- Location
- Denmark
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Isn't this what was done in Bayformers in the scene where Blackout first transforms on the landing strip at Soccent Qatar?
Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
Isn't this what was done in Bayformers in the scene where Blackout first transforms on the landing strip at Soccent Qatar?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Friendly fire really isn't very friendly.
Friends don't let friends friendly fire.
Friends don't let friends friendly fire.
- Location
- Not quite sure
No idea. I gave up on that franchise after the first one.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
If they're firing at you by definition they're not friends, I would think
There is no such thing as friendly fire.
I don't care if they are friends or enemies when they start... if they are firing in a direction that comes close enough to me for me to notice the bullets, they aren't my friends.
I don't care if they are friends or enemies when they start... if they are firing in a direction that comes close enough to me for me to notice the bullets, they aren't my friends.
Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
If it's one of the BIG bugs, does "with a substantial upward component" make it "not in my direction"?
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
The scene in question, I think, has everyone standing in a circle around a single man sized (height wise at least) Bug and shooting downward. Might be wrong, it's been a while and I've only seen the movie once.
That depends. If I feel bullet breeze, hear that particular "whee" whine of a round going by or have holes in loose clothing, no. If none of the above, them maybe.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
That was the first one.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Make a Wish is a fun, if silly read. The sequel (Finding Harry Potter, I think) was also silly, but not quite as good. There's a set of simi-maybe-canon omakes that got collected in another 'story' as well. After that, the rest of the Mister Black stories as I recall are made by other people.
Troy Guffey
Irresponsible Parasite
- Location
- Western Missouri, USA
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
I didn't say they were bad stories. Just that they are not written by the same person. The Contract for example is a rather fun Naruto fic where he ends up with Black Ink as a summoning contract. But it's not written by the same author as Make A Wish.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I was talking to some anime fans... They seemed to be confused when I said, yes, I was interested in shipping, but, I required a nuclear or better power plant, and preferably an FTL drive...
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
... It's too damn early for jokes like that. I'm going to bed.
Chapter 18: Worries, Warships and Weekends
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 18: Worries, Warships and Weekends
"This place is kind of a dive," said Jimmy, looking at the seaside shack restaurant. The building had clearly been re-purposed at some point in the past and was desperately in need of a new coat of paint.
"Those are the places that have the best food," claimed Peter. "Plus, Taylor recommended it."
Jimmy considered that for a minute, then gave a tiny shrug and went to open the front door and go in. "Eh, what's the worst that could happen?"
"Horrible food poisoning, but I'm pretty sure Ianthe or Metis can fix that," said Peter jovially.
The inside looked more like a fast-food restaurant than the outside. There were booths filled with diners, and a wall full of pictures of people who had finished the local challenge burger, creatively called the Fugly Bob's Challenger. The two cross-dimensional visitors ordered and were soon ensconced with a tray full of greasy but admittedly tasty food.
"I'm kind of surprised that Saurial isn't on the Challenger wall," commented Peter.
"It wouldn't be much of a challenge," answered Jimmy. "I watched her bite off a piece of hull metal the other day. I'm pretty sure she could eat a whole cow, never mind a hamburger."
Peter snickered. "How fast can the Family skeletonize a cow? I mean, the ones who aren't big enough to just swallow it whole. Did Danny show you his plaque?"
"You mean the one with the bit of Dragon's probe on it?" said Jimmy between french fries. "Yeah. Metis told me that the girls were actually a little embarrassed when they realized it was Dragon's probe, because they actually like Dragon. Apparently, though, the PRT and Protectorate were pretty freaked out by it, and the Family doesn't seem too upset by that part of it."
"There are a few folks back home I would love to introduce to the Family. Then I could just sit back and watch the fun." A certain one-eyed head of SHIELD came to mind, but he wasn't the only one. Watching Jonah meet Saurial would be pretty funny, too.
"Ooh, yeah, I can see that," said Jimmy. "My coworker Lois would be one meeting I might actually be able to swing." Batman would be another. The Caped Crusader would likely have an interesting reaction...and well, he would willingly pay money for tickets to see it.
The two of them attacked their burgers and fries, pleasantly surprised with how good they were. Taylor's advice was good as far as restaurants go.
"So, did Dragon and the lizards provide you with a whole stack of research about your home universe?" asked Jimmy.
Peter nodded seriously. "My universe, and a dozen others that are very, very similar."
"For-want-of-a-nail type stuff," confirmed Jimmy. "What was the weirdest one?"
Peter blew air out in a long sigh. "There were some weird ones. There was one where I created a formula to take away my spider powers, and it gave me four extra arms instead."
Jimmy snorted into his hamburger. "How would that even work? That's like...I don't know...taking a birth control pill and having it turn out to be a fertility drug, or something."
"There was one where a beautiful mutant kissed me and turned me into an actual spider," added Peter.
"What, like a real, tiny spider?" asked Jimmy, surprised.
Peter shook his head, "No it was a giant spider. I got better."
"How would that even happen?" asked Jimmy.
"I don't know," answered Peter. "It didn't actually happen."
"Yet," suggested Jimmy.
Peter rolled his eyes. "If a mutant named Queen shows up and wants to mate with me, I'll leave town for awhile and let the Avengers deal with her. What about you? What's the weirdest thing that happened to you?"
Jimmy held up his finger, telling Peter to wait while he finished chewing the last bite of his burger. Then he said, "Oh, there are so many. There was a lot of very strange and kind of racist time travel. Oh, I had to defeat Don Rickles' evil twin."
"Don Rickles...the old comedian?" asked Peter. "Did he have powers?"
"He would explode if he got too excited," said Jimmy. "It wasn't, like, an attack. He would explode and die if he got too excited."
"That's more of a disability than a power," said Peter in response. "That's lamer than Big Wheel."
"Big Wheel?" asked Jimmy.
"He was a thief whose thing was riding around in a giant wheel with guns," explained Spider-Man. "He was sort of a one-trick bad guy."
The two of them finished off the last of the food. Peter was slurping on the straw of a soda while Jimmy was doing a quick wipe of the table with a napkin. The two of them bused their stuff over to the garbage cans and started walking back to the warehouse. The weather outside was quite pleasant, so it was a good day to walk.
"So," said Jimmy as they were walking back, "Did you learn a ton of secret identities, classified information, and shocking revelations that dozens of people back home would kill you for if they found out?"
Peter looked over at him with controlled blandness and said, "Oh, yeah. Kill or kidnap and torture. Probably go after anybody I know, too. You too?"
"Yep," said Jimmy. "I assume you're not planning on telling anybody."
"Nooo," said Pete quickly. "That would be really, really dumb."
Jimmy thought about that for a bit, and said, "It's kind of a problem. I don't know about your world, but mine had more than a few mind readers."
Peter frowned. Madame Web could probably read him like a book...as could Doc Xavier and Jean. Then there was Franklin Richards. Those weren't too much of a concern. Then there was Legion, Emma Frost... 'Oh, crap! This is bad...'
Out loud, Peter said, "I think I might need to do something about that..." Maybe Doc Strange could do something to help?
"I was going to ask Superman to ask for help from Martian Manhunter. He's the League's senior telepath. I'm not sure how to do that without accidentally sharing all that information, though," said Jimmy.
"I think we need to talk to Saurial or Raptaur," replied Peter.
Jimmy nodded. Maybe their saviors could come up with another clever solution?
The rest of the walk back to the warehouse was spent in mostly quiet contemplation.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Randall was helping the tinkers refit the Ship of Fools. Raptaur was there to provide muscle and create any missing components, although there was already a sizable pile of hull plates and other bits and pieces that Saurial had created earlier. Ellen and Miles were inside the ship, monitoring systems as Linda and Kevin installed new hardware and yanked out the old. Linda's mech was proving extremely deft at removing sections of the old hull, and had helped Raptaur remove the old, jury-rigged warp pylons. Aside from lending a hand with various mechanical jobs, Randall's most important task was watching over Linda and Kevin and making sure they didn't slip too far into tinker fugue. Too much tinkering could end up with them going overboard and turning the ship into a replica of an Imperial star destroyer, which was not the intent. It didn't hurt to be careful.
"Hey Linda, is that the cloaking device?" he asked, pointing at a microwave-oven-sized piece of complex equipment. Linda was adjusting another piece of equipment that seemed to be part of the teleportation system.
"It's the part that goes in the hull," she answered. "The bulk of it is actually in a pocket dimension...or at least the Family equivalent of it."
Randall's eyebrows went up. "It's that big?"
Linda paused what she doing and looked up. "Yeah. Turns out that, once you have the tech, the biggest limiter on cloaking devices are power and size."
"...and neither of those are limits for Raptaur and Saurial," said Randall with a nod. "Is it tinker tech?"
"No, actually. There were a few bits that Dragon helped retrofit, but a lot of it is based on cloaking technology from Star Trek and Stargate. Most of the weird bits were needed to make the SEP field work with everything else," explained Linda. "We also amped up the power output so we can use the cloak and the shields at the same time."
That made sense to Randall. The biggest weakness of the cloaking devices on TV were usually that they were an either-or option with any shielding systems. Being able to use them in combat would make targeting the ship much more difficult, and the shields would still catch any lucky hits.
"We also amped up the power of the phaser arrays," mentioned Kevin in an off-hand manner.
Randall recognized Kevin's tone. It was the tone he used when he was completely oblivious to something incredibly dangerous. He looked around for Raptaur, only to find the reptile strangely absent. "By how much?" he asked cautiously.
Kevin caught Randall's expression. "Don't worry, it's nothing crazy. It's about the level of fire output by a Sovereign-class cruiser."
"Raptaur worked out this cool multi-frequency overload effect, though," contributed Linda, "so it should go through most shields in Miles's universe. The Borg might adapt to it eventually, I guess..."
"Doesn't that make it a little over-powered for a point-defense weapon?" asked Randall. He had read up on starship technology as part of the refit discussions. Sovereign-class cruisers had the most powerful phaser arrays in Starfleet at the time they were built.
"We thought about that," answered Linda. "You know how we're using graviton thrusters on the hull? Well, we figured out how to take the increased power output and use gravitational sheer for point defense in an area around the ship."
"Oh, tell him about the probes!" said Kevin excitedly.
Linda nodded. "You know the launcher we're adding for science probes?" At Randall's nod, she continued with, "Well, a Starfleet probe is basically a torpedo casing capable of warp travel. We got Saurial to make some payloads similar to what they used to take down the Merchant headquarters. It should shred anything in a ten kilometer radius, which is more than enough to cut right through shields and such."
Randall put his face in his palms. Then he looked up at the two of them and said, "So, our transport ship has now got shield-piercing capital-grade phaser banks, point defense gravy guns, and disintegration torpedoes?"
"Yeah," said Kevin with a grin. "It's pretty cool, isn't it?"
Grudgingly, Randall had to admit that it was pretty cool. It was also pretty damned terrifying. "Does Miles know about these upgrades?"
Kevin winced slightly. "Sort of? I mean, we mentioned most of them in passing. I'm not sure he realized the whole picture, though."
"Or that all of the weapons can fire while the ship is shielded, cloaked, and moving like a Whitestar from Babylon 5," added Linda helpfully.
"Plus it also has a tractor beam, and the teleporter can deliver ordnance through most shields," said Kevin.
"Or boarding parties," said Linda. That was not a trivial advantage when your boarding parties were magical snark lizards.
At that moment, Randall realized something. "You two are setting me up to be the one to explain this pocket dreadnought to Miles, aren't you?" he said with a glare. Miles had been rather firmly of the opinion that they didn't need heavy weapons on a transport, as they weren't looking to start trouble. Saurial had been surprisingly agreeable, but now he wondered if she had just foreseen the obvious result of putting Vectura and Leet on the project. The first had made a construction mech armed with a plasma cutter and a mono-molecular-edged EDM blade, while the latter had built a BFG 9000 almost by accident.
Kevin looked at Randall and said very seriously, "Aren't you the most skilled and diplomatic person we have?"
Randall frowned. It was obvious how this was going to end, and now he wondered if Raptaur had disappeared on purpose. He then turned and began to head into the ship, though not without a muttered but audible, "Fuck you, guys..."
After he was gone, Kevin looked at Linda and said, "You didn't tell him about the shuttle replacements?"
Linda shrugged her shoulders and said, "Eh, they won't be done for months yet."
The two got back to work, but the loud exclamation of, "WHAT?" in an Irish-accented voice could be heard through the gaps in the hull, even outside the ship.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon set the large case on the desk in the BBFO office. Lisa and Danny had met her as she touched down, and had come inside with her to where she was demonstrating the new mobile phones.
"It looks just like a regular smart phone," said Danny, looking at the device Dragon had handed to Lisa. It didn't have any recognizable branding, but it could easily have been a new phone from Apple or Motorola.
"It functions as one," said the power-armored tinker. "It will also work anywhere in the world, has a dynamic virtual intelligence capable of scanning and connecting to all types of wireless connections, and uses a combination of quantum entanglement and micro-wormhole generation to communicate across dimensions."
The phone chirped.
"It just auto-connected to the office Wi-Fi...and my Bluetooth headset which I left on my desk back in my office?" said Lisa in surprise. "How did it know to do that?"
"I pre-programmed them to recognize the biometrics for key folks at BBFO and the crew of the Ship of Fools. They won't work for anyone else. In addition to local wireless, they'll also connect to Starfleet communicator badges through subspace," explained Dragon. Setting up the phones with everybody's device information was easy. Dragon had got in the habit a long time ago of scanning and recording the mobile devices of people she may want to contact. If Dragon were close enough, she could theoretically connect directly to Lisa's Bluetooth earpiece even if the girl's phone was off.
"How do you have a battery big enough to power all that?" asked Danny, who was justifiably curious about a power source small enough to fit in a phone, yet powerful enough to open wormholes.
"It doesn't actually have a battery, per se. Leet and Raptaur worked up a system where it functions off of power from a pocket dimension," said Dragon. "It would have been pretty much impossible without the Family's abilities."
"What happens when the user changes realities?" asked Lisa. Doing so was, technically, the point of this whole exercise.
"That's part of what Raptaur helped work out. The pocket dimension is anchored to the phone itself, and moves with it. It's a more complicated form of the armor that Ianthe and Metis wear...or so Raptaur explained it. The math is something I'm still working on figuring out..." That part was a bit of fib...Dragon already understood the math. The percentage of her processing capacity required to do so was quite significant, however, and made her even more impressed with the mental capacity of Raptaur and Saurial. It was also yet another example of how the restrictions that shackled her were incredibly frustrating.
Lisa began to swipe through the communication settings on the phone. "Are these radio frequencies?"
"Yes," said Dragon. "You can pick up the entire EM band, so you could use the phone to listen in on emergency responder broadcasts, CB radio, or even broadcast radio in the AM and FM bands. It's capable of real-time decryption of encrypted communications as well."
"You said it can communicate over subspace like Starfleet uses?" asked Danny.
"It's designed to look for organized signal patterns and interpret them in both higher and lower dimensions analogous to a local reality," said Dragon. At Danny's confused look, she explained further. "Simply put, it searches for likely ways that an advanced civilization might use for faster-than-light communications. For example, it could intercept tachyon communications through hyperspace. The range for that is pretty limited, though. You would need to get either really lucky or be standing close to the receiver or broadcaster."
"That's really impressive, Dragon," said Danny. "The only thing missing is a universal translator."
"Did I forget to say that? Sorry, it of course has one of those, too. Starfleet builds those into its communicators as a standard feature, so that was easy to copy," replied Dragon. "That only works if the language is in the database, though. We have the known human languages, as well as the ones from Miles's universe."
"Can it learn other languages?" asked Lisa, wondering if they would have to be careful about using FamTalk over the phone.
Dragon shook her head. "No, Miles said you need a linguist to help program in new languages. That was a key part of the job of Lieutenant Uhura in the original TV show, though the writers made her look like a glorified receptionist back in the 60's." That was one thing the reboot movies improved upon, thought Dragon, even if some of the other changes were problematic.
"How durable is the phone?" asked Danny, thinking of the situations his daughter got herself into.
"It will continue to work through any abuse a cape is likely to encounter. It should also continue to function at the bottom of the ocean, in deep space, or even in the outer chromosphere of most stars," replied Dragon. Most users of the phone wouldn't survive those environments, but she wasn't putting anything past the Family.
"No telepathic interface?" joked Lisa.
Dragon shook her head. "We don't have any models of functional telepathy to use as a baseline," explained Dragon seriously. There were telepaths in most of the dimensions from which the crew hailed, but none of the crew had that ability, with the possible exception of Dresden. He had been reluctant to initiate a soulgaze just for research purposes, though. Dragon was actually deeply curious about what he would see if he tried it with her, but insisting would have been rude, and she was Canadian.
"Could you relay through these phones in other dimensions to connect to the local phone networks?" asked Lisa.
Dragon thought about that. They would have to change the software a bit, but it was possible. "You could. I could see how it would be useful if you needed to, say, dial 911 for somebody remotely."
Danny got a funny look on his face. "You know that the Family is likely to abuse that feature?"
Dragon could imagine that quite well. "True," she said, "but now that Lisa's mentioned it, that feature is too likely to be useful to not add it into the capabilities of the phone." She could also see how an occasional call on a secure line to people like Robert Kinsey or Amanda Waller could be a useful deterrent, once they had been properly introduced to the Family.
There were a few more things that Dragon walked them through, including how to get the phones to spoof other devices; that was useful for making the phone appear to be other phones on the network, including their current phones (which were already programmed in). The phones could mimic a variety of operating styles, including Apple, Android, LCARS, Lex*Tel, and Stark Industries. There was also a panic button mode that would send out a distress call. It could be configured to include or exclude local emergency channels, and could also signal the Family. The user could activate it in a number of ways depending upon circumstances, including verbal password, through the touch interface, or by tapping a specific cadence on the phone casing five times in a row.
Lisa agreed to see to handing out the phone to everybody, and was looking forward to their reactions when she explained what they could do. Harry would probably be happy to even have a phone that wouldn't die the minute he cast a spell. She made a note that she might want to give Miles an extra one in case he had to turn one over to Starfleet. Maybe Saurial would create a Spidey-themed phone case for Peter. 'How about a custom case for everybody? That could be amusing...'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor and Saurial were walking up to the doors of Arcadia as Mandy's mother was dropping Mandy and Lucy off for school.
"Hey Saurial! Hey Taylor!" said Lucy, while Mandy was closing the car door. Taylor and and Saurial glanced at each other with a small grin at how Lucy was showing her bias.
"Lucy, Mandy, how was your weekend?" asked Taylor.
"My aunt and uncle were in from out of town, so we mostly were just showing them around," said Mandy. "They wanted to see some of the local capes, but we only got to see Aegis on patrol from a distance. We spent a lot of time walking around the Boardwalk."
"You could have called. I'm sure one of the Family could have made an appearance," offered Saurial.
Mandy laughed out loud. "Oh, no. Aunt Judy is terrified of reptiles. She found a snake in her basement once and almost burned her house down trying to get rid of it."
"There's a reason I don't visit Mandy when Judy is visiting," said Lucy with a huff.
Mandy lowered her voice and pretended to whisper, "Judy told her once that Newell was unclean and would give her salmonella."
"He will not! I've had Newell since I was ten, and I've never gotten sick!" protested Lucy.
Saurial put her fist up for Lucy to give her a fist bump and said, "Solidarity with my pro-lizard sister." Lucy gave her a bump with a grin.
"She wasn't that bad this time," said Mandy. Looking at Saurial and Taylor, she explained, "Judy is a bit of a know-it-all who likes to critique things in this really annoying passive-aggressive way. Dad told me once in private that he was surprised his brother married her. This time, when she started to get preachy, I just started playing the video we took on my Raptaur-ride." Mandy snickered. "I've never seen her excuse herself so fast."
"Well, my weekend was pretty dull," said Lucy. "What about you guys?"
"I spent most of the weekend hanging out with the Family," said Taylor. "They're working on a big new project."
"Bigger than Kaiju moving the tanker?" asked Mandy. "That one was pretty huge."
Saurial laughed. "This one is bigger in duration, not physical size. My sister doesn't have to worry about competition for tallest lizard in Brockton Bay."
"I think she holds the record for more than just here," said Mandy with a grin.
"That's only true in the human world," replied Saurial with another laugh.
Lucy sighed. "There are never enough giant lizards in the world." Mandy just rolled her eyes.
At that point, Amy and Vicky came walking up from where Amy had parked her truck. The girls all exchanged greetings, and then Vicky asked Taylor, "Taylor, is everything OK? You seemed a little out of it when I saw you over the weekend?"
Alternate Taylor had mentioned seeing Glory Girl, but not that it had been awkward. It probably hadn't been from the non-local girl's perspective. "Don't worry Vicky, everything's fine. You just showed up right after some serious discussions with the folks I was leading to the office."
"Anything I can help with?" asked Vicky.
"No, it's something the Family is handling," replied Saurial.
"Is it related to your new project?" asked Mandy curiously.
"What new project?" asked Vicky.
"The Family is helping a group of people with some problems that require some of our more unique abilities," explained Saurial vaguely.
Amy smirked and said, "And it doesn't involve trolling people."
"You should know better than that, Amy. Everything the Family does involves trolling people," said Saurial with false severity. The others laughed at that.
"Well, let me know if I can help. I'm sure New Wave would pitch in, too. My family likes you guys," said Vicky earnestly.
"Even mom, mostly," added Amy. The fact that she didn't call Carol Dallon by her first name was a sign of how much things had improved recently.
"Much of the work is engineering and advanced multidimensional mathematics. The DWU is helping out with the former, and we're providing help with the latter," said Saurial. The girls all nodded, being somewhat familiar with how far ahead in those subjects Taylor was thanks to her interactions with the Family.
"Let's get inside before the bell rings," said Amy, glancing at the time on her phone. Helping their extra-dimensional visitors would have to wait until school was out.
"Off we go to absorb knowledge!" said Taylor with an excessive amount of cheer. The others just rolled their eyes at her antics as they went inside to head to their lockers.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor was browsing PHO on one of the ship's terminals on the bridge. They had terminals setup in the galley area, but she didn't really feel like interacting with other folks right now. She was looking at the major events of this world and how they differed from hers. The new Ward named Prospect was pretty obviously Dinah Alcott. There had been no robbery of Brockton Bay Central Bank, as the Undersiders had been rescued by the Family before then. Another set of posts covered the smell that had permeated most of Brockton Bay on one weekend. The faked chemical leak had been explained to her by Metis as a cover story for taking out Coil's base, which was apparently hidden in an Endbringer shelter below the commercial district. There were many threads discussing the deaths of the Slaughterhouse Nine at the hands of some heavily-armed normals. Taylor wondered if that was some butterfly effect from the activity in Brockton Bay, or if the Family were only one of a number of differences from her home reality.
The most interesting things were the videos of the Family in action. She watched Raptaur take down Hookwolf. Then there were the videos of the fight against the Merchants. The Taylor Hebert of this dimension looked to be pretty much unstoppable. There was also video of Kaiju meeting with the Triumvirate. From what she had been told, even they were wary of Kaiju and the Family. Lung was keeping a low profile, as were Kaiser and the Empire 88. Of course, there were also a great many videos of Kaiju dragging the tanker across the bay for scrapping, including the admittedly funny bit with poor, "Mr. Foot."
"Whatcha' doing?" asked a voice from behind. Harry Dresden had stepped onto the bridge while she was watching one of the Kaiju videos.
"Just looking at the differences between this world and mine," she answered.
Harry took a seat at the vacant pilot's station. "What did you learn?"
"There are more differences than just the powers I got, for one. In this reality, the Slaughterhouse Nine were killed off weeks ago, whereas I'm sure they're still around in mine. Another difference is that the Cornell University bomber was caught in her own explosion. In my world, she came to Brockton Bay as a tinker named Bakuda and joined the ABB. I can't work out how either of those things could have anything to do with the Family," said Taylor. "It's almost like this reality is just...luckier, I guess?"
"That could be the case," said Harry. "Admittedly, I'm not an expert in alternate universes. If there are an infinite number of possible universes, though, then presumably some of them are luckier than others. Like, take Daniel's reality, for example. He said that many of the close parallels they discovered had Earth suffering from an alien invasion. He might be from one of the luckier versions of his world."
"What about you, Harry? Do you think you're from a lucky version of your world?" asked Taylor quietly.
Harry put some thought into his answer before speaking. "I'm not sure. It's possible. I've survived a number of things that I probably shouldn't have survived. It's likely that there are a fair number of realities where I'm dead. Hell, in some of them, the White Council never even let me get apprenticed, which would have meant a death sentence as a warlock."
Taylor sighed. "Does that mean that anything that can happen, has happened? There are versions of my world where I died in the locker, and versions where my mother didn't die in a car accident? Worlds where my best friend didn't betray me? Maybe even worlds just like this one, but where capes never existed?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know the answer to that, kid. I kind of don't want to know. I have a temptation to second guess myself that isn't always healthy. I could drive myself crazy trying to find the answers to all of the what-if questions."
Taylor gave a small smile. "It's kind of a good thing, though." At Harry's questioning look, she continued. "If there are versions of me that made different choices already, and live in worlds that had different stories, then it really all doesn't matter."
Harry quirked an eyebrow. "I'm still not seeing how looking at it that way is a good thing?"
"The point is that we don't have any massive responsibility to get everything right. I mean, somewhere, in some universe, we probably do always get it right, and in another, we always got it wrong. We don't have to worry about every possibility in the multiverse, because it exists no matter what. We just have to focus on what's important to us individually," explained Taylor, trying to figure out how to express her logic.
Harry thought through that concept. It didn't absolve him from guilt for his own mistakes, and it certainly didn't correct them from his point of reference. It did have the advantage of narrowing his focus from the unsolvable and unknowable down to what he could actually affect, though. It was kind of Zen wise. "I can get behind that. You're saying that all that really matters are the choices we make going forward. We have enough reasons to be anxious without worrying about the whole of creation."
"Yep," said the teen-aged girl.
"So what does that mean for us?" asked Harry.
Taylor stood up from the console. "What it means for me is that I need to stop moping around and start thinking about ways to fix things back home. The lizards seem to have enough bullshit powers and technology to make Eidolon look like a freshly triggered cape. We need to start coming up with lists of our big problems, and see what suggestions our new friends have for fixing them."
"I guess it would be kind of remiss of us to not take advantage of this opportunity," said Harry. "I know some of the others are hesitating for various reasons. Xander isn't used to asking for or getting help from people, for one."
Taylor nodded in agreement. "Peter is probably too jaded to fully understand his options here. We spent a lot of time talking on that ship, and he was definitely getting a little bored with the status quo of being a hero in his world. I doubt he sees what an opportunity this is to shake things up."
"Time for a crew meeting, then, while our scaly friends are otherwise occupied?" asked Harry with a grin.
"Oh, yeah," said Taylor. "Let's do this."
"This place is kind of a dive," said Jimmy, looking at the seaside shack restaurant. The building had clearly been re-purposed at some point in the past and was desperately in need of a new coat of paint.
"Those are the places that have the best food," claimed Peter. "Plus, Taylor recommended it."
Jimmy considered that for a minute, then gave a tiny shrug and went to open the front door and go in. "Eh, what's the worst that could happen?"
"Horrible food poisoning, but I'm pretty sure Ianthe or Metis can fix that," said Peter jovially.
The inside looked more like a fast-food restaurant than the outside. There were booths filled with diners, and a wall full of pictures of people who had finished the local challenge burger, creatively called the Fugly Bob's Challenger. The two cross-dimensional visitors ordered and were soon ensconced with a tray full of greasy but admittedly tasty food.
"I'm kind of surprised that Saurial isn't on the Challenger wall," commented Peter.
"It wouldn't be much of a challenge," answered Jimmy. "I watched her bite off a piece of hull metal the other day. I'm pretty sure she could eat a whole cow, never mind a hamburger."
Peter snickered. "How fast can the Family skeletonize a cow? I mean, the ones who aren't big enough to just swallow it whole. Did Danny show you his plaque?"
"You mean the one with the bit of Dragon's probe on it?" said Jimmy between french fries. "Yeah. Metis told me that the girls were actually a little embarrassed when they realized it was Dragon's probe, because they actually like Dragon. Apparently, though, the PRT and Protectorate were pretty freaked out by it, and the Family doesn't seem too upset by that part of it."
"There are a few folks back home I would love to introduce to the Family. Then I could just sit back and watch the fun." A certain one-eyed head of SHIELD came to mind, but he wasn't the only one. Watching Jonah meet Saurial would be pretty funny, too.
"Ooh, yeah, I can see that," said Jimmy. "My coworker Lois would be one meeting I might actually be able to swing." Batman would be another. The Caped Crusader would likely have an interesting reaction...and well, he would willingly pay money for tickets to see it.
The two of them attacked their burgers and fries, pleasantly surprised with how good they were. Taylor's advice was good as far as restaurants go.
"So, did Dragon and the lizards provide you with a whole stack of research about your home universe?" asked Jimmy.
Peter nodded seriously. "My universe, and a dozen others that are very, very similar."
"For-want-of-a-nail type stuff," confirmed Jimmy. "What was the weirdest one?"
Peter blew air out in a long sigh. "There were some weird ones. There was one where I created a formula to take away my spider powers, and it gave me four extra arms instead."
Jimmy snorted into his hamburger. "How would that even work? That's like...I don't know...taking a birth control pill and having it turn out to be a fertility drug, or something."
"There was one where a beautiful mutant kissed me and turned me into an actual spider," added Peter.
"What, like a real, tiny spider?" asked Jimmy, surprised.
Peter shook his head, "No it was a giant spider. I got better."
"How would that even happen?" asked Jimmy.
"I don't know," answered Peter. "It didn't actually happen."
"Yet," suggested Jimmy.
Peter rolled his eyes. "If a mutant named Queen shows up and wants to mate with me, I'll leave town for awhile and let the Avengers deal with her. What about you? What's the weirdest thing that happened to you?"
Jimmy held up his finger, telling Peter to wait while he finished chewing the last bite of his burger. Then he said, "Oh, there are so many. There was a lot of very strange and kind of racist time travel. Oh, I had to defeat Don Rickles' evil twin."
"Don Rickles...the old comedian?" asked Peter. "Did he have powers?"
"He would explode if he got too excited," said Jimmy. "It wasn't, like, an attack. He would explode and die if he got too excited."
"That's more of a disability than a power," said Peter in response. "That's lamer than Big Wheel."
"Big Wheel?" asked Jimmy.
"He was a thief whose thing was riding around in a giant wheel with guns," explained Spider-Man. "He was sort of a one-trick bad guy."
The two of them finished off the last of the food. Peter was slurping on the straw of a soda while Jimmy was doing a quick wipe of the table with a napkin. The two of them bused their stuff over to the garbage cans and started walking back to the warehouse. The weather outside was quite pleasant, so it was a good day to walk.
"So," said Jimmy as they were walking back, "Did you learn a ton of secret identities, classified information, and shocking revelations that dozens of people back home would kill you for if they found out?"
Peter looked over at him with controlled blandness and said, "Oh, yeah. Kill or kidnap and torture. Probably go after anybody I know, too. You too?"
"Yep," said Jimmy. "I assume you're not planning on telling anybody."
"Nooo," said Pete quickly. "That would be really, really dumb."
Jimmy thought about that for a bit, and said, "It's kind of a problem. I don't know about your world, but mine had more than a few mind readers."
Peter frowned. Madame Web could probably read him like a book...as could Doc Xavier and Jean. Then there was Franklin Richards. Those weren't too much of a concern. Then there was Legion, Emma Frost... 'Oh, crap! This is bad...'
Out loud, Peter said, "I think I might need to do something about that..." Maybe Doc Strange could do something to help?
"I was going to ask Superman to ask for help from Martian Manhunter. He's the League's senior telepath. I'm not sure how to do that without accidentally sharing all that information, though," said Jimmy.
"I think we need to talk to Saurial or Raptaur," replied Peter.
Jimmy nodded. Maybe their saviors could come up with another clever solution?
The rest of the walk back to the warehouse was spent in mostly quiet contemplation.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Randall was helping the tinkers refit the Ship of Fools. Raptaur was there to provide muscle and create any missing components, although there was already a sizable pile of hull plates and other bits and pieces that Saurial had created earlier. Ellen and Miles were inside the ship, monitoring systems as Linda and Kevin installed new hardware and yanked out the old. Linda's mech was proving extremely deft at removing sections of the old hull, and had helped Raptaur remove the old, jury-rigged warp pylons. Aside from lending a hand with various mechanical jobs, Randall's most important task was watching over Linda and Kevin and making sure they didn't slip too far into tinker fugue. Too much tinkering could end up with them going overboard and turning the ship into a replica of an Imperial star destroyer, which was not the intent. It didn't hurt to be careful.
"Hey Linda, is that the cloaking device?" he asked, pointing at a microwave-oven-sized piece of complex equipment. Linda was adjusting another piece of equipment that seemed to be part of the teleportation system.
"It's the part that goes in the hull," she answered. "The bulk of it is actually in a pocket dimension...or at least the Family equivalent of it."
Randall's eyebrows went up. "It's that big?"
Linda paused what she doing and looked up. "Yeah. Turns out that, once you have the tech, the biggest limiter on cloaking devices are power and size."
"...and neither of those are limits for Raptaur and Saurial," said Randall with a nod. "Is it tinker tech?"
"No, actually. There were a few bits that Dragon helped retrofit, but a lot of it is based on cloaking technology from Star Trek and Stargate. Most of the weird bits were needed to make the SEP field work with everything else," explained Linda. "We also amped up the power output so we can use the cloak and the shields at the same time."
That made sense to Randall. The biggest weakness of the cloaking devices on TV were usually that they were an either-or option with any shielding systems. Being able to use them in combat would make targeting the ship much more difficult, and the shields would still catch any lucky hits.
"We also amped up the power of the phaser arrays," mentioned Kevin in an off-hand manner.
Randall recognized Kevin's tone. It was the tone he used when he was completely oblivious to something incredibly dangerous. He looked around for Raptaur, only to find the reptile strangely absent. "By how much?" he asked cautiously.
Kevin caught Randall's expression. "Don't worry, it's nothing crazy. It's about the level of fire output by a Sovereign-class cruiser."
"Raptaur worked out this cool multi-frequency overload effect, though," contributed Linda, "so it should go through most shields in Miles's universe. The Borg might adapt to it eventually, I guess..."
"Doesn't that make it a little over-powered for a point-defense weapon?" asked Randall. He had read up on starship technology as part of the refit discussions. Sovereign-class cruisers had the most powerful phaser arrays in Starfleet at the time they were built.
"We thought about that," answered Linda. "You know how we're using graviton thrusters on the hull? Well, we figured out how to take the increased power output and use gravitational sheer for point defense in an area around the ship."
"Oh, tell him about the probes!" said Kevin excitedly.
Linda nodded. "You know the launcher we're adding for science probes?" At Randall's nod, she continued with, "Well, a Starfleet probe is basically a torpedo casing capable of warp travel. We got Saurial to make some payloads similar to what they used to take down the Merchant headquarters. It should shred anything in a ten kilometer radius, which is more than enough to cut right through shields and such."
Randall put his face in his palms. Then he looked up at the two of them and said, "So, our transport ship has now got shield-piercing capital-grade phaser banks, point defense gravy guns, and disintegration torpedoes?"
"Yeah," said Kevin with a grin. "It's pretty cool, isn't it?"
Grudgingly, Randall had to admit that it was pretty cool. It was also pretty damned terrifying. "Does Miles know about these upgrades?"
Kevin winced slightly. "Sort of? I mean, we mentioned most of them in passing. I'm not sure he realized the whole picture, though."
"Or that all of the weapons can fire while the ship is shielded, cloaked, and moving like a Whitestar from Babylon 5," added Linda helpfully.
"Plus it also has a tractor beam, and the teleporter can deliver ordnance through most shields," said Kevin.
"Or boarding parties," said Linda. That was not a trivial advantage when your boarding parties were magical snark lizards.
At that moment, Randall realized something. "You two are setting me up to be the one to explain this pocket dreadnought to Miles, aren't you?" he said with a glare. Miles had been rather firmly of the opinion that they didn't need heavy weapons on a transport, as they weren't looking to start trouble. Saurial had been surprisingly agreeable, but now he wondered if she had just foreseen the obvious result of putting Vectura and Leet on the project. The first had made a construction mech armed with a plasma cutter and a mono-molecular-edged EDM blade, while the latter had built a BFG 9000 almost by accident.
Kevin looked at Randall and said very seriously, "Aren't you the most skilled and diplomatic person we have?"
Randall frowned. It was obvious how this was going to end, and now he wondered if Raptaur had disappeared on purpose. He then turned and began to head into the ship, though not without a muttered but audible, "Fuck you, guys..."
After he was gone, Kevin looked at Linda and said, "You didn't tell him about the shuttle replacements?"
Linda shrugged her shoulders and said, "Eh, they won't be done for months yet."
The two got back to work, but the loud exclamation of, "WHAT?" in an Irish-accented voice could be heard through the gaps in the hull, even outside the ship.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon set the large case on the desk in the BBFO office. Lisa and Danny had met her as she touched down, and had come inside with her to where she was demonstrating the new mobile phones.
"It looks just like a regular smart phone," said Danny, looking at the device Dragon had handed to Lisa. It didn't have any recognizable branding, but it could easily have been a new phone from Apple or Motorola.
"It functions as one," said the power-armored tinker. "It will also work anywhere in the world, has a dynamic virtual intelligence capable of scanning and connecting to all types of wireless connections, and uses a combination of quantum entanglement and micro-wormhole generation to communicate across dimensions."
The phone chirped.
"It just auto-connected to the office Wi-Fi...and my Bluetooth headset which I left on my desk back in my office?" said Lisa in surprise. "How did it know to do that?"
"I pre-programmed them to recognize the biometrics for key folks at BBFO and the crew of the Ship of Fools. They won't work for anyone else. In addition to local wireless, they'll also connect to Starfleet communicator badges through subspace," explained Dragon. Setting up the phones with everybody's device information was easy. Dragon had got in the habit a long time ago of scanning and recording the mobile devices of people she may want to contact. If Dragon were close enough, she could theoretically connect directly to Lisa's Bluetooth earpiece even if the girl's phone was off.
"How do you have a battery big enough to power all that?" asked Danny, who was justifiably curious about a power source small enough to fit in a phone, yet powerful enough to open wormholes.
"It doesn't actually have a battery, per se. Leet and Raptaur worked up a system where it functions off of power from a pocket dimension," said Dragon. "It would have been pretty much impossible without the Family's abilities."
"What happens when the user changes realities?" asked Lisa. Doing so was, technically, the point of this whole exercise.
"That's part of what Raptaur helped work out. The pocket dimension is anchored to the phone itself, and moves with it. It's a more complicated form of the armor that Ianthe and Metis wear...or so Raptaur explained it. The math is something I'm still working on figuring out..." That part was a bit of fib...Dragon already understood the math. The percentage of her processing capacity required to do so was quite significant, however, and made her even more impressed with the mental capacity of Raptaur and Saurial. It was also yet another example of how the restrictions that shackled her were incredibly frustrating.
Lisa began to swipe through the communication settings on the phone. "Are these radio frequencies?"
"Yes," said Dragon. "You can pick up the entire EM band, so you could use the phone to listen in on emergency responder broadcasts, CB radio, or even broadcast radio in the AM and FM bands. It's capable of real-time decryption of encrypted communications as well."
"You said it can communicate over subspace like Starfleet uses?" asked Danny.
"It's designed to look for organized signal patterns and interpret them in both higher and lower dimensions analogous to a local reality," said Dragon. At Danny's confused look, she explained further. "Simply put, it searches for likely ways that an advanced civilization might use for faster-than-light communications. For example, it could intercept tachyon communications through hyperspace. The range for that is pretty limited, though. You would need to get either really lucky or be standing close to the receiver or broadcaster."
"That's really impressive, Dragon," said Danny. "The only thing missing is a universal translator."
"Did I forget to say that? Sorry, it of course has one of those, too. Starfleet builds those into its communicators as a standard feature, so that was easy to copy," replied Dragon. "That only works if the language is in the database, though. We have the known human languages, as well as the ones from Miles's universe."
"Can it learn other languages?" asked Lisa, wondering if they would have to be careful about using FamTalk over the phone.
Dragon shook her head. "No, Miles said you need a linguist to help program in new languages. That was a key part of the job of Lieutenant Uhura in the original TV show, though the writers made her look like a glorified receptionist back in the 60's." That was one thing the reboot movies improved upon, thought Dragon, even if some of the other changes were problematic.
"How durable is the phone?" asked Danny, thinking of the situations his daughter got herself into.
"It will continue to work through any abuse a cape is likely to encounter. It should also continue to function at the bottom of the ocean, in deep space, or even in the outer chromosphere of most stars," replied Dragon. Most users of the phone wouldn't survive those environments, but she wasn't putting anything past the Family.
"No telepathic interface?" joked Lisa.
Dragon shook her head. "We don't have any models of functional telepathy to use as a baseline," explained Dragon seriously. There were telepaths in most of the dimensions from which the crew hailed, but none of the crew had that ability, with the possible exception of Dresden. He had been reluctant to initiate a soulgaze just for research purposes, though. Dragon was actually deeply curious about what he would see if he tried it with her, but insisting would have been rude, and she was Canadian.
"Could you relay through these phones in other dimensions to connect to the local phone networks?" asked Lisa.
Dragon thought about that. They would have to change the software a bit, but it was possible. "You could. I could see how it would be useful if you needed to, say, dial 911 for somebody remotely."
Danny got a funny look on his face. "You know that the Family is likely to abuse that feature?"
Dragon could imagine that quite well. "True," she said, "but now that Lisa's mentioned it, that feature is too likely to be useful to not add it into the capabilities of the phone." She could also see how an occasional call on a secure line to people like Robert Kinsey or Amanda Waller could be a useful deterrent, once they had been properly introduced to the Family.
There were a few more things that Dragon walked them through, including how to get the phones to spoof other devices; that was useful for making the phone appear to be other phones on the network, including their current phones (which were already programmed in). The phones could mimic a variety of operating styles, including Apple, Android, LCARS, Lex*Tel, and Stark Industries. There was also a panic button mode that would send out a distress call. It could be configured to include or exclude local emergency channels, and could also signal the Family. The user could activate it in a number of ways depending upon circumstances, including verbal password, through the touch interface, or by tapping a specific cadence on the phone casing five times in a row.
Lisa agreed to see to handing out the phone to everybody, and was looking forward to their reactions when she explained what they could do. Harry would probably be happy to even have a phone that wouldn't die the minute he cast a spell. She made a note that she might want to give Miles an extra one in case he had to turn one over to Starfleet. Maybe Saurial would create a Spidey-themed phone case for Peter. 'How about a custom case for everybody? That could be amusing...'
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor and Saurial were walking up to the doors of Arcadia as Mandy's mother was dropping Mandy and Lucy off for school.
"Hey Saurial! Hey Taylor!" said Lucy, while Mandy was closing the car door. Taylor and and Saurial glanced at each other with a small grin at how Lucy was showing her bias.
"Lucy, Mandy, how was your weekend?" asked Taylor.
"My aunt and uncle were in from out of town, so we mostly were just showing them around," said Mandy. "They wanted to see some of the local capes, but we only got to see Aegis on patrol from a distance. We spent a lot of time walking around the Boardwalk."
"You could have called. I'm sure one of the Family could have made an appearance," offered Saurial.
Mandy laughed out loud. "Oh, no. Aunt Judy is terrified of reptiles. She found a snake in her basement once and almost burned her house down trying to get rid of it."
"There's a reason I don't visit Mandy when Judy is visiting," said Lucy with a huff.
Mandy lowered her voice and pretended to whisper, "Judy told her once that Newell was unclean and would give her salmonella."
"He will not! I've had Newell since I was ten, and I've never gotten sick!" protested Lucy.
Saurial put her fist up for Lucy to give her a fist bump and said, "Solidarity with my pro-lizard sister." Lucy gave her a bump with a grin.
"She wasn't that bad this time," said Mandy. Looking at Saurial and Taylor, she explained, "Judy is a bit of a know-it-all who likes to critique things in this really annoying passive-aggressive way. Dad told me once in private that he was surprised his brother married her. This time, when she started to get preachy, I just started playing the video we took on my Raptaur-ride." Mandy snickered. "I've never seen her excuse herself so fast."
"Well, my weekend was pretty dull," said Lucy. "What about you guys?"
"I spent most of the weekend hanging out with the Family," said Taylor. "They're working on a big new project."
"Bigger than Kaiju moving the tanker?" asked Mandy. "That one was pretty huge."
Saurial laughed. "This one is bigger in duration, not physical size. My sister doesn't have to worry about competition for tallest lizard in Brockton Bay."
"I think she holds the record for more than just here," said Mandy with a grin.
"That's only true in the human world," replied Saurial with another laugh.
Lucy sighed. "There are never enough giant lizards in the world." Mandy just rolled her eyes.
At that point, Amy and Vicky came walking up from where Amy had parked her truck. The girls all exchanged greetings, and then Vicky asked Taylor, "Taylor, is everything OK? You seemed a little out of it when I saw you over the weekend?"
Alternate Taylor had mentioned seeing Glory Girl, but not that it had been awkward. It probably hadn't been from the non-local girl's perspective. "Don't worry Vicky, everything's fine. You just showed up right after some serious discussions with the folks I was leading to the office."
"Anything I can help with?" asked Vicky.
"No, it's something the Family is handling," replied Saurial.
"Is it related to your new project?" asked Mandy curiously.
"What new project?" asked Vicky.
"The Family is helping a group of people with some problems that require some of our more unique abilities," explained Saurial vaguely.
Amy smirked and said, "And it doesn't involve trolling people."
"You should know better than that, Amy. Everything the Family does involves trolling people," said Saurial with false severity. The others laughed at that.
"Well, let me know if I can help. I'm sure New Wave would pitch in, too. My family likes you guys," said Vicky earnestly.
"Even mom, mostly," added Amy. The fact that she didn't call Carol Dallon by her first name was a sign of how much things had improved recently.
"Much of the work is engineering and advanced multidimensional mathematics. The DWU is helping out with the former, and we're providing help with the latter," said Saurial. The girls all nodded, being somewhat familiar with how far ahead in those subjects Taylor was thanks to her interactions with the Family.
"Let's get inside before the bell rings," said Amy, glancing at the time on her phone. Helping their extra-dimensional visitors would have to wait until school was out.
"Off we go to absorb knowledge!" said Taylor with an excessive amount of cheer. The others just rolled their eyes at her antics as they went inside to head to their lockers.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Taylor was browsing PHO on one of the ship's terminals on the bridge. They had terminals setup in the galley area, but she didn't really feel like interacting with other folks right now. She was looking at the major events of this world and how they differed from hers. The new Ward named Prospect was pretty obviously Dinah Alcott. There had been no robbery of Brockton Bay Central Bank, as the Undersiders had been rescued by the Family before then. Another set of posts covered the smell that had permeated most of Brockton Bay on one weekend. The faked chemical leak had been explained to her by Metis as a cover story for taking out Coil's base, which was apparently hidden in an Endbringer shelter below the commercial district. There were many threads discussing the deaths of the Slaughterhouse Nine at the hands of some heavily-armed normals. Taylor wondered if that was some butterfly effect from the activity in Brockton Bay, or if the Family were only one of a number of differences from her home reality.
The most interesting things were the videos of the Family in action. She watched Raptaur take down Hookwolf. Then there were the videos of the fight against the Merchants. The Taylor Hebert of this dimension looked to be pretty much unstoppable. There was also video of Kaiju meeting with the Triumvirate. From what she had been told, even they were wary of Kaiju and the Family. Lung was keeping a low profile, as were Kaiser and the Empire 88. Of course, there were also a great many videos of Kaiju dragging the tanker across the bay for scrapping, including the admittedly funny bit with poor, "Mr. Foot."
"Whatcha' doing?" asked a voice from behind. Harry Dresden had stepped onto the bridge while she was watching one of the Kaiju videos.
"Just looking at the differences between this world and mine," she answered.
Harry took a seat at the vacant pilot's station. "What did you learn?"
"There are more differences than just the powers I got, for one. In this reality, the Slaughterhouse Nine were killed off weeks ago, whereas I'm sure they're still around in mine. Another difference is that the Cornell University bomber was caught in her own explosion. In my world, she came to Brockton Bay as a tinker named Bakuda and joined the ABB. I can't work out how either of those things could have anything to do with the Family," said Taylor. "It's almost like this reality is just...luckier, I guess?"
"That could be the case," said Harry. "Admittedly, I'm not an expert in alternate universes. If there are an infinite number of possible universes, though, then presumably some of them are luckier than others. Like, take Daniel's reality, for example. He said that many of the close parallels they discovered had Earth suffering from an alien invasion. He might be from one of the luckier versions of his world."
"What about you, Harry? Do you think you're from a lucky version of your world?" asked Taylor quietly.
Harry put some thought into his answer before speaking. "I'm not sure. It's possible. I've survived a number of things that I probably shouldn't have survived. It's likely that there are a fair number of realities where I'm dead. Hell, in some of them, the White Council never even let me get apprenticed, which would have meant a death sentence as a warlock."
Taylor sighed. "Does that mean that anything that can happen, has happened? There are versions of my world where I died in the locker, and versions where my mother didn't die in a car accident? Worlds where my best friend didn't betray me? Maybe even worlds just like this one, but where capes never existed?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know the answer to that, kid. I kind of don't want to know. I have a temptation to second guess myself that isn't always healthy. I could drive myself crazy trying to find the answers to all of the what-if questions."
Taylor gave a small smile. "It's kind of a good thing, though." At Harry's questioning look, she continued. "If there are versions of me that made different choices already, and live in worlds that had different stories, then it really all doesn't matter."
Harry quirked an eyebrow. "I'm still not seeing how looking at it that way is a good thing?"
"The point is that we don't have any massive responsibility to get everything right. I mean, somewhere, in some universe, we probably do always get it right, and in another, we always got it wrong. We don't have to worry about every possibility in the multiverse, because it exists no matter what. We just have to focus on what's important to us individually," explained Taylor, trying to figure out how to express her logic.
Harry thought through that concept. It didn't absolve him from guilt for his own mistakes, and it certainly didn't correct them from his point of reference. It did have the advantage of narrowing his focus from the unsolvable and unknowable down to what he could actually affect, though. It was kind of Zen wise. "I can get behind that. You're saying that all that really matters are the choices we make going forward. We have enough reasons to be anxious without worrying about the whole of creation."
"Yep," said the teen-aged girl.
"So what does that mean for us?" asked Harry.
Taylor stood up from the console. "What it means for me is that I need to stop moping around and start thinking about ways to fix things back home. The lizards seem to have enough bullshit powers and technology to make Eidolon look like a freshly triggered cape. We need to start coming up with lists of our big problems, and see what suggestions our new friends have for fixing them."
"I guess it would be kind of remiss of us to not take advantage of this opportunity," said Harry. "I know some of the others are hesitating for various reasons. Xander isn't used to asking for or getting help from people, for one."
Taylor nodded in agreement. "Peter is probably too jaded to fully understand his options here. We spent a lot of time talking on that ship, and he was definitely getting a little bored with the status quo of being a hero in his world. I doubt he sees what an opportunity this is to shake things up."
"Time for a crew meeting, then, while our scaly friends are otherwise occupied?" asked Harry with a grin.
"Oh, yeah," said Taylor. "Let's do this."
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- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
Very nice, as we have come to expect
One minor thing jumped out at me:
'Ordnance' is the correct word for things that go boom in the night...
One minor thing jumped out at me:
'Ordnance' is the correct word for things that go boom in the night...
Oh my... She is ESCALATING already. This is gonna be goooood.
Dunno if You plan to show "Lizards fixing all the worlds" in this fic/omake/metafiction but even if You don't... We all can already see the lizardy fun there will be happening.
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Personally, I think it would be more fun for the lizards to just give the crew the tools they need to fix the worlds, and the crew helping each other do that, as opposed to OP-demon-lizard wandering around fixing everything with the crew just being that convenient thing that found them. But that's just my opinion.
- Location
- Wisconsin
It'd be more rewarding for the crew personally, as well. They'd get the satisfaction of fixing some of their world's issues themselves.
- Location
- Maryland
One minor thing jumped out at me: 'Ordnance' is the correct word for things that go boom in the night...
Thanks, fixed. Gotta love the English language and its homophones.
- Location
- Outside of the Omniverse slowly breaking in
I feel like it's more the crews going to fix their personal problems. While the Family in the background are dealing with the more apocalyptic threats.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
They should build a wall around Federation space!