alderwitch

"Hi, Taylor Chun, yes. My mother, Claire, called about a wedding? It's for my brother," she quickly and somewhat uncomfortabally added. Her voice was surprisingly low and husky for such a small woman and her handshake was firm if not overly so. "I've been given a list and told to come look at things. It's a long list. Oh, and I have a deposit too." Taylor paused to search her pockets for the aforementioned items. Where had she put them? Her mother had handed her the list and she'd come right over. Except for that stop-over to deal with a two-bit mystic. She bit back a quiet groan. Of, course, she'd transformed to Phantom and put the list in her pocket. Her dimensional pocket. She gave Stesha a small smile and searched her jacket pocket again, this time reaching into the dimensional space that she'd left them in. There was a small, barely noticible flash from her pocket before she pulled out the list and a check to the florist company, the latter of which she handed to Stesha. "I'm sorry, it's been a bit of a morning."

Looking more harried than usual, Taylor teleported herself close by to the address she'd been given (assigned), and glanced around to make sure she'd gotten her bearings correct. 'Flowers by Design'. Heaven help her if she picked the WRONG florist. Usually she envied her family their normal lives but today, given the insanity levels, she was somewhat glad she'd likely miss out on the whole wedding thing. The last time there'd been a family wedding, she'd only been in her teens and only had an ugly dress to show for it. Now she was old enough to be given missions. Next time she there was an imminent invasion, Taylor was calling her mom. She'd organized the troops with martial preciscion. Why, when the wedding was months away, this had to be done today - Taylor had no idea. But hers was not to reason why. Settling her fedora over her black hair, she opened the door to the shop and let herself in. Somehow, she thought, a flower shop should have more flowers. They were all lovely, but... not quite what she'd pictured when she pictured flower shops. Well, what did she know about floral arrangements. Other than the poor, neglected ficus in her apartment, she didn't have a lot of experience with plant-life. Certainly, she looked out of place in the shop. The jeans she was wearing had seen better days although they were clean if worn at the knees. She wore a white short sleeve shirt under her bomber-jacket and beaten fedora. Taylor pulled off her sunglasses and let her eyes adjust to their surroundings before she crossed to the counter slowly.

Alex found an out of the way spot and pulled herself up to sit on some sort of pommel horse out of the way. The air in front of her skin shimmered as her forcefield went up and she pulled a book out of her book bag. "Just ignore me. I'll get out of the way if you get too close," she assured them and promptly stuck her nose in her book.

Alex nodded her agreement with Erin's statement and followed them in with her bookbag over one shoulder as she intended to get some reading done while her friends pummeled each other. "You've had the same access, you just never bothered to use yours." She informed Mike as she stood in the elevator, "Which you would know if you bothered to listen to any of the school stuff involving your meta-abilities."

Taylor still startled as he vanished. She doubted she'd ever get used to that. After flicking a brief glance up at her apartment, Taylor debated the merits of calling it an early evening and curling up with a book. Something light and fluffy... Then she felt that all-too-familiar tingle at the back of her neck again. Someone, somewhere in the city was using magical powers. Taylor didn't hesitate as she reached up to the Eye of Heshem and within moments the cloaked figure of Phantom was floating above riverside, scanning with her mystical senses for whatever plot was afoot in her city. Despite the uncertainty with her family, she knew with deep-seated certanity where her responsibilities would lead her. But if every now and again, her thoughts turned to the evening's events and a certain masked avenger, could anyone blame her?

"I'm glad I could share it with someone," she said it quietly, holding out her hand for his one last time, "It's lonely. I may not be a people person, but it's still lonely for all of the wonder." She laced her fingers through his one last time and they appeared back on the streets of Freedom City, their Freedom City, once more. Taylor released his hand, and tucked her hands behind her back once more. She cocked her head to look up at him, "Safe and sound as promised. Thank you, Jack. I mean, for everything tonight. Thanks."

"She's meeting us here. Go change and then when she gets here, you can decide where its going to be." Alex said firmly and smiled at him as she handed him the gym bag that she'd packed against his wishes. "I'll wait out here while you do."

Mike and Erin, sparring :)

"...So, you can see how you might be able to help Erin. I mean, it won't do any good if you hold back and if she hurts you, she'll feel just awful. But no one's better at control than you," Alex reasoned out earnestly up at Mike, whom she had dragged down to the gym for sparring. She was clutching his gym bag and held it out with a pleading expression, "Please, you can teach her how to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone." As emotional blackmail went, it was pretty darn impressive if mitigated by the fact that Alex wasn't hiding the manipulation at all. She clearly wasn't going to let it go until Mike yielded on the matter.

"Yeah, not too mention you can have all the fame and money you want as a celebrity," Taylor said in amusement. She stopped at one of the stalls with all the various commemorative gear, glancing over the objects. "The white-collar crime is pretty bad, though. With all the money to be made, there are a lot of criminal activities when people get greedy. People will go to a lot to get the star players. Here, in America, it's not so bad but there's a lot of work not getting done in third world countries because there are no heroes to do it and the heroes that might stay, come over here for a better life." She selected a commemorative pin and after some haggling, paid for it and turned back to Jack to clip it on his collar, "You can add it to your rock collection. Is there anything else you'd like to see?"

Doc, glad you like it If you want the jpg, send me an email address you want the picture sent to and I will get it to you ASAP Wander detail added as per Electra's request.

She was grateful for the sheilding presence as turning unsubstantial wasn't an option. With her height, it was easy to get bowled over in this sort of a crowd. Plus, she didn't have to shout quite so loud. "See, there's the replay." On one of the big screens in the bar down the street, a man in a spandex-y version of the comet uniform swung a metal bat at a streak that one could only assume was the ball before zooming towards first base. The regulation field had been made much larger and a flier from the other team launched off after the ball's orbit. The runner impacted with the first base man who appeared to be made of metal with a resounding clang. When the dust cleared the runner was standing squarely on the base to the cheers of fans, "It's a little more full contact sport now, and, yes, there are certainly some doppelgangers of our super heroes among the stars although the rotations may have changed since the last time I was through.

"It's a deal." Alex agreed with a smile, finally looking up from her book, "I'll even go you one further and have a talk with Mike before you're sparring match. I know how to phrase things that he both gives it his all, and doesn't get in over his head. I'm not above manipulating him for the greater good." She chuckled and shook her head, "And he'll know I'm doing it and why, even. Did ya wanna go find him now?" Unsurprisingly, Alex kept everyone's schedules in her head.

"Hmmm, a Comets fan. Why doesn't that surprise me?" She smiled and slipped her hand into his once more, demonstrating again that she could do whatever it was that allowed her to teleport them both without having Phantom's cloak, which was in fact the case. Actually, Taylor could place someone in the void with any phyiscal contact, the cloak just concealed the process from bystanders. For Jack there was a flash of darkness before the silence of primordial Freedom City was replaced with the cacophony of human celebration. They appeared in a back alley, littered with paper confetti in Comet colors. "I thought you might prefer to see the celebration first hand. We're a little out of synch with our timeline although time flows normally here, I swear. It's about a half-second slower than our world which has added up over the years." Taylor had to raise her voice to be heard over the noise. She glanced down at her delicate wedge sandals and gave a little shrug. Not the most appropriate dress for the place but better than Phantom's outfit she supposed. As they stepped into the street there was something like an impromptu celebration going on although it was elaborate. There were vendors out hawking Comet gear at makeshift stands and places selling beer and food. Taylor tucked herself in against his side to keep from getting bowled over in the crowd as she pointed things out, "There aren't super heroes in this world. Instead, every meta human has gotten picked up by the athletic teams. Freedom City, as you can imagine, has one of the best teams in the world at just about every sport. It's huge. Meta-humans are the worlds top earners. Better than actors even. There's actually some cross-over. You should see the hockey team. Came through this world when a scalper was using a device to go off world and try and pick up new talent for a ringer. Hockey match."

"Hmmm," Alex tapped her pencil against the neat lines of her homework, "Yeah, I could see that. Mike holds back too much and if he was up against you, that would be way harder for him to do. He's also got great control that I'm sure he could show you a few tricks with. Mike's almost as strong as you are, did you know?" She jotted down a few notes in her book without looking up, "He holds back a lot because he's afraid of hurting someone and I don't think either of you could really badly hurt the other one."

Taylor grinned, revealing the dimples in her cheeks as she laughed, "I wish. I would have much better luck with the occasional sports bet at the college pool if I could do that. I can't see the future, not easily at any rate. Most of my work involves research. I have to know the dimensions so that I don't cause more harm than good when I'm making the calls of who has to go back home, and who can get relocated." She smiled and glanced up at him, having to tilt her neck to do so, "I spent somewhere around two to three years in the transient dimensions getting drilled by the keepers of the doors for this job. Just don't tell anyone that the mysterious mystic comes from hard-work and study more than cosmic power. I have a reputation to uphold. I could take you to one where the Comets won as it actually happened in a handful of them that I can think of off the top of my head. There are dimensions on watch-lists that I know the best. Hot spots, if you will, where things are more likely to spill out, but the bulk of the multiverse is blessedly conflict free. At least as far as interdimensional travel is concerned."

"It's a dodgy subject, and I'm sure he understands it better than I do," Alex didn't withdraw her hand at the flinch, although she did as Erin began her meditation exercise, "As time travel's involved, there's plenty of time. Especially to make sure that the trajectories are correct." She sighed slightly as Erin changed the subject and tucked her hands in her lap. Alex was emotionally self-contained and secure enough to not let a flicker of emotion other than concern show at Erin's reaction. She was pretty sure that the bulk of her speech had gone ignored or unheard about dealing with her emotional baggage for Erin rather than the people that died. Survivor guilt was a brutal beast. "Two o'clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays." Alex glanced down and quietly closed her notebook as she continued to project that calm steady presence into the room that she usually provided as she retrieved her driver's ed book. It was hard to read anything else in that face other than a faint shadow of sorrow beneath the concern, "It shouldn't be a difficult course, I don't think."

"I'm sure you can guess that I'm not a people person," Taylor replied, walking up next to him with her hands tucked behind her back and her profile tilted up at the stars. "It's peaceful. In another hundred thousand years, sentience will develop fully in descendents of elephants and they'll start building proto-cities. At the moment, their ancestors are the dominant life form over in Africa and India. I stay in America so that I don't accidentally affect their development. Plus, nicer beaches." She smiled faintly and tilted her head at him, far more relaxed than she'd been back home. Relaxed enough to make an offer that she didn't give lightly, "So, what do you want to see? This is your trip, I'm simply the designated driver."

Taylor smiled and parked the car in front of her apartment, "No disco-tek raves. No culinary buffets. And no dimensions that run at different speeds. Got it. I thought we'd start with something that actually makes it all worthwhile. I'll even try and make the trip quick." She held out one pale hand, palm up for him to take before they flashed out of the car. There was the moment of blinding darkness in the void before Jack found him standing at the edge of a verdant forest that had petered out into a clearing and a cliff edge that Taylor was looking out over. As far as the eye could see and to all of his senses, there was no sound or sign of people in any direction. In the valley below was a meadow filled with strange creatures, not all that dissimalar to horses but somehow more primal and past that was an endless sea. It was the same dim twilight that they'd left but the stars were already brilliant in the sky above. "An earth in which primates never developed past the very proto-human stage. Evolution went left instead of right some time around the end of the ice age." Taylor volunteered, her soft voice almost startling in the silence. "There's a beach down a mile or so away that I think, if I had only one day left, I'd spend it lying in the white sand. I stop over here sometimes, when one of the worlds I've left is just... too hard."

Alex went to place a light hand on her back, knowing she might not welcome the human contact but feeling the need to offer it even if it was rejected, "The point is, you can change the world, but changing yourself is much harder. You can't erase the memories you have, but you can protect other people with what you learned from them. You have to do what will make you feel better for once. You're a hero, Erin, and I mean it. You have fought so long and so hard. So very hard, but now you have to decide for you what will help you sleep at night. If changing the timeline of your world will do that, let's go wrangle up Quark. If you want to go wipe the slate of your world clean, we'll go do that. If you want to go hit something until you can't think anymore, there's the combat simulator downstairs. None of it will erase your life, but some of it might help with today. Eventually, it will get easier. I promise." Alex kept her voice strong, but soothing rather than confrontational as she spoke, the book forgotten and closed to the side. "You're not alone, anymore. I'm here to help. The whole team is. Even when that help is just giving you space but I don't think there's a single one of us that wouldn't follow you wherever you need to go."

Her expression softened at that and she gave him a quiet smile, deeply touched at the sentiment. It wasn't often that she had anyone really appreciate her work. She told herself, often, that the reward was in the job itself but to hear that, from one of her peers even... It meant more than words could have expressed. And heavens knew she wasn't good at words. "Thanks," she said simply, instead before she glanced over at him, "I suppose that's up to you. I can take you anywhere you'd like. Literally." At that, her humor returned and she grinned at him as she gave him a rare offer, "You're the one that doesn't feel well, so if you'd like me to drop you off at home I'd be happy to. Or we could go someplace else. I certainly owe you for tonight. What do you say, Jack, want to see my world?"

Her lips flattened a little, not so much at Jack's sentance but at the options she was presented with. After a long moment, she spoke slowly, "I don't know what to do about it. I can be honest enough to admit that I'm afraid just how much they'll change the way they see me. Phantom's not exactly the most popular super-hero on the block. I mean, I don't rescue little old ladies. I bounce interdimensional transients, most of whom hate me. I'm not even close to any other superheroes because sometimes my responsibilities clash with their ethics. I don't have friends, really. Taylor doesn't have the time and Phantom..." She lifted her chin slightly, "I do what I have to, and I don't regret the choice I made, but my family shouldn't have to live with the consequences. If they don't know anything, they can't have it pulled out of their minds by a psychic. Its easier to keep a secret for one person than fourteen and, God, what if they tried to help? They would, bless them. I can see my mom trying to hit some demon with her car." She slanted a glance at him, "Anyway I slice it, I've put them in danger. The safest thing I could do would be to cut the ties with them and tell them I'm going abroad to study at some dig site, but I don't want to lose out on the time I do have. I'll have an eternity after I've outlived them. So what do I do, Jack?"

"Yes, and no," Alex looked up at her friend, her eyes bright with tears, "You can't change what's happened to you, but you could - theoretically - change what the dominant time-stream for the dimension is. Your family would be alive, but they'd be no more your family, in a way, than the ones in this world. There would be another Erin there that had her parents and her sister and whatever the future of that world holds for her. You can't change your past, but you could change their future. It might not count for anything, or it might help you a lot knowing that you did everything you could." Alex paused and reached out to squeeze Erin's hand, "I'll go with you if you decide, you know. If you need to go back to your world and kill all the zombies, or go back in time to stop it. Whatever you need to do, I'll go with you."

"Oh, sure. Sorry. Look at it like this." Alex set the pen down and raised up her hands, "If you go back in time and prevent things from occuring the way they have, that future will cease to exist. It did exist at some point, however, so the world you remember with the zombies and everything will no longer become an active timeline. Instead it will collapse in on itself, but it did exist at some point so you will continue to exist. Everything in that world that has happened, will have happened. It just won't happen again." She paused to take a breath and slow herself down before she got into the complicated bits, "It will no longer be the active time line for that world. It will be a potential that never comes into existence. Because it has existed at some point, you'll continue to exist but your past won't change. You won't change. It will all still be just as real to you, but if you go back to 'your' world, you'll be a temporal anomoly for that dimension, as opposed to being a dimensional anomoly in this one. Does that make more sense?"

Alex rummaged around for a moment, pulling out a notebook and flipping to a blank piece of paper. "It's not too likely you'd eradicate yourself. Here, look," Quickly, she sketched out a time-line, noting points of history on it with little cross hatches, then she marked off a divergent stream and added in the notes of Erin's history on that one, "We're on Earth Prime, right? At some point, your dimension's history and ours diverge, creating the world that you came from." She drew a line over, from one timeline to an earlier point in Erin's, "You go back and change history, and it spikes off in a different direction, creating an alternate history for that dimension and an alternate future, but your timeline, the one you came from exists. It's just no longer stable so it collapses back into the multiverse, having existed but no longer currently existing. The future and present of the people in that dimension don't change, it just no longer becomes the dimension that is going to be. Effectively erasing it but not erasing who you are. It would leave you the sole survivor of a collapsed singularity." Sometimes it was easy to forget just how bright Alex was until it came up in casual conversation.