First story that officially marks the debut of the character ‘Crimson Justice’. Written and published on the same day, April 1, 2025.

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It all started when I woke up in a tall grassfield on the outskirts of a city in the Netherlands. Having my senses being alerted by an all-too familiar voice shouting “We have found another one!” felt rather surreal. Because I did not remember the last time I heard someone talk. When was the last time I saw the sun or touched grass? As my eyes got accustomed to the sunlight, I saw an elderly man dressed in red reaching his hand to me. I accepted his gesture and he pulled me off the ground. The man’s outfit consisted of a red shirt that displayed the yellow outline of a five-pointed star in the centre, which was partially obscured by the red woollen overcoat; a pair of black gloves, which covered the skin that the overcoat’s sleeves failed to cover; black combat trousers, which were held together by a leather black belt with a black-coloured frame-style belt buckle; a black utility belt that carried a couple black pouches and a scabbard containing a sword; black tactical boots; and a red skipper’s cap that brandished a yellow-trimmed red star in the middle. The cap reminded me of the type of hats working class people wore during the early 20th Century, but it also looked similar to the cap of a certain fictional plumber-turned-superhero. When I looked behind the man’s shoulder I noticed a group of people who also wore the man’s outfit heading our way. Are they part of an organisation, I asked myself.

“Are you alright? Do you remember anything?” Despite the man’s eyes obscured by a pair of sunglasses I felt warmed by a warm yet gentle gaze. I tried recalling anything but beyond recalling basic concepts, clothing articles, and old video game characters, my memory remained clouded. I shook my head.

“Sorry, it’s foggy.”

“Short-term memory loss. Give it some time and you will remember the rest—or at the very least, most of your memories.”

As I was taking a deep breath to gather my thoughts, I felt something akin to a jolt slicing and piercing through my brain. Memories, dozens—nay, hundreds were flooding. That older man’s voice, that intriguing mixture of red and black clothing, multiple people wearing the same outfit no less—of course, this is all so familiar to me! While trying to make sense of all this information, my breathing grew heavier. My heart was beating faster and what little stability remained in my head disintegrated.

“Crimson Justice?!” I gasped.

“Whoa, take it easy!” Before I could collapse and fall headface into the grassy field, the man caught me in his arms. The pain lasted for a few seconds even though it felt like minutes. I pulled away from the man and walked a few steps away from him and his acquaintances. I started touching my face, arms, and neck. Nothing out of the ordinary, except why was my body not wrinkly. I grabbed hold of some strands of my hair, and I noticed it was black as opposed to it being grey. It initially did not register that I was wearing black clothing from top to bottom. I brushed my hands across my shirt to see if the fabric was real. Yes, it was.

“Don’t worry, you were already wearing clothes when we discovered you here. After all, you strongly value your privacy,” the older man said, brandishing a faint smile. I took another deep breath; I redirected my gaze towards the man.

“I died. This is not what I looked like when I died.” The man nodded.

“Of course, this is who you want to look like. Though it is a bit surprising you already rematerialised into a younger version of yourself as opposed to restructuring your physical composition afterwards. When I rematerialised, I looked only a few years younger than how I currently look like. Then again, I don’t need youthfulness externally to feel it internally.” The man shrugged. His smile lacked any hint of subtlety.

“Excuse me, rematerialised? Why do you sound like me?”

“I think you already know the answer.” The man took off his sunglasses and looked me in the eyes. I shook my head wildly.

“This has to be a dream.”

“Unfortunately, it is your new reality.”

“I have so many questions though.”

“And you will receive the answers in due time.”

I inspected the group of people that surrounded me and the older man. I did not immediately take notice of their physical features due to all the red and black, but few of the men looked very much like me or the older man. As for the women, some of them had similar hair and skin complexion. I could not discern their eye colours due to the shades they were wearing, but at this rate I could only assume we all shared the same eye colour. The older man extended his arm before me.

“Welcome to this brave new world, Justice.”

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The old man brought me to his apartment in Amsterdam. It was a rather sizable living space with the usual assembling of rooms and facilities–bathroom, toilet, bedroom–though both his living room and study room were adorned with all kinds of books and manuscripts.

“How did you manage to buy this place?” I asked the man.

“My comrades and I sold a bunch of gold we took from a universe that no longer needed it,” he told me, his expression not changing one bit. As we were heading to his place, he told me that there is a whole multiverse—a great totality of realities and worlds, big and small, alive and dead—one can explore. And here I thought the theories surrounding many worlds were largely hogwash and wishful thinking.

“Wouldn’t that ruin this world’s economy?” The old man shrugged.

“Probably, but this world is bound to get thrown into chaos once more people are figuring out how to use the power of exceediation.” Another strange word.

“First ‘rematerialisation’, then multiverses and now ‘exceediation’,” I said, sighing, “Can you please explain what is going on here?” The old man took a deep breath and nodded.

“I was waiting for you to feel a bit more acclimated being all, you know, alive again—but sure, I can tell you what is the deal here. However, I think it would be better for you to start talking. You seem to know about Crimson Justice, but I have this strong feeling that what you know diverges a lot from what is happening here.” I grabbed one of the chairs near the old man’s desk and proceeded to sit.

“Alright. Before I died, I wrote this manga-inspired comic about a superhero that travelled the cosmos. His name? Crimson Justice. He is part of this supernatural paramilitary organisation known as the Crimson Force. They all wear uniforms that are strikingly similar to the clothes you and your comrades wear, although I don’t recall adding a certain plumber’s cap to the design.” The old man groaned.

“Jesus Christ, that is a skipper’s cap. It’s a reference or homage to the type of hats workers and revolutionary working class figures wore in the first half of the 20th Century. Although, I suppose it also looks a bit like those hats Mao’s Red Guards wore, but the ones we wear are a tad less puffy.” I furrowed my brow as I rolled my eyes listening to his defenses.

“Anyhow, Crimson Justice and his comrades wore these really cool helmets. They were masked warriors of justice, fighting fascists and empowering workers across the vast multiverse.”

“But the word ‘exceediation’ doesn’t ring a bell?” The man asked. I shook my head.

“Interesting.”

“Are you going to explain things to me now?” The old man nodded.

“However, I hope you don’t mind that I will provide you with a summarised version of what I’m about to tell you. Because I could easily turn this into a lecture, but we don’t have that much time. It’s only a matter of time before they show up and we’re far from fully settled here.”

“They?” I asked. The man glanced at me. I sighed; I gestured that he could proceed talking.

“Basically, you and I—along with thousands upon thousands of others—have been dead for countless years. Until recently, we did not exist whatsoever. There was no physical mark of our existence to be found in the macrocosm. So how did we come ‘back from the dead’ if we ceased to exist?”

“I guess our souls—”

“But that is the thing though, there is no such unit as a ‘soul’. The only way we can even talk about subjective consciousnesses having a material manifestation in the soul is because the very source of power that granted us existence allows us to have a soul, or something akin to a soul to keep our existence together.”

“You’re speaking gibberish.”

“Maybe. It is all very strange and I am basing it partially on how I understand this based on how I conceived of Crimson Justice and his world before I died in the first place. Let’s say there is this higher layer of reality, except it exceeds the very totality of all material existence—and let’s call it the Transcending Void. The Transcending Void is essentially the void transcending itself, it is where nothing becomes something and that something can escape the restrictions that come with being. It grants the power of miracles, and it is this miraculous realm that is capable of rendering a feat like rematerialisation real.”

“So it is a super special afterlife or something?”

“Calling it an afterlife would not be proper because it is neither hell nor heaven. It is void, nothingness, the end of the living conscious subject. Yet it is void that gives what has become nothing the means to become something. This quality of the Transcending Void, is known as exceediation.” A glowing, translucent blade of energy appeared next to the old man. The sudden appearance of the sword almost caused me to fall off my chair.

“You see this blade? While it doesn’t come without some risks or sacrifices, this is a manifestation of the Transcending Void. By tapping into that reality, we can affect the material world in ways that would make a mockery of the field of physics. This includes rematerialisation, which entails the recreation of a human individual without breaking the continuation of their premortem consciousness, and travelling between worlds. Without the power of exceediation there may not have even been a whole multiverse because the Transcending Void has a major influence on the structure and restructuring of the macrocosm’s cosmology—”

“I thought you were giving me a summarised version?!” I shouted. The glowing sword disappeared.

“This is the summarised version!” The man loudly responded.

“This doesn’t even answer all my questions!”

We were interrupted by the noise of a loud roar coming from the centre of the city. I saw the man’s eyes widening before he narrowed his gaze. He took a couple steps towards one of the walls; he unsheathed his blade. With a single slash, the man created a ghastly rift. It did not seem to affect the wall whatsoever yet one could basically see a slash across the wall—or was it a slash across my own vision?

“Where are you going?”

“It is probably a Phantom; I must neutralise it before it could harm any people.” I rose up from the chair and walked towards him.

“Then take me with you. I want to see what Crimson Justice is capable of doing.” The old man chuckled and then nodded. We entered the portal the man created with his sword, transporting us to Dam Square, the central hub of the city. When we entered this area of Amsterdam, we noticed a large draconic, ethereal entity attacking the Royal Palace with one of its large, fierce claws. A famous building that has been part of the city for centuries, reduced to bricks and rubble. The dragon-like being sprouted additional heads which proceeded to fire blasts of light towards the National Moment, a large white pillar that has been used to commemorate the casualties of World War II and subsequent armed conflicts for many years. The attack was blocked by a wall of flying blades of light that manifested themselves between the blast and the monument. After deflecting the energy blast, the blades proceeded to rain down upon the enemy except one planting itself next to me.

“Take it,” the man said. I furrowed my brow.

“Excuse me? I don’t know how to even use it.”
“Just take it and entrust yourself to it.” I looked the man straight into the eye, but it seemed there was no point in arguing. Sighing, I grabbed hold of the blade. A surge of energy flowed through my body. It was not simply power being added to my being—knowledge, memories, skills. These were not mine yet they have become part of humanity’s legacy I am now fully inheriting. In less than an instant, my clothing transformed into the outfit the old man was wearing except instead of a red cap adorning my head, a red helmet with a golden three-horned crest covered my face.

“This boost is only temporary, so I will still have to teach you the basics soon enough. Are you ready?” The old man asked. I nodded.

“Yes, comrade”. The old man grinned and materialised a pair of sunglasses before his eyes.

“Alright, let’s do this!”

Blades in hand, we rushed towards the Phantom. The draconic entity sprouted thousands of tendrils, lunging them at us at lightning speed. Everything looked so hazy and surreal yet clear at the same time. The people that were screaming and running about looked as if they were frozen in time while the tendrils were approaching us at snail’s pace. We jumped upwards while slashing through the various tentacles and dragon heads attempting to assault us. The light that our blades emitted grew fiercer as we deprived the entity of its numerous appendages.

“Justice!” The old man shouted, “We must hit this Phantom with a decisive, concentrated strike. Only then can we neutralise this being.”

“I’ll follow your lead, Crimson!” I nodded. As we began to land on the ground, several dragon heads and tentacles lunged at us from all directions. Before they could hit us they were pierced by a storm of blades from above. The old man’s comrades arrived at the scene.

“We’ll create a path for you two! Just go all out!” One of the female comrades shouted at us. More swords rained down from above, creating a pathway that separated the main head from its various extensions. I grabbed my sword with both my hands, focusing all my thoughts and feelings—envisioning my blade as a great lightning bolt that could strike through the very heavens itself. Glowing wings of energy sprouted from the old man’s back, enabling the man to accelerate towards the target. I pulled off an overhead slash with the towering blade of light, bisecting the Phantom. The old man jumped upwards and dealt a series of slashes against the Phantom, resembling a ‘J’. The dragon’s main head bellowed a great roar before fading away, ceasing to be part of the material world once again. The sword in my hand faded away and all my sharpness and focus loosened.

“What was that?”

“That was a Phantom. Despair manifested. Conventional weaponry has no effect on these entities. They exist outside the laws of reality and transcend the totality of our material existence,” the old man explained.

“So the only way to stop them is using these exceediation powers?”

“Bingo.” The man nodded, “The Phantoms are made of the same ‘stuff’ as the Transcending Void, so the only thing that can subdue or neutralise them is the very source these creatures come from.”

“Interesting.”

“So what do you think? Are you willing to join us?”

“You want me to join you lot?”

“Of course! After all, you are my Alternate. Our ideas and experiences might diverge, but we both have a passionate beating heart that burns for justice.” The old man reached his hand to me.

“What do you say—do you want to join our cause across the endless macrocosm, Crimson Justice?” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My mind is clear. I accepted his hand with mine. This world I have awakened in is strange, very surreal indeed. However, perhaps this allows me to become the person I always wanted to be, the person I never succeeded in becoming—a hero of communist justice.

“Alright, let’s do this. It’s revolution time!”