"Ah great. Just what I needed."
That was the final thought of Cpt. Darius Valentine as his experimental fighter jet crashed headlong into the Nevada Desert. It was quite funny how these experimental fighter jets always exploded in a large nuclear-bomb-esque mushroom cloud. It's also funny how the military always tells the pilot's families that their son/father/husband died in a traffic accident today. And it's absolutely hilarious how these accidents always happen in the Nevada Desert.
Unfortunately, Mr. Valentine wasn't laughing. It might have been because he had never read/watched many of these movies, but it was mostly because he was dead.
In this world, anyway.
Because instead of finding himself in the middle of that mushroom-shaped cloud of fire and smoke, Mr. Valentine found himself lying on a cold, dirty-green, marble floor. Now that was something that Mr. Valentine found funny. It wasn't everyday that you were saved from a plane crash only to end up in a world of green marble.
It was a few hours before Darius regained consciousness, and it was another half before he finally sat up to take stock of his surroundings. And so you couldn't have blamed his two companions from being a bit miffed. Surely you would be too, had you been sitting and watching an injured man for close to 4 hours.
Darius blinked, his eyes getting adjusted to the strange green light being given off by the marble structures. His two companions looked very strange, and it wasn't the light. Despite their unique appearances, Darius was quite sure that he had seen them before. One of them had an outrageous hairstyle, and a guitar strapped around his back. The other...well, he had an equally outrageous hairstyle, and some very dangerous looking claws.
"So you're finally awake. Good. Any longer, and I'd have taken his head off." - This was Dangerous Claw speaking.
"Aww, come on, Victor. If you were pissed, you should have said so...I'd have calmed you down with some of my soothing tunes." - This was obviously the guitar guy.
"Good idea...then I wouldn't have to kill this fellow. I'd have taken your head off instead."
"Well, that's fine, considering that we can't really die in this world, right?"
"I don't know, and to be honest, I don't really care. I just need to kill something once in a while."
"What the hell are you guys talking about?" asked Darius, getting just a little freaked out by the proceedings. Someone was going to take someone's head off, and by George, Darius wasn't going to let his head be taken off by anyone.
"Oh, so our sleeping beauty has finally rediscovered his vocal cords. You're one lucky punk; I was about to rip 'em out of your throat."
"Now, now, be nice," said the other man. Darius looked at him closely. He really did look familiar, but Darius just couldn't place him. "Now, let's start with the introductions. What planet are you from?"
"What...?" Darius lifted one eyebrow in puzzlement. "Why, Earth, of course. The both of you look like you came from there as well."
"Oh, stupid me...sorry about that, I should have asked you which reality you came from. Like this guy here, his name's Victor Creed. Know about him? No? Well, I guess that means you ain't from the same reality."
"Victor Creed? Isn't he Sabertooth from that comic...err...I think it was called X-Men."
"Oh, so you do know him? Splendid! Interesting, even. Well, then, do you know me?" The man beamed as he said this, giving Darius a full view of the white suit that he was wearing...and suddenly, something clicked in Darius' mind.
"Oh my god, you're Elvis Presley. The freak are you doing here?"
"Well, it's a long story, and I think my friend - you call him Sabertooth, right? - wouldn't be very pleased if we tarried around here for too long. Anyway, there are people much better suited to telling you about this place. Come on, let's get out of here before IT gets here."
"IT? Who the hell is IT? And how come I can suddenly pronounced capitalised words?" Darius was pretty confused.
"IT is a giant brain that lives around here somewhere. He's got quite a few henchmen, but nothing that Sabertooth here can't handle. Sure, the Man with the Red Eyes might be a bit of a problem, but...nah, I don't think we'll run into any trouble. And about the caps...well, you'll get used to it."
"Can we hurry up?" Victor growled, his eyes looking hungrily at Darius. "I sense something coming over here, and I'm not entirely sure that it's edible. I don't want to fight something I can't eat."
"Oh, it's probably not edible. But I agree, we should get the hell out of here."
Elvis pulled out a string from his guitar, and twisted it into an unusual shape, before sticking it into one of the walls. There was a sudden burst of light, and a loud tearing sound, as if the very fabric of reality had been ripped apart. Which it probably had, really. After the tearing sounds had ceased, Darius was unsurprised to see a door in the middle of the wall - these funny fantasy-stories always had doors appearing out of the strangest of locations.
"All right, guys...let's get the heck out of here!" And with that, the three of them walked through the door, disappearing from the Green Room forever.
Just as the three of them had left, a young boy named Charles Wallace walked into the room. He looked around, saw the wall where the door had been, and swore. "IT damn it, can't those idiots learn how to smooth time nicely? Geez, it's going to be hell getting rid of all these wrinkles."
-----------------
As Charles Wallace was complaining about the need to smoothen out reality, Darius was staring in disbelief as he found himself in a strange corridor. The green marble had disappeared now, to be replaced with white concrete. Opposite him was a door made of silver, shimmering slightly in the pale light that came from the ceiling. Looking around, Darius could see that there was a door every ten metres, of various shapes and sizes.
The Corridor seemed to go on forever, stretching out into the distance as far as he could see (which was very far - pilots needed to have perfect vision, after all). Darius looked back the way they came, and saw Elvis locking the green marble door behind him.
"Well, I guess it's time we got going...we should have been back nearly 3 hours ago, I suspect," said Elvis with aplomb. "Or maybe it was 3 days. I don't know, after 45 years in this place, I still can't tell."
"Yeah, yeah, now shut your trap and hail us a cab..." growled Sabertooth as he filed his nails on one of the concrete walls. "I sure as hell am not going to walk all the way back."
"But that costs money, you know...God knows I don't have a lot left..." said Elvis forlornly, searching his pockets for coins. "Come on, Darius, you're loaded...I don't suppose you'd care to lend us any?"
"What makes you think I've got anything? Anyway, how'd you know my name?"
"Ah, don't ask useless questions. Hurry up, give me that shiny thing on your shirt...or else Sabertooth will tear my head off...that would hurt, I think."
Darius looked down at his shirt, and saw that his medals were still attached to his sleeves. Well, they wouldn't be much use here...he might as well play along with these guys. "Yeah, whatever, take this one...Anyway, I assume that there's some head-honcho around here who will tell me what the hell is going on around here? Like, about the fact that I'm supposed to be dead?"
"Oh yes, of course. You'll meet her later. For now though, we need to get ourselves a cab..." Elvis took the medal from Darius, inspected it closely, nodded slowly, and then said, "You might want to try and stay close to the wall." Darius had only just registered Elvis' words before the King snapped his fingers.
There was an enormous gust of wind so strong that Darius was nearly blown all the way down the Corridor. Only the handle of the green door saved him - it had caught unto one of the straps of his jumpsuit, and using that as leverage, Darius managed to stay upright for the duration of the gale, which ended as quickly as it began.
"Whew...awesome. We managed to get this cab. We're in luck, Creed 'ol buddy."
Darius looked up at the cab, expecting to see one of those yellow taxis from New York, or even a Carriage from the Victorian Era. He didn't, however, expect to see a B-52 Bomber. His surprise didn't last for long - after all, his guess about the Victorian Carriage wasn't too far off the mark. He jumped after Elvis and Sabertooth as they climbed into the back of the B-52, which had been specially enlarged for up to 10 passengers.
"Where to, Sir?" asked the pilot as he gunned the Bomber's engines. "Back to Town?"
"Yeah, I guess so...I don't see where else we can go. You want to stop anywhere, Vicky?"
"No. And don't call me Vicky."
"Right. How about you, Darius? Got anywhere you'd like to visit before we take you to see the Commander?"
"A morgue."
Elvis looked concerned. "Hey man, don't go all suicidal on me...we did take all that effort to pick you up. Not to mention that the Commander will slaughter me. And if she doesn't, then Sabertooth will."
"I was being sarcastic...come on, let's go meet this Commander of yours."
Elvis looked very cheered up by this fact, and quickly instructed the pilot - or cab driver - to take us back to wherever the Commander was. The pilot nodded, and the engine burst to life, sending the Bomber rocketing down the Corridor, past hundreds, thousands, millions of doors.
As the Bomber flew onwards, the atmosphere became a lot more relaxed. Sabertooth pulled out a piece of wood from the inside of his coat, and started filing his nails on it. Elvis pulled out a glass of wine from somewhere above him, and started drinking, while pulling out a book from midair.
Darius, meanwhile, couldn't resist going back up to the cockpit. It hadn't been long ago that he nearly crashed his experimental jet, but flying was an addiction that Darius hadn't yet gotten over. As he entered the cockpit, the pilot gestured for him to sit down in the co-pilot's seat. As Darius did so, the pilot took off his helmet, revealing a pair of bright blue eyes and a youngish face that couldn't have been older than 25.
"You're USAF?" asked the boyish pilot. "Cor...haven't seen one of you guys for a long time. Did they just pick you up?"
"Err...well, I'm not sure. I guess they did. I don't really know too much about this place..."
"Well, I wouldn't expect you to. Hell, I'm pretty impressed. You're doing a much better job coping with this than I did."
"Yeah, well...I read a lot of fantasy books. I reckoned something like this would happen one of these days. What's your name, pilot?" asked Darius, curious about the boy's identity. It looked like the boy had come from the USAF as well, and perhaps Darius would be able to recognise the boy's name.
"The name's Johnny Taylor, sir...Don't worry, I suspect that you won't recognise the name. By my calculations, it's been nearly 70 years since I went missing from the USAF. Of course, I might not have disappeared from the reality you came from...but I don't really know much about these reality things. You'd have to ask the Commander that."
"Who is this Commander person, anyway? Seems like you guys look up to her a lot."
"Sure we do. She's the one who keeps everything running around here. Without her, this place would have collapsed a long time ago...especially with all the havoc that the Azores have been creating."
"The Azores? Who're they?"
"Oh yeah, you wouldn't know about them. Well, they're kinda like the bad guys around these parts. They keep screwing around with reality and time and stuff like that. I don't really know the details, somewhat 'cos I'm just a cab driver, but mostly because I don't understand this stuff. But yeah, I've been told to shoot them on sight. Now, if only I knew that an Azore looked like..."
"They aren't dangerous, are they?"
"Well, of course they are. Why'd you think we have Hunters crawling around every inch of the Corridor? Don't worry though, they wouldn't dare attack a Bomber like this one. Apparently they only affect the rooms."
Darius scratched his head, totally confused by now. Taylor glanced and grinned at Darius' obvious puzzlement. "Heh, I had to go through the exact same thing. Don't worry man, nothing's going to happen for a while...the Azores wouldn't dare attack this Bomber - this baby's still armed and dangerous."
Darius' eyes widened. "You've got nukes on this thing?"
"Close. Conventional payloads would be the proper term, I think. Don't really know, I flunked my theory test."
"I'm surprised that they even let you near this ship."
"My practical round was excellent, apparently. They just couldn't let me go. Not that it matters any more, of course. Not since I found myself here one day."
"Where is this place anyway? I gather that this place is called the Corridor, but is there anything else about it?"
"Well, I'm not sure of the details...but apparently this place is a connector for all the various possible realities. Each of those doors leads to a different reality, some dangerous, some benign. One of our realities lies somewhere behind one of those doors...the only problem is finding the right door, which - to be honest - is completely impossible."
"How'd we get here in the first place, then? Shouldn't we have come through our own door?"
"Well, that's the thing you see? The Commander thinks that it's because of the Azores that people like us appear out of nowhere. Sure, it happens on a regular basis when the Corridor gets warped out of its usual orientation, but apparently the Azores are making it worse by bending time and reality in individual rooms, and...okay, you know what, I think you'd better get the Commander to explain this to you. Even I don't know what I'm saying. All I know is that the Commander can predict when someone's going to fall into the wrong reality, and when that happens, she sends Hunters to pick them up."
"So...Elvis Presley and Victor Creed are Hunters in this world."
"To be precise, Elvis is the Hunter. Creed's his Adept. Basically, Elvis is the one with the key and the maps, whereas Creed's the guy with...the violent tendecies. Don't worry about not getting it the first time - just know that they're good at their jobs."
"Right...forgive me if I'm a little skeptical about that. Especially Elvis...he doesn't seem to be the reliable type."
Taylor laughed, and said, "That's true. But don't you worry, he'll pull through when the time calls for it. Which is to say, not during salvage missions. By the way, I suggest you get yourself a bit of sleep. This journey's going to take some time."
"Right...if you don't mind?" Darius leant onto the window of the passenger seat, feeling quite worn out all of a sudden. Being dropped into another reality all of a sudden is a tiring business, even for an ace fighter pilot. Just as Darius dropped off, he asked Taylor, "You know...what would have happened if Elvis hadn't picked us up back then?"
"Well...then the creatures in that reality would have gotten you. If you were lucky, then you'd have been assimilated into their reality, without knowing anything about the Corridor. If you were unlucky, then you'd have been killed in a war, or eaten by a monster, or worse. Of course, if you were really unlucky, then you'd have been taken by the Azores."
"Ah great. Just what I needed."
