"And we've arrived. Gideon, if you wouldn't mind camouflaging us as an alpine meadow, perhaps?"
"What are you complaining about now? It's not like we time-jumped." Snart exasperatedly asked Mick.
Mick held his head, "I hate flying, especially in... whatever this thing is."
"Where exactly are we?" Carter the birdman asked.
Followed up by a question from the she bird Kendra, "We're still in 1975, right?"
"Indeed. October 1975 on the fjords of northern Norway." Rip answered as he rose from his seat.
Snart snarked, "Sounds like a vacation."
"Which we can take as soon as the threat of Savage has been neutralized, Mr. Snart." Rip said as he entered the glass walled study.
As Rip grabbed a small leather notebook Carter stated, "That's Aldus's notebook."
We all moved to stand facing Rip, "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, explaining the significance of the book.
"Can't we just go back and save Aldus?" Kendra asked.
Chiming in to support her Carter stated that, "He was our son."
Rip looked over at them almost apologetically and said, "Look, I'm sorry. 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, his voice a mix between worry and excitement.
Sara spoke up before Ray could geek out, "Forgetting physics for a second, shouldn't we figure out what Savage is doing in Norway?"
"That's the million dollar question, isn't it?" I said.
Rip moved towards the center console as he said, "According to Gideon, there is a large meeting of terrorists and fringe groups looking to buy illegal arms."
With a smile on his face, "Now that sounds like a vacation," Mick said. Obviously we have very different ideas about what classifies as a vacation.
Snart leaned on the console and said, "Arms dealers and terrorists aren't exactly our kind of people, but they're the next best thing."
Carter took a shot at Mick and Snart saying, "Well, looks like you and your lapdog get to earn your keep."
Looking at Carter, "I'm no one's lapdog, bird-man." Mick said with a look in his eyes that he wouldn't hesitate to kill him. I wondered if Carter would fry like a chicken if Mick set him on fire.
Kendra spoke up before the situation could escalate, "So what exactly does one wear to a black market arms bazaar, anyway?"
"The Waverider has a fabrication room which can fashion temporally-indigenous, uh, fashion." Rip said nonchalantly as he walked back into the glass study.
"You've got a room that makes clothing?" Jax said, that might be the most interesting room on this ship.
"Doesn't everyone?" Rip said over his shoulder.
Kendra, Carter, Jax and I walked around the back of the warehouse by the water. "So why don't I get to play terrorist?" Jax asked.
Snart spoke over the comm line, "This is just a kidnapping. 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 somewhat impatiently.
"No." Snart replied almost disappointed.
Mick piped up, "He's not here, boss."
"Let's get Ginger and the Professor and move out," came Snart's reply.
"Seems we were wrong about Savage. He's not one of the buyers." Stein said worriedly.
Sara added, "He's the seller."
"I got a feeling you guys might wanna get those helmets of yours on." Jax said in response to what we could hear over the comms.
Adding to Jax's idea, I said, "You definitely want to, because Stein just blew their cover."
Over the comms came a "Can I burn some stuff now?" That was obviously Mick.
"Get ready to move in fast." I told Jax, Carter, and Kendra.
"I wish you would," We heard Snart say, giving Mick the carte blanche to fight.
"Well that's our signal," I said, moving to enter the warehouse. I entered the warehouse and the world slowed as I swiftly engaged with some of the fighters attacking the rest of the team. I dealt brutal blows dispatching the men quickly while struggling with my own darkness that wanted blood.
"You," I heard from a blonde Alpha in a light blue suit, "You have power," he said confidently. I rolled my eyes as I continued fighting the last man around me fell I turned towards blue suit. His men stepped forward but he waved them off before they could engage me, "an omega with power and training a beautiful and deadly combination, but you're holding yourself back. Why? Why restrain yourself when you could be unstoppable?" I looked at him in trepidation, how did he know I was holding back. He continued, "Why unless you fear the power within you, you have felt your darkness and fear it." I froze, he had just surmised my inner struggle having watched me for less than five minutes when even my whole family could not after eighteen years. "Join me and I could teach you to control it, to truly master it, join me and we could build an empire together."
"No," I stuttered, I knew I could not, would not dare, not now.
He looked into my eyes as if peering into my very being, "not now but perhaps another time." He walked away and I could breathe again, I hadn't realized I had stopped. I looked around no one had noticed thankfully, the fighting had mostly calmed only a few opponents remaining. I vaguely heard an explosion the hell did I miss?
We walked towards the bridge of the Waverider. "Well, I'm really glad you were the one calling the shots." Ray sniped at Snart.
"I had it under control until the Professor started picking fights with the PLO." Snart threw back at him. I could feel the tension building in the air and with it the ache in my head.
"You let your ego endanger our entire mission." Carter angrily said to Stein.
Stein tried denying the accusation, "No, Mr. Rory's temper got completely out of control…"
"I thought we were friends, Professor." Mick replied.
Kendra tried to cool everybodies temper saying, "At least there's one less nuclear bomb on the planet." As if that was something we should have been concerned with.
As we all walked past the glass room Rip slowly clapped, "Here, here. Now you all deserve a hearty congratulations. Not only did you fail to capture Savage, you exposed yourselves and your powers to him, giving away the element of surprise for now and all time. Well done, team," he said condescendingly.
"We don't need the element of surprise. We know he's in Norway, so let's find him…" Carter said, stating the obvious.
Before he could finish his statement, Rip cut him off, "Unfortunately, we now have larger problems than Savage. If only you'd have listened to me about the dangers of upsetting the timeline," as if he was all knowing.
"What are you talking about?" Kendra asked for us all.
He started, "While you were busy saving Norway from nuclear annihilation…"
"You're welcome, Norway." Mick interrupted sarcastically.
Rip continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "Savage sent one of his cronies back to the site of the arms sale. Anyone care to guess what he found?"
Ray looked down at the arm of his suit, "Whoops," he said like a two year old that had spilled his juice.
I am unversed in modern American colloquialisms. Is 'Whoops' slang for 'Oh'...
"Yes, Dr. Palmer seems to have thrown a spanner in the works for the entire timeline." Rip said scowling at Ray.
"Come again?" Snart said alarmed.
Rip started talking quickly, "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. At least it was. I'm not sure what the neo-fascists who took control of it are calling it these days." Finishing his angry tirade, he pulled up a hologram of the destruction in Central City. If that's Central City then Gotham must truly be hell on earth.
Stein stepped forward hesitantly, "There must be a way to correct this somehow."
Rip explained, "Fortunately, Gideon is just showing us a forecast of the future you've all created. Time is like cement. It takes time 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…" he sighed, "This is history." On that dour note we all slowly wandered out of the room.
So this team thing is looking to be an unmitigated disaster, lovely.
I perched on the edge of one of the chairs closest to the center console as most of us gathered back on the main deck, "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, summed up our problem.
"Unless we do something to change this course of events, the future will become immutable." Rip explained wearily.
"Exactly how much time do we have?" Ray asked.
Rip answered, "Until Savage's weapons team reverse-engineers your tech."
Stein tried to explain the significance of this, "We're talking 1970s terrorists with 21st-century weapons."
"Suffice to say a bad mix" I interrupted him.
Stein continued, "extremely, and since we don't know where Savage went…"
Ray said excitedly, "We don't have to find Savage. 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 dwarf star, thus emitting Alpha Particles." Excited must be his default setting almost like a puppy.
"So we just need to be able to track them. Fortunately, Alpha Particles are highly trackable." Stein said in his typical know it all tone.
Ray looked down in dismay, "Yet unheard of in the 1970s. It's like we're trapped in the Stone Age."
Stein responded smugly, "I'll have you know that I was researching Alpha Particles when you were eating crayons." He must really think he is the smartest person to have ever walked the face of the earth.
"So to track that piece of Raymond's super-suit, we just need to talk to…" Snart prompted Stein.
"Me. 25-year-old me, rather." Stein answered.
Kendra and Carter walked towards us, "You two are just in time," Rip addressed them.
Carter spoke before he could continue, "Show them, Kendra," he practically ordered.
Kendra just ignored his tone and started talking, holding out a newspaper clipping she carried, "Aldus was carrying this when he was killed. It's a newspaper article about an Egyptian dagger." She is far kinder than I could ever be, I would have slapped him if he had spoken to me like that.
"The one Savage used to kill us," Carter added. They went back and forth explaining the importance of the dagger.
"In Central City, we learned that objects associated with the night of our deaths can also be used to kill Savage."
"According to Aldus's notes, the dagger needs to be wielded in conjunction with an incantation inscribed on it."
"What does this incantation say?" Stein asked.
Carter looked to Kendra for an answer, "I don't know. I can't read the language." He said to her as he took her arm leading her away, "It's okay. I'll help you remember."
"Splendid. Now, as for the dagger…" Rip said looking down at the news clipping.
"You need someone to steal it." Ray said
Snart snatched the clipping from Rip before he could respond, "Okay, fine. Whatever. I'll do it," he said as if it was a burden, and that he wasn't looking forward to it. Reading through the article continued, "Article says it was purchased by some rich Russian douchebag named Sasha Mahnovski."
"I'll go with you." Ray practically jumped.
"I already got a partner." Snart quickly tried to discourage as he walked away.
"Who I trust even less than you." Boy Scout is really something else, I mean trust do any of us trust each other. He is either idealistic or naive, I can't decide which.
"Look, you're more than welcome to go with them. Just don't take along any of your future tech." Rip said to Ray. "Oy! Where do you think you're going?" He said as Stein went to walk out.
"To break into my old lab and bring us back the particle tracker." Stein said simply, but what about this mission has been simple.
"Fine, but perhaps, you should take Jefferson and Sara with you to act as your intermediaries. Look, interacting with yourself in the past can have catastrophic effects upon the future." Rip explained after volunteering the two of them.
"Fascinating," Stein responded to Rip, turning to them, "Let's go," before he walked out.
Setting a course for the United States, Captain.
I stayed back on the ship having decided not to join one of the mission teams. I needed to figure out some way to manage my darker impulses to keep them from warring with my instincts. I settled in a room back to the basics. I need to connect to it to find a way to lock it away. I sat cross legged starting to meditate. I could feel my power just below the surface but I dug deeper reaching to find that darkness to find it's source. It seemed endless like I was submerged in water trying to reach the surface but it just kept getting further away.
Sara came to get me as we were on our way to Savage's house to retrieve Mick, Snart, and Ray. I quickly put on my armored purple bodysuit and boots both with black trimmings, a matching black utility belt, and leather jacket fully prepared for the fight that was sure to ensue. We landed as close to the house as possible Jax and Stein merged. Firestorm and I flew ahead to free Mick, Snart, and Ray to try and make this fight as fast as possible.
"Oh. The burning man." Savage said when he saw Jax and I standing on the balcony above him.
"I don't just burn, pal. I blast things too." Jax said as he hit Savage with a brutal blast of power.
I jumped down from the balcony landing first on the cage Snart and Ray were in then moving down to the floor by Mick. "Well you boys have certainly got yourselves into trouble haven't you." I said as I inspected the cage deciding on the best way to break it.
"Hey, you okay?" I heard Jax ask Mick as I decided to burn through some of the bars. I largely ignored their interaction focusing on melting through the bars. "Stand back." Jax told Ray and Snart before he directed his power to join mine in deconstructing the cage. We moved to meet up with the rest of the team outside when they arrived, "It's all good. Savage is down." Jax boasted.
Carter immediately shot him down, "Savage is not defeated by earthly means."
Jax tried to assert himself "Well, I hit him with a nuclear blast, so, you know, not that earthly."
Snart stepped forward presenting the dagger to Carter and Kendra, "Go get that son of a bitch," he said as Carter took the dagger from him.
"Are you ready to end this?" Carter asked Kendra.
Kendra conferred her conviction, "We've only been waiting 4,000 years." They took off flying to go and finally kill Savage.
"We got company." Mick said, noting the first wave of a small army coming our way.
"Friends of Savage. You'll be needing this. Don't leave any pieces of it behind this time." Rip said, holding out Ray's miniaturized atom suit. We moved forwards to meet the army. We collided, our attacks having little effect as wave after wave of Savage's men kept coming. Collecting an injured Kendra we retreated to nurse our wounds, and figure out a new plan.
"How's Kendra?" Stein asked as he and Rip joined the rest of us on the main deck.
Sara answered tersely, "The same."
"So what now?" Jax asked as if we had ever really had a plan.
"Now? Now it's up to you." Rip said.
"To do what, Rip? Last I checked, every time we try to do anything, it all goes to crap." Snart said snidely, expressing the regret we all felt at having failed so epically.
"Oh, once again I must disagree with you. Thanks to Miss Lance, Dr. Palmer's future technology is no longer in the hands of Vandal Savage's black market weapons designers." Rip said trying to look at the bright side of the disaster the first day has been.
Stein interjected, pointing out how we hadn't achieved our main goal, "But it didn't do anything to change the fate of your world."
"No. Vandal Savage will still rise to power in the year 2166." Rip answered dejectedly.
"And your family will still die?" Jax said congratulations you can state the obvious.
"So what you're really asking is, do we want to fish or cut bait?" Snart inferred, "Return to 2016 and live out the rest of our lives as insignificant losers or…"
"Make another play at becoming legends," Ray said, interrupting Snart. "Figure out how to end Savage and save the world."
Stein added a condition, "Preferably, without causing any more nuclear explosions."
Mick simply said, "Savage has my attention."
"Look, we didn't know Carter from Adam, but if you take out one of my crew, you better pay the price," Snart said pointing between Mick and himself.
"Surely Captain Hunter has a sound plan. What about you?" Stein said turning to Jax.
Shocked Jax said, "You're asking me?
"I didn't give you much of a choice the first time, did I?" Stein admitted.
"Well, I say we kick Savage's ass. For Carter." Jax said with conviction.
I stayed silent while everyone else intoned, "For Carter." I'm not really doing this for Carter but because I need an outlet for my darkness, at least until I figure out how to control it.
"So, Captain. Where are we going next?"