ic Test Site I (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

When the glue was burned away, Harrier stepped free and retracted his armor. He felt exposed beneath the cold grey skies of the ruined city, and not just because he was wearing the boxer shorts he'd gone to bed in. Armored though his insides were, his scarred skin was as soft as any man's. For a moment, he felt the strong itch of an arrow penetrating between his shoulder blades before he raised his commlink to his ear again. Both Wander and Jill knew his voice when he was out of armor well enough. "I am no longer restrained. I was aboard the crashed transport vessel, its sole occupant that I could see. Strapped into a recharging unit as if..." Saying the words would give them power they hadn't had even in his thoughts, so instead, he said "I am near Freedom Hall. Look for the large man in underclothes."

[Electra]

"The Expendables?" Erin asked Jill, rifling through her shallow pop-culture memory file. "I liked that one. Pretty much everything that could blow up did. Poor Liam Hemsworth went down like a chump, though." She shook her head, then returned her attention fully to the situation at hand. "Guess there's only one way to figure out what's going on, get together and investigate."

She thought about tightening the focus on her communicator to exclude the potentially hostile audience, then decided not to. It might mean missing other living heroes, and they didn't have to say anything tactically sensitive on the unsecure channel. "Underclothes?" she repeated into her communicator. "You're in your underwear? We're definitely going to have to find you something to wear. It's freezing." There was a trace of amusement in her voice, gone when she resumed questioning. "Are you alone? Does it look like there's any activity in Freedom Hall?" The questions were largely unnecessary, since they were already running onto the plaza outside Freedom Hall as she spoke.

[SpicyWaffle]

Nodding in silent agreement, the Bee-Keeper had little to add to the already deplorable situation. It was as good a plan as any, and the teenaged duo weren't exactly in a position with many options. Still, between the crackling communicator in his helm of men in their underwear overlooking Freedom Hall and action movies, it still seemed rife with peril - whether it was simple bait to lure them out or simply idle chatter, the Bee-Keeper wasn't willing to risk finding out. He still wished he'd decked the Omegadrone moving in on him, but for now his burning urge for vengeance would have to wait; especially if two more of its allies were closing in on its position. Blue Jay was right: they needed answers, and if anyone had them, it would be the Freedom League... or what was left of them.

Moving towards a disreputable looking piece of debris within the building and peeking out towards the pavilion where the crashed dropship no doubt still smoldered. Whomever these ladies were, Blue Jay seemed to know a thing or two about them - but now really wasn't the time for Baxter to ask for a who's who tour of Freedom City's bravest. He simply couldn't shake the eerie fact the two heroes were supposedly in cahoots with an Omegadrone; a dark cloud that seemed to haunt him the more he pondered it. Shaking his head to clear the mental cobwebs, the yellow-and-gold survivor turned back to his more lithe and limber cohort tensely.

"Whatever we're gonna do, we've got to huzztle. We need to get there beefore they have a chanzze to regroup and really zztart looking for uzz."

[Gizmo]

"What? No, I meant-- never mind," Jill stopped herself, running a hand through her hair distractedly. Obviously this wasn't the time for pop culture references in the first place, nervous habit aside. "Let's just find Steve and get him some pants." Both of her hands lit up with faint blue light and a pair of concave barriers sprang into being on either side of herself and Wander, translucent force-fields of mystically charged bioelectricity. "Just in case Robyn Hood gets bowstring-happy," she explained as they reached the devastated Freedom Hall. As promised, it wasn't hard to spot Harrier standing in his boxers with his usual stoic acceptance of misfortune and inconvenience. "Glad we at least got our clothes before being dumped out here," she mused to the powerhouse beside her, glancing about the exposed area uncomfortably. "...I think, anyway."

[Avenger Assembled]

"The secrets of my sleepwear stand exposed," said Steve with what passed for a dry jest, "as does much else." Muscular though he was, the heavily scarred former drone wasn't much to look at, not that any of them were focused on anything other than the situation at hand. Casting his gaze around, he frowned as he stared up at the opaquely cloudy sky overhead. "It is good to see you both. When I awoke in that ship, I feared I had awakened...the color is wrong," he said after a moment, shooting a glance at the others. "Only worldash would darken skies enough to block the unholy crimson glow of the Terminus, and then we wouldn't be able to see at all. This is not the Terminus, but this is a convincing likeness of a city destroyed by it." He cast his gaze back at the smashed remains of Freedom Hall, and for a moment the vision of a dozen reflections of the place, all aflame and swarming with the screams of the dying, filled his vision. "Very convincing. I-"

Harrier's words were interrupted as suddenly a figure appeared in a flash of blue light just behind them. The girl was maybe fourteen, and skinny, covered in dirt and a battered blue and gold uniform instantly recognizable to the Claremont students; though not the girl herself. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, running up to them fearlessly. "Wander and Jill O'Cure oh my god! Did you come in a ship? Are you here to rescue us?" She hopped from foot to foot, casting a quick glance at Steve before focusing on the others. "...do you have any food?" she added nervously.

[Electra]

Wander instinctively took a half-step forward the new figure appeared, putting herself between it and her friends. The kid didn't look like much of a threat, but looks could be deceiving. If Steve was right, a lot might be deceiving in this place. "We just got here," she told the girl, "we're reconnoitering. Who are you, and who are you here with?" For the moment at least, she wasn't going to answer any questions about their tactical situation, even whether they had food. The idea of being without food was a deeply discomfiting one to her; briefly she thought of the bug-out bag she kept under her bed at home. Would that still be there in this world, wherever it was? What about Charlie? Something to check on, soon. "He's with us," she added when she saw the girl look at Harrier. "He won't hurt you."

[Raveled]

"We should stick to the buildings as much as we can," Blue Jay said, hopping to her feet. "Omegadrones like to look for folks from way up high. If we stay under cover, at least they'll have to come and get on our level to find us." Which wasn't strictly true; most drones would be just as happy blowing up a building as they would be gutting someone face-to-face, but at least it was a plan. If they could move from ruined building to ruined building, it would make them that much harder to find and catch. Though it would take them a bit longer to get to Freedom Hall, it beat having to fight a flight of drones on the way.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'm Dorothy Langford, aka Quickstep," said the girl seriously, doing her best to stand at attention despite a growing case of the shakes. "I, uh, I'm a second year student at Claremont. I was coming back from exercise drill, I went to sleep in my room, and that was...that was a couple of weeks ago, I think," said the girl, sounding every inch her fourteen. "There's no way to tell the time with no sunrise or sunset, so I've had to guess, and use some smashed clocks..." She shivered. "I am really, really glad you got here, because I had totally run out of food. I've seen a couple of other people, uh, I didn't know any of them but one guy who I think was Dr. Stratos. He had a big beard and was yelling like a crazy man, that I wasn't going to get him like they got the others." She sat down, hard, on the beat-up concrete. "I, uh, I...there's something weird about this place. This Freedom City. There are...there isn't anywhere else!" she exclaimed, waving her hand in the distance. "No matter where I 'stepped, everywhere on Earth is like this! But the other cities, they're...not like this. it's like no one ever lived in them. Like toys somebody pushed over."

---

No Omegadrones darkened the skies as Blue Jay and Bee-Keeper made their stealthy way through the dead city; indeed, the skies themselves never lost that strange afternoon haze. These weren't the skies Blue Jay associated with a Terminus-ravaged world, but they certainly weren't friendly, either. There was something decidedly odd about the interiors of buildings as they passed through them, a strange sense of unlivedinness as if the city had been burned to the ground just after a major campaign of urban renewal. They were getting close to Freedom Hall, just outside its walls, in fact, when Bee-Keeper's communicator sounded in an eerie metallic voice.

"Baxter-Baxter. This is-your opponent speaking. Surrender now-and you-will live. Your ally-has doomed herself-for her opposition-to Lord Omega!"

[SpicyWaffle]

As silently as a man in a metal suit was capable, Baxter stepped lightly along behind his much more stealthy guide. Never before had he felt jealousy for moving quietly, nor had he ever truly yearned for such a skill. But only now, in the lifeless husk of Freedom City, did he wish for nothing more than the ability to stop plodding along loudly. Still, as the pair of survivors trudged along through the ruined cityscape, the Bee-Keeper kept an eye on his surrounds. It was an odd thing to think... but, perhaps, if the world hadn't gone to ash and ruin, the strange glow overhead might have been viewed as 'nice.'

It wasn't the quietness that disturbed the boy behind the bee-themed helmet, it was the eerie absence of anything. Though the buildings were in architectural tatters, it was almost as if no one had ever set foot in them; an odd sensation the African-American teenager just couldn't quite place his finger on. It was like looking at the scent of a new car, as odd as that sounded in his head; a sort of familiarity of the unfamiliar, yet right on the tip of his tongue. It was hard for him to explain, but it left Baxter all the more jumpy as he crept along with Blue Jay.

Just as he hopped over a particularly destitute looking piece of rubble, a chill ran down his spine as a terrifying voice filled his helmet. His blood ran cold, Baxter coming to a complete halt when speed was most necessary, unable to move as he stared on at the young archer leading them to Freedom Hall in grim silence. The voice spoke... and it knew Baxter Bowles. Already scared, the sudden revelation left the often optimistic crime-fighter dumbfounded.

"No way... how does it... how could it... I've never..." he pondered, his mind a flurry of panic-induced terror as the Bee-Keeper tried to find some link to the disturbingly well-informed voice seeking his surrender. The sensation of cold sweat trickling down his brow, Baxter was horrified - who could have known his true name?! The Omegadrone? No... at least Baxter didn't think so. It didn't sound quite right. But someone - or something - knew not only his secret identity, but more; at least enough to make a vague and cryptic threat with what felt like an insider's look. But how much the mysterious entity was actually keen on was a startling thought, but just how far it might be willing to go to make that threat a reality was even more so.

"Who... who izz thizz?" whispered the Hero of the Hive into the commlink, sounding not unlike a delusional fool as he flooded the open channels in a hushed, worried tone.

[Electra]

Erin dropped to a crouch when Dorothy sat down, giving the younger girl a quick once-over. She looked shocky, tired, recently malnourished, but at least there were no visible injuries on her. It occurred to Erin that this might well be a trap, but then again, maybe it wasn't. There was no real reason that she and people she knew should be the only ones affected by... whatever this was, or even that they should be the first. If this was some kind of abduction to a Primelike universe, it would even make sense to take a vulnerable youngster out of the school first, just as proof of concept. If they could get someone out of Claremont, they could get someone out anywhere. But if that was the case, why hadn't there been reports of a kidnapping?

Either way, better to take things at face value, at least for now. Whoever was orchestrating this had already had ample time to ambush them while they were separated and disoriented. If Quickstep was some kind of plant, it was unlikely she was there to stab them in the backs. And if she was what she seemed, she needed help and protection. "It's going to be okay," she told the girl. "We'll find some food, find a defensible position, and then we'll figure out what's going on and how to fix it." Rising, she extended a hand to Dorothy, then looked to the others. "I don't know how close this world is to Prime, but now's a good time to find out. I have survival supplies in my apartment, who knows, they may still be there. I'm nervous about going into Freedom Hall like this, at least until we get Harrier spruced up. And while we're on the north side, we can check on HAX as well." She pursed her lips, not wanting to wonder aloud about what they might find there.

[Gizmo]

Jill hung back for a moment as Wander approached the teenage girl, the same admittedly shaky logic that suggested avoiding manufactured paranoia warning her against immediately trusting such an obviously sympathetic victim. Her better instincts won out fairly quickly, however, and she moved forward as Erin helped Dorothy to her feet. "Alright niña, let's have a look at you," she told the student with the mixed imperious authority and gentle reassurance of a practiced bedside manner. Carefully looking Quickstep over confirmed what had been clear at a distance; the girl was on the edge of the more serious effects of starvation and exposure but wasn't yet in immediate, life-threatening danger. She seemed to be exactly what she claimed to be. Jill just wasn't sure if that made her more or less likely to be a trap. Either way, she maintained the floating barriers around the growing group with a wary eye at the many surrounding vantage points.

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier picked up a shard of metal and carved a fresh NORTH DOWNTOWN in one of the broken lightpoles, shrugging as he looked at the young women. "I heard their voices as they spoke to each other. Whoever the other two are, they are young, and they are alone. It is a very hard thing to be alone in a place like this. Perhaps if they find a message, they will follow us in better spirits." It didn't sound like Steve blamed Blue Jay or her unnamed ally for the attack, and why would he? They'd seen him in his armor, in that ship: he'd have attacked a drone under those circumstances without hesitation. "And if we are being watched by an unknown Other, they will know where to find us."

With Erin's great speed and strength, it was easy enough to take them to the North Side of Freedom City, the tracks they made in the dust and debris of the ruined city easy enough to follow. The scene in the north end of downtown was a grim one: though only a few unidentifiable scraps that might have been bodies remained, there had obviously been a last stand made in this neighborhood. And a familiar one, too: Jill recognized the familiar bulk of the MAVERIC, flipped over and burned out to a metal hulk on the steps of the Brownstone, the scars of battle on the street bearing the marks of some familiar patterns. Above it, protruding from the building itself, was the crashed remains of Geckoman's Pitchoo.

For her part, Erin had fewer familiar sights. Her apartment building didn't seem to be where she remembered it, though the small complex of burnt-out shops that occupied the space where it was supposed to be was the kind that had occupied many other blocks in the neighborhood while she was there. Her own street was strangely cast, the pavement brick instead of asphalt, with unfamiliar names on the buildings and stores nearby. Pale-faced, Quickstep clung close and quiet to her rescuers.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am-death made-flesh. I am-your doom-made manifest. I am-the Omegadrone-that stalks-your footsteps." It certainly didn't sound like the Omegadrone Baxter had fought earlier, but he'd only spoken to that thing face-to-face, not on the radio. "You know-that the-children of-Omega march-on the-streets of-your world," came that cold, flat voice. "Look about-you at-the devastation-and know-the fate-of your-civilization. My master-has brought-you here-to test-your cleverness-and your-willingness to-embrace change. Will you-die a-slave as-so many-have before-you? Or will-you be-clever and-embrace your-new master?"

[Electra]

Erin stared about herself uncertainly upon landing, suddenly feeling as disoriented as a sleeper waking in an unfamiliar room. She'd come this way a thousand times, leaping down onto her own street at the end of a long day or night, but suddenly her street wasn't there anymore! Leaving the group, she leapt back into the air to check her reference points, a task made difficult by the fog, but it all seemed to be right. Apparently this world was even more different than it seemed, and they weren't going to be able to make any assumptions.

She landed with a quiet thud of heels on pavement, looking at the others through eyes tight with strain. "I don't know where we are," she admitted. "We should be on the north end, near my apartment, but I don't recognize these landmarks It's like the city's been rearranged."

[SpicyWaffle]

Still frozen mid-stride when time was of such paramount importance, the Bee-Keeper's eyes remained wide behind the sterile helmet adorning his head. The voice spoke with a flat, eerie calm; a robotic precision that would have set any normal person on edge. And on edge Baxter was as the thumping of his heart struggled to escape the prison of bone and muscle it was embedded in, wanting nothing more than to flee - but there was no escaping the voice. It was in his head - or, at least, in the helmet - and whatever or whomever it was clearly was of malign intent. The bone-chilling entity rattled off its vague threats; vague though they might have been, the would-be stalker had done its job superbly, for the Bee-Keeper's confidence sank faster than a lead balloon tied to a cinder block. With each word, fear gripped tighter and tighter around the young powersuit bearing teenager. He was already confused, enraged, and nearly ready to burst into tears at the sight of Freedom City. Now? Now there was an Omegadrone watching he and Blue Jay, waiting to make its move.

"Zzhut up! Zzhut up! Zzhut up!" he screamed through the communicator in his synthesized tone at the unknown adversary, once more flooding the channels with angst-fueled rage. To say the young man was freaking out would be putting it mildly as he gasped for breath in frustration. He wasn't ready for this... he simply didn't understand how his newest colleague could cope with such pressures all around her.

He looked to Blue Jay for help, and that's when he realized it: she couldn't hear it. The young archer was unaware of the creepily well-informed voice on the other end of the spectrum, its monotone pitch driving a nail of malaise and fear into Baxter's mind. He must have looked quite the fool... and, frankly, he didn't care. After a moment, the armored vigilante straightened himself out; barely managing to keep his voice from cracking as he deactivated the helmet's radio broadcaster after his little spiel.

"We're... we're beeing watched," he said, clearly shaken yet absolutely certain in his conviction. "There'zz an Omegadrone. I... I don't know where it izz, but I don't think it'zz the zzame one. It'zz... it'zz different," he continued, clearing his throat slightly as his voice dropped to a deathly whisper.

"It'zz following uzz. It knowzz where we are."

[Raveled]

As they reached the end of the line of buildings, Blue Jay waved Bee-Keeper back into cover and slid up to the window, peeking out and checking the area. It looked safe, and that was about as good as you got in the Terminus. She turned back to wave the Bee-Keeper forward, and froze when she noticed him having a conversation with the air. After a minute she managed to piece the facts together, just before he laid it out for her. "An Omegadrone. Can see us. Merde dieu enfer bâtard sacrément," she spat, dropping to a crouch for a moment before bouncing back up. "It must have something that can see through the walls. If we can get under thicker cover, it should lose us. What we need are the, uh. The, uh." The archer waved her hand through the air, trying to find the right word. "The caves. Underneath the city. The sewers! We need to get into the sewers."

[Gizmo]

The sight of the ruined vehicles and building brought out another stream of invective from Jill, but she seemed more angry than traumatized. "Nothing's in the right place or the way it should be," she agreed with Wander, the floating shields around the small group reflexively spreading out a little further and thickening. "You remember coming to the Brownstone with Fulcrum, right? It sure as hell wasn't in the North End, for one thing. Not to mention it was completely blown up along with the MAVERIC and rebuilt looking totally different. And the Pitchoo wasn't even-- argh, it's like watching a movie made by someone who didn't even bother to read the book." The medic's shoulders bunched together in agitation as she tried to get her bearings in the not-quite-right scenery.

[Avenger Assembled]

Steve turned white along his scars at the site of the murdered North End and was rendered scarcely able to speak as Wander and Jill debated what on Earth had happened. He wanted to remain silent, to let his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, but he couldn't. Not when the truth might spare his friends, and spare the young teleporting girl who was staying close to Wander and Jill, from the mystery of this place. He backed up until his back hit a broken telephone pole. "I know this place," he finally whispered, "Another dimension. Another Freedom City. Destroyed by the Terminus. But this place is...this place is gone. It is not here, it is not here to be visited! Even if we had traveled in time, it would not be so...so still!" He looked around, big hands closing and opening for a moment. "This is not the place is appears to be."

"It was the same at...at Claremont," Quickstep said after a moment's hesitation and a nervous look at Steve. "I mean, uh, I found the food storage and stuff, the emergency supplies, but everything was all shoved around. There was only one dorm, and the buildings were all in different places. I thought it had just happened when everything blew up, but all the rest of it..." She shrugged, obviously out of her depth and looking to the older students for answers.

-

Down below in the sewers, everything smelled strange. The smell of filth and decay one associated with typical storm sewers was almost completely absent; this place was clean, dry, and nearly sterile. There was no sign of prolonged activity at all, and Baxter couldn't hear that mechanical voice in his head anymore. Creeping their way through the sewers, Blue Jay and Bee-Keeper couldn't hear or feel anything about the city above. They might well have been the last being on Earth. At least until they approached their destination, Freedom Hall, and from just around a bend in the sewer they heard a distinctive, deeply out-of-place, "Aheheheheh..." followed by the zzt zzt of electricity and the distinct blue glow.

Dr. Stratos, leader of the Crime League, had seen better days: his robes were tattered and torn and his beard grown long and ragged. Lightning was jaggling from his fingers like the brushing of electric palm fronds as he slowly zapped his way through the retaining walls between the sewer system and the Freedom Hall underground. "Soon, soon, soon, my old foe," he was hissing to himself as he worked, "soon all your secrets will be mine! You can't keep me in here forever, Thunder. DO YOU HEAR!?!" he screamed aloud, gazing about wildly at nothing before going back to his work. "Sooon....sooon..."

[SpicyWaffle]

With a silent, grimly frugal nod, the Bee-Keeper resigned himself to Blue Jay's suggestion. They were exposed here - even in the cover of concrete and shattered remnants of society, wherever this Omegadrone was, it was keenly on the mismatched duo's trail. It was clear as day even on the emotionless helmet of the Bee-Keeper that he was frightened, his body language speaking volumes about his anxiety and fear even as they descended through a manhole into the suspiciously sterile sewer system below. But at least here in the oddly clean-smelling waterway the eerie voice had subsided; and Baxter wasn't taking any other chances of it worming its way back into his mind again, making certain to aptly disable his communicator through the dandy little HUD in his helmet.

Down below the city streets, the mild peace and quiet of the underground gave the Hero of the Hive time to ponder - about his friends, about his family... none of it good, but it gave him some measure of satisfaction. Just looking around the devastated city left little to the imagination about survival; but, hopefully, they didn't suffer long. The morose thought brought a quiet sniffle out of the young teen, but he had to press on. This was no time for waterworks. He needed to keep his head in the game; it was life or death with one of Omega's foot soldiers tracking their every movement, and there was still the task of finding out what happened here.

Plodding along, the Bee-Keeper suddenly stopped, his footfalls echoing harshly against the quiet of the underground cavernous system the multilingual girl had lead them to. A voice? It certainly was! And as the Bee-Keeper looked on, his stomach turned from a knotted mess into a convoluted ball of yarn that sunk to his very core.

"Zzshh!" he said, a metal finger to his nonexistent lips as he pointed with his free hand. Equally surprised as he was startled, yet sure as the city was in smolders, was Doctor Stratos. While the Bee-Keeper had never met him personally, he knew enough - how he lead the Crime League, was the avid foe of Captain Thunder, and that one spin-off comic detailing his so-called origin story was so full of holes that it would have made any other professional writer furious. But he seemed off; even for a super-villain juggling electricity between his fingertips.

"What'zz... what'zz wrong with him?" murmured Baxter to Blue Jay in as low a whisper as he could manage, barely keeping his fearful tone in-check. "He lookzz like he'zz... like he'zz juzzt lozzt it."

[Raveled]

Blue Jay stood at the bend of the sewers with the Bee-Keeper, observing Stratos. He seemed to be well and truly mad, driven over the edge by the destruction of the world; she could understand his position. He was also undoubtedly a villain. However, the Terminus drove heroes and villains to work together against greater threats. Her father had been a professional thief who broke out of prisons for fun, and her mother had been Lady Liberty before the Terminus swallowed her world. Still, with Stratos's power and madness, this was a dangerous proposition at best.

Blue Jay waved at Bee-Keeper to stay behind cover and walked out fully into the corridor, bow still held at the ready. She took a few steps towards Stratos before calling. "Hello! Are you trying to get into Freedom Hall, too?"

[Electra]

Erin took a long breath and looked around the block, not looking for landmarks, but taking it in as though it were a simulation or a strange city. Mixed use (very mixed) residential, with blocks of low-slung apartment buildings butted up against bodegas and small local stores that likely held quarters for the owners overtop. It looked as though there had been a super-battle in the vicinity of the brownstone, with some of the surrounding buildings badly damaged, but nothing was entirely destroyed.

"All right," she decided, "this is the place we found, so we'll start work from here. The first thing we have to do is gather supplies and establish a secure base. We're going to go up and down this block and check every building for what we can use. That's food, weapons, warm clothes, matches, fuel, batteries, light and heat of any kind, first aid, and bedding. Whatever you find, bring it out and put it in front of the Brownstone. We'll go in teams of two. Quickstep and I will take the south side of the block, Jill, you and Harrier take the north side. Keep in close radio contact, and watch for survivors or anything hostile. We don't know where we are, or what did this, or if they're still here, but we do know that it's December in some Freedom City and it's going to be dark in a few hours, and it's going to get cold."

[Gizmo]

Jill blinked once at Wander's decisive instructions as the other young woman smoothly took charge of the situation. She's seen Erin prove herself a force of nature in a fight but it suddenly made a lot of sense that she wasn't just Mara's top security officer, but the leader of the entire staff. "Yes ma'am," she replied with a salute that wasn't entirely sarcastic before turning to Harrier. "C'mon, Smiley, let's try to find you some pants or a kilt or something." Tossing a meaningful look toward Quickstep then back to Wander she added, "Watch your backs."

[Avenger Assembled]

Stratos whirled on Blue Jay, his eyes gleaming with electric intelligence and sizzling madness. "YOU! I...I don't know you," he admitted, peering at her suspiciously over clawed fingers shaped like electricity. "Who are you!?! Who sent you!?!" he demanded hotly. "You don't look like one of Orion's girls, you're wearing too many clothes," he said in a confidential whisper before he broke into a giggle. "Hah! Yes, I am trying to get into Freedom Hall, but Thunder has moved everything around, just like he did in all the other places. He's trying to drive me CRAZY you see." He looked around and whispered close again in that confidential tone. "But he won't get me, you see, because I've been above the clouds. I know his seeeeeeecret!" He jumped, doing a little splash in the water. "But I'll never tell! So, you want me to help you?" he asked Blue Jay seriously as if the conversation had just begun. "What do you need, child?"

-

Warped though the area was, between Wander and Harrier's expertise in scavenging for food and supplies, it was fairly easy to gather what they needed. They even managed to find Steve clothes, his muscular frame just barely fitting into the slacks and Freedom City T-shirt they found. There was food still in the cupboards of apartments and on the shelves of bodegas, albeit only what had been saved in bags and cans and bottles was still eligible. There was something shocking, and suspicious, about the hiss of carbonation when Harrier experimentally cracked the lid of a plastic Coke bottle left sitting alone and closed atop a massive pile of debris where two buildings had fallen down into each other. Just how recent _was_ this disaster? Much as it pained him, he let Jill test the ruined building first, his own great weight potentially a peril as they moved through darkened hallways and through broken doors.

Quickstep clung close to Wander as they went, something the other girl was by now almost becoming accustomed to on missions like this. She was doing her best to be a loyal Claremont student, but she was very young, and from her occasional fearful glances at the sky, it was pretty clear she'd never faced a situation like this before. But had any of them? Neither group found any sign of survivors, nor any evidence of hostility. It was as if the people had simply all gone off and left the city behind after the great battle, taking all the animals and other large creatures with them, or perhaps the other way around.

"

[Electra]

Erin swept through the buildings she'd assigned her own team with the ease of long practice that had come to the fore with almost disconcerting speed. It wasn't like she'd slacked off on her survival training in the past four years, but it was still strange how the old instincts clicked right back into place. More than once, she found herself spinning at some small noise, expecting a zombie but finding only Dorothy moving some item or the wind knocking against the doors. That in itself was strange, really. Back in her world, as soon as the humans were gone, the rest of the world had rapidly moved in. Where were the mice and rats, the feral cats, the white-tailed deer that should be in an abandoned city?

As they went, something else began to niggle at the edges of her awareness, something that wasn't sitting quite right. It didn't seem like winter here. Well, it did seem like winter, in that it was cold and gray outside, threatening snow, but that was the only indication that it was December at all. The stores certainly didn't make sense at all. "Hey guys, check something for me would you?" she radioed the other team. "What I'm seeing in terms of rot and spoilage here makes me think that the people have been gone and the power's been off for maybe three months. Everything perishable has gone off, even some of the hardier vegetables, but not your potatoes, onions, squashes, you know? That would mean whatever happened here was sometime in September or so. But I haven't seen a single back to school sign or fall setup. There are spring and summer clothes out for sale, and the milk and eggs have expiration dates in May. It's like time was slowed down or stopped or something. I don't know, but it's weird."

Having a mystery to solve bothered Erin, but not enough to distract her from the mission. Within ninety minutes, she and her young charge had assembled a decent pile of food and supplies, including a small kerosene heater that someone had obviously been keeping illegally in their apartment. "Here," Erin told Dorothy, tossing her a box of granola bars. "You get started on these, we'll find more food as we need it. Gotta keep your strength up."

[Raveled]

Blue Jay's heart plummeted. She realized that everyone was going to be a little unhinged due to the circumstances, but Stratos was far into the fields of madness. Still, he had lots of power, which made him a potentially valuable ally. They would just have to watch him very, very closely.

"I am Blue Jay," she said. "I just woke up a few hours ago. I have to see how the Terminus invaded, and who helped them. I... I already ran into a few heroes who were helping Omegadrones. Is there any way I can help you get inside?" she added.