Secret Identity

1: Thrown Into Another World, but At Least It Wasn't Because of Truck-kun

TW: symptoms of shock described, death witnessed

When most people talk about near-death experiences, they usually talk about how their lives flash before their eyes, like a Sparknotes summary of just how good or bad a person they were. Not Merry Su. She supposed she didn't have anything worth reliving. All she could think was, At least it isn't Truck-kun.

The car in question was a blue-gray Honda Accord. It was her 2015 blue-gray Honda Accord careening through the glass storefront, roof-first. She should have died, but Merry had traded places with her boss, Bobby, and moved to the info desk in the middle of the store fifteen minutes ago. She watched as the unlucky man and several customers in his checkout line got mowed down before they could even understand what was happening. Merry's senses swam with glittering glass shards tinkling to the floor, people of all ages, sizes, and colors screaming, their feet pounding the carpeted floor in an effort to get out of the way, the ear-piercing shriek and crunch of the metal car toppling metal display after metal display filled with books, crushing more ill-fated shoppers who chose to shop at Bobby's Book Barn this afternoon.

Merry's car finally slammed to a halt against the info desk. The desk rattled from the impact, but held fast. She stared at the roof of her totaled car, stunned, until she noticed the decal on her back windshield had somehow managed to survive. "If you can read this, then you're too close." The smiley face was in pristine condition despite the cracks in the glass and the gore on the rest of the car. She started laughing. This wasn't funny, she knew that, but shock does funny things to a person.

Fifteen minutes ago, everything was normal. It's insane how the world can change in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes ago, Merry had an hour left on her shift. Shit. How was she getting home? Was that even the right thing to be thinking about right now? Her vision started darkening around the edges; body went cold. And suddenly she wasn't looking at her car anymore, but the cabinets inside the info desk. Her legs had given out from under her. Merry slouched over, resting her head against the cabinet door, and held herself. She felt locked out of her own body; couldn't cry for help, couldn't make a sound outside of gasping, ragged breaths that didn't feel like they belonged to her. Everything sounded and felt so distant, so far away, so muffled. Everything except for the ringing. And the ringing was everything.

Until it wasn't anymore. Someone else was laughing now. A sonorous baritone voice filled the ruined store with a brash joviality that snapped Merry out of her head. Startled, she looked up and saw a man in a blue Deadpool costume. His head was thrown back, laughter punctuated by exaggerated shoulder movements. What the hell? Merry worried she was hallucinating a cosplayer. Then she saw the pistols strapped to his thighs and the glinting katanas in his hands, dripping some kind of magenta liquid. Those were real weapons.

Sure, you don't need a permit to carry real swords in Texas. Sure, this dude might or might not have an open carry license for those pistols. Maybe all the weapons were actually very realistic props. He might not even be real! Maybe this guy was a very realistic hallucination brought on by stress. Whatever the case may be, he was definitely not in the store before her car was.

"Ye seemed to think something was funny 'bout the car. T'was a good one for sure." He nodded in approval at the decal Merry had laughed at earlier as he wiped his swords down, one by one.

"Who...?" Merry tried to ask. The question was a wisp of a syllable. It was a miracle that this strange man would have even heard her in the first place, but he did.

"Ah yes. Where's my spiel... Ah. Here it is! Behold! Bluepool the Magnificent: Mysterious masked man in bespoke azure apparel and accoutrement!" Bluepool sheathed his katanas and bowed in a dancelike flourish, "Bold, magnetic, and aye, brilliant– if I do say so myself– t'is me bidding to bolster militant actions broadly minimizing the maximum impact of the belligerent cobalt creatures on our blue planet. Now, let's not belabor my blatant magnanimity. Might ye manage to move yerself, or d'ye need assistance?"

Merry was staring. She knew she was staring. In fact, she could feel herself not just staring at this man but actually gaping at him. Her car just flew into her store, probably killing several people and injuring dozens more, then this man appeared with all the drama of a thespian auditioning for the lead role with his performance of The Jabberwocky. Another incredulous giggle slipped out and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

She lowered her hand to speak only after she was certain she wouldn't laugh again, "This isn't real. I've got to be dreaming."

"Tisn't a dream, but mis compadres will fix you right up. Worry not! Today will be over soon. May I help you up?" Bluepool extended his hand to Merry, and after a second's hesitation, she took it. Bluepool easily pulled her up to her feet, steadying her before letting go. She noticed two things then: one, she must have been crouched there on the floor for a long while, because her shoulders and back were stiff and her legs tingled with the restoration of blood flow. Two, she and Bluepool were the same height. Cautiously, Merry assessed the store around her. She finally realized how quiet her surroundings were.

The store had originally been designed to have one main aisle right down the middle, from the front door to the info desk in the center, and out to the back exit that led into the mall they rented from. The floorplan was essentially just a square, so it was easy to design. One of the two cashier's stations was placed to the right of the front doors... where Bobby and at least three customers had been before.

The large storefront windows behind the cash registers were absolutely destroyed. The desk was a mess of cash, impulse buy items, and splintered wood. Merry quickly looked past where she had seen those people last and followed the path of destruction up to the info desk, where the car came to rest. The smell of spilled gasoline was overpowering. Most of the shelving units had fallen over, domino-style. Books, paper, signs, toys, puzzles... There was so much stuff on the floor.

Merry paled when she noticed parts of the dark green carpet were turning black under the fallen shelves and much of the store's inventory was steadily turning various shades of crimson. She snapped her focus back to her car, to the decal that survived against all odds. Her stomach churned as she wondered how many people died inside this store today. How fast had her car been hurtling to cause this much damage? How had it even moved from her parking space?

"How...? That's my car. No one was driving it?" Merry's throat constricted as she spoke.

"A cobalt creature threw it at me. Didna hit its mark, but it did make quite a mess here." Bluepool replied casually.

"You– you said that just a second ago. 'Cobalt creature.' The hell is that? Why did it throw my car? How is it strong enough to throw my car the entire length of the parking lot and halfway into the store? Will my insurance even cover this? No. Wait. Don't answer that," Merry's gaze flicked up to the storefront windows, "Is it safe? Why hasn't it come after you yet?"

She paused again and looked directly at the man, "Why am I just accepting that you just had a 'cobalt creature' throw a whole car at you? Why are you dressed like that? What are you even talking about?" She could see the silhouette of a broad smile pressed against Bluepool's mask.

"D'na fret, Little Book." He said as he patted her head, "T'is the shock. The threat is no more, thanks to yours truly-blue. Been pulling the survivors out of the store and bringing them to me posse for medical assistance. You're the last one."

"I swear all of this just happened." Merry whispered in a daze. She focused again on the decal. At its smile that suddenly looked more ominous than snarky. The rainbow block text. She just couldn't get past how close she'd been to dying. The ringing softly returned and slowly took up more and more space in her mind as the masked man guided her carefully out of the ruined store, past the darkened stains on the carpet, past a limp hand whose arm was probably somewhere under one of the fallen shelving units. She was vaguely aware of more voices as they stepped out into the daylight. Vaguely aware of Bluepool talking, but she couldn't understand him. She brought inside a white tent. She belatedly realized that she really must have been hiding in the store for a while if the Red Cross had already arrived and put tents up. Was the Red Cross who he'd been talking to when Bluepool referred to "his posse?"

After she was seated on a cot, Bluepool's mask filled her vision. He was trying to say something to her again. She could see his mouth moving, but the ringing was so loud, and it was competing with the sound of her heart thudding in her chest, the sound of blood rushing in her head. It was so hard to focus on him. Her vision blurred, blackened, and suddenly she was falling. Finally, she heard that baritone voice as if it were so very far away,

"...Let her believe it was all just a dream."