Avenger Assembled

"Hello, boy." The man took a few steps towards Pan and spoke. "My name is James Barrie. I created you." He took another step towards Pan, reaching out his hand, and the old man smiled. "It was an accident. Many years ago, I loved a family' very much, and I told the sons a story about a boy who could live forever and never grow old, and all his friends. And you know what? They loved that story so much that they let me write about them in a book, and then in a play, so that they could live on forever in the world of stories. One of them was just like you, and I even gave him your name." The ground beneath Pan's feet shook slightly. "But the real boys are dead now, you know. All of them dead, a long, long time ago." The ground shook, and rumbled now, with the distinct sound of squealing...something? "Train," muttered Watchdog, gun out and her body between Pulse and that..._thing_. "Sounds like a train..." "Do you know what happened to them? It was very sad. George died in a great war," there was the sound of a gunshot from somewhere, "and Michael drowned because he couldn't marry Rupert," the distinct sound of bodies hitting the water, somewhere. "But do you know what happened to Peter? Peter was so sad because of what happened to his family, he threw himself in front of a train and died!" The ground was rumbling now, and there were distinctly two lights aimed Forever Boy's way from somewhere in the darkness around them. "Wouldn't you rather stay in a story than go out in the real world?" asked Victoria. "The real world is so sad! Everyone leaves you!"

Judy swallowed and looked at Ashley - evidently this was a tense subject. Ashley played things cool. "Not much to say there. They never saw their world die, so they never had to learn to make hard choices. They're not going to be superheroes, if that's what you're asking." Casually, she took the multitool off her belt and started to toy with it, flicking it open and closed. "The other me doesn't have any powers," added Judy, "so there wasn't any reason to send her to Claremont." She tugged at her hair and went on, "They're just off doing their thing, far away from here."

When she was alone, Lady Horus doffed her helmet - and Anna Cline nearly fainted from the wash of heat and smoke! She coughed, gagging, and put her hand to her mouth. She'd have to work quickly if she was going to not pass out. But if there was anything Anna knew how to do, it was how to move quickly. She looked at the fire before her and did the thing that all human instinct told her not to do; she ran towards it. She ran down into the smoke and flames, along the ceiling, creating a temporal vortex that began to suck the burning ink upwards, and kept running. She ran, and ran, and ran, as the skin on her face heated to the point of sunburn, as the air in her lungs became almost too hot to breathe; and slowly, things began to unravel. She was doing what you usually did with harmful substances, you sent them to the future! That way those do-gooder timecops couldn't come back in time to bother you because they'd be messing with their own history! She ran and kept running, something she'd been doing every day of her life since she'd turned sixteen almost seventy years ago. Snatches of music ran through her head - I love I love I love my little calendar girl as she remembered those long-gone days, then faded as the vortex expanded, pulling the fire in the building up inside it. There was only one downside to opening up a gateway to the future. You couldn't do that, at least not her way, and not see it. Notorious supervillain Anna Cline- I love you Ma BY THE LIGHT OF AMUN-RA! You don't deserve to have a family! Thou art but a pawn of the gods, thief What am I supposed to do now!? I love you. I'll always love you. When the fire was gone and the ink nothing but splotches of color, she slumped to the ground in the middle of the room where the blaze had been, the Helm of Horus resting on her lap, trying to catch her breath.

Anna Cline is going to stunt: Nullify Fire 10 (Extra: Area [Burst], Flaw: Action [Full]) off her Time Control array. Let me know if that works, @RocketLord, and I'll post!

"Yes, the squid-things from the sky that were under the ocean had enslaved him, but I bellowed at him until he couldn't hear them anymore," said Aquaria casually. "He lives on the other side of the sea, near a city called London. I looked at pictures of it but they did not tell me anything." Surfacer images had hardly any color, barely any sound even when they moved, and they generally didn't smell like anything - they also were typically of Surfacers doing things and Surfacer buildings and Surfacer things, and none of the pictures even showed what it was like under the river that ran through that city. Aquaria liked some Surfacer images but not for learning anything except how to talk like them. "I told him he was very handsome. I do not think people have told him that." Casually she scratched inside her armor as she turned down the pots on the stove for a nice long simmer. "After you did the electricity, did you mate right away? I want to mate with him but I want him to display for me first."

Ashley wrinkled her nose, wondering why the hell so many teenagers thought flirting with themselves was something to admit in mixed company. At least it was just her duplicate, not her, I guess. "I liked my doubles fine. We'd have owned this school if Summers hadn't kept us on lockdown," she said with a shrug and casual toss of her hair. "Guess I'm not that complicated." "They seemed nice enough," said Judy with a little shrug, though it seemed like she was leaving something out. "Ah wanted to know more about...everything that happened." "Eh, best not to worry about it," said Ashley with a shrug. "Basic multiversal theory. Worst thing you can imagine is happening to someone just like you right now - but so's the best thing. It all balances out."

Leroy reached out and pulled - and sure enough, his guess worked. The scene around them rippled and wavered like a bad special effect from a 1960s television show, or maybe wavering heat lines on a hot summer day. When they could see again, they were in what looked to typically be a vegetable garden, the sort that many an elementary school cultivated in these salad days. Typically a garden, anyway, because what was pushing its way up through the carefully-tended little plots were tombstones. The girl Victoria was there too, standing in front of almost-cartoonishly-familiar stone tablets that bore the name of "Mom" and "Dad." And someone else was there too; an old man in an old-fashioned suit and tie, with a greying mustache, greying dark hair, and a grey face. Pan was old, so very old, and Victoria was speaking. "It doesn't matter if we wake up," she said softly. "The bad things are going to happen anyway. At least in here, we'll be able to live forever, and learn to make our own world. Doesn't that sound so much better than the outside?" As she spoke, she absently petted Dio, who was curled up at her feet like a sleeping dog. Evidently he'd overcome his personal nightmares, or been transformed into part of someone else's. "Don't you want to just rest?"

"Ah was worried you'd be mad," said Judy bluntly. "Ah mean, Ah know there are a lot of people at Claremont who are gay..." She tugged lightly at her hair. "Ah don't think there's anything wrong with it. Ah just didn't want to think that some copy of me knew more about mah life and my family than me." "Earth-XX, huh?" asked Ashley, trying to take the change of subject even if Judy was still so rattled she'd have missed it. "Heard a kid made it with his duplicate one year. Boys are gross."

"Lo, get thyselves upstairs!" said Lady Horus, her ankh glowing with divine power that cast shadows even amid the flickering flames. "The blaze is my responsibility and it is I who shall deal with it. Go quickly, see if our foes lie above! Thou will not be followed by the flames, on this I pledge mine most sacred word!" The truth was that Horus actually had no particular power over fire, but Anna Cline knew perfectly well how to use her powers to put out a fire like this - after all, she'd been around a hell of a lot of fires during her long and colorful career. But Anna Cline couldn't be seen anywhere near where Lady Horus was, not unless she wanted the carefully constructed edifice of her life to come crashing down. And maybe these mooks didn't know anything about a supervillain who'd last been active forty some years before.

"Ohhh yes, he has very great teeth," said Aquaria happily, distracted from her speculations about what sort of display Trevor had put on to mate with Erin. "I bit his face, and he tried to bite me, and he kept smelling me after that. He is very....manly." She wondered if there was more than one word for being masculine, but soon decided she didn't really need one - Erin and Trevor both seemed to understand what she was saying. She inflated the sacs in her throat, then let them slowly deflate, wistful at the very pleasant memory of Sgt. Shark's attentions towards her. "He is...like me, with a body like mine, but a shark, not a Deep One," she clarified for Erin's benefit. "Sergeant is not his real name." She was briefly distracted by the need to stir her pots of fish, but since she could see Trevor and Erin fine with her back turned to them she saw no need to stop the conversation as she began lifting pot lids and throwing things inside. "Males make displays to show they want to mate," she went on, "so I understand electricity." She wondered if he'd bitten through a cable to show his ardor, but wait, that didn't make sense with his flat teeth. "But he does not live here, so I cannot see him. And going to see him would be hard."

She's so smart! I'm glad I talked to her. Judy swallowed - but didn't look surprised by the news. "All right...that's what Ah thought." Ashley relaxed, just a fraction, at Judy's words. "Back when all those copies of us here, one of mine was wearing one of those around her neck, and Ah'm pretty sure she was gay." She took a breath, then said, "But that doesn't matter, right? Ah mean, there are dimensions where everybody's evil, or the opposite gender, so what somebody's like in some other world, that doesn't mean anything about this one." Ashley was tense again.

"Yeah, Ah had that class in the fall. He's pretty nice once you get to know him." Judy had had a pretty good Classical education, at least by the standards allowable by her parents. The literature of past ages was supposed to be much better than the literature of today, even if it was mostly super-boring compared to the good stuff. "Ah wanted to ask you something," she said, her voice serious as she took the seat. Ashley took a seat too, sitting so she could see the rest of the room. "It's about that...ax thing, you have, the labrys." She pointed to Veronica's charm. "Ah wanted to ask you what that meant, like if Ah saw someone wearing it, what would that mean?" Ashley fidgeted, looking visibly uncomfortable, but Judy was laser-focused on Veronica.

Early Spring 2019 Claremont Cafeteria A few weeks after the incident where the duplicates of superheroes showed up at Freedom City, Veronica was just starting lunch when she was interrupted by Judy Smith. Judy and her sister generally gave the Dangers a wide berth, but today Judy looked burdened with purpose and Ashley looked vaguely mortified through the usual air of disdain she tried to project. "Veronica? Can Ah talk to you for a minute?" asked Judy, who of course had no food. Judy usually didn't come into the cafeteria either, come to think of it.

Watchdog/Pulse Claremont Academy The Roads Not Taken "So these are your books, huh?" Judy had dubbed this other Judy Brawny Judy in her head. Of the two versions of herself that had appeared in her room at Claremont, this one was certainly the friendliest - even if she did dress like the man on the paper towel box in the bathroom - complete with jeans and a flannel shirt. Judy did have to admit it looked like a practical outfit, right down to the keys and multitool hanging on that leather belt. Arms crossed over her chest, she looked at the row of books over Judy's shelf. "Did they not let you get any new ones here?" Brawny Judy asked, raising an eyebrow. Her eyebrow was black like Judy's, a sharp contrast to the bright blue, pixie-cut short hair on her head. "Ah like these books," said Judy, annoyance creeping into her voice. She was doing her best to be a good host until this little multiversal anomaly was cleared up but her duplicates weren't making it easy. It was a bit like with her sisters, she reflected; she'd gone from fighting like cats with Jaybee and Jaydee to a happy reunion with them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Let there be spaces in your togetherness. Quiet Judy, for her part, was sitting down at the desk and reading one of those books; a history of the Liberty League Judy had bought from Amazon and kept because she liked the stories about the first Lady Liberty. Quiet Judy reminded Judy a little of her grandmother; in a floral-print dress and long sleeves that just...wasn't a very flattering look? But she wasn't going to say that out loud. "Okay," said Brawny Judy apologetically. "These were some of my favorites too," she admitted. "So what's this world really like?" she asked, shooting a glance across the room where three versions of Ashley were giving tactical reports to each other. The Ashleys were having an even worse time of it than the Judys. Judy had expected Watchdog to be unhappy about the version of herself who'd arrived with Quiet Judy, who with her long black hair and brown, flared tracksuit looked a bit like she was from a timeline with sharia law or something? But from the sharp exchange upon their arrival, Watchdog seemed much angrier at the version of her who was pretty clearly dressed like the Raven; a distaste that seemed thoroughly mutual. "Well, Ah mean, it's nice," said Judy, not sure how to answer her counterpart's question. "Daddy's the President, and Ah go to Claremont because of mah problem." She thought she saw Brawny Judy flinch slightly, but pressed on. "Ah have friends here, and a boy Ah sort of like." Two, technically, but I am not getting into that with her. "Ah miss being able to go out by myself, but Ah haven't been able to do that for a long time anyway. What about you?" she asked her counterpart. "What's that you're wearing?" "Oh, this old thing?" Brawny Judy wore no jewelry except a bracelet with an double-bladed ax. She held it up so it shone in the light. "It's called a labrys," She looked at Judy's cross necklace and said, her voice gentle, "If you're worried about it, Ah'm still a Christian. You like a boy, huh? Is he from our class?" She hazarded a guess. "Is it Pan?" "N-no!" Quiet Judy looked up unexpectedly from where she was reading. "They just let you read this?" she asked her counterparts, her eyes wide. "All this stuff about metahumans, like they were the heroes the whole time?" --- They'd listened in on Watchdog's tactical reports about the dimensional incursions, they'd noted how Claremont's faculty and senior students were preventing panic on campus - and so the various Ashleys had nothing to do but shelter in place. "Aren't you ever going to take that thing off?" Watchdog demanded suddenly of the Raven. "We all know what you look like." The truth of the matter was, her third counterpart had unsettled her more than she was willing to admit - not the modesty culture-infused outfit she was wearing, but the tattooed barcode on the back of her neck. "I'll take off my armor and my utility belt when I'm not the only superhero guarding the President's daughter here in the middle of a dimensional incursion," said the Raven peevishly. "Why aren't you in your gear? Whatever happened to Opsec?" "Because it makes me look like some kind of dog-themed biker," said Watchdog, annoyed. "And I'm perfectly capable without it. How'd they rope you into that costume, anyway?" She wasn't going to mention Callie out loud in front of the others - after all, she _did_ have some respect for Opsec. "I took up this mantle after my mentor died saving the world," said the Raven, highly annoyed. "Maybe that didn't happen here, but I can't believe you could just...walk away from all this. And to what end, anyway? You're, what, Jaycee's undercover bodyguard here? You're pretending to be a high school student?" "As a way of making sure she has a normal adolescence!" Ashley shot back, her voice loud enough it was reaching the other side of the room. "I took an oath to protect and I'm doing everything I can to live up to it!" "Shut. Up. Both of you." It was the longest sentence the third Ashley had said yet. --- "S-so, Ah mean, obviously we couldn't tell anyone that Ah had the meta-gene," said Quiet Judy, her voice low and nervous as she spoke to her counterparts. "People would storm the White House if they knew that was in the family. And Daddy's trying so hard to make it better for people, but he already has a lot of enemies because he wasn't one of the New Founders before the attack. So we worked out a trick, where Ah'd come to Freedom City and help take care of the little meta-kids, like Ah was helping the least of these, and Ashley would help me get trained in hiding my powers." "H-how did that even happen, girl?" demanded Brawny Judy. "Where I'm from, everybody loves superheroes; even _here_," she said, gesturing at Judy, "there's a Claremont, and a League, and people are...normal about this. And you said this happened while you were alive - how in God's green Earth did things get so bad, so quickly, where you're from?" "Things have been like this since Ah was a little kid," said Quiet Judy simply, shrugging with a look of fatigue on her face. "Ah was in, oh, kindergarten when it happened. Ah remember school was canceled all that month, and Daddy stayed home from the college, and we had to watch tapes of Davy and Goliath because the TV wasn't working.The metahumans attacked Washington, but they lost, and then a new government came in because most of the old one was dead. After that, a lot of things were different, for metahumans and everybody else." She reached up and tugged at the DNA spiral necklace she wore. "Daddy doesn't like to talk about it much, but Ah think he joined the New Founders once he saw they were the winners." Brawny Judy snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like "Daddy', all right. Greedy bastard." "That doesn't sound like Daddy!" said Judy, scandalized. "He is a good man, with real values. He wouldn't just sign up with a dictatorship because they were winning!" "It's not a dictatorship," said Quiet Judy simply. "America is the freest and the safest country on Earth." And though they didn't share much, the look of horror and recognition that Brawny Judy and Judy shared at this point was practically a mirror image. --- "I never heard who actually did it," said the third Ashley George, relating the story of what had happened to her home timeline and its superheroes with the flat, dry tone of someone relating a failed battle that had happened a long time ago. "The Freedom League blamed it on terrorists, back when there still was a Freedom League, then our new leaders blamed it on metahumans - all I know is that somebody took out DC during the State of the Union, and next thing you knew there was no real government. Idiots put the designated survivor just ten miles from the old Capitol, pfft." She rolled her eyes. "Being a public underage metahuman, I was in administrative detention during the change, so I missed the fight with the Freedom League, and the...purges, and everything else." "They made you a slave," hazarded the Raven. "I can't believe any version of me would go to work for a government that did that to its own people. Those goddamned bastards," she added in a whisper. "Things are better now than they used to be," said the third Ashley with a small shrug. "Cahill was already soft on the 'meta-question' when Jaycee's powers manifested. Luckily his administration thought one meta could control another meta, so they pulled me out of the federal labor pool and assigned me to her. She's actually a good kid." --- "Isn't there any way we can help them?" Brawny Judy demanded of the Raven, suddenly calling across the room. "Send someone through the rifts after them? Maybe the Freedom League?" "It doesn't work that way," said the Raven, sounding heartsick. "From what I've seen, we'd be lucky to find any of these dimensions once we're back on Earth-Prime." "To what end?" demanded the third Ashley. "Are they going to fly to DC, punch Judy's father in the face, and declare that no, Phalanx is the President now? Are they going to hold the people hostage till they pass laws they want? Make their own laws? Superheroes can't fight the whole damn world!" "...the League records," said Watchdog suddenly. "You said they got you because this was after your powers appeared, but before you got to Claremont. Did the new government get ahold of the League records?" "No," said the third Ashley, shaking her head. "Freedom Hall burned when Daedalus did. I don't think AEGIS got their hands on any of it." Watchdog was already at her computer, typing quickly. "Okay, this isn't..." She shook her head, cursing as the PDF came up. "Dammit, this is just the stuff they tell Claremont kids, the B-team stuff. But it's not something the US government would know anything about. You," she demanded of the Raven, "Do you have the original League passwords? The stuff that the Raven didn't write?" "Yeah. Yeah, i do." --- Judy wasn't entirely sure what was in the files the Ashleys were talking about; there wasn't really time to explain. But she had the idea that there were Freedom League files; secret bases, weapons, metahumans in the closet, people who might be able to help the other version of herself and Ashley do...something? "But what are you gonna do with this?" she asked her counterpart as she watched the room's printer print out reams of double-sided paper. "You're not gonna try and get rid of Daddy." It wasn't an argument against the idea; just a statement of understanding about her own character even in a universe where things were much worse. "Well why the hell not?" demanded Brawny Judy, turning on her counterparts. "It sounds like her version of "Daddy" is even more of a prick than the usual one! And maybe she was part of the system, but that's just because she doesn't know things can be better!" She pressed the history book into her counterpart's hand. "Take this home and show it to people, tell them the real history! If you're like me, you were raised to buckle the belt of truth around your waist and wear the breastplate of righteousness; and you know your world is built on a lie! Why wouldn't you want to knock it down?" "Because Ah love my daddy!" said Quiet Judy loudly even as the Judy from this dimension fell silent with recognition, recognition of an argument she'd heard inside her own head longer than she could remember, "even if he..." She swallowed. "even if he sent me to Freedom! But...but maybe we can use that stuff Ashley's getting to help people, people who nobody wants to help where we're from. Just because Ah love my daddy doesn't mean Ah have to do everything he says, or be just like him." She shot a look at her counterpart from this dimension. "You understand, don't you?"

APPROVED

Sea Devil considered for a moment, then struck her trident against the ground, its colors flashing quickly up and down the human visual spectrum, and beyond. She spoke in a booming voice that rippled through the water around them in sympathy with the flashing colors on her trident - "Braaah! Braaah!" and what it looked like to the eyes of the squids was: The Surface-Men will take their revenge if you kill them or make them your slaves. Many will suffer. She considered, and made a gesture with her trident that included Asad. Bring us the one like him.

Does Aquaria's Comprehend work here?

Ashley noted Nicole's hasty departure, and figured the reason for it. But what the hell, teenage relationship woes were decidedly not her professional concern. Really none of this was, and now that she and Danica had their tutoring arrangement worked out, she decided she didn't need to say anything for a little while. Though now she didn't have any supper if Danica wasn't going to eat that bar. Dammit. Guess it's MRE after Judy's in bed again. Oh well. Is...is Corinne trying to have her way with me? Did...did I just think have her way with me? She said a few words inside her head that her grandmother had said when the health inspector gave the family restaurant a C. "Yeah?" she asked Corinne, looking at her dead-on. Judy gave Abby a serious look for a moment, but when Danica intervened evidently decided to let the changed subject stay changed. "Ah once took a field trip to an alpaca farm. But that was back before everything got...different," she went on, twisting her fingers in her hair for a moment before adding, "Ah, uh, never met any superheroes before Ah got here," she lied, "that's cool, Danica. Y'all ever wonder what they don't show us?"

"Okay," Aquaria croaked. "I am asking because I met a male. His name is Sgt. Shark and he has a very..." Aquaria fell silent for a while, the hiss and smell of cooking fish, the loud hum of the vent fan, filling the air. "manly way." She had learned those words from a show on the television, and her voice seemed to throb over them. "But he was a human before he became a Shark-man, so I wanted to know how people who live here decide to mate, and if the males give off any special signs."

Aquaria considered Erin's words and croaked, "I understand," which is what she thought she should say when someone said something to her that sounded important. She tented her hands together so that the sticky pads of her fingers touched - it was often how she kept her hands together. She didn't call Trevor a Surface-Man because she knew that was not entirely polite and he was her podmate's sister's regular mate, instead she hissed, "All the...humans I know are unmated or are females who mate with females." Did Erin's eyes go just a little wider? She pressed on. "How do females and males decide they want to mate with each other?"

"Yes!" Aquaria bellowed pleasantly. "It is a great fish I killed with my hands. Thank you for your kitchen." She hopped around some more, turning her upper body so she could study Erin. She knew Erin's mate was hereabouts, Trevor being a pleasant enough fellow when the two of them visited various people in the DuTemps Building and on those rare occasions when Jessie had shared a holiday with her not-sister. He was awfully quiet for her tastes, but then she wasn't exactly looking for a mate among Surfacers. Or...was she? She thought of her problem and then croaked, "Erin, I have a question." She had learned people usually liked to be asked. When Erin turned around, Aquaria was looking at her before the stove, goggle-eyed. "It is about your mating."

Lady Horus and Wadjet had a problem, and the problem was the building was catching on fire. "Fly, you fool!" Lady Horus yelled at Wadjet, knowing that her sidekick wouldn't hesitate to save herself but wanted to make sure she wouldn't linger to save her. With Wadjet's retreat towards one of the building's fire stairs, that left Lady Horus to deal with the problem she'd created. Unbidden images of times past came into Anna's mind as she raised her hand, blocking the nigh-infernal heat from the burning ink below as she flew cautiously a few steps closer. Think. Think. Powers of a sun god...geez, where's Sekhmet when I need her. Where's...It suddenly occurred to her that the vampire guy hadn't come upstairs yet and he was still down there in the fire! Well, jeez, Anna Cline didn't leave a man behind to take the heat for her unless he was a jerk, and the Strix guy had been all right. So Lady Horus disappeared through the hole in the floor and dug around for the vampire man. "Ho!" she declared as she grabbed him about the waist and hauled him up. "The Sunhawk has you!"

Aquaria made a small noise, reminding herself that as holy as these creatures looked, they were hardly the blessed beings they appeared. Still, she knew she had to take the lead, if only so the great male at her side kept her from doing anything rash. As the squid-things approached, she slammed the butt end of her trident into the ground, sending vibrations through the rock. "Brek-ek-ek, coax, coax!" she croaked, or at least that's what it sounded like to anyone who spoke no Lemurian. She repeated, in English, "Hold! We come to parley!" Her trident was still glowing now, red and green that cast a brilliant light against the opalescence of her armor. Squid. Colors and lights, as you speak. If they were truly at home in the sea, she should at least be able to understand them. "Who is your chief?"

"Actually," said Anna with pride, "I ain't never done anything untoward with the helmet on." Esperanza made a face that was silent but eloquent, and Anna said firmly "Not like that, anyway." Besides, if Nicci's gonna be screwing around with me, she's gonna be screwing around with me, not with how I looked when I was twenty-seven years old. They got down to eating, Esperanza taking the opportunity to fill in Chromium on what he'd missed in the books on Egyptian mythology that Anna had left lying around for her two teen heroes. "You like superheroes so much," she said skeptically, "you should know this one," she said, making a little gesture Set's way. "You should know this one, man. This is Set the Destroyer, the real deal from back in the day, when the old lady used to try and take over the world." "Yeah, well, we all paid our dues since then," said Anna. She shot Nicci a look, wondering what was going on in her girlfriend's head. Was it weird for her being here with a version of her lover's lover who looked like a sweet young thing? Because it was weird for Anna! Not unpleasant, though.