Whoa, hey I'm actually posting a new chapter! *IS SHOOK* I hope you all enjoy this, it's almost like a coming back chapter, hopefully it means I'll get back in the swing of things and post every week. It'll be easier since It's summer and I have no life. LOL, please guys rememeber to REVIEW! Your comments and feedback means the world to me and encourages me to write more.
Episode 9: "And the future is Epilogue."
"My name is Savannah Winters and I used to be normal, but two years after the accelerator went off I found out I had powers, then I'm suddenly kidnapped by a man who says I'm meant for bigger things, I'm not meant to just be a hero, I was meant to be a Legend, I am Trajectory."
I'd do it for the glory.
Location: Harmony Falls, 1958.
Savannah jerked awake abruptly, her eyes flew open and she shot upright, and immediately regretted it when the light stung her eyes.
Groaning as the room started to spin violently, Savannah cringed when her back and ribs stung painfully, in fact, her entire body ached.
"Sorry, I got a little carried..." Jax's voice echoed from the other side of the console. "Away."
Lifting her head, Savannah squinted her eyes in search for Rip and Snart.
Suddenly she spotted a figure who was sprawled on the floor in the parlor, pulling herself to her feet, she barely noticed how both halves of Firestorm jumped as she stumbled to the Parlor.
She dropped unceremoniously beside Rip and grabbed his arm as his eyes flickered open.
Jax was on his other side and between them, managed to pull him to his feet, he groaned, "Where's Chronos?"
"He absconded with Mr. Snart on the Jumpship. I'm sorry Captain." Gideon informed.
"Why would Chronos take Snart?" Jax begged the question, as Savannah leaned heavily on the doorway as the world spun dangerously.
"Gideon, can you track them?" Rip asked, stumbling slightly.
"We have a more pressing matter." The AI replied.
Savannah groaned, Really? Now? before dropping in one of the chairs.
Rip leaned against the console and looked down at the screen. "Strap yourselves in."
Reaching up took more effect then Savannah would care to admit, but she completed the task as Rip disappeared behind the console.
"What's going on?" Jax questioned.
"Chronos has sabotaged the navigation system." Rip explained as Martin and Jax took a seat. "Unless we can find a way to alter the course, we'll be trapped in the Temporal Zone for all time."
Tilting her head lazily, Savannah tried to ignore the way the lights and voices were only causing her headache to increase, now pounding in time with her heart.
"Did you reboot Gideon?" She tried, leaning her head back with a grimace.
Apparently her voice was to low for them to hear because they kept talking as though she had never said a word.
"Gideon-" Martin started.
"I cannot override Chronos's commands." The AI repeated, before the machinery powered down.
"What did you do?" Martin questioned, sounding concerned while Savannah was just trying not to throw up.
"Rebooted Gideon." He replied before she heard quick footsteps and a hand touched her shoulder. "Savannah?"
"Just shut up and get us outta here." She grumbled keeping her eyes clenched shut. "You can be a mother hen later."
Not reassured in the slightest, but realizing that she would be alright for the time being, Rip quickly took the pilot chair.
"Until Gideon is fully operational, we're free-falling through time." He explained and Savannah cracked one eye open to glare at him.
"If I throw up, it's on you."
The Waverider started jerking and spinning and Savannah, instead of dealing with the chaos, simply passed out, her friends small cries and groans echoing in her head.
Savannah woke up and immediately started throwing up.
Quickly shoving the harness up Savannah clutched her head tightly when her stomach stopped protesting.
Faintly, Savannah heard Martin muttering gibberish.
"You are suffering form linguistic disorientation." Rip explained, "It's a side effect of such a severe time jump."
Savannah groaned and kept her eyes shut as her head pounded in time with her fast paced heart.
Ow ow ow ow ow ow.
Savannah started rubbing her forehead to try and relive the pain, it didn't work.
Groaning softly, Savannah pressed her palms against her eyes to try and block out the noise.
"Gideon, status update?" Rip's voice echoed.
"I am detecting a time beacon signaling the Waverider." The AI answered. "But then again, this is 1960."
Savannah lifted her head up, her headache slowly dissipating. "1960?"
Rip glanced over at her, taking in her pale complexion.
"The temporal navigation system was compromised and did its best to return us as close as possible to 1958." Gideon replied.
Savannah groaned. "Oh great."
"Salypos changa " Martin said with a sigh.
By the time the timeship landed and Rip went out to get Kendra and Ray, Savannah's headache had disappeared completely.
Walking down the corridor, Savannah heard Ray's voice up ahead.
"Two years. You left us stranded in 1958."
"That was never my intention."
Ray sighed as they turned the corner. "Can't we rev the ship back up, go back to 1958, and pick that us up?"
Savannah spotted them and grinned broadly when Kendra caught her gaze. "Savannah!"
The blonde grinned as Kendra jogged ahead and embraced the speedster tightly.
Savannah hugged her back just as tightly. "Hey Kendra, you guys okay?"
Kendra nodded. "Yeah, I'm just happy to be back on the ship."
Savannah's grin softened into a smile. "I'm glad you guys are alright."
By then, Ray and Rip reached them and Ray leaned down to pull her into a hug. "Hey Sav."
"Hey Ray. Good to see you."
He pulled away and they continued walking. "Good to see you too."
They reached the bridge where Martin and Jax were waiting.
"Raymond." Martin said in a way of greeting, holding his hand out. "Good to see you. Glad you're back."
"Martin." Kendra greeted with a smile as she hugged him.
Savannah ran her fingers through her hair loosely a sigh escaping her lips.
"It's just, I have 50 midterms to grade next week-" Ray started, pacing forward. "By hand-and I've come to terms with living in the technological dark ages. I have students who count on me. Kendra and I have friends and a life..."
Savannah frowned, her arms folding across her chest as she leaned against the back of one of the chairs.
"Ray." Kendra said, touching his arm. "This is what we've been waiting for. Remember the mission. We can finally be ourselves again."
Ray looked, almost disappointed, and Kendra turned to them. "Look I'm sorry this is all...very intense. It's been two years for us. We thought you guys were dead."
Savannah chuckled, unamused. "We almost were."
"Miss Winters is correct, that very well might have been the case." Martin continued.
"Chronos attacked us." Jax explained. "He sabotaged the ship and took Snart."
"We need to recover Ms. Lance as well." Rip spoke up. "Where is she?"
"Uh, no idea." Ray answered. "People go their separate ways, lose track of each other."
Rip turned back to the console. "Gideon, search the timeline for any reference of a Sara Lance, or a blonde vigilante circa 1960."
"Right away Captain."
"Why did Chronos take Snart?" Kendra questioned, as her and Ray wandered over. "Couldn't he have taken you all in?"
"You sound dubious." Rip said.
Kendra nodded, folding her arms. "If Chronos was gonna settle for taking one person, you'd think it would be you. He took Snart for a reason."
As much as she didn't want to, Savannah made her way to the Med Bay.
Huffing in annoyance the blonde sat down in the first chair. "Should just move my stuff in here, live here, what do you think Gideon? You wouldn't mind would you?"
The AI sounded just slightly amused as she answered. "I would not mind Miss Winters, however sleeping in the Med Bay's chair would be uncomfortable."
Savannah let out a laugh. "Very true Gideon, very true, do you mind checking me over? I know I have speed healing but I just wanted to be sure."
"Of course."
A blue glow encased her and Savannah squinted against the bright light.
When the light went away, Savannah glanced up at the ceiling. "Whatcha got for me Gid?"
"Your body is healing at an accelerated rate, your three fractured ribs, and concussion are already almost fully healed."
Savannah sat up and removed the cuff. "Thanks Gideon."
"My pleasure."
Savannah pushed herself off the chair and started for the door.
Tugging her hair out of its ponytail so it now rested on her shoulders, Savannah turned the corner, headed towards the bridge and ran right into Ray.
Stumbling backwards, Savannah rubbed her nose. "Ow."
"Oh, sorry Sav." Ray apologized.
Savannah turned her head to grin at him. "No problem, I heal fast. It's a good thing to have when you're clumsy."
Ray chuckled half-heartedly. "Yeah, well, I've got to go."
Blinking in surprise Savannah shot Martin a look, he just shook his head before following Ray.
Walking onto the bridge, Savannah turned into Rip's parlor. "Um, who kicked the puppy?"
Kendra and Rip turned confused looks to her.
"Ray, he looks like he was just kicked. What happened?"
Kendra sighed. "Don't ask."
Savannah shot Rip a look. What the heck?
Rip just kinda shrugged in response.
"I just hope that Sara takes to being back on the Team better than Ray seems to be taking it." Kendra said.
"Depends, I suppose, on where exactly she ended up." Rip said back, and Savannah sat down in Rip's chair, and to his pointed look she said:
"Snooze you lose Hunter."
Kendra left after a few minutes, leaving Rip and Savannah alone.
The blonde spun on the stool out of boredom, causing it to squeak.
"Savannah?"
Stopping her movement with her feet, Savannah glanced at Rip, who looked mildly annoyed.
"Yeah?" She replied innocently.
"Can you please stop doing that?"
Savannah turned so she could lean her back on his desk, her lips twisting into a pout. "Fine, killjoy."
Rip rolled his eyes. "Now isn't the time to be fooling around."
Savannah nodded and stood up. "I know, I'm just feeling kind of useless."
Rip glanced back at her from the stack of papers on the round table. "As do I."
Savannah narrowed her eyes at the papers. "What are those?"
"Places where Ms. Lance could possibly be hiding."
Savannah's eyes lit up. "Oh! Okay, do you want help looking through them?"
Rip met her pleading gaze and held it.
"Please? I know you like to work by yourself, but I really want to help." Savannah urged. "Besides with two of us it'll go faster, and the sooner we find Sara the better."
"Alright."
Savannah's entire face lit up and she reached over to grab the papers from him. "Thanks, so, lets start with this one first..."
"Guys!" Ray called upon arriving on the bridge with Kendra close behind.
Savannah lifted her head up. "Yeah?"
"We think we know where Sara is." Kendra said.
Savannah and Rip shared equal looks of surprise before stepping out of the parlor.
"We think Sara is hiding out with the League of Assassins." Kendra informed, glancing over at Ray.
"There is one source we could check to test your theory." Rip said walking over to the console with Savannah close behind.
"Gideon, bring up the Shadow Record."
"Shadow record?" Ray questioned.
"The list of every member of the League of Assassins since the invention of writing in 3200 B.C."
"Fascinating, except these sheets of papyrus are entirely blank." Martin pointed out.
"No, no, no. The League uses invisible ink." Rip explained. "I did my graduate thesis at the Academy on their history."
Savannah titled her head in thought.
"Gideon."
Then the blank sheets of paper started to show names, and dates.
"Sara said that Ra's al Ghul had lived nearly a century before she met him." Kendra said, leaning against the console.
"Thanks to his magic hot tub." Savannah scoffed, and at the questioning looks she received, elaborated. "GA's sister died and that glorified hot tube is what brought her back, same thing that brought Sara back."
"You mean the Lazarus Pit," Ray clarified. "It's basically a life-extending Jacuzzi, located in a place that's the opposite of life-extending."
"You should count yourself lucky, Dr. Palmer. Only a handful of outsiders have been inside the League's fortress and lived to tell the tale." Rip said.
"You are correct, Captain." Gideon spoke up. "There is a mention of a Ta-er al-Sahfer."
"That's Sara's League of Assassins name. According to the Shadow Record she joined the League in 1958." Rip said as they all leaned in to see.
"Incredible-Sara became a member of the secret organization that trained her to be an assassin 50 years prior to when she initially joined." Martin said in fascination.
"Sara needs our help. By all accounts, Ra's al Ghul is a very controlling very homicidal fanatic." Rip said, already walking towards the pilot chair. "Gideon, chart a course for Nanda Parbat."
It was well into the night when they arrived to Nanda Parbat, and Savannah was hyper aware of everything; the wind blowing north, the footsteps of each of her companions, their breathing patterns, the electricity in the air was almost overwhelming.
"Perhaps Jefferson and I should-" Martin started, which caused Savannah to jump.
"Extricating Sara from the likes of the League requires stealth." Rip cut him off. "So no Firestorm for the two of you." He turned to look at Savannah, whose eyes didn't stop moving, every muscle in her body was tensed. "And no super speed for you."
Savannah's eyes snapped to his, something akin to unease hidden there. "Its Trajectory, now can we grab Sara and leave please?"
"Your out of practice," Rip continued to Ray. "So no ATOM suit unless absolutely necessary."
Suddenly the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. "Guy's look out!"
A assassin jumped down from the cliff and landed near Ray, Jax reacted immediately and knocked the assassin unconscious.
"Thanks." Ray breathed still in shock.
"Well done, Jefferson." Martin praised.
"You guard the exit while I find Sara." Rip ordered.
"You're going in the HQ of assassin's by yourself? Don't you think that's a little reckless?" Savannah spoke up.
"We will be in and out of here faster then you can "Ra's al Ghul"."
Savannah rolled her eyes. "I'm a speedster Rip, I could say it a million times before you even got down the hall."
Guarding the door lasted about, 5 minutes Savannah would say.
But it wasn't like she could force them all to stay out there, so she followed after them reluctantly.
"Something's wrong." Martin spoke up softly. "They should have been back by now."
"Well I think this counts as absolutely necessary. I've got my exo-suit shrunk down, and I can miniaturize and do some tiny sneaking."
Kendra grabbed Ray's arm. "It's been two years since you've used that suit. And that's after you scavenged it for parts for your time beacon. You don't even know if it works."
"Is now really the tine for your little marital spat?" Jax asked.
"We're not married." Kendra snapped back.
"Can we just keep it down, please?" Martin, ever the voice of reason, spoke up.
"Martin's right, guys now isn't the time for any of this, we need to find Rip and Sara and get out of this place." Savannah agreed.
Suddenly Assassins appeared from every doorway, surrounding them.
Then they parted in front of them, revealing Sara walking towards them, with another assassin holding a sword to Rip's throat.
"Sara?" Ray asked.
"Found her." Rip said dryly.
Sara said something in Arabic, then two assassin's separated Jax and Martin, before she walked up to Ray and took his ATOM suit out of his pocket.
Savannah eyed the sword at Rip's throat, before moving her eyes to the swords threating her other friends.
Her eyes darkened. "What the heck is wrong with you Lance?" She snapped.
Sara turned to her, her eyes blank, she said something else in Arabic, before a needle stabbed into her arm.
What the-?
Suddenly pain laced up from her arm to the rest of her body causing her to gasp and clutch her arm.
Savannah stumbled slightly as the assassin's shoved her forward to walk next to Rip, who was glancing at her every few seconds as she fumbled down the hall.
"Sara what the heck?" Jax demanded, after they had been chained to the wall in a large room.
"You shouldn't have come here." She replied.
"Yeah, I'm starting to get that." Ray scoffed.
Savannah had resigned herself from the conversation and pulled her knees to her chest, she had been chained to the opposite side of the room away from the others for some reason, and she couldn't find it in herself to care.
"Peace with the League of Assassins?" Rip's voice filtered through her thoughts. "That must be the first time that sentence has ever been uttered."
Savannah snorted despite herself, and the short moment of silence that followed indicated that the others heard her.
"Oh, I can't believe I'm back here." Ray groaned.
Tightening her grip on her legs, which were also chained, Savannah tried to think of a way to get all of them out of this, safely.
"-Trespassers are to be executed."
Sara's words hit her suddenly, causing Savannah to bury her head further between her legs and groan.
Well isn't that just dandy?
The door slammed shut, indicating that Sara had stormed off.
The burning was still there, reminding Savannah that she no longer had her speed, and also reminding her to just keep her big fat mouth shut next time.
"We just need a little more time to get through to her."
"Do Time Masters have a different understanding of the word "executed"?" Martin asked in disbelief.
"No, no, no. It's called "time drift". When one spends too long in an alien timeline." Rip explained. "One loses ties with one's former self, former identity."
"Oh my gosh." Kendra groaned in realization.
"What?" Jax asked.
"I didn't understand it before, but my powers-they went dormant."
Savannah cocked her head, listening carefully.
"What are you talking about?" Ray questioned.
"My wings. You must have noticed that I haven't been able to "hawk out" for almost two years."
"I just thought you didn't want to. Why didn't you tell me?"
Oh my gosh, is now really the time for this?! Savannah thought lifting her head slowly to glare at the couple.
"Because it was so hard for you to give up hope that the team would return. When you finally did, you started to be happy again, and I couldn't bear telling you that I wasn't."
Ouch.
Jax half turned away while making a face. "That ain't good."
"I had no idea."
"Look, Ray, I loved being with you. I wasn't just losing my powers. I was losing my memories of my past lives. I was starting to lose myself."
"I'm sorry. I-But, look, you didn't have to protect me. I could've handled the truth."
"It couldn't have been easy for Raymond, either," Martin piped up, much to Savannah's amusement. "Having to give up being the ATOM."
"I'm sorry, but can we have a private moment?"
"I think we all wish you would've had this moment in private." Jax replied, causing Savannah to start to laugh and look up, Kendra and Ray leaning as close as the chains would allow, while Rip had his legs crossed at the ankles, while looking up the ceiling probably wishing to be anywhere but here, while Jax looked highly annoyed and Martin just pretended he wasn't paying attention.
Savannah's entire body trembled with her laughter catching everyone's, sans Kendra and Ray, attention.
Throwing one hand over her mouth Savannah couldn't stop her laughing, despite the situation, this was just so funny.
Jax leaned forward. "You good?"
Savannah nodded, the burning was mostly gone now, but so were her powers.
"Don't you think that we were meant for something greater than being stuck in 1960, eating fondue with the neighbors?" Kendra asked.
"Yeah, we were meant to be tortured and executed in Nanda "I can't believe I'm back here" Parbat." Ray replied with a small scoff.
"If we die, at least it would be in pursuit of a greater purpose."
"That's it." Rip spoke up suddenly.
"What's it?"
"Ra's la Ghul's purpose in life is to see that the League continues with all of its ancient traditions intact-"
"Including murdering intruders?" Martin cut in.
"I will appeal to Ra's al Ghul's respect for the League's traditions."
Savannah's eyes went wide and she shared a confused and concerned look with Jax.
"Invoking one of them right now."
"Well, what kind of traditions, man?" Jax questioned.
"Guards!"
Savannah scrambled to her feet, and stumbled back into the wall, what did Rip think he was doing?
"Guards!"
Rapid footsteps approached them, and Savannah groaned as she leaned her back against the wall.
This is not going to go well.
AN: Hey guys, miss me? Probably not, anyway I hope you like this new chapter, I'll try to update regularly from now on, it's just that just when I was getting in the swing of things, my life was thrown a curve ball. I hope you all understand. And for those of you who do, thank you.
See you all next week! (Hopefully)
~DarkRed.