ic Never Was (IC)

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

Hearing Ryan's worries about changing the timeline and Lawrence's assurances doesn't do much to change Parker's own thoughts on the matter, and he finds that he agrees with Michael's view on it, as he joins the others in beginning to guide people away. 

 

"Timeline or not, we don't have to make it more complicated than it needs to be: If anyone is in danger, we save them."

 

He stays on the ground, the others are bringing in enough attention as is. If Michael is right about their very presence changing the outcome, then there's no reason to bring anymore attention to himself than need be. He agrees with Michael, anyway. Isn't the very outcome of something supposed to change just by it being observed, or something like that?

[Thevshi]

Timeout

 

After sidestepping the giant mummy’s attack, Velocity again became a blur of yellow as she sped towards the towering creature, a loud *CRACK* sounding followed instantly by a *WHAM* as she delivered a supersonic punch to the mummy’s leg, looped around it a couple times and ran back away from the crowd, continuing to try to keep its attention.

 

As the yellow clad speedster skidded to stop, she was shaking her right hand slightly as if it hurt, the giant mummy showing no signs of injury from the punch.

 

"Hey! Come on, right over here!" She yelled out to keep the mummy's focus on her.

 

Back down near the alleyway, Lawrence was watching as his friends worked to direct or physical assist the crowd in moving away from the fight. But as he watched, a concerned look came over his face. He glanced into the air, looking about a moment, then back over to where his teenage mother was fighting against the giant mummy.

"This is not correct." He stated to those near him. "The other heroes should have shown up by now to help."

 

He looked about again before putting his hand to his head. "That is what has been tampered with in the timeline." He said, looking at those around him. "I don't think the other heroes that are supposed to be here are going to be. The timeline has already been altered, so I think we will need to intervene."

[Huckleberry]

Rot

 

"Oh, Lawrence," Consuelo shakes her head sadly, "the cosmic entities, your dad, Collapse, Collapse's dad - they're all just splinter elements of the same doomsday cult. Some day you'll see it. It's just too soon for you now." 

 

She watches the mummy mayhem with a mix of disbelief and morbid curiosity. "Uh, yeah, this is nonsense. With all this alternate time line business, it's hard to believe any of this is real, or even matters. I mean, a giant mummy? Where do giant mummies come from? Did New Jersey, like, used to be inhabited by giants? Has Freedom City, like, desecrated their burial ground or something? So this mummy needs to attack something and it's better that it attack superheros than civilians . . . . . But, like, why does it have to attack something in the first place?"

 

Consuelo scratches her head. "I'm sitting this one out until something makes some sense."

[Thunder King]

Sever stood and watched the crowd. He made sure that the people were running away, and no more children got separated from their parents. He was very tense, but he didn't trust his ability to confront this villain.

 

Yes, it was almost sixteen years ago, but that was still Velocity, and if she wasn't easily handling this, what chance did he stand? His sword might not do any good, and he was still very new to using it.

 

So, instead, he stood there and watched, and waited, hoping that the mummy situation would get resolved soon.

[Kaede Kimura]

Blue Bolt

 

Vueriz didn't need to be told twice that the timeline was no longer vulnerable to their intervention, having had her Meson Driver trained at the 'mechanical embalmed corpse' (How that worked, or why someone would defile a body like that for no apparent benefit escaped her.) in case the crime against science attacked civilians, or injured Lawrence's mother. As such she had already arrived at a firing solution. With an exhale to reduce any tremors she squeezed the firing button. With a bassy thump and a flash of blue light dozens of mesons screamed across the intervening distance at over ninety-nine percent of the speed of light.

 

With another flash the mesons detonated inside the mummy, highlighting robotic parts below the thick wrap of bandages as the spray of radiation ripped through metal, plastic and chemical structures, weakening the robot's structure. Blue Bolt whooped at the impact, eyes affixed at the light show, "Take that you piece of expletive! Hope whatever hack made you likes putting atomic bonds back together!"

[Thevshi]

Timeout

 

Lawrence half glanced at Consuelo, but the focused back on what was going on when she continued to go on about her theory that everything was connected to some cult. The blond teen watched as Vueriz's device weakened the robotic mummy, seemingly unsurprised by the revelation given his mother had told him the story of this encounter a number of times when he was young.

 

He glanced over to his roommate as he came back from helping some of the crowd. "Your choice Gamma, continue helping the crowd, or go hit a giant robot mummy." He said with a slight smile.

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

Gamma Buzz stuck out two cockroach (and armour plated) thumbs. "That's no choice at all! Giant Robot Zombie Mummy! Probably a ninja too! That would be cool, right? Yes, I am sure its a ninja too, and knows some kung fu!"

 

He glowed as green as a green tomato, face breaking out into a spontaneous and slightly wicked smile!

 

"Hey, Giant ninja zombie robot, its Gamma Buzz Baby!" he yelled to the skies, and leapt forward. 

 

Unfortunately, the Giant Zombie Robot Mummy, who was allegedly a ninja master of kung fu too, moved at precisely the wrong moment, leaving baz a crumpled mess on the tarmac. 

 

"See!" said Gamma Buzz, his eyes wonky, trying to reattach his head the right way round. "It knows Kung fu!"

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass II

 

"Alright... good to know the timeline's needin' some fixin'." Mizuki said. "I'll just not have to use my name... since my predecessor should be popping up soon in the modern timeline... So for now, call me Supercav... Going in."

 

She lept from Lawrence's side, taking a position on a ledge behind the mechanical threat and threw an energy blast as she went. It missed hitting the pavement near it's feet. "Okay this is gonna be a long day..."

[Thevshi]

GM

 

The dark energy of Rot's disintegration attack lances across the street, slamming into the robotic giant mummy, but seemingly to little effect. As Torpedo Lass (going by Supercav for the moment) leaps to attack but misses, the robotic mummy focuses its attention on the prone form of Gamma Buzz.

 

Lifting one of its massive feet up, it tries to stomp on the teen, but suddenly Spaceman is there, catching the foot and pushing it aside to slam into the street, sending chunks of pavement flying in several directions.

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

Parker is there as the foot comes down. Strange black bubbles krackle and rise from his skin, floating off him as he uses his powers to push it back, away from Baz and into the street. He stares at Consuelo, like he doesn't believe what he is hearing. There are people in danger, and she's deciding to sit this one out, because she doesn't believe Lawrence? She did act, at least. Like the rest of them. 

 

They shouldn't change the past, but if Lawrence is right, this is a different timeline, so it isn't their past... and even if it isn't, it doesn't matter. They have to stop this.

 

"Star!" he calls out to Michael, as he looks up towards the giant. More and more black krackle are rising from his body. "Let's go!" 

 

Spaceman almost explodes up from the ground alongside Golden Star, leaving a stream of black krackle behind. He pulls his right hand back alongside Golden Star, a completely synchronized punch from both of them aimed directly at the giant mummy robot's face.

[Poncho]

"You said we're good, then!? Fine!" Michael barks at Lawrence, his temper finally too tested by letting something terrible happen to hold it back. "The best way to save people is to be aggressive in stopping evil!" He didn't even have to hide or sneak around if this was another timeline. He could do exactly what he wanted. As Parker pushed back the leg of the giant, Michael grabbed another pair of people nearby and took them to safety, this time flying as he deposited them away. 

 

He flew back in a swirl of gold and red to meet up with Parker as the other boy ascended, Michael's hair and eyes turning bright red; his civilian clothes abandoned in an instant for his red, white, and gold suit. He pulled back a fist cloaked in gold as Spaceman pulled back his own, and swung forward, gold meeting black as they hit the robot mummy square on in bursts of opposing color.

[Huckleberry]

Rot

 

Consuelo watches her roommate score a palpable hit on the giant mummy and it's robotic exoskeleton is revealed in a wash of light. "Nice shooting, Vueriz!" Hmm, hate for that monster to smash my roommate.  . . 

 

"Oh, it's a robot giant mummy . . . That's totally different, then .. . " Rot grits her teeth and concentrates as dark waves swirl out from her in a snaking pattern towards the lurching, nigh-indestructible behemoth. Her jaw drops wide as the towering brutish goliath nimbly dodges, weaves, and sidesteps to avoid her attack. "Huh. Go figure. I didn't see that coming."

[Thevshi]

GM
 

The powerful combined attacks from Spaceman and Golden Star cause the giant robot to stagger backward, clearly causing damage to its already weakened structure from Blue Bolt's earlier attack and shook the windows of nearby buildings. The robot staggered backward a few steps, closer to one of the buildings, but was still on its feet.

 

And then Velocity was a yellow blur once again, streaking down the street past Baz and Mizuki with loud WOOSH of air as she passed. She looped around further down the block and came back along the opposite side of the street, but rather than run straight at the robot, the speedster ran up onto the wall of the nearest building, continuing in the robot’s direction.

 

As she closed to about ten feet from the robot, she leapt into the air at it, swinging her right fist in a flash of movement that once again broke the sound barrier with an audible *CRACK* before slamming into the robot’s chest with a loud WHAM, the force of which everyone nearby could feel.

 

The speedster executed a piked front flip as she went past the robot, landing smoothly on the ground after a twenty-foot drop and skidded to a halt.

The robot meanwhile was sent flying one hundred feet down the street its weakened torso caved in and sparking, before crashing the pavement in a heap, unmoving.

 

Velocity was blur of movement again as she zipped over and helped Baz back up to his feet. "Hey, quite the wild man aren’t you? I'm Velocity by the way." She said with a smile, giving Mizuki a nod in greeting as well. She then zips over closer to underneath where Parker and Michael were still hovering in the air.

"Great teamwork there!" She called up. "You and your friends all really helped get that thing on it's heels. You all go to Claremont together or something?" She asked as she looked further down the street towards Vueriz, Consuelo, Lawrence and Ryan.

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

"Whoa thanks babe!" said Balatzar as Velocity helped him up. He shot a sideways glance at Lawrence. "I mean thanks Lade..eee. Yes, thanks lady. You are a very refined and elegant superheroine and not at all hot and beautiful."

 

He waved his hands in front of him, trying to dig himself out of a rapidly deepening hole. 

 

"I mean not that you aren't hot and beautiful. Its just that I can't say you are hot and beautiful because that would be wrong. Very wrong. Even though you are."

 

His antannae stood erect, and glowing. 

 

"Ah... anyway, I am Gamma Buzz, the amazing Cockroach kid! And we are all totally freinds and totally from this time and not another time."

 

He gazed around, looking for help. 

 

"There! That blond man! He knows everything!" he blurted, pointing at Lawrence. 

 

He mouthed "sorry" at Timeout, realising he had put his cockroach foot in his cockroach mouth. 

[Kaede Kimura]

Blue Bolt

 

Vueriz holstered her Meson Driver as she approached the heroine as Baz said his... statement. Concern filled her as he proceeded to put his foot ever deeper in his mouth as some of the humans she'd met would say, before pointing to Lawrence and saying he knew everything. She needed to recover this

 

"Uh, are you okay Gamma Buzz? Sorry about him, I think he might have hit his head earlier." She winked at Baz to try let him know that she was trying to cover for him. "I'm Blue Bolt." She offered her hand up to the heroine to shake.

[Huckleberry]

Rot

 

Consuelo makes a tortuous way down the street, suddenly darting this way and that to see if she can catch Quirk hiding behind a hotdog stand or a Buick or something. "Huh. Coast is clear, I guess."

 

Flying up to where Baz, Vueriz, and Velocity have gathered, she cracks her knuckles and puts on a fake John Wayne voice. "Welp, if I can't be bothered to raise a finger to help create jobs for the giant robot mummy builders of America, just exactly what kind of person would that make me, mam?"

 

"Nosir. Way I see it, we've all gotta pitch in, do our part, and git along. Shucks. But I'm no hero. No, the real hero of this group is my good friend, Marty McFly." And Consuelo gestures to Lawrence.

 

"Marty, why don't you come up and meet this very attractive young woman?"

[Thunder King]

"Um, Sever." Ryan said. He was visibly blushing in front of the beautiful young woman that he knew was Lawrence's mother. He coughed. He shifted awkwardly, and took a deep breath.

 

"H-happy to help. Um, it's, it's what heroes do, right? Help people?"

 

He glanced over at Baz, and had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at his new friend. Baz was a good guy, but he did not have great impulse control. 

Then Consuelo went ahead and just made it explicit.

"Yeah, um, time travelers. No idea how we got here, no idea why we're here. We had friends, but, they're not here with us. Some of us are missing."

[Poncho]

Michael thought about not coming down to talk to Velocity, because he could see the massive pile up that was already starting. He sighed and let go of his energy, turning his hair back to normal as he glanced at Parker.

 

"...I probably should have held back a bit. We don't actually know what's going on and I just burnt through a lot of power." he said with a level of resignation as he floated down. In truth, there was no way he wasn't going to; he knew he had to do that to keep up with Parker, and it gnawed at him that he had to put in so much effort to do what Parker did so easily. He was going to have to train even harder, to try and keep up. 

 

But as he floated down, he offered a smile to Velocity and everyone else.

 

"Marty McFly? I didn't realize you were interested in the classics, Consuelo...that movie's like over a hundred years old." it was a slight stretching of the truth, but maybe enough to muddle the water. It's not like Michael had seen the movie himself; it was almost 40 years old, well before his time. He didn't see any need to add a further explanation to their current time-trapped state, the others had explained it well enough.

[The Sailor]

Torpedo Lass II... err... Supercav...

 

Well... that was... something...

 

She hopped down... or what would normally be a hop but more of a leap back to Lawrence's position. "Seems we've ended up being the heroes..." she whispered before turning to Velocity... well as best she could with Velocity's zipping around all over the place. "Seems some people don't know how to keep a secret..." Mizuki said, loudly. "Name's Supercav... And it seems whatever is going on here, has drawn us in as well."

 

She straightens herself out as she starts to walk over to Velocity. "Now what has to be asked, is what are you up to here before things went all..." She gestures to the mummy... "...Creatively strange?"

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

Parker is getting ready for another strike when Velocity comes out of nowhere and handily takes down the robot.

 

Is this how easy it was supposed to be? Or was their numbers the reason they won like this? He doesn't like it.

 

He waits for a moment, before he follows Michael down towards Velocity where Baz is stumbling over himself as usual and the others do introductions and immediately let her know that they are time travellers. Fair enough, then. 

 

Landing, he moves up to the others. He seems to be the only one that remembers what Lawrence said the moment before they all stopped. They're already making changes here anyway, so...

 

"I'm Spaceman. We have no idea how or why we ended up here, but things were supposed to be different. I don't know a lot about this time," he is not lying, because he knows how bad he is at that, but not telling the whole truth, at least, "but you weren't supposed to be alone to fight that robot. There were supposed to be other heroes here." He looks briefly at Lawrence. If Parker says it, then Lawrence won't have to. Makes him dealing with all this easier, at least.

[Thevshi]

Timeout

 

Lawrence started over towards where the teenage version of his mother had stopped to talk with those that were gathered near the fallen robotic mummy. The crowd had pretty much all cleared out, and a faint sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. "It would seem so." He responded quietly to Mizuki. "Still does not change the fact that she was supposed to meet a couple of heroes today that would be important in her superhero life over the next six months or so."

 

Velocity looked at Baz with an amused smile as he tripped over his words, one hand on her hip. "Well, nice to meet you Gamma Buz." She replied before turning to Vueriz as the small alien came over and introduced herself. "Nice to meet you as well Blue Bolt." The teenage speedster said as she shook the alien teen's hand.

 

When Mizuki came over and introduced herself and asked a question of what the speedster had been up to before the appearance of the mummy. "Me? Nothing much really, was just enjoying the Halloween festival." She glanced about. "Which seems like it is done for the night." She added.

 

She then looked at all the other teens as they began to gather around, smiling at each. When Consuelo started calling Lawrence Marty McFly, Velocity looked over at the green haired teen. "McFly…there is a reference I have not heard in awhile. So, if you are time travelers are you suggesting he is my son from the future? And you said that things are not like they are supposed to be?" She asked, looking from Consuelo to Parker. The teen speedster then turned to face Lawrence as he reached the group. The wide smile she had on her face instantly vanished, replaced by a shocked look as she focused on his blue eyes that were the very image of her own. "Um...okay. I…guess that is the case, unless you all are from one of those gender swap alternate dimensions I have heard about."

 

"That is definitely not the case." Lawrence replied with a thin smile. "And Spaceman is correct, things were supposed to unfold differently here, or at least, they did in our timeline."

 

"Wait, your British?" Velocity asked. "Do you mean I end up marrying….wait, never mind, probably shouldn't tell me." The teenage speedster reached up to rest her forehead in one hand slightly. "Victoria and Chase said that dealing with time travel could get complicated really quickly." She muttered before lowering her hand and looking at the group with a wide smile in place once again.

 

"So, anyway, you," she pointed to Ryan, "Sever right? You said something about some missing friends?" She looked around at the rest of the group. "What do they look like? I can totally help you look for them."

 

Lawrence responded first, "well, one is a Japanese teen, with white hair and cat's ears. She also has a white tail. But, if she is using her powers, her cat ears and tail might not be visible, and she could possibly even make herself look like someone else. So, she might be the hardest to find really. Hopefully she is with the others."

[Supercape]

Gamma Buzz

 

"And like, Puma Negra...." said Baz, thinking back to his non-humanoidish sister in arms. 

 

Well, mutated non human humans needed to stick together, right. 

 

"She is like the human, but a tiger. A tiger human. I mean a human tiger. Except a puma, not a tiger."

 

He babbled. 

 

"Well, what I mean is she is super cool with teeth and everything! Wait... humans have teeth, too, right? I seem to remember having some. I mean she has claws! And is really fast and strong and ker pow! Slash! Slash! Maim! Devour! Rend! .... ah... except in a non lethal and heroic way, too. And she looks cool."

 

Edited February 29 by Supercape

[Huckleberry]

Rot

 

"Well, my good buddy Starshine shouldn't be too hard to spot, because she glows and flies around. She's also wearing a hoodie . . . . Although I guess that is less useful . . . . Oh yeah, she's got this really, like 1950s style auburn hairdo. She likes to wear goggles when she flies around, too."

 

Consuelo flies a bit higher, so she can get another look at the fallen robot mummy. "Um, so, uh . . . Not that I'm not curious where the rest of us are, but, Lawrence, if your bedtime stories included an explanation of, you know, why this giant robot mummy was even here in the first place, it would probably, like, do me good to hear it."

[Poncho]

Michael was going to bring up Carmen, but Baz beat him to it. He rubbed his chin as he thought about it; who was he actually worried about? Well, he was worried about all of them, but he also knew some of them could take care of themselves. He wasn't going to be that concerned about Carmen, honestly, she'd shown for a long time that she had no need for him to be worried.

 

"There's these twins we were traveling with, they're pretty new students...Daniel was the boy's name. Kind of skinny, brown hair, blue eyes, he has psychic powers, and is pretty outgoing..."

[RocketLord]

Spaceman

 

"There's Jotunn," Parker says, in response to Velocity's question. "I don't really know him, but he's tall and blue, and I think he has some sort of ice powers." 

 

He shrugs. That is really all he knows. He haven't really talked with the older student, haven't seen him more than in passing, even while they were both at the island in Fiji before this.

 

"Whatever brought us here, do we even know that they were sent to the same time?" He doesn't like to ask the question, but it has to be asked.