Avenger Assembled
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They changed buses in City Center, a crowded, busy place that was somewhat ameliorated by everyone sticking close together and keeping a close eye on Jessie. She actually seemed more relaxed after recognizing Mark for who he was, or at least some shadow of that, and so Mark relaxed too once they were back on a new bus - there'd been a bathroom break where Erin, Jessie, and Dr. Ellis had all gone to the women's room together, but luckily that was one place he didn't have to worry about! As they headed into Bayview, Jessie turned in her seat and stared out the window with wide eyes - not quite fear on her face, but something very much like recognition. "I remember that place," she said suddenly, pointing to a small row of shops. "There was a big party there....but I can't remember anything else." "Why do you think that is, Jessie?" asked Dr. Franklin gently. "Because something happened there. Something I don't want to remember." Tense, she settled back against the window, her eyes locked on the outside.
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"Well, sure," said Mark carefully. "I'm pretty famous. Like I said, I work for the UN, so I do a lot of international appearances and stuff on TV, and my face is on a lot of publications. And I'm sure Erin has talked about me, I mean who wouldn't? I'm pretty awesome." He grinned, trying to distract her. "Did you know, one time, I stopped a whole forest fire right in its tracks? It was down in the jungles of the Congo, see, and it was threatening to reach some villages where we'd been working. There wasn't time to evacuate all the people, so I just put on my costume, went out there, and I made the fire go away! It was a lot of work turning all the burning stuff into not-burning stuff, but at least I didn't have to dump any chemicals out there or anything..." He shot a glance at Erin, knowing well enough that this was a potential hazard. "You know, I bet you'd be a good firefighter, Jessie. They have a couple of superpowered people working for the Freedom City department, like Asbestos - she has no other powers, but she's totally fireproof. Pretty handy, huh?"
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"In any case, I will proceed to island's beaches and begin casting "Grandmother's Recipe for Lost Children," said Frost as he rose to his feet. "Between Gabriel's ears, Velocity's legs," he winked at the speedster at that, more like a grandfather than a man who looked close to her age, "and my magic, we shall have your lost scientists found soon." Taking a commlink for himself, he headed for the door. "I shall be incommunicado on way there, but I will be easy to find once we have arrived. Come, let us plan," he said to the others, "we can deal with our crisis on way to beaches." He'd picked up on the chilly relationship between himself and Fleur de Joie from the start, and saw no reason to linger there now that they had their seperate assignments very far from each other. He adjusted his white hood and mask as they stepped out of the briefing room, once again disappearing behind the mask of the parka-clad Comrade Frost.
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"Miss A's still getting the system locked down. From what she tells me, we're lucky things didn't get a whole lot worse." He sighed and took a seat, and was briefly distracted by a small gaggle of underclassmen who had heard the story of Citizen's death in the battle to save the Earth from the Curator's electronic domination. He told them the exciting, albeit serious, tale of the battle, leaving out the details of what exactly had been the scene of the great battle, leaving his friends to talk about it amongst themselves. He was no more alive, as far as Kimber could tell, then when she had seen him dead.
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"It's a nice name," said Mark diplomatically to Jessie, "but you'll have more fun if you pick your own super-name. That way you won't have to worry about people mixing you up with Erin, which would just be weird, and you'll be able to be your own person. Even if it's something basic like, I don't know, Guardian, or Superbia, you'll be able to have your own identity. Erin and I know people who make costumes and get identities established and stuff, so once you leave Project Freedom you'll be able to have your own gear, your own name...it'll be a pretty sweet deal." He smiled. "You've got plenty of time, and you don't even have to keep whatever they assign you at Project Freedom. It'll be fine."
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"It's easy enough for most people. You get a new costume, call yourself something else, and there you go! It's not _just_ that easy, of course - you have to reidentify yourself to all your friends and allies, and you probably have to get yourself on the good side of the cops or whoever the local authorities are all over again. It's a little tougher for me because my name is licensed by UNISON, I'd have to go through and sign forms so they would switch it over." He gestured over the table and said, "They make these little toys that they sell to raise money for charity, and stuff that they can put in care packages for needy people. There are some plastic action figures, one talking Edge, and there's this plush squeezy thing for little kids, it...well, I dunno, it's cool, and he's a little cape!"
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"Oh, it's very nice," said Mark as he dug into his food with relish, relieved that Jessie's brief outburst hadn't been the sign of anything worse. "I may not get my name in the papers every day, or sleep in a bed, for that matter, but it's a really good feeling. Last week I was working in northern Ethiopia near the volcano Erta Ale, and I got to walk right up almost to the edge. Well, as far as you can go, anyway. It was really spectacular! That thing is always active, so it's this volcanic pit like nothing...well, like almost nothing I'd ever seen." He shot a glance at Erin before adding, "I half-expected to see an family of Magmin taking their version of a winter holiday around there. We were helping the local people, the Afar, rebuild after a major dust-storm." "Why do you call yourself Edge?" inquired Dr. Ellis curiously, giving Mark a look. There were disadvantages to a secret ID, and disadvantages to not really having one, too. "Oh, uh, it was something I thought up when I was fourteen," Mark admitted. "How sometimes a coin lands on its edge, if the odds are really in its favor? Anyway, it sort of stuck once I became famous, and by then I didn't want to change it."
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They waited until they were over the river to get off the bus for lunch, just in time with as edgy as Jessie was feeling thanks to the delay and the brush with the weird guy. They wound up eating at an ambitious corner restaurant that had opened its outdoor section a little early in the season - it wasn't that cold, but most of the locals preferred to eat inside. The view was nice, though; a big statue of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Emancipation Proclamation, erected near the neighborhood that bore his name. It wasn't a wealthy neighborhood, but looked nice enough for all that - Mark ordered the pub food that was his staple when he was in Freedom City; fried pickles and chili potatoes of the sort that would have made a less lucky person with a normal physiology get fat already. "What would you like, Jessie?" asked Dr. Franklin as Dr. Ellis ordered the black coffee that she always seemed to be drinking. "You can have anything on the menu you want."
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Conversation-free for a while, they rode in the sort of noisy silence that only comes on busy city buses, the sound of people's headphones, conversations, and Bluetooths background chatter to what was otherwise a quiet ride. Mark's mind was starting to wander, all the way to Nina again. He was debating bringing that subject up to Erin when suddenly he realized that their little group was being accosted. "Oh wow, are you guys twins?" With his goatee, granny glasses, and sweater vest, the young man addressing them looked to be trying some sort of look way too hard. "That's so cool! You look so much alike, and you're so pretty..." He reached into his vest. "Can I take your picture?"
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"It was kind of the opposite for me," Mark admitted. "My dad was...on the old Freedom League, the one before the '93 Terminus Invasion, and I grew up around a lot of older superheroes. I always figured I'd grow up and get a job with the League like my dad did, especially after I turned out to have powers, and I'd just be a superhero in Freedom City. But as I got older, I decided I wanted to be something more than I had been growing up. Funny coincidence so many of us went to school in the same place, huh?" Open secret though it was, there was no point in broadcasting Claremont's nature to the general public even with the limited privacy of where they were. The fate of Edge's father, who'd been a celebrity before his death, had gotten around Claremont - the hero who'd turned villain, then died saving the world from the Terminus during the graduation of an earlier iteration of Young Freedom, but wasn't something widely known to the general public.
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"She's a very good friend of mine," said Mark with a nod and a smile. "She's probably one of my best friends in the world. She and Erin and I have been friends for a very long time." He thought for a moment, not wanting to bring up any team associations that would either jeopardize anyone's secret identity or get Jessie's mind going down the wrong path. "She says she likes my mind because there's nothing in there to bother her." He knew that Eve Martel's identity was public, so as long as the subject didn't turn to any superteams, they were probably okay. "Do you know any of the people you'll be living with at Project Freedom?" he asked her.
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Frost looked appalled beneath his cowl at the woman's words, putting two and two together and finding something grim there in its place. He had dealt with visitors from other worlds before, as well as his share of religious fanatics, but this was something else entirely. "You are on another world, child," he told her frankly. "Some quirk of fate has cast you adrift on the currents of the world. But worry not, we are your friends and we will return you to your home." The last part might well have been a lie, but this was hardly the first he'd told. He patted the young woman reassuringly on the arm, his smile cool. "Your, ah, seed will not grow too far from Mother's garden after all. Look, see, some of us have the same powers you did." When the girl glanced at Fleur and Willow, Frost mouthed behind her, "What sort of hell..."
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It was an unexpected question, but it wasn't one Mark had any trouble answering. "I'm twenty," said Mark, "almost twenty-one. I'm a little older than Erin or you," he said, thinking about what to say and how to say it so he didn't accidentally frighten the girl, "because I had to start kindergarten late. I had really bad chicken pox, so my mom kept me out until after Christmas. It was lucky, though, because I got to go on a surprise vacation to the Moon that year." He looked at Jessie and asked what seemed like the obvious reply, after shooting a glance Erin's way. "Why, how old are you?"
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"I work for UNISON, that's the global super-agency," said Mark, not wanting to draw attention to any memories of Edge. Jessie didn't look like she understood what he'd said, so he went on. "I don't wear a costume or fight bad guys that much anymore. Instead I go to countries that can't make enough food to feed themselves, or can't afford to build things people need like housing or schools, and I use my powers to help them build it. It's not as dramatic as the stuff here in Freedom City that makes the news, but I feel pretty good about doing it. And I still get to fight bad guys sometimes," he said with a smile. "So things worked out pretty well for me. I get to travel and see a lot of the world, and even though it's some of the worst-off places, the people are always really great."
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"I'll follow your lead," said Sharl agreeably, still looking around the warped cityscape. "Do you think we'll be able to see it?" he asked Eliza as he floated off after her. "Or is this one of those things only you can see?" Sharl was confident that she wasn't making up what she saw, since he had ample experience with people with senses far beyond his own. Even if their interpretation about what it was differed, it would be crazy yo think that this wasn't real. "I have some experience with voids in reality. In my experience, that means there's something there," he said with a significant look Eliza's way. "Just something that the viewer can't understand with their eyes, so they look right past it."
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Just when they thought things were going to go well, the bus made one last stop before getting on 76th, the main artery down towards Bayview. They stopped by one of the many old schools in the neighborhood and came away with a prim-looking Asian nun and a handful of young women who had to be her students. They chattered to each other in English and Korean, occasionally shooting glances back at the small group near the center of the bus. In their old-fashioned uniforms, they were certainly private school kids. The oldest of them looked about fourteen, the youngest of them twelve. Mark shot a glance at Erin at that, worry briefly crossing his handsome features. Even he knew enough to be a little concerned about that, especially since they were now on the state road with no place to stop the bus for over a mile.
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"Treat them as you would any dangerous animal," replied Frost to Gabriel. "Some are capable of limited form of communication, but is best not to trifle with them in any case." He frowned. "We lost trained, armed men in last campaign. Our powers will protect us, but battle against Gigantosaur or one of his brood would only distract us from this vital task." He folded his hands on the table in front of him. "I have successfully contained volcanic eruptions before, but only on the surface. Gaian Knight is the best candidate for the job," he agreed with Fleur. "I will join you, Gabriel and Velocity," he said, "I can track in the jungle, especially with certain arts of my devising. With many hands, the work will be done well."
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They were near the beginning of the bus route, which luckily meant there was plenty of space once they actually piled onto the bus itself. Jessie had taken enough life skills classes to know to wait patiently as the doors opened, Edge going in first to actually pay for their tickets. He and Erin had never really talked about it, but he knew his salary was above and beyond hers and there was no reason to make her go out of pocket for it. Edge got out of the way to let everyone else get on, keeping his distance as Jessie found a seat by the window. Luckily their only fellow passenger, the man from the bus stop, stuck close to the front and immediately pulled a beaten-up paperback book out of his pocket to read. So far, so good...
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Crowbar in hand, Edge cracked open a crate of MREs and started handing them out to heroes and colleagues alike. "Just use a tablespoon of water for the self-heater," he said, showing those unfamiliar with how MREs actually worked how to do it. "I didn't know what dietary preference you guys have," he said apologetically, "so I had them set aside a mixed crate for you. There's the vegetarian pasta fagoli, and barbecue beef and potatoes." For all Mark's great power, it didn't cross his mind to change anything about his own meal as he sat on a nearby crate and started to eat. "So what led you guys to volunteer for this?" he asked the Claremont kids, including Jubatus in the conversation without hesitation. "Are you looking to do international stuff when you graduate?" he asked curiously.
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SWEET! "Well, I'm biologically just like the Earth boys," he murmured. "Maybe a little better, thanks to all the genetic engineering. Except I don't have biology at all, depending on how you look at it." He blushed. "Oh man, I'm going to have to ask Miss...anyway, let's talk about that later." He smiled at her and took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. She felt close to real, anyway, which was about as good as things got out here in the real world for him. "Right now, let's talk about your eyes. Tell me what's been lucky enough to look at them lately."
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"Hey, I just went to the first bus station I could think of...guess we got lucky." Edge walked over to check the bus schedule with Erin as Jessie looked up at the pale blue sky overhead, gaping vastly above her. Birds were flying by and somebody too high to recognize was flying above them, and it was a good day. "The bus should be here in the next couple of minutes. This isn't a busy stop, but it'll get us where we're going. We shouldn't even have to change." "How do you feel, Jessie?" Dr. Ellis was asking her patient as Erin and Mark returned to the group. Before she could answer, they had company - an old man with a heavy mustache in work clothes joined them at the bus stop, shooting them a polite nod before taking a seat on the bench. From his uniform, he was one of the groundstenders at the nearby golf course, perhaps taking his lunch break or ending his day early.
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http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3977741/ = 25 on History http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3977745/ = 9 on Current Events Which is about right...
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"Aaah, brisk!" Comrade Frost had only grown more and more convival as the ship had headed deeper into the warmth of the tropics, leaving his parka's hood off and leaving his short white hair to fluff in the breeze. He came up behind Tiamat and Gaian Knight with a hot coffee in his hands, the steam rapidly fading from the cooling liquid. "You know, the last time I was on Kaiju Island, it was fifty years ago! We were chasing scientist-criminals who were using their biological science to make Green Dragon King to enslave the monsters of Kaiju for their own ends. But instead, they met a _chilly_ reception from the beasts with our help." He smiled. "And you know, there was an American aircraft carrier in that story too, but I had to sneak my way on board that one!" At that, he actually laughed. "Times change, and enemies become friends. This is delightful coffee."
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Steve couldn't make that promise, of course, nor for that matter could he promise her they wouldn't both die the next day. So instead he said, "I pledge to be more careful about cosmic artificial intelligences," which was certainly true enough for that. "Even now that I know you have the strength to handle it." He smiled a little, then added, "I have to go to work. My double's negligence continues to have lasting consequences at HAX. But Mara will soon find the data thieves, and she will assist the authorities in punishing them for their transgressives. I will come back tonight," he said guilelessly. "If you will let me, I would like to try preparing a meal of fajitas for you."
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Edge closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, studying the map of Freedom City he'd painstakingly put in his head over hours and hours of memorization -he still couldn't hit many places accurately but there were a handful that he'd managed to add to his 'library.' "Here we go!" The small group - Erin, Jessie, Mark, and the psychologists, wound up somewhere Erin recognized as Lantern Hill from the classical-style mansions visible through the fence behind her and across the street. They were somewhere quiet and relatively subdued, beneath the branches of several massive old oak trees still relatively denuded for the season. "The whole back lot there has been converted," he said with a gesture back at the mansion behind them. "I used to come here to play golf with my family," he said without a wince at the last of that for once. "Everybody okay?"