ic This Was A Triumph [Outside] (IC)

[Fox]

[bg=#555555]"You didn't know--!"[/bg] Dragonfly's response was initially a sort of choked surprise, only mildly distracted by ordering her suit to vent or contain its heat better so that Ellie wouldn't have to let go. Anything but that. [bg=#555555]"Suit doesn't matter. Can build another from scratch if I have to. But you...didn't know where you'd gone, or if you were...."[/bg]

The faceplate on Dragonfly's armor split open on invisible seams, panels clicking back and out of the way so she could give Ellie a proper kiss before pulling her in and leaning her head against the medic's. "Shut up. Worried about me. Watched you - not you, but the wrong you - watched the wrong you get...."

She sniffed, sharply, as she fought back tears that could wait for later. "Found you," she whispered, in a voice that wasn't sure if it was supposed to be laughing or crying.

[Electra]

"Thank you for all your help," Erin told the Lor crewmen, pausing for just a moment at the hatch after Ellie made her spectacular exit. "You helped us save a lot of lives today. If you do ever come by Earth, just ask for the Liberty League." With that she stepped through the hatch and onto a ship that was surprisingly familiar. She'd had no chance for looking out windows, but she'd worked on this interior herself not that long ago. Because she knew where to go, because she saw Dorothy and the others being taken care of, she lost no time covering the short distance from the rear causeway to the command area, not even bothering with the nicety of the ladder that led up there.

With one bounce, she was standing on the bridge, eyes only for one person. "There's not many guys," she said, "who could take a seventy-five year old spaceship out of mothballs, fly it across the galaxy, and use it to scare the living hell out of a whole Grue squadron without firing a shot." She spent a moment drinking him in, dressed all for business now, but that didn't matter when her mind so easily filled in the face behind the blank mask, the always-tousled black hair under the fedora, the lean body under the long coat. All at once, her throat threatened to close up, making her swallow hard. "It's so good to see you."

[Avenger Assembled]

"You have saved us all," said Steve to the Lor seriously. "Thank you." Once he was on board the Nightdragon, Steve murmured to Dorothy, "The heroes have won the day. Everything will be all right. Come with me, and we can see this great ship." As happy as he was to see Dragonfly, a familiar face who was a pathway home, he left her to her reunion and walked to the bridge of the ship with his young charge in tow. He hated to interrupt Erin and Midnight's reunion, but he stepped in anyway, wanting to introduce Dorothy to more of her rescuers. And that was when he saw Gina, sitting by herself in a chair near the corner of the room, the bruised, all-too-familiar face that had been high in his mind in the dark nights of his exile.

She had crossed the depths of space to find him, she had left her house for him. And she was here, which meant whatever his double had done couldn't have been too terrible. "You came for me," he said again, looking at Gina with wide eyes, "through all this space." He said the words that had been on his mind all that time, heedless of everyone around. "I love you, Gina." He didn't hesitate, bending down and pulling her up into his arms to give her a long, lingering kiss on the lips.

[Raveled]

Blue Jay had watched the space battle in wide-eyed wonderment. So many huge creatures dancing through the void, throwing around unbelievable energies. It took her back to her days among the Furions, but these warriors did not attack with song and boasting. There was a cold silence to these actions, and a focused anger to it all that made her shiver.

She made sure her weapons were stowed before crossing over to the new ship. She moved to follow the hologram (at least she knew what those were) and in moments it seemed like she was surrounded by tearful reunions. It tugged at her heart, and she moved to speak to the woman in the black uniform. "Excuse moi," she said, "but is there a girl here from Claremont Academy? Green eyes, pale skin, keeps her back bare?"

[Electra]

Gina startled for a moment at the contact, not an unusual reaction for her, then curled her fingers into his shirt and hung on tightly. After the kind of day she'd had already, the declaration that had sent her running a few weeks ago was barely enough to faze her. In fact, maybe it was even a little bit nice to hear. "Miss A is broken," she murmured when they'd broken the kiss, turning her head to hide her face in his neck. "But I couldn't leave you out here alone. Just... can we get off the bridge someplace? I can't take much more of this." There were way too many people on a ship this size, and with Steve rescued, there wasn't a mission to focus on. "I just want to get home."

At her side, Emerson peeped for attention, pointing helpfully in the direction of the tiny sensor control room off the bridge. It was barely big enough for two people to sit on the floor, but it had a door that would close, which was the main concern.

[Gizmo]

Redbird's projection waved Dorothy back to the others as Steve was quickly distracted, ushering the younger group into a central room outfitted as a sort of galley, a long table down its length and several boxes of hastily stacked supplies along one of the longer walls. "I am not precisely sure what the culturally acceptable age is among humans to witness certain thing but I have learned to 'play it safe', aha!" the machine intelligence chuckled a little awkwardly, adjusting the collar of her uniform and doing her best to keep track of where everyone was on the ship without invading any privacy.

Turning to Tona, she considered. "I do not believe any of the crew are currently attending that training hall," she admitted, bending slightly again in a pose suggestive of an older sister, "but we were forced to depart before everyone who wanted to come could be gathered. Haste was key and there was much chaos in the city!" Spotting the young woman's box, Redbird snapped her fingers. "Ah, the archer! I understand your robotic doppelganger was particularly devastating in combat!" The statuesque woman evidently meant it as a compliment and it was hard for Tona to doubt she had some connection to the Furions. "Fleur de Joie was very helpful and battlesmith Dragonfly mentioned her battlemate's extended family would be sore over missing out on the battle. I believe some sort of young vulpine contacted the lifeweaver as well? We were quite focused on prevent your duplicate from immolating itself!" she told Baxter cheerily as she straightened. After a beat she assured him, "Ultimately it did, of course. Fwoosh!"

[Gizmo]

"To be fair," Midnight noted as he extricated one hand then the other from the harness of controls bracketing his arms up to the elbows, "also fired a lot of shots." Rising from the control chair he waited just long enough for Steve and Hallowmen's mousy friend to abscond before unfastening his mask to let it hang about his neck, setting his beaten fedora down on the corner of the seat's back.

Though he hadn't been through nearly the ordeal Erin had been, he was obviously the worse for wear, cheekbones a little more pronounced than usual behind a few days of dark stubble. "Should have been here sooner," he murmured as he stepped closer, hesitant in his movements, part of him not sure he could trust his senses and another not sure he deserved for them to be right. "Should have figured it out sooner. Should... I'm so sorry, Erin."

[Electra]

Erin made a rude noise to dismiss the apology, smiling as she closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. "What, you wanted to cut short my first vacation in four years?" She cut off any further self-recrimination with the simple expedient of sliding a hand up into his hair and kissing him breathless. When she finally broke off to let him breathe, it was to rest her forehead against his cheek and just hold on for a few moments. "I was scared at first," she admitted. "When I realized we weren't on Earth anymore and I had no idea what was going on back at home. But I realized I didn't have to worry because you wouldn't stop until you found me, even if I couldn't get back by myself. And here you are, flying our spaceship and everything."

[Raveled]

Blue Jay felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, and she sorely wished the woman before her was solid so she could have someone to hug. Instead she leaned against a wall and rubbed at her eyes. "I'm sure I was... I mean, I hope I didn't... dieu bon sang tous en enfer." She took a deep breath and tried to push the welter of emotions she was feeling into a part of her brain where she could lock it away, and deal with it later.

After a minute or so she looked the holographic woman over. "You're, um. You're a Furion, aren't you? Don't tell me the Terminus tried to sneak in here while the heroes were distracted."

[Avenger Assembled]

Without another word, Steve picked Gina up in his arms and carried her through the sensor control room door like a groom at the threshold. No fool, Redbird let the automatic sliding door seal shut behind them as the two of them were together plunged into the dim light of a room lit only by control panels. He set her down, arms still around her, and looked into her eyes. "You are hurt. What happened? Did it hurt you?" Steve knew the phenomenon of replicants and how they might move among the populace at will only too well - he had no illusions about what was the human and what was not.

"Do you mean...hah-hah!" Dorothy giggled and put her hands over her mouth for a moment. "Gross!" She took a ration bar and began wolfing it down, looking delighted to have something to eat that was actually fresh. "These are great! Oh man, I can't wait to see everyone's face when I tell them they were fooled by some stupid robot this whole time!"

"I know, right?" Stratos had joined the girl in the galley and had found a meal of his own. "People are stupid. And believe me, the last thing I want to see is superheroes canoodling. Life of the mind, ladies, that's how to live," he said with a wink at his companions. "Yeah, are you one of their cyber-things?" He asked Redbird. "Those guys are great! They're like Viking bikers in space. Mean, though."

[Electra]

The close quarters in the control room meant that Gina sitting across Steve's lap, but for once she didn't mind. It was just such a relief to be somewhere quiet, somewhere private, with him and away from all the strangers filling the ship. She rested her head against his chest and listened to the strange metallic thrumming of his augmented heart beating behind its shell of metal. Odd she'd never noticed before what a reassuring sound it was. "I did it to myself," sort of," she admitted in answer to his question. "The robot duplicates the Curator made of all of you were set to turn bad all at once, to maximize the chaos it would create. Gabriel and Miss A were in Blackstone Prison with your replica. He killed the Shadivan Steelgrave clone imprisoned there, and tried to detonate the nuclear reactor that powers the prison. To stop him, I ordered the security staff to blanket the prison with a high-powered EMP blast. It worked, but it destroyed the Miss A robot too. The feedback was pretty intense, blew out some blood vessels and gave me a hell of a headache."

She winced at the memory. "When I came to, Dragonfly was standing over me, so I guess you know how fun that was. When my vital signs got weird, the automated systems in my house issued a distress call. You and Sharl weren't available-" and here she tensed slightly, "so when those calls failed, Dragonfly was third on the list. But she at least knew what was going on, and that it was the Curator behind everything. She needed help analyzing the robots, so... so I went." Gina took a deep breath. "It had to be done. But now I really, really, really want to go home." She lifted a hand to touch his face very lightly. "What about you? Are you okay? Was it very dangerous where you were?"

[Gizmo]

Ellie sniffed through her smile, rocking her head against Mara's as she replied, "Yeah, you did. You found me." Tilting her head she kissed her girlfriend back with a clumsy intensity reserved for a first drink of water after a drought. "I love you so much,"she breathed as the Lor ship surreptitiously uncoupled from the rear of the Nightdragon and sped off toward its larger sibling, for all it went completely unnoticed by the occupants of the saucer. "I should say it more often. All the time. I love you, Mara." Another kiss was broken only to add with a tired laugh, "I could also really use a shower."

[Fox]

Mara just held Ellie close for a moment, smiling. "Love you, too. Always." She sniffed back a tear or two, and chuckled. "And, yes, shower for you would be good. Both of us, I think - had to disable most of my suit's scrubbers a while ago, and the rest is barely working now. Kind of gross in my bodysuit, here."

She offered another kiss before reluctantly pulling away, holding onto her girlfriend's hands and pulling her deeper into the ship. "Come on. Helped put this thing back together - happen to know where the best shower is. Closest to the cycling tank. Optimal heat and water pressure. Everyone else can find their own."

[Gizmo]

"No matter how far," Trevor promised quietly, returning the embrace and squeezing his eyes shut until nothing remained in his universe but the young woman pressed against him. "Let Redbird cheat a little for us," he admitted when he finally let himself regain awareness of the ship surrounding them. "Still some work left when we get back, but if we hadn't already been working on it... Helped save yourself." Something about that struck the young engineer as exceptionally appropriate, drawing forth a faint shadow of a smile on his weary face. "Was scared at first, too, but knew you'd stay alive until I could find you."

[Electra]

"Piece of cake," Erin assured him. "The Curator didn't seem to want us dead, just under control. He dropped us down in some weird clone version of Freedom City, but one that had been cloned after some disaster emptied it out. Nothing alive, but tons of food and supplies just there for the taking. And maybe it was a little bit too close to home sometimes," she admitted, "but having a team helped.It was worse for Quickstep. She got taken earlier, all by herself, and almost starved before we got there. She's just a kid, too, so it was hard on her. But hey, we'll get her back to her parents in time for Christmas, give her a few sessions with Dr. Marquez, she should be okay."

Erin broke off suddenly when a movement on the lower bridge caught her eye. She'd barely had time to pivot when she was attacked by a ball of crying orange fur that attached itself to her pant leg in an implacable grip. "Charlie!" she exclaimed with delight, carefully disengaging the kittens claws and scooping him into her arms. "You got to come along too, huh? You didn't start talking while I was gone, did you? I'm not sure I could handle that." Charlie disclaimed any knowledge of such an ability by purring loudly and rubbing his chin against her fingers while she scritched him. "Both my favorite guys came to rescue me. Pretty good deal."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I have been in far more dangerous situations," said Steve with perfect truth as he considered the desperate flight across the dead planet, erupting from the surface of the Ringworld to the Curator's stronghold... "And I had fine companions by my side. We escaped the Curator's machines and fled his construct hale and hearty, and that is all the victory I want. As for the rest...the past cannot be changed. What matters is today, and every tomorrow after that." He closed his eyes for a moment, considering her words. "There was a disaster. And chaos. But you would not have abandoned Earth if you were needed there." He opened them and looked at her, his lined face lit oddly by the room's dim green lights. "I am glad you came for me, Gina. When I heard your voice, I was impressed at your bravery in sending your consciousness across the galaxy for me. But this is so much more."

[Gizmo]

Redbird did her best to mimic what she'd seen of human displays of comfort on Earth's various media, miming patting Tona's head with her insubstantial projected hand and giving her a smile which was a little on the toothy side to be entirely reassuring. "Indeed! I am an autonomic machine intelligence currently pair-bonded to the shadow-walker Midnight!" She gave the archer an appraising look, tilting her head to one side. "You are familiar with the people of the Silver Tree? I have not been well-informed in the comings and goings of that place in the time since by previous partner Red Falcon fell in a glorious last stand against an entire army of wretched Omegadrones!" She raised a fist in salute and didn't quite unclench it when she turned her attention to Stratos. "You I do recognize, villain, but in light of our common foe this day I will refrain from jettisoning you into the void, provided you pose no threat to my charges." Straightening her chauffeur's jacket, the hologram sniffed. "And I am not of the Overriders, thank you. I know something of speed." With that, the Nightdragon's faster-than-light engines powered up once again and began rocketing the craft back toward Earth.

[SpicyWaffle]

What a long, strange trip it had been. For Baxter, stepping onto that teleporter back on the Curator's world and running over to the Nightdragon felt like the longest minutes of his life; every heartbeat seeming to last an eternity in the wake of the fantastic space battle. Yet, despite the elongated sense of time, everything still felt like it had happened so fast. Where once panic and dismay gnawed at Baxter's conscience, the overwhelming relief in the wake of all that had happened had taken its place, leaving the young teenager on the border of mental and physical exhaustion. Even with all the bubbling emotions teeming within the mechanical saucer from all the unfamiliar and familiar faces alike, all Baxter wanted to do was trudge along to the galley as he was instructed and just collapse. Without skipping a beat, the yellow-and-black armor peeled away amidst Tona, Stratos, and Redbird alike without a single care as the dark-skinned youth sank into a nearby seat, a look of exasperation promptly displayed on his face.

His heart skipped a beat at the mention of the duplicates, and his owns self-termination. For a moment, Baxter almost seemed like he was going to ask the holographic construct something about that, mouth agape for a solid moment before sealing itself shut through pursed lips. He didn't want to dwell on it -- not right now. He'd earned his reprieve; they all had.

"He did a good job," Baxter wheezed out quietly in Stratos' defense. "If it wasn't for Doctor Stratos, we might've walked into a deathtrap back at Freedom Hall." The Bee-Keeper paused for a moment, giving the mad doctor a small smile. He might have been a villainous cad, but he was still a person-- a crazy person, but a person nonetheless.

"Sorry. Y'know, about yelling at you earlier," Baxter said without an ounce of sarcasm, a slight nod being tossed towards the weather-controller.

[Gizmo]

Trevor blinked a few times at Erin's words, giving her enough time to scoop up Charlie before he could respond. "In time...? Erin, it's the middle of January," he explained with a wince big enough to be easily noticeable on his stoic features. "Your duplicate... started a fight, and you always prefer space during the holidays..." He couldn't help but feel he was making excuses as he tried to explain. Rubbing the back of his head with one hand, he kept the other around the auburn haired powerhouse's waist. "Punched a hole in the kitchen wall."

[Electra]

Gina patted Steve's face lightly. "Things on Earth were mostly contained by the time we left," she assured him. "We had a bead on who all the robots were, got them contained, and then it was just a matter of mopping up the damage. Except..." She hesitated for a moment, frowning at nothing. "There was a Curator ship, one of the larger droneships, parked over the North Pole. I got a message from Sharl that he and Young Freedom were going to try and face it down. I assumed they succeeded when the robots spontaneously destructed themselves. But I'm sure now that something bad happened to Sharl. When I was in the Curator's mainframe, there were... it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't see code the way I do. There were pieces of him mixed in with the pieces of Curator. Like a viral payload, almost, but made up of essential code. As soon as we get back, we need to find out what happened."

[Avenger Assembled]

The news that their return might have required the death of Gina's friend and assistant was enough to cast a chill over the room for the former Omegadrone, dark though it already was. "Oh." Steve put his arms around her and hugged her, putting his forehead against hers. "It sounds as though it was something more than just destruction, at least, or surely no trace at all would remain...Was his data protected?" Having no particular hangups about artificial life, he knew perfectly well that Gina kept copies of her assistant's memories and personality handy. It was not an uncommon trick in the Terminus, though that was one thing he would never, ever tell her. If something had happened permanently to Sharl, though, then their rescue was not the triumph he had hoped for, especially when weighed against what sounded like a serious crisis on Earth.

[Raveled]

"I spent some time with the Furions, oui. It was only a few days, but it's hard to mistaken a Furion as anything but a Furion. Um." She eyed Dorothy and Stratos, both of them tearing into the available rations. Intellectually, the young archer knew that she should get something to eat herself. She had burned a lot of calories these past few days, and while Wander was almost as good at scavenging in a city as Jay was at hunting in the forest it resulted in a lot of canned meals that weren't to Blue Jay's tastes. Now she had a shot at a whole new menu, but she couldn't bring herself to even look at the food. "Redbird, are there beds in back? I kind of want to go to sleep. And not wake up until we're home."

[Electra]

"Middle of January?" Erin's face went still for a moment as she tried to absorb that. She'd realized on the ringworld that there was a possibility they'd lost time in transit, but she'd thought no more than a few days, not nearly a month! No wonder Trevor was feeling guilty about not catching on. "Those must have been some really convincing doppelgangers," she finally said. "And it's probably just as well we didn't know how long it had been. Would've made me even more nervous about what was going on back home."

She sat down in the central command chair, stroking Charlie's fuzzy head and trying to put her thoughts in order. "I guess we missed a lot more than we thought, then. What, um... what did she do, she and you? What was she like?"

[Gizmo]

"Could explain the layers of organ mimicry and sensor baffling we found taking them apart, but probably wouldn't make anyone feel better," Trevor sighed with a long face, letting his hand slip from Erin's waist as she took a seat and leaning heavily against one of the cockpit's walls. "Had all your memories... hnh? No. No." he clarified sharply raising both hands as the young woman skirted around what was an obvious question in hindsight. "Not that. Duplicates all made excuses to avoid... personal intimacy. Thought you -- it -- needed time alone. The holidays," the dark haired heir repeated weakly, feeling foolish and looking utterly beaten. "...adept at manipulation."

[Electra]

Erin studied Trevor for a minute, then gave Charlie a kiss between the ears and set him down on the floor, where he immediately scampered off to harass the little robot in the corner. "Well, it kind of does make me feel better," she allowed, letting herself see the bizarre humor in the situation. "I mean, the Curator made a robot with my memories and it stayed sane for almost six entire weeks. I think that's promising." She rose from the chair again and crossed over to him, sticking her hands in the pockets of her borrowed clothes. "But I feel kind of bummed now, because I missed the holidays. You had to put up with another year of crazy Erin, and I really wasn't going to do that this year."

She leaned against the wall next to him, her face inches from his. "I had plans for us to do Christmas together, you know, maybe put up a tree and stuff, do eggnog and turkey and presents with your grandpa and all that. Do you think it's too late?"