Avenger Assembled

2: 14 Boom! 3: 24 Okay, ship 2 is destroyed and ship 3 is disabled, staggered, and dazed - that's good. it means they can tell the story of what happened here to the unity.

16 Got 'em this time!

22 Boo poison!

Vince looked around at the system architecture, his eyes wide for a moment, before nodding. "

Cyberknife: 27 Dragonfly: 23 Midnight: 21 Redbird: 16 Grue 1: 14 Jill O'Cure: 13 Grue 2: 12 Grue 3: 10 Grue 4: 9 Grue 5: 6 Grue 6: 3 Curator: 0

At Midnight's words, none of the Grue ships opened fire on the Nightdragon. Whether they were intimidated or simply planning a new strategy, two of the ships opened fire on the big Lor battlecruiser, searing red laser blasts missing entirely as they zwoop-zwooped past the battleship. Inside the Quantum Singularity, the Lor crew took their positions as the ship inertialessly erupted off the platform and rocketed towards the Nightdragon at fantastic speed. "We'll get you dropped off, then link up with the battlecruiser!" called Samran as the Earth craft loomed large in the windows. "It's been an honor working with you people." Across the way, those red blobs the Grue had fired at the battleship on their arrival splattered against its hull, sparking and writhing ominously but not (from this distance) doing any more damage. The Lor ship itself fired a volley of blue cannonfire that sent two of the remaining ships spinning on their spherical axes and vanishing into their own red wormholes: whether retreating or going for reinforcements, they were out of the fight for now. The last ship, evidently made of sterner stuff, suddenly seemed to writhe forward in space as it tried to roll its way right into the hull of the Nightdragon, but missed cleanly, rolling its unnatural way right past the Quantum Singularity as the little Lor vessel finally docked on the Nightdragon's dark hull. Behind them, a pattern of three circles formed on the hull of the last Grue ship, almost unnoticeable in the wild melee.

Grue 2 and 3 open fire on the Lor ship: vs DC 20, not 10 14, 17 They both miss Grue 4 + 5: Retreat for reinforcements! Grue 6: tries to RAM! 9 And botches. Which gives me such an idea...

Tou vs 30: 17 Welp, it's disabled, staggered, and dazed = i.e., not going anywhere for a while. 17 Demoralized too!

Steve had resisted using his emitter among the others before, not wanting to spread confusion in an already-frightening time. It wasn't as if they could fool the Curator, after all, and it hadn't been necessary to armor up around the Lor. But he wasn't one to argue with good advice in a crisis, instead pressing a few buttons on the tabs glued to his chest, then briefly rippling and warping before reappearing as a conventional-looking armored knight. He didn't bother with the persona of the armored Caradoc, instead saying, "Follow quickly. You are not capable of surviving interplanetary space unaided." And with that he put his hand on the console, distinctly said, "I will see you again soon," to the computer before him, and headed onto the transport ring, vanishing immediately just as Blue Jay had. Aboard the Quantum Singularity, Harrier introduced himself with simply, "It's me!" as he appeared among Blue Jay, Bee-Keeper, and Vrix, who was working frantically at her panel. "I've got our engines powered up to maximum!" she yelled. "As soon as everyone's on board, we can jump over to join the Republic's Defender, or take up position with the Nightdragon! But they've got...wow, they certainly do have it," she said as a Grue ship shuddered and warped under Dragonfly's attack, Wander and the remaining Lor officers appearing just behind them.

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3928257/ 9 vanished to oblivion!

"She came for me," marveled Steve quietly, putting his hand on the computer banks. That Gina had been part of the efforts to find him was incredibly reassuring, since it meant his double could have done no lasting evil on Earth, and that her voice was here was all the more reassuring. He knew she had the range to reach Earth orbit, the Moon if she tried hard, but this was something else, and he was moved by the thought of her consciousness reaching him from so far across the galaxy. She must have built a great machine to find us so far away from home... "We've got a link to the Singularity, but only one can go through at a time," said Samran. "And we're not leaving any of you here. We go out last." She and Shepard had worked together to make a person-wide ring of sparking blue energy on the floor beneath them, its glow cast into odd colors by the now-pulsating silver lights overhead. It looked big enough for one person, all right. "Take Blue Jay first," said Harrier suddenly, shooting just a glance at the girl. "She is the least protected of any of us, and the youngest. I am armored, and I know for a fact I can endure significant...punishment." - Inside the computer, Vince did his best to help Cyberknife search - the cybernetic intelligence looked just a little lost at all this talk of Citizen, but nodded in grim understanding when the subject turned to sacrifice. He was right behind her when she finally found what appeared to be the primary weapon systems, a gigantic cannon that the robots were working to reassemble and point at the cybernetic 'sky' overhead, where she could faintly make out the sensory echoes of the Grue ships. It didn't take her long to recognize the nature of the cannon, not when she'd spent so much time modeling that system. That cannon was a digitization weapon. And outside, on the surface of the Curator's construct, three 'eyes' began to glow...

Initiative for the six Grue ships: 1: 14 2: 12 3: 10 4: 9 5: 6 6: 3 Lor Ship: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3927278/ Okay: Dragonfly: 23 Midnight: 21 Redbird: 16 Grue 1: 14 Jill O'Cure: 13 Grue 2: 12 Grue 3: 10 Grue 4: 9 Grue 5: 6 Grue 6: 3 Lor Ship: 0 Dragonfly is up! The Grue ships have stats of TOU: +12 (+12 Impervious) and DEF: +12 vs targets aboard Nightdragon. Their primary attack weapon is an ATK 7, DMG 17...well, you'll see what it does!

Citizen and Miss A's Vignette Reticulating Splines January 14, 2013 With his friends busy working on the Wonderbus, Sharl transmitted himself up to the sixteenth floor to meet with his mentor for one last checkup before his trip to Erde. He was nervous, but looking forward to hearing her familiar voice before they left. Gina wasn’t what you’d call friendly, especially lately, but she was _a_ friend, and someone who knew a lot more about the world than he did, especially after working with him on their cross-dimensional backsignals to the Erde across the way. Just a short hop over, a short stay there, and they’d be back in Freedom City. Miss Americana was waiting for him in the converted exam room that bore the lofty title of “Infirmary” for Young Freedom. She had his code schematics up on one screen, while simultaneously on another she reviewed what looked like the design of a high security prison cell. Even as she examined both of those, she was talking on the phone over a discreet earpiece. “Yes, that’s fine, put ArcheTech down for a major sponsorship again this year. We’ll do the normal season, and then the children’s theatre workshop again. Make sure it’s scheduled so as not to conflict with the ArcheTech Youth in Science week at the museum center, third week in July. All right, mm-hmm... yes, of course I’ll be there, I wouldn’t miss the gala. Mark me down as plus one, if you would. Thanks, that’s perfect.” She noticed Sharl’s arrival and said her goodbyes, then removed the earpiece and blanked the prison screen. “You’re late,” she pointed out. “We were busy,” replied Sharl. “My friends are coming a long way with me, I don’t want them getting lost over there if something goes wrong.” He took a ‘seat’ on the examination table, close by the scanners Miss A used to check his programmed measurements when she was working on him. “We are ready, though. Everyone knows their job, and they know what to expect over there. And they know how to handle the Bus and do low maintence on the Tronik unit, just in case.” “We’re all busy, but some of us are on time,” Miss A pointed out, picking up her scanner and pointing it at him. Even beyond Sharl’s transgressions in her lab, Gina had been especially touchy this past month or so. When he’d ventured to ask whether it had something to do with Harrier not seeming to drop by as often lately, she’d nearly bitten his head off, so it seemed safer not to inquire. Testy or not, Miss A was all business as she checked him over, uploading the scan results to a wall screen where they ran parallel to the stored data she had on him. “You’ve been studying,” she noted. “Computers and technology, general knowledge, all increased. That may come in handy on your mission.” “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do after I leave Claremont,” said Sharl with a little shrug. “I mean, sure, I’ll go home and be the defender of Tronik, but I want to be able to help the people outside too. If I know enough about computers and Earth technology, I can be a technical consultant when there’s a crisis, or I can go back and forth if I have to.” He smiled a little. “And knowing how computers work will make it a lot easier to live in one, right? Maybe I’ll get a job working in Leroj’s lab, so he can cover for my secret ID.” “Don’t knock the ignorance as bliss theory,” she advised him dryly, giving him a push on the chest with the flat of her hand to lay him out on the bed. “Whatever universe you live in, the more you learn about how it works, the more aware you become of how fragile and unlikely it all is. You’re a paragon, not a cyberkinetic. Computers and technology are good things to know, but they’re not going to be your strong suit when you go back to Tronik. They’ll need you as a hero. Best work on those social skills,” she advised, a wry twist to her perfect lips. “I guess I’d better,” replied Sharl with a little smile of his own. “If I’m the only hero they’re going to see on a day-to-day basis, I’d better make sure they don’t think heroes are all arrogant punks.” He didn’t really pay attention to what Miss A was doing, except to take note of the kinds of machines she used for this task. “I’ve made some mistakes, but I think most things have worked out all right.” He took an imaginary breath, then added, “Things are going to change after this. They’ll have to, with the new Tronikians to move in. And you know, I can’t wait to see it. All my life I wanted to change my world for the better, and thanks to you, I can.” “I think we’d better wait to see what’s going to be done with the Erde-Tronikians,” Miss A advised him, her tone softening just a little bit. “I’ve got a couple of sociologists looking into the issue in the hypothetical, but I’m worried that an integration of the two societies could be traumatic for both if done too rapidly. Your Tronik doesn’t even realize there is a world outside, much less that Tronik is a computer simulation with other versions of the same program running simultaneously. It may be wise to stabilize the society on Erde-Tronik internally, then look into a more managed interaction between the two cities over the long term. At this point, we don’t even know the degree of population overlap.” Sharl winced. “You don’t have to tell me about how hidebound we can be, believe me. But there’s nothing wrong with planning for the future, right? In a few years, or maybe more than a few, my Tronik will be ready for the outside world and to welcome our sisters and brothers back home. And I’ll be there to see it.” He looked serious for a moment, adding, “I want...I want to matter, you know? All this schooling at Claremont, all this time I’ve spent studying with you, and adventuring with Young Freedom, I want to mean more than rescuing people out of gravcars that flip in the air. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s more to do with life.” Miss A looked pensive for a moment. “You ever hear the story about the starfish?” she asked, even as she kept scanning. “Guy’s walking on a beach at low tide, and sees that a storm has thrown up hundreds of live starfish onto the sand. Starfish can’t move on land, so they’re all just baking in the sun. There’s a little boy on the beach too, and he’s running up and down the beach like a madman, grabbing starfish and chucking them into the ocean. The guy watches him, then goes up to him and says “Why are you bothering to do that? There are so many starfish on the beach, throwing a few of them back doesn’t even matter.” And then the boy held up the starfish he had in his hand and said, “It matters to this one!” and he threw it back in the ocean.” Miss A tapped a few more lines of command into her scanner, letting him think about that one. Sharl did think about that one, pondering over the meaning of the parable even as he accessed Wikipedia to make sure that a starfish was what he thought it was. “That’s true,” he admitted. “But I guess I’m more like a starfish that learns how to fly and starts rescuing the others,” he added with a little smile. “There’s nothing wrong with spending my time helping individual people in need; I mean, I’ll probably spend most of my life doing that. Most invasions and dimensional crises aren’t going to touch Tronik. I just...want to take care of the beach, too.” “Sure, and that’s fine,” Miss A told him, “but you have to keep in mind that without all those individual lives, the world as a whole would be meaningless. Every life is immeasurably valuable to someone. Now hold still and no more talking,” she ordered, as the scanner over the table slid into place and bathed Sharl in painless blue light. When the scans were done and his last tests completed, Sharl paused at the door on the way back down to join his friends. He knew how sensitive his mentor was about contact, even through the robot, so he extended a hand to her. “Thanks for everything. Now, and all the times before. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.” Miss A hesitated for a moment, a sure tell that it was Gina peeking out, and not the smoothly polished persona, then took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Be safe, and don’t screw up,” she told him. “And try not to crash the bus. Good luck.” She gave him half a wave as he went out the door, then uploaded the fresh backups to her database and got back to the million other things that were demanding her attention. January was shaping up to be a hell of a month.

For fightin'

Outside, the Grue ships didn't waste much time before powering up their weapons and opening fire on the Lor battlecruiser! The Grue used conventional space-going weapons in their wars against primitive planets like Earth, big metal ships and blasting plasma cannons, but this was a different kind of war. Reddish blobs erupted from the spheres and began wiggling their way through space like gigantic electric eels towards the battleship, and not incidentally towards the Nightdragon as well! The Grue weapons seemed to sizzle with pinkish bioelectricity as they writhed across naked space towards the two ships, alarms on the Nightdragon briefly blaring frantically at the energies erupting from the oncoming projectiles. --- Cyberknife passed through electronic defenses like gigantic alien warmachines, ancient tools of death and destruction that would surely have torn an unprepared avatar to pieces that were now so many museum pieces. She found herself in the middle of what looked like a gigantic robotics factory, bizarrely old-fashioned, automated robots working together to assemble the pieces of a gigantic mechanical automaton that looked like pictures she'd seen of the Curator. But some of the pieces were broken and others were outright missing, and others still were stamped with a familiar wi-fi symbol. From down below came a human shout, and she looked down to see the bizarrely mundane sight of VINCE, the Interceptors' cyberintelligence, floating there over the scene. "Okay, a flying lady made of circuits, sure! I'm guessing we're supposed to stop this? I don't know!"

Heavy Reckoning to Make “Indiana Dunes” Ringworld ? Steve sat before the fire by the waterside, listening to the crackling wood and the nearly-silent ripples of Lake Michigan. The night was otherwise quiet but for the wind, a legacy of the dead world on which they found themselves. He’d been on murdered worlds before, far, far more than any man should have, but this place was different - not a dying planet, not a decaying one outside of the cities, simply one that had no life. There were fewer dangers, but more challenges to replace them. If the ship in Chicago didn’t work out, they’d be stranded here in a very difficult situation indeed. With only stored food to eat, and no animals, preparing an expedition across the seas to the nearest ‘map’ was going to be challenging. With the others asleep he added another cut piece of wood to the fire, the wood burning sweet and sparking slightly in the reddish flames. His ears were open, but so far there was nothing but the sound of the wind and the slight sleeping noises of his peers. Another man might have been uneasy at the dead city amid a dead world, but the comforting presence of his allies and his knowledge of their situation greatly reassured Steve. He’d been in worse places than this. A rustling of synthetic fabrics broke the disconcerting silence as Ellie shimmied her way out of one of their salvaged sleeping bags and made her way quietly over to the fire, careful not to wake anyone else. The young woman picked up her well worn jacket as she went, tugging it around her shoulders like a shawl against the cold rolling off of the lake. The flickering light of the flames deepened the weary lines on her face as she sat down across from Steve, giving the stoic sentry a tired attempt at a wry expression. "Couldn’t sleep," she mumbled quietly, cracking some of the stiffness out of her neck after tossing and turning against the hard ground. "Again." "Silence can be far less comfortable than familiar sound," agreed Steve, his lined face cast into shadows by the crackling fire. Perhaps he and Ellie had different personalities, but she was a friend cast adrift with him in this quiet place, and welcome. "But the fire is warm and the company is welcome." Not much of a conversationalist himself, Steve let the fire crackle for a while. Discussing Earth risked dwelling on what they’d left behind, particularly the replicants that had taken their lives on Earth. And if he dwelled on that, even he would have trouble sleeping, as he pictured a robot with his face closing on Gina in her sleep. "I remember... it took time getting used to Earth. On the Silver Tree, where I was before, there was always someone awake drinking, fighting, singing... but your cities sleep for truth." "Clearly you’ve never visited a university campus with a twenty-four hour coffee shop," Ellie quipped back gamely for all that her heart clearly wasn’t behind the humour. Throughout their cross country trek the medic had never been too long at a loss for a sardonic comment or witty rejoinder, but in the oppressive quiet of the night with no one listening but the largely humourless security guard the forced bravado slipped slightly. "The Silver Tree... that’s where the good guys in the Terminus dimension live, yeah?" she asked after a few beats, leaning a little closer to the warmth of the campfire. "I don’t know that much about that stuff, honestly. Guess I should have after seeing what happened to Yoyo’s home world..." There was another depressing thought along with another absent face to be missed. "I never have," agreed Steve. "I do not know enough of the world to be a student at one of your universities." He thought of little Yolanda, who had three replicators in her ‘family’ now, and pushed on. "The Furions are an arrowhead of good, lodged in the belly of evil. They taught Blue Jay, from what she has said, and sheltered me after I gained my freedom." He sat awkwardly for a moment, conscious of the young woman’s tensions. Ellie was very brave, all the young people cast adrift with him were, but some things were beyond their experience. Until they had their own freedom again, perhaps it was time to go beyond his own experience as well. "In those days, I found it difficult to relate to others, even to speak to them as I walked by them on a path. I know that news may shock you." He poked the fire with a stick as it began to die, bringing it back to life with a faint puff. Ellie let out a short breath that would have been a laugh had she had the energy for it and mentally underlined the largely in largely humourless. The liberated cyborg wasn’t prone to delivering anything approaching a punchline on his own and she recognized the gesture for what it was. "Heh. Thanks, big guy," she replied quietly, giving him a small smile that for the first time in at least a few days wasn’t a conscious effort. She looked up at eerie false sky of the manufactured replica of a forgotten alternate version of her home and shifted her jacket around her shoulders pulling it tighter. "Hard to imagine one little world standing up to all that badness, though," she mused after letting the crackle of the fire fill the silence for several moments, trying to picture the Furion planet Steve described. "How do they keep going, day after day, with everything stacked against them?" "They have their courage and their warrior spirit," said Steve reflectively. "And power enough to keep Omega’s forces at bay. They know that they will never reconquer the Terminus, but they have the power to give it defeats. In a bad place, that is enough." He relaxed faintly, glad to see Ellie’s spirits perking up ever so slightly. "And there are escapes. Myself. Blue Jay. I have heard talk of actually sending a Furion student to Claremont some years down the line. It is... such is life. Eventually the end comes." He shrugged, trying to make what might have sounded like fatalism from someone else positive. "The victories that are won today are no less sweet for that fact. Even if the only victory is that there _is_ a today." There was another long silence as Ellie considered that fully, weighing Steve’s words in her mind and bringing her knees up to her chin in a huddle. "...I don’t think that’s enough," she said finally, stretching her legs back out and sitting a little straighter than before. "I mean, I understand what you’re saying but I want to do more than just make it through one more day, y’know? I’m going to get back home to my family and to Mara, I’m going to help make sure everyone else gets home in one piece too and if the opportunity presents itself I’d sure as hell like to kick our gracious host in the teeth." She gave the somber man a grin with a flash of teeth reflecting firelight. "But maybe that’s exactly what you were saying, huh? You’re a pretty wise guy, Steve-o." "I would not say that it is so. But I have come from bad to better, and none can aspire for more than that in this life." He stared into the fire, remembering the light in Gina’s eyes. "To do more than survive, you must have something to live for, even if it is just the satisfaction of another day. Or another." He folded his hands and said suddenly, "The Curator has taught me this. I had thought I lacked the ability to lose. The power to have something that could be taken. It is... reassuring. Despite all this. This is..." He waved a hand at the cosmic construct all around them bearing the skin of how many dead worlds. "Something that will pass. But the feelings, the feelings never go away. Whatever happens." "Well, the zen is good, but don’t get too fatalistic on us," Ellie noted with a serious look and a pointed finger. "We don’t want to lose you, either." Steve was about as far from the medic’s impulsive older brother as anyone was likely to get but she did recognize a certain lack of self-preservation instinct, or more accurately a willingness to put others’ safety ahead of his own. "Well, I should probably give the whole sleep thing one more shot. Like you said, there’s another tomorrow to look forward to, yeah?" Rising to her feet, she shrugged off her jacket and slung it over one arm, walking around the fire as she headed back to her sleeping bag and placing her free hand on Steve’s shoulder as she passed. "Thanks again." Steve smiled back, and for once it didn’t look odd on his face ."Don’t thank me today. Thank me tomorrow."

"Power surge detected!" called Vrix's voice from off-camera, a conclusion echoed a moment later by Redbird's sensors. Something inside the Curator's construct was beginning to power up again. "Listen, if you can reach your people, we can-" SHACHOOM! Five thousand kilometers to the Nightdragon's port, suddenly space rippled and a shimmering red vortex opened. As alarms blared on both the Quantum Singularity and the Nightdragon, a half-dozen red, eerily fluid spacecraft as big as the Nightdragon came pouring out before the vortex closed behind them. There was no mistaking that flexible red surface which warped and rippled alarmingly even as the people outside watched, or those strangely flexible spherical ships and their small forest of tentacles - these were the deep space vessels of the Grue, carved from their own shapeshifting flesh, heavily armed vessels designed for exploration, infiltration, and conquest! A second after that, with a roar of neutrino engines so loud on sensors that the ship seemed to make a sonic boom as it arrived, the clean white lines of a Lor military vessel hove into view five thousand kilometers to the Nightdragon's starboard - a big, heavily-armed battleship like those the Lor had sent to help Freedom City's heroes during space battles in the past. It was a powerful ship, but could it handle an entire squadron of Grue cruisers on its own?

With a smirk that looked like a reverse of the one Darren saw in the mirror every morning, the Grue said, "You're the alien, homo sapiens. You think your little backward show here matters in the grand scheme of things, you've got another thing coming." He lost some of the attitude at Crow's approach and threw up his hands. "Look, I don't know! I just know this has happened in some Unity planets before. The Curator comes in, replaces some of our members with robots, then sets them against each other. And it's usually really terrible!" He waved around at the scene on campus for emphasis. "Like I said, I was hiding out on campus, and I heard one of your females talk about how handsome Darren was, so I decided to take his shape so everyone would trust me. And it worked really well, too!" Fighting the urge to facepalm by sheer force of will, Mark interrupted the Grue and turned to the others. "Be right back. Our friend and I are taking a little trip to Switzerland, where I know a xeno holding facility with his name on it..." And with that, Edge, the Grue, the diamonds and the water, just disappeared from the face of Freedom City with a faint shimmer of black light. "Thanks for the help, son," said Mr. Archer, appearing with a little zip behind Crow. "And you, Tsunami, and you, Adamas." If he was surprised at the latter, he gave no sign of it. "I'm glad you were here. You may well have saved our school." He looked around at the still-sizzling administration building, the injured students and teachers being tended by their peers, and added, "Let's go help our people together..."

"Never stab corpses," said Harrier firmly. "It will end poorly." He studied the computer bank with Wander, finger moving quickly over the unfamiliar systems. He had come a very long way in the last few weeks, not to mention the many years in his life before that, and he had no intention of being killed in the depths of a cosmic cybernetic intelligence without seeing his home again. And it is my home... he realized with a wonder before his eyes fell on a familiar system. "An access port...there?!" The Lor officers did their best to leave, but Samran was back in a few minutes even as the clamshell doors of the control center began to swing shut. "There's nowhere to go," said the bronze-skinned officer with a shake of her head. "The corridor only goes for a couple of meters and ends in a blank wall. They must have built the construct itself around this room!" Samran and Shepard began to work together, removing parts from their encounter suit and attaching them to each other in a technological display none of the other heroes could follow. "If we put enough juice into our enhancers, the QS can transmit us out of here...if we hurry." Amid the frenetic activity, Stratos turned to the Bee-Keeper and said amiably, "Look, it's fine, Barry, the heroes are taking care of it. That's the port, kids!" he added encouragingly. "Anyway, we're inside a big computer right now! The Curator's intelligence must take up the whole complex, and probably the other moons. Hey, I guess that's why the Big Blue Lunkhead couldn't take him out." He slapped the Bee-Keeper on the back and said, "We'll be _fine_." Wander slid VINCE's drive home into the access port, and an instant later a voice came from all around them, a cold, dry mechanical handful of alien words that Samran translated for them. "Rebooting in protected mode."

Aaah what? Sharl wondered if those seats were about to grow teeth and a tongue and feed for a moment. But there was a crisis and he was a hero; he was also out in public (sort of) with his girlfriend and couldn't wuss out now. He said, "You deal with the spirits out here, I'll deal with whatever's in there. If I can, I'll signal you through the radio, or just kick out whatever's possessing the car. I don't actually know how things will work in here as far as my powers, but there's really only one way to find out." He pulled open his trenchcoat and his chest symbol flared to brilliant blue life- the wifi, the symbol of the electronic networks that bound human civilization together just as much as it did Tronikian, a symbol of civilization, order, and progress. "This is a job for CITIZEN!" He winked at Eliza and jumped inside the car, vanishing into its systems with a little pop. Was that too pretentious? I hope it wasn't too pretentious.

Yikes! You've got to PM me when I leave stuff fallow, HGM. APPROVED

Being the closest thing the group had to an expert on cosmic technology, Steve had joined the Lor scientists for an examination of the inner workings of the Curator's stronghold. "Stellar technology," he commented as Samran triggered a holographic display marked in a language not even the Lor could read, showing the blue-yellow star in the center of the ringworld. "Reactors as supplement, perhaps buried deep. I have...seen its like before. This facility could power itself until this star enters its red giant phase." The Lor didn't care about the human with the lightning hands, they were far too busy scanning the intact Preserver technology around them, so Steve went over to share their rations with the very hungry Dr. Stratos. He didn't know the mad scientist particularly well, but they were all in the same boat. "All are alike in this situation," he said seriously, watching with mounting suspicion as Blue Jay made her move. There was a crunch as Blue Jay's arrow went through the robot's eye socket...and then, distinctly, the too-bright lights above dimmed perceptibly. "Oh dear," said Stratos, looking up from his nutrient bar. "You know, if I was building a giant computer construct, I would probably put security systems in the main room that weren't tied to the hard drive, just so I could blast a plucky team of heroes with lightning when they thought I was down! I mean, hypothetically, anyway, man, this is a good nutrient bar. Is this strawberry creme?" He swallowed and went on, heedless of the silver-black lights beginning to light up all over the room. "Anyway, Barry, he's got twelve, thirteen cities down there in the subbasements. The robots eventually did come into the dome and catch me, and they were about to dissect me! Me! It was horrible." He shook his head. "But then they stopped working, so I blasted them all and made my escape."

"Nightdragon, this is Lor vessel Quantum Singularity. We have assisted in the escape of multiple Earth humans and one Terminus cyborg from the Curator's construct," replied Vrix. "We have a party inside the main control center now engaged in emergency repair work, but they're out of contact with our ship. If you have a comm system with greater than 1.21 gigawatt output, you can reach their communicators." "Hello!" yelled Dorothy as she suddenly appeared in front of the comm system, "My name is Dorothy Langford, and I'm from Earth! I'm so glad you're here!" The girl called, her freckled face popping up on the Nightdragon's comm systems as Vrix activated the visual. "The others are inside fixing the Curator so everyone on doesn't die. Listen, if you've seen me, or Wander, or Harrier, or Bee-Keeper, or Jill O'Cure, or Blue Jay, we're some kind of clone or robot! The Curator took us away months ago!"

The plasma eruptions cascaded into the box of diamond and water, flash-frying the monster right in the face! It gave an agonized shriek as green-white fire washed over its body for an instant, then suddenly seemed to collapse in on itself. "I surrender! I surrender!" howled the giant red gorilla as it formed itself up and down into Darren's familiar shape, albeit a version of Darren with what looked like first and maybe second degree burns on his face. Holding up his hands, the former rampaging brute said, "Just let me go! I'm not the problem here!" For his part, Edge walked up to the twin barriers still holding the fake Darren in place, suspicion growing on his masked face. "Wait a minute..." He glanced at the other Darren, then back at the one inside, before saying, "You're not a robot. None of the other robots acted like this." He ticked off points on his fingers. "You're a shapeshifter who can make himself really big, you made yourself red with no face when you were trying to escape, you were in Claremont of all places..." Behind them the other students, and the teachers, were coming out of the shelter, but they were letting the UNISON hero and his young allies deal with the crisis. "You're a Grue!" "No...maybe," said the fake Darren, still tenderly poking at his face. "Look, c'mon, I wasn't hurting anybody. I thought this would be the one safe place in this stupid city when everything started blowing up. How was I supposed to know the ," Mark translated the alien word for the others, "was going to attack this place too? You people have too many enemies!"

With the heroes and two-thirds of the ship's complement beamed down into the heart of the Curator's central control room, it was just Jill and Vrix-117, and of course Quickstep as well. Vrix wasn't as talkative as Samran or Shepard, and admitted that as she showed Jill how to read the panels that showed everyone's life readings inside the Curator's construct. "Commander's tactical, Shepard's science, but I'm more engineering. I mostly keep the ship running while they're on missions." Vrix had removed her helmet too, revealing bronze skin and hair as red as a lollipop. "I...oh!" she pointed as one of the wall panels lit up to reveal a flash of light from the distant perimeter of the ringworld, a silvery saucer ship flying through the gap. "I don't know that design, but they're not local. Hang on." She tapped a button on the panel in front of her, then shook her head. "Damn. I can't reach the commander, but I got a tachyon squirt out to the fleet. They'll be sending reinforcements. Friends of yours?" she asked, cocking her head Jill's way. Dorothy peered at the screen and said, "Looks just like a flying saucer from the movies!" - The saucer erupted into the Curator's system as it dropped from FTL, spilling a wash of tachyons and neutrinos along with a spray of visible light. They were between the ringworld's star and its structure, and for a moment the sheer size of the magnificent construction, known to be one of the largest structures in the Milky Way, filled the scanners of the ship. Thanks to the Curator's famous paranoia, it had been a long, long time indeed since anyone had ever gotten this close. 'Beneath' them was an ocean big enough to swallow multiple Earths, a storm playing across it that could have covered the entire planet, with distant shores visible even to the naked eye beyond before the ring curved away into invisibility. Trillions of people were down there, living their lives, perhaps never knowing about the Curator. Above them, close to the star, hung a black sphere the size of the Earth's moon, part of the circle of rotating black squares the size of planets themselves that made day and night for the people below. It was the central control unit of the entire structure, the geniuses aboard could tell at a glance. And inside that sphere, somewhere, was Steve. And attached to the side, visible as they got closer and closer, was a white pod the computer recognized as a Lor military vessel.