ic Midnight Dynasty

[Electra]

"I guess the blood gets kinda thin after a dozen generations or so," Erin commented, watching the tarp-covered interloper with unconcealed disgust. "Not having superpowers is no excuse not to be a hero. It's a really crappy reason to become a villain. What the hell are we supposed to do with you now?" 

 

"I've got a couple ideas!" Knightfall put in helpfully. 

 

"What about Dr. Tomorrow?" Tensile asked quickly, before Knightfall could offer any of her suggestions. "He's active at this point, right? Keeping the timestream clean and all that? I remember him one time from school, he did a presentation on avoiding paradox. Maybe we could get him to take this guy off our hands." 

 

"It's a possibility," Sojourner agreed, her tone thoughtful. "Otherwise we might have to try rewriting his memory in order to safeguard him for imprisonment in one of our times, and that's no picnic. Erase too much of someone's memory and you've given them a quick and dirty lobotomy. Which may be deserved, but it's not really our style." 

[Avenger Assembled]

In a timely fashion, the front door rang. Ding-dong, ding-dong! Pulling up the security camera outside was easy enough given all the high technology in the room - and standing outside on the front porch was the person who had rung the bell. He was a new face for the kids, but after several moments of looking Trevor and Erin could recognize him easily enough - though it was a face they had not seen in ages! Quark, for it was clearly their former Claremont colleague, had grown into a tall, slender young man who appeared to be in his late twenties - his rainbow-colored hair had been cut into a short crewcut and his face had lost most of its adolescent discoloration, but there was no mistaking those flashing golden eyes or that familiar posture as he rocked back and forth, patiently waiting for the door to open.

 

He wore a black, unlabeled jumpsuit and carried an artifact, a long staff that bore an hourglass on the end; which at the moment he was tossing back and forth from hand to hand as he waited. 

[Gizmo]

Trevor spent a few beats looking at the camera feed before grunting in a noncommittal fashion and going to answer the door without further comment. Hematite looked from his departing ancestor back to the screen, mouth pressed into a thin line of confusion. "Are we supposed to know who that is?" he asked finally, picking up from the group that he wasn't the only one unable to place the face of the garishly haired new arrival.

"...time cop?" Mystery hazarded a guess hesitantly, inferring from the uniform and staff but then scrunching up her shoulders and hiding a little behind Sojourner once the fanciful suggestion had left her lips.

"What, and he shows up now?!" Daybreak exclaimed, letting go of his sister finally and making a face that proved their mother's temper hadn't been handed down exclusively to Knightfall. "After we've already fixed almost everything? Shouldn't handling this sort of thing be their job?!"

Elsewhere, Trevor opened the front door without fanfare. "Quark," he acknowledged flatly, making a small gesture inviting his former classmate inside. "At least you rang."

[Avenger Assembled]

As Trevor and Quark made it to the garage, it was clear that Quark was in the middle of an explanation he'd started as soon as he walked in the door. "-so anyway, I don't really work for Dr. Tomorrow as such, but we are affiliated with his organization. Tomorrow works for the beings at the end of time, and we have a 99.924% probability to evolve into them, given the resources we have and what we've done. My branch of the Temporal Transit Authority polices all time crime between the 30th and 50th centuries, so Taddai Hendawhit is under my jurisdiction. It's honestly pretty easy work, most of the time," he admitted, "nothing as tough as being a superhero back in the 21st century. I mean, wow!"

 

He shook his head, then looked over the people in the big garage; his yellow eyes lighting up at the sight of Erin. "Erin! Hi!" He waved with a big, cheerful smile, seemingly heedless of the circumstances, before he caught sight of Hendawhit, who .had sat up, oxygen mask over his mouth. At the sight of the time criminal, he got much more serious - albeit regretful. "Well well well. Here we are, Taddai. Your illegal movement through time has stopped, which means you can now safely be incarcerated by the Temporal Transit Authority," he added for the benefit of the downtimers. 

[Electra]

"Hey Quark, long time no see," Erin said casually, then paused and added, "no pun intended. You sort of disappeared after you graduated, guess you've just been busy. You going to take this guy off our hands?" 

 

"Quark?" Sojourner furrowed her brow thoughtfully for a moment. "Oh! I remember now. You tried to teach Mom history by using Time Portals and got stopped by Dr. Tomorrow. She said she was sure she'd get expelled, but he just yelled at you guys for messing with time." 

 

"Not my finest high school moment," Erin commented wryly. 

 

"Come on, Mom got almost thrown out of school like twenty times," Knightfall commented, her normal cheer beginning to reassert itself. "Compared to the interdimensional stuff, that was tame." 

 

"How come I never heard any of these stories?" Tensile demanded, sounding disgruntled. 

 

"Perhaps she thought you didn't need any encouragement," Sojourner speculated, tongue tucked in her cheek. 

 

"I'm actually wondering why I told any of you anything. Will tell. Will have told." Erin shook her head. "Whatever. Can you fix this?" she asked Quark.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I can take him back to where I'm headquartered and put him in the Big House, see?" said Quark, sounding for all the world like a 1930s policeman. "Yeah, he's a tough customer, but we can put him where he won't hurt anyone else - and we'll keep him there till he's reformed." At the looks that got him from a room full of detectives and gritty avengers, he went on, "With the technology we have in the TTA, we can catch criminals before they offend. The only reason we didn't catch Taddai before was because he wasn't on our sonar. If we do let him out, it'll be when he's changed his ways for good." He eyed Taddai, his young man's voice once again growing more serious when he actually addressed the criminal. "Which may take a long time, but at the TTA we've got all the times in the world." 

[Gizmo]

"What, too busy coming up with stupid time puns to keep a better eye on your 'sonar'?" Hematite cut in angrily. The twins had calmed down enough from the shock of it all to at least be polite once Quark stepped into the room but actually having a face to put to the lapse in temporal police work seemed to set the powerhouse off. "Maybe you--" As he took a step forward, hand raised, he was stopped by a light tug on his sleeve. Mystery had moved out from behind Sojourner to stand beside him, shaking her head silently while she looked up at him with big, dark eyes. Troy froze for a moment, apparently at a loss, before turning away and muttering something unintelligible under his breath, refusing to look in Quark's direction.

"So, uh, if you're taking him away," Daybreak began with a small cough, "what about all of us? I dunno about everybody else but we didn't really take time to work out the fine details of a return trip on our way out the door." Trevor gave the young man in the black and gold costume a vaguely disappointed look, prompting Daybreak to raise his hands defensively. "Hey, we were in a rush! We figured something would turn up, right?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, you guys?" Quark didn't seem to have thought about that rather important question, but he studied them all before nodding sagely. His gold eyes flashed with comfortable reassurance as his gaze took them all in, all the time-travelers, anyway. "All of you have inherited your mother's dimensional anchor, so you were left unaffected by the changes in time. Don't worry, you're not going to wink out once Taddai goes in a time-null cell!" Taking out what looked like a simple metal camping piton, he began snapping the device open while adding, "As for your return to your home timelines, I recognize you all from the multi-historic record. I don't think it's giving anything away to say that you all do make it back to your home timelines." He pointed the 'sharp' end of the device at Taddai. "Do you have anything to say before you go?"

 

When the traveler looked away, unable to speak, Quark shrugged and fired a red beam that looked for all the world like a visible laser pointer's light - at least Taddai vanished neatly and soundlessly into the distant future that had spawned him. 

[Electra]

There was silence for a moment. "Okay then," Erin began, looking around at the remaining bevy of time-travelers. "Guess that's taken care of, then?" She picked up the shattered clock that had been the centerpiece for the ritual, setting it on the nearest workbench. 

 

"Anybody else feel like pizza?" Tensile asked with a hopeful grin. 

 

"How about pho?" Knightfall countered. "I want to see the place where Mom and Dad-" 

 

She was stopped by Sojourner's hand gently over her mouth. "Hasn't happened yet," she reminded her younger "sister" with a faint smile. "even if things have changed now, no point in going out of our way to reveal the details. It might change the way things happen." 

 

"Well, that would suck large," Knightfall opined, folding her arms. "It's my favorite story!" 

 

"I did actually hear that one," Tensile put in. :"It's very memorable." 

 

"I don't think I've ever even had pho," Erin said, bemused. 

 

"You'll like it," Sojourner assured her. "But getting home should probably take priority over post-fight snacking. Mr. Quark? Can you get us back where we belong?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"I, uh, well," replied Quark, his eyes wide. "There's only so much I can tell you because of the need to preserve the timelines. But what I can do is jumpstart the tachyonic energies that have permeated your bodies, whether you jumped through a magical portal," he said with a nod to Sojourner, "or used a technological means of transportation," he added with a look at Tensile and some of the others. "so that you'll be snapped back towards your native timelines. Normally it's easier for us to return misplaced travelers, but with so many of you here, and all of you partially from another dimension, this is the easiest way to do it. Is there anything you need to do before you go?" he asked as he took out his 'railroad spike' and began fiddling with it. 

[Gizmo]

Hematite glanced over at Erin and pulled a bit of a face, some of his stubborn awkwardness returning now that the crisis seemed to be mostly in hand. "Hnh. Sooner we get going the better, probably. We're probably already pushing our luck like stupid."

"I look forward to analyzing the significant amount of data collected during this adventure," Blackbird chimed in, her hologram winking back into view atop her partner's shoulder and placing a finger to one side of her chin thoughtfully. "The genetic scans alone..."

"Are pretty trippy, yeah," Daybreak finished with a tired looking grin, resting an elbow on his twin's shoulder. "Guess this is what big ol' family reunions are like for people who actually do that sort of thing, huh?"

"Certainly... interesting," Trevor allowed, drawing a snort of amusement from his grandfather. "Hopefully we... versions of us... your parents say this already, but done the family proud. Good work, everyone." Looking up at Sojourner, then to the rest of the room, Mystery bit her lip slightly and shifted from foot to foot before moving quickly over to Trevor's side and tugging on his sleeve. When he bent down slightly she whispered something in his ear softly enough that even those present with better than normal hearing had trouble making it out. Straightening, the Hunter heir considered the suggestion for a moment before bringing it to the group. "Hh. Group photo?"

[Electra]

"Sure, why not?" Sojourner replied, a hesitant smile playing around the corners of her mouth. 

 

"I think we've already done as much as we're gonna do to this timeline," Tensile agreed affably, throwing an arm around Sojourner's shoulders and another around Hematite's. "May as well get something for the scrapbook!" 

 

"I call not standing in the front!" Knightfall called out, leaping onto Daybreak and swinging herself up to his shoulders. "Put Mom and Dad in the middle so they don't hide somewhere off in the back." 

 

"Oh come on..." Seeing she was outnumbered, Erin edged her way into the group that was forming up, only to be firmly nudged into the middle by both her elder "daughters." "You know I'm pretty much in my pajamas. We weren't expecting company." 

 

"Well, it's better than nothing," Sojourner whispered into Erin's ear, tongue firmly in cheek. "I did get a glimpse of that loveseat in the upstairs library." As Erin turned an interesting shade of red, Sojourner straightened up and folded her arms behind her back, completely innocent. 

[Gizmo]

"Man, every time!" Daybreak protested as he staggered about under the unexpected added weight of his twin, obviously exaggerated for comedic intent given the strength and gymnastic poise they'd both demonstrated throughout the night. For her part Nightfall didn't have any trouble staying balanced even while her brother's arms windmilled about. "You're already taller than me!" Hematite had to duck to avoid being clipped in the chin by a flailing sledgehammer and grumbled something in a warning tone under his breath even while one corner of his mouth threatened to turn upward in a small smile.

"Saw that," Blackbird noted matter-of-factly as her hologram jumped from her partner's shoulder as Tensile's cybernetic hand landed there, resizing mid-fall to land on the ballroom floor as large as life. She took up a pose just behind the alternate timeline brothers, hands clasped behind the small of her back.

Troy scowled and folded his arms across his chest. "No idea what you're talking about," he insisted gruffly, squaring his stance but allowing himself to be pulled into the group without protest.

The autonomic machine intelligence's expression remained perfectly deadpanned. "Naturally. You should manifest as well, Grandmother," she called behind the group to where the Night Cycle was parked.

Redbird's customary holographic form projected itself somewhat begrudgingly from the front of the vehicle, stomping the rest of the way to the gathering family as well as she could with boots made out of photons. "Bah! You have yet to explain that... title." The only answer the fuming Furion received from her counterpart was Blackbird miming pulling the tab of a zipper across her expressionless lips. "Rrrh... Cursed time travel."

"Made my week," Travis opined with ill concealed amusement, using his cane to usher his own grandchild forward and toward the middle next to Erin. When Mystery attempted to squeeze in somewhere behind Tensile's bulk despite the photo having been her idea, the eldest Hunter prodded her elbow as well. "Help an old man, hmm?" With little recourse the petite telepath nodded and let her ancestor rest a hand on her shoulder.

Looking around him at the collected generations, Trevor made a soft sound that might have almost been a chuckle. Pulling a thumb-sized matte black rectangle from his belt he tossed the miniaturized camera to Quark. "If you would." Slipping his arm around Erin's waist, he gave her a bemused shrug. "Say, 'coffee'."

[Electra]

"Coffee!" came an obedient chorus of voices as Quark snapped a few shots from different angles. When he stopped to marvel at the fact that the camera required actual finger-button contact rather than mental command, the group began to break up and spread apart again. "I guess it's probably time for us to hit the superhighway," Knightfall said, sounding just a bit regretful. "Got some people at home waiting for us." 

 

"More than we did before, hopefully," Sojourner added. "People we very much want to see again." Her eyes were just a bit shiny for a moment as she glanced in Erin and Trevor's direction, but then it was past and she was calm once more. 

 

"Time's on our side at this end of history, right?" Tensile asked. "No reason we can't stay long enough to have some pizza, maybe hear a little more about each other. You all are super-weird, you know," he told his new siblings with a shake of his head. 

 

"There's no reason to tempt fate," Sojourner countered. "We've done what needed to be done, now we ought to get out of here before we damage the timeline any further." 

 

"A little pizza's not likely to damage the space-time continuum any more than ripping a hole into the thirtieth century," Tensile muttered, but didn't seem inclined to argue too much. 

 

"Besides, we've got an official Time Cop here right now, he can make sure we all get where we're supposed to be, easy peasy." Knightfall put in. "Better to get while the getting's good." 

 

"You're welcome to hang around if you want," Erin told them all, trying to be a good hostess now that the immediate crisis was past, "but you're right, Quark probably can't stick around for too long." 

[Gizmo]

"Pizza had my vote, bro, but I think the tribe has spoken," Daybreak grinned, slugging Tensile affectionately in his cybernetic arm and producing a resounding ring on knuckles on metal. "Hm... I bet I could totally rock a scar. You think? I mean, I'm not going to get one on purpose or anything but, hypothetically, any advice? Across one eye is probably overplayed..."

Shuffling silently around the edge of the crowd, Mystery paused next to Travis, holding her mask in both hands and staring at her feet for a moment while she gathered herself. "Um. Sir...? I just wanted, um, to say... That is, with everything..." Puffing out cheeks tinged with a sooty blush as words failed her, the petite time traveler wrapped a hug around her ancestor's waist, tight as she dared without injuring the aging patriarch. "Thank you."

With a chuckle, Travis patted her on the back. "Very welcome, dear girl. Can't tell you how much meeting you, all of you, means." Something glistened in the corner of the original Midnight's eye for a moment but decades of control and poise won out in the end.

"So, guess you really were pretty good when you were my age," Hematite drawled with a hit of wry amusement as he pulled his own mask back over his face and approached Erin. "Always kinda wondered. Sure, I've had time to learn all your moves and improve on them, but still. Not bad."

[Electra]

Erin gave Hematite a light knock on the shoulder with her fist and a half-smile. "You should've seen me in my prime. Maybe one day you'll be half so good. Take care of yourself, all right? No more time travel. And that goes for all of you!" she added. 

 

"But Maaaaa!" Tensile whined, an automatic reflex before he turned back to Daybreak. "If you're gonna get a scar, go for one down the side of your face, it's badass without actually getting in the way. Bisecting the eyebrow is even better, but risky with the whole eye thing. You know, hypothetically." 

 

Sojourner checked her equipment in preparation for departure, then sidled over to Erin. "You're going to make an honest man out of him pretty soon, right?" she asked, a curious mixture of amusement and real concern in her voice. "Clock's ticking, you know." Erin looked a little green and didn't say anything. 

 

"All right, it's go time!" Knightfall crowed. She turned to Trevor and kissed his cheek. "Bye, Daddy, see you again soon! But I think you do look better with the beard." She checked her equipment as well, then ambled over to  Quark. "Okay, Time Guy, beam us up!" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"Time to send you where you need to go!" said a cheerful Quark as he proceeded to do just that.

 

Pressing a few buttons on his control spike, he pointed it at the group and produced a green-red circle on the wall around them like an outline. The circle closed quickly, shrinking the time-lost kids as they waved their last goodbyes, until at last the Hunters and the White were alone with the future. And with Quark! "OK, I've got to get going - time waits for no man, not even time travelers." He looked from Trevor to Travis and Erin, reaching up to wipe his eyes. "I am so glad you're all right again. The timelines without you guys are awful." He pressed a few buttons on his belt and started shrinking away himself, receding into nothingness with one last wave. "See you later, heroes! Or is it sooner, ooooo-" 

 

His chuckle echoed in the silence after his departure. 

[Gizmo]

"That was certainly something," Travis commented with a subtle smile, breaking the quiet as he shifted his weight to his cane for a moment's rest before heading back into the main body of the manor. "I'll go make a few calls, have those boys in the armored car looked after. Sure you two want to talk."

Redbird's hologram avatar blinked a few times before looking over to Erin and Trevor and abruptly winking out of view. "Ah, yes. Indeed," her voice came from the Night Cycle as it backed itself away from the couple toward the garage door. "I, too, have... an excuse." With something that sounded an awful lot like a throat clearing, the motorcycle turned gracefully about and absconded out onto the winding path that led from the road, her avatar flickering back into view as a rider before she was out of sight.

In the suddenly very empty garage, Trevor turned to Erin and leaned into her shoulder a little. "So," he began in immaculate deadpan, "who were you thinking for godparents?"

[Electra]

Erin dropped her face into her hands, making a noise that was a cross between a laugh and a sputter. "Oh god." She turned her head enough to look at him from the corner of one eye. "You know, I've lived through some pretty bizarre situations. I mean, we've been friends with a reality warper for five years and we cross dimensional boundaries like state lines. But this definitely topped the list for completely surreal insane whackjob adventure."

 

She dropped her hands, sighed, and leaned into him in turn. "Just the idea of being alive for another few decades is kind of staggering, though not as much as when Zoe first told me about her world." That brightened her up. "Hey, good news is, I didn't get knocked up by Mark in any of those universes! I kinda feel better." 

[Gizmo]

"Suddenly feel worse," Trevor replied with a small frown that was still comically exaggerated by his stoic standards. Dropping it after just a moment he slid an arm around her waist and led the way back into the manor, feeling a little silly simply standing in the middle of the garage next to a mystic circle and puddles of drying blood. They could worry about cleaning it all up later, for now they definitely needed some time to decompress.

 

Stepping into the hallway, his mood turned pensive. After a few silent steps he began with some hesitation, "All of them seemed... good. Surprised. Never though I'd be a good parent. Not sure how that happened. Happens." He was sure he didn't know the first thing about raising children and the breadth of potential personalities the time travelers had shown only made the prospect more daunting.

[Electra]

"I'm not surprised," Erin told him as they walked through the hallway, dim now with the floodlights outside turned off. "You've had a good role model, in spite of your mom and dad being the way they are. And you care really deeply, and you take care of the people you love. You'll be a great dad." She broke off suddenly, coloring a little. "I mean- god, it's still weird to talk about this like this, even with what we've seen of the future." She smiled at him, embarrassed and rueful ."Sojourner asked me when I'm going to make an honest man of you. I think she's worried about getting her timeline started on time." Her voice dropped to just over a whisper. "But I don't know if I'm ready." 

[Gizmo]

Trevor's cheeks turned the sooty black that he apparently had at least a chance of passing down to his children and he coughed lightly into his fist. "Wonder who she got that directness from..." he muttered wryly under his breath before hugging Erin with a squeeze of the arm around her waist. "Know we've never... Try not to plan too far ahead. But you know you're the people I love." He stopped walking to turn enough to look at the auburn haired young woman face to face. He worked his jaw for a moment and swallowed quietly, trying to articulate his meaning as clearly as he could. "Whatever timeline, whatever name we give it, want to spend those decades with you. Anything else happens if and when we're both ready. Fair?"

[Electra]

Erin looped her arms over Trevor's shoulders, clasping her hands behind his neck. "I know we're not guaranteed any decades," she murmured as she closed her eyes, resting her forehead against his. "No matter what we've seen, nobody's ever guaranteed even one more day. It's... I could never plan for the future, you know? The idea that I'd just keep living when everyone else had... it hurt too much. It scared me too much. But now I can sort of see blurry outlines maybe, and it's good. Whatever it is, however long it is, I want my future to be with you." Eyes still closed, she leaned up and kissed him. "So that's fair." 

[Gizmo]

Closing his own eyes, Trevor returned the kiss, slow and gentle but no less passionate for it. "Works out well then." He held Erin close, drinking in the solid presence of her after the surreal experience of interweaving alternate timelines, altered events in the past and futures in question. They'd been left with more questions than answers and the snippets of potential events to come they'd been able to infer only make tomorrow seem less certain. This, here in the dim predawn of the present, was real and wonderful.

Letting one eye open, he felt one corner of his mouth quirk as he tried to suppress a smile. "Still feel like I should apologize in advance for possibility of twins."

[Electra]

"Augh!" She drew back and smacked him playfully on the shoulder, though even a playful smack from Erin was nothing to sneeze at. "Why did you have to remind me? I was saving that mental scarring for later." Even so, she didn't seem too upset as she slid her arm through his and continued down the hall. "That's almost as weird as the idea of you growing a beard. I bet it's a big, bushy one," she teased. "So you have to make yourself a new mask for your costume, just to fit it in." Erin brightened with a sudden idea. "Maybe I'll get you a Woolly Willy for your birthday, so you can experiment with different styles." She chuckled, glad to shake off some of the heaviness of the moment. "And you know, now that I think about it, pizza does sound pretty good. I wonder if anyone's going to be delivering this late in this weather."