Chapter Text
Leda looked at the Traveler as he took her hand, the two of them having matching flirtatious looks in their eyes. It has been a few weeks since Leda first met this mysterious man from the TV and today he had finally brought her into his universe: the Danceverses. The woman from Earth watched in awe as Traveler showed off the many worlds in his reality, each place more impressive than the last.
What was incredible was that he had even offered to show Leda how to open portals and after a few attempts, she managed to open one herself.
“Incredible,” marveled Traveler. “It usually takes days, if not weeks for someone to open a portal properly.”
Leda smiled at the compliment, always appreciating praise. “Thank you, I had a good teacher,” she says with an alluring tone.
The Traveler’s smile widened at this. Originally he had been hesitant about bringing a human from another universe into the Danceverse, let alone even interacting with one. But the moment he saw Leda he knew he had to forget his worries and just go for it. She had been dancing in her living room, performing ballerina moves so gracefully that she had to be some sort of professional. It was after a week of watching Leda dance that he let his presence be known to her. It took a bit for her to get used to some stranger talking to her through her TV, but she eventually warmed up to him within a few days. Now he had invited the ballerina into his world, dancing a duet as he showed her the various worlds in his universe.
It had been a blast, but like all good things it had to end. The Traveler had to send Leda home, bringing someone from another reality and having them stay could have unforeseen consequences, it was best not to risk it. However when he opened a portal back to Leda’s Earth, the ballerina promptly closed the portal.
“Why did you do that?” the Traveler asked, his voice filled with surprise.
Leda turned back towards him, a light blush on her face. “Because…I, I want to stay here with you,” she admitted. There was truth to these words, however there was another reason why she didn’t want to go back home yet. It was a reason why she agreed to come to this universe in the first place.
Traveler said nothing, but a few seconds later he held out a hand. If the human wanted to stay, who was he to deny her wishes?
Leda smiled as well, reaching out to grab a hold of the offered hand.
That’s when sirens began to blare all over the Spacetime Lobby, red lights rapidly flashing. Portals began to open all over the room, leading to different places in the danceverses at random. The two dancers quickly forgot about their little romance and looked around frantically.
“Wh-What’s going on?!” Leda exclaims, bringing her hands close to her chest.
The blue haired man grimaced. “I’m not sure!” he admitted. “Disco! What’s going on?!”
The little disco ball creature had a distressed look on its face as it had no idea what was going on either, meaning that this was a completely new travesty that had been never seen before.
A portal suddenly opened up beside Leda. Normally portals in the Danceverces showed the place that it was leading to, however this one was different as no clear place was shown, only a chaos of orange and brown swirls could be seen. Another thing portals didn’t do was suck objects into them, yet it was happening right now.
And that object in particular was Leda.
“Whoa, WHOA!” the woman cried out as she was pulled into the air. She frantically flailed her limbs about in an attempt to escape the suction, but it proved fruitless.
“Leda!” Traveler exclaims. He held out his gloved hand and began using his magic in order to save her. The man grunted as the force of the portal was quite strong, requiring more effort in order to save the human. Slowly but surely Leda was being dragged back towards the ground, a hopeful smile on her face.
But before she could be saved, a burst of energy shot out of the orange portal and struck the Traveler, sending him flying across the lobby into an unconscious heap on the floor.
“Traveler!” Leda cried out in fear. She outstretched her hand towards the fallen man but she would never reach him. Without him to pull her to safety, the portal that was sucking in Leda was able to do it with no trouble.
The woman screamed once more as she was pulled in, the portal closing behind her. Leda was falling through an endless orange void, continuing to flail about in panic. Thousands of thoughts were running through her head. Was Traveler okay? What was going to happen to her? Would she keep falling forever? Did she leave the stove on? Should she never have come here in the first place?
First place.
First place.
First place.
If only she had gotten first place at her dance competition weeks ago, then she would’ve gotten all those agents wanting her instead of her opponents. She wouldn’t have been upset and maybe the man from the TV wouldn’t have brought her here.
If only she were perfect.
A bright light shone behind Leda and she turned only to shield her eyes from the sheer intensity. She couldn’t tell what it was that was creating the glow, but what she did know was that she was heading straight towards it and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Brighter and brighter the light got as she got closer, even with her eyes closed she could feel the intensity on her eyelids.
And then darkness.
…
…
…k…
Are…kay?
Leda could hear a voice talking to her, but it sounded distant as if it were underwater.
Wander…don’t think she…you…
Wait!...moving!
“Mmm, what…?” Leda groaned out, her eyes fluttering open. It took a bit for her vision to clear, lots of things appeared fuzzy for a few moments. When she was able to see properly the first thing she saw was a familiar face. “Disco?”
The little sentient disco ball smiled at Leda as it circled over her head, the woman realizing she was lying on the ground. She slowly sat up and that’s when she noticed that, aside from Disco, she wasn’t alone anymore.
There were six other people surrounding her in a circle, each of them having a unique look compared to each other. Four of them had white skin while one alien looking woman had pink skin and a pointed eared man had blue skin. The blue guy knelt down in front of Leda, carefully inspecting her. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked.
Leda stared at him for a bit, adjusting to his appearance before nodding. “Yeah, I think so,” she answers. She took a look around and saw that they were in a desert of some kind. Although she never saw palm trees in a desert without an oasis, plus the palm leaves looked quite weird. Looking up in the sky…were those flying whales?! Okay, she was still in the Danceverses if her appearance wasn’t already a give away. “Where…am I?”
“You’re in Wasteria,” answers a man wearing shades and a blue romper with a red houndstooth pattern. “One of the hottest places to be, both figuratively and literally.”
A woman with blue hair and a yellow fluffy jacket(how was she not sweltering in this heat?)approached and knelt in front of Leda as well. “We were all dancing when a portal opened up and you came falling out of it,” she explains. “You were out for about a minute or so.”
Leda furrowed her eyebrows. She was knocked out for a minute? It felt a lot longer than that given how it took a bit for her senses to come back to her.
A girl with frizzy purple hair and glasses looked over at the blue skinned man, fidgeting her fingers. “Um, Wanderlust? Is this another friend you brought?” she asked.
The man known as Wanderlust shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen her before. Plus you saw how she fell out from that portal in the sky. I’d never open a portal like that in a way someone could get hurt.”
“Well aside from my head aching a bit, I’m fine otherwise.” Leda stood up and dusted some sand off her skirt.
Wanderlust and the yellow jacket girl stood up as well, the former smiling. “Well if everything is alright then we can get back to dancing!” he exclaims. “A five, six, seven, eight!”
Music suddenly started playing and everyone minus Leda started dancing in perfect unison to a song she’s never heard before.
Nothin' I can see but you when you dance, dance, dance (I can't stop the feelin')
Feel a good, good creepin' up on you
So just dance, dance-
“Stop, stop, stop!” Leda screams while waving her hands. A record scratch could be heard and everyone stopped grooving to stare at the distressed newcomer. “A person you don’t know just falls out of the sky and you all just start dancing?!” Leda was baffled by this.
The others looked at one another then back to the ballerina. “Well yeah, but you’re not hurt, so it’s all good, yeah?” a man dressed in winter gear says, some of the others agreed with him.
Leda pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance before recollecting himself. “Look, I may be okay, but my friend isn’t! He could be hurt!”
At this the others all gasped, even Disco had a shocked look on its face. The blue haired girl stepped forward. “Your friend is hurt? What happened before you fell out of that portal?” she asked.
Before Leda could tell her story, that’s when it happened.
The ground violently shook, causing everyone to struggle to remain standing, Liza and the pink alien did end up falling down. Something was rising over the horizon and casting a great shadow, one by one everyone present looked behind them with Leda being the last to do so. Her emerald eyes widened in horror and her mouth dropped, not believing what she was seeing.
Eclipsing the sun was the top half of a giant woman, she was larger than the kaiju monsters in those movies Leda used to watch back in college, if there were a mountain range present the newcomer would easily rise over it. She was dressed in a black cloak with black and pink feathers making up the collar. The only other colors present were the red lipstick on her lips and the gold on her arrow-shaped crest and painted nails on her left hand. Her yellow eyes glanced down at the ant sized people, the slightest hint of a smirk curled on her lips. Despite the positive expression however, it was clear she didn’t have positive intentions.
And though it was only for a few seconds, Leda felt like minutes had gone by without anything happening, the second time today her perception of time had been warped. Eventually through the fear her brain came up with a simple plan for the given situation.
Run.
“RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!” Leda screamed at the top of her lungs and hightailed it out of there. The others all screamed and followed her as well.
The giant woman held out a hand with black smoke emitting from it. At the same time, patches of dark matter began appearing around the fleeing coaches and began closing in on them at a rate faster than their running. The dark matter began forming tentacles and attempted to grab them. They managed to wrap around the winter dressed man and once he was completely covered he vanished into thin air. Leda made the unfortunate mistake of looking back and saw this happen right as it did. It made her even more horrified, but it encouraged her to run even faster which was a good thing. While Leda had great stamina, perfect for performing long dance routines, she wasn’t the fastest runner. What she wouldn’t give to have the Flash’s powers right about now.
Wanderlust had passed her and snapped his fingers, a portal had formed hundreds of meters ahead leading to a place that looked a lot safer than here. “Everyone to the portal! Now!” he ordered as he ran off ahead, the blue haired girl trailing right behind him.
Unfortunately for the pink alien, the smokey black tentacles wrapped around her body and she disappeared too with a scream.
Leda’s heart was beating a hundred times a minute and she swore her lungs were going to burst, but she kept pushing herself to run. She found herself running alongside the purple haired girl and the man in the blue romper, attempting to keep up with Wanderlust and the other girl who were about halfway to the portal while the trio were about a quarter of the way there.
A long tentacle tied itself like a lasso, twirling around for momentum before going out and catching the girl wearing glasses. “AAHHHHH!!! HELP MEEEEEEEE!!!!” she cried out as she was dragged back to the dark matter before disappearing in an explosion of purple smoke.
Leda grimaced, while she didn’t look back this time she could still hear everything that went down and it was unsettling, but she continued to push herself forward. By now, Wanderlust and the girl with him made it to the portal while the ballerina and sunglasses guy were halfway there. The tentacles were closing in on the stragglers and it wasn’t clear if they would make it or not.
Just then, Leda felt something push her forward from behind, giving her a brief speedboost with some momentum. She glanced back and saw the man she’d been running with had pushed her forward as the dark matter was about to get them. He knew they both weren’t going to make it so he decided to try and save Leda in sacrifice of himself. The woman from Earth watched in horror as the man gave her a smile before a wave of dark matter consumed him.
Leda screamed with adrenaline as she entered the final push, the portal was about a hundred meters away and was getting smaller. Wait, it was getting smaller? Oh God it was closing! On the one hand it made sense as they didn’t want to risk the dark matter entering the safe place they were heading to, but they could also wait to let Leda get there before closing it!
The ballerina felt her lungs screaming at her to stop running, but she didn’t obey as she kept sprinting. She was eighty meters aways, seventy, sixty. From the portal she could see Wanderlust, the girl, and Disco Ball cheering her to make it as the portal slowly continued to close.
Fifty.
Forty.
Thirty.
Leda could feel the dark matter closing in from behind, multiple tentacles preparing to take her to wherever it sent the others.
Twenty.
For a split second she felt something grab her foot however she managed to escape it, though the ground felt different afterwards for some reason.
Ten.
The portal was dangerously getting smaller and Leda realized by the time she made it she wouldn’t be able to fit through it. “No!” she screamed, holding out her right hand which glowed. Suddenly the portal quickly opened up to its full size, making the trio inside widen their eyes in surprise.
Five.
A shadow was above Leda as the tentacles prepared to take her.
One.
Leda jumped and everything went black.