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Late July 2011 The Lab As secret as the arrival of Entity 31966 had been kept, the fact that the Lab crew had made the initial discovery and that their ranks held some of the finest scientists in the world meant that they were in a position to both know what was coming and have something to do about it. Harrier felt uneasy as he sat in the big conference room with Miss Americana waiting for the others to arrive: for all that his experience with Terminus technology gave him insights unmatched even by Earthly scientists, he was no Earthly technician to know how to build a solution for this crisis: the Terminus solution, to evacuate valuable assets from the threatened world and leave poisons in their place, was hardly viable for an inhabited planet. Instead he studied the yellow legal pad before him, making tentative notes with the white blue-inked pen in his hand, and nervously awaited the others. "I am sure you will solve this," he said to Miss Americana. Fresh from his now-frequent visits to Antarctica, Murdock looked tired. "The heroes of this dimension are extremely capable."

Ellie Espadas paced nervously back and forth in the foyer of her family's modest home, tugging absently at the bottom of her vintage vest as she made a conscious effort not to look at the clock hanging nearby. Failing miserably, she noted with some irritation that the hands hadn't moved perceptibly from the position they'd been at when she'd checked moments earlier. "You're going to dig a rut in the linoleum, hermaita," her brother noted dryly as he stepped downstairs. Erik Espadas had donned one of his nicer dress shirts at his sibling's insistence, though he'd left the collar unbuttoned. Perhaps more telling, however, was that he'd taken time to shave without being asked. Stopping in her tracks, Ellie turned to give him a baleful look before sighing. "I just want this to go well, okay?" she told him with an emphatic gesture that gave way to running her fingers through her hair. "It's important." "Worried we'll embarrass you, dear?" Gina Espadas asked her daughter, raising an eyebrow as she wheeled herself out of the first floor bedroom, tilting her head slightly to one side with a faint, amused smile. "Yes, exactly!" the youngest member of the family answered immediately, throwing her hands up in the air.

April 5th, 2011, 6:26pm Mara sat on the floor of her warehouse, back against the wall that held her monitors; usually this position would have gotten a lot of concerned curiosity out of Puppy, but she'd long since turned him off to silence his whirring and beeping. Normally innocuous noise had been pretty painful when she'd woken up this morning, and her head had only gotten worse since then - at the moment she had both hands on her skull like she was trying to keep it from exploding, grimacing at every car that drove by, every loud and unidentifiable noise from the warehouse district beyond the walls that, thankfully, blocked most of the light. The small bottle of extra-strength migraine medicine on a nearby bench got an accusing, hurt glare for failing to be even remotely effective. bad day - been a long time - months? - call her - don't want to bother her - call her - leads to questions - trust her - call her Very, very carefully avoiding the few shafts of light that shone through the windows near her roof, Dragonfly made her way to one of the benches, shifted aside some miscellaneous junk (hissing at the noise a piece of metal made when it fell off and hit concrete), and did something truly rare: physically dialed a number.

Late afternoon in Greenbank saw a crimson and black blur darting from warehouse rooftop to rooftop, acrobatically picking its way across the city. The days had just started to get perceptibly longer again, enough to light the way, but it wouldn't have done for Ellie Espadas to be spotted walking about the admittedly sketchy area, so it was the masked medic Jill O'Cure who finally arrived at the side of one warehouse in particular, messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Making certain there was no one else about, she rapped quickly on the door, humming absently through a small smile and brushing her unruly bangs out of her eyes.

The cold weather and grey skies in Greenbank that late afternoon lent themselves to trudging slowly, hands in pockets, staring at feet. If one had cared to look upward, however, one might have caught a glimpse of a figure in crimson, black and silver leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The old railroad neighbourhood wasn't far out of the way of the West End's protectors, but even so it was unusual to see Jill O'Cure on patrol without her older brother. The young woman certainly seemed to be moving with a purpose, pausing only briefly at intersections to peer down at street signs below. Eventually, she made her way to an unremarkable looking warehouse with a sturdy curved roof. Sliding down a drain pipe into an alleyway, she quickly crossed the street and looked about, vaguely disconcerted. Well, this is the place. Unless I got the address wrong... With a deep breath, she located the buzzer by the front door and pressed it, looking over her shoulder with feigned nonchalance as she waited.

January 13th, 2011; 6:23pm The Lab arched up into the winter sky, its egg-like shape playing tricks on the eyes of anyone who stood at the base and looked up. Thirty stories of the best science and engineering this side of ArcheTech, even just after normal business hours it still had its share of people coming and going for one reason or another - workers, visitors, scientists, hopefuls. Up in her office, Dragonfly frowned in front of a whiteboard. Her rooms may have been equipped with the finest simulation and design technology money could buy - and she ought to know, she'd contributed her fair share of that money, not to mention personally installed most of the electronics in the room - but few things could beat a good, old-fashioned whiteboard and some dry-erase markers. Some thoughts needed to be physically written down, and while erasing paper was a pain, chalk boards got too messy.

December 23, 2010 It's a cold and dreary day in late December, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere where most people live. It's no better in Freedom City, where a heavy snowfall last night has transformed into dirty ice and slush by the unaesthetic mechanics of life in a major urban area. It's a good day to be inside with a strong cup of hot cocoa or eggnog, letting ceremonial libations shake away the incipient holiday blues. Luckily this is generally a quiet time for superheroes: most supercriminals are people too, and even the ones without Christmas cheer have been socked away at home thanks to the lousy weather. You need a good reason to be out tonight, whether it's carrying out the duties of a government agent's patrol, hunting for last-minute Christmas presents, or else dealing with problems that have nothing to do with the season. - "Growing tired of these lies," said Avenger, leering malevolently down at the snitch he'd cornered in the Fens back alley. There were new heroes active in the Fens, he knew, but these were _his_ streets, and he was possessive enough, and secretive enough, that he preferred to keep his own council even when dealing with notorious criminals. "Christmas will be difficult in prison. Worse in prison hospital." He grabbed the frightened man by the collar and jacked him up against the wall with one hand, a murderous look in his eyes. "Where's the shipment?" "Oh God, don't hurt me, please!" Mondale Tommahan whimpered, still wearing the shattered sunglasses that Avenger had broken on his face and then neatly put back there after dragging him away for interrogation. He'd heard all about the notorious vigilante, about his brutality and uncompromising violence, and watching him tear through his friends in the Irish mob in their favorite bar that evening had certainly put the fear of Avenger into him. "Look, the X-Ray stuff was just a joke, man? What kind of scuzzball would take naked pictures of Lady Liberty-" "A SCUZZBALL LIKE YOU!" Damn, Jack loved the look in their eye when he _yelled_. "Already know you inside. Time to show you!" He went for the machete on the wall, the one that usually had them wetting themselves before his hands were on the blade, but his nighttime exertions were suddenly interrupted as a brilliant white light shone on the wall in a pattern of brilliant hexagons!

"Wait, seriously?" "Mm." "You built that - all of that - without a college degree." "Yes." "You’re not even a student?" "No. Never put a foot on a campus." "Huh." A dim glow illuminated a cramped metal room that didn’t have much room to spare after accommodating the two trapped heroes - could an observer see in the inky blackness (and, dear reader, why not?) they might note the curious contrast - the sword-wearing, goggled, longcoat-clad Gaian Knight at one end cross-legged on the floor, and the technologically-gifted, gauntleted, visor-obscured Dragonfly leaning back at the other, feet propped up on a wall as she stared up at their metal prison. "Seriously, though," the earthmover probed, mostly to fill the silence. "Never? Not even a single class?" The inventor only shrugged. "No. High school, either. GED, though. Safety nets...mm. Why? That surprising?" "Well, I mean...well yeah. You don’t think it’s a little weird to build all that stuff with just a GED?" She tilted her head, apparently pondering that for a minute. "Maybe," she conceded. "Not sure someone who doesn’t breathe can talk about ‘weird’." He had to laugh at that, throwing up his hands. "Hey, hey. Alright. In my defense, I normally DO breathe. I just don’t really have to when I’m underground." "Mm." There was silence again, filled only by fidgeting and the quiet, almost imperceptible noise coming from Dragonfly’s gear. Far, far above the metal roof came the noise of machinery and shouted orders. "So, uh, I don’t mean to pry. But...why?" came the question that once more broke the silence. "Didn’t really see a point. Know plenty...could teach half the classes. By proficiency. Experience poor, patience...mm. May not be suited for it. But have the knowledge." "Well, sure, okay. But there’s so much more to it than that! I think you’d gain a lot by getting a-" He barely managed to cut himself off before saying ‘proper education’. "...a solid college experience." She turned her head and raised an eyebrow, her shifting audible in the close quarters and silence. "Examples?" she challenged. "Like....erm. It’s a whole...social....I mean, it’s not what you learn, it’s what you....that is...." He trailed off, and he could see (Bless you a thousand times, fancy and expensive goggles.) her flat stare, the full force of a stubborn and unamused young woman turned in his direction (Curse you a thousand times, fancy and expensive goggles.). "You could...meet people your own age?" he finished, rather weakly, his hands spread in an unseen gesture of helplessness. She snorted, turning her head back up to look up at the ceiling. The noise was changing, now, the dim sound of machines being turned on and sending vibrations that made the metal walls hum. "Little use for people my age. ...am not that young, anyway." There was silence again, though this time the sounds from above were muffled by the terrible awkwardness that filled the air. Both heroes, magic and science, cheered inside as they heard a loud and reverberating hum through the ground, as if some massive generator had been switched on up above ground. They stood up, adjusting their respective coat or jacket and making sure they were leaving nothing behind. Her gauntlets were already charging, lines of blue and quietly illuminated glass; his hands glowed a soft golden brown in the darkness as he reached out with his senses and felt the earth above them. "Ready?" "Mm. Ready. Teleporting in five...." Then there was a flash, the sound of air rushing to fill a vacuum, and nothing. The little metal container sat silent again and empty, deep beneath the earth while sounds of fighting broke out on the surface above.