DC/Marvel: This Guy is Insane

VROOOM!

The engine of a silver-white car roared to life. A collective sigh of relief washed over the faces of the lizard demon clan. At the same time, they watched with trepidation, fearing that Alan would go back on his word and slaughter them all. Alan stepped out of the car. Instantly, the lizard demons tensed up.

"No need to see me off, everyone! See you around!" Alan waved cheerfully at them before getting back into the driver's seat.

Just go! they all thought. And never come back!

Inside the car, Alan gripped the steering wheel, his expression one of deep concentration.

"Boss, we can go now," the skull said, eager to get back to the Netherworld. Here in Hell, there was no death energy for it to absorb. If it stayed much longer, its soulfire would gutter out completely.

"Don't rush me. I'm trying to figure out how to drive this thing," Alan replied, poking and prodding at the various controls.

"…"

You built this car, but you don't know how to drive it? How did you even build it in the first place?

It was true. Alan didn't know how to drive. He didn't have a license and had never even touched a real car before. But that hadn't stopped him from studying their mechanics and building one from scratch.

"Press the brake, put it in gear, release the brake, then press the accelerator," the skull patiently instructed.

"Wow, you can drive? That's amazing," Alan said with genuine envy.

Sigh…

"I was a truck driver in my past life," the skull explained mournfully. "I died in a traffic accident."

"Hahaha…! That's hilarious!" Alan's sense of humor was, to put it mildly, broken. He burst into laughter, doubling over at the tragic story.

"Okay, press the brake, put it in gear, release the brake, press the accelerator…"

CRASH!

The car shot forward and slammed directly into the wall of a ruined building, punching a massive hole through it before speeding off completely unscathed. The skull, now hanging from the rearview mirror like a morbid air freshener, watched in horror as Alan plowed through every obstacle in their path without even attempting to swerve. His strategy was simple: just crash. Crash a path into existence.

"What is this car made of?" the skull marveled. It had taken a head-on collision with a reinforced concrete wall without a scratch.

"Just a little alchemy," Alan boasted. "The chassis is crafted with Evocation principles to absorb impacts and convert them into kinetic energy. The engine is enchanted to run on the fire elements in the air. Too bad it only works in Hell."

"Why?" the skull asked, playing along.

"It can only convert hellfire into power. In any other world, it's just a useless hunk of metal." There was no gasoline in Hell, so Alan had naturally tapped into the ambient, volatile fire energy that permeated the dimension. This energy was so chaotic that any non-native creature would explode just from inhaling it. But when used to power an alchemical creation, the explosive properties were perfect for generating propulsion.

From the outside, the speeding car was wreathed in a layer of crimson flames—the visual effect of it absorbing the hellfire.

"Time to accelerate! Ghost-mobile, engage!"

Alan slammed the pedal to the floor. The car shot forward with a sonic boom, pulverizing every rock and obstacle in its path, flying across the ground like a low-altitude cannonball.

Is this really an alchemical creation? The skull was baffled. It had spent over a century in the Netherworld and had seen plenty of liches and skeletal mages who were masters of alchemy, but it had never witnessed a creation this ridiculously powerful. Had human alchemy advanced so much?

Of course, the skull's former world was not the same as the one Alan was from. One hundred years before the 1973 timeline of Alan's world, America had just finished its Civil War, and oil was primarily used for lamps. The skull's world had been over a century more technologically advanced. In the vast multiverse, it was only natural that some versions of Earth were far ahead of others.

"Hey, Skully, I have a question for you," Alan said, chatting to pass the time as he followed the skull's directions. "With so many universes and so many identical people, do they all go to the same Netherworld when they die?"

"Impossible. There wouldn't be enough room," the skull answered directly. The multiverse was as vast as the sands of the Ganges. If every version of every person from every universe ended up in the same Hell, Purgatory, or Netherworld, it would be chaos. You wouldn't be able to leave your house without running into a hundred of your alternate-universe selves. One person would become an entire race… The skull provided a reasonable explanation. "Just as the human world is reflected in the Three Dimensions, this primary dimension is reflected across the multiverse. Most other universes have their own versions of the Three Dimensions and generally don't interact with this main one. However, if a soul from another universe does come here and dies, there's no hope of resurrection. That's why powerful beings who can cross dimensions sometimes come here to hunt down their counterparts and become the 'sole' version of themselves. And when a god from another universe locks onto the coordinates of these main Three Dimensions, they will invade, establish a domain, and anchor their 'uniqueness.' When their counterparts in other universes die, all that power flows to them."

"And the lord I serve," the skull concluded proudly, "is one of these sole gods."

Alan finally understood just how powerful Magik was destined to become. As long as she kept living, she would slowly absorb the power of her alternate selves as they died, eventually reaching an unimaginable level of strength. There had to be a limit, of course. If it were truly infinite, the Three Dimensions would have been conquered long ago.

"No wonder you're so proud when you talk about your lord," Alan remarked. "You're working for a good boss."

"You bet! Not only is our lord a sole god, but she's a death god. Her divinity is a perfect match for the Lord of the Netherworld. She's destined to become one of the greatest beings in this realm," the skull said with absolute conviction.

"You don't have a crush on her, do you?" Alan asked with a sly grin. "You can't stop talking about her. It's like you're showing off your wife."

"Don't be ridiculous! I don't! I really don't! There's nothing…" The more the skull denied it, the quieter its voice became.

"Mmm-hmm…" Alan just stared at it, his smug expression and pointed silence creating an unbearable pressure.

The skull felt like it was about to crack again. "Fine, fine! I have a crush on the lord, so what?!" it finally admitted in frustration. "It's not just me! Lots of the undead admire her!"

"Mmm-hmm…" Alan continued to stare, his gaze seemingly peeling back the skull's last layer of dignity.

"What's your problem? Is it a crime to like someone?"

"Mmm-hmm…"

"Alright, I once had another undead spirit put on the lord's clothes so we could… you know!"

"Mmm-hmm…"

"I'll talk, I'll talk! It was me! I put on the lord's clothes, and another undead spirit… did things… to me! Okay?!"

"Mmm-hmmm!!!" Alan recoiled in disgust. "I never knew you were that kind of skeleton."

"You can't tell anyone!" the skull wailed. "I'll be too ashamed to live!"

"You're already dead," Alan pointed out.

"…"

The car sped across thousands of kilometers of hellscape, finally reaching the border. Here, the sky was filled with bat-winged demons, black-winged fallen angels, and bone-winged undead, all locked in a massive aerial battle.

"Boss, maybe we should go around," the skull advised. Driving straight through a warzone seemed like a monumentally bad idea.

"Have you forgotten? I love to court death." Alan didn't ease up on the accelerator for a second. "XP piñatas, here I come! Yee-haw!"

The warring factions in the sky noticed the intruder immediately. They recognized the vehicle as a car, something several of the lords had experienced during their occasional jaunts into the mortal world. But what was a car doing in Hell?

Without slowing down, the vehicle plowed directly into the battlefield, sending soldiers from both sides flying into pieces. It cut through their ranks like a knife, leaving a deep, bloody trench in its wake.

The lords and commanders on both sides stared in stunned confusion.

Whose subordinate is that? They were mowing down soldiers from both armies indiscriminately.

"What the hell? Is that some moron Ghost Rider who got lost?" a demon commander muttered.

"I don't sense any power from Heaven," a fallen angel beside him countered. As a former servant of Heaven, he was sensitive to the celestial origins of the Spirit of Vengeance.

"I don't care who it is. Kill them!" the demon commander roared.

But before he could act, a long, obsidian sword materialized from thin air and plunged into the ground directly in the car's path. The car's front end lifted as if hitting a ramp, flying dozens of meters into the air before crashing back down to the ground in a heap of twisted metal. Covered in dust, Alan crawled out of the wreckage, making sure to grab the skull. He looked regretfully at his destroyed car, then at the black sword. He wasn't sad about the car; he was sad that his XP farming had been cut short. He had only reached level fifty-two. A little more time, and he could have maxed out.

"That looks familiar," he mused, trying to place the sword.

"It's the lord's," the skull supplied.

"When I meet her, she's going to owe me a few hundred million for this."

The immediate problem, however, was how to get out of their current predicament. The surrounding demons and undead were closing in, their weapons raised.

"ALL OF YOU, BACK OFF!"

A commanding voice echoed from the sky, freezing both armies in their tracks. A female god, clad in black and green battle armor, now hovered above them.

"Hela!?" Alan's eyes went wide. "That's the lord you were talking about?"

"Yes! Her Majesty, Hela, the Goddess of Death!" the skull exclaimed excitedly.

Hela raised a hand, and a giant hand made of pure death energy formed, snatching Alan and lifting him into the air to face her.

"Big Sister, we're family!" Alan immediately began to grovel, his head bowed respectfully. "Thor is in love with me! He put a spell on Mjolnir so I could lift it!" When facing a god, it was always best to be humble.

Hela rolled her eyes. "I'm the one who put the spell on the hammer," she explained, her voice flat.

"Ah!" Alan looked shocked for a second, then his expression turned shy. "Oh! So you're the one who wants me! You should have just said so! I love being a kept man! Wifey~"

"Get out of here, you lunatic! Who the hell likes you?!" Hela snapped, exasperated. She understood now. This was an Alan from an earlier point in his personal timeline. He didn't know her yet.

(End of Chapter)

***

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