A Trip Between Two Worlds (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"All right!" Marcie chirped. "Let's go back to Clairemont!" She and Mark talked superheroine history as they went; as always, it was one topic that the usually scatter-brained Lucases knew backwards and forwards. History here was eerily familiar, yet terribly different: Centuria had debuted in 1938 and died in hand-to-hand combat with Omega back in 1993, patriotic hero Uncle Sam had been the most famous male superhero for many, many years, while Patriot Donna Mason was still head of AEGIS. Demeter Sito had invaded in 1961 in a wrathful eruption of nature, while the heroic Isis had battled her archnemesis Apep for many years in the Silver Age. Enough slipped through that the kids could tell history beyond the super was different, but the Lucases didn't seem to care about that. They'd just gotten to the point of comparing favorite foods when they arrived back at Clairemont.

"Hey, uh, if you guys wanted to have that coffee," Mark suggested as they walked back out onto the campus, arm around the shoulder of his double, "I think Marcie and I were going to compare some, uh, family stuff," he said, shooting a glance at his female counterpart who nodded solemnly. "Then we can get together and spar afterwards."

"Or even better, team up!" said Marcie, fist-pumping in a gesture Mark instinctively mimicked. "We'll brew up something really big, and we'll blow it up with the power of Young Freedom of Two Worlds! Woo-hoo!"

[Electra]

Once they were out of the car, Erin didn't feel Mark's urge to pal around closely with her counterpart. Instead, she gravitated closer to Trevor and kept a careful eye on their surroundings. It seemed like a benevolent enough place, but looks could be deceiving. "Maybe we could just keep it simple, not work out a whole bunch of elaborate scenarios," she suggested. "Things are surreal enough as it is, you know?"

Aaron felt a similar degree of muted paranoia, though he was comfortable with the surroundings and slightly suspicious of the newcomers. They seemed benign, but looks could be deceiving. He kept an eye on his teammates, making sure they were within reach in case something bad happened and he had to step in. Marcie certainly didn't seem concerned, but she often relied on her luck to get her out of bad situations when a little prudence would've kept her safe. "We can just do a sparring program down in the Doom Room, with computer opponents if we need them," he suggested.

[Gizmo]

Trevor picked up on Erin's discomfort immediately but hesitated. He'd already accidentally made things extremely awkward for his counterpart on this world, something she was going to have to deal with even after they returned home. A public display of affection in front of Aaron was hardly going to alleviate that tension, to say nothing of the difficulty he generally had gauging what Erin's reaction would be to any such gesture.

Before he could agonize over it, however, Tricia stepped over and smacked him lightly on the back of the head, forcing him to hastily secure his fedora with one hand as he turned to give her a surprised look of inquiry. The willowy girl gave him a wry shrug and faint smile. "Seemed like what Everett would have done if he were here. And taller," she explained softly, nodding her chin toward Erin.

The corner of his mouth turning wryly upward, Trevor took a step closer to his version of the dimensional refugee and reached out to take her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. Tricia, meanwhile, cleared her throat. "I'll grab the coffee, meet everyone at the Doom Room?" she suggested, glancing between the Whites. "Probably know how Trevor takes it. Erm, Aaron...es?"

[Electra]

"Cream and sugar," both the Whites answered in unison. Erin glanced at Aaron, who answered with a one-shoulder shrug. Neither of them were entirely fond of coffee, but they drank it to be sociable, when suitably doctored. As they walked, Erin squeezed Trevor's fingers lightly and relaxed just a little bit. They might be in unknown territory, but it was nice to have someone watching her back. Aaron watched them thoughtfully, then turned and moved ahead of the group a little bit, easy to do with his speed and long legs.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark and Marcie made their excuses as soon as they were in the building, Mark promising to keep in touch with his Young Freedom friends via commlink, and Marcie doing the same with her own allies. Hard as it was to believe, they were both professional when it came to superheroic situations, even if their view of professional was very different from other peoples'. They were comparing size and shape of commlink when the other teens last saw them, giggling over the similarities.

Despite a strong distraction, Mark had to smile at the sight of Marcie and Michelle's room. Marcie's side of the room was an explosion of pink frills and bright colors, bright and shiny posters of superheroines and superheroes plastered on the walls, smiling pictures of herself alongside feminine versions of the greatest heroes of previous generations. Michelle's was more subdued, and he wondered if Michelle's room had once been full of the dark poetry he associated with his once-angsty room-mate. "You have a really pretty room," he said to her with a smile, walking over to Marcie's side as she set her purse down on her thickly-upholstered bed. "It's really nice."

"Aw, thank you!" Marcie grinned, a smile that made her cheeks dimple in a way Mark immediately decided was absolutely adorable. "It's tough sometimes with Michelle, but she's a lot less sad these days now that she and Alex are really serious about each other." She frowned briefly to add, "We had a really big fight one time that she thought Alex had knocked me up, but he didn't even put out. He was just dating me to make me feel good, I think. And that was okay, I felt good when we were dating, and then good when we broke up." She looked levelly at Mark and said suddenly, "Did your dad go away?"

Mark's voice closed in his throat for a minute, the words a sharp stab in the shiny, flowery room with its pink smells and feminine textures. He could have shrugged the question off from anyone, just as he had from Dr. Marquez, but he couldn't do it with this lovely feminine version of himself. He knew that look, those eyes, even if her face was softened and rounder with a girl's physique behind it. "Yeah. Yeah, he...he's gone. There was an attack by the Terminus, and I died, and his powers came out and he made everything different. My...my friends made it better again, and I stayed behind, but...he couldn't stay. He said his powers weren't safe anymore. Was it the same with your mom?"

"Yeah...yeah..." Marcie was suddenly wiping her eyes, her voice getting high and thin. "She said she was making a better place for everyone, but it wasn't really real! And she said things weren't safe with my powers and hers being in the same place at the same time, but...but I think maybe that's a lie!" she suddenly cried. "I think she left because she was ashamed of what she did! And she couldn't face it! I can't...I can't even really talk to some of my friends anymore, after Christina said my mom was just a groupie, that nothing she did was real! And...sometimes I think I'm not real anymore!" She beat her hands against her chest. "But I can't tell anyone about it because they don't understand! No one understands me!"

"I know!" Mark was suddenly hugging her, in tears himself as emotions all came pouring out. "They're either too happy or too sad, and they don't know how to deal with things just being bad! And neither do I!" Lucas and Lucas cried together as long-repressed emotions came pouring out, shielded only by the privacy of their locked door. "I know I'm not like other people, but I just wish there was someone I could talk to! It's so hard always being happy even when I want to feel bad!"

"I know!" said Marcie. Wiping the last of the tears from her eyes, she looked up at Mark, her pert red lips inches from his, and asked, "You wanna make out?"

"God, yes."

[Gizmo]

Tricia quickly and silently made her way from the diminishing group back to her dorm room, nimbly picking across the floor strewn with partially disassembled machinery and tools to one of the intact coffee makers. Opening up her minifridge, the slim young woman removed her sunglasses as sanguine irises set in glossy black orbs darted between sealed containers of freshly ground beans, debating the merits of the various blends. With a sigh, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Not going to care, doesn't even like coffee. Stupid. Grabbing one of the containers, she set the machine brewing while she gathered the cream and sugar, shoulders slumping slightly as she replaced her sunglasses. Meeting another me would be more fun if he wasn't better at it than me.

On the way to the Doom Room, Trevor observed Aaron as the the muscular youth walked a few paces ahead of them. He recognized a lot of Erin in her distaff counterpart, but this version seemed so much more terse, almost angry. Maybe what Erin was like when she first came to Earth-Prime, he considered. He didn't envy Tricia the uphill battle evidently in front of her. He felt a faint stab of something akin of sibling protectiveness at the thought. Well, that's different. An only child, he wasn't entirely comfortable with the sensation, but after his earlier accidental sabotage, he felt obligated to help somehow. "So, Aaron," he began, "you use tonfas? I'm partial to escrima."

[Electra]

Aaron shrugged, a gesture he shared exactly with his counterpart. "I've trained with the escrima sticks," he told Trevor, "but the fast rattan sticks are too flimsy, and any sticks that are strong enough don't have good flexibility. I like the versatility from the tonfas, but I can fight with most weapons." Beside Trevor, Erin nodded agreement to that assessment. Aaron patted one of the tonfas. "These are specially designed," he admitted, "to let me work without worrying about hurting anyone. Do you use the bo too, the way Tricia does?"

[Gizmo]

"Probably not applying the same level of force," Trevor observed wryly, "so durability isn't quite the issue. Never took to the staff; guess Tricia did." With one hand holding Erin's, he thumbed the brim of his fedora unconsciously with the other. "You've seen her fight; honoring the Hunter name?" The question was a bit dishonest. Trevor had recognized enough of the practiced ease of movement in Tricia's manner to be confident that she was his equal in combat as well, but knowing the way Erin fretted over his own all-too-human frailty, he was interested to hear Aaron's assessment.

Back in her room, Tricia slid six tall mugs into a convenient carrying tray of her own design, making the assumption that Mark, like Marcie, would drink just about anything with enough sugar in it. On her way to the door, she caught sight of herself reflected in a sheet of metal resting against the wall. Pausing for a moment, her expression set in determination as she removed her sunglasses once again and tucked them away before heading back out into the hallway.

[Electra]

Aaron scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Fast, she's very fast, and versatile. Not a frontline fighter like Michelle and Jamie and I, but she comes up with a lot of unexpected tricks and solutions for different problems. And she's good for sweeping henchmen and goons, you know? Sort of like how her grandma did, back in the day. And she's really a distraction." He coughed. "I mean, you can count on her to distract the bad guys and give you a better shot at them, you know."

"Sounds a lot like the way you fight, Trev," Erin said with a nod. "It sounds like we're pretty similar all across the board." She looked speculatively at her counterpart, looking as though she was contemplating the best way to take him down. Just for sparring purposes, of course.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Crap!" Marcie raised her head, cocking it as if listening to an invisible alarm. "We're going to be late! Quick, get your costume all the way on!" Both Lucases generally wore their costumes on underneath their clothes, as Mark and Marcie had both occasion to find out in the last few minutes. They turned away, for modesty's stake, to slip out of their clothes and all the way into their costumes, Mark and Marcie both blushing when they snuck simultaneous glances back at each other. She really did fill out those tights well...

He let Marcie lead the way as they headed downstairs, almost running into Girl!Trevor, er, Tricia, as they went. "Oh, hey, Tricia," said Mark sociably, tearing his gaze away from Marcie. "You need a hand carrying those?" he offered. It was a little odd to see a feminine version of the scary Trevor, but she seemed nice enough, if considerably more reserved than the already-glum Trevor. She should date Aaron, he thought, unconsciously mirroring the exact thoughts in his counterpart's head. Then they can be happier!

[Gizmo]

"I've got it," Tricia assure Mark, dislodging his mug from its inset cradle and handing it to him, deftly compensating for the tray's redistributed weight. Well, he's not freaking out over my eyes, anyway. Of course, he's probably used to Trevor's and, well, he's a Lucas, so. Blowing away a stray lock of hair slipping out from under her cap, the slim youth continued on her way toward the Doom Room.

She consciously straightened to her full height and squared her shoulders as she and the Lucases finally arrived to find the rest of the group comparing stick fighting notes, with Trevor looking subtly pleased for some reason. Her counterpart helped hand out the beverages before taking a long, appreciative pull on his own. "Mm, Mexican shade-grown, good choice." He noticed with an arched eyebrow that Tricia has forgone her sunglasses. It was vaguely comforting to see the now familiar red and black eyes on someone else, too.

[Avenger Assembled]

Marcie seemed unusually animated today, quickly taking Tricia's pro-offered cup without a glance in her direction. "Erin," she said suddenly, cup in her hand as she drank the heavily sugared coffee that even she had once nicknamed 'hummingbird juice', "I heard that it's tough for girls with melee weapons to keep their hands smooth, but you've got really nice hands! How do you do that?" She looked down at Erin's hands. "Is it because you're bulletproof? Because Aaron is bulletproof and he's got really nice hands." She didn't want Erin, or Aaron to get the wrong idea at that, so instead she added, "Not that I, uh, know a lot about that, it's just important to keep an eye on that." She sipped the coffee, her eyes wide.

For his part, Mark coughed, reaching up to adjust and reset his goggles. His mind wasn't exactly on combat, but he didn't want his friends to realize what he and his counterpart had been up to. Talking about your relationships was one thing, going off and hooking up and announcing it everywhere was one thing altogether! He thought again of Hellion and Breakdown and Zephyr, and wondered how that little triangle had played out on this world. "Looks like the Doom Room isn't that much different," he said, peering around and sipping the coffee in his hands. "This is really good coffee, Tricia! I guess we take it the same, huh?" he asked his counterpart, and within a couple of seconds they were both giggling about coffee twins.

[Electra]

Erin let go of Trevor's hand to take a closer, baffled look at her own. "I never really thought about it," she told Marcie. "I guess so, I never get calluses or sunburn or anything." She took the coffee from Tricia and took a big gulp without regard to the heat. "Thank you, it's great," she told Tricia.

Aaron accepted a cup as well, but merely held onto it without drinking. "Thanks, Tricia," he said to his teammate, then did a quick double-take at the look of her eyes. She looked strange, a little alien with her gamine features and ebony sclera, but not so strange that he couldn't pick up on her uncertainty. He smiled at her, playing it off as though he didn't notice anything too unusual. Looking for a distraction, he glanced over at Mark and Marcie and raised one eyebrow, a gesture that had Erin turning and taking a second look. The two Lucases looked very pleased with themselves, which was hardly unusual, but they also appeared to have switched capes, so that Mark was now wearing Marcie's little half-cape, while Mark's long cape trailed around Marcie's ankles.

"That's a new look for you, Mark," Erin observed mildly, taking another drink of coffee.

[Avenger Assembled]

Mark and Marcie exchanged looks and spoke in near-unison, switching back and forth who was speaking.

"We were just..." "...comparing costumes..." "and we must have switched!" The two Lucases hastily exchanged capes, shooting the others very innocent looks. Marcie took the opportunity to reapply her lipstick, peering at herself in her convenient hand mirror. With his double distracted, Mark took the opportunity to get the attention of the moment off what he and his double had been doing just a little while earlier. "So, uh, I was thinking we'd maybe do just a standard practice session against the baseline opponents? Unless Ms. Archer does something weird on this world.

"No, we, uh, do everything the same. Mostly the same, anyway," said Marcie, fluffing her hair as she snapped the mirror shut. "We can probably just pull up the usual...TRIXIE!" She yelped, giving her friend a startled look. "Your face! Are you okay?" She crossed to Tricia's side, looking worried, as she tossed back the last of her coffee. "Do you need to see Nurse John?"

[Gizmo]

Tricia breathed a small sigh a relief when Aaron didn't react too strongly to her unobscured eyes just in time to give Marcie a flat look at the cheerleader's outburst. "...your face," she grumbled quietly, crossing her arms and looking away in a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment, cheeks colouring with her distinctive black blush.

"It's alright," Trevor assured the Earth-Y students as he removed his own sunglasses and indicated his own discoloured orbs. "Secondary mutation; woke up that way about a month ago."

Tricia nodded, blowing the insistent lock of hair away from her forehead again. "See infrared spectrum now, without light. Useful." She directed the last bit a little more toward the pragmatic survivalist with the tonfas than she meant to.

"We are ten thousand ninjas," Trevor confirmed is a toneless deadpan, serenely sipping from his mug.

[Electra]

"She looks fine," Aaron said, giving Marcie a disapproving look. "Anyway, we've got a lot to do. Let's buckle down and concentrate on the exercise while we're doing it, and talk about... whatever, after we're done." He tapped a string of commands into the Doom Room, then pressed his hand against the palm plate. The door irised open silently and he walked inside, already unholstering his tonfas.

Erin moved to follow him, then fell back instead to lean in close to Trevor. With one eye on Mark, she whispered "You don't think he's going to pull a Faith again, do you?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Marcie blushed a pretty crimson. "Well I'm sorry! When I see my friend looking different than she did before, I just want to make sure she's okay!" Cheeks pink, she followed the others into the Doom Room, her half-cape fluttering behind her as she went. Mark felt embarrassed for his counterpart, and shot Aaron a look when his back was turned. Nobody knows how to take a friend being concerned for them. But he didn't want to ruin the moment with a fight, especially when he and Marcie were trying not to draw attention to themselves anymore.

"So, uh, if we have the same kind of combat programs, I was thinking we'd just do a run-up of the Olympian invasion," said Mark, shooting a glance at Marcie. Unconsciously, he reached over and took her hand. "I don't know what kind of monsters you fought if it was Demeter instead of Hades. Looking for revenge on her daughter being stolen?" Mark didn't know a lot about Greek mythology, but he did know a lot about superhero history!

"Oh yes, it was awful. Giant plant monsters everywhere, and Centuria had to turn a whole forest of redwoods into matchsticks." Marcie pursed her lips. "Then the ecologists had some things to say to her, and that's why there's that nice park around the Sentress Statue. Or that's how it started, anyway. Anyway, if we do that, we can fight the Greek monsters like hydras and chimera. It'll be easy enough, and then maybe a Cyclops at the end." She smiled at Mark, squeezing his hand.

[Gizmo]

Trevor looked between the Lucases appraisingly. "Or Marcie pulling a, ah, 'Angelo'?" he suggested, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. "Wouldn't worry; be hard for them to mistake each other's intentions." As truly unsettling as he found their behaviour, the laconic youth had to admit that the only person who even had a shot at understanding Mark was another Mark. The probability controller had been a bit off ever since his father's breakdown, and there hadn't been much any of his friends could say to help him through the ordeal. Assuming the same held true for Marcie, there was a certain elegance to this solution.

His own distaff counterpart evidently felt the same way, as Tricia sighed and stepped lightly over to her gregarious friend, stooping slightly to hesitantly pat Marcie on the head in a gesture which was affectionate if awkward. "Appreciate the sentiment, Marcie," she said with a faint smile. "Olympian Invasion it is."

[Avenger Assembled]

A few words from Marcie had Young Freedom, both Young Freedoms, in the middle of a training scenario that was at once alien and all-too-familiar. They were standing in a version of Freedom City as it had looked in the early 1960s, rather eerie for these teens, who had all survived House of L, but there was no time for that sort of memory. They were standing in front of a red-brick elementary school somewhere in the downtown, the kids all locked down behind the hurricane shades inside. A gigantic tree was visible climbing a rounded tower that was just recognizable as a slightly warped version of the Stromberg Building, what had been the tallest building in Freedom City in 1961: this tree was no redwood, it was easily the size of any of the smaller skyscrapers nearby!

But Young Freedom's eyes were soon caught by the lumbering monsters advancing towards them from down the street, a cluster of a half-dozen burly cyclops thrice as big as a man wielding giant clubs easily as big as any of the kids, and at their feet another six big, multi-headed dogs, Cereberi with venom dripping from each of their three heads. Marcie shot Aaron a look, feeling bad that Ms. Archer was making Aaron fight dogs again, and Mark yelled "C'mon, Young Freedom! Let's show these monsters what we can do! Together! No monster is as powerful as the power of...friendship!" They'd run through scenarios of this particular invasion on Earth-Prime plenty of times, though evidently a few small things had been different here.

"That's right!" said Marcie, doing an acrobatic cartwheel that immediately distracted Mark. He'd worked hard to get himself not to be distracted by pretty girls in combat after the demonic invasion, but Marcie's half-cape had flipped up and If I worked out, could I get my butt to do that? He forced himself to listen as she cheered "Oh Young Freedom you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind Young Freedom! Let's send these monsters back to the dung-strewn Arcadia where they belong! Give them a high, hard one!" And with that, she took Mark's hand, and as their powers combined the streets blew up under the monsters' feet, staggering some of the dogs and sending all the beasts reeling!

[Electra]

Erin glanced at her counterpart, who was already looking her way. "High or low?" she asked him. Combat was not the time to mince words.

"High," Aaron replied with a decisive nod. "You get the dogs." Erin nodded agreement, spinning her staff to its full length. Again in unison, both Wanders looked to their respective Midnights. "Fog it up!" Aaron called. Trusting their teammates to do their work well and quickly, they both ran into the thick of the fray, Aaron leaping for the eyes of the lead cyclops while Erin laid into the dogs at their feet. Both of them were very quick and very efficient in their handing out of beatings.

[Gizmo]

Trevor and Tricia produced and donned their featureless black masks as one, the former calmly buckling the straps of his jacket while the latter extended her bo staff back to full length with a sharp click. Holding it in one hand, she gestured forward with the other, the filter in her mask giving her voice a thin, ghostly quality as she offered, "Gentlemen first."

Her masculine counterpart snorted harshly as the pair sprinted forward. As they closed with the advancing hordes of mythological beasts, Trevor reached over to clasp Tricia's arms about the wrists, using himself as a fulcrum to swing her around and up into the air in an incongruously graceful movement. From above and below, the legacy heroes unleashed a torrent of stygian mist which rushed across the battlefield, enveloping all in its inky embrace.

[Avenger Assembled]

The two Edges couldn't see much of what was going on, but they did their part, calling encouragements to their teammates and blowing things up whenever a cyclops or cerberus raised their head outside the clouds of midnight mist. Mark found himself appreciating Marcie for reasons besides her nice body; she was cheerful and upbeat, calling encouragement to her teammates with a gusto he heard in his own voice every day, and fearless when a tree-monster briefly erupted out of the sidewalk nearby and they took turns ripping it apart. She had the same powers as he did, right down to the flashing black dots that made the world different, and he entertained thoughts of combinations. Well, new combinations. Despite his distraction, he focused on the team, calling, "C'mon, Young Freedom! Show them how fast we can take out the trash!"

[Electra]

The Wanders worked like a smoothly oiled machine,for awhile, anyway. When there were a lot of targets available, it was a simple matter to stay out of each others' way and take out dogs and cyclops. As the field narrowed, however, it became obvious that they were automatically prioritizing the same targets. In the darkness, even with their enhanced hearing, they quickly started interfering with each others' fighting. When Aaron's tonfa blocked Erin's bat for the third time as they both tried to take out the same dog, she raised her staff at him instead of the dog. "Stay out of my way!" she snarled.

"You stay out of my way and we might get this done," he growled back, lifting his own stick. "I thought you'd be done already."

"I would've been if you weren't in here with your damn drumsticks, keeping me from doing my work!" she snapped.

[Gizmo]

"Probably should have seen that coming," Tricia sighed softly as Trevor used the momentum of her fall to swing her boot first into a drooling canine face, cast in red relief to their shared vision.

Her visiting doppelganger murmured in agreement as he released he waist and she set down in a light crouch. Although incorporating dance moves into their strategy had been largely tongue in cheek, it did have the added benefit of providing the masked teens with a shorthand for keeping out of each others' way. "Change in tactics?"

Tricia nodded. "Clearly." While Trevor tossed out a handful of small impact explosives to clear them some space in the melee, she vaulted over to slide her staff between the Whites, purposefully making enough noise for the keen eared fighters to hear her coming. "Save the indiscriminate whacking for the giant monsters, hmm?"

"Tactful," Trevor drawled, jogging over, escrima sticks in hand.

His distaff counterpart's light shrug was clear. I'm not dating them. She looked back over to the irritated survivalists. "Ms. White, if you'd join me on the left flank, we'll show the boys how it's done."

"Leaving the right for us," Trevor greeted Aaron, twirling his twin weapons deftly. "Should be finished twice as quickly."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Yeah! Let's show them what we can do together!" exclaimed Marcie, still hanging onto Mark's hand. She beamed at him, he beamed at her, and together they extended their hands, glowing with power. Mark could _feel_ the energy coursing inside Marcie as he could with no one else, their linked powers blending together through their connection. "When heroes come together, there's nothing they can't do!" Reality warped at her command just overhead, the pavement softening underneath the giants whose heads rose above the cloud of mist, others who dared become visible falling victim to falling pianos, bursting water mains, and a million other hazards of the city. "We'll send these monsters back where they came from!"

When Mark felt the connection open up, he grinned ferally, and opened up on the other side of the street, supporting the boys where Marcie was supporting the girls. "There's nothing we can't do!" he called in agreement. "We'll teach them what everyone needs to know! When you mess with Young Freedom, when you try and hurt innocents in OUR city, you get your butt handed to you! In any reality, in any world, Don't Mess With Heroes!" And then they were in action together, blasting and warping, reality bending to their will as they smashed up any monster fool enough to try and get past the whirling meat grinder of the Whites or the flashing tricks and dance moves of the hunters. He could feel the power building up between them, surging and growing, a mutual combination that threatened to engulf everything.

Biting his lip, Mark called "Hey Young Freedom, heads up!" And then together, the two Lucases fired a devastating barrage into the midst of the mist, shouting in triumph and joy as luckily they missed all their friends and allies, the sheer eruption of heroic reality enough to send all the monsters staggering again, just in time for the final assault by the young heroes!