16143/Titans3023: The Avatar

Titans3023: The Avatar
Date of Scene:	22 October 2023
Location:	BIRBWORLD
Synopsis:	The Troia and Raven of 3023 go off to recruit the Kian of 3023. It is clear that Raven and Troia are no longer what they once were, but perhaps -- at least where Terry and Gar are concerned -- Kian may not be so convinced about himself.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Kian, Rachel Roth

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Donna Troy has posed:
    There is a small flash of light in the darkness of space in high orbit over the Akiar homeworld, and the small metallic orb of Troia's Titan Travel-Sphere appears floating above the peaceful planet.  Peaceful, though certainly a busier world than it had been a thousand years previously.  Where once local space had been home to just a few Akiar vessels exploring local space and travelling between the two worlds of the Akiar Imperium, the orbital zone is now busy with inter-system shipping.  Several large patrol ships and numerous smaller transport vessels of the Akiar/Thanagarian combine monitor a bustling swarm of trade ships from a hundred worlds.  When Troia and Raven had first met Kian, his people had been isolated.  Now, as one of the founding members of the United Planets, the Akiar are a major player.
    "We've arrived," Troia's voice sounds amplified through the expansive interior of the tiny, dimensionally-manipulating vessel.  Her voice echoes through empty galleries of curved columns, through tall chambers filled with curving pathways rising up from floor to ceiling that orbit strange agglomerations of spheres, and booms through smaller enclosures where soft walls curve and bulge inwards close to the floor, where they might make comfortable places to sit or lie.  Somewhere in one of those places Raven has passed the short minutes of the journey from Earth.  With Jinx and Caitlin no longer aboard, the remaining two haven't really been bothering with the human niceties of socialization.
    There may be some other considerations in play too.
    Troia stands leaning her hands on a protrusion from one wall that might look like a control console were it not blank and featureless.  The wall beside her shows the vista of the world below, with small glowing rectangles tracking the motion of space ships passing too far to see, but within detection range.  She thinks a thought at the Travel Sphere, and opens a hail to space traffic control.  "Akiar control, this is Troia, Titan of New Kronos and Earth.  We have an emergency situation that needs the immediate attention of the Rhytak t'Kiare.  This is an imminent and existential threat to the entirely of the United Planets and beyond.  Put him through immediately.  Wake him if necessary.  He'll want to hear this."

Kian has posed:
    The thing about Akiár efficiency is that it quite literally operates at the speed of thought.  A monitor picks up Troia's message and immediately sees that it matches the characteristics of previous messages—to say nothing of the sphere in orbit.  «One moment please,» is the prompt reply, in fluent Interlac.  Well, being able to speak the galactic lingua franca is a job requirement.
    As it happens, it's mid-afternoon at Kían's longitude, so waking him up isn't an issue.  And even if it were, when he was told who was calling, he'd've been violently jerked awake.  As it was, he was limited to falling awkwardly off his chaise.
    One doesn't get trimensional calls from ghosts of the past very often.
    Ultimately, the delay is really not appreciably longer than waiting for someone to answer a phone call.  The birdman doesn't look appreciably different—maybe just the slightest shade taller than the Kían of sixteen and a half centuries—Akiár centuries—before.  And he's wearing shorts rather than a kilt.  Well, fashions change.
    What's really changed is the way he carries himself.  He has grown comfortable with who and what he is.  And while certainly he's surprised to hear from Donna after so long, he does not react with the wide-eyed shock that a younger Kian would have.
    "Even without the message from control," he says with a lopsided smirk, "I'd've assumed this wasn't a social call.  Although it's good to see you again.  It's been much too long.  The landing pad at my home is clear; I'm transmitting the coordinates."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    To say that Raven has been… eerily present on the ship might be too close to her old self.  That's not… quite the case.  The fact of it was, that since their departure, she has just… Been there.  Standing.  In the common area of the ship.  She is not as much a figure as she is a familiar shape; Instead of the subdued but knowable sloping that one would expect of a human being, there is just a hood, a width that may be shoulders, and…
    Nothing.
    There isn't a face in the shadow of the hood.  The cloak itself is a legitimately luminescent white.  Things also seem to… Go the way they ought to, logically, as they near this… Shape.
    Watches run accurately.  Probability stops being random.  So many things change in the presence of a Lord of Order that it is uncanny, and unsettling.
    When the call is answered by Kian, instead of being greeted just by Troia, there is—god, it's like a horror film—in the corner of the image, there is that shape.  Watching.  Waiting.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Within moments of the coordinates being sent there is a streak of light in the sky that curves in a high-speed catenary uncharacteristic of any conventional vessel.  The landing pad is not necessary—the Travel Sphere simply comes to a halt floating a few feet off the ground, a mirror-reflective orb small enough that Kian could hold it in his hand.  It projects a beam of light from it that spreads into a vertical slit in reality that bows open to into an arch of light.
    Troia looks over her shoulder to Raven—or at least the hooded cloak that her current presence resembles, and gives her a nod.  "He is no longer the child he was when we first knew him Raven.  Nevertheless, we should probably try to…."  She pauses, then shrugs.  "You know.  Maybe it was a mistake for both Caitlin and Jinx to stay behind at Earth.  They're probably better at this kind of thing."
    A matching arch of light appears in the 'bridge' of the ship before her, and Troia steps through onto the landing pad at Kian's home.  She raises a hand in greeting to her old team-mate, certainly a far less effusive greeting than she would have given back in the days when she still called herself Donna and thought of herself as human.
    "Greetings, avatar of Kiare… Kian.  It has been a while.  I should congratulate you on how far you and your people and world have come.  However there isn't time.  We need to get back to Earth.  A problem has arisen there that involves all of us, and it threatens the stability of the universe."

Kian has posed:
    Definitely not the Kían of old—Raven's appearance gets a surprised blink rather than a startled 'Kya!'.  Besides, if there's an ineffable phantasm in Donna's vicinity, logic dictates that it must be Raven.
    Likewise, being called 'Avatar of Kiáre' doesn't get the old wince, although his smile broadens when called by his name.  "Donna, Rae… or do you prefer Troia and Raven?  You see how long it's been, I can't remember."
    And then he sighs heavily.  "I suppose I shouldn't have expected you for anything less than the end of time and space.  But you can at least fill me in, in a more comfortable spot.  Come on up."  One thing that hasn't changed is that effortless wingflick to get into the air, leading the way to a balcony some 60 or so meters up.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    If there is any emotional reaction from Raven, it doesn't show it.  Her voice, when it speaks, has no specific origin.  Her voice, At least, is omnipresent.  The shape of her does not seem to sway—in any way—or… Well, have any weight to it.
    It follows Troia out onto the platform, in the most mundane of ways.  It does not fly, it does not teleport, but it just sort of glides, as if an extension of the ground below it.  The front of the cloak never opens.  Nor does anything comfortingly fleshy make any appearance from inside the hood.
    "Greetings, Kian."
    When Kian lands on the balcony, one thing that may not have become old hat after a millennia of Birbyears, is that he has not arrived first.  Looming there is the shape that is Raven anymore.  "You may call me what you wish.  We require your assistance."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "It's not a social call, and we don't really have time to find a more comfortable spot," Troia states, though she follows Kian up to the balcony.  She feels it's a point that needs to be made, but she's also attempting to follow the basic social niceties.  "I've got a war to get back to," she continues.  "And while it might sound odd to say that we're in a rush when time travel is involved, there's only so much messing up of the timeline that we can really get away with here.  Things are already pretty fragile."
    Time travel.  That's never a good sign.
    Troia leans on the edge of the balcony, staring out across the tree-studded landscape for a few moments before turning to look at Kian and folding her arms.  "Something happened a thousand years ago.  You probably don't remember because it didn't seem like a big thing at the time, but you were there.  Back when we first started, when we were the Titans, on Earth.  There was a villain we fought.  Not exactly a major challenge.  Some inventor.  He had a device that slowed time down in a localized area, and was using it to steal money.  We stopped him, his device was damaged and he vanished."
    She exhales slowly, glancing towards Raven with an inscrutable expression.  Perhaps she's thinking about how things used to be back in the simple days of a millennium ago.  Finally she continues.  "Caitlin contacted me.  Apparently that guy has reappeared.  His device threw him forwards in time.  It created an unclosed temporal loop between then and now.  Time is leaking backwards from now to then, and that's… that's not a good thing.  Basically there is an expanding zone on Earth, in Metropolis, where time is no longer working properly.  And things from outside of time are finding a way in.  It's bad.  What's worse is that because it's an unclosed loop, there's a contiguity between spacial and temporal dimensions, which means the field effect is expanding at a damped exponential rate.  In other words, at some point between now and a few thousand years, the entire universe is going to collapse."
    She straightens.  "So to cut it short, those of us who were in the field effect of the original event and thus have a… how to explain this… we can exist at both points.  And that means we can shut the loop.  So every one of the Titans who was there and is still alive has to go back in time to 2023, shut down the loop at that end, the bring our former selves forwards to the present day, close the loop at this end, then deliver our old selves back to where they came from, all without causing too much paradox.  Got it?  Good."
    She tilts her head back down in the direction of the landing pad and the waiting Travel-Sphere.  "Let's go.  We've got one more person to fetch after you, but we'll be fetching him on the way back in time."

Kian has posed:
    Kían can't help but grin at Rae.  Some things never change.
    Well, okay, maybe a little of the millenium-ago birdman resurfaces, in the way he blink-blink-blinks at the explanation of events.  "Of course," he says promptly, although his eyes are unfocused, as if trying to force his way through hundreds of years of memories to a time when everything was weird.  "Too bad time isn't a force particle or I might have sensed something already.  Then again, I still can't handle gravity, so it's probably just a built in limit on me.  I suppose we'll have to be careful about not meeting our younger selves.  I don't have any memory of meeting myself, so we must not have."
    As he dives off the balcony, he asks, "Who are we getting?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven lingers there in the periphery.  Honestly, it seems almost akin to an impending murder; Raven is blocking the entrance from the balcony, and then there's Troia, who, if we are being kind, is armed.  "Yes.  Before long, she must return to her… Purposeful chaos."  Oh boy.  She definitely approves of Troia's current quest.
    There is more silence, before her voice happens around them, as it does.  "I am currently doing what I can to stabilize the flow of time.  I have bought us… An amount that cannot be measured.  It is imperative that as few of us meet as few of us as possible.  The events… They branch timelines, if they are not done correctly.  Things will cascade from there, if one timeline does not complete its own loop."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "The chaos is already there," Troia counters Raven, a look of frustration on her face.  "The oppression, the cruelty, the deaths.  I simply turn it back on those who create it, to end it.  It's what we always used to do, just on a rather bigger scale."
    She shakes her head fractionally at Raven and sighs.  Perhaps there had been some hope that Raven would understand in a way that Troia never expected Caitlin to, but then the concerns of what Raven has become perhaps militated against that ever happening.  Oddly enough it might be Kian who can understand it more; after all this is a Kian who has long gone past his own ancient pacifism and can understand that carefully controlled and carefully moderated violence can be a way of reducing the overall amount of violence.
    "There will always be a branching of timelines," Troia remarks.  "We just need to ensure that they don't branch too far in ways they had not formerly branched.  Meeting our former selves—that's going to be unavoidable.  It's also unavoidable that we will cause some ripples by doing so.  I have talked at some length about this to my uncle.  He's got a good understanding of these things.  He's not exactly happy, but he recognizes the necessity of what we are doing, and believes it's safe as long as we do nothing that will encourage our former selves to become that which we are not."
    She stands for a moment in front of the arch of light, then gestures with her hand to the other two, inviting them inside.  "The three of us, Caitlin and Lucky.  The other two are waiting for us back on Earth already.  The last person we're going to need to fetch isn't here in this time, but he will be in the future.  Wally West.  If you remember, he set off to explore the future back in… some time in the mid 21st Century.  Caitlin's going through the records to identify a time and place where we'll be able to intercept him on his way into the future."

Kian has posed:
    "Caitlin… there's a name I haven't heard in a long time.  Her papers with Zóras k'Syr on the Earth origins of our people still get referenced from time to time.  Or Wally, there's another name I haven't heard in ages.  Wow.  But who's Lucky?  I don't remember a Lucky," Kian says, visibly racking his brains."
    And then his eyes go very wide.  "Gar and Tarík."  The names are more a shaping of his mouth than actually spoken.
    One of the hazards of time travel has just settled in for a perch, looming over Kían's consciousness and memories—and heart—like a vulture.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Lucky.  Used to be Jinx, remember?  She changed her name.  You knew her as Lucky longer than you knew her as Jinx."  Troia grins, a familiar old wide grin.  "You're getting forgetful in your old age, Kian."  A distinct echo of the old, more playful Donna they used to know.
    The three enter the Travel Sphere, and the arch of light through which they had entered, allowing them to walk into a space far smaller than they are, closes up behind them.  Troia's hand brushes against the 'console', and she pronounces a single word: "Earth."  In the view wall, the Akiar homeworld recedes rapidly into the distance, giving for a few moments the odd illusion that it is rotating backwards before it vanishes into the dark.  There's no sense of motion, but the ship moves fast.
    "No changes to the timeline," Troia reminds Kian.  "It will be odd for all of us, meeting not only our old selves, but the old versions of the friends we used to have.  Kian, I know it's going to be uncomfortable for you.  But you can't change anything.  It's the past, and it needs to stay in the past."
    Her eyes flicker, an involuntary glance towards Raven.  "We have to remember that we've all moved on," she says, a faint hint of sadness in her voice.
    She takes a deep breath, and seems to relax a little, though her fingers play on the hilt of the sword at her belt.  She no longer carries a lasso, but in a thousand years she's never been without one sword or another.  "We'll be there in under an hour," she announces.  "Then assuming Lucky and Caitlin have the coordinates we need to find Wally, we'll be going straight back to pick him up.  And then… 2023."

Kian has posed:
    "Jinx, yes, of course," Kían says absently, although his mind is clearly elsewhere.
    Gar and Tarík.
    "If I look like I'm going to do something stupid, please stop me, and please remind me that I asked you to stop me.  Seeing myself is somehow less scary than who else I might see."