Dang Convergence Vol. 1

Chapter Eight Two Of Us

Chapter Eight

Two Of Us

Dang woke with a gasp, bolting upright with his heart racing and adrenaline surging. It took a few seconds for him to calm himself at which point he noticed, and with some confusion, that he was back at his place.

"So, you operate out of an observatory on a mountain?" Cyborg Dang asked, sitting on the couch opposite Dang. He had Dang's sunglasses on. He pulled them off and examined them. "Pretty good tech," he said, before tossing the glasses back to Dang.

Dang caught the glasses and slipped them into his pocket. "It's a decommissioned observatory," he responded. "And how exactly did you find it?"

"Took care of the sentinels, found your glasses and interfaced with it, saw the locations it'd been pinged at recently, this place popped up a lot. Brought you here and patched you up and well, here we are."

"Oh," Dang said. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Other-Dang replied coolly and rose to his feet. He gestured around the observatory. "Your world's got a lot of pretty outdated tech. Your computer, for example, you're still on twelfth-gen processors instead of fortieth. Pretty crazy if you ask me."

"You used my computer?" Dang groaned, still reeling from the fight's injuries.

"I got bored," Other-Dang shrugged. "We have the same password, that's kinda weird, don't you think?"

"Who the hell are you?" Dang demanded. Now that they had no sentinels to deal with, he was feeling a lot like getting all those questions off his mind.

Other-Dang shrugged. "Obvious, isn't it? I'm you. Name's Dang."

"No, it's not," Dang said fiercely. "I'm Dang. You can't have the same face and name as I do."

"I can if I'm from a different universe," Other-Dang replied.

Dang's mind lagged for a moment as he tried to process those two words. Different universe.

No fucking way.

"Okay," Dang rose to his feet, still feeling sore from the sentinel blast he'd received. "I'm going to need you to do a lot of explaining. Right now." Dang folded his arms and leaned against his wall, regarding his doppelganger. Sure, he'd helped against the sentinels and they were lookalikes but he definitely didn't trust him just yet. Although, if his doppelganger turned out to be a hostile, he didn't see how he could stop him or match him, not after what he'd seen him do to the sentinels back at the construction site.

They had an entirely different powerset and this other him had abilities on a whole other level from his. That much was fairly obvious. Already he was wondering if the cybernetic tech had weaknesses he could exploit if such a thing ever became necessary.

"Where would you like me to start explaining?" Other-Dang asked, turning in the chair so he was facing Dang directly. "Chances are I'm going to need you to explain some stuff too, I've never actually been in a different universe before so all of this is new to me too. Didn't think I'd have to make the jump so quickly."

"Start with the cybertech," Dang said, gesturing to the cybernetic parts that made up most of his doppelganger's body.

Other-Dang looked down at his hands and his expression became a little sad. "Oh that," he said and then sighed as he drew in a deep breath, shutting his eyes gently as though an uncomfortable memory was playing through his mind. "I, uh," his voice beginning to crack, so he so he cleared his throat before continuing. "I had an accident when I was younger...an explosion at my dad's lab–it killed him, but it destroyed my body, most of it anyways. I was going to die, but someone saved my life...retrofitted me with experimental cutting-edge cybernetic tech. So, this is more than just my skin...it's my body, it's me...whether I like it or not."