ic Leaves in the Wind [IC]

[Avenger Assembled]

"You are in another place, child," said Frost, not unkindly as he circled around behind her. Having the woman hurl herself off the side of the building, as she looked like to do from the look in her eyes, would certainly accomplish nothing. Frowning, he slipped his spectacles off and put them in his parka pocket. "You have come far from your home, and are stranger here. Tell us where you are from, and perhaps we can reunite you with your Great Mother," When he was standing behind her, briefly facing the rest of the group, he mouthed exaggeratedly, "NOT MAGIC" and pointed to the woman before continuing. "This place is called Freedom City, in nation called United States, in city called Freedom City."  

[Electra]

Fleur spared a single annoyed look at Comrade Frost for his high-handedness, but at least by getting up, he'd removed his aura of cold from the immediate vicinity. She gave the woman a pleasant smile."You've obviously had quite a shock. How are you feeling?" The woman certainly looked much better after Willow's ministrations, but the memory of plants exploding out of the stranger's body was quite a vivid one. "If you've come here from another world, we may be able to help you get home. We don't mean you any harm." 

[trollthumper]

"Freedom City?" The woman shook her head, as if trying to dismiss the last lingering traces of sleep. "Yes... yes, I remember. I read about it in some of the books in the Hall of Knowledge. It's in New Jersey, isn't it? How did I get all the way across the country? Was I --?"

 

She blanched when Fleur continued the line of questioning, panic creeping across her face. "What...? Another world? No!" She got to her feet and looked out to the horizon, as if trying to find some sign of the familiar. "It can't be... I can't have gone..." She turned back to the heroes, desperation crawling across her face. "You must have heard of it, right? Eden? The dominion of the Mother, and the herald of her glorious return? You must have... please, tell me you have, you must have..." 

 

She looked very much like a woman who was afraid the ice was cracking under her feet. 

[Fox]

"I'm...afraid it doesn't ring any bells," Gaian Knight admitted, shaking his head helplessly. "I might just need to spend more time reading through our files, but I can't say I've heard of any Eden like the one you're describing. Please, don't worry, though," he added, holding his hands up. "We may not know where you're from but if you need to get back, we'll do what we can to get you there. We just want to make sure you're alright, first - I don't think any of us wants a repeat of, ah...."

He trailed off and gestured at the broken glass and decayed plant matter, grimacing. "You gave us a heck of a scare."

[Electra]

"Eden?" Fleur repeated, startled. She glanced at Willow, paling a little. "The herald of the dominion of the Mother?" She moistened lips that had suddenly gone very dry. That sounded all too familiar to anyone who'd been closely involved in the arrival of the Gorgon. Surely the Gorgon couldn't be coming back, not already! "I may have heard something like that," she told the woman very carefully. "Can you tell us more about the Mother's glorious return? We really want to know." Idly she rolled seeds between her fingers,a nervous habit that meant she had a weapon close to hand if necessary. 

[trollthumper]

"I was a child when it happened," said the woman. "I remember the great quake, the birth pains - I remember my mother calling for me..." She shook her head, as if trying to banish a horrible memory. "Afterwards, things were chaotic. I was alone, in what was left of my apartment. And then... then the vines began poking through the cracks in the earth. Working their way up the towers of glass and steel. By the end of the day, the entire city was covered in her glory. The Champions appeared then. Haruspex led them, and said that Gaia had awoken from long slumber, and had come to show favor to her creation once more. The city was hers now, to be called 'Eden.'"

 

She smiled. "I remember others telling days of those times. They didn't know what was going on, didn't know how to deal with the edicts of Gaia. But soon, the city began to provide. Shelter for the exposed, food for the hungry, communications for the disparate. And she worked her way outwards." A frown crept over her face. "There were people who didn't like it. The outsiders. I remember curling up in the basement of a school when the Army came. But some of them saw her glory. They stayed behind while the others were driven back. Gaia's been good to us. She's given us a life that steel and wires couldn't." 

[Avenger Assembled]

Frost looked appalled beneath his cowl at the woman's words, putting two and two together and finding something grim there in its place. He had dealt with visitors from other worlds before, as well as his share of religious fanatics, but this was something else entirely. "You are on another world, child," he told her frankly. "Some quirk of fate has cast you adrift on the currents of the world. But worry not, we are your friends and we will return you to your home." The last part might well have been a lie, but this was hardly the first he'd told. He patted the young woman reassuringly on the arm, his smile cool. "Your, ah, seed will not grow too far from Mother's garden after all. Look, see, some of us have the same powers you did."

 

When the girl glanced at Fleur and Willow, Frost mouthed behind her, "What sort of hell..." 

[Fox]

"Some of it sounds a little familiar," Tiamat said, watching the woman with the laid-back caution of a predator animal presented with something new and novel. Though, admittedly, that seemed to be how she regarded most things. "The Champions are a team from the West Coast; pretty sure Haruspex was on it, but she's...not, now, I think."

That got her a questioning glance from Gaian Knight, as much for the uncharacteristic caginess as the unusual level of knowledge. The woman's story was...unsettling, but there was only so much of that mental discomfort that he was willing to let on to in fear of disturbing or frightening her. Better to at least superficially focus on other things.... "Have you been reading reading the files I suggested? I'm kind of impressed; I didn't think you-"

"Daytime television."

"Ah."

[Electra]

Fleur's eyes were wide as she looked at the others. "Well, at least it's not the Gorgon," she murmured, but what the woman was describing didn't sound good at all. "So this Great Mother entity," she asked cautiously, "it consumed a major city on the West Coast with plant life, and the Champions were somehow involved as well?" She shrugged her own helplessness. "It doesn't sound like any dimension I've been to, and I've seen a lot of plant dimensions over the past few years. Do you remember anything about how you traveled here?" she asked the disoriented woman. 

[trollthumper]

The woman furrowed her brow in concentration. "I... remember something..." she said. "Salt water... broken steel, but not the red steel, the other bridge, the one that they cut down after Her arrival... I walked across a courtyard, the stones cracked, and then... there was a building... the building was thrumming... and then there was white light, lots of white light." 

 

Her eyes lit up. "I think I was at the Athenaeum! Not many people are allowed to go there - you have to get approval from the Handmaidens before you're allowed to search the old knowledge. They say it's because there's too much of the false ways there - too much metal, too many pollutants. They tried tearing the world apart before She took control. When it was... Berkeley. I think that was its name."

[Avenger Assembled]

What struck Frost, more than anything else, was the woman's lack of fear. She had fallen across how many dimensional barriers, been torn away from her native soil, however bizarre that soil sounded, and yet she seemed almost...drugged? Or perhaps those are your old fears talking. "Come, child," he reassured her again, "we will take care of you. We have mighty magics and powers that can cross between dimensions, and we can send you home." He wanted, badly, to converse with his team, but lacking the telepaths and magical mentalists of his own team, they were on their own. Perhaps we should learn hand signals. "But I am speaking out of turn. I am guest here as well. Friends of the League, can we take this woman to the Hall to have wounds studied, and then take her home? Porheps we can go with as a precaution. To see the Mother's glory for ourselves." 

[Fox]

"I think that's reasonable," Gaian Knight agreed. Behind him, the bits of earth and stone that had once been his platform flowed together into a simple archway, though it remained silent and unlit. "At the very least we can't stay here - I imagine we can find a quiet room back at the Hall to sort things out in." He didn't mention it, but it went without saying that 'a quiet room' would also be one with half-decent and preferably subtle security and quarantine. She seemed like a nice young woman - if a little...off? - but there was no sense in taking any chances if she decided it was time to bloom again.

The stone archway began to glow, power running along it like the golden veins of the Earth itself and the area beneath it filling in with a soft, warm light. "Fortunately, we're never more than a couple steps away."

[Electra]

Fleur offered the young woman a hand to get her on her feet, and a reassuring smile to get her moving. "Yes, let's get you out of the cold. It's been so unseasonable here this year, all I want to do is curl up in a warm room with a cup of cocoa. Just step right through this door with me, not a bit dangerous, and we'll be at the Hall. If anyone here knows where you come from, someone there will. They've got plenty of knowledge, new and old." She stepped partway through the portal, then leaned back in to reassure the woman. "See, just a quick step. What's your name?" she asked kindly, hoping to distract the girl just for another few moments. 

[trollthumper]

"I'm Annabelle," she said. "Annabelle of Orchids. Because I was from the Orchids district, see? Oh, you should see Orchids. It's this great hill, and running down the middle - in this big, thick, zig-zagging stripe - are the greatest orchids you've ever seen. Black, purple... they hold a market there every other Saturday..."

 

As Annabelle talked on and on about her vision of home, she was willing to subject herself to the tests necessary to pinpoint her location. The initial test was rather easy - a simple scan to pick up any sort of cosmic radiation she might have absorbed as the doorway between universes opened. After it was properly detected and spectralized, it was fed into the League's multiversal cartographer. That took a bit more work, as even with a quantum computer designed by a mind such as Daedalus, charting all the infinite possibilities of everything took a few hours. In time, however, Annabelle's home universe was locked down to the smallest possible point of deviation. A minor window was opened soon after, providing a satellite look at the area on the West Coast... including the crawling carpet of solid green that seemed to make up a good chunk of Northern California. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Comrade Frost said a bad word, and for a moment badly craved the comforting warmth of a cigarette. "Their world has plague. And she is, was, carrier." He studied the map, hands steepled on the table before him. "Would normally suspect fae involvement at this juncture but there was no sign of magic on her body, not even the sort one would simply find from passing between dimensions through their doors. This must have some other origin." This was the sort of thing he had spent many years thinking about, enough that he could make some guesses. "I am disturbed by news that Champions were intimately involved in early stages of this...Eden. And that it remains despite opposition from   military and government. I suspect powers at work we cannot see. Are you capable of making contact through the portal?" he inquired.    

[April]

Willow had kept quiet through most of the proceeding exchange and, save the frightened glance she gave Fleur at the initial mention of Eden, she barely reacted to the information the girl--Annabelle--supplied.  But the ancient guardian was inclined to agree with Comrade Frost, at least by the standards of 'Prime,' their young visitor's world was out of balance and 'sick.'

 

"I do not think that is a good idea."  The dryad said.  "I do not want this 'Mother' being made aware of my world.  Nor will I allow risking the welfare of this child to satisfy your curiosity.  If you want to talk to 'Mother' do it yourself."

[Fox]

"She might already be aware," Gaian Knight pointed out. "We all know random dimensional shenanigans do happen, but this young woman showing up and trying to 'bloom' here so far from home does seem awfully...coincidental."

Tiamat snorted dismissively, though she didn't seem to like the look of the green carpet any more than the others. "It happens - I'd know. But even if it was some kind of stupid accident, they might know now if they're already trying to find out where she went."

"Also true. We know they still have technology, and whoever this 'Mother' is, she's apparently quite powerful - who knows what resources she has access to? I'm not ready to jump to the conclusion that it's some kind of plague, but whatever it is, it'd be worth knowing more than we do now, just in case."

[Electra]

Fleur was quiet for a long time, studying the satellite image of the green mass. "It's so unnatural," she finally said, suppressing a shudder as she pushed the image away. "Plants don't spread that way, and no sane, responsible plant controller would make them spread like that. You can't just turn the West Coast into deciduous forest, it's ridiculous, even before you count the human cost, which is sure to have been appalling. And did you see Annabelle talk about that? Her neighbors, her own mother... they're all gone and she didn't even care. I'm not sure what's been done to her, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were drugs or mind control involved somewhere." 

 

She tapped her fingers together and looked at the others. "I think we have to go and see what's happening there. They have some kind of dimensional transport capability, and they're dialed in on Earth Prime. Better that we go now than have them keep coming to us." She looked at Willow. "Will Jack be all right with the kids for a few hours? I can call up a couple more babysitters if necessary." 

[Avenger Assembled]

"I will take moment to prepare myself," said Frost as he rose to his feet. "I have some experience dealing with hostile dimensions overrun by uncontrolled growths, though plants in California will be entirely new to me. Best if we have way to keep in touch with each other and with magical realms in dimension we visit. Back in one minute." He headed for the small room he had turned into his office during his liason assignment and began digging for supplies, pulling together the magical arsenal that would make it possible to reach Hel, Nergal, and the other gods with whom he had had dealings over the years. Even in another dimension, the words would be the same, though they would only know him at a remove. 

[trollthumper]

After ensuring that Willow and Fleur's babysitting concerns were well taken care of, it was a matter of securing the Hall before travel. Annabelle was led to the infirmary for observation; if there was some minute trace of whatever agent had been used to control her left in her system, the infirmary's pathogen detection system would be quick to spring a quarantine and lock it down. Plus, Cynthia would be able to use some of the remote faculties to ensure that Annabelle was comfortable and cared for. 

 

Once it was clear Annabelle would be looked over, the gate was opened. Daedalus had invented an alternate program for Freedom Hall's teleporter system back in the Seventies ("Wouldn't it be nice if we could figure out how many universes where the Nazis won existed before they all showed up on our door step?"); it wasn't meant to be used casually or run often, but with a proper signature, it could easily dial through the haze of multiversal static and lock onto the proper vibrational frequency that served as the membrane between worlds. The team gathered up their retrieval beacons - devices that, with time, could either build a proper temporary gateway between worlds or rip a crude hole for a "ripcord" effect back to Earth-Prime - and, secure for the journey, crossed over to the world of the green.

 

As the furious storm of cosmic energy receded from their vision, the team found themselves in a fairly well-lit dome. Glass, mostly intact, ringed the sides, while light streamed in from windows on all sides of the nearly circular room. The only sign of disrepair seemed to be long, creeping vines that snaked up to the ceiling. The center of the room - a chamber recessed into the floor - was mostly taken up by a gigantic apparatus, run through with cables and tubes, seemingly bootstrapped to a smaller apparatus. Judging by the resounding clicks on the dimensional beacons, this must have been where Annabelle set off from. 

[Electra]

Fleur looked around the dome, then extended her senses around the dome as well, trying to get a handle on exactly what it was they were dealing with. Her eyes unfocused for a moment, her pupils shrinking to pinpoint size before she sat on the ground, abruptly and hard. "Wow," she murmured, putting her hands to the sides of her head. "There is... there's so much plant life out there. I've never felt anything like it." She passed a hand over her face, then looked up at the others. "Just green everywhere, like it's eaten the city, but nothing natural. There's no competition for resources, no opportunistic plants choking out anything else. It's like there's a plan..." Fleur hesitated for a moment, then plowed on. "And when I listen to the plants, it feels like there's someone listening back. A consciousness, but I don't know anything more than that."

[Fox]

It took Gaian Knight a moment to adjust to the new world's earth, as it always did - dimension-hopping always left him with the uncomfortable feeling that he'd been briefly blindfolded and silenced before being tossed into a new and unfamiliar room. Still, taking stock didn't take long; it wasn't more than a few seconds before he had an array of stones, some native and some from the pockets of his coat, floating up and behind his shoulders. Not that he wanted to be terribly threatening - and he was sure to keep them relaxed and unshaped - but it was always worth being prepared.

"....well," he said, knight and dragon both looking away from the room-dominating machinery toward Fleur and the others, "that's a little ominous, especially coming from you. What do you suppose the odds are that they already know we're here?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Excellent," replied Comrade Frost, adjusting his parka unconsciously as he looked around the room. He walked up to the linked native devices and rested a gloved hand against them, feeling the electric heat of the metal beneath. "We could destroy these and return to our dimension, leaving only ashes and frozen steel in our wake. Even if the technology can be rebuilt, which I am skeptical of given what we have seen here, we would have demonstrated that we are not to be trifled with. But I am loathe to leave these people to their fate, not to mention leaving such an enemy left uncaptured." He turned back to the others. "So, what should we do, hmm? I suggest we find local inhabitants and gain some idea of reality of this place. If all are like Annabelle, it will..clarify our task some. And then there is contacting authorities outside of forest..." 

[April]

"They sing," Willow said in a low voice, her head cocked to the side as if listening to something.  "Hymns," she continued opening her eyes and glancing at the rest of the group.  "That is the best I can explain it.  The plants are singing hymns."  The golden eyed woman didn't like being off-world.  It made her feel disconnected and out of sync with her surroundings; even Sanctuary, despite her frequent visits, felt foreign to her.  Suppressing a small shudder, Willow eyed the chamber warily.

 

"Whatever we do, let's make it quick," she murmured.  "I'm with Frost.  Let's destroy their means to travel to my world and depart.  We do not belong here, and interference could be catastrophic."

[trollthumper]

The hymnals Willow heard over the vines increased in pitch and magnitude, as if the divine itself was visiting the congregation. It was enough warning to get the team clear of the main doors to the facility, as door steps echoed down the long hall outside. The doors opened, revealing a strange crew. A middle-aged man in a tattered coat led a young man dressed in simple, homespun clothes forward towards the apparatus at the center of the room. But the individuals who flanked them were most noteworthy - two athletic women with long hair the color of olives and skin the color of fresh leaves. Fleur and Willow could both instantly tell that these women were plants as well. 

 

"Is the Seed ready?" asked one plant woman.

 

"Yes," said the older man, in a tone somewhere between fear and reverence. "I just need to get the gate working. I don't know how many more of these trips we can make - the grid's been unused for years, and to put so much stress on it --"

 

"You will make it work, Doctor," said the guard, "or we will find another who will --"

 

The other plant woman held up her hand. "Hold, sister," she said. "Can't you hear our brethren? Others of the flesh have been here." The two guards broke from the main party, slowly patrolling for the intruders...