A nondescript comm slate vibrated loudly on the wooden table accompanied by a klaxon like sound chosen during setup. It's owner, an F-tier supe that's simply known as the Cleaner pulled his attention away from the diorama he was working on.

He worked his jaw back and forth, debating whether or not to answer the call while glaring at the infernal device. It finally fell silent as if cowed by Cleaners stare alone, but he knew better, the caller would call back again. Several heartbeats passed and the device sprung to life again, the vibrations sending it dancing towards the edge. As if knowing it's own doom awaited it on the stone floor below, the slate paused at the edge of the table before vibrating itself over the edge.

Cleaner snatched it well before it met it's untimely end. He stabbed the accept call button and merely grunted. Jordan, his handler from the supe agency was on the line. "Got a supe who can materialize matter with a thought took some psychedelics and, well, you know what that results in. No other supes can get close enough to knock him out. Delta city, 350 kicks to the west."

"On my way." Cleaner's gruff voice responded. Jordan had been Cleaner's handler for years at this point and knew how stoic the oft derided supe was. But they called Cleaner in for dirty jobs like these because the results spoke for themselves.

A short time later Cleaner stood at the edge of what appeared to be an abstract painting. The buildings were disproportionate and leaning in impossible directions. Colors shifted and danced before his very eyes, it was almost nauseating. Digging around in a pocket, Cleaner fished out the Comm slate, laboriously typing out a single word, "Clear?" and sending it to Jordan. The response was immediate, "negative. Civilians in the area, possibly supes, too."

Cleaner typed out and sent 'Ack', holding back a sigh of frustration. Witnesses meant that this was going to be more difficult than it should be. 'Penance' , he thought. 'Millenia of abusing my power, and I pay for it here.' The comm slate disappeared back into a pocket while he contemplated how to approach the problem.

While he worked the problem in his mind, a bony creature with impossibly misshapen wings flapped loudly overhead. Several meters outside the city the loud colors melted away, revealing a pigeon underneath. Freed from it's burden the pigeon found another gear and sped off in search of normalcy.

'Interesting. Once that bird escaped the area of effect the changes melted away. Maybe the powers have a range limit? Or is it an illusion? Either way, that gives me an idea.' Cleaner reached into his memory, trying to recall a particular ability he developed lifetimes ago, but never needed again.

Ah, there it was! A special vision to see through illusions. Cleaners eyes remained the same, they didn't glow or change. But now he could see the real city underneath the imagery. It wasn't an illusion, more of an overlay of strange matter that made the city appear as it did. Cleaner instinctively knew what to do. Instead of thinking about the problem, he instead focused his attention on finding the supe responsible for the mess, trusting his subconscious to keep the matter from affecting him.

Several blocks in he had to stop and let melting eyeballs cross in front of him. 'I've traveled through several universes, and never once did I experience reality as bizarre as this.' he mused silently to himself. A block before the trees lining the street were dancing to a tune no one could hear, some were coordinated while others appeared to dance to a different tune.

Jordan was right, though. There were civilians and supes caught up in the psychedelic effects. One persons legs grew comically large when extended forward as they walked, but shrunk back to normal as it passed under the person's body. A random c-tier sup was plastered as a stylized mime frantically trying to find a door to the invisible box they were locked inside of.

More blocks further defied description. A mix of fluffy substances mixed with demonic imagery painted the scene before him. Cleaner knew he was getting close, though his special vision he could see that the strange matter was seeping into the objects it covered. He called a temporal lens, an ability allowing him to pull on the fabric of space-time to see into the future or past.

He paused to speed time forward through the lense. What he saw dismayed him, if he didn't resolve the situation soon, everything affected by the strange matter would permanently morph into a sludge that would threaten the entire planet. If that happened, Cleaner could reverse it, but to do so he would stretch the fabric of space-time to the breaking point. He knew from experience that if that happened, this universe was doomed.

Dismissing the T-lense Cleaner hurried to find the affected sup. Laughter carried on peculiar winds reached his ears. The strange matter played havoc on the propagation of sound, adding another level of difficulty in locating it's source. Cleaner cycled his vision through many modes until he found one that showed brain activity of living creatures. 'I should have thought to use this sooner.' he chided himself.

There, third floor of a mixed use building was a chaotic signal. Now that he had a focus on the source, Cleaner could sense the strange matter materializing with every heartbeat of the supe, surging out in successive waves.

Cleaner looked around surreptitiously, but ultimately decided that no one was in their right minds due to the strange matter. He leapt into the air and flew directly for the supe, phasing through buildings for expediency. He stopped next to the supe, strange matter flowing around Cleaner like water around a rock.

'Beng able to manipulate life and living cells would help out here, I curse the fates for keeping that from me, especially now.' He considered his options, resigning himself to falling back on manipulating space-time itself. He wrapped the supe in a temporal field, separating him from this reality temporarily. Inside the field, Cleaner accelerated time so the psychedelics worked their way through the supes system. Only when the supes brain signals smoothed out did Cleaner return time to it's normal flow.

'And now I have a life out of synch with this reality. Bringing him back could be disastrous. Must do this carefully.' From the perspective of Cleaners reality, hours crawled by. No longer fed by the sup, the strangeness began dissipating from the edges. Finally Cleaner dropped the temporal field around the supe. Satisfied that the supe was synced properly, Cleaner left the apartment, speeding across the rooftops.

Alighting upon a tree branch, Cleaner once again fished out his Comm slate, pressing the icon for Jordan. "I'm going to need a bigger mop."