ic Graduation Day: Leaves From the Vine (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Disappearing in his own cloud of all-too-familiar midnight mist, it wasn't clear exactly where Psilent had gone until he reappeared at the door of the reactor room after his fast-flying mother and sneaky father. "Not going anywhere else," he said flatly, and the black-clad costumed adventurer didn't seem inclined to brook argument as the doors slid open to admit the three heroes. Inside, to their credit, the reactor's staff hadn't run despite the incipient disaster. Indeed, as the heroes had freed them from their confinement at the hands of the Wolfpack, the majority of them had headed straight for the disaster. But as they said quickly, there wasn't much we can do about it.

"Without those rods, the reactor _will_ go critical in half an hour," said the ashen-faced lead scientist. "And when it does, it'll flash-fry most of the North Atlantic. Maybe everyone on shore will survive, but it'll destroy the ecology of the region for a generation. And just after we'd repaired it, too!" Maybe the costumes of dead heroes would have normally aroused attention down here, but under the circumstances Midnight and Sage were free from questions. Under Psilent's sharp questioning, the scientist added, "Yeah, that's the big gadget those terrorists brought with them. Something about it being a bomb...anyway, getting in there will give you access to the reactor and their bomb."

-

As the rampaging powerhouse charged them, Edge made sure to get out of his immediate path before he said, "All right, Wander, Cobalt Templar...Lucky Strike and Vril Knight," he added, making sure to include the two heroes he didn't know, though evidently one was Corbin's daughter and the other his own. By Erin! As mind-blowing a thought as that was, luckily Mark was very good about tuning out unpleasant thoughts he didn't want to have in mind. "We can do this! This is just some poor guy overloaded with radiation: let's put him down fast and hard so our friends can deal with the real issue. He's just a speedbump on the road to saving the multiverse!"

[KnightDisciple]

Cobalt Templar nodded as the plan was formed, and he blazed a trail down into the complex until they reached the corridor with the hulking Gremlin. His face set itself in a grim line as Edge laid out the stakes.

"Don't worry. I'll just leave him a few bruises and a killer headache."

With that, he flew like a fiery comet through the air, a huge war mallet materialized in his hands, and he brought it down in an earth-shattering overhead blow upon his enemy's shoulder.

"Let's you and me scrap, ugly!"

[Electra]

While Cobalt Templar distracted the enraged mutant with his brave attack, Wander took the opportunity to draw her bat and run in as well. Leaping straight up, she caught the pipes in the ceiling and somersaulted around them, arrowing down to hit the monster bat first in the side of the temple. She was careful with her blows, not wanting to hurt someone who didn't really know what he was doing, but it still took a quick flurry of surgical strikes to put the monster down.

"He's going to need a medic," Wander snapped, "and some restraints that will hold him. We've got to get to the bomb."

[Avenger Assembled]

Lucky Strike closed her mouth in an instant, dealing with the savagely glorious sight of her mother in her prime as rapidly as she dealt with anything else in a combat situation. "On it," she said, joining Vril Knight in ripping chunks out of the wall to bend into massive restraints to hold down the formerly rampaging powerhouse who was now laying down with drool pooling out of his huge mouth. "Vril Knight, get him teleported out of here stat." And with that, she scooped her father up and leapt off the side of the catwalk, joining Wander in the quick plunge down to the reactor level. Once there, still carrying a very surprised Mark, she joined her mother in racing for the reactor. "Listen, Mom, Mark, there's something I have to tell you," she told the two teens urgently. "Look, you guys...you guys are from an alternate dimension, not this one. Don't think you have to hook up to make me, or whatever. My mom and I had a good life and all, but...you don't have to go down that way." She bit her lip and added, "It wasn't...it wasn't that great for either of you."

"Okay," Edge promised his daughter that would never be, feeling a strange pang as he did so. He wasn't uncreating these people; she was actually asking him to do it, but he still felt a brief moment not loss so much as possibilities closing down. "I promise, Wander and I won't hook up. No offense, Wander," he added, keeping the smile off his face in the urgency of the moment. "It's not too likely anyway in our history. Things must have been very different."

[April]

"I'll take care of the rods," Sage stated in a tone that brooked no argument. The scientists told her what she had to do, insert the control rods to bring the runaway reaction under control, though it wouldn't do anything about the radiation leak. One crisis at a time, Eve told herself, gathering her willpower. Looking through the thick pane of radiation shielding glass the tekekinetic could just make out the inside of the reactor, and the strewn about control rods.

Picking a rod at random, the psion reached out with her mind, enveloping it in an aura of brilliant orange and carefully insert it into the proper chamber. It was painstaking work, and the telepath was exhausted when she was finished, but she did finish; all of the rods where in place. Sage sank to her knees, fatigue crossing her features as she glanced up at Midnight and nodded. "The reactor should be stable, now." she said quietly, "Can't do anything about the radiation leak and you'll need a suit to take care of the bomb."

[Electra]

"If we have time," Wander said, not at all winded from the running, "and don't blow up and all that, I'd like to hear the story. Just to know how it happened and all." Maybe it was just morbid curiosity, but she had a really hard time thinking of any set of circumstances where she and Mark would start dating, much less produce offspring. Maybe it had been an accident, or mind control, or alien doppelgangers, or any number of things. That could explain why things were apparently strange and strained between the two adult versions. "But Mark's right, I don't think it's likely to happen in our world. You seem like a really nice person though," she added hastily to Lucky Strike.

[Gizmo]

The twisting cloud of shadowy mist spun itself into a column next to Sage before abruptly coalescing into the no less dark figure of Midnight. With a grunting affirmative, the young vigilante retrieved a radiation suit from the nearby emergency lockers and donned it with the speed that came naturally to any costumed crimefighter. Gesturing shortly for the others to stay back, he stalked forward, prying the now familiar panel off of the third reality bomb. Making a quick scan for any signs of damage or effects from the radiation that might effect his urgent work, he swiftly disconnected the internal components and removed the core cosmic rod.

[Avenger Assembled]

Coming together, the two Young Freedoms of two different generations came together to turn what might have been a world-threatening disaster into just a good afternoon's work. All in all, not even the bad guys had been seriously hurt: even Gremlin had the promise of a cure as Amaryllis and Fusion stepped through a flower carrying him to try and siphon the radiation from his cells. A teleport beam from the League base on the Moon took care of the remains of the cosmic bomb, beaming the remaining fragments apart at high dispersal towards the Sun. As the team waited for their pickup, there in the reactor complex now under repairs, they had some time to talk.

When Psilent had a few moments with his parents, he thought at them, his words dry and growly even in his mind as he communicated with Midnight and Sage. "Listen. Know you're not them. This is silly. But. Never had a better mother, or a better father, even if they were only friends to each other. Never had a chance to thank them. Never will," he admitted, kicking the ground beneath their feet as they all stood on the big central platform of the complex together. "But thank you. For today."

Vril Knight was roughly the same with her father, sending a message via the psychic link they'd evidently once shared. "I don't know if you and Mom will have the same thing in your world that you did in mine." She rubbed her finger over her ring thoughtfully. "But be good to her. She loves you, even if she doesn't show it like any human would."

For her part, Lucky Strike's explanation of her relationship with her parents wasn't terribly satisfactory to Mark, though he believed her just the same. At least she was being polite enough to whisper it as they all hooked up again. Evidently he'd been married to Erin, married young, too, and walked out on her when Clara had been just a year old. It was someone else's pain, so far away, and he had no way of knowing 'his' own story...but it was hard to think of a way that other Mark Lucas, a man with a father in his life through adulthood, had been a good man or a good husband at all. "Well...that's good to know. I'll make sure I'm not like that." But Clara wasn't done. The marriage to Erin had been one thing, but evidently the Mark here had repeated that pattern: short-lived relationships that had ended in disaster and broken families, again and again. God...what a depressing universe this was. "It looks like one thing I helped make in this universe turned out okay, at least," he said, shaking Clara's hand. "I'm glad to have known you...and to have heard all that." He shot a look at Erin. "Hey...you want some help fixing your outfit back up?" he asked her.

[April]

--I'm sure they knew how you felt about them,-- Sage replied telepathically, including Midnight in the mental link. Earlier she felt uncomfortable at the idea of a child between her and Trevor, mostly because she couldn't imagine thinking of her brooding companion as anything other than a friend. It was still weird to her, but at least the kid turned out alright. The white-haired telepath smiled at her "son." --You're a Hunter and a Martel, which if it means one thing it means you're your own toughest critic. But I expect your mother and father would be proud of you. Freedom City will likely always need a Midnight,-- Sage glanced at Trevor for a moment before turning her gaze back to Psilent, --It's heartening to know that this world has one.--

[Electra]

"Yeah, I'd appreciate that," Erin told Mark with a half smile, holding her arms out from her sides to let him de-discofy her comfortably familiar blue and gold uniform. "It was nice of Wonder to lend me the costume, but it's not really my style. Especially not where we're going." She pursed her lips, but it was almost easier to think of the trip ahead than of a version of herself who had done so many things, guarded the president, gotten married and divorced, raised a child. It all seemed so surreal.

She waited until Mark had finished adjusting her costume and wandered away, lost in his own thoughts, before she spoke to Clara again. "I know it probably seems weird for me to ask," she began, "but I'd like to know. This version of me here, your mom, is she happy?"

Clara thought for a minute, giving the question the weight it deserved. "She's pretty happy," she finally decided. "I mean, not everything worked out how she wanted, obviously. She took the divorce really hard," Clara admitted, "and I think it's why she never really tried again. She blamed herself, even though, you know, it was Mark and he managed to screw up just fine on his own." She sighed and shrugged, a motion that was almost a mirror of her mother. "And she lost a lot of friends on 6/21, really good friends, and that was bad. But she and I have had a lot of good times, and she loves her work and she's really good at it. She's been a hero for three decades and still going strong, so lots of people respect and admire her. I think it's pretty good, all in all."

Erin thought about that, then nodded slowly. "It sounds pretty good," she decided. "I'm glad the two of you have each other. And I never really thought about the Secret Service, but it actually sounds like a pretty cool career. Maybe I'll think about it." She smiled at her "daughter," a little more this time than last time.

[Gizmo]

--That's my line,-- telepathically replied with a wry look in Eve's direction obscured by his mask but evident in the tone of his thoughts. Even with his notoriously psychic proof mind, familiarity made it easy for both Sage and Psilent to pick up on his meaning. --She's right,-- he added, turning to the native of the future timeline with a shallow nod. That was all that needed to be said between the two quiet heroes, one Midnight to another. "Should get a hat though," he said aloud.

[KnightDisciple]

Vril Knight was roughly the same with her father, sending a message via the psychic link they'd evidently once shared. "I don't know if you and Mom will have the same thing in your world that you did in mine." She rubbed her finger over her ring thoughtfully. "But be good to her. She loves you, even if she doesn't show it like any human would."

For long moments, Cobalt Templar stood there, his expression unreadable as he considered his possible future daughter; his only real movement was an unconscious fiddling with his blue ring. It seemed clearer where Vril Knight had picked up the habit. Then, suddenly, he took two big steps forward and enveloped her in a bear hug. It was surprising to realize she was within 2 inches of his height, though she didn't have quite as intimidating of a build. He spoke to her using the same psychic link.

"I know she does. Even if she doesn't act like some girls do. That just makes me love her more.

Did I mention I'm proud of you? Because I am. And I know I'm proud of you, too. I don't think he and I are that different."

He released the hug and took a step back, keeping a gentle grip on her shoulders as he continued to mind-speak at her, a sad smile on his face.

"You'd make me proud no matter what, but to see you being a hero like this, it's icing on the cake. I'm sorry he can't be here to say this to you. But you and I both know why he did what he did. And your mother loves you, I'm sure. She just handles grief in her own way. Don't forget to call her once in a while.

I..."

His eyes closed in pain for a moment.

"Your mother was the last thing I saw when the dark fire took it all away. Right now, I'm not fighting to save the whole multiverse. That's too big, even for my inconveniently large shoulders.

Me, I'm fighting for Quo-Dis. For my parents. For my other friends on that Earth. I'm fighting so that one day, I can see you grow up with my own two eyes, and be a proud father all over again."

A single blue-tinged tear started down his face, but it dried away in an instant. Corbin enveloped his possible future daughter in another hug.

"So you just keep doing what you're doing, and don't forget to enjoy life while you're at it. Or I promise, the other me will come back as a ghost and give you a lecture like your grandparents use to give him.

Fare thee well, daughter of my possible future."

He couldn't fight the smile that had crept onto his face. He released the hug and walked over to be with the other members of his Young Freedom. There was still work to do, after all.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Well, looks like our ride's here," commented Lucky Strike as she looked up at the approaching skylifter.

"And so's ours," added her father, his eyes widening at the sight of the shimmery black sphere descending towards the group. Mark had done his best to put this world's implications out of his mind. Not, for once, because they were depressing, but because there were more important things to worry about than his own personal life. "Thanks for everything," Mark told the group from the future. Much as part of him might have wished they were coming with them, he couldn't just bring them along on a fight against the Terminus. They deserved their own life, and their own world, and it was their job to make sure. "You've taught us a lot!"

"And so did you!" called Lucky Strike in return. "About being heroes," added Psilent. And with that, in a flash of brilliant white light, the group was gone.

---

Earth-EZO1

Edge found himself standing in a deserted complex, its age and grim condition suggesting long abandonment. He and the rest of Young Freedom were standing at the bottom of an ampitheatre-like bowl, grass and dirt poking up through the mortar beneath their feet. Glancing to one side, he saw a dry fountain overrun with leaves and rainwater, complete with startled doe deer eying him from what had been her undisturbed drinking. The sky overhead was grey and dark, the city they could see in the distance looking dead and empty. He didn't recognize it at first, but then he saw a flash of energy in the sky and looked up to see a wild melee of armored figures; that flash was brighter this time as it struck the massive hulk of a skyscraper behind them, and he looked back to see...

END OF PART FIVE

Continued in >The Earth Died Screaming