16700/A Greener Kind of Grass

A Greener Kind of Grass
Date of Scene:	28 December 2023
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	15 years in the future, society has never had it better with their great alliance with the P'On, an alien species eager to share. But not all is asa it seems.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild

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Jinx has posed:
New Titans Tower 2038

Jinx watches the flying cars wizz about between the buildings of Metropolis Prime and smiles. Earth had changed a lot in the last 15 years. With the advances brought about by the alliance with the P'On. Energy, Medicine, Materials.. the universe was opening up to the people of Earth.

The environment had never been healthier and neither had the people. Their technology had, in theory, extended the lives of every human and mutant on Earth by at least 100 years.

The economy has transformed almost overnight and even gloomy ol' Gotham was seeing brighter days. The weight of the world had been lifted from the shoulders of most and the burdens that held humanity back, resource scarcity and momentum of greed, had all but drifted away.

"Will that by alright Mrs Lucky?" Jinx's eyes widen a touch at the name given to her by her apprentice. Apprentice for only one day so far. Who knew the next mystical champion of Gaia would be an alien?

"Just.. Lucky. OR Jinx. Either is fine, really..." Her marriage was going through some troubled times of late. One finger twirled the ring on her ring-finger fidgetingly. The P'On named Tree had a big smile on her face. Excitement. It was hard not to like the P'On. They had their hangups, but not like humanity.

"But yes. That'll be fine. I can beg some favours and get us access to the Magical Fight Dome. I know how eager you are to show me what you can do. But relax, you're here, you're accepted, there's nothing more to prove to the Titans - you're one of us."

Donna Troy has posed:
    These days the T-Jets don't land on the roof any more. There's only really room for one there, after all. Besides, the T-Jet is long gone, replaced by a small fleet of three T-Ships, better named given they travel underwater and in space as well as through the air. This has the major advantage that Titans returning from some distant mission do not make quite so much noise in the main room. You still hear them coming as they land on the pad in the river just behind the Tower, but you can still hear yourself think.

    The exception is Donna. Donna tends to go on a lot of very long-range missions these days, and you never hear her arriving back because she uses her Travel Sphere. Thus the first Lucky and her alien apprentice know that Donna has returned to the tower after a month in deep space is a cheery "I'm back!" and her appearance on the stairs leading down from the private rooms (dorms no longer; there's a second tower for that now, and those rooms are divided into smaller rooms so that every Titan can have one.)

    Not that Tree specifically knows Donna is returning more quietly than other people do. She's new to the tower. New enough that the fact Donna was away probably wasn't known to her anyway. She might not even know who Donna is. Donna doesn't know who Tree is. "Hey Lucky!" She calls down as she descends the stares. "Who's this? A new recruit?" It wouldn't be the first; the Titans include two P'Ons already."

    Giving Tree a wave and a quick "Hi, I'm Donna," the Amazon heads over to the kitchen area, grabs herself a Snacky Shake from the dispenser, and leans against the counter. "Problem solved," she tells Jinx. "Kori wanted to stay a while and help with the clean-up and reorganization, but she'll be back in a month or two. So long as she doesn't get too distracted on the way. What's been happening back on Earth while I was gone?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The 'comm crackles overhead and Caitlin's voice floats down from above. "Is that Donna?" she demands. Without waiting for a response, the circuit cuts off and Caitlin emerges from the elevator a few moments later, busily trying to re-pin her mussy hair in place. A beaming smile crosses her fair features and the redhead steps towards Donna with arms extended for a hug.

"Welcome home!" she bids the Princess, with warm affection. "Took you long enough. Did you and Kori detour to Tamaran and get sidetracked or what?" There's some gentle ribbing in her tone, but the hug firmly approves of Donna's arrival.

Jinx has posed:
Tree was not named after trees. It's entirely a coincidence. But it seems to be a running gag for the people of Earth that names like Tree exist in P'on culture. A happy coincidence, as they say. Somehow always seeing the bright side of every situation.

"Mistress of the Titans it is a pleasure to meet you," They also had a strange way with words some times. Jinx pinches the bridge of her nose, "Just Donna. Call her Donna." Tree nods to Jinx and then says to Donna, "Donna."

"Donna this is Tree. Tree this is Donna. Tree is, apparently, the next to take my place as champion of Gaia in the mystical arts. A shame really, I was just starting to get the hang of it. But I guess I have to retire at some point."

Tree places her hands to her stomach in their version of a bow, or salute. "I will endevour to do my very best." She turns and heads out one of the side doors.

Jinx relaxes. It's not something she's used to - a day is not long enough to absorb the idea of training your replacement. She walks over and wraps her arms about Donna in a hug. Then when Caitlin joins gives her one too. "It's Donna..."

"I guess that means I can stand down then," she takes off the sling ring from her fingers and tosses it on to the table top. Then pulls out a small stick from her arm sleeve and gives it a flick, turning it in to a full length staff, which she then places on the table top too.

"Niles was meant to have called me by now.." As if on cue the bracelet she's wearing vibrates and flashes lights. She taps it and a hologram appears revealing Incoming Call Dr. Fayren. "Oh."

All the senior members of the Titans know that Niles and Jinx have been trying to have a baby. Longer than Caitlin. The apprehension in her voice is palpable, but she presses answer.

A full sized hologram of a man in a white lab coat appears. "Lucky, if it isn't my favourite superhero. I'm not going to draw this out. You've been at this for a while - unfortunately it's still a negative. You're not pregnant."

Lucky's expression drops a little. Sadness creeping in at the corners of her eyes. The doctor continues, "We used the P'on core to analyse you and Niles test results and ... well you're both perfectly healthy. There's in theory no reason you cannot conceive."

Jinx lifts up a hand, "It must be me then. I've been around all kinds of dangerous radiations and magical energies." Her chest tightens just a touch. "Thank you doc.." The doctor's expression falters a little and he says, "No Lucky, don't do that to yourself. The P'On computers are generations ahead of our own. If magic or radiation were stopping you from having a child they would have picked up on that. Sometimes these things are in the hands of fate."

Jinx twists her lips, "Yeah.. well.. I have that guys phone number around here somewhere." The call ends and she sighs and looks back out at the city beyond.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Donna," Donna confirms to Tree with a grin. "Donna is fine. Nice to meet you, Tree." She raises an amused eyebrow at Lucky. "A champion of Gaia called Tree? That's either ironic or entirely intentional," she says with a smirk.

    There are hugs! Donna accepts hugs gladly from both Titans, returning them with her normal rip-creaking enthusiasm. She has to put down her Snacky Shake first, in case the sheer hug-power involved results in Snacky Shake explosions that could have worse implications for Caitlin or Lucky's backs than a surprise attack by the Condiment King.

    "We /intended/ on detouring to Tamaran," Donna tells Caitlin. "But Kori got distracted before we actually got that far." This is normal for Kori. "The Starro spores had done quite a number on the planet before we got there, but the beacon worked perfectly. The whole mission was plain sailing, but once the spores were gone there was a pretty big clean-up needed. Kori volunteered to stay on and help for a while after we met with the presidential council and handed over the beacon specs." Donna smirks a little, then adds "Nothing, I am sure, to do with the fact that the president was one of the more physically appealing planetary leaders we have run into lately. "

    When Lucky gets her news, Donna commiserates with a squeeze on the shoulder. "Hey... it'll happen one day," she says. "Look, if you're really worried about a magical influence, we could run some tests of our own."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's grinning at Donna's anecdote about Kori. It does sound about right. Then again, Kori once pulled a ship over to visit an ex-lover that proved to look a /lot/ like a Hutt, so... Tamaraneans, right?

The smile fades slowly at Jinx's bad news, and she reflexively moves to bracket Jinx's other shoulder with a very gentle hug of her own-- though she is careful not to get the sorceress crushed between the two Amazons.

"...I've been having a lot of luck with these new gene therapy breakthroughs, too," Caitlin suggests with a soft diffidence. "If the regular fertility specialists are having issues, it may be something I can correct in a lab setting. I know it's a little less... special, but I can guarantee the health of the zygote. Er, baby," she amends, hastily, and winces at the clinical slip.

Caitlin looks over Jinx's head at Donna and rolls her eyes at herself, then softly bops her own forehead.

Jinx has posed:
Jinx shuts her eyes and tightens her lips for a moment. "Okay- let's use your stone age science. May be our technology will pick up something the P'On supercomputers missed." She doesn't sound too sure that that'll be the case. But it's clear she appreciates the contact from her friends.

Heading down to the old lab - and it really is the old one. The fancy new one is two buildings over and filled with lots of people. Jinx really doesn't want lots of people prying at them when they do these tests. She flicks the switch and the lights come on with <clunk> noises. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

Hanging up on a coat rack by the door are several lab coats - including Jinx's ye olde one. The one that used to be Caitlin's that she tailored to fit her properly. It still has CF embroided on its pocket. Jinx takes a seat by the examination station. "Science me longlegs."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna frowns slightly at Jinx's 'Stone-age science' comment. It's not that it's wholly inaccurate given the advances in technology that have come about since the advent of the Human-P'On alliance and the huge benefits P'On science had brought, it's that the cynicism of the wording betrays a degree of fatalism Donna doesn't like hearing coming from a friend.

    "If this doesn't come up with anything, well... there are other routes available to us," Donna says. "Especially if you're concerned about some magical effect. I mean credit to the P'On that their science has actually attempted to encompass magic unlike so many high-tech aliens, but I keep telling you guys they are oversimplifying things dramatically. There systems are just not as universally applicable to magical effects as they claim. You know the Tower systems still struggle with Hephaestus' creations, and remember that thing with the Fae a couple of years back? Fae magic is virtually invisible to P'On scanners, and we've had a good few interactions with Fae over the years, both before and after the P'On showed up.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"It's not so much that we can't detect it," Caitlin clarifies with a meticulous note. "It's that we can't detect it directly. But who is gonna stand around running scans for weird thermal variations in the living room, just in case it's some tricksters messing around?"

The doctor shrugs into her own medical jacket and takes a moment to wash and sterilize her hands before gloving up and walking over to Jinx's spot on the exam table. "All right, we're gonna go old school with this," Caitlin promises Jinx. "CT scans and contrast dye. We'll see what's up with a hysterosalpingogram."

The procedure is a little uncomfortable but mercifully short, and while Jinx is getting herself re-dressed, Caitlin is pouring over the radiology report the machine generated. An unusual, pensive silence furrows her brow as she goes through the scans, flicking back and forth between them as if looking for something that should be there, but isn't.

"...This is weird," Caitlin says, finally. "You don't ... have any oocytes. Eggs," she amends again, a frustrated beat later. "Like, none. You've never had egg extraction done, at least not anything I'm aware of," she says, brow furrowing. "Especially since I'm your physician. But they're just... gone. Not there."

A finger pins an accusing point at the empty ovary, and Caitlin turns to look at Jinx and Donna with an uneasy expression. "There is no way the P'On could have missed this," she declares.

Jinx has posed:
Jinx endures the archaic medical tests. Because it's Caitlin. No one else would she let do this to her in this day and age. She tucks her hands under her head and glances at Donna as the discussion of Fae intruders continues. "Of all the species we've met over the last two decades, the P'On are certainly the most enlightened. Do you remember when we asked the Oans for help with the Space Kraken and they were all, nah, if Green Lanterns can't handle it you're screwed..."

She rolls her eyes and then once Caitlin is done she cleans herself up and puts back on her clothes. The quiet from Caitlin is a little disturbing. She folds her arms and then waits for the verdict. Which involves Caitlin pulling faces. "I'm barren?"

A shake of her head at the implied question of if anyone had taken her eggs. No that she's aware of. "There must be some kind of mistake then. How could the P'On have missed this?" A thought wanders back to Caitlin's attempt to give birth to Irie and Jai. Yet, also no pregnancy. That was near two years ago now.

All the senior Titans have a good sense of when things aren't quite right and the thought starts to fill Jinx's heart with dread. "Check yourself next Caitlin." Because there's really only two explanations for this. Her doctor lied to her. Or the P'On lied to him.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Enlightened, sure," Donna agrees. "They are a great bunch of guys. I'm just saying that their science is not perfect when it comes to magic. Nobody's is." She has a point, though to be fair if anyone did ever develop a perfect science of magic, there's not much question Donna would still obstinately refuse to admit it. "Don't forget there are one or two areas where Nadia's model exceeds P'On capabilities, and she still refuses to entirely give up on the idea that color signatures aren't intrinsic."

    Once the tests are done, Donna peers over Caitlin's shoulder at the HSG output with a dubious expression. "That doesn't make any sense," she says. "It's not something her doctor can have just missed. This equipment is pretty ancient, and it's not specialized. It's just not picking them up, that's all. "

    She walks around the machine, walks back to Caitlin and gives her a shrug. "Could it be something wrong with the contrast medium?" she asks. "Maybe it's past its shelf life and it's just not producing enough radiological contrast any more or something?" she suggests. The look on her face is easy to read -- her suggestion doesn't make a lot of sense to her either and she's clutching at straws. This simply shouldn't be the result the scan provided.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin gives Donna a level look. Expired medical supplies? In HER medical bay? THE VERY IDEA.

Still, she gets out a fresh contrast dye pack and without much modesty, settles herself on the exam table to walk a remote prob on her hands through the process of injecting the dye in the correct location. It is fortunately not a terribly difficult procedure to administer, and she's done in short order.

The radiological exams don't take long for MARVIN to process, and when Caitlin goes through the results, a dangerous fury starts to build on her features.

"Less than two dozen," she says, swallowing her rage to modulate her voice. "All still clinging to the follicular binding, so they're newly grown. One percent of what I had-- SHOULD have."

The redheaded scientist is getting closer and closer to an explosion of anger at what's been done to her-- and Jinx-- and who knows who else. "Donna, you're up next," she orders her friend, and tilts her head at the table while she starts creating a new data document to collate the information.

"Jinx, your doctor-- he's plugged into the P'On superprocessor system, right?" It's more statement than question. "That means he's likely not analyzing his own data anymore. He's using the radiology analyst system the computer provides. /Their/ computer."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx leans back against the wall. Her features turning a little whiter than usual. She watches as Caitlin's anger makes a demand of Donna and then grabs a towel to help clean off Caitlin. "He must be lying to me. But why... all that My favourite Superhero crap." She can feel the heat rising inside of her too. Someone -did- this to them.

But then, if Caitlin is also affect.... may be it's not him. May be it's the P'On supercomputer. She takes in a deep breath and without another word or even waiting for Donna's potential results, heads back upstairs and grabs the magical staff and sling ring.

They need answers. The moment she uses magic to gain access to the P'On terminals they will know - because even though Donna is right, the P'On do have the basics of magic figured out. It's the alien and esoteric stuff they haven't deciphered yet.

<<"Hey... I'll be right back.">> With a swirl of her hand she opens up a portal in to the P'On embassy center. It's a huge building filled with shops and offices and people milling about in the sparse green and water filled area. Her portal, however, goes straight in to their very very secure server room.

The alarms are already going off. Jinx motions over herself with a word and steps through. Tiny little laser turrets swivel instantly toward her and begin to blast at her. The shield she just summoned comes under immediate strain.

She steps to the terminal - to get in here normally you need great levels of authorisation. But in the few moments she has she can access the terminal without needing such permissions. Just a little bit of luck. The random keys she presses just happens to be today's password.

With a few more touches she brings up her test results. Barren. Expected. She stares glumly and brings up a map of Metropolis. Birthrate, 13.7%. She expands the search to the world. Earth, Birthrate 12.1%. Expected.

The sound of boots on ground and doors opening, the laser turrets battering her shield.. her time is up. She shuts down her search and dives back through the portal.

With a thud she hits the ground. Small little red dots begin to bloom all over her white uniform. Those little lasers hit their mark more than enough to wound her greatly.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Uhh... no, I'm good," Donna says to Caitlin. "Not like I'm trying for a kid right now." Her response is hardly a surprise. For the last decade and a half Donna has resolutely -- if not always succesfully -- avoided any kind of medical examination beyond what's necessary for injury triage if at all possible. It's not a fact she acknowledges, but it's obvious to her friends that ever since she discovered her heritage she has been trying to avoid situations that might reveal anything about herself that isn't human.

    "Seems to me the next step here is to get Lucky's doc to do a raw output of the scan data and eyeball it," Donna suggests. "Maybe there's something the analyst systems just aren't seeing right. Lucky, you sh.... she's gone. Where has she gone?"

    Donna raises an eyebrow to Caitlin and gives a shrug. Without waiting around to give Caitlin a chance to be insistent about any /totally unnecessary/ tests, she heads out of the lab and follows Lucky back up, but Lucky has gone by the time she's got there. <<She's gone,>> Donna reports. <<Why can't she...>>

    And then Lucky is back. <<Cait! Get back up here fast, bring an emergency kit. Lucky's wounded.>>

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin glowers at Donna but doesn't press the issue, because Donna herself isn't willing to press it. But it does leave Caitlin alone staring at the radiographical results for a minute or two, comparing them to previous examinations to try and narrow down a timeline. Even the Titans have welcomed the P'On technology; though a well-trained and brilliant doctor, Caitlin is of the mind that radiology is left to specialists.

When she hears Donna's cry for help Caitlin grabs a trauma kit and dashes upstairs, banking hard off the walls rather than slowing down around the corners. The redhead rushes to Jinx's side and with an exquisitely sharp safety hook, starts cutting away the clothing over her wounds. "Laser turrets. Looks like bifocused ultraviolet. Small gauge. Surface cauterization but they got in deep." It's all said in a terse and professional voice, masking the worry she is no doubt feeling.

A medical sensor is clamped to Jinx's forehead and Caitlin starts treatment by injecting a dose of painkillers into the side of Jinx's neck. The autoinjector hisses, burbles once, and disengages automatically when the payload is delivered.

"Go back down to the lab, get me the box labelled hemostatic injectors," she orders Donna without taking her eyes off Jinx. "The whole box. Jinx, honey, tell me what you found," she says, trying to soothe Jinx's pain by distracting her with a question.

Jinx has posed:
When you get pewpew'd by lasers it's not really an immediate pain you feel. There's so many little dots that cut so tinily in to you that it takes the brain a while to recognise the pattern from the pain receptors. It starts to burn and she curls up tightly in pain.

But the pain killers are kind of amazing and even as her face contorts, it almost immediately starts to relax. Her eyes become unfocused as she rests against Jinx's examinations. "...Ow"

It'd always been a theory in Jinx's head that she could get away with attacking the P'On embassy. Really a game of words with Niles since he works there as an aid to the ambassador. But now that she put theory to practice it was clear she could, indeed, NOT get away with invading the embassy.

"The good stuff. This is why you're such a good friend Caitlin," she says immediately sounding a little loopy from the mix of pains then meds. "... it's deliberate. The whole world. All of us... we're all barren."

She grips the hem of Caitlin's top, "They're fuckin' wiping us out."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna is as quick at getting the box of injectors for Caitlin as only Donna can be. Which means not as quick as Wally, Bart, Irie or Avery would be, put there's not a whole lot of waiting around to do.

    She's back quickly enough to hear Lucky's report, though perhaps due to the good stuff Lucky is not at her most coherent -- she hasn't actually mentioned she was at the P'On embassy, for example.

    "Just try to relax and take it slowly," Donna advises. "The whole world isn't barren, we'd notice if there were no kids being born. And uh... Lucky, I know this is a big shock to you, but we don't know the situation yet. You AND Cait? That doesn't seem like coincidence. So try not to panic about this, okay? Something has obviously... I don't know... "she glances at Caitlin, looking for help. "Meiotic arrest? Is that likely, Cait? Something could be interfering... Luteinizing hormone deficiency or something?" Typical of Donna she has picked up a fair bit of biology from Caitlin over the years but it's all concepts rather than expertise, something she never seems to really develop if it doesn't involve stabby things.

    "Relax Lucky, you're safe now. Tell us where you've been and what happened."

Jinx has posed:
A band-alert goes out to the Titans and other superhero teams and law enforcements. Arrest Warrant: Jinx aka Lucky.

Jinx's hands are shaky as she slows herself down and starts again, "I went to the P'On embassy, straight to their server room." Her shoulders slump. Ahh blissful drugs, "Mmand looked up my reports. It's deliberate. I'm barren deliberately. So I checked Metropolis - and then the whole world. It's everywhere Troia... only some small percentage are having babies. The rest are probably just.. fake social media."

She takes in a deep breath and wipes at her forehead. Sweating, her body unhappy with the situation it's in despite the lovely drugs. "This whole time... we thought they were our friends. But they're worse than the Brood. They've just been.. patiently waiting us out. Extinction Troia. Caitlin. This is extinction."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's eyes are focused somewhere beyond Lucky, desperately doing the thinking while she's patching up the wounded wizard's wounds. "Shut up, Donna," she says quite calmly. The guessing is interrupting her train of thought. Every needle hole from the lasers requires an application of clotting compound and local anesthetic.

"Can't be physical extraction," she mutters. "Primary ovarian insufficiency? Not diminished reserve or PCOS. No external trauma to the ovaries. Pituitary seems unaffected. Genetic attack? Possible. Hormonal interference more likely. Ovulation cycles seem stable," she amends a beat later.

Caitlin shakes her head and presses her efforts back to Jinx before they falter. "Damn it. I don't know," she finally says. "Could be a lot of things. I need more data. Jinx is a sample size of one and I'm a genetic aberration. Whatever they did caused my body to eject all my eg-- oocytes. I'm replenishing them slowly but that's because I'm designed to do that."

"Might be a malfunction with the granulosa or theca cells but I just can't say for sure. Not yet."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna frowns and shakes her head. "Doesn't make sense, Jinx. The alliance with the P'Ons is very mutually beneficial. They may have all the tech but they are as vulnerable without us as they are without them. They /need/ our numbers. Unless they're lying about that and have a secret second homeworld somewhere and... I've spoken to way too many P'Ons. They just couldn't keep a secret of that scale from me."

    Donna is very confident in her Truth Sense, but it's something the world knows about now. People can just take care that nothing they say in her presence is an overt lie. Donna's also a lot less involved in politics than she used to be, and probably hasn't spent a whole lot of time with high-ranking members of the P'On government.

    Maybe that thinking is why Donna doubts her own words, but mainly it's that Lucky has proven herself time and time again, and Donna has a whole lot of trust in her team mates and their instincts. Which is why when a few moments after the arrest order comes through and Donna's T-Com buzzes with a red channel call from the chief of the Metropolis SCU, the side of the conversation Caitlin and Jinx hears is: "Hi... yes, she's with me now. No. No, I'm not going to... listen. Listen. I don't care, just listen. It was part of... will you listen? Thank you. It was part of an investigation. This is potentially big. Yes. No, bigger. Right. No. Because I'm not going to, that's... Lucia, I really wouldn't recommend that. Yes, I would. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm asking from you, so... Look, of course I will, but we just don't have the... give me 24 hours, okay? I don't know... just report that you have intelligence that she's off-planet, which she will be in about 45 seconds if you're going to be difficult about this. Then tomorrow you'll have everything we have. It's going to be worth it, I promise. Okay. Okay. Yeah, you too. Speak tomorrow."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx looks down at her clothes. Cut up by Caitlin in the mad rush, stained with blooms of blood. "Caitlin why is it you always manage to get my clothes off?" Future drugs are amazing - but then again, they are so advanced perhaps they do a lot more than just heal wounds or increase life spans.

She gets up with the help of her friends and listens to one half of the conversation Donna has. "So we need proof.. and then what? the world goes to war with the nicest aliens ever who just happen to be hold a dagger behind their backs?"

She scowls, "No one believes in conspiracies anymore. Things are too good - " She paces a little. "I know. I'll as Niles." She taps on her bracelet and dials up her husband. A hologram of a man sitting at a desk appears and then he looks a little confused as to why Jinx battle worn. "Honey? is everything alright?"

Jinx pauses and looks down at herself again and then back to the man she married. Because her future self warned her away from all Kevin's. She shakes her head, "No everything is NOT alright."

Niles' eyes wander away from Jinx for a moment and then they widen, "Uuh... Lucky, babe, why is there an Alliance wide arrest warrant for you?"

Jinx waves a hand toward his hologram, "That's not important right now. I need you to sneak in to the ambassadors office. I need you to log in to his computer and get birthrate stats. If I'm right they're going to be extreme low."

Niles pauses and frowns, "...how low?"

"13.7%"

Niles pauses again and glances away once more. "That can't be right." He starts tapping on his _own_ computer, "they promised us it'd be very gradual. The birthrate should be hovering around 70%."

Jinx looks uncertainly to her colleagues and then back to her husband. Her finger twirls the ring again, "Niles.. what are you talking about?"

Niles looks back to Jinx and says, "It was part of our alliance agreement. They said there were too many people. Our planet would never survive. The participating governments all agreed to the reduction of human reproduction so that life on Earth would be sustainable."

Jinx feels an icy grip on her heart for a moment and isn't sure what to say, "And you knew this?!"

Niles implores, "It was for our own good. But ... but it was meant to be 70% not 13.7%... that'd be catastrophic."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
f

Caitlin just grins floridly at Jinx's ribald teasing. A lot of her susceptibility to Jinx's lewd sense of humor finally went out the door when the redhead married. She helps Jinx up and then offers the sorceress her own coat so she's not walking around half-naked.

One ear tuned to Donna's phone call (of which she can hear the whole thing), Caitlin offers silent moral support to Jinx by walking with her over to the hologram. A flickering smile appears when she spies Niles-- more polite than enthused-- but her expression falters and hardens as he explains the 'agreement'.

"That wasn't in the accords," she rumbles. More raw anger cracks her usually cheerful facade. "Not the ones the public was read. No wonder they didn't want us in the room!" She rounds about and kicks a heavy chair, hard enough to send it flying across the floor and disintegrating against the wall with a loud shattering of plastic and wood.

"Niles, I swear before the Holy Mother herself, if you were a part of this, I am going to take your arms off with my /bare hands/," she growls, and glares down at his hologram with absolute fury on her face.

"Donna!" she shouts, and looks over at the Princess. "I'd say that the P'On's just declared war on Earth. How says Themyscira?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Themyscira was not informed of nor agreed to any limitations of the birthrate," Donna tells Niles' hologram coldly. "So no, participating governments did not all agree to it. I'd like to know which ones did, and why they thought they could go behind the backs of the UN and implement a secret agreement in the name of the whole planet."

    Donna doesn't wait for an answer. With a frown she takes Lucky's wrist and kills the call, then turns to face the other two Titans. "Cait... I have a really bad feeling about this. "Look... /IF/ this is intentional, this isn't just P'On declaring war on Earth. We've got measures in place for that eventuality but this..." she gives a shake of her head. "What's going to happen when this gets out? Which other countries were not informed? Say America agreed to this and China did not, how do you think are they going to react?"

    "Look, maybe it's an accident. Maybe they messed up and whatever they're doing to keep the birth rate down at 70% is working too strongly and they're all freaking out and doing their best not to admit how badly they've screwed up. If so we have to blow the whistle even if it breaks the Alliance, so it can be fixed. But that's still going to throw the world into civil war when the countries that didn't agree..."

    

    She pinches the bridge of her nose, sure sign she's got a headache coming on."Gaia. We can't... there will be a planetary civil war if this gets out, and the species is doomed if it doesn't. What the hell do we do here? Somehow we're going to have to... we've got to stop the P'On doing whatever they're doing and find a way to shatter the alliance without revealing why we're doing this, that's the only way we can stop it without the countries of the world ending up at each other's throats. But that leaves the people who've agreed to this in the first place in... No, that's far too risky. We've... gods. We'll have to remove the leaders in power who agreed to this secret agreement before the nations who didn't agree to it find out, that's the only way to avoid a civil war. But if we do that we tip of the P'Ons. Which means we have to deal with the P'Ons before revealing why they're being dealt with. Which... damn it."

    Donna leans against a sideboard, staring with a thousand-yard stare and looking slightly ashen. "We have to arrange for a crippling blow to be dealt to the P'Ons, enough to keep them out of the picture here for a while at least. Then capture the governments of probably most of the major nations of the Earth. Only then can we reveal what's going on and deal with the P'On fully. We'll need to destroy the P'On Embassy and central servers, while arranging for something serious enough to keep them too busy to deal with that. Destroy the P'On homeworld planetary defenses and inform the Badoon, perhaps. Those guys hate the P'On. However that will put the entire Alliance on a war footing, which makes capturing the governments of several major nations a whole lot harder, so we're going to have to do that /at the same time/."

    Donna has always had a supreme confidence that if something absolutely has to be done, they'll find a way. Even for her though, this plan is a whole lot and she knows it. Caitlin and Lucky know her well enough that if she thinks this is the only solution, she'll give it a go whatever the costs, and she'll feel that it's going to work out in the end. That doesn't mean she likes the idea, though.

    "Please someone come up with a better plan."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx looks down at her wrist as Donna cuts off the call to her husband. She looks dumbfounded. Blindsided. How could Niles not have told her something like that? sure they both have their secrets but that's ... well, as Donna rambles on about the domino affects of potential actions she starts to realise why Niles couldn't have told her.

She goes quiet as Donna continues testing out different scenarios. It seems in all of them the Titans must conquer Earth to save it. But that was never what the Titans were about. She slumps against the nearest wall and stares down at the ground. If this is how she feels, if this is how Caitlin feels.. and if this is how Troia feels... then imagine how the rest of the world will feel. Mistake or deliberate. It's still extinction. Even if they course corrected today the population dip would cripple Earth for generations to come.

"... what if we cheat?" Which has been code a few times over the last 15 years to do time travel nonsense. Usually they're not responsible for the time travel though. This time - well, this time it'd be a choice.

She puts on Caitlin's gigantic coat. It's like a sorcerer's robe on her because it's so big. "There was that guy..." She snaps her fingers a couple of times. "Had a really stupid name." She snaps her fingers a few more times and then a business card appears between them.

She turns the orange card over in her hand and reads the black lettered name, "Mobius." She nods her head, "With the Tee Vee Eh - that's the guy. Rook trailed him one time to a diner out on Route 71 where he disappeared."

"I bet you that diner is some sort of base of operations for them. Time travel nonsense people. The TVA. We storm the place, take their tech, then use it to send ourselves a warning back in 2023."

She thinks for a moment, "If we get the timing right, we can warn ourselves right before we detect the P'On warp signature. We never investigate. We never meet them. They never ingratiate themselves with us... they go on their merry way to where-ever it was they were going to begin with."

She takes a deep breath looking like she's had the shit kicked out of her ten ways 'til Sunday. "Right??"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin looks a little unwell at both ideas. "These can NOT be our only options," she says, aghast. "We're the Titans. We aren't the United Nations Security Council. I mean, /think/, Donna, are we really going to attack the White House and hold the President hostage until they relent?" she demands, somewhat rhetorically.

"And I don't want to get mixed up with time travel. /Again/," she stresses. "The last time that happened I discovered I was Irie's mother. Which is OK now, but it was a hell of a shock at the time," she reminds them.

"No, what we need to do is start engineering a countermeasure," she concludes. "With the right people and resources, we can do it. There's plenty of fertilization and cloning techniques for wealthier countries, and we can work with the UN and WHO to deploy vaccinations and hormone therapies in third-world areas. It'll... I mean, with funding, it'll take time but it..." Caitlin trails off, face twisting. The medical therapies would bankrupt entire nations. And it would be a genocide-- on a smaller scale, perhaps, but no less the same effect, save adding a side of eugenics to the mix.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Cait... engineer counter measures for a planet-wide problem, without letting anyone know so that there's no civil war?" Donna says. "What happens when they engineer a counter-measure to our counter-measure? The only way that works is if we can be constantly ahead of the P'On /forever/. And just not tell anyone that a species we're in an alliance with us has been secretly been trying to eliminate the entire human race? That's... not a good idea."

    She brushes Caitlin's objections away with a sweep of her arm. "No of course we don't attack the White House and take the President hostage until they relent. We arrest the entire government and keep them imprisoned securely somewhere until we're able to reveal what they've done, then we put them on trial. Along with every other government that is responsible for betraying every country that didn't agree to this, not to mention the entire damn planet. And yes, we're not the UN Security Council. We're the Titans, and if the world needs saving, we save it. I don't like this idea or I wouldn't be asking for other ones, Cait. But if we don't do this, what will the other countries do? Fuck. Fuck it."

    Donna is no stranger to the Swear Jar, but that's pretty raw for her.

    "When this gets out... and it /will/ get out... You think they'll be blamed only for this 70% thing? No, they'll be seen as having enabled the plan to wipe us all out. How much suffering has happened already because of this? Remember that even if these people only agreed to 70% rather than 13, that means they have agreed to forcibly sterilizing thirty percent of the planet. How does one government deal with its population learning that another government sterilized a third of their population? It'll be seen as an act of war. Nukes will fly, Cait. Many many millions will die. They may be governments, but they are villains and that makes it our job to stop them."

    Donna pinches the bridge of her nose again. "Or... we erase the last fifteen years of history. Because that's what you're talking about, Lucky. A total reset of... everything that has happened since 2024. With absolutely no guarantee that this will mean a better outcome. Or for that matter that the P'On won't go and do the same thing to some other unsuspecting planet."

    She breaths out a heavy sigh and lets her shoulders slump. "I guess we could make sure that a warning was sent out about them to other worlds, too." That means she's actually conidering the idea. "I hate the idea of involving the TVA though. Unlike Cait I /have/ been mixed up in time travel nonsense since that time and had another run in with the TVA then. They are not people I am keen on getting on the bad side of to be honest." She looks up, her eyes locking with Lucky's, a speculative expression on her face. "He does like you though, Lucky. Mobius, I mean. There might be a way to do this without a direct assault on a TVA facility."

Jinx has posed:
"Troia I'm not going to war with the whole damn world!" Jinx says loudly enough that she wonders if any other Titans might have heard them. This part of the tower is usually quiet though. It's a statement harkening back to almost two decades ago when she first decided world domination was a fools errand and started making moves to leave the Five. It seems like a lifetime ago now.

She gives Caitlin a stern look and then Donna one too. "Yes. I'm talking about erasing the last 15 years of pure happiness predicated on a lie designed to exterminate the entire human race." She fixes her jaw a moment and then shakes her head.

"Mobius might agree to help us. He might not. All I know is he's a good start - and if we have to face off against the TVA then that's the price to save my whole damn species. She re-grips the sling ring in her hand and points to the wall, "So I'm going to open a portal to that diner and I'm going to step through."

Tears start to flow down her cheeks. Erasing the last 15 years means giving up that happiness she found - giving up Niles - but it was all starting to turn sour anyway. No one on Earth could forgive them for robbing them of their last 15 years -- even if it was to save every last one of them.

Her hand motions in a circle as the fabric of space rips open to reveal a dusty sun beaten highway and a diner with an empty carpark nestled on its edge. The lights are on and the neon sign says 'Open'.

Jinx steps through.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin and Donna look at each other. Jinx is forging ahead. Both of them will follow. Neither of them have better ideas. And they both know it.

But there is a back-and-forth, nonetheless, of the two women commisserating over the absolutely shit situation and corresponding lack of options.

"Fuck it," Caitlin finally concludes, and walks into Jinx's portal. "Let's go hit the reset button on our entire lives." She brackets Jinx, looking around and amusing herself with some math in her head. "Fifteen percent birth rate, globally. That's ... .345 births per woman. The impact would be enormous. The average population age would skyrocket. We'd be spending all our resources taking care of the elderly and infirm. No new labor pool to keep the global GDP up. Even losing two years of growth it going to reduce the population by tens of millions."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I'll go to war with the whole world if it's what it takes to save it," Donna tells Jinx calmly. But... there are too many moving parts. The chance of something happening at the wrong moment, of something slipping... it's too high. We'd have to involve too many people, we'd have to get everything right. So I agree... let's do it."

    The last fifteen years have been happier ones for Lucky than they have for Donna. Maybe this time around they'll be able to save Raven. Maybe that's why she agrees so readily. On the other hand Donna has a habit of assessing the strategic situation quickly, and maybe she's just already decided this is the least bad option. As she and Caitlin have their brief to-and-fro before the portal Jinx has opened, she doesn't raise the Raven situation, but she does have a whole lot of other arguments pointing the same way as Caitlin's mathematical inevitabilities.

    Caitlin at least knows Donna's very serious about the alternative. She absolutely would attempt to conquer the world to save it. She'd probably get quite a large proportion of the cape community behind her plan, and the Amazons too. There's a decent chance they'd succeed. It's probably best nobody finds out if they would or not, though.

    With a sigh, Donna joins the other two through the portal. The TVA awaits. Again.

Jinx has posed:
The door to the diner jingles as they enter. There's a cook in the back flipping burgers, a waitress out front tending to the cake display, a large man whose pants don't fit him well enough on one of the bar stools - and in one of the booths up the back is a man in a suit wearing a trilby hat.

Before him is a plate of pie, half eaten, and a spoon resting. He gives a wave to Jinx, Donna, and Caitlin as they enter, inviting them over to his booth. Jinx is a little confused but walks on over anyway. She slides in to the booth. Nice leather seats in red and tiled white walls.

"Heeey. Titans. I've been wondering when you'd show up." The man had a calm yet somehow enthusiastic tone to him. Jinx meanwhile was still wiping away tears from her cheeks. "Mobius, right?"

"What's me. Have you tried the pie here? Ma-a-an it is good."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin doesn't trust chairs in general and doesn't trust guys in trilby hats and overall this whole enterprise has her on edge, following Lucky's lead instead of a more coherent game plan. Fortunately for Lucky, Caitlin recognizes her plan is the least insane of the alternatives the other two women could offer.

So she elects to stand in place, arms folded across her chest, and gives Mobius a flat and impassive look. She's not outright promising violence... but it's pretty clear the redhead is not in a Good Mood right now.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna slips into the booth alongside Lucky, leaving Caitlin to stand and glower. "Hi Mobius," she says cheerily as she helps herself to the remains of his pie.

    She may be in a bit of a mood herself.

    "So, hi and all that, though not one hundred percent social call. Mmm, yes. You're right, the pie /is/ good. So anyway, we realize that we've been a bit of an annoyance to you guys in the past..." she stops, looks thoughtful for a moment, and then continues "... and future. But hey, we're reformed people. We don't want to make your lives difficult, it's just sometimes things happen that we weren't expecting. So we figured it would be a good idea to you know, consult a little bit. Make sure we weren't treading on anyone's toes."

    Donna passes the rest of the pie up to Caitlin. "Try it Cait, he's right. Really good pie. So, anyway Mobius. Here's the thing. We've learned some concerning things recently, and frankly the only way we can think of to save the world is to conquer both the Earth and P'On. Obviously that's a big ask, so we'd have to call in all our resources to pull it off." She stares meaningfully to Mobius. "ALL our resources. And well, we were talking about it and we kinda figured... Waitress! Yes, hi, thank you. Can we have four more slices of this pie please? Great, thanks. Where was I? Oh right. Yeah so we were discussing it all, and Lucky here thought, what about those timeline guys? Something like this is big news. Suppose it's going to mess up the timelines? So being the reformed characters that we are, we decided we'd come and call on you and see what you thought about it all, and if whether maybe there was something we could do to you know, save you all the effort."

    Donna leans back and raises an eyebrow at Mobius. "And seeing as how we find you sitting here like this and wondering when we were going to show up, I expect you already knew all that and have already considered the alternatives that we might propose. But I want you to understand when considering those alternatives that /I absolutely mean it/."

Jinx has posed:
Mobius watches as his pie is eaten and passed around. He uses a napkin on his face as Donna lays out her concerns. "Straight to business. I like that." He looks a little chuffed as Donna orders more pie. "Donna Troy. Wonder Girl, Troia, Wonder Woman, Deathbringer - that's a good one. I like that last one."

He pulls out three files from his jacket and places them on the table. Each one has a name on it - Donna, Caitlin, and Jinx. "Though my favourite is Darkstar. I'm sure you're well aware we deal in multiple timelines and realities and all that jazz."

"So you know it's not really my place to pick and choose which are the better ones," he says and glances at Caitlin and Jinx as he takes out his tempad and places it on the table. "Do you know what this is? No, probably not. It's not been that kind of timeline for you guys has it. All world peace and environment friendly shopping bags. This is a tempad."

"Say I were to want to help you out, which I'm sure you understand I really can't do as a man in the position I'm in, then I'd need this here tempad to open a portal in to the TVA headquarters."

He taptaps a finger on the tempad. "Of course, it's a big place." He leans forward adjusting his posture and a TVA brochure falls out of his coat pocket on to the table top. "Oh woops. Silly me. Now why'd I bring that with me. It's just a tour guide for newcomers getting to know their way around the TVA."

"But, you know, IF you were going to try and do something silly like that.. I'd of course have to stop you."

Jinx stares at him a moment, the tempad, the brochure, the files. It doesn't take much to entice her in to action. She lifts up her hands and claps them together. Everyone except Jinx, Caitlin, and Donna all freeze in place. "... I mean. He's just laying it out for us, right. So... so we do this."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I'll pass." Only rarely does Caitlin decline a snack. She's too busy glowering at Mobius. Perhaps it's helping, perhaps it's not, but at least the steady glare eases up when he 'accidentally' starts enabling their plans. And when Jinx lays it out, she exhales a sigh of relief and touches Mobius' shoulder with a gesture both grateful and apologetic.

"Thank you, Mobius," she tells him with a voice of gentle gratitude. "I'm sorry we keep sticking your nose into our business, but we're kind of up the creek right now. Whatever the P'On's have planned for humanity, it cannnot be good."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna already has her hands on the tempad when Jinx does her time-freeze spell. Either she was anticipating it or she was planning to just punch Mobius unconscious to give him an excuse for not stopping them.

    "At least there's one person in the TVA who isn't a complete pain in the ass. Ten or fifteen more temporal interventions from us and I bet he actually starts reluctantly liking us," Donna says with a grin. She passes the tempad to Caitlin along with the brochure. "Work this out quickly, and let's get going. Jinx can't keep this spell up long. We go in somewhere as quiet as possible, we get to wherever they keep time portals at the TVA headquarters or whatever, we go back to... Early morning, call it 3am UTC on the 29th December, 2023, we intercept the ship and turn it aside so the meeting never took place. Then we all vanish as the timestream realigns. Let's go."

    Donna picks up the files next, and inevitably starts flicking through her own. "Darkstar," she mutters. "What a load."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx slowly releases her hands and double checks everyone is staying nice and still. She nods in satisfaction that the magic is working. Rising up from the booth she tugs the long Caitlin coat once more and then nods to Donna. "A simple plan. But just in case..." She takes out the Mobius card from her pocket and grabs a pencil from Mobius's pocket. A simple note is scrawled: 'Danger - do not contact!' and signs it '- Lucky'

She puts the card back in to her pocket and smiles. A pause, then she grabs her file too and opens it up. A quick look over it and she snaps it shut. With a shake of her hand it bursts in to flames, "No one -ever- needs to know what was in that file." She coughs in to her hand.

When Caitlin opens up the orange portal doorway, Jinx steps through in to the gray hallways of the TVA. It's quiet and there are coloured lines on the floors indicating pathways. An orange stripe along the wall gives it a certain aesthetic of 'outdated facility'.

"Which way Caitlin?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Why am I always--" Caitlin sighs heavily. No point belaboring things. She doesn't reach for her files. The redhead isn't big on spoilers in her own timeline anymore. Instead she turns her focus to a wall-mounted display that lays out their location and some context for the guidelines on the ground.

"Administration 1... Admin 2... ...admin five... Here we go. Time Compliance, Time Records, Timeline Insert--" she jabs a finger at it and looks at the other two women. "Timeline Insertion Platform. That's our next stop. It should get our message to when it needs to be."

Taking a moment to look around, Caitlin leans down and nudges Jinx's shoulder. "I think we need disguises," she prompts. "Security for me. Admin and tech for you and Donna. We need to discourage anyone from looking too closely at us."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "We don't know what kind of tech they have when it comes to looking through magical disguises," Donna says. "Best disguise would be to steal some uniforms as soon as possible, so we're relying on magical disguise for as short a time as possible." This is definitely Donna in Serious Business Mode, and that's kind of concerning.

    Donna is already checking the doors and looking down corridors while Caitlin looks up the route, but it seems that nobody is in the immediate vicinity. "It's always you because you're the technical person. If it's magic, then it's not always you," Donna replies to Caitlin reasonably. "Which is why you should be the one with tech and me security. If anyone asks technical questions you're more likely to be able to bluff successfully. However I'm kind of thinking we need to be fast in, fast out, and the best way to cope with the disguise situation is to just immediately knock out anyone we meet before they get suspicious. We can be out of here in a few minutes, by the time the alarm has been raised we'll be gone."

Jinx has posed:
"This ... place looks like it belongs in the 70s." Jinx looks down one long corridor and then down another long corridor. "Disguises. Got it..." She pauses as they argue about what kind of costumes they should have. Jinx has never seen a TVA work outfit before.

She lifts up her hands and... nothing happens. "Uh. Hm." She tries to balance herself internally... nothing happens. "Okay then. Uh.. so quick update. I can't do magic here. It's not working. I don't know why.. it's just not working."

She motions down one of the long corridors, "So I reckon we do the quick thing. Really quick thing."

Down the far end of a very long corridor four TVA security guards round the corner. They spot the trio - and then start running toward them. "Yep. Definitely time to do the running thing!"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin gives Donna the tempad. "This is my dance, then," she exhales with a weary note. What a crap way to go. Still, at least she can go out swinging. "I'll hold them off as long as I can. Maybe I can draw them off to a more critical area. Donna, you can get Lucky to the control room the fastest. Watch out for her. The two of you, make sure that message is sent."

With a casual effort she rips her jacket and shirt off, leaving her in a sleeveless tee and a brief toga skirt. The remnants of her jacket are torn into strips to bind her hair back from her face in a hasty fighting braid.

The security forces grow near and she turns a wan smile on Donna and Lucky. "I love you two," she says in a simple and utterly heartfelt tone. "Make me proud."

With that, she turns to face the enforcers. A kick of her hips and she drops into a sprinter's posture that lets her explode forward with absolutely shocking acceleration, her battle cry on her lips and shaking the hallways with ear-rattling force.

"MOBIUS! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" she roars, and bowls clear through the enforcers.

Her last kind act: making sure Mobius isn't a suspect in this break-in.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna pauses a moment in indecision when Caitlin makes the call, but she knows it's the right call, and gives Caitlin a nod. "Love you too, Caitlin. See you on the other side." Just as heartfelt, but there's no time for anything more. Donna gives Jinx a gentle push to encourage her to move, and starts running.

    As she goes, Donna unhitches her lasso, but it doesn't start glowing. Magic is not working her for her either. The lasso goes back to her belt and she unhitches not her sword but her shield. When it comes to getting past people quickly, and to putting people on the ground for a few moments rather than permanently, a shield is actually the better weapon.

    Also it's probably for the best if they don't antagonize the TVA any more than they're doing already, and severed limbs are quite antagonistic.

    The first victim of Donna's shield is a pair of guards who are rounding a corner just as Donna and Jinx reach it. The impact on the first guard is rather less than Donna had intended, and she needs to follow up with a punch on the reeling guard to finish the job off. The second gets the edge of her shield in his stomach, and they're both down for the count. She's without her super speed or super strength, but she's still an extremely capable fighter.

    "Shit. I'm down power-wise too," she tells Jinx. "Let's avoid any large groups of guards and make this as quick as possible."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx's mouth drops open as Caitlin goes full Leroy Jenkins and pulls away some of the guards. The shove from Donna gets her moving and they race down a corridor together. Jinx skids to a stop, a glowing baton barely missing her. The time stick instead batters against Donna's shield as the Amazon takes the pair of guards down.

Jinx has her fists up but there's nothing to punch - not that she's sure that'd be a good idea. She picks up one of the batons and looks it over. "I've never seen a weapon like this before."

"Good idea." She looks at the map Caitlin gave them and turns it around a few times. "This way... no wait." She pauses, "That way." Down the next corridor they run until they see a sign reading 'Timeline Insertion Platform'.

"We're here." More guards are charging down the corridor after them as she pushes open the door. The platform is a simple computer - at the end of a not so simple catwalk leading to a platform. "Right..." she grabs the tempad off of Donna and starts to walk out over the catwalk, arms spread, so to keep her balance.

When she reaches the computer she places the tempad on its holder and it turns on, "Right. The sorceress has to figure out the freakin' computer."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
From the booms and rattles echoing furthur and furthur away, Caitlin is certainly making a spectacle of herself. More and more cries for aid go up. Klaxons sound. Explosives are discharged-- or is that her throwing someone through a bulkhead?

It goes on for several minutes, and then, a tremendous *WHOMPF* of depressurizing air. The entire station shudders with the recoil of some great mass being cast away.

"<Section 20 jettisoned. Section 19, 21, airlocks engaged.>"

Fighting can still be seen in the jettisoned section. Lasers. Explosions. Bulkheads rupturing.

"<Prime disintegrators firing.>" The voice is calm as a subway station announcer-- and just as Donna and Jinx can see Caitlin through one of the last unbroken windows, struggling to fight and to breathe... the entire structure evaporates in the clutches of a broad-wave disintegration wave.

Only atoms remain.

Donna Troy has posed:
    When Donna and Lucky arrive at the Timeline Insertion Platform, Donna takes a moment to study the layout of the room and the catwalks. She stops half-way, at a catwalk intersection, to leave Jinx to go on ahead. Unless these guards can fly, they'll have to get past Donna to get to Jinx and the computer she's at.

    Hopefully they can't fly.

    There are a pair of Minutemen right behind when Donna comes to a halt, and immediately she has picked her ground, Donna's fighting. She raises her shield at a high angle to deflect one guard's thrust with a Timestick, the crouches low and knocks the other from the catwalk with a legs sweep. Then she's pushing up again, leading with her fist to take the remaining one under the chin and knock him to the ground. He lies unmoving on the catwalk in front of her -- good, an obstacle to the next ones that will come.

    "Hurry," Donna calls back to Lucky. "There's... a lot of them coming. Don't try anything clever. Don't bother with warnings if there's any chance that's going to mean there's not enough time. Just get to the bridge of the ship and wreck the sensor console. That way the warp signature won't be picked up and the P'On ship will be on its way before anyone hails them. Explain afterwards if you have time." Ironic -- the moment Jinx destroys the sensor console, she'll be cutting off her own timeline from existing.

    "And Lucky? Whatever happens, I want you to know that... crap. You already know." The next wave of Minutemen are already there, there's no time to talk.

    Donna draws her sword. She's still not planning to cut off limbs, but sword and shield is better defense than shield alone, and before long she's using both to deflect the attacks of Minutemen converging on her position along three catwalks. The position Donna has taken up is designed to ensure that they'll be getting in each other's way, and only a couple of them can really reach her at one time, but there are now seven Minutemen in the room with them and closing on her position.

    As Lucky works, she hears the sound of furious battle behind her. The clash of stick against shield, of shield against flesh. The sound of people falling from the catwalk and hitting the ground below, and of the running feet of some of those as they survive the drop relatively unhurt and rush back to the stairs to rejoin the fight. There are cries of pain, screams, and a steady stream of Themysciran cursing. Lucky is getting there though, figuring out the controls. Finding the way through.

    Then there is silence, and a heavy exhalation. "That's this lot," Donna says, her voice tinged with an exhaustion Lucky has rarely heard from her before. "But there will be more at any moment." Three Minutemen lie at Donna's feet; four more are lying unconscious on the floor below. Donna turns to Lucky, and rolls her shoulders, wincing in pain. "How is it coming along with the...."

    Donna's voice is stilled, and she jerks straight. A glow of orange motes overtakes her ankle and starts flowing up her leg; one of the Minutemen on the floor, barely conscious, has found the strength to flex his arm and tap her with the glowing end of his Timestick. The motes flow up her leg and down the other as they continue up her torso, to her head and arms, taking in her shield and sword as they go. A Donna-shaped cloud of fiery particles dances in the air a few moments and then dissipates, leaving behind only her lasso, which falls to the ground.

Jinx has posed:
The CRT like monitor rises up out of the table. On it, a time piece in simple 2d graphics. It's like a mascot, an animated clock who is tapping its foot to indicating 'loading...' - "Come on you slow piece of crap!" Jinx commands as Donna takes on the first wave.

It's then that the whole building shakes. She looks over her shoulder in time to see the end of Caitlin. She feels her heart clench. There's something about her close allies who she works with day in and day out sharing near death experiences (and sometimes actual death experiences). You get close. Real close.

A small cry leaves her lips and she turns back to focus on the computer as it comes up with a simple menu list of options in indecipherabe technobabble. If only Caitlin were here instead of her. She starts to look through the manuals with haste - but the computers are sooo slow.

"I'm working on it Troia," she calls back in response as she hears more grunts and groans and thuds and bangs. An orange doorway opens up - it's in the Atlantic Starport. She taps on the controls to move the doorway trying to find the sensor station.

"Almost there Troia..." she says and looks back just as Donna starts to disintigrate before her eyes. Her jaw trembles and she feels her breathing increase rapidly. This is a one way trip - they knew it - erase the past and set things right. If she fails now then Humanity is doomed and so is Earth.

The sound of jackboots hitting the floor behind her start to race across the catwalk. She taptaptaps the keyboard to move the doorway. There, she sees the crowd. Scientists at their terminals. And Titans, and media. They turn in surprise at the orange doorway opening up before them. Jinx takes a step through it and holds out the card, "Don't contact th--"

The TVA guard yank her back. The card is dropped.. and Lucky evaporates in a sparkle of orange tinted light. The door shuts closer.


December 29th 2023 - P'On First Contact Day - Atlantic Starport

Jinx stands in the crowd with some of her colleagues. Space stuff is cool. An orange doorway suddenly opens and she sees herself on the other side of it. The other her is yanked back by who look like imperial troopers. The door shuts.

A card falls through the air and she catches it in her hand. 'Danger - do not contact! - Lucky'. Jinx looks over the card. Sitting at a terminal a scientist picks up a strange blip. "Whoa.... WHOA.... Contact! We've got first contact!"

Jinx looks up as so do several other people, their attention split between the strange doorway theatrics and now a scientist with exciting news. Contact. Do not contact.

She draws pink energy around her hand and with a swish, ... a touch of bad luck. The lights flicker and go out as do the computers.

Groans go up in the crowd as whatever it was they just picked up is gone. All gone. No more signal, no telemetry. Nothing.

The P'On ship on the outer edges of the Sol star system does a brief jump stop, pauses, then continues on its way. Never to be heard from again.