ic Spoiler Alert (IC)

[Gizmo]

Midnight didn't comment on the situation with the Centurion and Lucas; with any luck his studious avoidance of looking in their direction would be taken as a sign of focus on the task at hand and nothing more. "No 'defense network' earlier?" he asked Clockwatcher for clarification's sake, the implied question of 'why not' accompanying it. If their opponent was able to effectively lock any would-be meddlers out of entire eras of time travel, leaving them the opportunity to travel further back and head them off at the metaphorical pass seemed poorly planned. The black clad hero suspected it was simply a limit of the technology involved or the resources required, but they were working with precious little information as it was.

[Avenger Assembled]

Clockwatcher actually could give a detailed answer to that one, at least as much as time and circumstance allowed. "The 2500s, and most eras of comparable technology, use tachyon generators and dispersal fields to create temporal defense grids. Long story short, they're why local unauthorized time travel is impossible. Anyone who tries to jump into an era where a grid is up and running gets shunted back to where they came from within a picosecond of their arrival, leaving a trail big enough to us to follow back if necessary. We think that's one reason our mark had to go so far back."

"So what you're saying is," said Mark, putting the pieces together slowly, "You can't probe the alternate timeline too closely because whoever's living on Earth in the other 2500s, they have the same kind of temporal defense network you have. So they know about time travel, and they have your level of technology." He hmmed at that, trying to think about it as Clockwatcher nodded.

"What I want to do with your team is put your boots on the ground in the Temporal Observatory," the Clockwatcher went on. "Everything will be locked down so you won't be able to cause a paradox on your own. But you will be able to stop the thief from stealing our artifact and going back to destroy all of our histories."

"And the saboteur?" Mark probed delicately. As he'd expected, the local heroes looked uncomfortable at that.

Finally, Professor Danger offered, "We're looking into that now. Members of the Legion have been subverted before, but those people....wouldn't work for someone from an alternate quantum timeline."

[trollthumper]

The time travel talk was starting to go over Cannonade's head, no matter how hard he tried to keep up. What he had down was that they'd be standing guard at a place with windows to all sorts of time periods, with the strong provision that they not peek. Guess it's for the best. Like I wanna live my life according to a plan.

His eyebrows rose at the idea of corruption from within. "Hate to bring this up," Cannonade said, memories of a dead girl and her imitator from another world fresh in his mind, "but maybe no one's been corrupted at all. If we're dealing with someone from an alternate quantum timeline... could be it's a different version of the same person with a whole other set of grudges."

[Electra]

"We can stand guard for you," Wander offered, "but you have to tell us a little more about what we're looking for. If this is a place where time travelers intersect through, wouldn't there be people coming and going? How will we know who to look for before the theft happens?" She furrowed her brow. "And if we don't know exactly when the theft is going to occur, doesn't that mean we might be waiting a long time? I mean, even if you put us right back when we left, it's still time we have to live through ourselves, right?" The mechanics were starting to give her a headache, but the idea of returning to Prime as senior citizens held little appeal.

[Avenger Assembled]

The Clockwatcher and Professor Danger exchanged a look. With something of a sigh, the clock-carrying man sat down, turning the briefing over to the laser-armed woman in green. Looking considerably more cheerful than the somewhat dour temporal guardian, Danger expostulated, "Well, ah, actually the Observatory is just that, a place for keeping track of time travelers, rather than a going-and-coming place for them." She stood up and pressed a few buttons on the wall, the image smoothly transferring to a picture of a black dome as large as the Hunter estate, perched on a low barren hill beneath an alien grey sky. "That's why we put it on Venus; not much human activity there to interfere with the tachyon matrix!" she added cheerily.

"The Observatory won't be focused on the early 21st century," the Clockwatcher spoke up to reassure the heroes' earlier concerns. "With the fallout that's coming from a few months before you, there'd be too much temporal leakage anyway. The only way you'd be able to alter the timeline is if you tamper with the machinery, which I know," he added with a significant look at the others, "is not something any of you will do, or if you fail in your mission. As for someone from a different timeline...well, we're keeping an eye out." He smiled thinly. "If you're worried about the people you've been entangled with recently, that situation has been resolved."

[Gizmo]

"Resolved," Midnight repeated flatly, sizing both the Clockwatcher and Professor Danger up subtly. He didn't particularly like to be told a threat had been dealt with without any details nor being expected to take the matter on faith. The ideas commonly held about justice as far in his past as these agents of the timestream were in his future would not have been particularly palatable and he wondered just how alien they might have become by this time. There was little he could do about it either way, he knew, but it irked him nonetheless.

[Avenger Assembled]

"The timelines with which you are familiar that are associated with an Axis victory in the 20th century are very unlikely to be a threat in the modern era," said Professor Danger, earning a sharp glare from the Clockwatcher: evidently even that remark was a little much by the standards of 26th century temporal mechanics. After a little more discussion from the future heroes, and the handing off a temporal anomaly detector, a fat black disc covered in displays in English, to the gadget-using Midnight, the out-of-time Leaguers were packed off to the big transporter pad they'd arrived on for the trip to Venus. Mark stuck close to his team, resisting the urge to take his father aside and say all the things that needed said: Rick Lucas of the 1960s was a happy man with a bright future ahead of him. Even if it was safe to alter the timeline, he couldn't risk taking away from the life Rick Lucas had had.

He stood in the back, and managed a short wave for the Centurion, Rick, and the others, as they were beamed into the Temporal Observatory. The Observatory immediately reminded Mark of a planetarium, albeit one aimed at history rather than space; the big dome-shaped ceiling was covered in a patchwork images of past, present, and what had to be future, all of them moving too fast for him to get more than the occasional glimpse: a medieval-looking army moving here, a masked hero with a cape in the sky there, and a dozen other scenes too alien for him to recognize.

At ground-level, where the heroes stood, were the temporal artifacts they'd come to guard; the Hourglass of Fate that Dr. Chronos had wielded in the 1940s, Downtime's (the modern-day time-controlling speedster villain) costume, Dr. Tomorrow's temporal schooner, a weirdly retro 19th century steam engine, and finally the machine they'd come to watch, the advanced time machine that would that very night pose such a threat to all history. "Okay, well, I don't _see_ any poison bombs around here," said Mark not long after their arrival, wandering around the gallery. "So I guess the bad guy brings it with him?"

[trollthumper]

"Sounds like it," said Cannonade. He had more than a little to think about. First was the confirmation that Erde, and all the related derivations thereof, would have pretty much wound down by the 26th century. At best, it meant that many of the worlds had been retaken by Allied forces or resistance movements and the Reich torn down -- but then again, given what the Greta Ratner from Erde had said, many of those Reichs must have engaged in cannibalistic measures to try to keep every inch they had. And if the Allies didn't win, then that frenzy must have gotten pyrrhic results.

Second was coming face to face with Downtime's costume. It was the first real thing that drove out how far he was from home. He'd never gotten into it with Downtime, but he'd spoken with heroes who had, and seen his picture in the news all the time. He was a thing of his time. And now his suit was here, a relic, something of the ages.

He shook out of it, and started studying the hall. "So," he said, "there any weak point in the defenses here that would scream, 'Please enter here?'"

[Gizmo]

Keep his borrowed temporal anomaly detector close at hand, Midnight stalked about the space, inspecting everything with a critical eye from behind his red tinted lenses. It took a few moments for him to decide to fully believe what his eyes were telling him; the distances from one point to another seemed inconsistent and fluid, while the dome displaying scenes from the relative past fluctuated in view and dimensions. Getting close enough to one of the 'time windows' caused its view to shift to show events he recognized from his own life and adventures; fighting alongside Arrowhawk during the Grue invasion on one surface, while racing through the darkened streets of Freedom on the Night Cycle with Wander behind him on another. Though none of the scenes showed his identity behind the mask, out of a desire to avoid revealing potentially timeline contaminating information more that any courtesy, he assumed, it still struck the black clad hero as irritatingly invasive.

Putting that aside, he spoke up to answer Cannonade's question. "Pad we arrived on. Airlock to the planet's surface." The partially terraformed environment outside didn't look particularly hospitable, but the airlock was the only obvious physical way in or out of the room.

[Electra]

Wander initially mirrored Midnight's investigations, stepping cautiously towards the windows as she tried to accustom herself to the strange feel of this room. As she approached, though, the picture became blurry, suddenly flipping back and forth like a television stuck between two channels. She saw glimpses of her own life overlaid with a life that was softer, safer: Erin Prime's life. After a moment, though, the window seemed to make up its mind and began to replay familiar scenes from her own life. She turned away abruptly, not wanting to see more, and returned to the exact center of the room, drawing her bat. "So we're just supposed to wait?" she asked, a slight edge to her voice. "In here?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Something does seem weird about all this," said Edge, keeping his eyes away from the ever-changing time portals as he walked around the Observatory floor. For all that Mark had had many triumphs in his life, he didn't particularly want to look back at his past so soon after encountering his father again. The past had had some unpleasant memories. "Like there's something they're not telling us, or something they don't know." Following up on Midnight's suggestion, he went over to block the various weak points Trevor had pointed out: some insulating foam like he put in cold weather shelters blocked the airlock, while a pile of cinderblocks on the teleport pad at least delayed anyone popping in.

"Eugh..." As he walked away from the pad, Mark looked down at a scuttling insect and stepped on it with gusto, crushing what looked like a cockroach beneath his uniform boot against the short carpeted surface at their feet. "So much for the clean and sterile world of the future. I wonder if someone left a sandwich in one of the time machines and brought that back..."

[trollthumper]

"Yeah," Cannonade said, looking down at the crushed roach. "Guess it's true what they say about 'em being the ultimate survivors. Wonder how they made it all the way to --"

He paused. He looked towards the windows, out to the cloudy, hazy, most-definitely-not-at-all-terraformed surface of Venus, where the wisps of sulfuric acid faintly caught whatever light could get through. Even for something with a reputation for surviving a nuclear blast, striding through that atmosphere would not be a picnic. He snapped back to attention, scanning the floor of the museum for more roaches. "Why have I got a feeling I'm gonna need a shower after this?" he muttered to himself.

[Gizmo]

Midnight turned wary at the first sound of Edge's boot crushing the insect underfoot and silently joined the others in sweeping his gaze about for more of its like. It wasn't simply a question of any personal aversion to the cockroaches; they very clearly should not have been there and as he spotted one then another and another his suspicions quickly grew. Three vectors made their shared destination clear and each additional skittering intruder confirmed it. "They're going for the time machine," he grated urgently, pointing with one hand while the other retrieved compressed aerosol grenades from his belt.

[Avenger Assembled]

At Midnight's words, the mass of cockroaches suddenly rose up some twelve feet high in an impossible cohesion of writhing insect bodies. The Claremont students were all familiar with Freedom City's Collective, but that irradiated colony had never formed into a humanoid body with six limbs and writhing antennae, but a too-human face, all made of writhing, wriggling insects. In a hissing, inhuman voice, the cockroach creature snarled, "WE KNOW YOUR FAZEZ. FROM THE OLD HIZTORY. YOU WILL NOT KEEP UZ FROM OUR DEZTINY! THE COLONY WILL BE REBORN!"

"What colony?" demanded Mark, dodging a swipe of a massive limb: evidently the creature didn't take well to him squashing one of its members. "What are you?"

"CHILDREN OF A WORLD NOW GONE! IT WAS YOUR DEAZ THAT GAVE UZ OUR LIVEZ! BUT IF WE CANNOT HAVE OUR HIZTORY, WE WILL HAVE YOURZ!"

Mark didn't like the sound of that one bit, so he concentrated on leading his team and not on worrying about the hideous monster to his front. "Sorry, Colony, but I'm afraid Freedom City already has a radioactive cockroach swarm," he taunted, dodging another swipe. "Thank you for your time, and we will keep your resume on file!" He looked back at the others. "C'mon, people, it's a giant cockroach swarm trying to nuke our history and take over! Help me out here!"

[Electra]

Cockroaches themselves were hardly a new horror for Wander, who had, after all, already seen them inherit the earth. Seeing cockroaches turn into a humanoid and start a fight, however, was quite a different matter. "Creepy," she opined under her breath. Not wasting any more words on a creature who obviously wasn't open to negotiations, nor wasting much in the way of finesse, she raised her bat and went in low, twirling her bat through the mass of bugs. It wasn't the most effective of attacks, but she did some damage, distracting and slowing the swarm. "We need to contain them," she called to the others. "We can't squish all of them."

[trollthumper]

"Maybe not," said Cannonade. He looked over the writhing mass of chitin, desperately trying to hold down his gag reflex. He'd fought worse things, for sure, but there was something about the simple nature of putting so many together that made it all the more wrong. "But I bet we can hit a lot of 'em at once."

He stepped forward, in front of Wander, trying to find the right position. There was a lot of valuable history in here; the last thing he wanted to do was damage the future's vision of the past. Once he was sure he'd found the angle that'd allow for the least collateral damage, he brought his hands together with the force of a sledgehammer hitting dynamite. The shockwave washed out and swept over the writhing mass of roaches, shaking it like a reed hut caught in an earthquake.

[Avenger Assembled]

The cockroach monster shook, but bore up under Cannonade's assault with the loss of only a few dozen insects on its outskirts. "YOU! JOE MACAYLE!" it spat with a sudden, unpleasant recognition as it focused what might have been eyes (after all, they were only writhing divots in the swarm) on the helmeted hero. "WE KNOW YOUR FAZE FROM EARTH HIZTORY! A HIZTORY WE WILL DEPRIVE YOU OF, JUZT BEFORE WE DEPRIVE IT OF ALL OTHERZ!" It threw a mighty blow at Cannonade, seeming to take a special interest in squashing the patriotic powerhouse like the proverbial cockroach, but despite mighty swings from tremendous arms-colonies as thick around as Joe's body, it couldn't quite make an impact.

[Gizmo]

With a silent but long suffering sigh, Midnight drew forth a collapsible pistol from his belt that clearly owed its design in part to the original Night Gun. A trio of glass capsules slotted into the back of the device as strode in a circular part around the core of the melee, watching for his shot. Inky black mist trailed behind him as he went, forming and obscuring cloud that blocked both light and scent for the mass of insects, cutting the swarm off from their time machine target. Choosing his moment, the black clad vigilante snapped hit weapon up and pulled the trigger, releasing a stream of sickly green gas along with his midnight mist, the two gaseous masses twining about each other as they settled on the monster and its countless individual parts. "Pesticide," he called calmly to the other heroes. "Don't breath."

[Avenger Assembled]

With one last coughing hiss, the cockroach swarm collapsed like a thousand strings had been cut, collapsing down and out so fast the heroes had to retreat, sometimes right up onto the machines, to avoid a small, incredibly disgusting tidal wave. Edge found himself standing on a big blue rectangle shaped like a telephone booth, watching the swarm disperse. The cockroaches were still twitching in that really horrible way cockroaches had, Mark noticed, but they all seemed to be alive. That's good, I wouldn't want to kill anything that can think and talk...even if it's thinking and talking supervillain stuff, and is really really gross.

"Everybody okay?" Mark called. "Cannonade, you take any hits from that thing?"

[trollthumper]

"I'm good," Cannonade said. He took a step forward, trying to avoid stepping on the constituent roaches. The thing was defeated - no need to brutalize it. No matter how much the repulsion running through him wanted to. "They always said the cockroaches would take over if... well, if that happened. They really had no idea, did they?"

Something clicked over in his head as he said it. "Wait a minute... that thing said 'children of a world long gone.' Like he came from the timeline that got nuked. The timeline where the world ended in the 1940s. But... he knew my name. So either he did a lot of research when he came over to here... or someone hired him out and told him what to expect."

[Avenger Assembled]

As they talked, Edge gradually swept the cockroaches together into a single large mass, one that he gradually surrounded with quick-setting emergency concrete. It looked crude, especially given the high-tech setting, but it seemed likely to be effective for the moment. "I dunno, it's weird that he's not disappearing back to his home reality. Maybe the Clockwatcher was right about them getting a different kind of time travel down in the future." He looked at the others as the concrete dome went up. "When he wakes up, you want a crack at him, maybe, Midnight?" Trevor was the best out of all of them of getting bad guys to spill their guts.

Ew, I didn't need that mental picture. "The people in the Legion said there might be a traitor in their ranks," he added, confirming Cannonade's speculations. "I think we should try to handle this one on our own." He wasn't sure how they'd get back from the 26th century in that case, but they'd solve that problem as they went.