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 Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:17 pm
Joy flopped her hands into her lap, and began to hope that perhaps Ace had not joined the group after all. But then...what was it he was so interested in showing her? Gah!
"I think fathers death changed a lot for us..." She mused in a slightly softer voice. "After father and mother divorced I tried to be as good a girl as I could and I convinced her to move back home... I was trying at the time to get them to get back together...but I guess mom had crossed a line and wasn't interested in going back. So I spent a lot of my time trying to appeal to father. I remember when father tried to hold you back a year. You came to me extremely upset...and I helped you figure out how to restore your grades. Then we talked to father and instead of holding you back he transferred you to a school I was currently in...I think from there a lot of stuff has gone differently..."
Joy's head tilted some, so she didn't have to look at this Ace. It made it...far easier to speak this way. "You were always my hero when I was younger. I am...was...convinced you were some brilliant genius that was just too wonderful to conform to societys normal way of thinking. I actually did think you'd become a superhero and I sometimes asked you to tell me what you'd do and who you would work with. I got the idea to become a hero myself from you. I wanted so badly to be able to put on a cute costume and a mask and to just...wander all over america helping you catch bad guys. It was a very stupid comic book fantasy." Joy slowly flickeredher eyes over to where Ace was sitting, and she continued after only a small break.
"You are right though Ace...I wasn't happy. I felt like I had to give up everything that was silly and childish. I felt like I had to fit into the system and to make myself into this perfect modle citizen...I never brought up what i wantedbecause i was afraid of conflicting with what people expected or wnted from me...when I get home though..I'm going to change that. I'm going to stop being so... accepting and just...start doing what I feel I have to..."
"I still think that my brother may be...involved in something that's dangerouse. He made a mention about how sometimes you had to work around the laws. So it makes me think someone is trying to take advantage of the fact he's angry at father...." She paused then and bit her bottom lip in thought. "Ace...you said you didn't discover the fact you were evolved until this group found you... I wonder if...was that one of the reasons you joined?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:40 pm
"Dad tried to hold me back a year? Oh, well... He should have waited until I actually flunked out of my senior year." Ace sighed, "I was always bent on going a different direction than the rest of the world did. And, you know, that worked really well for college. It's just that you have to learn to follow the rules before you go off from the trail. Learned that the hard way, but....maybe I refused to learn it when Dad tried to make me swallow it. Sometimes not letting a person face consequences is the worst thing you can do."
He frowned, looking thoughtful, "That's dangerous, if I didn't learn it then, then...I guess I would have continued to try to walk away from the rules. That would do it."
He looked up at Joy, "Don't try to take the world on your shoulders. The lesson you need to learn is that---that there is something that is the opposite of ego-centric and selfish like I've been in the past, and it's just as bad. And you're that. Stop it."
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 5:53 pm
It was bad. Joy nodded her head in agreement as Ace would figure out more or less what she had been putting together herself. This was bad. If her Ace had not learned these things then it was possible that he could get into worse trouble...it was possible that he might...purposefully make those choices. That could be even worse. Joy's heart kept sinking a bit further with her worry for her brother.
Her thoughts were a bit distracted though. As Ace would slightly admonish her for..well...her own traits. Joy blinked at him a bit, and she parted her lips to automatically deny his words. She stopped herself though, and her eyes lowered back to the bed.
"YOur...right...I can't do it alone...thats why when I get back..I think I'm going to ask father for help... The NSA has been dissovled or something...It doens't matter. What matters is that the government has taken away a public representation of the good that evolveds can do. I'm afraid that by doing this it will only increase the fear that humans feel towards us. Ace told me that there are still evolveds out there, that the government wasn't doing a good enough of a job finding them though. So... I want to ask father to help set up a new sort of NSA. But one that isn't so...well..combat oriented... The NSA had the feel of another branch of the Army. Or the marines, or even the airforce. it was a training facility that could turn out fighters. I want to set up something that will encourage the public to see us as helpful and..well..."
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:16 pm
Ace smiled a little, "I like that thinking. You work with Dad and Uncle Charles, they won't lead you the wrong way. They couldn't. Uncle Charles is a good man. Really good." Ace sighed, "I wish I'd done better for him. But you talk it out with him. Don't let him override you before you have your say. And... I don't know. If he's trying to go around the law... I don't know. Don't be afraid to call the law. He needs to face the consequences for what he's doing. If the message doesn't get through, he at least needs to be kept from making things worse. I can do that, you know. I make powers even bigger. That's huge. And now you've seen all this, you can make a difference, and I'll bet saving him will make Dad proud too." Ace smiled, "And even if it doesn't seem so, I do learn a lesson. Hard head, but...eventually. And eventually I'll be all that much grateful to you for it. If you can do that, you won't have to keep chasing sprites. Yeah?" He looked hopefully at Joy.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:27 pm
*Joy inhaled a deep breath* I hope your right. You know..it would be so much easier if I could only have you meet him. I'm sure he'd listen to...him...self...
Joy's eyes widened...and a rather sharp giddy laugh erupted from her lips. "Oh oh oh oh! I'm SUCH a silly fool!" She turned to her purse and ripped it ope. Digging within, she started to laugh rather mirthfully.
"So Ace! If you could talk to your younger self..." Joy pulled out her phone and flipped the screen up. Still smileing so wide her lips looked near to splitting, she pushed a button and a tiny red light flashed on the keypad. "..what would you tell yourself?"
She couldn't believe she had never THOUGHT of this! Why would anyone believe her word alone? Why not bring back video recordings!! They wouldn't be able to disbelieve this!
"Say hello to yourself Ace! Hee hee hee!"
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:43 pm
Ace looked surprised, then started laughing. "Avoid the green-swiss cheese, get in the red and green helicopter, and go for Blossom Rayne Owens. She's got a weird name, but man she turns out hotter, smarter, and far more awesome than a jalapeño and wasabi chili pepper on the fourth of July at the equator." He chuckled through that, but then gathered himself and became serious, "Love Mom and Dad and Joy because they sacrifice more than you can imagine." And more serious, "And you miss them more than not having a glass of water with that jalapeño-wasabi-chili-mix. Seriously. Dad's right, Mom gives everything up for Joy, and you know how much Joy means to you and what she does for you. You think missing out on your friends in high school sucks? Wait until they're all dead and you find out after the fact that they were right. And you know what else?"
Ace went on then, taking up the recording time on the phone, and then pulling up another. He listed people and philosophies to avoid. He mentioned the fact that he was right about the status quo being --- spiel of words that probably only made sense to Ace --- but a man couldn't go and judge another culture before having lived in it. Didn't mean he had to go and roll in the mud, but it didn't take anything but observation to realize that mud was dirty and how to fix it up.
He ended though with a message to Jim. He loved him, very much, and appreciated all his efforts. Please pay a little more attention to his kids. They were seeping through his fingers and one day either they'd be on the wrong side of the fence and he would live to see them fall, or he'd be dead and the only memories they'd be able to have of him were babyhood memories and childhood pleadings for attention. Oh, and that's what all the nonsense was, by the way. It was just his trying to get a father's attention. How about saving them all some heartache and doing it?
Then he shut Joy out of the room to give her a message to, and made her swear not to listen to it until after she'd gotten home. --- Which, by the way, when was she doing that?
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:56 pm
*Some of it...some of it Joy laughed at. A lot of it though she felt a sense of seriousness and sadness mixed. She did wonder how hard it would be for Ace to say all of these things. Speaking to himself, and even his father! Like he was getting a chance to speak to his past maybe? Say all the things he wished he had, and trying to change the things he wished had never happened? Joy listened to his Ace speech. A faint smile on her lips. This had to be it. This had to be the best answer to her trip. It would fix some things and prove to everyone where she realll had been. She wondered how shocking this would be to her father and Ace?
When Ace kicked her out of the room...she had to admitt she felt a bit ruffled. And curious. What was he recording now that he couldn't say to her yet? Part of her wanted to disobay and watch it immediatly. It had to be a good bye he just wasn't capable of bringing himself to say. Still, a part of her worried it was something more.
Joy waited until it was that Ace finished with his secret message. A slightly bemused smile upon her lips as he would open the door to give her back the phone. "Well...I think that will take care of proving everything I'm saying. Now I just need to get those records and documents and stuff for father and Charles. I'm not sure if Robbie is going to still get them or not. he seemed pretty angry before I came here...So I think maybe I should do a little more web surfing and..I don't know...soon I guess. I don't have mastery over Rena's powers. Honestly...she's a very strong evolved. I'm surprised I've been able to mimic her at all."
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:03 pm
Ace frowned, "I don't think that's very funny, Joy!" He admonished. Then glared at her look of surprise, "Don't pretend that you don't know. You were ghosting and listening, weren't you? Just look at your arm. You're not hiding it well." He almost hissed at her, then pointed to the mirror when she continued to look surprised.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:08 pm
"Ghosting?" Joy looked at him with a uncertain gaze. "I was not listening! I would't do that! I don't even -have0 ghosting right now! I have Air and Rena's teleportation as my primarys and fire as my secondary." What was he thinking? Ghosting! Joy turned to look at herself in the mirror...and her slightly frowning features fell into a deadpan stare.
There was nothing wide eyed or innocent about her stare. There was a...sickness in her eyes as she slipped her gaze from the mirror and looked down at her arm. She could see...through it. See through...
"Ace..." She began to speak in a soft and controlled voice. "Go and get Robbie...and I think Mr. Hyland... I dont want to.... I don't want to jump to conclusions but..." Her green eyes lifted slowly towards her brother. "I don't have Ghosting mimiced."
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:22 pm
Ace was glaring right up to the point she started to talk, then he wheeled around and ran out of the house, "ROBBIE! ROBBIE ROOOOBBIE!!!"
The same time, Sir Hyland was calling, "Robbie! Come up front!" It was a command that didn't allow for not listening.
Robbie went for the old timer, "Yes, sir?"
"Have you not---"
"ROBBIE! Joy is see-through!"
"This. As is Neil."
"We need to get them home!" Rena was rubbing her hands together uncertainly, "She isn't ready for teleporting here, much less like that."
"THEN YOU HAVE TO DO IT!"
"Don't yell at me! I can't, I can't, I don't know how either. I've been trying to figure it out. I've been trying."
Rena had ducked behind Sir Hyland, who had stood protectively in front of her, and Robbie had dashed in front of them, arms out to keep Ace from snatching at the girl. "We can't do this if we're all panicking." He informed him, then turned to Sir Hyland, "What should we do?"
"You'll have to work together. Bring Joy here, make sure she can still mimic abilities. Rena, you can open the portal, we will have to see if Joy can work off of that while Ace powers you both up." Lesley's voice had actually gotten quieter, but it had the intended calming affect. Even Ace's dashing out again didn't seem as frantic.
"Daddy, I don't know. We never tried teleporting together. We can't even make things together. It's all separate."
"Joy always said you had to have faith. She always pushed us, and she was always right." Robbie turned to Rena, "Now she's told us that Sir Hyland was always her greatest influence. We trusted Joy, we need to trust her inspiration and your father now."
"You watched too many sap-movies with her, pulling that sort of crap out of your butt." Destin muttered.
"You have to try!" Robbie snapped.
-*-*-*-
Ace would arrive with Joy in tow before long. Lesley was speaking lowly to Rena. Robbie was speaking with Ace. Destin had scooted out already at some command of Robbie's.
Lesley turned to Joy and told her and Ace the game plan. That was it, if they didn't have better ideas... ?
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:42 pm
Joy was left alone.
It wasn't a particularly good feeling when you were sitting alone in a guest room staring at the striped pattern of the bedding through your own arm. Mind you...Joy logically could not stop herself from noticing it was just her skin that was transluscent. Expirementally she pulled her shirt down until it covered over the skin. The material remained solid.
It didn't make sense to her. It was not feasible for her matter to just vanish. What if... What if what was really happening was thather molucules were just...being drawn back into the space they had left vacant? It was a science fiction theroy that Joy felt...weirdly uncomfortable with. Logically looked at, this was a good thing.
Illogically...it means she was going home naked. Joy tilted back her head and she found a...strange laugh bubbling up from her lips. It felt a little weird coming from her. Just a touch strained. "Nyheee heee heee." As she brought her head back to face the forwards, the laugh quieted.
It was in this position that Ace would return to find her. Her eyes focused quite simply on the ground at her feet. When it was he told her to come, she stood and collected her purse and moved to the desk rather then following him immediatly. She pulled open the drawer at the desk, and pulled out the notebook she had been taking all of her notes in. It looked terribly ragged. not at all like the crisp and clean notebooks she had somehow managed to keep in good condition through out her school years.
After Ace led her to Lesley, she listened without a word and glanced at neil. Her head then turned to look towards Rena, and she merely responded with a nod of her head instead of a customary smile.
"I don't see how we have any other choice. Either we try now or this has been all for nothing. I don't think that's a acceptable option so...let's try Rena. We'll make it work. You didn't know you could jump through worlds after all, and it just happened. Reguardless of what happens..." And here Joy managed a faint smile. "It's all over now one way or another."
Still holding the notebook in her one solid hand tightly to her side, Joy nodded a little to Neil for him to come stand near here.
"Good bye everyone...Good luck with your world. I really hope that you manage to make it a better place."
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:54 pm
Robbie gave Joy a nod. Destin rushed in with a disc, handed it to Neil, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. He gave him and then Joy a thumbs up sign, then stepped back.
Ace gave her a suffocating bear hug and a kiss on the cheek, then stepped into the portal-world Rena had already made, his hand tightly in hers a moment, unwittingly giving her his power to also mimic, then stepped back and started his to power the girls up. He was muttering something incoherent under his breath.
Neil had simply had to follow in and try to squish his way to the side instead of running into the siblings since they'd stopped at the doorway.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The portal opened in an office. That was no surprise. The focus-person had been Jim Edwards.
The surprise was that Ace leapt out of the portal alongside Joy and Neil, swooped in and gave Jim a hug and a kiss (despite the coffee that splashed everywhere and the surprised exclamations), told him everything was ok and back to normal now, he loved him very much and to keep hounding "the boy," then jumped back into the portal.
Jim leapt forward to grab his daughter and Neil beside him, away from where the portal was. It was a defensive stance he took, glaring at the empty spot and planning to do goodness-knew-what to goodness-knew-who had shown up with his baby. "What do they want?" He demanded, not so much as looking at the two as he glared at what was now his normal-looking office.
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:09 pm
Joy accepted the hug from Ace, she almost expected it really. He was saying good bye to her after all. Though, as he clung to her for those few moments, she felt moved to whisper...so very softly into his ear. "I love you Ace." Even as she spoke, she used the prolonged contact to shift out her temporary fire power, to mimic Aces own. There was no telling if she would need it after all!
Despite all of their fears and fussing over how they would get the right world...the jump seemed easy. Open...step...swoop...and there they were. Her focusing on her father seemed to be...easy...and she credited it all to Ace's power boost. This would have had to have been nearly impossible any other way.
Ace's spastic jump through...she should have anticipated it. But..still... it brought a faint smile to her lips. Well, it seemed Ace got his chance...to see his father one last time... Then..so quickly they were gone. Joy was still standing next to Neil, looking at the empty space that her father seemed determined to be a body shield against. His question seemed to mean he expected..something. Some sort of indepth answer...all Joy could think to say...all she honestly could think to say...was a simple... "For Joy to be alive."
She turned and reached out a hand to lightly touch Neil, assuring herself that he was solid and fine from the jump. "Neil...you probably have...a lot of people to get in touch with. I'll give you a call later okay?" She felt that the rest of her day was going to be taken up by her father....turning to him, she took a deep breath and held out her notebook towards Jim.
"Father...we...really need to talk in private. I have some things I want you to watch first though..." Reaching into her purse, Joy pulled out her phone, and with a few button push's she had the string of videos playing for her father to watch that she knew were for him and Charles.
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:53 am
OOC: Moving sort of quick here. Insert things in the middle as you wish. =D
Jim entirely ignored whatever it was Joy had to say, as well as whatever emergency training he undoubtedly had. He hugged tightly onto her, "You weren't hurt? Questioned? Threatened? You're not hurt, really? Where were you? What happened? Are you sure you're not hurt at all?"
Then a flood of other questions, mostly concentrated on Joy, though he did include Neil at times, and every other one of them had to do with her physical, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
It took nearly four hours, well past another man popping his head in to ask if Jim was going to stay late again, before his questioning was done and he more or less had what story he wanted. It was only then that he turned to Neil and asked him who he needed to contact, then promised to drive the boy with Joy over to where it was he needed to go. That would take another three hours--an hour and a half drive each way. But, first...
...but first was that Ace had been at Jim's house, and apparently had been waiting on him to arrive. He came barreling from the front door, shouting some sort of angry obscenities about Jim being late when they had things to do.
"Don't get crushed!" Jim warned Joy, his voice serious-enough sounding. "Neil, keep a low profile. He might shoot before asking."
They were warnings well warranted all around. Ace had let out what could only be called an almost-manly squeal at seeing Joy, and did indeed seem to be about ready to crush her under arms.
While Jim's questioning had been frantic enough, it had still had an air of official about it. Ace was---well, Ace. "You're alive! You weren't raped and killed or eloped in Africa to be murdered by tribeys or done in by a pass-by Sir Aquifer hater in England!" Then he punched her in the shoulder, not enough to really be called a punch, but not lightly enough that it could be called playful, "Then why didn't you call!?!?! You have a cellphone. Or is it too old? What is wrong with you?" He demanded.
"She was abducted by someone who mistook her for someone else." Jim called.
"ALIENS TOOK YOU!?!!" Then Ace blinked and did a double take, giving Jim a funny face. That wasn't something his father would--oh, yeah, by someone who, "Who?"
"An alternate universe you."
"...." Was his father saying this?
"Get in the car. I'm taking Neil home. Neil, come up around the passenger's seat."
"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE MY SISTER!?!"
"Because you and the Hylands abducted me too!" Neil shot back, "What would you do if Rainbow Bright came and pushed you through a portal?"
"... Did you give my sister an acid trip?"
"We can prove it, Bozo. Get in the car. I've been away from home for a long time too."
And so they had to relate the whole story again on the way to drop Neil off. Ace listened at first, then began asking stupid and outrageous questions.
Then Neil was dropped off. Ace turned and to pounce on Joy, "So, what did you miss about home? What are we going to have to do to reintroduce you to everything here?"
"Does Ace get a cell-video too?" Jim queried from up front. He'd totally ignored Joy the first time she'd tried to show his to her, and the second time he had been so busy multi-tasking with last minute wrap ups of the job and asking Neil questions about where he needed to be and apparently thinking of picking up Ace that he hadn't seemed to pay much attention at all to it. Apparently he had enough to determine without seeing Ace's version that it would be ok for the boy to see it.
"A video? From an alternate world? Really? Let me see!"
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:24 am
Hurt... Joy spent a great deal of time assuring her father that she was fine. That nothing had happened to her. She intentionally left out the part where Neil had nearly been shot the very first hour they had arrived. As well as her mishap with Bolthor's planned attack on the labratory. Even the fading bit at the end. Anything that would convince her father that something could have happened to her that would distract him from listening to her. It seemed though that he was distracted anyways... It amused Joy a bit that neither Ace nor Jim had taken note of her distinct lack of pink clothing or the fact she was wearing pants.
Through out the entier questioning by her father, Joy remained a bit muted in her responses. She simply lacked the cheerfull lit to her voice and features. Instead she remained a bit solom and serious. She did try to share what she felt was important with him...but he was just a bit too caught up in his own things. In the end Joy ended up taking back her notebook, which she didn't even think had been opened, and stopped her attempts to get him to watch her videos. If he believed her that is what mattered. Perhaps once the shock of her story and return had run it's course her father would be more inclined to listen to her ideas.
She felt a bit sorry for Neil, being subjected to her fathers questions after everything that he had been through. He didn't seem...interested in her offer to give him a call and she did not push the matter. A lot was happening now that they had gotten home... and a lot of time was passing in truth. Just from the talking alone Joy felt exhausted. She wasn't certain how she was going to manage with Ace.
But then again...how does one 'manage Ace'? She simply had to accept the wildness of her brother. A rather small faint smile greeted him in his rush. She was grateful that Ace did not round on Neil first, as it gave her and Jim a chance to explain things a bit to Ace. Actually...this felt weird...after being around the alternate worlds Ace...her brother seemed far younger in comparison. Childish almost. For a strange surreal moment Joy's head swam with a mind twist that perhaps they had gotten the wrong world and here she was the older sibling rather then the younger...
But that was not the case, as Ace physically was obviosly a bit older then her. The exchange between Ace and Neil managed to ground her though, and on the car ride she was grateful that relaying the story to Ace did not take nearly as much time as it had to her father. In truth, Joy spent most of the time sitting quietly and letting Jim and Neil answer Ace's questions. Though some of his questions seemed like the sorts she simply could not avoid answering.
"I missed you and father of course." Joy quietly answered when Ace pressed for her to tell him what she had missed most. "You don't have to do anything to reintroduce me. I'm fine, really. There are just some things I need to take care of now that I'm home."
Prompted to show the video, Joy pulled her phone out and flipped it open. She did not believe that Ace seeing himself would have more of a impact beyond 'cool' for him. And she worried that whatever message her alternate had sent along for them would be partly disreguarded because of that. Well... there was no way for her to change that... Pressing play she held the phone out to Ace so he could watch and listen to the image of his older self talking.
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