Back to the Present [AoO]

[Veiled Malice]

Ren looked up, scanning the sky, even though his radar would probably pick up the big armored form long before his eyes would. "Get back against the wall," he said, moving over while taking Grimalkin with him. "You sure it's Icarus? It couldn't be someone else?" His voice contained a healthy dose of paranoia. Of course, being on a world like this, paranoia was the only way to go.

[Heritage]

The tiny heroine allows herself to be led, nodding vigorously as she goes.

"Yeah, it's him...or another time-jumping and/or alternate version of him; I will remember that thrummy sound of his 'til the day I die."

[Heridfel]

Nanowire's radar doesn't provide him much advance warning here. A muscular man floats out from around a corner. Float isn't quite the right word; he's moving as fast as a car, but it's so smooth that it barely seems like he's being affected by inertia.

It takes Grimalkin and Nanowire a second to notice it, but the man is not Icarus. Nanowire notices that he looks very similar to Sean - about as much as Sean now resembles Sean when he still called himself Heavy. The man stops and looks down at the ground, then freezes as he sees some people below.

Rant speaks up, though he keeps his voice down, "That's one of the two we're looking for. Besides Foreshadow and Icarus; that's Magister ." He throws up a hand and makes a quick gesture. Magister relaxes as he floats down. It doesn't look like anyone else saw him.

"We saw him," he says to the trio. Though the humming from him has stopped, Grimalkin can still hear it nearby. Then she hears something else - her own voice, faint but clear.

"It's me... Dad?" the voice says quietly. "Please... don't go..."

Icarus hovers in midair, looking at a young woman standing on a rooftop who looks like she could benchpress as much as he could. Despite her muscular features, he can still see the resemblance she has to her mother, and to him.

"Lynn?" he asks. Her name was one of the last things he remembered before he blacked out, and it definitely was important enough that he couldn't forget it. Before he can react, she leaps out at him and grabs him in midair. He almost throws her to the ground, as he did the shadow manipulator, but he realizes that this isn't an attack: it's a hug. She trembles against him as she squeezes him tight, and he slowly floats down to the ground.

[Veiled Malice]

Ren acknowledged the new arrival with a nod of his head, walking forward to meet Icarus's analogue in this world. "Magister, is it? Renichi Sonada." He extended his hand to shake the other man's. "You can call me Ren."

[Heridfel]

"Nanowire?" he says, tilting his head as he shakes Ren's hand. "I know you, but how'd you get so cleaned up?" Before he can explain that question, he looks around and stops on Grimalkin.

"Have you spotted him?" he asks her. "How'd you get here before me, anyway? I thought you were heading the other direction."

---

Icarus lets Changeling down the ground gently. He can't tell how she'll react to what he's about to tell her, so he treads carefully.

"How much did the electric guy from Force Ops... Force Works, I mean, tell you?" he asks her. She lets go of him so that she can look him in the eye as he speaks and steps onto the ground.

"He said that your dad's here from another time, and to come meet you at Earthbender's egg. We heard the panic signal, though, and just went looking for you," she says. She's now taking the time to look at him more closely, and she notices something.

"You actually look like you're still in your twenties. What year did you come from?" she says. Without thinking, Icarus answers her truthfully, "1972."

Changeling freezes, and her mouth opens slightly. She doesn't even move enough to breathe. Just when Icarus thinks she's going to faint, she whispers quietly, "We weren't even born."

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Icarus thinks. "It's... I was last there" is the best that he can come up with. "I'm actually from a bit later in time."

He tries to guess how old she is, how old Grimalkin is. They look like they're the same age (they look like they're the same person, actually, but that'd probably disturb both girls more than he can think about right now). 22, maybe?

"I'm from 1986," he says, waiting for her reaction to the statement.

[Veiled Malice]

"Cleaned up?" Ren asked, somewhat confused. "What do you mean by that?" Then it clicked in his head. "Oh, you mean the Nanowire from here. You might want to sit down, this is going to be a weird story." Ren took a unnecessary deep breath then started in on his explanation.

"Grimalkin - that's her," he said, pointing to Lynn, "isn't who you think she is. Neither am I. We're both from a parallel dimension, same with another guy that came here, Icarus. We got sucked into some sort of rift in space due to an accident with his suit, and got dumped in 1972." He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably. "Some things happened back then, and I think we... inadvertently caused this future to happen."

[Heritage]

Grim has been silent since she first heard her own voice calling someone 'Dad'; to her discerning ears, it's not exactly the same, but it's certainly close enough to make the hair on the back of her neck rise. She's been straining to here the rest of the conversation, but it's difficult to make out and she's also fairly conflicted about eavesdropping on an emotional conversation her half-self is having, a half-self that apparently has loving family, or at least part of one.

Suddenly she realizes Ren is talking and mentioning her name and she snaps out of it, looking from Ren's handsome familiar face to Magister's...disturbing familiar one. When she finally speaks, there is a just a hint of a panicked giggle in her voice.

"Making introductions, are we? That's nice! I'm your unhalf-sister, or something like that, which my tiny brain can't seem to wrap itself around."

She grabs the newcomer's hand with both of hers and shakes it vigorously. "Grimalkin from the other Earth, howya doin'? Sorry we so utterly screwed up your lives, but what the hey, that's heroes are good at, right? Messing things up, sticking our stupid noses where they don't belong?"

Her gleeful strained facade finally cracks as tears pool in her eyes and her voice goes tight. "I'm so sorry; we had no idea...everything's wrong and messed up and horrible..." She turns to look at Ren with pleading eyes. "We have to fix it, right? We have to make it better. Even if it means..." She turns back to Magister and smiles through her tears. "Hi, I'm your half-sister, I think, and I don't know...if you'll exist, if we fix this." She steps over to him and does her best to hug him.

[Heridfel]

Magister seems a bit stunned by all the information that Grimalkin laid on him, as well as the obvious honest emotion. He stammers a bit as he returns the hug.

"Wha- what? Half-... uh, maybe we should get off the streets to discuss this. Where is Foreshadow, and if you're not my sister, where is she?" he asks, glancing to Nanowire and Rant for support. Rant just rolls his eyes, as if to say "you see what I've been putting up with?"

---

While the answer to Magister's first question is unknown to all of the crosstime heroes, Icarus knows exactly where Changeling is. She's standing in front of him.

"I was just a baby then," she says, and Icarus inwardly sighs in relief. At least he didn't pick a date before she was born, and upset her even more. But she continues.

"You don't really know me at all, do you? And I have such a hard time remembering you. You look a lot like I remember, like the pictures that Grandma showed us. This isn't how I imagined it," she says. Icarus doesn't know what to say to her, so he tries to change the subject.

"Who was the other person following me?" he asks. Changeling jumps slightly.

"Oh, that was my brother. I should call him and tell him I found you," she says. She touches a finger to her ear and speaks. "Spotted him; converge on the signal."

---

Grimalkin can hear the last statement echoed quietly from Magister's ear, though it's below normal hearing, as well as where it's originally spoken from. Magister touches his ear back.

"I've located her, and she says she's spotted Dad. Follow me," he says.

[Heridfel]

Magister begins to walk deeper into the alleyway. He seems to know exactly where he's going. Rant follows him, and after a moment, so does Grimalkin.

"Come on, Ren," she says, blinking the tears out of her eyes. "It's time we go meet my half-sister... God, I don't even know what we are. It's like she's me."

At the same time, Icarus and Changeling move toward the others. The two groups meet at either end of a long alleyway, filled with filth overflowing the dumpsters. The smell is horrendous, and both Grimalkin and Changeling wrinkle their noses in disgust with identical expressions.

Icarus raises up one of his hands in greeting to Nanowire. He's in his street clothes, it seems, and his face is clearly visible. He looks sheepish as he says, "Hey there. I don't know what happened. It's like I blacked out and woke up a hundred feet in the air. Changeling, meet Grimalkin and Nanowire. Guys... this is my daughter."

[Veiled Malice]

Ren looked between Grimalkin and Changeling, noting their appearance and similarities. It was almost eerily how alike they looked, made even more so by the knowledge that both had different fathers. Apparently, both really took after their mother. "It's good to meet you, Changeling," he said, inclining his head in a small bow. He really didn't know what else to say. Both Icarus and Grimalkin had parallel world analogues here with them, and the strangeness of the situation was only likely to rise as they got to know one another.

To try and give Lynn a little bit of a morale boost, he took her hand in his and gave it a little squeeze before motioning her on to meet her sister/double/whatever.

[Heridfel]

A voice rings out from the fire escape above their heads.

"While I appreciate that we've all caught up, we need to move, now," says Foreshadow as he swings his way down to land on top of a dumpster. "We're going to risk a portal. Network's been to see the Master Mage. Now's the time to strike."

Both Magister and Changeling react to that with great surprise. It's clear from Foreshadow's words that this isn't something that's commonly done. Of course, looking at Rant, one might think that Foreshadow said that they'd go to the supermarket. Considering that he would probably be diagnosed as a psychopath in any world that isn't laboring under a supervillain intent on destroying the universe, that's not a great surprise.

Icarus speaks up, "I can open a portal, but it won't go that far. Maybe five miles, tops. Where is the Master Mage?" Foreshadow shakes his head.

"No, China is entirely too far for you. The portal will come to us, but when I say move, move. He's only keeping it open for an instant. That gives us the best chance of Omega being inable to trace it," he says.

[Heridfel]

Icarus nods, and Grimalkin and Nanowire look at one another before moving closer together.

"Where will it be?" Magister asks.

"Right in front of you," Foreshadow says. "You and your sister will go first, then Rant and Icarus, then Nanowire and Grimalkin. I will go last."

Icarus looks over the groups. It seems like Foreshadow was choosing them by size. That said, he felt a little uncomfortable going to see the Master Mage in civilian wear. Had he thought about it, he didn't really want Foreshadow and Rant knowing what he looked like either. His armor reforms itself into its standard configuration of cobalt blue plate armor and a helm with black glass covering his face.

"So, uh, when is it coming?" Icarus asks Foreshadow, looking at the crimefighter with his radar rather than his eyes.

"Now!" Foreshadow shouts. A line seem to cut across the sky, forming a gap about 10 feet by 10 feet. It's similar in some ways to what Icarus can do, but the edges of this portal pulse with arcane energies, and there's no sense of being pulled through. Magister and Changeling jump through as Foreshadow speaks, and Icarus nearly lifts Rant up in his haste to get through. Nanowire and Grimalkin aren't far behind, and Foreshadow dives through the center of the portal as it closes up.

Only a few seconds later, a woman who looks like she was carved from ice, with a huge sword crackling with lightning at her side, floats into the alleyway.

"They have fled, Lord Centurion, but I shall soon have them," she speaks to the air.

[Heridfel]

Icarus stumbles through the portal. They're always a little disorienting, but this one isn't like the ones that he's made for himself. It has basically crossed the Earth in one fell swoop. He looks around in front of himself, even as he moves out of the way so that the others can come through.

The room is drab, gray concrete showing through chipped white latex paint. It looks like a cheap apartment with a wall or two knocked out to make the space larger. It definitely isn't what he had expected to find when they went to go see the Master Mage. Of course, this world does seem to be low on the amenities. Maybe this is the best that he could have expected.

There aren't many people in the room, besides the ones who just entered. Network is there, barely holding himself still as he vibrates in place. There's a young Asian man who looks like he fell into a vat of used computer parts and got half of them stuck to him. And then there's an old man, bald with long white mustaches. Despite his age, he appears vigorous, and Sean couldn't rightly say how old he is.

Foreshadow dives through the portal as it closes.

"Cutting it close, detective," the old man says. Foreshadow nods; he better than anyone knows exactly how close he was.

"It is what it was, Dr. Sin," Foreshadow answers him.

"Dr. Sin?!" Grimalkin all but shouts. Nanowire raises his hand as if he's about to say something, but then the other occupant of the room catches his eye. Even inside his armor, his surprise is clear for all to see. The armor sloughs off, and the resemblance becomes clearer. The young man and Ren are one and the same, changed by whatever happened different on this world.

[Heridfel]

"Ren..." Grimalkin says, looking between her boyfriend and his counterpart. She and he both know that the irony is that though Nanowire appears fully human, the half-man, half-machine is more human than he is.

"What did you do to yourself?" Ren all but shouts at the cyborg. "You were a man, and look at you!"

"Easy, Nanowire," Foreshadow says. "He didn't know about you before, and this is a different world."

Dr. Sin smiles slightly as he looks over the counterparts from the alternate timeline. Clearly, the two women are the same, and Nanowire and Cyber are one. Magister and the man in armor appear to be different from one another, though, and that bears some investigation.

[Heridfel]

"Foreshadow, you said something about now being the time to strike, so maybe we shouldn't be standing around flapping our yaps," Icarus says, taking charge for once as he looks around the room. "I figure we've got to take out Omega if we want to stop anything. Who else do we have with us?"

An uncomfortable silence pervades the room. Not even Dr. Sin looks like he wants to handle this one, but he steps up.

"Besides the men, and women," he says with a glance to Changeling and her twin, "in this room, there are only a few other 'heroes' left. Most of them are baseline humans, costumed adventurers like the Raven, but none of them come close to his caliber."

"You mean, between us, we're going up against Omega with the power of Centurion?" Icarus asks, his eyes wide open. Foreshadow steps up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"No. We've been fighting this fight a long time, and I've seen the different ways that it can end. Even with your help, there's no way that we could defeat him directly. He has hundreds of supers, heroes and villains, brainwashed into his service. He's killed hundreds of others. No, the only way to defeat him is to destroy his infernal device that seeks to draw this Earth into the Terminus," Foreshadow says. "It means our deaths and the destruction of this world, but if we don't, the omniverse is at stake."