Years? Centuries? Markus had no idea how long he'd been in The Void. Much of it was spent training. He familiarized himself with alien weapons, martial arts from more than a thousand cultures, divine politics, and still more.

But most days, if such things existed in the void, were spent with his family. Penelope had grown used to their new home, if only just. While little Nicholas had already made friends with the other children in bright Gottheim. That was a surprise at first.

To see how many soldiers were there. The sheer population of men and women from different worlds and species in one place... said much of Zenith's power. How many were here willingly? How many were here with families of their own? So many questions and all of them were too frightening to ask, at least in Markus' eyes.

But the day was here. His first true mission. He'd left Penelope and their young son to follow after B, his handler.

To his lack of surprise, Markus was already geared up in body armor and could feel the weight of a new sidearm in the holster at his hip. His new uniform was in dark grey, with the sleek ceramic armor painted a shade of black with stripes of purple marking out strange patterns he couldn't recognize.

"Where to, mam?" He always adopted a formal tone when he talked with his superiors. He'd done it in when he was a simple man, so why not here in God's trash can.

"Just call me B." The young woman turned on her heel, with all the dexterity her youth advertised. She still had silver hair, violet eyes, and Latin features, but her clothes had changed from when he last remembered.

"Please, pretty please?" She kept the hair in a french braid, and it seemed to float in the light as she swayed and pouted. "I've asked you a bunch already."

"I can't do that." Markus almost felt some pity looking down at this pouting little girl, but not enough to break his cold demeanor. Her appearance was just a front after all. Right?

"Fine." She let out an exasperated groan before marching off. "Come on, you don't want to get left behind here."

He certainly didn't. The rest of their walk passed on in relative quiet. B hummed a little, a star in the distance exploded and then vanished, and Markus swore he could hear whispers coming from the worlds beneath his feet.

All the while, B's ensemble changed at her command. Markus had never wondered what it would like for a girl to use literal stars as mirrors and spotlights, but he saw it now. B's clothes shifted and changed in color and composition as if they were water passing over rock and sand. And whatever poor mood Markus may have put her in ebbed and flow with each new skirt, shoes, or even eyeglasses that contorted and formed across her elfin form.

Finally, she settled on a more preppy look. It was probably meant to be a more professional-looking outfit, with a young lady's suit jacket, pencil skirts, and black heels. But it looked more like a prep-school uniform. It wasn't her fault; she was just a kid. Sort of.

"Mmmm...I guess this is fine." B snapped her fingers and a set of curved and over-stylized glasses shaped themselves onto her face. She then waved her free hand over the celestial mirror she had been using, and the great light shifted and reformed into a simple wooden door a few feet from her. "We're here."

"Mam-" Markus had worked hard to cultivate a certain amount of patience, but he could feel the involuntary gritting of his teeth and his fingernails digging into his palms. "Could you have done this the entire walk here?"

"Yep." She put on her best smirk. "But you didn't feel like talking, and you forgot that I never answer your first question. So I figured you had time."

"What the hell are you?!"

"Mmmm...a teenage goddess with reality-warping powers?" She opened the door and even made a slight bow while ushering him through. "If you're in a rush, you should probably head on through."

Markus did as he was told, yet again. He hated this. He hated being at the beck and call of these cosmic assholes. They were nice enough when they felt like it. But if you said one thing they didn't like or looked at them wrong, they could be the pettiest and most infuriating little shits.

Upon stepping through the door, Markus found himself in a completely white space. Not a room, not a plot of land: a space. Just like the void was made of aligned stars, this space was nothing but blank whiteness.

"Where am I?" Markus had seen many strange things during his training. But something about this bare and silent space was making his skin crawl. To add to his distress, B was nowhere to be seen.

"You're traveling through space and time, express style!" Her voice came in loud and clear though. "But, you know, that's not really something mortal minds are made to comprehend, so I simplified it for you."

"Why aren't you here, mam?"

"My hair. Seriously, my hair blends in with the background there. It doesn't really bother me I guess, but it just doesn't look right."

"B..."

An ear-piercing squee shook the entirety of the stark white maw

"You finally said my name again!" She chuckled a bit more, and the tapping of her tiny heels somehow echoed in the nothingness. "Existential terror works every time."

"Please tell me where I'm going. I remember that I am going to my homeworld, my original time, but that's it. I need more information. I need to know things like the political climate, what city I'm dropping in, or even who I'm supposed to talk to. This is basic stuff."

"Brink of civil war, Miami, and Hector."

Markus took a few moments to wait for anything else she might say and received silence.

"Is that all you can tell me?"

"Nope."

"Will you tell more, please?"

"Nope."

"Please, B?"

"Nice try, but nope."

Before Markus could say anything more, he noticed color entering the white abyss. Felt wind on his face, and his skin became warm, while the air in his lungs seemed to grow fainter. He dared to look for this source of this myriad of sensations, and before he could make sense of them, he realized that he was no longer floating in a monochromatic maw, but hurtling towards a grassy knoll.

A loud crash, like thunder in his ears. The feeling of being buried alive, multiplied by the thousands. It was all a blur of sights and pains that came and went with equal alacrity. Once he felt his courage return, Markus dared to breathe. He felt reality reenter his eyes and gripped dirt in his fingers.

Another full and agonizing second passed by before the former Marine realized that he was sitting at the deep end of a massive trench. As climbed out, it became apparent that this fresh geographical feature was courtesy of his crash landing.

More unnerving though, was that sound. The sound of cheering.

As he looked around, Markus realized that he was surrounded by a massive crowd of strangers. They carried picket signs, took pictures of him on their phones, and cried in many languages. Soon enough he felt his arm be raised into the air.

"Hear me my fellow peace bringers!" The man holding Markus by the hand was dressed in a priest's cassock, not unlike Zenith's. And his youthful face was accentuated by a finely groomed beard. "Our Lord, our True Lord and Savior has delivered us his messenger!"

The cheering turned into jubilant screams, all while Markus' fear grew exponentially.