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 Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:30 am
That day of the nonincidental accident, Ace had taken Joy into a living room, stuffed a favorite movie of hers that had been made sometime in 2014, and sat leaning on her watching it. Well, he stared at the television screen anyway. His eyes didn't really focus on the screen and his mind was clearly elsewhere.
The next day, he was back to how he'd been and the incident wasn't mentioned by anyone.
Two days later, they were on a break from training. Ace was tossing a ball back and forth with Neil, chattering about what investments he should make for the future if the stockmarkets had any similarities in them at all, and almost sounding like the Ace they knew as he even danced around a few subjects and pulled some jokes about the whole thing.
Neil wasn't willing to really adjust, but he'd pulled out of the initial shock and had started even to pal around a bit with Destin. Destin's acceptance of Neil had brought an immediate change to Ace's dealings with him--Ace went from skirting around Neil entirely to grabbing up a random ball meant for the dog and tossing it at his head in their spare time.
It was during this that Robby showed up in the doorway, "Ace. Bolthor is here!"
Ace sat straight up, and Neil leaned back, "Oh, great, finally a big super's name."
"Bolthor is no super." Ace snapped, "What do you mean here? In North America?"
"No here, on the west side of town. You come with me."
"Here? Why here? There's nothing in Texas for him! Why can't he leave this side of the world alone? Isn't Europe enough for him to terrorize?" Even as he whined, Ace had jumped to his feet to follow after Robby.
"Terrorize? Bolthor's one of the good guys." Neil was talking to the air at this point. He turned to Joy, "Man. Ace has always been a little chaotic. Do you think we're on the right side of this?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:12 am
Joy indulged Ace. He really seemed to need it and she had to admitt she needed it as well. He wasn't exactly her brother...but there were enough similarities that she could grow comfortable enough with him. Besides... If she was going to stay and help she needed to adjust.
The movie they shared that day had been enjoyable. Joy could see why her alternate had favored it. She laughed and cried both at the movie, which she worried might have seemed strange...but Ace didn't seem to mind. In fact he didn't seem to even notice really. From time to time she found herself just lightly stroking at his hair and wondering just how close her alternate had been with Ace.
Joy did not hold it against Neil for not being willing to adjust to the different world. He was still waiting to be taken back home after all, and though she doubted she'd be able to manage it she wasn't going to continue to let her doomy feelings effect his optimism. Joy did attempt to socialize a bit...but for a great part of her time she kept to herself in her Alternates room. Reading all those well maintained files and testing each of the hair samples her alternate had collected. She practiced with the ones she felt she'd be able to safely manage alone. She felt like something of a heel, keeping silent on her intentions because she knew how vocally Ace was going to protest. He seemed so...so..adamant about her returning to what she supposed he viewed was a safer world then his. Well it was! At least there they didn't have that awful poison! But Joy couldn't ignore the fact that they seemed to rely a lot on the Alternate Joy...and if she was dead... what would happen now?
Joy didn't even know exactly what they were doing. She didn't know what sort of plans Ace and his friends had beyond surviving. A part of her worried that it was arrogant of her to believe that she could single handedly help this world become a better place. But a small part of her, the part that had never quite faded out of exsistance after the NASA shut down cheered for the opportunity to at least try to help the world. Even if it wasn't her own and filled with frightened mean people.
So, Joy spent her time trying to become as familar with as many powers as she could manage. She remained altered with Air and intangibility, and constantly cycled through a myrid of other temporary powers. Some she found that her Alternate could use, but when she tried the familar warning pains began. Obviously she and her Alternate were not carbon copies of each other...the samples she was unable to safely Mimic she ended up setting aside in a empty file cabinet, but for the sake of slight paranoia she did not mark the files.
Joy was curled up in a living room chair readying some papers that her Alternate had written up concerning her secondary power. Joy was...rather astounded that she hadn't considered the possibility that her Alternate had discovered her power already. So the file made for excellent reading! It was then when Robby appeared, apparently to summon Ace. She listened to the exchange between Ace and Neil, a concerned look growing upon her features.
"In our world Bolthor is actually a good guy Ace. One of the respectable ones too I think. I didn't follow him much though as I had more interest in..uhm...another elemental type Super..." She then turned and flashed a small smile at Neil after Ace had left. "I think we are. If we weren't I'm sure Ace would be more concerned with getting me trained to replace this worlds Joy rather then getting us home don't you? Besides...just because someones a good guy in our time line doesn't mean they can't end up bad here...of course there is the time factor too. Remember Novara? She started out a good guy and after time passed ended up being a real terror..."
Joy's eyes slid to the door where Ace had vanished. "I don't like the feel of this either. If Bolthor is a bad guy now and he's suddenly shown up here... I wonder if there could be trouble..." Joy reached out to pat neil on the hand and started for the stairs to the basement. "I'm going to get Changed up and see if I can follow Ace and Robbie. I want to see whats going on for myself. Will you be all right by yourself?"
Joy spoke as she slipped down into her Alternates rooms. She honestly had been planning on doing something like this earlier...but she had not been counting on it to be for a actual serious reasoning. Flipping through the files Joy selected a Ghostwalker sample and after lingering hesitation she included a Earth Element as her temporary. There! She was...all changed...
Joy lingered for a moment, expecting Neil to protest...possibly loudly even at her. But... "I will be right back I promise. besides...no one will even know I'm there." She promised him with a fluttering wink. Joy used the Ghosting ability to make herself invisable and intangible, then with a summoning of air that stirred the papers in the room, she propelled herself upwards through the house. Now all she had to do was float along, useing the wind currents, and she could follow Ace without anyone even knowing!
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:32 am
"Right, ok." Neil muttered to Joy's first words of supposed comfort, and had just been about to call the dog in so he could play ball with him instead when she said the second.
He paused at the door and looked back, confused, then shook his head. She couldn't possibly have really said what he thought she had, could she? No, Joy was more responsible than that. He began to head out again, but then turned around, "Joy...what did you say? I thought you---" Then she confirmed it.
"What? NO! You can't do that! Joy you---where are you, come back! JOY! JOY!" Neil tried for slamming the door closed, spent some minutes yelling out for her again, and then rushed to go find Sheryl to inform her of Joy's delinquencies.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Joy had just made it to the vehicle before Destin had taken off in it. Robby was in the middle of a debriefing.
"....would be my guess, anyway. It doesn't matter, really. Here's the plan. Tire, you will wrap your way around me, protect me. I'll fire after Bolthor. Oracle, you find yourself a place to keep Tire strong. Don't worry about me, Tire's the one that's going to be taking all of the hits. He needs to be the one staying the strongest."
No one answered him anything. A few things were tweaked, Robby apparently thinking quickly through the options as they went.
Then they were undoubtedly there. Panicked individuals. Police officers. All electricity taken out of anything---including the vehicle, which came to a dead stop where it was. An electric storm brewing overhead. Bolthor couldn't be seen.
But they could see where the police officers as a whole were pointed. In a moment, Destin had fallen into some rubbery form and wrapped his way around Robby. Ace had already climbed out of the vehicle and was looking for a vantage point where he could watch the show and keep the right people powered up.
It wouldn't take long to see what was happening. It appeared that Bolthor had a building taken. He and another evolved stood at two sides of the front of the building, while apparently some others had gone inside to do whatever it was they thought needed doing.
Instead of attacking Robby and Destin, the electricity crowded around them when they appeared.
"You would defend a facility that makes animals out humans and works to perfect their weapons of destruction against your own kind?" Bolthor demanded.
Robby, true to his quiet nature, didn't answer, but instead ran right through the electric cloud. A hard blast of fire flew at Bolthor.
The other evolved proved to be a water evolved. A wall of water came up out of no where, clashing against the fire and causing it to fizzle out into harmless smoke.
"Your normal tactics will not work here." Bolthor warned.
If Joy was anywhere where Ace was, she'd get an earful of cursing about now.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:18 am
They were getting ready for a fight it seemed. Tire? That was Destin's name? Joy placed a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggle that wanted to escape. This was serious though...it seemed that Robby really was the leader of this A-Team. And he had a pretty solid plan too from the sound of it. Joy would merely be a spectator that hopefully no one would ever be the wiser of. Actually...she had to admitt she liked this particular power coupling. Invisable and intangible...the air currents to push her along...there would be no way at all anyone would catch on!
At the start Joy was a bit thrilled that she'd be able to watch the battle. While the electrical storm that was gathering worried her (She hadn't read the Ghostwalkers file completely through and she had no clue if electricity would effect her in this form...she was betting safely that it would.)
What worried her more was the cursing that erupted from Ace. Things were not going according to plan. If Robbie could not blast Bolthor with his fire... Still.
Joy cast her sight around the area. Nothing was too badly amiss yet. As far as she could tell? That didn't mean that things wouldn't get bad real quick though. What were they doing in the building? She had heard Bolthor's bold proclamation. That didn't -sound- like the words of a villian...
Joy looked down at the faint outline of her own hands thoughtfully. She had taken earth because it would prove a solid defender against electricity. She could possibly even prove to be a thorn for the water elemental. Particularly if she operated at a distance. She wouldn't be nearly as effective as if she were on the ground and in touch with the element. Still...
Should she say something to Ace? Oh no no! He'd become agitated even more and distracted! That would mean his power wouldn't effect Destin well enough, meaning he and Robbie could get hurt.
Joy could already see the problems her presence could cause and the full berating she'd recieve. So...
She'd operate invisably and hopefully with no one aware... But first...
She had to see what was in the building. Partly to debunk Bolthor's claim about what went on, and partly because she could not, in good consciousness, bring down a building that may have innocent people inside. A shame she couldn't effect the stone of the concrete, then she'd just collapse the ceiling!
With a shake of her head, Joy manipulated a air current to carry her overhead, so she could slip through what she hoped was a relatively clear area of space and propell herself on a quick little recon job inside of the building.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:31 am
The inside of the building at first seemed normal enough :: Except for the dim atmosphere, the only light coming in from the windows, it could have been the secretary's greeting room for any number of buildings. This one seemed to be a joint-doctor's and various specialists' offices.
Further inside and --- WOOOooosh!! --- a man carrying a lady ran past her and down the hallway.
Right.
Further inside, again there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary in the building. It was dark, dark, dark in the hallway, and it seemed abandoned at first using only the sense of sight.
But down further, and below, sounds could be heard. A struggle of some sort? A crash of glass. A scream not too long after the man and lady had run past her.
Downstairs? Another secretary's office, but the door was swung wide and the struggle was very clearly coming from inside. It sounded like there were two or three dozen people in there, and none of the words were coming out clearly, the loudest of them a completely different language altogether.
Inside? Well, we couldn't get much more stereotyped of a mad scientist's home. The hallway went to five different rooms. The first looked like a radiologist's room. This was not where the struggle was. The second... The second appeared to be a drug-creating room. And here was part of the struggle. A creature that appeared to be a bigfoot of some sort fought with a sludge-tossing doctor.
The third room was a record keeps of some sort, blazing in a fire.
The fourth and fifth rooms? A kennel for humans it seemed. Many people--all with power-surpressing collars on their necks--were caged like so many dogs. And here more fighting was going on. Doctors against two evolveds--and then the man and lady that had come by her apparently fighting against the evolveds as well.
It was an utter madhouse.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:37 am
Outside::: Information overlapping my last post. =)
Meanwhile, Rena had apparently run to get reinforcements. Outside, a portal shimmered open and showed three new individuals. One woman stood where she was, lifting up her arms and folding them as if she was folding something heavy in. The water evolved let out exclamations of surprise and quickly moved around--something invisible. The man had an exceptional speed, and disappeared almost immediately to the inside of the building, carrying the second woman with him.
With the water evolved apparently very much occupied with the air around him attacking, Robby was onto attacking Bolthor again. Fire blast after fire blast---
---But Bolther and the water evolved were powerful, and it didn't take long before they were merely deflecting the attacks on them. The water evolved seemed bored almost.
"Listen! You're destroying yourselves by attacking us!" That and other such comments from Bolthor were continuations of his trying to get the boys and lady to stop bumbling them up.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:45 am
It was horrible. Joy floated a little high in the rooms to avoid the disconcerting feeling of people running through her. There was no telling if they would notice the cold spot they were moving through anyways. Still. Her eyes swept through the madness as tears welled up in her eyes and a terrible sick feeling rolled about in her stomach. How could they do this to people? How could they...cage and...use...and...
For a few moments Joy's emotions overwhelmed her. Her sight was blinded by tears and she had to place her hands over her mouth to stifle the choked sobs in her throat. She had no worries that someone would hear. In all of this madness...how could anyone hear?
Still... She had to get a handle on herself, and that was not as easy as she thought it should have been.
Joy's gaze turned down to the mayhem. She wanted to help but...she knew that if she used her earth power here she'd pretty much kill everyone. Well...
She could easily tell who the doctors were... Lifting her hands, Joy floated down just a bit and narrowed her gaze in concentration. The humans wouldn't be as keen to fight if they couldn't breath...focusing her attention on the pair of doctors, she manipulated the air about them, causeing a possibly dismissed current of cool air about them...though as that current grew in strength...she would attempt to create a vaccume about them. If they were forced unconscious..then perhaps the ones they were fighting would instead choose to release the other poor people and then retreat...
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 7:57 am
It did not take long for the current of fast moving air around the doctors to be noticed by everyone involved in the conflict--It wasn't quite as clear at first that no one on either side knew what to make of it.
But Bolthor's team was the first to take advantage of it.
With the air swirling about them, the defense of the vaccinations and guns that the doctors had were no longer affective. One of the foreign evolveds shot a string-like subtance into the whirling air, and then shot the substance up above the made cyclone and down into it. The string firmly stuck itself to any surface it touched.
It was when the doctors started to scream that the lady whirled into action. She slapped her hands together, and as she did so, everything surrounding a specific area---including the string evolved--simply collapsed to the ground.
The fast moving evolved rushed around to physically attack the other evolveds.
The doctors were entirely stuck with strings now, and out of the fight.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:28 am
Joy hovered...and watched...and blinked.
There was more to this then she knew. More to this...whole world then she understood. Her head shook slightly. The smart thing for her to do would be to leave. leave and just...speak to Ace when he returned. But...
Joy's head lifted upwards. Neil's comment from before unsettled her. Of course Ace was on the good side. Still. In her mind the battle should have been cut and dry simple. Incapacitate the dosctors, then free the poor evolveds that were trapped.
But...they were all just...fighting each other...
Joy glanced at the cages and inwardly she wished she had taken a different power. Something that she could have used to open the cages. Well... there should be..a key...somewhere? But if she wanted to find it, and use it..she would have to become tangible...visable... She'd be seen and vulnerable for certain. She couldn't risk that...but could she risk just leaving and hoping whoever won the fight would be the right side?
Did she even know what side was the right side? She didn't know now! Still... She shouldn't just leave them like this..there were desks and...things and she should...help...somehow...while the other evolveds kept each other busy.
Ace was going to be terribly mad at her...
Joy brought herself down level to inspect one of the cages. If it was a computer lock she'd have to find a computer to unlock it...if it really was a key lock...then she'd visially search the area to see if she could fins some...keys?
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:31 am
It was now that a third evolved showed up, yelled something to his pals in whatever language it was that they shared, and then disappeared right before the fast-paced evolved could come at him.
The other two evolveds followed suit, disappearing entirely.
"LOOK at this! Look!" Now the gravity girl had a chance to freak out, "Oh no, look at this. Look at it!" She had run up to the cages, and was shaking at their locks, "Right under our noses too. You poor people. Oh my goodness."
"Ever feel like we're on the wrong side?" The other guy muttered, but winced at seeing the death glare from his companion, "Right. How are we going to unlock these?"
"That fire---it's gotten out of control! We have to get them out NOW..."
"There is no key!" The man yelled back, and started super-sifting his way through the room, ran out, was gone for a few minutes, and was back in, "There is no key. We need to get out of here NOW!"
"But that's dooming them!"
"The other roomful has people already released. They're gone. So HALF were saved. But if that fire gets to where I can't run through---or into that lab--we're dooming ourselves in the process. We need to go NOW."
"Some of them are just children..."
"Come on!" The man grabbed the lady and proceeded to jet out.
If Joy was much longer, she would find herself trapped as well.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:52 am
Well...that...That helped her a little bit. At least she knew that the ones who remained behind meant to help but...
Even as the pair ran off Joy couldn't help but feel a bit sick. Heros never left anyone behind. She looked at the cages. She was...alone now and..well the doctors...even if they had done bad things they were still people! The fire....it would keep anyone from coming down but at the same time it would eventually kill everyone.
Joy never realized until now just how hard some descions could be.
But..the obvious descion was...to help them. Was this how her alternate thought and felt? Was this how she ended up vanishing?
Joy knew each second she wasted in thought spelt death for these people. Biting her bottom lip, she flickered through her options. As few as they were. She should have practiced more with this power! Reguardless...now that no one else was there to see her...
Joy assumed a corporeal form before the first cage. The heat of the place hit her rather solidly, and her first inhalation of the smokey air sent her into a tearful fit of coughing. She hadn't realized how bad it was!! Joy tugged her shirt up over her mouth, and realized another thing she had not counted on. Fire...the fire was eating up all of the air and oxygen. She might not be able to float herself anywhere if she couldn't summon a proper draft..and she couldn't very well climb her way intangibly through the walls and dirt...she needed prior moment to manage that...
With her eyes tear blinded and her mind fearfully distracted, Joy placed her palm on the lock of the cage. She closed her fist about it as best she could, and went intangible again. her nerves were quite jittery...and the lock seemed to..resist her a bit as she changed...but it was with relief she felt it slip... Joy pulled her hand away, removing the now vanished lock, and she resumed her corporeal form. Slipping back from the cage, she pulled the door open and wordlessly gestured for the man within to come out.
"H-hurry. The fires getting worse."
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:00 am
Joy had time to fiddle with the second lock before a portal appeared, engulfed the whole lot of them. This time, instead of showing up anywhere, they were stuck inside of the portal a moment. They were all there. The man let free, and the four--still in cages. Then Joy was booted out into the house, where everyone else had already met.
"ARE YOU INSANE?" Ace was furious, and behind him was a furious Neil. The boys were going to tag team her, that much was obvious, "You are lucky you are not dead! You're lucky we were about to find you! SHUTUP! Don't you try to defend yourself. Joy is dead in this universe DEAD! Do you know what that means? That means this universe is in an imbalance because YOU are here, and it would be happy to balance itself to kill you too. YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS HOUSE AGAIN, and you will not go back to Joy's room. Never. And you will hand me your purse now. You are NOT to get anymore powers for yourself."
Ace was so angry, his whole body had turned red and he was trembling, much how Jim got when he was honestly, truly furious. "You will stay on the other side of the house in the guestroom, and you will not venture to this side of this house, and you will not set foot outside. Is. That. Understood?"
"No." Ace turned, arms already out for a punch to whoever had spoken. But it was Robby. "No, I don't understand why you would yell at her like that before checking to see if she's truly safe." Robby spoke coolly, and now came forward to Joy, critically examining her with his eyes, asking her if she was ok with breathing. Then putting one hand on either shoulder to look carefully at her face. "Joy? Are you feeling ok? You? I know what you saw was frightening." His voice was truly concerned, soothing even. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO---"
"Yelling is not helping this situation." Robby informed Ace coolly, "Neither is terrifying your sister any more than she is. Please, go to your room until you cool down. All of you."
Ace didn't look inclined to do so, but Destin came around and tugged him away. Sheryl shuttled Neil to follow suit.
"Joy?" Robby pushed back some wild hair, "How are you?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 9:52 am
It was getting incredibly hard to breath. Each small breath she managed to take felt painful. She wanted to run away. To shift into her ghost borrowed form and fly away while she could still summon a current....but the second lock kept eluding her. She tried at least twice to grab it and shift, but each time the lock seemed to stubbornly remain solid. Perhaps it was the lack of air she was getting, the coughing maybe. Joy closed her eyes against the burning and leaned against the second cage as she struggled for breath.
Then...suddenly she could breath. The air was clear and the heat was gone. It sounded amazingly quiet too. The sensation hardly lasted though, and she found herself suddenly within a all too familar room. She was nearly deafened by the angry words from Ace. She still had her hand up and holding her shirt over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were...a bit large, and ringed with red from the tears she had shed earlier and the smoke that had burned them. She could still smell the smoke in her cloths even.
Neil seemed to be...quite aggressively adding to Ace's ball of doom and fury that he was seemingly trying to crush her verbally with. He was frighteningly like his father at that moment...and Joy had never enraged her father to this point...ever... In fact Joy couldn't think of a time when anyone had ever been this mad at her. "I...I only---" Ace shut her down quicker then a steel trap with a hair trigger. Joy litterally jumped at how quickly he stopped her. She had not considered the whole 'balance' thing that he was talking about. Sure she understood different worlds, and accepted that. But she was not certain she had ever considered that the entier universe might be bent a little out of shape because she was there...and was actively trying to kill her.
Joy opened her mouth to protest over being, for lack of a better word, grounded like a child but... Ace was so mad! So furious! She had never meant to get involved. She had never meant to get pulled into danger. It had just happened! Joy could feel her breath catching in her chest and she fought the bout of crying she knew was coming along.
It was a unexpected surprise when Robbie came forwards and put a end to Ace's tirade. More so of a surprise that he seemed genuinely interested in making certain she was unhurt. "I..I'm f-fine." She gulped in a breath of air and had her lungs betray her a bit by forcing a short coughing fit upon her. "R-really. I'm fine I was only in the smoke for a few minutes." What she had seen. What she had seen had been utterly terrible. Being brought back here to a pair of furious men was also quite terrible.
She had to admitt though..she was grateful when it was the gathered group was dismissed. Joy sincerly did not want them to see further proof of how inappropriate it was for her to be out where there was danger.
The gentle words..and the slight brush of her hair was just a bit too much though...Joy placed her hands over her face in a attempt to keep her tears to herself.
"How am I? How am I? I'm horrible! I'm confused! I don't know right from wrong here. Who's doing what and for what reason and how everyone feels about it. I don't know what's really going on out there. I feel like I'm trapped in a fishbowl but the glass has been all blackened. My father and my brother are worlds away now with no idea what's happened to me and likely blaming each other and having awful fights about it."
Joy swiped at her eyes with her palms, leaving unflattering streaks of soot upon her face. "There were people in cages. In cages Robbie. They were so sick looking and scared and... And people that should have been helping them were too busy decking it out with each other." She felt a slight hardness in her voice that she'd not felt or heard before. She gave her head just a small shake and attempted to recollect her scattered thoughts.
"I only meant to watch. I wanted to see what was going on. Bolthor in my world....he's a Hero. A good man who fights hard to protect everyone. Evolved or Human. I picked powers I thought would make a good combination for simply watching, and Earth just in case I needed something to ground me. But when I was there... I had to see for myself if it was true."
Joy's head tilted to look up at Robbie, her lips pressing into a small line as she continued. "I didn't tell anyone I was there because I knew that would be a distraction You all needed to focus on the fight. I only told Neil because I knew he'd worry if I just vanished. I thought I could just slip inside, get a look, and then get out once my curiousity was satisfied...but when I got there...
Joy lifted a hand to her lips and she lightly bit down upon her knuckle. "It was a wreck. People were fighting and yelling and there was a fire...I should have put the fire out. I wasn't thinking though. I was...I saw them and I just couldn't think beyond that. I wanted to help them get out. But I was so wrapped up in making certain no one knew I was there I kept hesitating and pausing. By the time I could really do something the fire was out of control and everyone was leaving...but there were still people there and I could not just leave them there! So I tried to think of a way to get them out. There had been another eolved there, he was really quick and he searched the place but couldn't find a key. So I knew there couldn't be one readily found so I...I tried to pull the locks out and I got the one but I just...the smoke was too much I guess..."
By this point Joy found that her breathing was back to normal, and she no longer felt the urge to cry. But she still felt rather upset and guilty. her eyes fell to the floor and remained fixed there as she pressed on.
"I know I'm not supposed to be here. I know that it's better for me to stay out of the way. I'm not well trained and I only have one power that I have any real control over. I'm not playing though, I'm not fooling around. I know that I could get someone really hurt and I know that I'm really unprepared for this world.... But I still want to help. I really don't think I'll ever be able to really find my real world again. Not without a lot of searching. Each day that passes creats hundreds of new opportunities for differences to happen and it push's my world farther away. I'm not saying I don't want to go home...I want to go back to my father and my Ace badly. He...he had something important he said he wanted to share with me and I was just...I didn't...." Joy paused to inhale a deep breath and bat away at the fresh tears that wanted to fall from her eyes. "I want to send Neil home because he doesn't deserve to be lost here. But while I'm here I want to at least try and help a little."
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 4:50 pm
Robby listened and held her while she was still letting him hold her, but then just listened when she didn't want that. Then when she finished, he put an arm around her shoulder. "Come on, then. Let me give you a better picture of what's going on."
As he woke, he spoke softly, "Things are bad. I couldn't begin to tell you what we've constantly seen out of people. We're not trying to blacken your fishbowl, but keep you inside and away from the storm. Now you know that."
He took her downstairs to her room. Ace was there, flipping through one of the photo albums. At Robby's appearance, he glared a challenge to the other man, but scooted out the moment Robby met the challenge with a slight glow in the middle of the room. Robby locked the door shut behind Ace, then went over to the computer.
He had the password to the files that Joy wouldn't have been able to figure. He went into the computer's network. "Ok. I guess they painted the picture to you as the evolved simply being attacked with the virus. It really isn't that simple. Half the time I don't know who the troublemakers are. I mean---our side. We fight for a balance. We don't want to see anyone mindlessly attacking anyone else, but we don't want to attack too many others either both because it'll get us discovered quicker and there are plenty of others already doing the mindless attacks."
He sighed. "We're actually networked with Hotshot's team. Who fights with Bolthor. But Bolthor also fights with Flood's team. Hotshot is synonymous with Sir Aquifer. Flood offers worldwide the same fear that Solarduct did. Apparently he was with Bolthor today, and this is why we didn't back down from the fight." He shook his head, "Even when Bolthor and Flood held back from destroying us--they could have, easily enough--and even when we received the report that they were actually trying to stop a scientific facility. Flood's involvement is never a good thing. He wants to destroy all the nonevolved humans as much as some of them would like us destroyed. Bolthor and this group wants a more peaceful middle ground. Technically, Hotshot does too, though he is.... He's almost more pro-nonevolved than is necessary. He follows his father's footsteps. Too idealistic. We... help what side we can. We avoid the people we know to avoid. We are just the---battling middlemen."
"Nothing is easy, though truthfully more people just want the middle peace than not. It's just--It's difficult. Look, Joy. Our Joy was a co-leader of sorts. These journal files will give you the insight I imagine you'll need. If you can't go home, you can choose what it is you want to do. I would like it if--" He pursed his lips together, "Well, you'll have enough pressure from others. I do want you to try to go home though. This isn't your universe, and it would be unfair to your family and friends at home to stay here. It would be unfair to you. If your... string theory...is correct...Well, that means in some of those split dimensions, and infinite amount of them as a matter of fact, you do make it home. I would like for you to try to make it so you are one of those that gets home. This means your primary training is to Rena's abilities. But I'll help you do whatever it is you want, just so long as I know what you're doing so I can guide you. Can you do that?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 5:15 pm
Joy supposed she ought to have known or suspected some of this. Robbie had seemed to go out of his way to avoid her in the begning and Rena had seemed adamant that 'she' was their 'best hero'. So it made sense, along with Ace's earlier comment, that this worlds Joy had been important. Plus..all of those files. Joy knew she was a bit of a organizer but this worlds Joy seemed to top her in that. Well...A secretary in either world huh?
Joy's gaze purposefully avoided Ace's own when they went into the room. She did not want to see the anger she knew was smouldering within those eyes. He was so...so...so mad at her. As much as she wanted to help, she equally felt the urge to go tell him she'd listen and be good and to beg him not to be angry with her anymore. Had this happened right after they had arrived, and before Joy had seen the conditions of that lab...she most likely would have.
Instead though she let her eyes wander over the screen that Robbie had pulled up for her to see. "I think I understand... but it seems like such a terrible chaotic mess. No one's really winning, there have to be thousands of casualties. No one is making any progress except perhaps the Humans and I'd wager it's because they still outnumber us. Reguardless of our powers. Were things this bad before the NASA was taken down? Or did it happen afterwards?"
Battling middlemen..."I'm sorry Robbie but that hardly sounds like a good way to work. You never gain ground, your probably only loseing it...and Ace mentioned something about a breech? What happened with that? What happened to this worlds Joy?" Her head shook again. So many questions! So many things she needed to know...
"I'll read the files and...I won't stop trying to find a way home. Who knows...with my world so much more peaceful then yours...maybe there is a way I can figure out to help you... I mean...I understand the whole balance of universes and all but if nothing overly strange and unlucky hasn't happened to me yet I have the feeling it won't."
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