ic Worlds Enough and Time (IC)

[April]

Earth-Prime

Sage nodded at the Dr. Atom hologram. Whatever feelings of awe she had from being inside Freedom Hall, or standing face to face (as it where) with Dr. Atom where completely buried under the gravity of the situation. The telepath reached out to the consciousness that thought of itself as Dr. Atom and added him to the mental conference call, and after offering Nancy Gardener a hesitant glance, reconnected with her as well.

--Apologies to you both.-- Sage said, struggling with the guilt she instinctively feels whenever she touches a mind unbidden. --I am a mute; this is the only way that I may speak with you. If you do not wish to have our minds touch I will respectfully withdraw. In any case, yes, Dr. Atom for a brief moment I attempted to 'probe' the rift. My abilities are not ideally suited for such a task, for that I would recommend The Scarab or Psyche of Young Freedom. But what I found, aside from the images,-- Sage shot an apologetic glance at Nancy Gardener, --Was another mind probing the rift.--

The telepath scrubbed a gloved hand through her white hair. --To me, and other psychics I am sure, each mind has its own unique psychic impression. It's how we can tell we're 'speaking' to the right mind, or how we can locate someone on the other side of the planet. Well the mind I sensed? It felt, with some very subtle differences, much like my own.--

Earth-Paragon

Unwrapping her arms from around Midnights torso the tiny telepath slipped off the bike and frowned at the assembled crowd. Turning her head toward Midnight she raised an eyebrow, the black visor of her helmet concealing the expression, though the feeling was transmitted along the mental link. <<How do you want to do this? Stealth approach or bully them out of our way? I'm down for either.>>

[Electra]

Earth Prime

Wander didn't enjoy being face to face with Dr. Atom, one reason she tended to avoid places like the Goodman Building whenever she could. But he could access this place freely too, of course, and she would deal with that. They had far bigger concerns right now. "There didn't seem to be anything in particular that provoked the rift," she volunteered. "We didn't see any villain there, no explosion, nothing like that. The plane was there, but it seemed like it was affected by the rift, not the other way around."

Earth Paragons

Wander pushed her sodden hair back from her face and tried her best to regain her professional mien. On the off-chance the world wasn't about to end, she wanted to make a good impression on one of the most influential members of the Freedom League. "We have two more still coming, sir," she reported. "Sage is on her way, escorted by Midnight, a vigilante who was helping us at the levee. She and Cobalt Templar can give the most detailed report about the interior of the rift, but Edge was the only one on scene when it actually appeared." She looked over to Mark and Corbin.

[KnightDisciple]

Earth-Prime

Cobalt Templar is bordering on starstruck as he ventures into Freedom Hall.

'Wow! I'm here, I'm really here! This is awesome! I can't wait to tell Quo....No. Focus, Corbin,focus!'

Shaking all thoughts of his exotic girlfriend aside, CT focused on the task at hand. He nodded as Dr. Atom spoke, and patiently waited for Sage to describe her impressions of the rift. When she was done, he stepped forward.

"The rift seemed to be remaining stationary relative to its original point of origin; during the time I was there, it did not seem to vary in size at all. It's putting off some sort of energies; from 500 feet out, I was experiencing moderate synesthesia, as well as..."

He pauses here.

"I heard what almost sounded like something moving in the rift. A "skittering" or some such. However, that data is unreliable, as I was already going through altered senses. There was no notable gravitational pull to the rift. Any water that encountered it seemed to just go away; no audible or visible reaction occurred."

CT would continue to describe the rift as best he could until Dr. Atom was satisfied. Then, he asked his own questions.

"Sage, you mean you felt another you in that rift, or through it? What, like...another dimension?"

He knew they existed, but still. His next question may have been born from his inexperience being a hero in a crisis like this.

"So, do we try to track down where they're making this rift come from? Or do we try sending a probe or something into the rift?"

"Probe or something"; perhaps he watches too much television.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earth-Paragon

Cobalt Templar had actually just landed when Wander mentioned him as a source on the rift. He nervously glanced at the others, then stepped forward.

"I approached within about 200 feet of the rift before stopping to observe. Right away I could tell it was emitting something; I begain experiencing what amounts to...synesthesia, I think it's called. It affected nearly all of my senses. Perhaps more alarming was the fact that it seemed to react with my powers. In retrospect, the feeling was rather unsettling, but at the time, it was almost euphoric. It was like the rift and my powers were harmonizing or something. I could feel my power having increased, manifesting in the increased glow about my person. I couldn't really see into the rift itself, not beyond what anyone can observe. Sage might be able to give more insight when she arrives."

He frowned slightly at the thought.

"I hope they get here soon; that rain's not letting up, and it seemed like there were a couple of disgruntled groups down on the streets on my way in."

[Gizmo]

Earth-Prime

Arriving with Wander, Midnight took up a position toward the back of the group with his arms crossed as Sage began explaining what she'd discovered, stony silence making clear his position toward anyone who gave the telepath grief over her method of communication. His eyes narrowed behind the ruby lenses of his mask at the mention of another mind similar to that of his diminutive friend. Young Freedom had had more than their share of encounters with extradimensional doubles, enough to form a pattern. In particular, they're brief stay on Anti-Earth had certainly earned them some new, very personal enemies. It added a worrisome wrinkle to the already disturbing situation.

---

Earth-Paragons

"Hnn, my kind of date," Midnight rumbled sardonically at Sage's suggested methods for entering the building, "but we're in a hurry. Get back on." Without further explanation, the vigilante waited until the white haired girl had done so before revving the engine of his motorcycle with a growl like thunder and rocketing through a gap in the angry crowd toward the massive statue of League member The Patriot. Accelerating as they flew past, Midnight wrenched up on the handlebars at the last moment to bring the pair onto an inclined marble outcropping at the statue's base, which in turn sent them hurtling through the air. Even the shouts down below were silenced for a moment as the streak of matte black hung in the air before slipping neatly through an open window on the second floor. The bike's rider scythed his vehicle sideways once they were inside, immediately halting their momentum and planting a foot down. "Now, elevator."

[April]

Earth- Paragons

<<OK, that was the most badass thing I have ever seen, or taken part in.>> Sage flashed a grin at Midnight as she dismounted from the bike. <<We must do it again sometime.>>

The telepath glanced around the office space they landed in and spied what she was looking for, the fire evacuation placard all commercial buildings were required to have posted near the fire extinguishers. A glance was all she needed to commit the map to memory. The details were a bit sparse, as is so often the case, but it did have enough detail about the general layout.

<<Come,>> Sage beckoned Midnight, dashing past a row of cubicles, <<We're only about thirty meters from the elevators.>>

[Avenger Assembled]

Earth-Prime

Dr. Atom nodded at their description, his holographic brow wrinkled with what was evidently growing alarm as the Young Freedom kids told their story of what had gone on near the rift. "It's settled, then. I've been greatly concerned at growing levels of chroniton and thanatosian radiation leaking into our universe's plane in the last few weeks," he said, using words Wander vaguely recalled from her journey to Earth-Prime. "And the disastrous climactic events of the last few days have only exacerbated my fears. Now that there is genuine leakage between the two universes, we have reached a crisis stage. I believe that Overshadow and that other gentleman, possibly his double from another universe, have managed to slip the boundaries of our reality entirely and infiltrate one of the key cornerstones that uphold our multiverse..."

Atom proceeded to give an explanation, and what an explanation it was! When the science was digested, he had said that there were several key structures in reality that were neither universes, the Zero Zone, nor the Terminus; more like the ribs of a great zeppelin, or the control booth of a speeding racetrack. "I have recently articulated a theory," he said seriously, "that universes can be understood in some ways as living organisms. They brush past each other all the time," explained the scientist, "exchanging information and material, changing in the process. What has happened here is..." He sketched on the holographic blackboard he'd summoned next to him. "Overshadow and his twin have stopped our universes in their tracks, pinning them together like touching soap bubbles, causing the vibrations and disasters we've observed, disasters which will only get worse. What we need is a team to go into whatever structure they've hijacked and drive them out, allowing normal multiversal reality to reassert itself and saving both universes from the men who threaten to destroy them."

--

Earth-ND

Midnight and Sage found it surprisingly easy to get upstairs once they were there, perhaps because all the security staff was down below dealing with the rioters and the growing storm. Trevor was even able to find a cargo elevator for his motorcycle, thus preventing him from having to abandon the machine. Sage would certainly hear about breaking and entering from Mr. Summers later, but this was after all an extreme emergency, and it had been so even before the League died! Upstairs, Daniel Daedalus looked haggard as he led the kids to the sheet of butcher paper he'd stretched out over a nearby tabletop, pen in hand as he sketched out the implausible scenario he'd uncovered. "All right, well...everything you've said only reinforces my worst fears. I'll need to talk to your psychic to know for sure, but...I believe there's a storm in the Imageria." The crack of lightning overhead punctuated his words, and the room briefly flashed into darkness before emergency generators kicked in.

"In...the Imageria?" Mark, as ever, needed more information. "The theoretical realm of human imagination that's the source of paragon powers? How is that even possible?" Edge scratched his head, shooting a glance at Wander to make sure Erin wasn't mad he was talking. Sometimes she got annoyed with him when he talked too much on missions. But he did know a lot about paragons at least, and the rumors of where they'd come from. "I've heard stories of people visiting there, but it's just been dismissed as their powers giving them really vivid hallucinations."

"I'd have thought so too until yesterday," said Daedalus. He turned his head as Sage and Midnight entered, gave the two teens a tired look, and went back to his work without so much as a greeting. It was a stressful day for the genius inventor, especially now that he was alone. "But some of my experimental paragon sensors have been going crazy. It's why I stayed. Why I wasn't with the League, when they flew to consult with the Vanguard." He muttered a curse. "Archeville at CERN, Evans in St. Louis, they all say the same thing! Science is breaking down! And so is everything else!" He slammed his fist on the table, shooting a hard look at the kids. "And...all I can tell is that somehow, the Imageria has begun leaking into our world. There's been a collision between imagination and reality, the chaos of the mind vs. the laws of nature. And chaos is winning. That's why someone, anyone...needs to go into the rift and figure out what's causing this. If we can stop the storm in the Imageria, we can prevent the kind of global catastrophe that would make 9/11 and Black Saturday look like a walk in the park."

[Avenger Assembled]

Earth-Prime

"We can do it," Edge promised Atom and Gardener right away, looking from one to the other heroes. "We've fought cosmic bad guys and world-conquerors before," he said with the fearlessness that only teenagers bring to the party. "We'll send Overshadow, or whoever that is, back to whatever pit he crawled out of." Mark punched his fists for emphasis: Mark was one for providing extra emphasis. "Do you have a way of getting there?" he asked as an afterthought, with the full confidence that the super-scientists had already provided just such an instrument.

"We do," said Mrs. Gardener, her face tightening briefly. "It's, ah, what the League was coming back for. Follow me," she said, "and I'll help you all get into the machine. Alexander, you keep watch at the Goodman Building. If this doesn't work, we'll need you to build another dimensional mole machine." She led the way down below the building, the elevator passing through bunkers full of refugees, before finally reaching the basement and the small cylindrical craft the size of a light airplane that pointed straight down at the Earth below. "Can any of you pilot an airplane?"

[KnightDisciple]

Earth-Prime

CT was glad Dr. Atom kept things fairly simply; his head was swimming with all the theory he'd just been exposed to, but he had a fairly solid grasp of it.

Of course, now they were going to put them all in a metal tube and shoot them between dimensions.

"So...wait. I get the basic idea of what's going on. Even more, I'm all about helping out. But...Are we really going to have to strap ourselves into a little metal cylinder, and get shot into the space between parallel universes? I...really, I have so many questions, and we have no time, do we? Right. Well, I'm in. Though, sorry, I don't know how to fly a plane, just myself."

Embarrassed, he shifted until he was at the back of the group of small heroes. Hopefully one of the others could do better.

[Electra]

Earth Prime

"But what exactly exists in the space between dimensions?" Erin asked. "If each dimension is a different kind of Earth, then is what's between them... does anything real exist there? Is there going to be air and land and gravity, things like that? And do we have any way of knowing what we're bumped up against? Some of the worlds we've been to have been pretty hostile." Despite her reservations, she was already beginning to make her way towards the door. It was obvious they only had one solution, unpalatable as it might be.

Earth Paragons

"Then we're going into the rift," Wander said resolutely, though her pale face somewhat belied her brave tone. She reached surreptitiously for Edge's hand and squeezed it, for courage or good luck, maybe both. "It's the only way. We can't let these disasters keep happening, and we can't just surrender the whole world to a madman. But how are we going to get there?" she asked Daedelus.

[Gizmo]

Earth-Prime

"Welcome to the job, Templar," Midnight grated through his mask, stepping swiftly past the uncertain junior student to fall in next to Wander on the way to the vessel. He didn't make any overt gesture, but his body language, though conservative as always, was reassuring. "Put Edge at the controls," he suggested, vaguely regretting it, logical choice or not. "More likely to make it in one piece anyway."

---

Earth-Paragons

"Think they have a big enough ramp?" Midnight drawled to Sage in a gravelly baritone, quietly enough not disrupt the discussion as he hung toward the back, arms crossed over his black, armored jacket. If he was particularly disturbed by the unbelievable scope of the task before them, he did a good job keeping it out of his contained body language.

[KnightDisciple]

Earth-Paragons

Cobalt Templar stood and listened to Daedalus explain the outline of the situation. A few things clicked in his mind.

"Wait, so that portal, it was basically the raw stuff of the Imageria? No wonder my powers went wonky!"

He frowned at a further thought.

"So, if we're going in there..."

On impulse, he reaches down and pulls off his ring. Immediately, his "armor" fades away, as does all the glow of his powers. The metaphorical breaker had been flipped, and Corbin Hughes was now a slightly-more-than-human teenage boy, standing there in a basic version of the Claremont boy's uniform. He tucked the ring into one of the front pockets of his shirt.

"I should flip the switch on my powers until we have more data. The last thing we need is for me to go berserk or something right as we cross the border. This way, we can slip in, set down, and then I can open the floodgates."

He crossed his arms over his chest, a determined glint in his eye.

"So how are we tossing ourselves into the Great Unknown?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Earth-Prime

With Edge behind the wheel and the Young Freedom kids strapped into the double-row of seats behind him, Nancy Gardener stepped back to let them work. "Good luck!" she called. "I'm going to stay here with Alexander and work on cracking open the rift we have now. If he's right, we can get a better idea of exactly what happened to the League!" And with that, following a helpful computer instruction, the ever-prepared Mark pressed a few buttons. The 'drill' at the head of the machine began to spin, first slower, then faster, until finally it hummed and whirred with blinding speed, the vibrations shaking the whole experimental craft. Purple light began to flash at the drillhead, glowing brighter, until it spilled out into a circular shape. Before the rest of Young Freedom could do more than react, Mark threw the throttle forward and they disappeared into the glowing purple madness of the rift!

Earth-Paragons

Daedalus gave them all a look before he explained, "I've been working on an experimental procedure," he finally said, "using what I've studied of paragon powers relating to mass movement and particle bilocation. In layman's terms," he said when he got baffled looks from almost everyone, "I've developed a matter transporter: a machine that transforms physical objects into a transuniversal state, transports those objects at superluminal velocities, then reconstitutes them into normal space-time. In short, I want to send you...all of you, through the rift and into the Imageria. Once there, you can find the Tiger and whatever shadow of himself he's allied with, and use your powers to drive him out of the Imageria and prevent it from completely overwhelming our reality. I'll give you this,' he said, handing a cellphone-sized device to Wander. "That's a transmitter I can use to home in you here. I'd...I know we should be sending adults," he said frankly, "but Vanguard is busy evacuating the President, I need to stay here to run the machine, the League is gone...and that makes you kids our last hope.'

[Electra]

Earth Prime

Erin hated dimensional travel, necessary evil though it was in their line of work. At least every time she'd traveled before, she'd been headed to some other specific dimension, not the nebulous concept of whatever lay between the worlds. Doctor Atom never had gotten around to explaining exactly what it would be like there, though she hoped there was air and light and something to stand on. Surely he would've said something if there wasn't... She reached out to Trevor, strapped in next to her, and took his hand, squeezing it surreptitiously. As the whole world became bathed in a violet light, she closed her eyes and waited for whatever was going to happen next.

Earth Paragons

Erin stared down at the little device, already smeared with some dirt from her hands and uniform. "So we just hold onto this, and then trigger it when we want to come back?" she asked Daedelus. When he nodded, she looked around at the others. "Well, guess this is our ride, then. Huddle up, everybody, don't want anyone left behind." As the team gathered, she looked over to Midnight, meeting his eyes as best she could through his mask. "You in?"

[Gizmo]

Earth-Prime

Trevor took Erin's hand, returning the squeeze. His metahuman eyes allowed him to keep them open a moment longer against the purple glow, but ultimately he closed them, tilting his head to block some of the light with the brim on his fedora. He didn't care for heading into a dangerous situation with less than a comprehensive plan and complete understanding of the locality, but he was confident that whatever they encountered, it was nothing he and his teammates couldn't handle.

---

Earth-Paragons

"Hmph," Midnight grunted, uncrossing his arms. "Someone needs to be watching your backs," the independent vigilante remarked gutturally as he stepped in next to the rest of the young heroes. His matte black outfit looked surprisingly natural amidst the blue and gold uniforms as he steeled himself for what was to come.

[Avenger Assembled]

Earth-Paragons

With some hesitation, even the most fearless of the kids struck by the sheer risks of what they were attempting, the Young Freedom kids took up positions on the semi-circular pad Daedalus guided them to at the rear of his laboratory. The machine was half-built, with nitrogen-cooled circuits visible inside the plastic chassis and energy humming from what turned out to be a generator that took up most of the floors below. "Even with this," Daedalus warned them, "we'll probably blow up half the transformers in the city. Better that, though, than the consequences of the Imageria destroying our world. Good luck." Edge reached down and took Wander's hand as Daedalus worked his controls, and in a flare of light and cold, suddenly the five teenagers dissolved into another dimension!

Somewhere that isn't

Between one breath and the next, Mark was elsewhere. Squeezing his girlfriend's hand, he looked around wildly, trying desperately to figure out what was going on just as the other teens were. What was near them made sense: they were standing on a long, straight road that looked exactly like a side-street in Freedom City, right down to double yellow lines in the center and macadam beneath their feet. Twenty feet or so on either side, though, and suddenly everything went insane: their 'path' was like a bridge through the void, the stars and colors that glittered around them looking impossibly alien and bizarre, flashing to life and disappearing in seconds even as they watched. Far overhead and below , he could make out thin shapes that were clearly other paths, a great latticework stretching into infinity. In one direction, the paths seemed to split into a billion directions at once in a fractal apocalypse.

In the other direction, though, anchored solidly in the void was a massive triple pyramid of crystal, a shining beacon in the stellar darkness all around them. Easily as large as the Freedom Tower, its distance difficult to judge, the three-lobed building's walls were translucent, but movement was visible inside; indeed, the interior of the structure seemed alive with motion! As Erin released his hand, Mark was just about to speak when suddenly the path began to shake! As they watched, a huge grey machine bore its way out of the ground behind them, appearing from nowhere in a gout of purple light! The great drill-machine bore a hole in the ground and landed across the path behind them, bulking with sinister intent. "Holy cow!" Mark exclaimed. "More visitors?!"

[Electra]

Wander immediately stepped to the front of the group, putting herself between her teammates and the most immediate potential threat. "Visitors, or the other team," she commented, drawing the slim titanium bat she favored from her belt. "If there's a way to stop the Tiger and his goons, they're going to be just as interested in stopping us as we are in finding it. Everybody stay together." She began to move in the direction of the giant drill, figuring that if there was danger in that direction, it was better to face it than to have it sneak up from behind.

Inside the giant dimensional drill, Wander kept her eyes closed until the purple light faded and the engine noise stopped. Wherever they were, or wherever they weren't, they'd definitely arrived. She took a deep breath and looked over at Trevor, then the others. "All ashore that's going ashore?" she quipped wryly, unstrapping herself and heading for the hatch they'd come in by.

[KnightDisciple]

When Midnight made the remark welcoming Cobalt Templar to "the job", he cracked a smile.

"I think I want a raise after this."

With that, he climbed into the machine, strapping himself in. He smiled to himself as he realized they were drilling their way to new dimensions. The smile got wiped away as he was pressed back into his seat by the sudden acceleration.

Then, suddenly, they were busting through rock until they emerged in air. Shaking his head to clear it, CT took a second to take stock of himself.

'Everything intact. Good.'

He smiled as Wander joked, working to release his own straps.

"Aye. So, how do we want to proceed from here?"

Meanwhile, Corbin had managed to largely calm his nerves at the thought of a.)going into the Imageria, and b.)doing so via something that he'd previously thought was only found on science-fiction television. He offered Midnight a shaky smile as the vigilante confirmed he was coming along.

"Glad to hear it. Guess we'll all need to watch each others' backs..."

Before he knew it, they were triggering the transporter. There was a moment of sensory overload. And then, he was in the realm of raw imagination and thought. Corbin cast his gaze around, taking in the ever-odder landscape, before settling on the huge structure in the distance. He was about to comment on it when the drilling machine made itself known.

Wander handed out orders, and he nodded. Slipping to the back a bit, Corbin made sure he was in a good position to provide fire support; he was fairly well-equipped for such a task. Perhaps especially here. Glancing at the others, he extracted his ring, the subconscious "lock" on his powers. If there was a fight about to happen, better to be prepared.

"Fortune favors the bold."

With that, he steeled himself for what might be about to happen, and slipped the ring on his finger again, already feeling the rush of power...

[April]

Sage quickly slipped out of her restraints and hurried over Wander, placing a hand on the other girl's shoulder, tugging slightly and shaking her head.

--Careful. We're not alone here; I sense five minds outside the dimensional drill.--

The telepath regarded the strange device; something that looked vaugely like a boring machine used to dig the Channel Tunnel, just a bit smaller in scale.

<<Wander, I'm sensing the presence of five people inside the device. If they are who we think they are we need to keep them inside there. If they hit open ground we lose the advantage a chokepoint provides.>>

[Gizmo]

Rising from his seat, Midnight stepped toward the hatch as well. "Could be anything," he noted at Sage's warning. "Be ready, but don't start a fight we can avoid." The instruction was largely for the benefit of the group's most junior member, although he was well aware of Wander's policy regarding offense being the best defense.

Midnight grimaced behind his featureless black mask as the group appeared in the strange new locale. "Ngh. Let's not do that more than necessary" The young man didn't care for any form of transportation that didn't even have the decency to include a method of steering. "Five? One for each of us," he noted, cracking his knuckled underneath his glove and adopting a ready stance.

[Avenger Assembled]

"It'll be a breeze," said Edge, looking at his team reassuringly. "Whoever they are, they're no match for Young Freedom. If it was Overshadow and his goons, I'm sure they'd have opened fire when we were helpless and...hmm." Come to think of it, Mark decided, that made an excellent reason to open the hatch up! "Let's be friendly unless they're not," he warned the others, "and make sure we keep our eyes open. The center of time and space can't be too far away, and I'm sure it looks really obvious!" With that, he pressed a few buttons and the hatch snapped open! As leader of Young Freedom, the masked Edge was naturally the first to stick his head out of the hatch and take in the others. Being Mark, he hesitated only a moment when they turned out to be very familiar faces indeed. "Hello there!" he called with a wave. "Are you here from the superhero academy to stop Overshadow?"

Edge shot a look at Wander as the intruder spoke in a voice eerily familiar to his ears! Things got even stranger as the young man in the machine got out, revealing his cape and cowl. "Wander," Mark muttered to his leader and girlfriend, "he's wearing my costume! The one I keep in my notebook!" Erin hadn't been really impressed by the sketch, but she would at least recognize it, he hoped. "And he sounds just like me! He must be...my imagined self!?!" It was a little hard to believe, but what wasn't hard about all this?

[Electra]

"I don't know," Wander murmured, entirely taken aback but trying not to show it. "It could be some kind of trick. You know how things get in the Imageria, and this is supposed to be kind of like that. Don't take anything you see at face value," she warned the others. Even so, she stepped forward, bat held down nonthreateningly, to try diplomacy first. "Hello," she called, looking for her own double, and finally seeing her in the shadows near the hatch of the drill. "We're the Young Paragons. I'm Wander, the leader. Who are you, and where do you come from?" Though she was obviously wary, her body language spoke of the easy confidence that had earned her the position in the first place.

"More doubles of us," Wander muttered in dismay or disgust, allowing Edge to step out first, but staying close in case the situation turned violent. "Looks like they were out on the levee too, or doing something similar. What the hell kind of messed up universe has me leading the team, though?"

[KnightDisciple]

Cobalt Templar was the last out of the vehicle, though he was likely a more obvious passenger than Midnight. His eyes widened at the sight before him. Almost perfect doubles of themselves! What was going on here?

""More" doubles? So, you guys have done this before?"

He managed to keep his voice down so that only his fellow heroes could discern what he was saying. He mostly tried to be ready for anything without being too aggressive. This was just...

"Why am I wearing gold instead of red? And where's my cape?"

Corbin shook his head. His vision wasn't clouded, and it didn't feel like he was about to explode with power. That was good.

"What the hell? I'm...seeing double? Oh, please don't let this be a delusion, or my powers going totally crazy."

He seems slightly disturbed at their near-duplicates; bad enough he had crazy powers, but now he was running into a version of himself.

"Why am I wearing that lame-ass cape?"

Apparently, not all senses of fashion carry over entirely. Still, Corbin held his ground, once more clad in his blue and gold armor, attempting to make no aggressive moves, while still standing at the ready to defend his team.

[Gizmo]

"This is becoming a pattern," Midnight agreed following next to Wander to the other side of Edge. "Don't assume he's you," he warned Cobalt Templar, "Variations can be... dramatic." Whether the doppelganger before him was more akin to Tricia Hunter or The Blank he couldn't say, but with a clear combat stance and a uniform that set him apart from the rest of the coordinated group, the other Midnight was not doing much to convey friendliness.

Midnight tilted his head to one side slightly. "They dress like idiots and let the cheerleader take the lead," he drawled quietly. "If they're figments of somebody's imagination, doesn't take three guesses to figure who's." Giving his side's Edge a flat look behind his goggles, he shook his head. He was sure he could take any version of himself who wore a fedora of all things to a fight, but he'd agreed to follow Wanders lead, and hung back for the time being.

[Avenger Assembled]

The sight of the crystal palace beyond the group blocking the path was enough to distract even the relatively-jaded kids of Young Freedom, but after a moment to take in the sight Mark forced himself to focus on the group blocking their way. That had to be where they were going: the question was, were these duplicates friends or foes? They seemed friendly enough. "Hello, Wander," he said, raising his hand in friendly greeting like he was meeting aliens. "I'm Edge, and this is my team, Young Freedom." He introduced them all, going through Wander, Midnight, Sage, and Cobalt Templar in that order. "We're from Claremont Academy, and we're here to stop the bad guys from destroying the universe. Well, two universes, I guess...where do you hail from?" he asked them, curious if they were from a world the team was familiar with.

Edge paid attention to his double as he talked, impressed at the authority and confidence he seemed to project. But he focused on Wander as well, shooting a glance at first his girlfriend, then her odd mirror image across the way. 'No, not quite a mirror image...' His version of Erin was a little shorter than the one over there, and seemed more...feminine, in ways it wasn't best to think about in the middle of a crisis. _She's watching us, not them. I wonder if they're even together._ Not liking that thought, he reached down and supportively squeezed his own Wander's hand.

[Electra]

Wander glanced over at Edge when he squeezed her hand, but he didn't seem to have any information to convey. Well, it was better than trying to give her a hug if he needed reassurance, she guessed. Ever since his dad had left, Mark had been a lot more needy, and even though she could certainly understand being nervous and uncertain in a situation like this, they didn't have a lot of time for pats and snuggles. Even so, she brushed a hand over his arm, light and reassuring, before taking a few more steps forward to speak with the clownishly-garbed double of her boyfriend.

"We're from the Claremont Academy," she told the other Edge, watching the entire group of strangers for signs of hostility. It was especially weird to look at her own double and see a familiar stranger. Why did she look so feral, so furtive? That Erin was obviously ready to pick a fight, even when the situation seemed calm. Erin didn't like it. "The names... I suppose I don't have to repeat them. But I don't understand what you mean by universes. Are you creatures of the Imageria? Do you live here?"

Erin blinked as she watched the subtle byplay between her own double and, of all people, Mark's double. She was no psychologist, but it wasn't exactly hard to read the body language there. What the hell? She automatically looked over to Trevor for a moment before returning her attention to where it was supposed to be. "What's the Imageria?" she murmured to Edge out of the corner of her mouth. If anyone was going to know what the weird word meant, it was probably him.