Chapter Text
TSC waved.
“AAGH!” The other version of himself screamed before promptly falling in.
“I’m sorry!” TSC called out before sliding down the weird… line? Thing? It didn’t really matter.
“Who are you?” The other-him asked, trying to get his bearings.
“If I had to guess, I’m you from a different point in time.”
Other-him blinked. “You’ve been to the fourth dimension?”
“Dimension? What’s that?”
“It’s basically how many points are needed to describe something in space. Like you’re 2-D but your hat is 3-D. By the way, that’s a cool hat.”
TSC tipped it to his other-self. “Thanks.”
“So… you’re me. From a different dimension.”
TSC shrugged. “I travelled here from the Einstein-Rosen bridge in a blackhole. If that’s a different dimension, then yes.”
Other-him clearly didn’t know the answer. “Okay then. Cool. Um. Do we introduce each other? I’ve never met another me before. I guess we probably have the same name, though.”
The older TSC he had met hadn’t done introductions - just showed him all the secrets of the universe. So he hadn’t introduced himself to the younger one either. But this other-him clearly didn’t remember him coming, so they probably weren’t in the same timeline and therefore technically different.
“I’m The Second Coming, but I just go by TSC.”
“Cool. I’m also The Second Coming, but uh… I haven’t thought of a nickname yet. Phi wasn’t the most nickname-y.”
“Phi?” Was there another being TSC hadn’t met? He had thought he was the only one in existence.
“The concept of the Golden Ratio, about 1.618. She was nice. Sort of. She had to go stop this inter-dimensional shape that was trying to destroy the second dimension.”
Well that made absolutely no sense. TSC understood shape and that was about it.
“Hey, second! Second dimension, Second Coming. That could be my nickname. Nice to meet you, TSC. I’m Second.”
TSC returned the handshake. “Nice to meet you, Second.”
“So what brings you here?”
TSC shrugged again. He was doing that a lot. “I don’t even know where here is.”
The place was pure black - no apple trees or stars or planets or anything to orient himself - with some strange white lines. He was on the ground and not floating away, so gravity was still a thing. And it felt about the same as it did on that first planet he had been on, so this world was about that size. If he had a timer, he could drop his hat and measure the time it took and get a better estimate, but he didn’t have one.
“Me neither,” Second added. “Just a lot of pentagons and triangles.”
“Penta-what?”
Second frowned. “Pentagons? A five-sided polygon?”
“Sure.” The lines around them did seem to form shapes, and some of them had five sides. That still didn’t explain what a polygon was. “I guess we can start walking and see if we find something.”
“Sounds good to me.” And then Second reached down and ripped a line off the ground.
“Woah, you can do that?”
“Yeah? Haven’t you tried?”
No, he hadn’t. But now he was kneeling next to a different line and trying to pick it up. He could feel it - incredibly smooth and impossibly strong - but it wouldn’t move. Darn inertia.
“How did you do it?”
Second walked over to him and just grabbed the line as if it weighed nothing. “You just pick it up.” Then he took the line-thing and squished it smaller and smaller until it fit nicely in his palm.
TSC stared.
“Where did it go?”
“It’s still here, see?”
“Where did the mass go? Did- did you just destroy matter?”
“I… don’t know what matter is?”
“How did you do that?!”
Second’s eyes were wide. “I don’t know, I just do it! Here, you try.” And then he let go of it and it didn’t fall.
“Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming. Why isn’t there any gravity?!”
“You sound like you’re speaking nonsense.”
TSC reached out to the universe-defying piece of white thing and tried to grab it, but it was stuck in place. It wouldn’t move.
Second reached out and poked it, and it moved a few centimeters before stopping, though TSC couldn’t figure out why or how. There wasn’t nearly enough friction in the air for it to stop, and since gravity apparently wasn’t a thing, it should have kept going!
“I guess only I can move it.” He grabbed it again and put it in his pocket. “I’m gonna get some more just in case and then- are you alright?”
“Yep.” It was fine. TSC had apparently just discovered something that wasn’t energy or matter and wasn’t even affected by gravity. He was fine with nothing making sense.
Second grabbed some more of the shouldn’t-exist-whatevers and just destroyed the matter by shrinking them in his hands, and then pocketed them as if this was completely normal. After he had apparently grabbed enough of the enigmas, they started walking.
They only got four steps before they fell into an invisible hole.
At least gravity still worked.