"Flying?" Carver gulps. She puts an arm around his shoulders; Jager feels her clamp down convulsively. She puts her other hand over his, as if she's afraid that he'll let her go. She's not afraid of heights; she's afraid of not being able to fly should something happen to Jager. To distract herself, she said, "Did you know that the terra cotta in your building has very dirty minds?"

Long's body has healed somewhat, what's left are a menagerie of bruises and small cuts. His eyes open to see his surroundings. His body has sensors mounted to it, probably for monitoring his vital signs. Muscles tighten and bunch as his shoulders move his arms up to remove them. The machine registers the loss of contact with a steady flat tone. He slowly flexes his toes and tail, making sure everything is there and that it all works. "Well that was damned stupid Ryu. God I need to get back home." It dawns on him he's on the HM2. "Timeslip." He swings his legs over the side of the bed and braces himself with his arms as he stands on his legs. "Good God, I still feel like I had a Tank thrown at me." His first steps are uneasy but he gains his balance by unfurling his tail behind him. "Now to find Angela and get home to recharge.. Then it'll be time to finish this. I was a fool to face him alone, this time, I won't be alone." Long begins making his way to leave and begin his search, satisfied that he won't trip and kill himself along the way.

"Flying? Oh, no. Flying is for the Godly types."
With that, Jager tightens his grip on Carver and she feels a icy feeling wash over her.
"Wouldn't want you to go splat", he whispers to her.
Jager rolls back on his heels then springs forward using his toes. The two novas hurtle towards the top of the closest building, Jager taps it ... just barely ... with his toes and the fingers of his free hand, and then they are speeding off parallel to the streets. From one building to the next, they zig-zagging over the traffic beneath them at near the speed of sound.
Carver can feel Jager's muscles absorb the impact of each landing and channel it into the next bound until it feels like one continuous, living pulse with the buildings being the heart and the two being little more than blood cells moving through the arteries of the city.

Somewhere along the way, Carver realizes Jager is talking to her.
"Carver? Carver?"
"In time, you can learn to use your claws like this as well. Get to know the buildings around you ... learn there soft spots, their nooks and crannies were fingers and toes can find easy purchase ... then its just a matter of channeling all that trapped strength in the wood, stone, and steel into yourself and ... bounding."

Jager bounds for several miles, or so it seems, with an effortless grace. Sometimes, he spins over onto his back as he covers a greater distance and Carver can feel his entire body relax. Other times, he will catch an angle with his one free hand and spin out like a whip being cracked. Finally, he curls himself and Carver into a tight ball and they spin over and over again until they land quite suddenly. Though Carver would imagine they would land with a resounding 'thud', they come down with the resonance of a feather coming to earth, the energy dissipated harmlessly into the sidewalk.
Jager straightens up and releases his hold on Carver. They are standing in front of a little club on Chicago's North Side.
"We need to go inside."

The com-station beeps as a text message comes across the screen.

<<<
Timeslip,

We're on our way. Open a book.

Samhra>>>

"Oh gods...I forgot!" Quickly rooting around, Timeslip comes across a binder; in crisp block lettering, the cover declares it the RF/131-B Communications Terminal Schematic and Repair Manual. Flipping it open, she steps back and taps out a quick message:

<<<
OK, Samhra, it's a repair manual for an RF/131-B terminal, whatever that is. See you when you get here!>>>

The book's pages flutter in an invisible wind as the text bulges out and resolves into two figures holding each other.

The Samhra that emerges is a different creature to the one normally seen out and about these days. Her dark blonde hair is scraped back into a heavy braided knot that emphasises the alien cast to her amber-golden cat-eyes. Her black halter-neck and leggings bear a strong resemblance to her T2M uniform and she is wearing ankle-high leather boots under a pair of metal greaves. Her opalescent glow is arcing and flickering red around her slight body and her wrist bears a W.A.Co. device.

"Hello, Timeslip," Regan replies as she folds her wings neatly behind her back, her voice icy and clipped with anger, "How may I help you?"

"Glad you're here. Basically, Long's a bloody mess in a hospital bed, and Shen-Kahn is levying threats on everyone and their little yellow dog unless Long decides to be his good little servant again...and that's going to happen over my dead body. Well, my dead armored body, anyway," she says as she guestures to the elaborate gear with which Endeavor has had her fitted.

"We're organizing an attack on Shen-Kahn to get him out of the picture. Not to kill him, but to send him...away. To another dimension, actually. Thing is, he has mad mental powers, and if we go to face him without someone countering them, we'll be gibbering idiots inside 30 seconds. Do you think that you would be able to provide mental support to our little crew?"

Samhra's smile is grim.

"Having strolled through Long's mind and picked up what that son of a bitch has done to him, I'd be happy to help you," she answers grimly. "I am a combat-trained psychic, you know, and I won't hesitate to use the Dolorous Cry."

"Sounds absolutely ducky to me...whatever a Dolorus Cry is. We've got Jager, Endeavor, myself, you and Carver onboard for this...though I'm still trying to figure out how Carver found out; she contacted us and volunteered."

Long's ears pick up voices to which he walks. As he draws near he recognizes them as belonging to Samhra and Timeslip. "He's going to take more, I underestimated him, and I paid for my arrogance. Samhra why is it that I almost always have to see you under these conditions?" Long props himself up with an arm. "Mosstly healed, but I need to get home, I need a massive infusion of power...."

Timeslip is in near shock to see Long stumble into the room. "Dear gods...what are you doing up and moving around? You've got stitches in a couple dozen locations that are just hours old; you'll tear something!" She steps back, and Long suddenly realizes that his wife is armored up for war. "Don't worry about Shen-Kahn, love; he's not going to be a concern for much longer. We're going to take care of that...but you are going back to bed to heal up."

"If you can go back to our home and get the two canisters kept beneath the Sword, I can be healed in a matter of moments, and much more able to help."

Regan's voice was clipped as she replies, "The Dolorous Cry is my mental blast. In baselines, it causes permanent brain damage. In novas, it's probably one of the few things that can down most of them."

"Who all have you called in for this Angela?"

Long nods to Samhra "It'll be useful here, though if his mental defenses have increased as much as his physical defense have it will be tough.." He gestures at himself "Before I could fight him to a draw, now he beat the hell out of me. We're going to have to be cautious."

Accompanying Samhra is a brooding Singularity. His eufiber clings tightly to his inhumanly toned body and a dark energy seems to fill the narrowed silver orbs that have replaced his eyes. The knuckles of his clenched fists have turned white, matching his bodysuit, and his body seems to be a bottle of violence, straining with the urge to be unleashed.

He watches the quick exchange between Samhra and Timeslip, followed by Long's entry. Before they continue, he holds up his hand to interject, "Mental assaults will not be a problem, however I have a few concerns.

"First: Long, you do not seem to be in any shape to be going anywhere, let alone fighting.

"Second: is there a plan more complex than having a large group of novas attack this Shen-Kahn?

"And third: just how bad is this Shen-Kahn? Is this man unredeemable, I mean truly unredeemable? Because the same was once said of me..."

"Singularity, he stripped away my first wife's mind, made her fear and hate me, then when that wasn't enough to make me leave her, he murdered her. He has threatened to do similar to Timeslip and has threatened to eradicate my entire family. If it were within my power I'd put him down like the diseased dog he is. I cannot do so however. I am not powerful enough on my own. I learned that the hard way." Long's voice is strong and vehement, despite his remaining injuries. "I say kill him and end this madness. There are however other options."

"I can cut through most psychic attacks," Regan replies shortly. "Exile or death, I honestly don't care what happens to him, nor will I weep if I'm the one to strike him down."

"In this one instance, I'm so sorely tempted to turn his teachings against him. Let him see the other side of what he used to have me do."

Long's eyes blaze with cerulean fire, his meaning is clear. His fur bristles as he speaks.

"Just a bit more energy and I'll be able to go back and get what I need."

"There is no undoing death," Singularity replies with an odd familiarity to his voice, "and I have stomached enough unnecessary killing to satisfy three lifetimes. Hunting him down and killing him in cold blood makes you and us no better than him." His face softens, "But please do not misunderstand: I will do what I can to stop him from hurting you and Timeslip, but if there is a way to do this without killing him I strongly prefer we use that option."

He gives Long another once over, "At least sit down and do not waste the energy to leave. What we need to know is his tactics, his weaknesses, his capabilities, and anything useful.

"So, again: what is the plan?"

"Hold up, folks," Timeslip interjects.

"We've still got two more people enroute; Jager and Carver are enroute from Chicago. Then, we can all sit down and discuss this so that we don't go over it three or four times. But the short version is this: we aren't going to kill Shen-Kahn; we're going to send him away. Or more to the point, we're going to wear him down in timed waves enough for me to take him someplace where he will never, ever interfere with anyone again."

She looks at Long, and continues, "that's why the armor; Endeavor's marvel will give me the crucial bit of time I need to get myself back home afterward."

"That's a name I was hoping to hear. Jager has fought against us before, a long, long time ago.. It's good that at least he and I do not carry that old grudge." Long's fur smoothes out as he reign in himself.

"It's hard to say it still, Shen-Kahn is my adopted father, and I was and still am ready to kill him. Part of me knows how sad and wrong that is, but a greater part wishes to see justice done. He'll never stop this, so we'll have to stop him."

Endeavor chuckles, as she straps on the last bit of armor for her suit. "Now Timeslip, it's time to go over your HUD-Sensor functions." She walks over and lifts up her right arm, showing her some glowing keys on the right bracer of the armor. "Now this key, the pink one, is for the GPS system. Once active, you'll know exactly where you and anyone else with a GPS unit is. This key, the green one, is a Quantum variance scanner, allowing you to pick up and analize the quantum output of a nova. The yellow one activates impact mode. The backpack I'm about to attach has extra impact gel in it. By pressing it if you anticipate a vicious blow, or if it detects a moving object moving faster than a certain speed, it injects more gel into the suit, allowing it to take more punishment. Wouldn't reccomend using it for too long though, since it slows you down because it causes the suit to expand to the point of heavy padding. Think of a VERY heavy parka. That's how much more the suit will expand."

She then clears her throat. "The white key is for the comlink. You can access Sattelite, OpNet, or direct LOS capable com-devices. Finally the orange button is the pressure regulator for the helmet, if it starts flashing, press it. It's your main life support, and if it detects changes in pressure it'll compensate. And the blue button, press that if you end up in the drink. I assure you, you'll not drown in this suit, that's for sure."

Sakurako grabs a backpack which looks modular to the rest of the suit design and attaches it to the back ports on Timeslip's suit. "This backpack, has 72 hours of air filter quality, able to filter Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical agents out of the air, and also keep full the 30 minute compressed air supply, plus artificial gills wich filter oxygen from water and can replenish the oxygen supply in the compressed air canister, and it is good for 12 days."

She looks over the suit, making sure tha every connection is properly done. "You know, you're pretty good yourself. You figured out the color coding for all the different inputs. Yeah... I intended it that way." She smiles, after putting on her helmet, and opening the front protective visor. The helmet itself has no transparent or clear part to it. The HUD provides for the visual needs of the wearer. "Oh, if you need a sidearm, I have a couple. It'll interface with the suit, giving you greater accuracy, and monitor how much ammunition or power you have left in the weapon."

Timeslip runs through the laundry-list of controls again, Endeavor nodding to the repetition. "OK, I think I've got it. Wow...this thing really is just incredible, Endeavor...and probably the only chance in the world I've got of pulling this thing off. I feel ready to take a jog across a nuclear battlefield."

Timeslip voice shifts to a more serious tone. "Speaking of which......that sidearm thing you mentioned. Would it be possible for it to be that gadget I was talking about earlier -- a one-shot doo-hickey to bring Shen-Kahn along on my magic carpet ride? My biggest fear right now is that, when I need it most, the power I need will be just beyond my grasp...'cause it really is about as likely to fail as work when I do reach for it, and that's under the best of conditions. This isn't going to be anything remotely close to the best of conditions, and if I screw up and don't get him on the first try, people could die as a result."

There's almost a pleading in her voice at this point, as she continues. "I'll run through any test you need, and I swear I'm your little guinea pig for as long as you want when this is all over, but if it is possible for you to do this, I'm begging here."

When Jager bounds off, Carver feels a touch of relief that they aren't going to be flying - a relief that is replaced by pure terror as Jager begins bouncing off buildings.

But her fear becomes exhilaration as several jumps pass without any crises and she begins to enjoy herself. When Jager tells her the secrets of this method of travel, she relaxes quite a bit: with understanding comes acceptance. She is grinning as widely as a kid on a roller coaster by the time that Jager sets her down in front of the club.

"We need to go inside," Jager says and Carver nods with that huge grin still on her face. Her gray eyes flash and sparkle, and her cheeks are flushed with excitement. Part of her wishes that they could continue their trip that way, but she remembers the urgency in the lions’ voices, and she shoves that thought away. Instead, she follows Jager into the club.

As the prepare to go inside, Jager says to Carver,
"This is just your usual crowd of lowlifes ... burglars, pickpockets, fences and smugglers ... good people who can't quite find it in themselves to live within the law. I like places like this."

They head in, getting some sidelong glances, but nothing truly changes. Most of the customers stick to themselves, or to whichever small crowd they are sitting with. Everyone seems to be minding their own business. Jager leads Carver behind the bar and to the storeroom. They weave their way through the liquor and snack boxes to the back door. The only oddity to the door seems to be the doornob. It seems to have several small bands of finely crafted metal around the base. Jager touches the doornob and twists it slightly to the left and right a few times.
"Sorry for the delay. I'm sort of stuck in a paranoid lifestyle that leads to a certain level of caution."
He then opens the door.

A stench of fish and industry pours into the room and the Jager motions Carver to follow as he steps through into some rain-soaked alleyway.
"We are at Echigo Salvage Works in Chiba, Nippon. We'll have to walk across the Bay to get to the others."
Jager seems somewhat subdued at the moment, but it passes. He gives Carver a sly look.
"So the buildings talk to you, eh? Anything else get chatty?"

Jager may be comfortable in this bar, but Carver is not. She sticks close to Jager, resisting the urge to grab his arm for additional comfort. “Hey, whatcha worried about?” one of the tables asks. “You could take any of these pussies.” Carver gives the table a slight shake of her head, but it persists, “You’re a freakin’ Nova, lady, ain’t nobody gonna mess with you. Take the fatso in the red plaid – he’s afraid of ya. He’s a baseline, and he’s got a bad back.” Carver glances up at the table’s occupants automatically and her eyes meet the eyes of the man the table was referring to. Her heart freezes – one of the first instincts in this situation is to look away, but it is his eyes that slide nervously away from her. And Carver realizes that he is afraid of her.

No one’s ever been afraid of her before. She’s not sure how to feel about it.

Carver’s mind is whirling as she eases through the stuff in the storeroom. Not only is she floored with her revelation, but she’s wondering just what kind of life Jager leads that requires this kind of paranoia. She’s already a little off kilter with the sudden transition to Japan and Jager’s casual mention of walking across the bay, so when he finally asks the question she’s been dreading, she isn’t ready for it. She actually stumbles, something that she hasn’t done since Ibiza.

“What?” she starts, trying to figure out how he knows. Then she remembers: she blurted it out when she thought he was going to fly. In a split second, Carver has to decide: does she continue to be vague, like she did with Long and Samhra, or does she start to share?

Her mouth opens and she hears herself say, “Not the building, the pottery in the foyer. They have some really risqué ideas of what should be done to jazz them up.” Even as her brain is trying to shut her up, she babbles, “It’s really kind of disturbing that your terra cotta thinks that porn is a great way to decorate. I mean, wouldn’t pottery find something besides humans to be sexy? You’d think that pots would get off on seeing other pots with interesting curves or that plants with a particularly sexy root ball would get them hot. But T&A? I just don’t get it.” Her brain finally reasserts its control over her mouth and she gives Jager a grin that is far too wide and shows too many teeth; the classic smile of someone who has said too much and hopes that this sad attempt at a pleasant expression will help. Change the subject! Change the subject! “Did you say walking across the bay?”

Jager turns and looks at right at her. He tilts his head to the side for a moment then rights it.
"That was open and honest. Thank you. Now take my hand. We"ll have plenty of time to talk in a moment. PS, the world is going to look odd, but no worries, okay?"

"Timeslip, I think you can do it on your own. I can't enhance a person's quantum manipulations. You'll have to trust your own ability, I'm afraid... I can keep him from eaves dropping on us onboard the HM-II, because I have somthing set up to do it. It takes a HELL OF A LOT of power. My Fusion reactors are enough power, but I've still to develop on my own a device that can help you... slide... between realities."

"As for your armor, While I wouldn't reccomend going through a Nuclear Holocaust, You should be pretty safe in it. Should give you and me enough time to do our dirt.

Besides, if we can delay Shen Kahn enough, we can send him away by any means we can. But it seems that mayhaps killing him here and now may be the only solution. You know... if you CAN manipulate time, ever thought of just causing every atom in his body to acelerate faster than light? He'd just... disentegrate."

"I am sorry, Sakurako," Singularity says while shaking his head, "but I cannot condone seeking Shen-Kahn out only to kill him when we have other options. If you want, look at it from a practical perspective: he may have unknown friends too that would seek us out for killing him. Or other, more radical novas may decide to give us payback in turn."

Conduit is walking through a market in Tokyo, looking at the different craft items. Picking them up, looking at each angle, weighing them. After putting it down, he moves on to another.

From his pocket there is a beeping. He reaches in and pulls out a tiny sphere, a communicator on loan from Endeavor. He pushes a button on the side and it unfolds into a small touch screen. He retrieves his message, "Need you back at the ship ASAP. Long in bad shape." With that he closes the device and puts it in his pocket. He steps into an alley and a huge column of copper pushes him up to the roof. He looks around to get his bearings, then creates a series of ramps and pillars that he rides through the City.

In time he makes it back to the HM-II. With a loud *thung* he hits the deck, causing it to sway back and forth briefly, and makes his way to an airlock. Rushing through the passage ways, he clangs and stomps his way to the medical room.

He opens the door and sees familiar faces.

"What's going on? What happened to Long?"

"Singularity, you're right... but looking at Long's damage, and figuring out exactly how powerful our target is...

The chances of this ending with SK still alive are becoming smaller."

She turns towards Conduit "It seems, that Long's gotten himself into a conflict here. Also looks like we gotta figure out a way for the conflict to end... preferribly with all parties still breathing in the end. But... it seems more like our side may have to do things we don't like doing."

"Ah, thanks for the explanation, Sakurako. I'll just have to push it...and hope. This Stormtrooper suit should give me the edge I need, and I can't thank you enough for that." Timeslip hears a thud, and feels the ship rock. "What the heck was..." and Conduit walks in the door. "Oh, thank the gods...I thought it might have been Shen-Kahn. Conduit, I can't say I'm sorry to see you; we've got a mess on our hands."

"If someone could disrupt his psychic defences and powers, I could render him mindless with a judicious use of telepathy," Samhra says thoughtfully.

"That would indeed be spiffy; do we know anyone who can do that? And where the heck is Jager?"

"True... Unfortuantely, the only other teleporter in our ever growing group needs a medium to do their trickery. Jager and Timeslip would be too busy, and I've yet to figure the quantum and sub-quantum variances to develop a teleporter of my own."

"The concept running in my mind, is that I can have my cryo-grenades dropped in on him from nowhere with a well placed teleport, and freeze him in place, so that Timeslip can finish the job.

Question, Samhra... Does your power require an entire book for a teleport, or only a single sheet of paper?"

"I can teleport through any symbol or picture," Samhra replies, "Even if it's just a couple of symbols scratched in the sand somewhere. But they must be matched symbols."