[Fiction] Dancing at L.E.O

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako hasn't been this animated in a while. about 11pm Friday Greenich Mean Time, she picked up on a signal from an old friend.

"To anyone able to read this message, this is William Vaughn, also known as Typhoon.

I am currently radioing this message to my OpNet device on the Aumakua.

It will repeat this message every five minutes.

I am currently in orbit currently about three-hundred kilometers above southeast Asia. I can manuever slightly, but not relably. I am looking at re-entry within the next day or so.

While I am capable of surviving the fall, I will need emergency teams on hand in case I land in a populated area. I would greatly appreicate a pick-up by any novas who are primed for space travel.

Please respond."

Immediately she goes over to her terminal, and replies, as fast as thought. First on the OpNet site, to let people know she's on her way up there. Then a personal message to Typhoon.

"Ty, this is Endeavor. I'm looking for my space suit right now while I think out this message. I got you on telemetry now and I'm going to time this with a near-passing sattelite.

I gotta time it, since I'll have no velocity when I pop out. I have to grab onto the sattelite I Transmit out of to get up to speed.

I got 3 I can maneuver to different orbits for this, but it'll mean they'll be falling out of orbit soon after. So it's going to be hairy.

Ah, You'll see my pink and white suit in 25 minutes!"

Sakurako picks up her space suit, and the necessary underclothing and as quick as she can, without comprimising safety, she suits up. Thanking her lucky stars that the suit still fits even with her steadily swelling tummy, as her twins develop in her womb.

Then she hesitates.

My... children... I'm not sure if I can transmit. What if I damage them. Or if I transmit back, will I have enough energy to do it with Typhoon, and two babies in me...

5 mniutes pass as she calculates her options.

Typhoon needs me and I can do this. But it's going to be tricky.

She finishes suiting up.

"Typhoon! I'm about to transmit. I'll keep in touch via your OpNet device you have on you. When I pop out in L.E.O, I will ride with the sattelite. It's going to be close. If I mis-time this, I could miss you all together with the speeds involved, or if I don't appear close to the sattelite I'm going to use, it'll be long gone in mere moments. Then we both will be in a fix, but I more so as Earth's gravity turns me into a meteor.

I better not think about that. In any case I'm about to transmit. Anything I need to know befor I start timing my trip?"

[Typhoon]

Ty looked down at the earth attempting to get an idea where precisely he was. Despite the slight cloud cover, Typhoon could see everything as though he was looking at a map. He searched for some sort of landmark directly under him.

It was good to hear a familiar voice. "Well, E, I'm still over Three River's Gorge, but it's much more dangerous for you up here than for me." That was a bit of an understatement. The vacuum had no effect on him and if he fell to earth he could simply turn down his mass and phase into earth or ocean, he preferred the later. The heat and fire of re-entry would be meaningless to him, but to Endeavor, it could disintigrate her before she hit ground.

"In all seriousness, I can't ask you to do this; besides, it looks like we'll have sunset in the next hour. I can't recall if you can see in the dark." He looked for reasons to ask her not to attempt it. "One slight mistake on either of our parts, and you could be exposed to vacuum. I can't have that on my conscience, especially given that I can survive this."

[Timeslip]

Another voice came unexpectedly into the channel; if anything, the flat quality of the OpRadio made the echoing - and unmistakable - voice even more spine-chilling than usual.

"The most difficult factor you both face is one of timing. I believe that I may be able to render assistance in that regard," Timeslip said.

[Typhoon]

"Uhhh... Timeslip?" There was a slight edge of fear in his already stressed yet, bass voice.

"Not to seem ungrateful, but why would you want to help me?" Typhoon's history with Timeslip had been civilized, but just barely. They had almost escalated to a physical confrontation on at least one occasion. Typhoon found Timeslip's disregard for human lives to be distasteful; conversely Timeslip found Typhoon's personality to be "too human".

He quickly attempted to dispel the thought of her sending him into the sun, or some other mishap she could create, like what year it would be when he impacted.

[Sakurako Hino]

"Typhoon, I am in a space suit, that and if needed I can abort via another passing sattelite. But the risk is still there. I'm not sure that when I am transmited, that I will match the velocity of the sattelite I pop out of."

"As for visibility, you do have a heat signature, and I can triangulate via your device we're using to communicate."

"Are you... communicating with someone?"

[Timeslip]

"It's very simple, Typhoon. You believe in a particular method of interacting with baselines. I believe your method is wrong. But it does not change the fact that you are a member of the One Race; yours is a life worth saving, and I am offering my assistance... both to you and to Endeavor."

Timeslip paused to let her words take hold, then: "If you are not interested, say so and I will leave you both to your own devices."

[Sakurako Hino]

"If it is someone offering assistance... wait that's Timeslip...

Timeslip! You won't hear any complaints from me! I already have been contacted by Cade, and he will be on standby. I would be very happy to have you assisting!"

Sakurako hopes beyond hope Typhoon accepts. Having Timeslip assist will make this much easier. In fact, Sakurako might be a fifth wheel... Then again, no one can fauly Sakurako for offering assistance first and someone else does the save... It isn't about ego, it is about doing the right thing.

[Typhoon]

There were a hundred good reasons why Typhoon couldn't trust Timeslip with his life, the late Excavator spoke to that. Nevermind the fact that Typhoon had agreed to capture Timeslip for her actions in Amsterdam. Now, she was coming to his rescue. How was that for irony?

If she wanted me dead she could easily see to doing it without contacting me. Typhoon sensed a paranoia he hadn't felt since he had attacked Singularity. He quickly pushed it away. He didn't want Endeavor needlessly endangering herself. He quickly came to his desision as he noted his inital estimate was looking to be wildly optimistic. He could now feel the upper atmosphere gently buffetting him.

"Timeslip, baselines are people too," He attempted to laugh over the frequency. "Alright, I'll accept your offer on face value and deal with any consequences later, but on the condition that we sit down somewhere safe and quite after I'm safely earth-bound and talk about some things."

[Timeslip]

"I find it interesting that you are dictating conditions on a rescue... but I'll accept your terms, Typhoon. Endeavor, specify a rendevous point for us, and I'll work out the timing. No suit is required from my end."

[Sakurako Hino]

"Frackin no suit needin... oh wait I got an open connection... ehhe...

In any case here's the plan, in 15 minutes I need a port to Typhoon's orbital location. I'll feed you the telemetry, Timeslip. I can grab him, and if we can't port him back your way I can transmit. There is a research ship in the pacific offshore about 100 nautical miles from Tokyo. That'll be my plan B. Plan C is Cade. I can send a distress message to him if You or Me should be in any trouble."

Sakurako sighs, monitoring the readouts on her suit, making sure it's adapting to her greater needs.

"I think it's safe to say the risks I'm taking are pretty big here, but I think with all the assists we got for this the easier of a time we should have it."

Sakurako's timer reaches the 10 minute mark.

"Okay, we are at T - 9 minutes, 45 seconds before mission start... NOW."

[Timeslip]

"Endeavor, I cannot 'port'. That said, I have other methods of moving extremely quickly, and will make use of such. I would recommend that you transmit to the satellite, and that I meet you there; from there, we will proceed together to Typhoon."

As she spoke, Timeslip grabbed a throat mic and a bottle of compressed air. Breathing hadn't strictly been necessary since her unexpected encounter with what she had dubbed "Void World" two weeks before; that said, it would be needed if she was going to subvocalize for the mic, and she couldn't help but think that a bit of oxygenation couldn't hurt little Yokiko. She spared a moment to consider her rounded stomach, gave it a pat, and then - twisting time around her - rocketted skyward toward a pinpoint amongst the stars.

[Sakurako Hino]

Endeavor opens up her thought processes, feeling out among the radiowaves that were her medium. Finding the right stream.

She saw Timeslip's little blip and knew she was almost there. How the hell did I mess that one up. Shoulda known she didn't teleport... Doesn't matter, looks like Timeslip is on the case. she thinks to herself before finding the right stream.

She takes a pause for luck, readying her suit for sudden decompression.

Moments later she feels herself move through radio-space, part of the transmission. Part of the datastream. Then when she re-appears she is in the vacuum of low earth orbit. Spitted out where she called it. She hears her suit hiss to life, as it is working against the vacuum. Within moments she makes another realization.

When transmitting, you're moving with the object you came out of. But just in case, Sakurako grabs the sattelite with her first momentary reflex. She sees Timeslip come up from her 12 o'clock position, and knows things are about to get fast.

[Timeslip]

Timeslip came alongside Endeavor, dropping velocity at a rate that should have been impossible. Yet, by the time she was within arm's reach, her orbit was a precise match for that of the woman in the strange pink spacesuit.

A jet-and-stars hand - almost invisible against the space behind it - reached out and took that of Endeavor. Another pulled a bottle from a eufiber pocket; after a quick puff, Timeslip subvocalized to the mic.

"I need you to point him out to me, and then we are going to go to him. But you'll need to stay in contact with me for the trip. Understand?"

[Sakurako Hino]

"I understand. I'm pretty much a network hub now. That, and I'm not leaving your side. If I can't find a sattelite to pop through I hope you have a way of getting us home. I sorta... don't re-enter very well.

But, that's besides the point. We're here. And... There he is. I got him on telemetry."

She points towards Typhoon in the fading light of the day.

"We don't have much time. Whatever you're gonna do..."

The pauses for a moment.

"I... hope you don't mind if I hold on, do you?"

She grabs on to Timeslip's shoulders. Not that she's heavy in the black, but she remembers that mass is still there.

[Timeslip]

"That's the beauty of my universe, Endeavor..." Timeslip subvocalized as she reached deep into the temporal stream; with a skill that came as a mixture of both practice and instinct, she pooled the part of the stream that contained both her and Endeavor, and separated it from the rest.

In low earth orbit, there wasn't much to gauge it by; yet, the suddenly frozen movement of the nearby satellite, of the clouds below, and even of the terminator line between day and night couldn't be missed.

"...we have all the time we need. Let's go."

Outside of time, Timeslip and Endeavor flew toward the shining, stationary dot that was Typhoon.

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako's mind is blown. She's never experienced this... at least outside of dreams or wishful thinking. She hasn't even begun to imagine actually defying time.

"Now... This is what I call travelling. No wonder I thought you teleported. You just stopped time for yourself to move around in. Cute trick."

There is a hint of jealousy in Sakurako's tone. Experiencing somethign as amazing as manipulating time would make the most chaste Nova probably a little green.

"But, this does make our job easier, so I can't complain."

[Typhoon]

Typhoon floated there bouncing gently off the edge of the atmosphere. Gravity pulled at him, but atmosphere rejected him; he knew that eventually gravity would win.

He wondered why he hadn't heard any word from his would-be rescuers in several minutes. He looked down at the Earth and began to calculate the chances of landing in water. If he was heading for land, he'd have to drop his mass to almost nothing in order to protect not only himself, but if he should land near a populated area, he could be responsible for the deaths of many.

He found himself reconsidering if Timeslip's offer of help was valid, it could have been that she just wanted to derail Endeavor's attempt. He looked down at his view of and estimated that if he entered the atmosphere now, he'd impact somewhere somewhere in Northern Africa. Not conducive to dropping his density down in mid-fall. Phasing through and being imbedded under several million tons of earth was not high of Typhoon's list of things to do.

He looked over and saw a pair of heat-signatures approaching. They were 10,000 km away, but Typhoon could plainly identify Endeavor and Timeslip. Something else caught his attention, they were both... pregnant?? Despite the questions which quickly appeared in his head, he found himself elated to see them, even Timeslip.

Suddenly they were gone. Typhoon thought he had blinked. He felt an arm wrap around his mid-section. He attempted to turn to get a view of this sudden and was surprised to see Endeavor and Timeslip. E was all smiles; Timeslip was totally unreadable, despite that under these conditions Typhoon could see more of her than most. "I was starting to wonder if you were coming."

[Timeslip]

Timeslip took another puff of air from the compressed bottle; then, she subvocalized into her mic. "My apologies for the delay, Typhoon. That said, I believe Endeavor is ready to take you home by her own special means. I will rendevous with you afterward. Do not worry," she added, heading off the obvious; "we will have that talk, as I promised."

[Sakurako Hino]

"Speaking of which... Hold on, Typhoon."

Sakuako switches over to Typhoon's body, and holds on. She closes her eyes and starts feeling out for any sattelite currently interfacing with her landing spot.

"That's... odd. The ship isn't currently communicating with it's survey sattelites... Hold on. But there is some communication with a Tsunami bouy nearby. Must be the constant feed..."

Sakurako locks in on the sattelite, and within moments, Typhoon and Sakurako are in the ocean near a bouy. Sakurako and Typhoon beam out as data becoming real matter.

"Well, not exactly a warm landing, but whatever works, eh?"

[Typhoon]

Typhoon blinked twice as he adjusted to his suroundings. A smile quickly spread across his titanium facade. "Thank you, E. I wasn't looking forward to attempting that high of a dive." Even as he spoke he sent commands to the Aumakua to rendevous with him in Tokyo harbor. She was currently in the Indian Ocean, so it would be a few days.

"I assume that you can 'beam' yourself home from here," He said as he quickly swam over to the bouy in attempt to keep her head above water. "Or, should I radio the Nihon Kaigun for a rescue?"

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako giggles, not really in danger of anything but boredom. "Typhoon... I am SO not worried right now." she says after managing to take the helmet off of her suit. "And... what's that on your chest? I... just noticed it now. I was so busy setting up the transmit."

She looks around, referencing things with a pair of display goggles she was wearing under the helmet.

"I... was sort of off afterall. I was shooting more closer to Japan... No matter. It's what happens when you're improvising." She relays her location to Timeslip, hoping that the Timewalker was still monitoring the transmission.

[Timeslip]

The OpRadio speaker came to life with the unmistakable echoing voice. "I read your coordinates, Endeavor. I will be there..."

Timeslip's jet form simply appeared, hovering in mid-air, beside her fellow novas and the bouy as she returned from whatever temporal null-space she used for transit. "...now."

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako is about to start running in her mind just how impossible it was to appear at such speed without breaking relaitvity, but then realizes how Timeslip acts outside of time at times, and after all, they are both Novas.

Although seemingly not cut from the same cloth.

"Okay... Now that we're all here..." Sakurako turns back to Typhoon, as if to suggest to spill the beans.

[Typhoon]

He looked down at the burn-scarred joker's face on his chest. "Huh. They must've branded me." An edge of anger cut through his voice. "I was surveying a mountain range off the coast of Sri Lanka when a couple of Novas, possibly elites appeared on the bridge of the Aumakua."

"One of them was nearly as strong as Singularity, he grappled me, while the other seemed to interface with computer." Typhoon is obviously annoyed as he continues. "The bigger one must've clouded my mind somehow, because I found it difficult to concentrate, the next thing I knew, I was floating over China." titanium scraped against titanium as he attempted to flake off the damaged metal with his hand.

He calmed himself as he despite that he was making little head-way with the scarring. He looked back over at Endeavor smiling again. "Hey, you got us a lot closer than I would have, really I can't thank you enough."

"You're prompt, I'll give you that." Typhoon said smiling at Timeslip. "Shall we retire to someplace dryer?"

[Timeslip]

Timeslip gave an invisible frown as she listened to Typhoon's story. Could be... well, could be just about anyone that his little do-gooder squad has upset. And that could range from the Teragen to Utopia and all points in-between.

"Dry land would be fine by me; I prefer different currents to these. That said, there's the obvious difficulty where I am concerned; I believe that a fair number of your friends are interested in me in ways decidedly adverse to my continued well-being, Typhoon. That said, there are other options, if you trust me. Do you trust me?"

[Typhoon]

Typhoon regarded Timeslip for a moment. If she had wanted me hurt or dead she could have easily done so in orbit, she could have easily stopped time and aged me thousands of years in the blink of an eye.

His senses focused on the second form stirring within her belly. "I trust you not to endanger any innocent members of the 'One Race'," He did not smile, he merely noticably lowered his head so he was obviously looking at her child.

"What do you have in mind?"

[Timeslip]

"Someplace both dryer and more private," she said, even as an inky, star-filled blackness roiled out from her and encompassed Typhoon in a shroud of nothingness. From Endeavor's perspective, the rough sphere of stellar blackness simply collapsed to a point, then vanished.

A gut-wrenching shift sideways later, the distressingly tactile cosmos fell away from the man of metal, absorbed back into the infamous Terat... and the two were on a sandy beach, the fringe of a rain forest to one side and a gentle sea breeze blowing from the other side and the ocean that lapped there at the shore.

"Took me a moment to find something that fit, but tectonic shift skewed differently here... and so, an island. From what I saw, there's nothing above lower primates here, so we're safe in that respect. Now, I believe, we can have that chat."

[Typhoon]

The shroud of void fades and Typhoon not only finds himself forcably removed from his ideal element, but apparently pulled from his own world. Nevermind the fact that mere moments earlier his body had been transformed atom-by-atom into information and 'beamed' via satalite back to earth.

"Took me a moment to find something that fit, but tectonic shift skewed differently here... and so, an island. From what I saw, there's nothing above lower primates here, so we're safe in that respect. Now, I believe, we can have that chat." Timeslip casually announced as though she was forecasting the weather.

Vertigo overtook Typhoon and he sank to his knees. To his credit he didn't vomit, but it wasn't as if anyone was truly clear on whether or not he had a proper stomach as a baseline doctor would recognize it. The nausua slowly passed.

"We're where exactly?" He asked as he rose to his feet again.

[Timeslip]

She watched Typhoon's wave of nausea. Consideration of warning him had come to mind... but that would have given him the opportunity to opt out. And in any event, warnings never did any good; the effect would hit, regardless.

"We are in a temporal stream that encountered a different developmental path than the one you think of as home. A different timeline, if you will. I haven't named this one yet...." She trailed off, perhaps in comtemplation of that yet to be determined name.

[Satyr]

~Shite~

[Typhoon]

As Timeslip regarded their enviorment Typhoon noted that Endeavor was nowhere to be seen. He decided she would be bored out of her mind here anyways, as Typhoon could not detect any man-made emissions of any kind. No technology. No pollution. Typhoon quickly made a point to be aware his own quantum emissions.

"I take it Endeavor couldn't make it," With a gentle metallic smile he looked down up upon Timeslips swollen belly. "The fetus looks quite healthy, how far along are you?" There was kindness in his tone that was alien to her. "I have some knowledge of prenatal care." He added a smile. "I wasn't always a 'Living Submarine'."

[Timeslip]

Timeslip was caught by surprise by the question, then let out a chilling, echoing sound that may have been a laugh. "Of course; you're effectively a living sonogram machine, aren't you? I'm at five and a half months now; I'm due, ominously enough, in the first week of May." For a moment, a darkness beyond her ebony skin passed over her; the loss of her first child in the spring of 2015 had been difficult to bear.

Finally, she moved on. "Now, I think that you said that you wanted to 'talk about some things' with me?"

[Typhoon]

Huh. Timeslip does indeed have a heart. How about that. He thought to himself; he quickly regretted the thought. "I do have my uses." He said dryly in refernce to her 'living sonogram machine' comment. "But, it's true, I did indeed want to talk to you."

Typhoon glanced over to a slightly shadier spot under some palm trees and gestured to it as he walked in that direction. "I try not to stand in direct sunlight for too long, I absorb a lot of heat." He sat down under the shade of a large palm and looked up to Timeslip.

"You do know I was ordered to apprehend you." It wasn't a question, but a matter of fact statement. There was no bravado in his voice either, he knew that to challenge Timeslip directly was fruitless, she'd merely leave this world for another; leaving him stranded here. "I acknowledge that even if I really wantd to, I couldn't catch you. I wanted to let you know know that while I feel that Excavator deserved better, I don't believe for a moment that you'd receive a fair trial for it."

[Sakurako Hino]

*edited out*

[Timeslip]

She sat down beside Typhoon, her back against a palm tree, and sighed. "So that's what this little talk is all about." She picked up a pebble and gave it a gentle toss toward the sea. "I wish things could have gone differently. The irony of the situation was that I didn't have the time to do anything else."

The starscape woman looked up and locked eyes with the man of metal. "It takes a moment for me to twist time... and I didn't have that moment. I'd seen what Excavator's namesake power could do, and I don't think she realized that I'm pretty much an eggshell and couldn't survive it. Problem is, I didn't realize the same about her, and...."

The tremble had started slowly, several words before, but grew into a full-fledged shudder that cut off her words; despite her gravid state, Timeslip tucked her knees in under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs as the sobs hit. Tears - tiny universes, each a drop of cosmos - streaked like shooting stars down her face and fell to sink into the sandy loam, a meteor shower of sorrow.

[Typhoon]

Typhoon was geneuinely startled by her emotional reation, but then he remembered, She's pregnant. Hormones. he thought. No matter how superior to human terats believed they were, Typhoon was more conviced than ever in this moment that even Divis Mal cried himself to sleep once in a while.

Typhoon was hesitant to iniate physical contact with the starscaped terat, but she seemed to need something resembling comfort. So he slowly and gently placed a titanium hand on her shoulder.

"It was... self-defense. Anyone else would have done the same in your position." He couldn't believe he was saying these things, let alone to Timeslip. "I'll use what connections I have to get it through to the Utopians."

He moved so that he make approximate eye-contact with her. "I'm not foolish enough to believe that you and I can ever be close friends, but we don't have to be enemies. You have my word that I'll do what I can to help." Typhoon's tone was sincere, it was obvious that he was largely incappable of any great deception.

[Timeslip]

Choking back tears, Timeslip shook her head. "There's no connection that good, Typhoon. Team Tomorrow has lost one of their own to a Terat for the first time; nothing will stop them. But that's not the problem."

She snuffled, then tried to look him in the eye. "The problem is that I've killed one of the One Race. Her light is gone, and nothing will ever bring it back. Project Utopia? Hell, if all I wanted was to get them off of my back, I'd go grab an Excavator from a nearby timestream, bring her back, and have someone wipe the past few months of her memories. It's not like there was a... body; for all anyone knows, I might have just displaced her temporally. But like I said, that's not the issue here."

Timeslip's face fell to rest on her knees as her shoulders slumped. "Nothing I do short of turning back time can really bring her back. And that's beyond me, and is likely to remain so for a long, long time. I've looked at what would be needed - I did damned little else for the first month after it happened - and I would need raw power to rival Mal himself... and even then, it might not work; I might just spawn a separate timestream."

[Typhoon]

"Barring creating a new timeline... maybe you will just have to learn to live with your choices." He gently massaged her shoulder with a look of understanding in his eyes. "I do know how you feel." His eyes dropped. "I was forced to kill a nova once as well, but I have to be honest in that the number of deaths I caused with my eruption has been more of a burden."

"In both cases, I don't feel I had another choice." His voice became a whisper "He- Ivanovich had already killed far too many." He said ignorant of the fact that these were baseline lives he was talking about and what that likely meant to the terat he was speaking to.

He smirked at her. "Listen, I have another request of you then," He retracted his hand from her shoulder. "Please allow me to help however I can." His smirk became a wide smile. "Besides, you can stay a few steps ahead of most anyone that Utopia may throw at you." He stood up offering a hand to her. "Are you in need of a walking, taking sonogram machine?" He asked with a gleam in his eye attempting to add some levity.

[Timeslip]

After a moment's consideration, Timeslip accepted his hand and pulled herself to her feet. She gave Typhoon an invisible smile, but her words were not so cheerful.

"I would caution you to be very, very careful with what you offer me, Typhoon. I appreciate your offer of... medical services," she said with a chuckle, "but you would do well to limit your association with me. After all, I think your government friends would do a bit more than raise an eyebrow if they were to learn of your offer.

"In any event, medical services are available to me in a number of timestreams; I've already selected a maternity hospital in one of them. Lovely world, you should visit it sometime... though you'll want to brush up on your Incan beforehand."

[Typhoon]

"An Incan world, eh? If I ever find myself 'hoping timelines', I'll be sure to visit." He said with a side-long smile. "In any event, the least I can do is make the effort to assist you however I can. My "government friends" are hardly my friends, and my association with them is... on the wane to be sure." Indeed, NORAD had responded to his distress call, but they would not be able to scramble any sort of support in time.

He looked past her at the virgin landscape beyond her, delving further into the island; briefly imagined himself in the serenity that the world offered.

He re-focused his gaze back to Timeslip. "You know, I'm glad we could talk like this."