Chapter Text
“The multiverse is a vast place. It's in the name after all. Anything and everything is, can be, and will be possible.
But among these universes, there are many that are left unseen and in obscurity.
Among these universes of interest:
A universe with people that could turn into liquid at will, with one person that seemed to have time stop with its command.
A universe with an app created to protect users from harm.
A universe in complete disarray. Perfect randomness. Pure entropy.
A planet of few inhabitants, one of which being a two-faced confection.
A dad trying to find all his kids that go missing almost daily.
An evil being that lurks in a forest, waiting for its next victims."
“Red.”
“A world of floating islands, with one person moping away in the pipes of an abandoned mill.
A person with a purpose to protect, but is starting to defect over to its enemies.
A seemingly normal competition with some anthropomorphic objects battling over some controller, with the person that intrigued him being rather musically talented.”
“A world with two sides, and a news broadcast that seemed rather manipulative. But two people seemed to be fighting against it, to no avail.
Another seemingly normal competition with some objects. Though the host seemed to be a bit quiet, as if battling reality over something.
A seemingly familiar world of blue and pink, but one pink being was just having fun with itself.”
“Red!”
"A universe inhabited by ghosts and orbs, with a ghost inhabiting a building with no stairs.
A forest with some human helping a rather tall guy get to a hospital. In a journey that seemed to take way too long.
And a monochrome universe, with only a cat fighting off the dangers of it.
Perhaps it was not too late yet.
Perhaps there is still purpose for these worlds.
Perhaps you and I will see this through.
Perhaps... I will finally be of use…”
“RED!”
“Huh?”
The red button blinked, and turned behind. Seeing it was just a familiar orange patterned piece of wallpaper, he smiled. “Oh hey, Wallpaper! What are you doing here?”
“Um, hey Red Button… You were the one who called me over here for something, remember? And then I come in, and see you monologuing about multiverses or something.”
“Oh yeah, right! Let me just…”
The red button opened a trapdoor in his room, leading to some basement.
Wallpaper blinked. “... you just have this here?”
Red Button, not picking up on the discomfort, replied, “Yep! Follow me!”, sliding down the ladder into the room, the wallpaper following behind.
The room itself had metal covering the walls, floor and ceiling. Some tables stood right at the side walls, with tools and pieces of metal, wiring, and unfinished machinery atop them. And on the wall opposite of the entrance ladder, was a large, metal door. The two of them approached the door.
“Uh, t-this isn't one of those padded rooms you plan to experiment and keep me in for months or years until I slowly go insane, right?” Wallpaper asked nervously.
“What? No. You gotta stop reading those experiment fanfics.” Red Button replied, before placing his mechanical hand on the scanner.
“Yeah, fair.”
Just then, the scanner finally finished scanning, and unlocked the door.
Revealing a big portal machine.
The wallpaper's eyes widened. “Woah…”
The button smiled with pride. “Yep! Me and Remotey have been working on this for a bit. It's not fully complete, but it does function a bit. Wanna see?”
“Sure! Wait, wha-”
“Alright, powering on!”, Red Button said, immediately switching the lever, and activating the portal.
“RB, NO!!!”
“Hey, uh, I found the hatch open, what's going o-”, a TV remote said, appearing from the other room before seeing the activated portal, “-oh God, Red!”
“I didn't mean to!”, Red Button said, waving his hands. “Wallpaper said he wanted to see it, and I wanted to show him!”
“I didn't mean it like this!”, Wallpaper also protested.
“Either way, Red Button, shut that down!”, Remotey shouted.
Red Button did as told. Or, tried to. “Uh, the lever’s stuck…”, he said as he nervously smiled.
“Damn it…”, Remotey said, then the portal glowed brighter. “Alright, everyone out!”
Everyone ran out of the room, just as the portal exploded, until…
Silence…
For a few seconds, until Red Button woke up.
“Ugh…”, Red Button rubbed his head… er, button. He sat up, checking if his older sibling and friend were alright.
Luckily, Remotey and Wallpaper were fine, though Wallpaper was still a bit dizzy. Red Button helped him up.
“Hehe, thanks…”, Wallpaper smiled, his orange and yellow noticeably a bit lighter.
Remotey got between them. “Alright, everyone okay?”
“Yep!”, Red Button said.
“I'm okay…”, Wallpaper followed.
“Uh, I'm here too.”, a blue guy said.
“Good, now- wait what.”
Nope, she wasn't hallucinating. There was indeed a tall, blue guy.
“Uh, yeah, I'm here. Hello!”, the blue guy waved.
…
“There's some other people in that other room too if you're wondering.”
The three of them ran towards the portal room. And indeed, there were 14 other people inside, with the majority of them panicking, either at being in an unfamiliar place, or at the other bizarre people with them.
Remotey tried to calm the crowd down. “Everyone, please calm yourselves! There is a... well, not logical, but there is an explanation to why you are all here!”
Well, tried.
Until Red Button took over. “So basically, me and Remotey over here were working on an interdimensional portal machine, I turned it on, and now you're all stuck here since the portal machine broke… down…”, Red Button paused as he realized what he said, and looked beside him to see Wallpaper crossing his arms to try and stop him from talking, and Remotey just facepalming. “oh, uh, forget I said that last part.”
And because that wasn’t comforting, the crowd continued panicking.
Remotey sighed. “This is going to be a long year...”