ic House of L: Bringing Down the House (IC)

[April]

Sage shook her head as she looked down at Mark. She was mentally and emotionally fatigued from the events of the day and overtaxing her abilities. All she wanted to do right now was curl up somewhere and rest, but she knew there wasn't time for that. Besides, the scene before Eve was tugging at her heartstrings.

"Off hand, no Mark we do not know where he is. We wanted to find you first." the white-haired telepath said, speaking slowly to keep the fatigue form her voice, "History records that your father perished," she added and held one hand up to prevent any interruption. "Evidence suggests, however, that your father's hand is still active in this world."

"I will search for him, though," she concluded, closing her eyes to concentrate on locating Mark's father.

[Avenger Assembled]

"My dad...my dad died? What?"

"In the Terminus Invasion," murmured Martha. "He died, saving the Centurion..." Suddenly, she shook her head. "No, no, that's not what happened! He wasn't there when Omega attacked, because he was home with me! Because he was worried about you!" She reached up and squeezed her son's hand.

Sage found the psychic landscape of a world warped and twisted by one man's will, the psychic fingerprints of Rick Lucas in the sky, the ground, the sea, the air, and inside the minds of nearly everyone there. But she could find a definite track, one that let her follow the mind of the man who'd made this place.

"Oh my god..." A pale-faced Mark was breathing quickly, fighting back the urge to go into shock. Rubbing his midsection unconsciously, he said, "If...if my dad is here, but he's hiding, and it's like the old days when he was younger..."

Sage's mind found that mind lurking in the heart of Freedom City, a human soul resting at the heart of the architecture it had built around it. It took her a moment to recognize the building, and another to plunge inside to find the heart of the beast.

"He'd be in Freedom Hall. We didn't move into this house until just a few months before I was born. He'd...he'd definitely be in Freedom Hall." He hugged his mother lightly, kneeling next to her on the couch, and promised, "It'll be all right. We'll find Dad, and we'll make it better. It'll be okay."

Sage found Rick Lucas inside a warped version of Freedom Hall's computer room, its walls covered in the black, inky dots of rewritten reality. She looked at him, he looked at her, and the old man's face turned red as he yelled "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!" And when Rick Lucas shouted, the _walls themselves_ spoke in reply in everyone's ears.

[Electra]

"Mister Lucas, we want to talk to you!" Erin called, looking from wall to wall as they resonated with echoes. "We deserve a chance to see you! Isn't that how it works? We came all this way, we found you, now you meet us face to face. Mark's right here with us, don't you want to see him again? Don't you want what's best for him, and for Freedom City, and the whole world?" She tensed, looking for the black ink.

[Cyroa]

James didn't bother trying to jump in and explain while the others talked. It would have just made this too confusing and it was already confusing enough as it was. When the walls started yelling and Sage shared her sight with them, obviously play time was over.

He looked over at Mark and the others. "Well, we make him angry if we stay but it will likely draw him out. Or we go to him. Either way we're pretty much out of time. I think we should go there and try to talk to myself, but whatever we choose is fine. I'm going keep most of my powers focused on a kind of stability for us, assuming I still can do that," he said, the last comment half to himself. "We're likely going to need it."

[Avenger Assembled]

The windows blinked dark for a second, flashing with inky blackness, before the doors of the Lucas family blasted open forwards and backwards as if a hurricane had passed through the house. No longer were they in the peaceful suburban neighborhood they'd left behind, now they were on the green, tony lawn of the old Freedom Hall, the building itself hanging open for all of them. Evidently Rick Lucas had responded to their taunting, as he'd brought them right to his front door. Wide-eyed, and more than a little pale, Mark tended to his mother.

"She's passed out, I think..." His voice was high, and more than a little frightened, as he looked at the sleeping Martha. His hands were opening and closing, real fear in his eyes. "I'm going to take her downstairs, to the panic room," he said, not quite able to look out the windows at the world gone mad around him. Scooping her up in his arms, he said, "You guys can figure out what to do, and then we'll do it," he decided, moving away from the group and towards the stairs that lead down to the protected room his father had built for them after the Terminus Invasion. It was supposed to be a safe place, and maybe because of that, or because he wanted it so badly, it was there.

[Cyroa]

James looked outside and smirked. "Well, guess that solves that one." He shrugged. "I still say we try to reason with the man first." If for no other reason than fighting the guy who rewrites reality on a whim is going to be hard, he thought, letting Eve pass that on to everyone. That said, if it comes down to it and talking is going to fail, we can always sucker punch him. James was not the uber-good guy. There was a reason he was on the team with Avenger, Atlas, Dead Head and Phantom. Whatever got the job done and that usually meant saying to hell with the rules.

[Electra]

"Wait, Mark," Erin called, holding up a hand to stop him. "We need you with us on this. Eve, can you stay with Mrs. Lucas and still follow us telepathically? I'm sure she'll be safe here, even if we leave her for a few minutes, but Mark's dad needs to see him. And Mark needs to be here for this too."

Erin looked around at the others, then went over to Mark. "We didn't tell you this before, but you have to know. Just before your dad changed everything, you were hurt by that Omegadrone. We... we all really tried, but we couldn't save you. That's why your dad did all this, rewrote the whole world, locked you in your room, because he wanted to bring you back and keep you safe. If we can change everything back, make it all the way it's supposed to be again, you might pay a higher price than anyone. You deserve to know that saving the world might cost you your life this time."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I...what?" Mark tensed, looking down at his chest. "No, no, that was part of the...the trick." He put his hand on his chest, right where his friends had seen him impaled at the beginning of a long, terrible day. "It hurt, and I was cold. And then I was here." He looked down at his mother, then slowly, slowly put her down on the couch. "I thought maybe I'd died till I heard Sage. That I'd died and gone to Hell, and that was why I was in a version of my room that I couldn't leave, with no one to talk to." He squeezed his hands into fists, staring down at them, hard enough until he felt his nails bite into the skin. "But you said this isn't a good place, is it?" he asked, looking at his friends. "It's not real. And maybe I'm not real, either. So we need to bring...bring back the real world. Even if something bad happened there. God, let's get the Hell out of here." He ducked his head and kissed his mother's cheek. "I love you, Mom."

[Gizmo]

Although his expression remained impassive, the look in Trevor's domino mask covered eyes softened subtly at Mark's confusion and ultimate resolve. The minor irritations of the days were put into stark perspective next to the Lucas scion's trauma. The soft spoken youth, having his own reasons for wanting the world returned to its proper condition, placed a hand solidly on Mark's shoulder with a brief nod before silently turning to make his way down the stairs.

[Cyroa]

James looked back, eyes reflecting the pain his friend felt. The fact that he might loose one of his few friends, again, if they succeeded was not lost on him. He always knew Mark was the kind of guy who would do the 'sacrificing himself for the world' bit at the drop of hat. But having it shoved up in your face was quite a different matter. He wished he had some of his powers. The 'James' part had quite a bit of knowledge on dimensions and magic but here, being Hell-ion, there wasn't much he could access. Still, he couldn't help but wrack his brains for something, anything, that would let him switch places with his friend as he stepped outside and up to Freedom Hall.

[Ecalsneerg]

Chris turned away from Mark. Not again... it's not fair... "Rick, I know you can hear me," he whispered towards the ground, so his friends couldn't hear. "Even your son is willing to die to fix this world. Give up. The only people who like your world are those you brainwashed. Guess what, Mr Lucas. In a world of good and evil, white and black, where grey doesn't exist, your son thinks you're a villain. Please. Stop this."

[Avenger Assembled]

The doors of Freedom Hall gaped open as the teens walked across the lawn to reach the building, a still silence in the air around them, as if everything else was cast in a dream. The illusion inside Freedom Hall was gone, the interior walls cast in slick, inky blackness, the windows casting a sickly yellow glare inside. Standing in the middle of the room was Rick Lucas, his hair gone wild, his hands moving before his face. As the teens watched, the world played out on those screens, a world twisted and warped by an old man's terror and power. There the first Lady Liberty was fighting giant Soviet robots; here Midnight and Raven were battling together against the machinations of the Conqueror Worm.

And there before them, standing on a stage of whirling, shifting inky dots, the father of all their troubles looked down at them. "Well. I might have known it would come to this."

"Dad..." Mark walked out in front, reaching up to him. "Dad, what happened?"

"Mark..." The sight of his son got Rick off the podium, and his arms around his son. "Mark, I'm sorry. I wasn't...I wasn't finished yet. I don't understand what happened, but somehow, I got the power to make things better. To save you, and save everyone else. So I had to do it. You understand that, don't you?"

[Gizmo]

As the group of youths made their way across the lawn, Trevor kept to the rear, streams of light consuming midnight mist pouring from around the cuffs of his pants and clenched fists to hug the ground and swirl about their feet. The white eyes of his domino mask were slits, his body language that of coiled springs straining to break free as wiry muscles tensed on his exposed forearms. Throughout it all, his mouth remained set is a hard line that may as well have been as unreadable as the featureless mask he usually wore.

The growing cloud of mist blended into the inky black inside the faux Freedom Hall, only noticeable where it crept up to the sickly yellow windows and added a heaviness to the air along the floor. As Trevor surveyed the screens, his eyes fixed upon the scene of his grandfather fighting next the original Raven. Something seemed to snap behind the young man's stoic visage, as his entire face twisted into a scowl that carried far more menace than a teenager should have been able to muster against a veritable god. "End this," he demanded, his quiet but suddenly gravelly voice cutting violently through the preternaturally still air.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Kids, I understand this is very confusing for all of you," said Rick, all paternal reassurance, "but it's going to be all right. Now that you're all here, you can help me finish what I started. I know things look rough now, but it's...it's like a painting half-finished. With just a little more work, we can make this place a world where everyone can be happy-"

"Dad, what's the matter with Mom?" asked Mark, his voice nearly a whisper. "Mom's not happy, she's passed out in the living room! Why is she so upset if this is so great!?!"

"Mark, I didn't want to change her the way I'd changed everyone else," said Rick, sweating a little. "She's my wife, and your mother, that wouldn't be right. I'm going to go in there and talk to her and explain the situation, just as soon as I finish here. I don't know how any of this happened, but I've managed to fix the whole world. With a little more work, I think I can take things further, and make the whole universe better. We can make this a better place for everyone."

[Cyroa]

James shook his head. "I'm sorry Rick," he said. He wasn't about to address the guy ruining the world as Mr. Lucas; not at the moment anyway. He stepped forward, standing tall. "But it can't be this way. It must be restored. I'm not just one of Mark's friends from school. Whether you know this or not, I'm one of the guardians for this reality. My mentor/partner and I keep this dimension safe to the best of our ability. It's why all of us here know the truth, the way things really are. And you're destroying it all. Changing everyone to your whims and views...that's not much better than Omega. You are stripping everyone of choice. Of free will. Is that really what you believe in? We, and your son, thought you were a much better man than that."

[Electra]

"Just because the world is better for you doesn't mean it's really better," Erin added. "What about all the people who are gone, or the people who never existed? You have no right to decide who lives and who dies, or who's good enough to be in the world. Generations of superheroes have fought against villains who thought they could do that, haven't they? I know you just wanted Mark to be better, but this world you've made isn't one any of us want to live in, not even Mark. You have to make it right."

[Ecalsneerg]

"In any case, you didn't fix the world. Let's look at how you 'fixed' me for examples. First, you replace one of the most highly trained people on the planet with me, an immature teenager. Then, you take my girlfriend, a reformed villain, and unreform her!" Chris spat vitriol at Rick, eyes blazing. "Fix the world by bringing retired villains back? If you tore my skull open, ripped my brain out and then fired a railroad spike into the remains, I still wouldn't be mentally hindered enough to call that logical."

Chris took a step forward, pushing back his Raven cowl. "My name is Christopher James Kenzie, and I've been Geckoman since I was 16 years old. I'm a superhero. You? Centurion's half-forgotten, powerless sidekick and tagalong kid, spiteful and bitter that a bunch of kids have fought longer and harder than him. Unlike these guys, I'm not going to ask anymore. Asking hasn't worked. I'm telling you, right here, right now." His voice had got louder and louder as he ranted, but now dropped to a near-hiss.

"Fix. Our. World."

[Avenger Assembled]

Chris's face fell right off him at that juncture, revealing underneath a complex tangle of wires, transistors, and gears like something from a 1950s sci-fi movie, with only his moving robotic eyes to reveal the human intelligence underneath. Chris didn't feel any different, save that his face felt considerably shorter, and a little colder. Wheels turned and lights like Christmas bulbs flashed, making Geckoman's mechanical nature ridiculously obvious. Rick paled briefly at the sight of Geckoman's mechanical transformation, just like everyone else, but a moment later mastered his resolve.

"You, young man, are actually the evil robotic double the Foundry substituted for the real second Raven. Once Midnight and the original Raven break you out of prison, they'll redeem you and you can be a hero like you're supposed to be. As for the rest of you...I'm sorry," he said suddenly, looking at Erin. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you what I gave everyone else. I think it's because you're not from around here, are you? But is this really such a bad place? A world where Travis Hunter will live thirty years instead of three; a world where James Prophet sleeps soundly every night! A world where the White family has never known a brush of tragedy; a world where you. can. sing!" he said, pointing to Sage. Despite his rant, though, the kids could see the doubt they'd planted creeping onto the old man's face as he tried to justify what he'd done to all of them. "Maybe...maybe I've done some things I shouldn't have. But in your world, my son is dead. And that is not acceptable."

Mark had watched everything, his face turning so white his friends thought he might faint, particularly at the revelation of Geckoman's true nature. But as he watched his father waver on the precipice, with only his own presence keeping him there, he knew he had to say something. Even if it means the end of everything. "Dad...listen to them, please. Think about everything you've ever taught me, everything you've ever told me was important! My life...my life is not as important as the whole world. And you know it." He was crying now, wiping at the corners of his eyes. "And I know it, because you didn't tell me, or mom, and because even though you made the Centurion and Grandpa alive again, you didn't talk to them about it. Because...because you know they'd be ashamed! What would the Centurion think about what you've done?"

[Ecalsneerg]

Chris felt at his robotic face, feeling the cogs and wheels. A lie. Another lie. "Mark, I can tell you what the Centurion would say. Likely what he thought in 1993." Slowly, shaking with fear and knowing the man in front of him could destroy him with a thought, he reached to his belt and pulled out a bird-shaped boomerang, holding it ready to throw. "He'd say that, even if it means you die... you stand up and fight the monsters."

He levelled the boomerang, aiming at Rick's head. "And send them back from where they came."

[Gizmo]

The faint sound of clenching fabric came from within the creeping mass of misty tendrils which streamed forth from Trevor, obscuring his white dress shirt and giving him a nebulous outline in the poorly lit hall. "You don't say his name," he practically hissed, stepping forward to stand beside Chris. "Brainwashed my grandfather, killed my parents, made a mockery of my family's legacy." Pure vitriol bubbled under the surface of the youth's normally mild voice. Sudden movement blew the cloud of mist away for a brief moment, revealing escrima sticks drawn from his belt and held at the ready before disappearing once more into the shadowy gas. "No. More."

[Electra]

"And why should I want what you gave everyone else?" Erin asked. She didn't reach for her bat, but that could be a good thing or a bad thing. Instead she took a few steps forward, putting her hand on Edge's shoulder, then nudging him behind her to stand with the rest of the teens. "All you gave them was a lie. If you gave me a lie, it wouldn't bring my world back."

She took another step forward, less than arm's reach from Rick, but purposely angled not to be in the way of Chris' shot if necessary. "You think I don't understand what it's like to be desperate to change things?" she demanded. "You think you have a monopoly on pain because your son died? My whole family died senselessly. All my friends died, every goddamned person died. I know why you did it, because it hurts so bad you can't think or reason and all you want is to make it stop. But now you have to stop it, Rick. Stop yourself before we have to stop you."

[Cyroa]

James resisted the urge to sigh. The diplomatic option was almost totally shot at this point given Chris' and Trevor's, not unjustified, reactions. The fact that Chris was suddenly a robot was a bit...odd. But given the wackiness of this enforced reality, not entirely impossible. He did his best to ignore the improbability and focus on the problem at hand.

He stepped up besides Wander, making sure both Trevor and Chris had a an angle if need be. "I don't sleep 'cause of what I see and where I go. Of course it'd be nice if things were different. But they aren't. I deal with it. I see horrors all the time. It's part of life, my life. It sucks beyond belief at times and it hurts so bad it's like crushing your soul. But all things die in time. The fact that it was Mark this time kills me. You want to fix it? Fine, put the world back the way it's supposed to be. My life for his and the rest of the world. Done. I'll sign on that dotted line right now." The fact that it might actually be possibly for him to make that deal might not be known, but to James it was something he'd do in a heartbeat. "Not only would Mark be back, but you wouldn't become such a disappointment to your own heroes. To you son. Make this right. Be a good man again. Let go." It was his last ditch (being honest and heartfelt was just a bonus really) attempt to do this before things got really out of hand.

[April]

"Mr. Lucas, your gift, I know you meant well.. but you have done something very cruel to me. I had only started coming to terms with my loss.. and you tore open those barely closed wounds." As Sage looked around the room her gaze briefly lingered on Trevor, Erin and Mark in turn, her heart knotting with sympathy. "You have done more harm than good, Mr. Lucas. Please, put things back the way they should be, with one very minor change. Keep Mark alive. Surely if you have the power to do this.. you could do that?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"No. No more children will die today, Hellion." The very air seemed to tighten around Rick, the black, slithering dots that were everywhere slowly gathering themselves into growing shapes and masses behind him. "The Centurion would rather die than see others live in a place like this. And so would you, wouldn't you, Mark?" Behind him, the black mass had become a single, moving shape, rearing up behind him in a formless shape with the height of a church steeple. "Look at you all. Children fighting the man who remade the world, even knowing what I could do to any of oyu. Friends to the end, eh?" He laughed, and it was almost a sob, the great mass looming over him like a representation of man's sins.

"Dad, what are you doing!?" Mark called, fear on his face.

"What the Centurion would do, son. Saving the world." And suddenly that great black mass behind him erupted outwards in a single massive wash of power, bulldozing over everything in a single all-encompassing flash of pure black light...