ic Midnight Dynasty

[Gizmo]

"Legitimate psychological warfare tactic," Trevor argued, rubbing his shoulder with a small grin. "Many people find beards intimidating. Sure to usher in new era of terror among cowardly criminal element." Even as he joked, he ran his free hand along his jawline contemplatively, squinting a little unconsciously as he tried to imagine what he might look like with a neatly trimmed goatee like the one his grandfather wore only filled in with jet black. Somehow that was almost as difficult to picture as being a father. "Could try it...? No, probably not." He shook his head as they headed back upstairs. "Pizza, though. Good idea."

[Electra]

"Maybe we could send Redbird out to get some, even if nobody's delivering. Send her out in one of the vehicles with treads... or maybe the flying saucer. That'd speed things up." Despite the late hour, Erin wasn't tired at all and probably wouldn't need sleep for another day or so, barring vigorous activity. "We should see if your grandpa wants anything, or if we can help with the stuff on the road." Erin looked mildly chagrined. "I can't believe we forgot about those drivers. At least the trucks were heated. And we did have a lot on our minds." 

 

Erin walked up to the grandfather clock, currently reading well past midnight, and sighed. "So do you think we set ourselves up for it, trying to take a weekend off? Like thumbing our noses at fate?" 

[Gizmo]

"Didn't forget. Prioritized," Trevor insisted with exaggerated severity, drawing himself up imperiously for a moment before letting his shoulders sag back down into a more comfortable posture. Unfastening the concealed buckles along one side of his uniform's jacket he allowed it to fall open and retrieved his current phone from one of its inner pockets. A few taps on the display were quickly followed by the faint ping of a notification and he announced, "Texted Redbird. She's retroactively making pizza run her excuse for absconding." Putting the phone away again he leaned down to lightly kiss the space between Erin's shoulder and neck. "Fate can hang."

[Electra]

Erin hummed softly at the kiss, reaching up to thread her fingers through Trevor's dark hair. "In that case, we might have missed a few hours of our weekend, but there's still plenty of time left. And I think there's something in my contract about extra time off in case of temporal incursions that spawn new timelines, I'll have to check. Wonder who I'd have to get a note from to prove that." She turned to face him and kiss him more thoroughly, undoing a couple more buckles on his jacket while she was at it. "So," she finally said, breaking off with some reluctance, "check in with your grandpa, grab some coffee, eat some pizza, then start the weekend over again? I'm pretty sure we've got more couches." 

[Gizmo]

Later, as tinges of colour on the horizon threatened to turn a late night into an early morning, Travis Hunter sat in the Midnight Manor, reviewing the estates security footage of the past day with a fresh cup of tea sitting next to two of its emptied brethren, ostensibly alone. Tapping away at the custom ordered keyboard, the aging hero pulled up the keyframe of Knightfall and Daybreak's entrance before pausing to take a silent sip. Without turning around he called into the unlit darkness behind him, "Can come out, you know."

After several beats, a figure in a simple red and black uniform adorned with golden gadgetry and sturdy leather straps stepped into view, boots clipping along the stone floor with military precision. The blond hair on the man's shaking head had more grey in it than the last time Travis had seen him but he still didn't look much older than perhaps fifty. Crossing his arms over an hourglass insignia, Tomas Morgen gave his friend a rueful smile. "Some people have the good grace to allow their senses to dull with age, you know. What gave me away?"

"Some have grace to age at all," Travis snorted as he swiveled his chair around and placed both hands atop the head of his cane. "Not the only one who helped install alarms down here, Tom."

[Gizmo]

"I suppose not," Morgen agreed, shaking his head, "but you try to keep decades worth of security configurations for this place straight. Generation after generation adding their own mark..." He looked about the darkened headquarters with an obvious sense of nostalgia before giving Travis a sideways look. "You seem unsurprised to see me."

"Never look surprised," Travis reminded him with a huff. As if to illustrate, he produced another unused tea cup and poured a drink for his old teammate. "But no. All very unlikely." He gestured to the scene on the monitor, with several of his time-traveling great-grandchildren gathered about as more arrived from different timelines. "If you weren't behind it, would have shown up earlier."

Morgen accepted the tea cup with pursed lips, his forehead creasing. "Not 'behind it', as such. Very messy, the whole matter. I may have pulled some strings here and there, perhaps. Bought the young heroes some time, if you'll pardon the inevitable pun." The flashing smile he gave the eldest Hunter suggested that whenever he was spending his off-hours had excellent dental care.

[Gizmo]

Travis ran a thumb through the neatly trimmed hair of his goatee, considering. "Then their 'temporal inertia'...?"

"Made the whole thing possible," Morgen assured him with a small shrug, "but it's hardly carte blanche, as our Francophone comrades would say. Five - well, six, really - timelines looping back to a shared, predivergent point?" The veteran time traveler pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, reflexively shuddering as he considered the prospect. "Without some oversight... well, a 'snarl' is perhaps oversimplifying but the sentiment is correct."

"Whereas you're the universe's own macramé master, hnh," Travis snorted with a hint of a wry smirk that faded quickly. He looked down into his teacup for a moment and when he raised his eyes they were hard as flint. The look he gave Morgen wasn't accusatory but it clearly did not belong to a man who would accept any excuses. "Your outfit, this should have been their job, it seems. Even the Quark boy was late. Kept out of the way? Those two should have never been in danger," he insisted flatly with a small gesture upward to the estate over their heads, "not like that."

[Gizmo]

Morgen didn't make any attempt to argue the point but he did wince noticeably at his old friend's assertion. "You are... not wrong, of course. The organization the boy works for, they're not so different from our old League. Tracking down time traveling villains, stopping dastardly schemes with moments to spare." He smiled a bit in spite of himself, remembering days which were a little older for Travis than they were for himself. "It's good work but narrow, you see? My 'outfit' is more focused on the bigger picture. The biggest picture."

"Sounds like playing god," Travis observed bluntly, setting his tea aside entirely and leaning forward slightly in his seat, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Good Lord, I did not honestly think you could become any more intense with age," Morgen admitted, leaning back a bit in response before he realized what he was doing. "And yes. It is. The alternative, though, is far worse, believe me. Still, there are... politics." The blond man hesitated, knowing he was saying more than he should professionally but just as certain that he had already made up his mind to do so. "Suffice to say your descendants cause a considerable amount of paperwork throughout the timeweb. What was it you always said? 'The right thing, not the easy thing'. All Mark's speeches, all Donna's rallying cries, that was always the message, wasn't it?" His grin belonged to a man who had gladly set himself against armies for the sake of what was right. "Well. It continues to get one in trouble with all the right people."

[Gizmo]

Travis let out a deep grunt with a note of satisfaction running beneath it and the pain of old bones forced into movement running above it as he rose from his seat and leaned heavily on his cane for support. He searched Morgen's face for a moment, eyes that had once been sharp as daggers now relying more on deductive training and experience than natural acuity. He took in his old friend's expression and studied the lines and wrinkles to try to estimate exactly how old the other man had become. "Can't stay," he surmised eventually, waiting a few long beats to say it aloud to draw things out if only a little.

Morgen shook his head regretfully. "Afraid not. Only a short window before I have to start answering some difficult questions to some entirely humourless people," he explained apologetically, giving the elderly hero a small shrug. "Still, no need to be any more dour than usual. I shall be seeing you again soon en--"

"Tom," Travis interrupted his, holding up his free hand to stop the explanation. "No word games. You'll see me, I won't see you." Thinking outside linear time made his back ache but the retired mystery man could connect these dots easily enough. Those little pains reminded him that his own time was distinctly finite. "The 'pulled strings', letting me meet those children. This is you saying goodbye."

[Gizmo]

The German's composure lasted almost long enough for him to begin a reply but with inevitability the hard line of his mouth collapsed and his shoulders sagged just enough to make the leather straps sitting upon them creak softly. "...Travis, I cannot." His jaw set as he closed it, a futile attempt to fall back on the restrictions of his profession for protection when the damage of knowledge had already been done.

Snorting slightly as he took a few steps forward, Travis gave Morgen a look of faint amusement. "Of course." Once he was close enough he clapped his empty hand on the time traveler's shoulder with surprising sureness that lasted for a heartbeat before muscles worn thin betrayed him and caused his arm to tremble ever so slightly. "As fine a dynasty as any man has left, as fine a gift as I have ever received. Thank you, Tom."

Morgen was silent but leaned down slightly to embrace his teammate.

[Gizmo]

Earth F-Deluge-1
 
As the world came sharply back into focus Daybreak found not the polished floors of his family home beneath his feet but the steeply slanted roof of a neo-Gothic building, slick with water. With a small yelp as one boot slipped out from under him, he swung his sledge with one arm, anchoring its head deep into the eroded structure while his other hand shot out reflexively to grab the dark hood falling out of the corner of his eye. All around them for as far as he could see there was nothing but dark, roiling waters, an ocean that had swallowed up whatever settlement to which their perch had been a part. "Oh geeze, Hope, Gale's grandad really did it!" he gaped, horrified.

"Um..." The quiet voice drew his eyes down to realize that it wasn't his twin's hood he'd grabbed hold of but Mystery's, who got her feet back under her with a show of calm dexterity before looking left and right to take in the rest of the scene. Sure enough all six of the time-crossed siblings who'd gathered to stop Hendawhit were still together, dealing with their unexpected predicament with varying amounts of grace.

A string of grumbling curses rose up from further down the tower where Hematite had only barely managed to dig his fingers into newly made handholds before falling into water, which was even then spraying upward to splash against the back of his costume. "What the shock?!" he demanded angrily, starting his climb back up toward the others accompanied by the sound of terracotta giving way beneath super-strength.

[Electra]

"It would seem," came Sojourner's calm voice from the other side of the structure, "that Mr. Quark may not have been as skilled as he said he was in terms of sending us to our respective home timelines." There was a weird sucking noise like air rushing into a balloon, and a moment later Sojourner herself appeared, floating in a large inflatable yellow dinghy that was anchored by a rope to the spire of the building. 

 

"Yeah, no kidding!" Tensile drove his pike into the cracks between the roof tiles, using it as an anchor to hold himself steady on the steeply pitched roof. "Unless one of you all was lying through your teeth about where you come from, this place doesn't belong to any of us. I'm not sure it's even our time." He snorted, looking at his pike. "Knew I should've just used the doohickey Big Sis made for me to come back with instead of hitching a ride. If I ever make it home, I'm never going to hear the end of this." Just to be sure, he pushed a button on the side of the pike. It made a sizzling noise, then a whining noise, then nothing. "Dammit." 

 

"However we got here, we can't just stay here. There's got to be land somewhere." Knightfall had been clinging to the roof with a fair amount of success thanks to her acrobatic training, but she was just as happy to skid down the roof and hop lightly into Sojourner's boat. "And there's no food or shelter here. What are we supposed to do now?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"Miaow!" 

 

At that moment, a cat wriggled its way out of a hole in the building's roof near the group of misplaced travelers. Despite the rough circumstances, the orange and black cat's fur was bone-dry, and he even wore a collar with a nametag that looked brand-new. 

 

"Ah, Hunter-Whites!" it declared in a clear baritone voice, as if that was the sort of thing that happened every day. "Welcome to Earth-Deluge! I'm sorry the circumstances are so rough, but seventy years of floodwaters have spoiled the Big Apple." The cat yawned and stretched before continuing, its claws scratching against the ruined tiles. "My name is Marley. I'm sure you have many questions about how you got here." 

[Gizmo]

Having made his way around the circumference of the tower over to Sojourner’s inflatable raft, leaving groupings of finger-sized holes in his wake, Hematite took one look at the talking cat and decided, "No. Nooope. No." He couldn't very well physically threaten the little creature without looking ridiculous but at least in his reality Erin White hadn't raised any fools. He settled for glowering menacingly, even if that was only a marginal distinction from his default expression.

Blackbird's hologram appeared over his shoulder, posing with her hands on her knees to bend down and get a better look. "Fascinating. That vocal timbre is unlikely to emanate from a feline of that size." The autonomic machine intelligence's tone suggested she was more interested in scratching Marley behind the ears than providing an objective acoustical analysis.

"Is that the weird part about this?" Easily hefting Mystery up by her hood and depositing her in the little boat, Daybreak skidded down the slope of the rooftop himself. "I'm seriously asking here, 'cause I always assumed Mom was pulling our legs about watching out for talking cats with plans. Like it was some Seattle version of 'the birds and the bees'." He rested his sledge across his shoulders and shifted from foot to foot. "...wait, is this why we weren't allowed to get a dog until we turned sixteen?" Even as he rambled his free hand was behind the small of his back, hidden from the cat but facing the boat. With a quick, subtle gesture he indicated his readiness to move.

Surprisingly, Mystery seemed the least put out by the strange turn of events out of the whole group. "Um, I have a talking kitten back home," she spoke up, ducking her head between her shoulders, wondering if she was talking out of turn. "Her name is Lucie? She's nice and my friend even if she tries to talk me into stuff a lot." The little psionic's shoulders sagged slightly and tiny wisps of black mist gathered in the corners of her eyes. "She's probably worried about me by now."

[Electra]

"I'd say the weird thing is that he appears to be a male calico cat, but that's beside the point. Mom had several talking cats herself," Sojourner pointed out, wrapping a comforting arm around Mystery even as she studied the new feline arrival with slightly narrowed eyes. "I was very young still when Charlie was with us, but I remember him reading me stories. Mom didn't say talking cats with plans were evil, just to be wary." 

 

"Yeah, cause sometimes they'll be plans that involve playing you like a sucker for years and then suddenly making you battle for the fate of the universe, then bailing on you to go mess up some other poor kid's life." Knightfall caught her brother's look and snorted. "Seriously, maybe if you ever talked to Mom when she gets all bad-moody instead of running away as fast as you possibly can, maybe you'd learn some stuff." Her brief burst of humor was abruptly cut off by a new thought. "Mom and Dad, all of ours, they're alive now, right?" she demanded of the cat. "It still worked, even if we ended up here?" 

 

"I never hear any of the good stories!" Tensile exclaimed from his perch still on the roof. He obviously wasn't quite ready to trust his considerable weight to the dinghy. "I've got some major questions to ask when I get home. But first the big ones, cat. What kind of plan do you have in mind for us?"

Edited February 11, 2015 by Electra

[Avenger Assembled]

"I am indeed a remarkable cat!" agreed Marley. "Fear not, my friends, your families and felines are safe. Why hello there, beautiful!" Purring, he batted playfully at Blackbird's holographic face before continuing. "The truth is that your recent wanderings through time have left your home timelines unsettled. Until the temporal echoes have died down enough to allow your return, it will be necessary for you to visit certain other timelines in order to correct their chronal instabilities. For example, Earth-Deluge has long suffered the effects of...by Bastet's eyes!" 

 

Tail poofed and back arched, Marley all but leaped into the air as something broke the surface of the water nearby, a massive something that nearly swamped Sojourner's trim little raft. The vessel, clearly a primitive submarine, was some three hundred feet long and sheathed in a patchwork of various sorts of metal - some of that metal bearing warped, arcane signs that bespoke a grim sort of magic indeed. The top hatch was thrown open and out scuttled a half-dozen amphibious humanoids, their wide, staring eyes, greenish skin, and long limbs reminding some of the kids of Aunt Aquaria - but with a look of sinister intent on their faces that worthy had never borne! 

 

"Attention, sssurfacerssss!" one called. "In the name of Brother Dagon and Sssissster Hydra, you are now the property of Captain Ssstraha of the Zong! Sssurrender peacefully or we will sssacrifice you to the Great Beassst of these watersss!" As those words were spoken, arms rose from beneath the sleet-grey sea - long, tentacled arms that bulged as thick as the Zong and nearly as long, rising just behind the craft along with a great squamous head like a gigantic, even more monstrous version of the Deep Ones on the submarine. "We warn you! Sssshe is hungry!" 

[Gizmo]

Hematite turned about with a snort and dropped into a ready crouch against the last of the rooftop before the water, Blackbird's hologram mimicking the same pose with a predatory gleam in her projected eyes. "Hmph. So we broke some twip time laws and now we're stuck doing community service?" he summarized, largely ignoring the creatures that emerged from the submarine except to note how much force it would take to cross the distance between them in a single leap. "Typical."

Daybreak's expression turned serious and worried for just a moment as he took in Marley's explanation and exchanged a look with his twin sister before a lopsided grin reasserted itself and he swung his sledge back down from his shoulder. "Sounds like some classic Young Freedom type stuff. Gonna need a better team name that that, though." He raised the hammer like a baseball player calling his shot, pointing it directly a the tentacled monster's head. "Dunno about you guys, but I never realized until just now how badly I've always wanted to beat up a kraken."

In the raft, Mystery let her gaze linger on the talking cat before turning to the immediate threat. The hem of her cloak rose and fell subtly as inky black mist rolled out from under it and she retrieved her smooth, porcelain-like mask from its folds to affix to her face. Looking up at Sojourner she gave the markswoman a tiny nod. "We should get started, then."

[Electra]

"Well, I was voted most likely to be arrested for breaking the laws of physics," Tensile quipped, his easy tone of voice belied by the businesslike way he lifted his pike and studied the sub. "I'd hate to make the prognosticators of the Claremont class of 2044 into liars! But some of us are way too old to be Young Freedom anyway."

 

"Just so long as we don't have to be Hendawhits," Knightfall asserted, only a small quaver in her voice. "Cause that was ultra-lame. This shouldn't be too bad though, Mom and Dad did this sort of thing all the time. Few crazy adventures, we'll be home before we know it."

 

"Hopefully before they know it," Tensile corrected. "That's the wonder and beauty of time travel, get back before anybody knows you're gone."

 

"However long it takes, we'll make it to our homes," Sojourner said with quiet confidence. She nodded to Mystery and lifted her arm, then turned the dinghy to face their adversary. "We've each got our own skills and powers, and we have each other, that's enough. We are wanderers, but that doesn't mean we are lost."

 

"Yeah, okay, that works," Knightfall decided. She raised her bo staff, even as Tensile's metallic hand retracted and shifted, forming into his arm cannon. "Everybody ready?"

[Gizmo]

~FIN~

The Wanderers Will Return