It's all water under the bridge?

 Chapter 1

 A deep inhale marked the otherwise silent morning, as Kai inhaled a puff of whatever fruity delicacy had been offered up at the local convenience store. It tasted strongly of Pineapples and Peaches; He exhaled as the contents of the device did their job. Kai sighed in relief as he looked out over the railing on the back deck of his mediocre cabin in the woods of Spokane. Taking a sip of coffee he reminisced on his most recent failed relationship with a hippy woman named Sharon.

 Sharon had really, and I mean really wanted to live an off-the-grid lifestyle. Glancing down he could see a modest vegetable garden that he tended to after his morning routine of coffee and nicotine, 50 yards behind it was a shabbily built "barn" if one could call it that, that he planned on storing farming equipment in, but it was only half built since Sharon had decided to run off with her new flavor of the month. A fitness instructor by the name of Benji. Yes Benji, like the dog.

 Lifting a steaming mug of hot coffee from the railing to his right he downed it in one long swig. Taking another quick drag of his peachy toxic cocktail he stretched and made his way down to the garden to take on his morning routine with the most amount of fake gusto he could manage. He recently started seeing a therapist to help with his most recent breakup, but nothing the man said seemed to help more than throwing a pity party and listening to sad music while doing so. See the shrink seemed to think it was best for Kai to distract himself from his "need" for validation from others to feel complete.

 For Kai it was hard, since he was abandoned by his parents at the age of 15 he never wanted to feel like that again. He woke up one Foggy September morning to a hastily written note that said nothing more than 'Love you Kai will be back later.', but later never came. From that day forward he had decided to be the most likable person he could for whoever found him attractive enough to spend more than six months with him. Pushing his insecurities to the back of his mind, Kai began to walk the small field of cabbages, chuckling to himself about a show he used to watch as a kid.

 " Ah my cabbages... are coming along quite nicely."

 He spoke to the empty air, it is not like Sharon would have laughed at the contrived joke anyway, she was almost 10 years younger than him. Kai was just your average 28 year old man on the cusp of turning thirty, who still sometimes felt like the scared little boy who had to grow up way too fast. Reaching up to take off a spring green beanie he ran his hair through his nicely trimmed silver quaff of hair. It stood out quite contrastingly to his clay-tan-colored skin. Sharon had convinced him that looking like an Elven Lumberjack was the "it" look, but he was still trying to come to terms with looking like Lego what's his names distant cousin.

 He never really was much into reading those fantasy books she was into at first, but as their relationship deepened so did his love of reading. He devoured more modern fiction, than he did the zeitgeist-fueled legends of old. Letting out a deep sigh a frown marred his face as he put his beanie back on, and headed towards a half-cut pile of logs to let out his frustration. Hefting the large splitting axe in his hands he thought about how 6 months ago he could barely swing the damn thing properly, but now he had developed quite the chiseled upper body from swinging this thing around.

 He wasn't going to win any bodybuilding competitions for sure, but he was pretty happy that he had managed to stay in shape. A strong breeze blew through the area causing the trees to rustle their leaves and Kai to lift the splitting axe above his head to take a swing at the unsuspecting prey before him, a log. With each swing of the axe, he pushed out all of his negative feelings onto the logs as he turned them into biological twins. The heavy *thump thump* of the axe meeting wood was the only sound to permeate the valley he called home.

 1 hour later he put the axe down to wipe the sweat running down his brow, and grab a drink of water. He was beginning to feel a little better after his pity party-fueled mini rampage on the poor trees. Contemplating what he should do next Kai didn't notice the sky start to ripple like a pond after someone threw a stone into it.

 " HELLO!!... is this thing on??"

 Confused Kai looked around to see where the abnormally loud voice that echoed down the mountainside had come from, but he could see no one nearby. Looking up to the sky he saw something he could not even imagine in a million years. The Image of a giant minotaur wearing a fancy doublet was projected onto the sky as it sheepishly looked to the left nodding to something unseen. Kai rubbed his eyes in disbelief wondering if he had somehow knocked himself unconscious with the splitting axe, and was now dreaming about Giant Cows cosplaying as Shakespearean actors.

 "What the fuck is going on right now!?"

 Disbelief filled Kai's voice as he yelled to the sky in exasperation, a rising tide of anxiety bubbled up from his guts. He stared almost unwillingly at the dubiously dressed minotaur floating in the Spokane skyline unable to tear his eyes away from the scene as the creature as it pushed a microphone away from its face to speak to the unknown solicitor in the background. Quite unaware that its microphone was still functioning.

 "Listen Squiz! I know what I am doing this isn't my first rodeo here, I worked hard on the speech I was going to deliver to these mortals, and you have the gall to interrupt me? You are courting death!"

 The Minotaur shouted at seemingly no one. An angry snort escaped its 50-foot nostrils, and Kai could swear that he saw steam escape the confines of that nasty nose hole. Before he could keep wondering about how exactly one could produce visible steam out of anger the monster began to speak again.

 " What? What do you mean the microphone is still on Squiz? do you know who I am? Do you think I would make an amateur mistake like that while addressing these mortals?"

 Looking off into the distance the minotaur seemed to blush a look of genuine fear at its blunder plastered all over its hair face. Baffled once again at how a cowman could blush, he had no time to expand on that idea as the giant sky bovine began to compose itself and speak to his audience once again.

 " Anyways as I was saying Humans of the planet Omicron persi I... what? what do you mean I am addressing the wrong universe?"

 Feeling a momentary relief from his building anxiety Kai laughed out loud feeling genuine humor for the first time in months. As the two unknown beings bickered back and forth at each other in the sky the seemed to come to an agreement about whom they were talking to and began to speak again.

 " My greatest apologies Humans of Earth I am the all-powerful druid of the 5th circle Gary. It is with deep regret that I must inform you that due to a fight between two immortal beings a total of 65 planets are on a collision course with your homeworld."

 Taking a deep breath he continued.

 "However there is good news for you lesser lifeforms! I am quite the magnanimous and powerful lord and have been granted permission from my superiors to fuse all of the planets with that of your Earth!"

 "Now I know you may be thinking...'but Gary how is this good news?' To which I must say it is because of the soon-to-be saturation of the cosmic energy known as Mana will become bountiful on your new planet."

 "With the coming of Mana is the coming of great power to you mortals, as well as millions of deaths, but that is a price we are willing to pay."

 The last bit of his sentence came out as little more than a whisper as though he was apologizing for farting in a car with the windows rolled up. Almost as if the deaths of millions were nothing more than a minor inconvenience to him. To Kai, however, it caused him to take a few steps back to keep from falling on his ass.

"D...Did it just say millions of deaths?!"

 At a loss for words, Kai shakily reached into his left pocket for his trusty stress reliever. Inhaling a long drag from it like a recently relapsed smoker having his first cigarette in 10 years. Greedily. Once again he didn't have much time to ruminate on his thoughts as the skyman began to speak again.

"Now the coming 'Apocalypse' will be a terrible and stressful time for all of you I am sure so to make up for it we will be teleporting all of you to the experimental implementation chamber to put all of you under stasis, and give you all a little bit of guidance on the upcoming situation."

 It said Apocalypse while raising its hands to make air quotes, in Kai's eyes severely understating the problem it continued its fractured and insane speech.

 "With that out of the way, I welcome and congratulate your planet on its chance to join your betters in the greater multiverse. When this spell ends You will all be rendered unconscious and taken to the tutorial area. With this I hope we can all consider this matter water under the bridge, and I wish you all many prosperous opportunities on your new planet."

 With a snap of its giant fingers the minotaur vanished from the sky, and the only thing Kai could manage before blacking out was a strong.

"What the fu...!"

 Darkness consumed all for the first time in centuries as the world began to change.