Axel Asher pushed open the door to the comic book shop, holding his son's hand tightly. William only smiled happily, looking around madly at what was available to him and looking like he wanted to race off. But he knew the rules and is the ten year old reluctantly stayed next to Axel.

"Ok, so you know the rules." he said, grabbing his son's attention who was already nodding. However Axel felt the urge to say them again, seeing too much of himself in his son in his desire to wander off whenever he saw something he liked. "No leaving the store, always check with me about what you want, and don't talk to anyone."

"I know dad." William moaned, though how he did it was so unintentionally cute it brought a smile to Axel's face. Reluctantly he let go of his son's hand and within a second he was off, looking at everything in the store. Despite having a lot of similarities with Axel, anyone could see how similar William was to his mother when he looked like that, full of joy and happiness when Axel took him to different universes. Keeping a close eye on him, he began to wander around the store himself and glanced at the many comics.

Good old Universe-8121. The most normal universe in this multiverse, though granted there were others just like it. But for some reason he really liked this reality, he didn't know why and honestly he didn't much care for figuring it out. It was a nice place to relax due to its lack of masked heroes and world threatening plots, and he found some enjoyment in exploring a world where the biggest comic book company was Amalgam Comics, which published the adventures of the many inhabitants of this multiverse.

To be honest, he wants particularly shocked when he learned that in many universes something which is fictional is real in another reality. He has had a lot of fun in those worlds where the people he knew were fictional, as he enjoyed getting answers to all the questions fans asked about their favourite superheroes by asking the superheroes themselves, and just watching people argue about what he said couldn't be true. He didn't know why he enjoyed doing that, but he found that it passed the time. Though he was saddened to learn that after all his exploring across so many worlds, both Superman and Batman had a equal chance of beating each other in a fight.

Eventually he found that on many worlds Marvel and DC did a crossover in the 90s which included himself as a protagonist, showing his entire origin and a few of his later adventures. He was eventually intrigued to look into what happened in this multiverse in regards to the comics published by Marvel and DC under the Amalgam banner. It took some looking but he eventually found d his answer in this universe, which might actually be the reason for why he liked it so much. Turns out that in 1996 Amalgam Comics had big plans, building towards a massive crossover between all their titles with an event equal to their famous Secret Crisis of the Infinite Hour. Of course then the comic book crash of that decade finally affected the company, and everything fell apart. Amalgam almost had to announce bankruptcy and by the time everything was sorted again, so many employees had lost their jobs.

Once the company was secure in their place, they decided to relaunch their titles and forget about their previous plans, meaning that the brief character of Access and the many odd one off mentioned like Superboy and Wolverine have faded into obscurity. Now those plans are considered an interesting piece of trivia and many fans have asked what the overall plan was for this storyline, though the writers have never explained and some have said that they honestly couldn't remember.

Axel eyed the comics presented to him, which had a large range of characters and series. From characters like Bloodspawn and Savage Warrior who were owned by Valiant Imaging to comic adaptations of properties like Trek Wars by Explosion Comics, there were plenty to choose from despite the merged nature of this world. Axel wasn't really a fan of comic books or fiction in general especially since he has learned to accept that everything including fanfiction and dreams happened somewhere in the omniverse, divided and separated into individual universes by multiverses and megaverses. This makes it hard for him to enjoy anything but sitcoms and other comedic fiction, as otherwise he is watching real people suffer every day for the enjoyment of others. However he does take a small interest in fiction, especially superhero fiction since his life pretty much revolves around this genre, because it's a good idea to be prepared for anything bad happening that he should be concerned about. It's quite good way to predict when a big multiverse threat might appear or if anything important happened to the universes he most often visits, and wiki sites help him keep track of what known universes there are. So despite how much he disliked reading and looking up these sort of things, it helps him with doing his job especially since his job can take him to anywhere in the omniverse at any point in the timeline. If he doesn't have a decent amount of knowledge of as many fictional characters as possible he could end up dead or worse. He learned that lesson the hard way when he ran into the original literary Dracula and realised had no idea what was going to happen since his only exposure to Dracula was through parodies and Monster Squad. As a result he wasn't expecting him to walk straight up to him as Axel's whole plan depended on sunlight protecting him.

"I'm ready dad." William said as he walked up to Axel, about five comics in his arms. Axel didn't know about the first four but he could see that the top one was a Spider-Boy comic. He approved of that, as he had met Pete and while being annoying like his Marvel component he was a decent role model.

"Alright let's go buy these then." he replied with a smile and soon the two were leaving the store, Axel carrying a bag with the comics on one hand and holding onto his son in the other. He led William down an alleyway and once he was sure nobody was looking, waved a hand to make a glowing yellow doorway appear in front of them that would take them home. Looking down to see William smiling, apparently still finding the experience exciting despite having done it many times before, he pulled him forward and the two carefully jumped through the portal, with it snapping shut behind them.

So that's it for this idea but like I said I might return to it at some point. Remember to tell me if there are any spelling mistakes or sentences that don't make sense. Hope that anyone who has read this has enjoyed it and that you liked the final chapter as it is something I've wanting to do since starting this. I left it purposely ambiguous who William's mother is so it could be Ming, Caitlin or even someone else because I have some ideas relating to Access but I don't want to commit to anything before I'm certain that's what I want.

Amalgams:

Valiant Imaging (Valiant Comics and Image Comics)

Explosion Comics (Dynamite Comics and Boom Comics)

Bloodspawn (Bloodshot and Spawn)

Savage Warrior (Savage Dragon and Eternal Warrior)

Trek Wars (Star Wars and Star Trek)