ic The Hard Hand of Fate (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

As Harrier brought the unconscious Samson over to the hastily-evacuated medical bay, he mused grimly that the colors below now matched the colors above: the ruddy glow cast over everything in the Vault by the glowing emergency lights matched the color of the entropy-raddled sky outside. "Unconscious yet, and with blows to the head. Shrapnel knocked him backwards, and his head hit my chest..." Harrier let his armor retreat at that, feeling a surge of guilt as he laid Samson down next to Jill O'Cure. "If he leaves here, I believe he will recover."

That was an open question as Dragonfly worked on the machine; most of the equipment itself was still intact, but several vital small processors had been pierced by the errant shard of steel: at home, with advanced parts, it would be a matter of seconds. Here it was going to take time to fix, minutes that they might not have.

And then the hologram appeared: in a shimmer of energy that was clearly recognizable as a high-tech projection snapping into place, the translucent form of a human being appeared: Mandragora was a tall man, even taller than Harrier, with what would have been Asian features on an Earth man, handsome despite a nasty burn scar on the right side of his face. He has long black hair and wears red armor, emblazoned with a golden Chinese dragon. At the sight of the Dragon of the Terminus, Harrier spun around and threw his pike through the air: the sizzling tip burying itself in the wall behind the Annihilist's projection. At the attack, Mandragora smiled.

"So the stories _are_ true." Behind Harrier, the former Terminus technicians quailed at the sight of the man who'd held absolute power of life and death over them once, but Mandragora spared them hardly a glance, instead looking at all four of the heroes in the room with a fascinated expression. "Here I thought I was simply destroying a traitor to his world, but there are far more interesting things here. A Dethroner of Omega, the free Omegadrone, and the scientist and the healer who dared cross the threshold to this burnt-out cinder of a world."

As if on cue, there came a great, distant, barely audible roar from overhead. "You'll have to forgive Esau. He takes the death of his sons and daughters poorly. But I suppose he'll have to be disappointed today."

[Electra]

Erin rose and stepped forward, putting herself between the hologram and the living beings in the room. Squaring her shoulders, she gave Mandragora an up-and-down look, obviously not terribly impressed with what she saw. "So," she said conversationally, "you're all that's left running the Terminus these days. Well, I guess Shadivan Steelgrave is running the Terminus, really. You're more the dog on a leash type, not really the in-charge type."

She let the utter contempt she felt for the technicians, for the Annihilists, for every thinking being who worked for Omega leach clearly into her voice, even as she circled around, trying to hold his attention on her and let Mara keep working. "I guess you know who I am, too. Omega's chestplate has an imprint of my fist right through the center of it. That must have been quite a surprise for all of you." She took a step closer, resting a hand lightly on her bat. "You might not have seen this," she continued evenly, "but it wound up through Physician Friendly's skull. I had a score to settle with him. All the people here are gone," she told him, waving a hand around the nearly empty room. "In a few moments, I'm sending my friends home. And then I'm going to come to the surface, and I'm going to find you."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mandragora flinched at the look in Wander's eyes. For the billion billions dead at his hands, few champions of Wander's might had lived to stand and look him in the eye with pure defiance. "You...you would not find me here, girl. I would not set foot on the surface of a world that provided so little challenge," he added, his eyes hardening. Harrier knew well enough what he was looking at: Mandragora had shown fear, and been seen to show fear, before his enemies. "Take Steelgrave's pawns and go. They mean nothing to me, and should mean little enough to you. It doesn't matter. Whether in fire and flame or beneath an Omegadrone's pike, your world will fall like all the others. Lord Omega will return."

Having retrieved his pike from the far wall, Harrier took this moment to face down one of the many long-dead ghosts of his past. "I am Stephen Franklin Murdock of Nihilor, of the blood of Steelguard's World." The homeworld of the greatest of the Annihilists had been taken by the Terminus too early to have a standard designation. "If you dare to fight, Dragon of the Terminus, then fight and you will be met. But if you were truly brave enough to fight to the death, Lord Mandragora...you would not be here at all."

Without another word, and without a glance at Wander or Harrier (particularly not Wander), Mandragora's hologram vanished from view.

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Enjoyed listening to that,"[/bg] Dragonfly commented, though she didn't turn around, she had carefully dislodged the shrapnel from her device and was peering into the metal wound to inspect the damage. [bg=#555555]"Might as least buy us time. ....maybe?"[/bg]

That last bit was thrown on as her suit pinged her with some environmental data. She frowned, though she kept at her work, pushing a bundle of wires out of the way with a little gauntlet-deployed tool. [bg=#555555]"....any of you feeling that? Suit's a closed environment, but says it's getting warmer. Going need a minute or...mmmh, maybe two...to fix things. Need to --aagh, of course it hit that relay, not like I have a bunch of magnets just sitting around can probably bypass if I'm careful...."[/bg]

She trailed off, comments becoming more like muttered dialogue as she started putting her dimensional tunneler back into working shape.

[Gizmo]

"So hey, can I be you when I grow up?" Jill called in Wander's direction once Mandragora's hologram had disappeared, grunting softly as she passed a glowing hand over her injured arm, consciously knitting the tissue back together. Flexing the repaired muscles a few times experimentally, she turned her attentions to the unconscious Samson, wiping sweat from her brow above her crimson bandana as the room gradually warmed. "So, uh, do I want to ask why Gloaty McBeardstoke was basically defecating himself at the sight of you, or is that more of a 'when we're not locked in a giant oven' sort of story?"

[Electra]

Erin stayed on alert even after Mandragora disappeared, but she did allow her mask of invulnerability to slip far enough to reveal relief and satisfaction. She walked back over in the direction of Jill and Samson, prepared to lend a hand if necessary. "You remember last year when graduation was cancelled and postponed a week because Young Freedom disappeared? What happened was the nearby multiverse was destroyed by the Terminus and we spent a few days time-traveling through dimensions to make it not have happened. At the end of all that, we faced down Omega himself, along with a few hundred thousand Omegadrones, and we killed him." She shrugged. "Not permanently, you can't really kill the embodiment of entropy, but they're theorizing it'll take him awhile to pull himself back together. Mandragora knows who did his boss, but probably not exactly how, or whether we could do it again."

She wiped her face with the tattered sleeve of her uniform, then leaned against the wall. "Gloaty McBeardstroke... I like that one."

[Avenger Assembled]

"If that is an elder dragon of the Terminus above us, he is capable of generating enough heat to make this mountain uninhabitable." Though it would have protected him against the heat, Harrier had dropped his armor: as long as his friends could stand this, he could stand it. He didn't press his boss for how long her repairs would take; he had faith that the heroes of Freedom would triumph. And if the portal did open late, well, he knew who would be going through it last. He stood tall and erect, sweat just beginning to beat on his bald head. "Young Freedom's dethroning of Omega has brought about civil war in the Terminus. Where once Annihilists were rivals, now they are enemies, and at war. And all who believe Omega defeated, even for a time, know who has done it, and why." He actually smiled. "For the look on Mandragora's face alone, I would have come this far."

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"Wouldn't say that, myself,"[/bg] Dragonfly groused, one of her little gauntlet-deployed tool arms pulling a tiny piece of shrapnel out of the depths of her project. think that's all of it [bg=#555555]"But don't have the same connection you do. Not as personal. Still, good to know there's...unrest. In the Terminus, I mean, and more than normal. Them fighting each other is better than them fighting us."[/bg]

The engineer finally pulled her tools away, leaving the bits of shrapnel and broken parts (and the remains of a few items she'd salvaged new parts from) at her feet. She took a deep breath, mentally double-checked her repairs, and gently gave one of the spinning parts of her pylon a shove to get it moving - it flickered to life, the hole that was still in the metal plating exposing the moving, glowing machinery inside. [bg=#555555]"Okay. Would really like to leave, now. Before they get tired of waiting for us to cook."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

Jill gave Wander a look that apologized for clearly having misunderstood what the powerhouse had just said, but at Harrier's confirmation and unsettling, uncharacteristic show of something akin to enjoyment the medic's expression stilled itself into nonplussed neutrality. Raising both hands in Erin's direction, she opened her mouth to speak but couldn't quite grasp the words she needed and turned to Steve instead before finding herself similarly without a comment of sufficient vehemence. Finally she settled for a wholly inadequate but still emphatic exclamation in Spanish. "What, did I have an exam the day they threw you the parade or what?!" she demanded incredulously, maintaining enough presence of mind to make a glowing stretcher underneath the unconscious action scientist and lift him into the air for transportation. "You seriously took down the guy who-- I mean, it's... How is this a secret?!"

[Electra]

Erin shrugged, following the medic and her patient as they headed for the portal. "Summer vacation started right after, so I guess it didn't have a chance to get around school," she guessed, then realized Ellie meant in a broader sense. "Politics, partly. Rick Lucas helped us, and he and Captain Thunder really don't, didn't get along. Even though we brought back Omega's chestplate, they didn't really want to believe us. Plus when I tried to take it to Doktor Archeville to get him to analyze it, he snapped and tried to take over the world, and that sort of just pushed everything else into the background for awhile." She smiled grimly. "I think that's the real reason, mostly. Nobody wants to hear about people saving the universe, because then they'd have to start thinking about how much time the universe spends on the brink. If a bunch of high school kids from Freedom City are all that's standing between them and Omega, that's not exactly a comforting thought." Pausing at the portal, she waved the others through, unwilling to go before everyone else was through and safe.

[Avenger Assembled]

"All that we have done here has been another defeat for the forces of the Terminus," added Harrier. "We have plucked these lives and these futures from this burning world, and proved that life and justice can triumph over death and loss, and that the promise of universal death can be made false through courage and sacrifice." He thought of that little girl Erin and Jill had befriended, of Samson and his murdered family, of the burning cities and the doomforges, even of those like Green Screen who had sacrificed their very souls to win life in this place of death. In the burning room where the last living souls on Earth stood, he said "We have gone into death, and found life. This is all that can be done." As the air grew hotter, he waved the last of the civilians through, and Jill and Dragonfly both, before exchanging a long look with Erin.

"Do not fail to follow," he said as he made his own way to the portal, Erin just behind. As the portal closed behind them, they heard the distant noise of falling rocks, and heard what sounded like a terrible howl...and then they were back in HAX, crowded with refugees, security guards, and Terminus technicians, everyone looking to the four arriving heroes to restore order! Knowing the others were better-suited than he to dealing with the civilians, he headed straight for the captured Terminus technicians: already in restraints thanks to the watchful security staff, under Steve's eye they abruptly became very cooperative.

[Fox]

Dragonfly's last act as she and Ellie made their way back home was to reach into the open wound in her dimensional device and break something with an audible crack!; as reality closed back up around them to leave them on significantly safer earth, the last visible bits of the world left behind showed a pylon that was...well, eating itself, twisting and churning and crumbling into scraps that could never hope to be put back together. always have to lock the door behind you when you leave

She took the opportunity to take a breath of proper, Earth Prime air, waiting for the more primitive parts that remaind even in her engineered brain to realize that she was above ground now and there weren't any more big things in the air trying to kill her.

[bg=#555555]"Okay. Thank you for your help on this end - we're sorry for the...inconvenience,"[/bg] she said, as assertively as she could manage when she was tired and in the middle of a crowd of people - and with suspiciously good grammar, though those that knew her (and knew who she was) could almost certainly tell it was forced. [bg=#555555]"This is everyone - they could probably use food, and water, and some rest, if you haven't arranged it already. Hopefully they won't have to stay here long."[/bg]

[Gizmo]

In the moments it took her to acclimate from the less than gentle transition back to Earth-Prime, Jill attempted to make herself marginally more presentable despite the dried sweat, blood and other people's black, bile-like fluids layered on an outfit that hadn't been intended for hero work in the first place. As soon as her stomach had determined that up was in fact in the correct direction, however, she was scanning the tightly packed refugees milling about the room. Before long, the wide-eyed, dirt-smeared face of Yolanda popped up over the heads of the crowd, lifted up onto Lieutenant Hudson's shoulders as the soldier made his way over to greet the returned heroes. The medic let out a small sigh of relief, allowing herself a self-satisfied smile. "Good day."

[Electra]

Erin took a quick moment to breathe a sigh of relief at being safely back on Earth Prime, then she turned her attention to the crowd of refugees. "All right everyone, listen up!" she called over the hubbub of the room. "Welcome to Earth Prime! You're safe here, and you will be taken care of. Right now I need you all to find a place to sit down and be quiet for the next little bit so we can get some organization going! I know you're all tired and hungry, so we'll try and make this as quick as possible. The bathrooms are in the back of the room, and the water fountains as well. If you're injured, raise your hand or have the person next to you do it, and we'll get you treated. Otherwise, just sit tight."

She turned to the security staff that had begun to assemble around her. Sometimes it still felt weird to be in charge of anything, but she was gradually getting used to it. Today it felt good, because she knew what to do and knew she could help. "All right. Pam, Gerry, Liam, you start going through the crowd and taking information. Get names, genders, ages, and family sizes, if there are families together. Find out if anyone is injured or needs special care. Astrid and RJ, you get on the phone and order, um, let's call it twenty pizzas and five party subs. Bill it to security for now. Steve, you call up anyone you know at Special Circumstances and get someone down here to talk to us. See if they have a few hundred cots somewhere while you're at it." Just before she plunged into the crowd herself, Erin took a moment to ruffle Yolanda's hair. "There you are. Things will start to get better now." That much, at least, she could promise.

[Avenger Assembled]

The three heroes worked late that night, later than they already had on what was one of the longest days of their respective lives. There were sick people who were willing to be treated, finally, now that they'd made it safely to the other world, there were hungry people who needed fed, there were psychological breakdowns to console now that the shock of disaster had been replaced with the hard reality of survival, and a dozen other things in the bargain. Samson Power eventually did regain consciousness under Jill's ministrations, nodding in grim understanding of the unhappy fate that befallen Green Screen. "It's not just. But then, nothing else was about the last week."

When Lady Liberty finally arrived with the people from Special Circumstances Housing, she took one look at Yolanda, who had fallen asleep clinging to Jill, and didn't so much as bat an eyelash. Most of the other unattached kids had hooked up with parents from their own world, but it was obvious Yolanda had found who she wanted to stay with. "Just make sure you get her in for screening in the morning. Another pair of eyes looking at her will help you know what you need to help her."

Daedalus shook Dragonfly's hand as they stood together by the suit that had started all this and said without a blink. "When Ms. Holloman returns, tell her she's done exemplary work here. Not many scientists would have been clever enough and courageous enough to deploy superheroes through the gateway. Between this and her performance during my own lapse with the Conquering Mind, I'll make sure to put her on the list for other emergency technical matters...if you think she'll be interested, that is."

Wander found Steve sitting by himself on the sidewalk once the last of the refugees and their tormentors the technicians had been taken away; the first to FLSCH, the latter to processing by AEGIS first and an uncertain future in the aftermath. He was alone in that dark night, a singular figure underneath a lightpole outside HAX. "I could have been them. Not the refugees. The slaves. It is a humbling thought."

[Electra]

Erin touched Steve's shoulder lightly, a rare gesture for both of them. "You know better than to think about what might have been," she reminded him. "If I've learned anything from dimensional travel, it's that any of us could've made one or two wrong turns and ended up in very different places. But that's not something we can control. All we can do is deal with what is. You did good work today," she reminded him, stepping away and leaning against the pole. "Those people would be dead if we hadn't all done everything we could. Doesn't matter what might have been, you're a hero now."

She paused for a second, looked him up and down. "Have you got somewhere to go tonight?" she asked, sounding diffident for the first time that day. "After something like this, it's better not to be alone for too long." She wasn't quite sure how it would work to have Harrier bunking in the Manor, but she was sure she could talk Trevor into it if she had to, just for a night. She knew for sure that she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts tonight, much less her dreams.

[Avenger Assembled]

"...I will go to my girlfriend's place, I think," said Steve as he rose to his feet, awkwardly touching Erin's hand for a moment. "We have spoken of the past infrequently, but she knows what I am. Perhaps it is time we speak more. It is no night to have these thoughts and be alone with them, yes." He looked at Erin and gently suggested, "I think your work here is done, and your young man may be waiting for you." He thought back to that morning, a lifetime ago, and added, "Tell him thank you again for the coffee." The former drone waited until she was clear, then made himself Caradoc for the flight to Gina's house. This was no night to hide invisibly, but it was no night to fly as an Omegadrone, either.

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"'Hallomen',"[/bg] Dragonfly replied, almost unconsciously correcting Daedalus's pronunciation. Not that she was fond of the name, but if she was going to try to take it back anyway.... [bg=#555555]"It's on the outside of the building. Imagine she'd be okay with that - consulting is her business model - when it was necessary enough; suppose you could work out something. But might be worth keeping in mind that she really, really doesn't appreciate people prying into her personal life or private projects."[/bg]

She was too tired to manage much more than a weary, flat tone, though at least a little bit of her wry sense of humor peered through as she turned to head back upstairs. [bg=#555555]"Or so I hear."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"She can count on my utmost respect and discretion," said Daedalus with a wry chuckle from inside his armor. "And that she won't have to worry about my looking into her private affairs. After all, I can't even keep her name straight!" For the son of a previous generation's hero, he'd had a lot of time to work on his patter. "You have a fine building here, and a fine crew. I was honored to work with you, even by remove." And with that, he got back to work, the smooth, efficient veteran hero he'd been from the moment he arrived.