a green triangle surrounded in white space, and various gauges down the left side as well as a rectangular diagram which appeared to be a map representing the Box itself like a layout among other displays.

Meditat stepped forward and anxiously realized, “Wait, how are most of us going to get through the flight if there aren’t enough seats with seatbelts for everyone? Won’t the velocity be dangerous for us who aren’t held down like you?”

While staring at the transparent wide windshield, Razi didn’t need to turn around to correct, “These seats don’t have seatbelts either.”

Even more perplexed, Meditat could only respond with: “Huh?” before jumping eyes on each of the members around him, seeing that none of them seemed concerned with his dilemma.

As Meditat continued to panic, Razi elaborated collectedly, “Seatbelts are in essence artificial gravity generators that hold you down onto the seat, but many pods nowadays, especially larger ones, have a vaster artificial gravity generator that affects the entire interior. You probably never needed to use it because it really only serves a purpose if you have a large vehicle and are moving at steep angles, but inside here it’ll be as if we’re always leveled with the Earth. On that note, you won’t need to worry about floating around when we’re out of the planet either. Say, Meditat, it never hit me how much you’re missing out on.”

A heavy sigh was released by Meditat after being slightly mocked, and he nodded his head while retorting, “Yeah yeah, I realize that now. Well…okay…I’ll just sit down anyways just in case,” before he dragged himself back to the dining table and seated himself down on the long seat.

In front of him, Juno joined Razi with the other free front seat, and Flynn laid down on the couch with his entire body, taking advantage of the free space. Calypso meanwhile remained standing, staring out the window past the kitchen table as the Box ascended into the white clouds, causing the view to become shrouded in complete whiteness.

“If it makes you feel safer,” granted Razi, who kept his eye on the wide windshield in front of him. In the center of the left edge of the windshield was a rectangular model of the Box initially flat, although it then began to rotate upwards with an arch between it and the horizontal axis accompanied by a climbing angular count.

Below the model was another gauge which had a climbing number to the left of a ‘MPH’ label, which climbed exponentially up the hundreds, and the sound of the pod’s hum rose louder once again as it was being kicked up into higher gear.

Only a few seconds after speeding up, the Box emerged out of the clouds at an incline, entering a cloudless blue sky visible through the front windshield that Razi and Juno stared out side by side as the engine’s hum continued to crescendo.

While the Box was inclined and moving faster, it was true that there was no force pulling down any of the passengers inside, as Calypso remained standing even in launch without a single slip. Her irises trailed the interior, staring at the blue sky before observing Razi and Juno and then shifting to Flynn who was laying on the couch.

There was no disturbance as the four members of the Shield were casually lounging, especially Flynn who rolled on his back, staring at the ceiling into the sky above. He sighed softly, resting in the time he had before deployment as he placed his hands below the back of his head to become comfortable.

Handling the surveillance of flight at the front, Razi’s dark gray eyes remained on the windshield, but now that he had the procedures in place he was only monitoring the autopilot and thus was given the ability to relax too. Now able to breathe during this intermission before the mission, he used the chance to converse with his ally.

Keeping his face forward, Razi explicated to the passenger behind him, “I know at first glance it might seem overkill to make this pod so large, but in truth many of our missions can range up to days, weeks, and even months, and just about all of them are off planet where we can’t so easily return back to home base down on E-50. So in a way, this pod functions as our mobile home, sustaining us as a station for shelter, nourishment, and self maintenance both hygienically and in strength. It’s also good to have actual beds to sleep on, before we had this made I remember none of these guys liked having to camp out. Also the, well, I’ll admit ‘unique design’ of this pod was my work, it shaves any excess shell to make it as mobile as possible while also then being able to fit into tight spaces especially with its geometrical symplicity. It really is our finest equipment, of course I only cared about the essential systems but Juno had to go out and spice it with this fancy, and expensive, material. But I hope you’re enjoying yourself back there, Meditat. Meditat?”

Whereas the monologue was specifically tailored to address all the questions that Meditat had pertaining to the interesting vessel, Meditat was not responsive nor was he even facing Razi’s direction.

Rather, he was completely silent, but furthermore his face was staring straight at the window beside the seat which he was on the edge of, completely exposed as his black hood was put down allowing his black hair free and revealing his awestruck expression through his hung jaw and wide blue eyes which sparkled in wonder.

Meditat stared straight at the window just about a foot away from his face, staring at the black void of space outside, fixated on the canvas of blue nebulas and white stars he could see from beyond the planet. With one hand gripping the edge of the leather seat and the other clinging onto the edge of the table, he maintained the close proximity to the window as he gazed at the infinity around him, white specs reflecting off his blue irises as his long black hair rested past his ear, fully revealing his face without obstruction.

His admiration only grew as he noticed that in the distance was the rocky gray sphere of the Moon which hovered by the planet they had just departed from, as for the first time he was staring at the Moon not from the ground but up above where it too resided. His eyes widened even more at the sight of the Moon battered with visible craters large and small, watching as he passed it gradually, continuing to move farther away from the world he lived every second of his life in up until a few minutes ago.

Watching Meditat stare so intently with such amazement, seemingly tuning out everything but the space he brought his eyes to with such intimacy that it felt like he wasn’t in a pod at all but rather drifting on his own was a sight that exposed a vulnerability, a visible lack of experience and knowledge, a truth of mortal humanity of a being who regardless of strength in supernatural abilities was insignificant in the grand cosmos. Yet at the same time, that was not something he was attempting to keep secret, that was not a concern to him that he attempted to cower over in an attempt to appear omnipotent. Instead, he had it on full display, his hood down, his face bright, his acceptance of a world beyond him clear to anyone witnessing him.

Witnessing him through shimmering purple eyes, Calypso did, as she was seated on the dining seat across from him, her own eyes wide with an astonished expression, but rather than it also directed at the infinite complexities of the cosmos it was directed at a singular entity, a singular face.

Her hands on her lap as she too remained silent, Calypso stared straight at Meditat, whose face reflected off her purple irises as her long black hair rested past her ear, fully revealing her face without obstruction.

Observing Meditat so intently, she watched as he noticed that another cosmic entity appeared into view in their trip, this one with a predominately blue body wrapped with white swirls with a large white patch by the top. On the body were also large patches of green and brown in unique shapes among the blue base. Without having turned around, Meditat watched as they passed a planetary body much like his home. Another Earth.

Meditat’s expression ignited with an even greater blaze in intense wonderment, as he drew his face an inch closer to the window. The Earth resided within the blue oasis of Meditat’s twinkling iris, captured and stored within him for eternity; a sight he would never forget.

Meditat’s sparkling face resided within the purple nebula of Calypso’s twinkling iris.

At that moment, it was so quiet.

At that moment, it was so serene.

At that moment, it was so beautiful.