The Ashes of This World

[Fox]

Dragonfly had shifted around so that she could angle the box to catch Cerulean's light, apparently satisfied to use the glow to help her peer into the workings of the device. She'd deployed her tools while the others talked - plates on her gauntlets flexing open to extend a half-dozen little articulated arms, each carrying its own tool for its own purpose. "Might know his equivalent here," she answered, gently pulling some wires aside to peer further into the box without having to take it apart. "For given values of 'know'. Know where he's from, at least, or our version of it. Not sure how much I can share with Vigil in the room. No offense. Might constitute picking sides. Don't know enough about either of you to pick sides."

She made an extremely disgruntled noise at what she was finding, sitting back a bit and tapping a finger against her leg. "As for device, pretty sure it's for killing anyone nearby when it's used. Also violently punching controlled holes between dimensions. Would assume purpose was other way around if it didn't leak so much radiation when used. Best advice: throw it down a lead-lined hole, bury it, punch designer in the nose."

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean's eyes bulged.

"...radiation?" she squeaked, alarmed.  As far as she knew, nobody had bothered to check for radiation -- it had been a lightning strike and a fire, right?  Not only had she not had her shields up the whole time she'd been in the area, she had no idea whatsoever if they were any good for keeping harmful levels of radiation out.

"It's, uh, it's not radioactive now, right?" she asked faintly -- a tone that even after only a short acquaintance Fleur could tell wasn't her norm.  "We're not going to, y'know, sprout another head, or develop lesions, hair and tooth loss, and sterility, or anything?"  Gah!  Was she going to have to start carrying a geiger counter or a rad patch or something so she could tell if she was about to be in a great deal of trouble?  Casual hazards weren't something she'd gotten used to the idea of yet when it came to being a practicing superhero....

[Fox]

"That is...a good question," Dragonfly admitted. "Not too used to thinking about it outside of my own projects. Suit protects me, but isn't built to detect it; secondary signs only. Heat increases, warping. I need parts. Or a projector...."

She turned to look at one of her drones, which made a beeping noise that was distressingly resigned when she grabbed it out of the air and expertly pulled off one of its back plates. "Oh, shush. For common good. Like an upgrade! If an upgrade completely disabled your offensive array, anyway. Need to wire it into your projectors. Stop whining, you baby."


It took her the better part of a minute to finish her work, little gauntlet-deployed tools doing goodness-knew-what to the inside of Dragonfly's poor little drone, but when she was finally done it seemed no worse for wear: it rose back up out of her hands, shook itself like a disoriented dog, and its eye lit up...somewhat brighter than it had before. "Somewhat inspired by your light, actually," Dragonfly explained as her altered creation got its bearings. It swept its gaze around the room, gentle neon glow passing over its surroundings like some kind of high-tech searchlight. "Fleur said: counters illusions? Unsure of mechanics, but revealing things unseen is a neat trick. Useful. Radiation isn't visible...but you can make it visible, with science. And then tag it with data from the League exotic energy database I'm not supposed to have access to."

Edited May 25, 2015 by Fox

[Electra]

Fleur kept one eye on the proceedings surrounding the dimensional transport box, mainly in the hopes that nobody would get accidentally teleported, but kept most of her attention on the two robots. "I admire your dedication to law and order," she told Vigil, "but the fact that you say "tried, judged and executed in the same phrase like it's a done deal leads me to suspect that your notions of due process might not be too similar to ours. But if you killed people," she turned to Artoo, "that's a pretty big transgression in our book as well. And it sounds like your machine here may have some pretty severe design flaws even apart from the "setting everything near it on fire" problem." 

She rested her chin on her fist and looked at both of them. "Tell me more about your world," she invited. "What's it like? What does it need most before it can be okay again? How many humans and robots and sentient things are still alive, even?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"There are about three billion sentient beings," said Artoo, who obviously had to do the math in his head before he spoke. "Most of the organics live in places not directly hit by the war like the old nation-states of China, India, and others. They'd like to get rid of Talos, but by the time they'd recovered from '94, he already had the orbital platforms and the super-weapons pointed at them, so they're in a state of cold war. The population of _this_ continent is about a hundred million, if you include Canada and Mexico. I'd guess there's...maybe one AI for every twenty organics?" he hazarded. "That's on average. About a half a million people live in Talos City, and it's the largest city in the old United States, and I'd guess maybe a third of its population is inorganic." 

"The human race damn near killed the world," said Vigil seriously. "The nuclear winter starved us out, then the plagues that came afterwards killed even more. I don't know what cushy little story this person got," he added, pointing to Artoo, "but I remember the machines being greeted as liberators when they came to our village." He pointed to his own implants. "I'd be dead, or a mutant freak right now, if they hadn't taken me in. We still have to get by on vat-grown food and use parts from before the war, because otherwise the planet itself is still poisoned." 

"It's not that bad," said Artoo firmly. "It was a holocaust beyond holocausts, but your world has recovered more than you'd think. In twenty years, outside of fallout zones the land has rebounded, people can grow crops...look at the radius on the device," he urged Dragonfly. "That's not for stealing food supplies or ores, that's for stealing individual pieces of high technology so Talos can finish taking the planet!" 

While both Artoo and Vigil were noticeably more radioactive than the norm, Dragonfly was pretty sure (once her scanner was finished) that neither of them were putting out enough radiation to poison the people they were around - as long as they didn't stick around regular human beings long. The glow that came off them was a sickly greenish-purple; enough that they looked in need of decontamination without actually making them look dangerous. Glowing with an unpleasant light of its own under her scanner, she found the device Artoo had carried would put out a lot of gamma and thermal radiation when active, but only when actually being used to open a gateway. 

Edited May 25, 2015 by Avenger Assembled

[Fox]

Visibly frowning was an unusual trick when your face was entirely concealed under a metal helmet, but Dragonfly managed somehow. "Okay, well," she observed, gesturing at her drone - it literally lit up their visitors and the device, tagging each with a holographic display that probably meant more to a scientist than a layperson. "Don't stand next to them, at least. No immediate danger, but long-term exposure...not recommended. Both of them are badly in need of decontamination. And that...."

She frowned at the device, kneeling down again to peer into it. "Not sure I want you to have this thing back. Punching holes in dimensions like it does is a lot of free energy release. Gamma, heat...was not kidding when I said it'll kill everything nearby. Only when being used, though; relatively safe when inactive."

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean was...actually a little flattered that someone had been inspired by her.  When was the last time a super-genius looked at you and built something new based on a related thought?

"That's...pretty cool," she told Dragonfly with an only slightly goofy smile.  "I mean, mine only works for me, rather than showing everyone around me, but yours has a pretty neat visual effect," she reported approvingly.

The debate between robot and cyborg was fast losing its appeal, however.

"Question," she announced, drawing the eyes of the pair to her.  "This thing probably doesn't do what it was supposed to do, and is really dangerous in any case.  This world you're describing sounds pretty awful, no matter which side of things you're on.  So tell me this; why are you both in such a rush to actually go back there?" she asked the pair pointedly.

[Electra]

"Well, it's their home," Fleur told Cerulean with simple certainty. "Even if it's ruined, even if it has problems, it's home and you want to fix it if you can." She turned to the robot and his cyborg nemesis. "We can't really take sides in your conflict, that would be irresponsible of us. We don't have a good picture of what's going on, and to try and get a picture and fix things for you would be both overwhelmingly time-consuming and uncomfortably paternalistic. It also doesn't sound like we can give you back the device you're arguing about, not without risking a lot of innocent lives here and in your universe. But we may still be able to give you both some help. Vigil, how did you get here to this universe? Was it by using something like the device we've got here?" 

Edited May 26, 2015 by Electra

[Avenger Assembled]

"No, a device like that would destroy my organic components. I'll be retrieved by the full-sized version in...five and a half hours. And I want to go home because that's where my family is." Vigil frowned, staring at Fleur de Joie. "What do you mean, you're going to try to help us both? Unless you're going to send me back with my prisoner, what can you do for me? And if you're not going back with _him_ to set up some kind of organic dictatorship, what can you do?"

"I was going to ask the same question," said Artoo, a tight-lipped expression on his brown face. "We don't seem to have a lot in common. And if you're not going to give me my device back, how am I supposed to go home?" he went on. "I don't know anything about building dimensional technology, especially on a world as backwards as Terra. I don't even know how to find my home dimension except that I know it's hard-encoded into the device. And I don't know about _you_," he added, looking at Cerulean, "but I'm not here by choice. I'm supposed to be going home."  

Edited May 27, 2015 by Avenger Assembled

[Electra]

"Oh, I can send you both home, no problem," Fleur assured them with a wave of her hand. "I don't need a dimensional box machine to travel between universes. It'll be helpful if Dragonfly can get some information out of the machine about where you come from, but either way I can probably get you both home within a couple of tries. And like I said, we can't fix your world, but if you want I'll get into my little radiation suit and go home with you for a bit, and see what I can do to clean up the soil and water you're using to feed your cities. And I'm not sure if it's going to be possible, but there may be a way for us to help you find a suitable world to get raw materials from, and a way for all of you to get there without having to fight each other. Would easing the pressure for resources make things better for all of you?" 

[Fox]

"Assuming they don't use them for more fighting," Dragonfly wryly noted, having finished putting the device's casing back together. She stood up, dusting her hands, and pointed her drone at herself to do a clean sweep just in case she'd picked up something bad from its innards. "Not sure how you interpret dimensional frequencies, but can probably work something out, yes. Worst case, might still have my anchor platform in working order. In cold storage, in pieces, but easy to assemble. Shouldn't need to. Good to have the option."

"Also," she noted, tilting a finger Artoo's way, "have been to your world. Or this dimension's equivalent. Was briefly a diety there. Worth pointing out: she saw through your deception instantly, effortlessly; she is some kind of crazy plant goddess; I built technology out of junkyard scraps that can bend fabric of space. You don't get to call Earth 'primitive' or 'backwards' or whatever. Plus, disrespectful; bad way to get on good side of hosts whose help you require."

Edited May 27, 2015 by Fox

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean was awed.  She had just been put into the same category of 'shes' as a plant goddess and a techo-genius.  If she wasn't entirely too conscious of being in front of 'guests', she might have squeeed.

And she was so excited!  Fleur might actually go to this other world, hopping casually across dimensions, to see if she could do anything to repair the biosphere?  And maybe Dragonfly would go along, and see about providing some technological enhancements that might make life easier for all?  And she herself....

Uh....

Well....

"I, um, of course would like to come along and lend my own efforts to the humanitarian issue of rebuilding Talosworld," she said after a moment, "but unfortunately, I have important duties here that I shouldn't put off."  School was important, right?  She was out getting community service credit at the moment, technically, but she didn't think that would apply to leaving the dimension.   She'd probably get in trouble.

And for no good reason -- she wasn't a plant goddess, or a techno-genius.  She was oversized light bulb and coherent light array.  Not all that useful when it came to putting things back together again....

[Avenger Assembled]

"Don't you understand?" demanded Artoo, who was still flinching from Dragonfly's words (which evidently sounded a little familiar) when Fleur began speaking. "Talos kills metahumans who don't serve him - he personally killed everyone in your old Freedom League that lived through the war. I've personally seen him..." His voice trailed off for a moment as he seemed to watch some internal struggle play out. "He's not going to be interested in your help; he'll kill you and use your cells for building super-powered drones." 

"The Resistance may not want to see you on our world," said Vigil thoughtfully, "but I think Talos would be glad to have your help. I haven't had a chance to see your version of this city, but I'm sure it's much finer to look at than mine is - and certainly more alive."

"That's-No way!" Artoo waved a hand at Vigil. "If he can't have me, a powerful metahuman prisoner will let him keep his rank with the Watchdogs. He's just trying to lure as many of you as possible to our world." 

[Electra]

"We do understand," Fleur told both travelers, raising a hand for peace. "We've faced Talos before on our world, and we understand something of his strategies and motivation. I'm sure that several decades of timeline deviation has made changes, but I'm hopeful that if he's presented with an alternative that creates a benefit for his people, he'll take it without grasping for more. And if he does try anything," she continued simply, "well, we have no reason to fear him. He cannot hold us or kill us. You saw what I did in the forest to the dead trees, do you think he or anyone else would risk having the same thing happen to every plant and plant-based material in your city? But that's not what we're about," she insisted. "We'd like to help. At this point in your history, it matters less who pushed the button and more who is going to start the healing. We can't stop you fighting, but we can give you the start of your bandages. And you're welcome to come along if you like," she told Cerulean, "I'll write a note for your school, we could call it a field trip." 

[Fox]

"Resources and competition," Dragonfly pointed out. "Our Talos has to spend time hiding. Can't attract too much attention, plots often foiled by heroes. Workable threat. Hate him."

She shrugged, but she didn't look as carefree as Fleur. "Even if their Earth is resource-strapped, resources have to have gone somewhere - and don't like the sound of 'super-powered drones'. If we do end up in conflict with him, would bet on large military forces, unusual high-powered threats, support of much of the people...brainwashing, fear, genuine patriotism. Conflict with rebels isn't much better: scraped-together technology, guerrilla tactics, people who know area better than we do. Tactical problem. Any ambient radiation may make plants harder to work with, depending on how bad it is there."

"Still. Just tactical assessment. Willing to visit if you are - either, or both of you - but advise...caution."

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean's featureless blue eyes widened as she was given a direct invitation to go along on an interdimensional field trip.  One that could result in every hand being turned against them, sought after for their genetic material, and hunted by hundreds of killer robots and engineered superpowered bio-borgs -- so, yay?

"Uhhhh," she replied intelligently, her brain scrambling to try and prioritize her disbelief, excitement, fear, and curiosity.

Not that she didn't think, given the evidence so far, that Fleur wasn't an excellent choice of someone to go into a dangerous situation with, but it's not like they could take on a whole world, no matter how badass some of them were, right?

On the other hand, Fleur seemed pretty confident that Talos couldn't capture them or kill them...although she wasn't quite so sure why they couldn't be killed...and while Dragonfly seemed to be almost eager to list the negatives of such a trip, she was definitely well on the way to thinking of anything bad that might happen, so they wouldn't likely be caught by surprise if/when something did.

She still didn't know what use she might be over there, not like the other two clearly could be, but that didn't mean she couldn't go, right?  It was a whole 'nother world over there, even if it was sort of still this one.  How incredibly cool would that be?

"You're sure we'd be safe?" she asked Fleur hopefully -- she didn't want to admit it, but she really did want to be convinced to do this.  It was so exciting, the chance to do insane off-the-wall stuff was one of the most amazing part of having powers to start with....

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ugh, fine," said Artoo, after staring at the heroines in growing disbelief. He'd looked around for someone else who thought this was a bad idea, but so far hadn't found any. "Well, at least take me with you, for the love of all that's rational. And the Resistance is not the one you have to worry about shooting you," he added firmly. "I can show you the location of one of our bases, as long as you don't bring ugly here along so he can rat us out to his friends in Talos City. We'd love to have the help of powerful metahumans take on Talos, and we would welcome you as a-." 

"Didn't you hear, you greedy little terrorist," sneered Vigil. "They want to help everybody. Personally I'd be happy to lead you to the gates of Talos City and let you do your thing there," he told the women warmly, rubbing his mechanical and organic hand together. "They'll be very happy to see you, and I'm sure there's a lot you could do there. Why you could help prevent starvation, malnutrition, all the sorts of things the weaker sort of human struggles with." 

[Mad Scientist]

Despite still being more than a little concerned about this whole affair, Cerulean found herself also more than a little exasperated with these two.

"Personally," she interjected firmly, "I'd like to find a hypothetically 'neutral' third party who doesn't have as much of a stake in things as you two clearly do with your two sides," she told them acerbically.  "You're both back and forth so much with your individual party lines that it's impossible to get any idea of who's side is right -- or if you're both so full of crap that--"  She broke off before she said something more uncomplimentary than she already had.

"Honestly?  I don't really want to go see either groups of your peoples, at this rate," she told them, blunt and stern for such a normally cheerful girl.  "You want us to pick sides, and all I see is Bad Choice A and Bad Choice B."  She looked over to Fleur, seeing if she agreed with this assessment.

[Electra]

"We don't know enough about either side to draw informed conclusions," Fleur told Cerulean placatingly. "And unless we see lives actually in danger, getting involved with the politics and structure of another universe is very tricky business. Especially since we can't really stay to see things through and make sure any interference doesn't have consequences we weren't expecting." She turned to the visitors. "We won't help either of you against the others, we will try and help your people survive long enough to work out your own destinies. And we'll be careful," she assured Dragonfly. "Any sign of hostility from either side and we'll be gone. Now I need to line up a radiation suit, and one for Cerulean as well, and put together a supply kit. Cerulean, do you want to call the school and tell them what you're doing in case this takes a little while?" 

She gave Vigil and Artoo a polite smile, ignoring the continued bickering. "And the two of you, hungry, thirsty? In need of a recharge?" she asked. 

[Fox]

"Wouldn't mind a third suit, if you have them lying around," Dragonfly suggested. "Armor has full life support, but always the chance of a breach. Better safe than sorry, promise to return it after. If you don't have a bunch, though, don't worry about it. Anything that gets through shielding and armor and containment suit would probably kill me anyway, before I had a chance to change."

She cracked her knuckles, turning to ponder the dimension-shifting device again. "Can safely store this, take it with us, on off-chance we need it or decide what to do with it while there. Unbreachable storage. ....or, unbreachable by anyone who thinks this is a good way to visit other dimensions, I guess," she corrected, with disdain. "Will also try to figure out how to communicate where their world is, for your use. May have to consult with you on that a little...."

[Avenger Assembled]

Artoo was silent for a moment, studying Fleur and the other heroes carefully. When he spoke, his arrogance was gone, replaced with the calm, measured tones of a survivor. "All right. I burned out all of my main power protecting key systems from the fire. If you can give me a chance to recharge this body from a source of alternating current, and you don't mind my draining your systems, I can be fully functional in a half hour." 

"I'm fine," said Vigil, looking alarmingly cheerful at this turn of events. "My implants will keep me functional until I get home - my backers will see to all my needs once I'm there." 

"If you...absolutely insist on going to the city first, at least put yourself down inside the defense perimeter," said Artoo, the effort he was using to keep his voice calm obvious in his tense posture. "Talos' defenses are focused on preventing outside attack and keeping organics from escaping - not on dealing with enemies from within." 

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean was a little wide-eyed -- this was all happening so fast -- but she nodded reflexively.

"Um, they'll probably want to talk with you too, I'd think," she told Fleur, shifting from foot to foot despite the fact that her feet were currently resting about four inches off the ground.  "Make sure I'm legit doing something rather than just screwing around somewhere."  Was she really doing this?  Eeeep!

She glanced around the room, a frown crossing her face.

"Um...is there a phone, handy?" she asked hesitantly.  She could get access to hers if she really needed to, but since that involved powering back down into her mundane self, she'd rather avoid it for the moment if she could manage it.  She was pretty sure you lost some major hero cred if people saw you powerless and in civvies when you were supposed to be 'on'....

[Electra]

"It's all right," Fleur assured Artoo, "the electrical systems here are pretty robust. I'll call someone to escort you to one of the labs where you can get plugged in. Vigil, if you wouldn't mind staying here till we're ready to go, that would be very helpful. The television gets cable and satellite, you might find something interesting to watch." She pulled her phone from a pouch on her belt, a blue and gold model emblazoned with the logo of the Freedom League, obviously a work smartphone, and handed it to Cerulean. "Go ahead and call from the hallway," she encouraged, "and just let me know if they need to talk to me about anything. My... I know someone who took several classes to space a few years ago, I can't imagine they wouldn't agree to this for a field trip. And we can definitely find you a suit, Dragonfly, the Freedom League keeps a good stock around in case of disaster response. You look like a women's medium, probably?" she guessed, finishing off her long litany of responses. "Probably better to keep that little box pocketed for now. Maybe you can come up to one of the labs with me and we'll talk about syncing up our frames of reference for dimensional travel?"

[Mad Scientist]

Cerulean accepted the offered phone with wide-eyed reverence, and very, very firmly told herself that she did not need to scroll through contacts or poke around in photo albums, not for any reason.  She resolved to put together some sort of equipment belt that she could don on the occasions that she had prep time before powering up -- she didn't know where her stuff went when she changed, but she knew that it was effectively out of reach for the duration.

Something that she put on afterwards, however....

"Thanks," she told Fleur sincerely, inwardly giggling at the idea that she was holding a Freedom League smartphone.  Ducking out into the hall, she hesitated a moment before typing 'Claremont' into the phone's search box -- she didn't actually know the school's number, and she hoped that Fleur would have one--

Yup.

Although perhaps she should have anticipated that it would reach the Headmaster directly.

It only took a couple of minutes of stammered explanations before she was cleared for a field trip, with the admonishment to behave herself, be careful, and listen to everything that Fleur said.  Hanging up the phone, she returned to the room a little stunned -- apparently, getting things moving along expediently really did depend on who you knew....

[Fox]

"Yup," Dragonfly was replying just as Cerulean came back in - the engineer had apparently opened the box back up for a moment, but she was putting the case back together now. She put one glowing gauntlet next to it with a casual lack of ceremony, and space went....wrong, for a moment. Little lines like creases in paper shot across the dimensional device's surface, and once they'd met each other on the other side it just...folded up into nothingness, like the thing was silently being crumpled up to the point of disappearing by a giant, invisible hand.

She nodded to Cerulean as she dusted her hands, gauntlet powering back down. "Radiation can't leak from there. Just wanted to make sure it wouldn't interfere, do something weird. Always a risk. Call go okay, I hope? And...medium, yes, probably," she belatedly replied, tilting her head at Fleur. "Comparing frames of reference is a good thought. Curious similarities between disciplines, there. Can't guarantee it'll be interesting, though, Cerulean - welcome to listen? Usually a lot of frustration until someone realizes what 'up' or 'frequency' means in other person's context."