"And, we've arrived." Rip said. "Gideon, if you wouldn't mind camouflaging us as an alpine meadow, perhaps?"
"What are you complaining about now?" Snart asked. "It's not like we time jumped."
"I hate flying." Mick said. "Especially in...whatever this thing is."
"Where exactly are we?" Carter asked as Sebastian got to his feet and stretched.
"We're still in 1975, right?" Kendra asked.
"Indeed." Rip answered, standing up and walking across the room. "October 1975 on the fjords of northern Norway."
"Sounds like a vacation." Snart said as the rest of the group, except for Mick, got to their feet.
"Which we can take as soon as the threat of Savage has been neutralized, Mr. Snart." Rip said, grabbing a small book.
"That's Aldus's book." Mick said.
"Now he theorized that Savage might be here, and if he's right, and if we can capture Savage, then at least Professor Boardman didn't die in vain." Rip said.
"Can't we just go back and save Aldus?" Kendra asked.
"He was our son." Carter said.
"Look, I'm sorry." Rip said. "We can't go back and change events in which we participated. Time would fold in on itself, creating a temporal vortex."
"Which sounds way cooler than it is." Ray said.
"Forgetting physics for a second, shouldn't we figure out what Savage is doing in Norway?" Sara asked.
"According to Gideon, there is a large meeting of terrorists and fringe groups looking to buy illegal arms." Rip said.
"Now that sounds like a vacation." Mick said.
"Arms dealers and terrorists aren't exactly our kind of people, but they're the next best thing." Snart said, leaning against the centrla console, which the group had gathered around.
"Well, looks like you and your lapdog get to earn your keep." Carter said.
"I'm no-one's lapdog, Bird-man." Mick said.
"So, what exactly does one wear to a black market arms bazaar, anyway?" Kendra asked.
"The Waverider has a fabrication room which can fashion temporally indigenous, uh, fashion." Rip said, walking into his office.
"You've got a room that makes clothing?" Jax asked.
"Doesn't everyone?" Rip said.
"Alright, the first thing we need to do is work up a plan." Ray said as he, Sebastian, Mick, Snart, and Rip walked down the Waverider's halls.
"Got a lot of experience infiltrating criminal gatherings?" Snart asked, and didn't give Ray a chance to respond. "Didn't think so. I'm calling the shots."
"Actually, I'm in charge, and case any of you have forgotten." Rip interjected.
"No, I remember, I just don't care" Snart said.
"Do I need to remind any of you that I'm a time master?" Rip said.
"Former." Sebastian corrected.
"Making discreet alterations is what I do, so we're not gonna just charge into the past like a bull into a china shop-" Rip was cut off by Mick.
"Half of what you've told us about the mission turned out to be lies." he said.
"None of you have ever encountered Vandal Savage before." Rip said.
"I did." Sebastian said, but was ignored by Rip.
"I have, and I'm telling you now, you are making a big mistake."
Ray scoffed. "Already did that when we trusted you." he said.
"Back soon, Captain." Mick said. Sebastian walked past Rip, following the other three.
Sebastian, Snart, Mick, Sara, and Stein walked across the pavement.
"Looks like they're checking credentials." Sara said. "And we don't have any."
"We got this, trust us." Mick said. Snart pushed someone walking past, grabbing the guy's ID, which was just a small orange card.
"Excuse you." Snart said. They walked towards the man in front of the door.
"ID's." he said. Snart handed him the card. The guy took it and read it. "You don't look like an Amhad Ahmed Izz-Al-Din."
"I'm Arab. On my mother's side." Snart lied smoothly.
"Is there a problem?" Stein asked loudly, and walked up to the man. "I don't like delays. Do you know who we are? My associates and I are the operational arm of Scimitar. The Lambardo Square bombing, 1963. Murder of Henri Tyran, Canada, 1970. Konig Airport massacre, 1971. Bottom line? You don't want to doubt me."
Snart reached past Stein, and took the orange card back, and the group moved past the man.
"We're in." Snart said.
"So why don't I get to play terrorist?" Jax asked through the comms as Sebastian, Sara, and Stein separated from Mick and Snart. Then Sebastian separated from those two.
"This is just a kidnapping." Snart answered. "No need for your nuclear fireworks. Savage'll be one of the buyers. Once we get eyes on, hang back. We'll boost him once this is all over."
"Any sign of him?" Carter asked.
"No." Snart answered.
"He's not here, boss." Mick said.
"If I could have your attention." a man said. "Thank you all for coming. I promise it will be well worth your time."
"Eyes on Savage." Sebastian said as Savage walked onto the stage.
"Seems we were wrong about Savage." Stein said. "He's not one of the buyers."
"He's the seller." Sara said.
"This is a variable-yield nuclear warhead, capable of producing a blast equivalent to one megaton of TNT." Savage said, as two men rolled out said warhead.
"Shall we begin our bidding at $100 million?" one of the men said. A gunshot went off. "$100 million. Do I hear $105?" Another gunshot. This went on for a couple of minutes, before Sebastian noticed Savage staring at them.
"It's seems we've drawn some unwanted attention." Stein said. "We need to bid, fire your gun in the air."
Mick didn't hesitate, and shot his gun. "That's $125 million."
"Um...what's happening?" Sara asked.
"Going once..."
"It's what's not happening that's the concern." Stein said.
"Nobody else is bidding." Snart said.
"Going twice...sold!"
"We just bought a nuclear bomb." Sebastian said.
"Congratulations, Professor." Mick said. A man approached them from within the crowd.
"Well, well. We seem to have a new player." he said. "But you seem to be a bit academic. How did you get in here and who are you?"
"As of a few seconds ago, I'm a nuclear power." Stein answered.
"Yet I don't know you or your organization, and I know everyone." the man said.
"Like you said, new players." Sebastian snarled, stepping forward. "So why don't you move it before my friend here shoots you."
"Is there some sort of problem here?" Savage asked, walking over.
"Yes, this guy doesn't seem to know how to accept that he lost." Sebastian said, shoving the man's shoulder.
"We're just going to get our nuclear warhead and be on our way." Snart said.
"Not without paying first." the man still onstage said.
"Once we've validated that the warhead's operational." Stein said. "Personally, I find it highly unlikely that you were able to accumulate enough fissionable material in this era to fashion a workable nuclear device."
"This era?" Savage questioned.
"Figure of speech." Stein covered. Savage walked back up to the stage.
"Change of plans." he said. "I'll provide a 25% discount to the organization which brings me the heads of these men."
"Merde." Sebastian muttered.
"Can I burn some stuff now?" Mick asked.
"I wish you would." Snart said. Mick fired his heat gun, starting the chaos. Sebastian hoped that his powers wouldn't act up right now. A man with a gun aimed it at Sebastian and began firing it. Sebastian deflected the bullets as best as he could. The bullets went off in many direction, a few hitting the man. One of the bullets still managed to lodge itself in his leg.
"Oh, fils de pute!" Sebastian cried. He limped over behind some crates, and put pressure onto the wound, but wincing as he did so. He did his best to tear his shirt. He bit his lip hard as he pulled the bullet from his flesh. It luckily hadn't gone in far. He tied the ripped portion of his shirt around his leg.
"Um, we got a nuclear bomb here." Sara said.
"Wait, really? I thought it was a frickin bunny." Sebastian said snarkily.
"That's doesn't help, Sebastian." Sara said. Sebastian was ready with another remark when she spoke again. "Ray! What did you do?"
"What did Ray do?" Sebastian asked, but didn't get a response.
"Professor, Jax, we need you." Sara said.
"Well, I'm really glad you were the one calling the shots." Ray said to Snart.
"I had it under control until the Professor started picking fights with the PLO." Snart said.
"You let your ego endanger our entire mission." Carter said. Sebastian leaned against the frame of the door for a second, exhausted from the walk. All of the others had been to busy bickering to notice that their teammate was hurt, and he was way too stubborn to ask for help.
"No, Mr. Smythe's temper got way out of control-"
"Me? You all are the one's assigning blame to each other when all of us had some part in it." Sebastian said exasperatedly. He collapsed into one of the seats.
"At least there's one less nuclear bomb on the planet." Kendra said.
"It wasn't even supposed to be here." Sebastian said, as Rip began to clap sarcastically.
"Here, here." he said. "Now you all deserve a hearty congratulations. Not only did you fail to capture Savage and you exposed yourselves and your powers to him, giving away the element of surprise for now and all time. Well done, team."
"We don't need the element of surprise." Carter said. "We know he's in Norway, so let's find him-"
"Unfortunately, we now have larger problems than Savage." Rip said. "If only you'd have listened to me-"
"We've got it, Rip. We failed." Sebastian said, cutting the man off. "Get on with your point."
"If you'd only listened to me about the dangers of upsetting the timeline." Rip said.
"What do you mean?" Kendra asked.
"While you were busy saving Norway from nuclear annihilation-" Rip was cut off by Mick.
"You're welcome, Norway."
"Savage sent one of his cronies back to the site of the arms sale." Rip said. "Anyone care to guess what he found?"
Ray began searching his super suit. "Whoops." he said, and Gideon appeared.
"I am unversed in modern American colloquialisms." she said. "Is whoops slang for oh-"
"Yes." Rip said. "Dr. Palmer seems to have thrown a spanner in the works for the entire timeline."
"Come again?" Snart said.
"Armed with Dr. Palmer's future technology, Savage's engineers develop a weapon far more destructive than anything here in 1975. This is central City in 2016." Rip pulled up a hologram of the city in flames. "At least it was. I'm not sure what the neo-fascists who took control of it are calling it these days."
"You better fix that." Sebastian said, pointing at it, before dropping his arm.
"There must be a way to correct this somehow." Stein said.
"Fortunately, Gideon is just showing us a forecast of the future you've all created." Rip said. "Time is like cement. It takes time for it to become permanent. In this case, until Savage's team have worked out the mystery of your future technology and molded it to their own ends. And when they do, what you see here is no longer just a forecast. This...this is history."
"So, thanks to Raymond leaving a piece of his suit in the past, the rest of us don't have a future to go back to?" Snart asked.
"Unless we do something to change this course of events, the future will become immutable." Rip said.
"Exactly how much time do we have?" Ray asked.
"Until Savage's weapons team reverse-engineer your tech." Rip said.
"We're talking 1970's terrorists with 21st century weapons." Stein said. "And since we don't know where Savage went-"
Ray stood up. "We don't have to find Savage." he said. "We just have to find the other piece of my suit. Which shrinks because it's made of an alloy which mimics intra-molecular compression of a dwarf star, thus emitting Alpha Particles."
"So we just need to be able to track them." Stein said. "Fortunately, Alpha Particles are highly trackable."
"Yet unheard of in the 1970s." Ray said. "It's like we're trapped in the stone age."
"I'll have you know that I was researching Alpha Particles when you were eating crayons." Stein said. Sebastian scrunched his nose at the idea of anybody eating crayons.
"So to track that piece of Raymond's super suit, we just need to talk to..." Snart said.
"Me." Stein said. "Twenty-five year old me, rather."
"You two are just in time." Rip said as Kendra and Carter came in.
"Show them, Kendra." Carter said. Kendra held out a paper.
"Aldus was carrying this when he was killed." Kendra said. Rip took the paper. "It's a newspaper article about an Egyptian dagger."
"The one Savage used to kill us." Carter said.
"In Central City, we learned that objects associated with the night of our deaths can also be used to kill Savage." Kendra explained.
"According to Aldus's notes, the dagger needs to be wielded in conjunction with an incantation inscribed in it." Carter said.
"What does this incantation say?" Stein asked.
"I don't know. I can't read the language." Kendra said.
"It's okay." Carter said. "I'll help you remember.
"Splendid. Now as for the dagger..." Rip said.
"You need someone to steal it." Ray said.
"Okay, fine." Snart said, grabbing the piece of paper. "Whatever. I'll do it."
"Really twisting your arm, are they?" Sebastian remarked.
"Article says it was purchased by some rich Russian douchebag named Sasha Mohnovski." Snart said.
"I'll go with you." Ray volunteered.
"I already got a partner." Snart said, walking away.
"Who I trust even less than you." Ray said.
"Look, you're more than welcome to go with them." Rip said. "Just don't take along any of your future tech."
Ray turned and left, and Stein was about to go off in another direction.
"Oi! Where do you think you're going?" Rip asked.
"To break into my old lab and bring us back the particle tracker." Stein answered.
"Fine, but perhaps, you should take Jefferson, Sara, and Sebastian with you to act as your intermediaries. Look, interacting with yourself in the past can have catastrophic effects upon the future."
"Fascinating." Stein said. "Let's go."
"Setting a course for the United States, Captain." Gideon said. "And may I recommend that instead Mr. Smythe report to the med-bay?"
"Seriously, Gideon?" Sebastian asked as everybody looked at him.
"Well, you seem to have-"
"I know." Sebastian said, standing up and began to limp out of the room.
"What the hell happened?" Sara asked.
"I suppose you'd know if you all hadn't been so busy fighting each other on the way back." Sebastian snapped, and walked out.
A couple of hours later, Sebastian was back in the main room, just sitting in one of the chairs.
"Unbelievable." an unfamiliar voice said. "Is that a tachyon manifold?"
Sebastian turned his head to see Sara, Jax, Stein, and another man.
"Hey, how did you find us, man?" Jax asked.
"What the hell?" Sebastian said.
"That's Marty." Sara said, leaning on the back of his seat. "Or Stein when he was younger."
"What is he doing here?" Sebastian hissed.
"You think I couldn't build something to track my own tracker?" the younger Stein said.
"Do you have any idea what you have done?" Stein asked.
"What I've done?" younger Stein asked. "You guys knocked me out."
"Which we wouldn't have had to do in the first place if you weren't such a monumental jerk!" Stein said.
"He does realize he's talking to himself, right?" Sebastian muttered to Sara.
"Okay, uh, can I just- yeah." Jax interjected, and began to pull Stein from the room.
"Watch him, guys." Stein said.
"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" younger Stein asked after a few minutes when Stein and Jax came back.
"You didn't say anything to him?" Stein asked.
"I figured we screwed up the '70s enough." Sara said with a shrug.
"Hey, w-what are you talking about?" younger Stein asked. "A-are you saying that you're-"
"Don't say another word. Don't even think it." Stein cut off his younger self. He held out a device. "You are to get off this ship, post haste."
"Oh, wonderful." Rip said as he walked in. "Another unauthorized passenger. That worked out so splendidly last time."
"It's alright. He was just leaving." Stein said.
"I'll show you out." Jax said.
"So, have we met before?" younger Stein asked.
"In a manner of speaking." Stein answered. "Ha-have a wonderful life, Martin. I mean that sincerely."
"I am not even going to ask." Rip said as Jax walked out with the younger Stein.
"Captain Hunter, we're getting an incoming communique." Gideon said. "Mr. Snart on Mr. Rory's comm unit."
"On speaker." Rip said.
"I'll make this short. The owner of the mansion we burgled is Vandal Savage." Snart said. "He's really interested in meeting you guys, especially our feathered friends."
"They have the dagger." Rip said.
"And Savage has them." Sara said as Carter and Kendra walked in.
"Doesn't matter." Carter said. "Just get me close enough, and I'll do what's needed to be done."
"I have the coordinates." Gideon said.
"Let's do this." Rip said.
"Carter's dead." Sara told Sebastian.
"One day in and somebody dies." he said. "Is Kendra okay?"
"She's hurt. Gideon thinks she'll be okay." Sara answered. "How's your leg?"
"Great. Gideon fixed it, for the most part." Sebastian said.
Rip and Stein came in a little while later.
"How's Kendra?" Stein asked.
"The same." Sara answered.
"So what now?" Jax asked.
"Now?" Rip said. "Now it's up to you."
"To do what, Rip?" Snart asked. "Last I checked, every time we try to do anything it all goes to crap."
"Oh, once again I must disagree with you." Rip said. "Thanks to Miss, Lance, Dr. Palmer's future technology is no longer in the hands of Vandal Savage's black market weapons designers."
"But it didn't do anything to change the fate of your world." Stein said.
"No." Rip said. "Vandal Savage will still rise to power in the year 2166."
"And your family will still die?"Jax asked, and Rip nodded.
"So what you're really asking is, do we want to fish, or cut bait?" Snart asked. "Return to 2016 and live out the rest of our lives as insignificant losers, or-"
"Make another play at becoming legends. Figure out how to end Savage and save the world." Ray said.
"Preferably without causing another nuclear explosion." Stein said.
"Savage has my attention." Mick said.
"Look, we didn't know Carter from Adam, but if you take out one of my crew, you better pay the price." Snart said.
"Surely Captain Hunter has a sound plan." Stein said, then looked at Jax. "What about you?"
"You're asking me?" Jax asked.
"I didn't give you much of a choice the first time, did I?" Stein asked.
"Well, I say we kick Savage's ass." Jax said. "For Carter."
"For Carter." each of the others repeated.
"So, Captain. Where are we going next?" Stein asked.
