There's No Place Like Home, Part III

Participants:

Alexander, Arthur, Cat, Elle, Gabriel,Gillian, Helena, Isabelle, Odessa Peter and Trask

alexander_icon.gif f_arthur_icon.gif f_cat_icon.gif elle_icon.gif f_gabriel_icon.gif f_gillian_icon.gif helena_icon.gif isabelle_icon.gif f_odessa_icon.gif f_peter_icon.gif trask_icon.gif

Also Featuring

f_canfield_icon.gif django_icon.gif jessica_icon.gif lucrezia_icon.gif

Scene Title There's No Place Like Home, Part III
Synopsis It's the end of the yellow brick road, leading to the emerald tower. Now it's time for Dorothy to click her ruby red slippers together, and go home.
Date May 15, 2019

Pinehearst Tower


From inside of the helicopter, Pinehearst Tower looks like a gleaming emerald tower set against so many dark clouds. As the vehicle moves to the top of the tower, the sounds of gunfire and screaming can already be heard, along with strange and muffled thunderclaps that seem to echo with oddly reverating report from the building's spire. "Christ on a cracker," the pilot spits out as the chopper clears the roof, seeing a third of the top of the tower having been caved in on itself, smoke rising up from the hole.

A group of soldiers in black lay dead and dying on the ground around an elevated helipad, where a regal woman with long, dark hair stands surrounded by a cloud of buzzing insects. The soldiers are all dressed in FRONTLINE uniforms, most still writhing on the ground, trying to claw out the insects that Lucrezia Bennati has forced into them wherever she could direct them.

Nearby, a tall and statuesque blonde holds an assault rifle close to her chest, her back pressed to Lucrezia's as she looks up at the helicopter. "About fucking time." It's hard to say whether or not that's Jessica or not, or what truly happened to her at the hands of the medical attention she was seeking here. Near the helipad, a young man rises up from beside one of the soldiers, dusting off his hands, and Django looks up towards where the helicopter begins to descend from, even as these odd thunderclaps seem to still be echoing around the roof.

"The fuck is going on? Where's Gray and Petrelli and the blondes?" Peter immediately jerks up in his seat, eyes going wide as he tries to get a better look down to the rooftop, peering over Alexander's shoulder past the door gun. None of the FRONTLINE soldiers are still standing, and one in particular, writhing around on the ground clutching a bleeding chest wound causes Peter to scream out, "Bring us down! Bring us down now! That's Canfield!"

"You got it. I don't see the problems anywhere." The helicopter slowly makes its descend down to the roof, touching down with a heavy clunk as the winds continue to pick up. For a moment, Helena can feel a massice microburst building up, she can feel an impossibly large bolt of lightning, but— nothing comes. She can feel some weather manipulation going on right around her, but somehow she can't see or feel the effects.

"Wait, did you— did you say Gray?" Peter's eyes grow wide, "Gabriel's here?" The pilot looks back as the helicopter lands, nodding his head and waving to the door.

"Yeah, he showed up when Petrelli was making a speech. There were these two smokin' blondes with him too. No idea where the hell they went. But hey, I filled my end of the bargain, everybody get your asses out of the chopper so I can get the fuck out of dodge."

Looking to Gillian, then over to Helena, Peter nods his head slowly, trying to push himself up onto one arm. "We— we gotta go get Canfield. Then— then I think I know what I have to do…" his eyes focus out on the storm over the tower, "to get you all home."

Helena nods her head tersely, and as soon as there's an opportunity for her to reasonably do so, she leaps out of the chopper and hits the ground running toward Canfield. "Stephen!" she calls out as she heads for him. She begins to reach out with her own capacity for weather manipulation, trying to overpower the other presence - in the back of her head, she's assuming it's Arthur Petrelli, having stolen all of Peter's powers, it means then that he must have stolen hers. But she was always more powerful, and better at controlling it than Peter, so hopefully the same is true for Arthur.

As she nears Stephen, she drops to her knees to try and calm him. "Stephen, look at me!" She remembers the name. She remembers him. The conversations in the yard. How she told him he wasn't a monster, and to hang onto hope. Maybe he'll remember.

Alexander arcs down gracefully from the door to land neatly, and immediately tries to figure out who is the nearest threat he can deal with. Purely physically, of course. Al smash.

Trask dismounts from the helicopter, gun out he is sweeping the area for threats and doing head counts. One Two… Six, Seven. Ummm… why are there only Seven? He takes a quick inventory, and then cusses a red streak in Russian, "Elle… Bishop is missing!" He says it loudly, looking to Lucy and Jess, "Where is ELLE!?"

"Gabriel..?" Gillian repeats quietly, frowning some as she listens to what's said. Smoking hot blondes sound absolutely the opposite of his wife, which makes her rather concerned. More so than the sounds and the danger. They're not going to be able to get out of this, are they? She'll keep hoping. While Helena yells at Canfield, she stays close to her husband, kneeling beside him.

"Come on, you don't actually weight that much." The benefits of having a somewhat compact husband? More compact than super-tall, at least. "I can help support you." And if he'll allow that, she'll help him out. Nevermind he's going to need her help to send them back. Forget the wound. Bigger worries right now… like apparently a missing time traveler?

Clambering out of the rotary wing bird, Cat's boots hit the roof at a quick pace after Helena and head toward the stricken Canfield. She has both pistols out, quickly scanning the roof for available cover if trouble happens and seeking to provide the weather maker cover if needed while she tends to the man. Trask calling after Elle is noticed, but it doesn't seem to disturb her in the least.

Laying on his back, having had several rounds from an assault rifle unloaded into his midsection, Stephen Canfield chokes out a bloody breath when he sees Helena, his eyes wide in disbelief. Swallowing with a gag, Stephen's fingers continue to press down against the midsection of his black FRONTLINE uniform. The markings on his collar and on his shoulder denote him a Sergeant — he's come a long way from a convict. Looking up at Helena, though, the prone man can only gurgle out a useless breath, "I— you're— an angel?" He's trembling, there's blood everywhere around him, eyes staring up sightlessly to the cloudy skies overhead.

On the other side of the helicopter, Lucrezia, Django and Jessica watch everything going on, waiting patiently for their ticket home, keeping an eye out for more FRONTLINE agents. But now, here, it looks like the fighting has actually stopped entirely. But then, what are those sounds?

Repeatedly, down on the lower area of the roof ten feet down from the helipad, there's a constant concussive sound, muted and muffled noise of what sounds like claps of thunder, or explosions, or crackling electricity. Down over the edge though, there's nothing, just broken pieces of the roof that collapsed down from the lasers, and a great deal of blood.

Lucrezia shrugs her shoulders, and Jessica glances down to Django, who mimics Lucrezia's motions. It's Jessica, then, who has to actually explain. "I don't know what happened to her, and frankly I don't really care. Her and Sylar and Arthur and Odessa fucking Knutson were beating the shit out of each other, and then they just vanished." She hefts her assault rifle over her shoulder, the pouring rain having slicked her hair down over her face. "Are we leaving or what?"

Helped out of the helicopter, Peter clutches his stomach, still leaving a trail of blood along the ground, one arm slung over Gillian's shoulder. "Elle— she's working with my father. He— he wanted to send her— Christ." Peter's eyes scan the rooftop, "My— my father might've already gone back."

Hissing out a pained breath, Peter hobbles at Gillian's side over to where Stephen Canfield lays, urging her to help him down to the ground as he drops to one knee. "Steve…" Peter says in a hushed voice, but the way he's panting breaths, staring blankly at the sky, it's doubtful Canfield even hears him anymore. Closing his eyes, Peter moves his free hand out to lay across Stephen's forehead, as a white glow suffuses his palm, drawing an illumination away from Canfield into his own body.

Peter tenses up, exhaling a shuddering sigh as he turns to look back at Gillian. "Alright we— I have— I've got to send you all back." Taking Gillian's hand in his, Peter squeezes her fingers between his own. "There's only one way to do this…" Peter says with a rumble of distant thunder in the background, looking over to Helena and the others gathered on the rooftop. "We're going to have to overcharge each other. It's— it's the only way I could imagine how to send you all back that far. I'm going to use Stephen's power to… to create a wormhole."

Peter's dark eyes settle on Gillian's, giving her hand another squeeze as he looks back to Helena, then Alexander, "I don't know how well it'll work, and— and I don't even know where to send you." That question triggers a memory of Cat's, the final words spoken by Kaito Nakamura.

Helena grabs Stephen's hand. She can't help it, he's in pain, he's reaching out, and she still has enough empathy left to respond to it. "Yeah." she says softly, even though she knows there are far, far too many people in this timeline who curse her as a demon. "I'm an angel. You can go home soon, Stephen. I promise." She looks over at Trask and says, "If they've gone ahead, we can't wait for her. Do you want to put the seven of us at risk while we wait for you to go look for your girlfriend?" Cutting words perhaps, from the likes of Helena, but she needs Trask to be reminded of his promise: that he has their backs, first and foremost. She nods to Peter. "Send us home." she says, her voice resolute.

Trask moves toward the sounds of electrical explosions, figuring not only is that a threat, but it sounds like a familiar and missing threat. He moves to the stairs and down them his pistol out, as he eases toward the electrical sounds. He gets to where he can see the area below where the explosions are going on, and pauses looking back at Helena and frowning, but not going any further away.

"Peter…" Gillian says quietly at his request, knowing full well that this will end up leaving them barely able to function if it goes the way she remembers it going the other times. Augmentation loops are the quickest way to overload, and she pulls up even closer to him, closing his eyes as she waits for a moment. There was something that they needed to tell him, but what she tells him isn't that. Even with everything going on, she can mention that much to her husband that she hasn't had a chance to since the sprung him from the medical labs.

"Nate's with Eve and Kent— they'll take care of him no matter what happens."

To either of them, or both of them. Assuming the world doesn't end, at least. It's something she might think he needs to know. There's a deep breath before she opens her eyes so she can look up at him, a smile making dimpled cheeks stand out. The time travelers can go home, and she'll do what she can to help them get there. "I love you," she adds to her husband, waiting for his cue to begin the augmentation loop.

Her eyes continue to wander around the area, keeping track of things and people, ready for any trouble that might surface. Cat's alertness draws her to hear the story of Gabriel, Arthur, Elle, and… Odessa. Her jaw sets, she fumes quietly, but there's also anticipation, a hope that one might surface here. She owes that one some retribution. Darkness flares in her eyes.

But Odessa isn't within sight, and there are other matters to address. She faces Peter, and the mention of Canfield's ability draws up the video clip from Kaito, the words at the end. "Peter," she starts, speaking in a voice to command attention, "think of the place where you dreamt of true strength."

Choking out a wet, gurgling breath, Stephen's eyes slowly close as Helena holds his hand. Peter's lips press together in a frown, eyes closing as he turns to look over to Gillian, head tilting to the side, then slowly angling down as he rises up to his feet with her help. Something happens though, somethiing unexpected.

It's like a bubble of air-pressure popping, and suddenly a torrent of howling wind from somewhere, somewhen else comes swirling across the rooftop. Lightning flashes in the skies in a storm that comes over Helena so abruptly. Emotions carried in the weather and the funnel clouds forming in it — fear, rage, contempt — so many negative things fueling the windstorm and the driving sheets of rain that now pummel the rooftop. In that instant where it feels like the pressure breaks, a torrent of voices can be heard, among them Elle's. Trask can see a tumble of blonde, and the scrape of metal sliding across the rooftop as Hiro Nakamura's Takezo Kensei sword comes tumbling out of its sheath, bouncing over the rooftop from where Odessa Knutson had been carrying it. She cracks her head against the concrete below the helipad, clutching it with both hands as she rolls onto her side, curling up into a ball from the pain, looking dazed by whatever happened and wherever she came from.

But before anyone can make sense of the sudden sounds coming from the low portion of the roof below the helipad, there is a sonic boom as a figure clad in black, glowing with radioactive light rockets up from the rooftop into the skies…

…carrying Arthur Petrelli in his arms.

It's Gabriel. Peter stares with eyes wide as the black clad figure launch himself into the air, recognizing the sickening glow of Ted Spragues atomic power as he becomes airborne, watching Arthur grabbing at Gabriel's face, arcing bolts of electricity coursing through him as he tries to kill him before they can make their ascent. That's his father, and here he is feeling nothing towards the monster being lifted aloft by the man he once called his greatest enemy. Here Peter is, worried about Gabriel Gray.

And here Gabriel Gray is, becoming a hero.

Peter's head tilts down, and he squeezes Gillian's hand in his. "I love you too," the words come easy this time, for the first time. Words spoken with your regret, without self-chastisement for her being the one who came after Helena. For the first time ever, and perhaps too late to matter, he means it. The pool of blood around where Peter stands is too big to be anything but disastrous. The deep crimson soaking where the knife drove too deep between his ribs.

Breathing in a deep, wet breath, Peter heard Cat's words, and finally understands. Kaito, you always knew, didn't you? Closing his eyes, there's a smile that slowly creeps up on Peter's face, one of sincerity and serenity, then up to the sky where Gabriel is ascending. His words to Gillian are just a whisper, and he knows how everything is going down, now. "…you ready?"

One moment Arthur and Gabriel had been entangled, leaving the two diminutive blondes alone up on the rooftop to stare at each other. Or rather, one to glance at the other as Odessa had gone flying and cracked her skull. The instant Elle's narrow-eyed gaze flicks upwards, above Odessa's fallen body, is when the messy whirl sweeps up to override everything — and it's with utmost consternation that the agent finds herself rudely somewhere else, her voice incoming as a tide of snide, straightforward comments that are cut short as soon as she realizes this fact.

Contents: One heavy, unadorned black parasol sticking up into midair, by now heavily dripping water all beneath its circular rim onto the floor. One disheveled, indignant agent who is also mildly damp, especially at the edges of her hair, sleeves, and pants— but otherwise completely fine. Which is more than some others can say. No immediate action is coming from her, though; like everyone else the sight of Gabriel and Arthur forces her to regather her bearings once again, shaking herself upright as her glance becomes critical.

The clouds continue to roll and grumble as a speck of something, too far away for the human eye to see anymore, if anyone is looking. Up there the air is thin and the clouds are cold. Two men hurtle upwards in a desperate spiral, spinning wildly and eternally heavenwards in some struggle thousands of feet above the ground, trailing smoke of choking black poison. These are not details anyone is privy to, radiation and electricity, raw fire and calculating blue veins of light, traded back and forth, until—

It's suddenly sunset, in the middle of the night sky. The flood of light, orange and as bright as the sun for just a second, pulses like a heartbeat out from some unseen center as blackness is simply bleached away. Only after it blinks into existence does the deep echoing boom come on down, the slam of a god's hammer that could split the earth or at the very least, scar it, but muffled. Harmless, to those on earth, and it means an instant ending of ash for those who aren't.

A blink, and the blinding light is sucked back to give way to the sky once more, to let the oppressive nighttime slam back in as if nothing happened, let alone an atomic blast of a scale that ruined New York City, once upon a time. Nothing really did, anyway, because nothing falls back to earth.

Helena cannot help herself, she stares for a split second before turning quickly to shield her eyes - don't look at a nuclear blast Helena, don't you remember that part from True Lies? Helena's gaze goes to Trask, relief at seeing him stop and reconsider his choices earning him some credit restored in the Bank of Helena's Trust. Gently removing her hand from Stephen's, she rises to her feet. "Elle!" she bellows like a sergeant (somewhere, Conrad is smiling - teeeny teeeny blonde, big big voice), "Time to go! Get over here or you'll miss the bus." She turns to Peter and Gillian, and in this world, this timeline, for the first time, she truly has a smile for the two of them. She simply nods her assent - do it.

Trask, stopping part way down the stairs means he actually witnesses the return of Sylar and company. His eyes don't track the moving object though, they lock on Elle and he crosses the space between himself and the little electrokentic reaching to grab her arm and pull her toward Helena and the others.

Gabriel. Gillian can't help but follow the movement with her eyes, biting back pain from the wound on her side. Gabriel. He'd been so set to not allow them to go back, why would he facilitate such a thing? There'd been no reason to believe he changed his mind, none at all— much less that he would sacrifice himself for it. When the bright light fills the sky, there's pride on her face for an instant. Maybe it hadn't all been for nothing. She's proud of the man he became…

But her eyes shift to her husband, whom she's also proud of. A husband who loves her. Without guilt. Without remorse. A smile spreads across her face, making dimples show up on her cheeks. The same dimples she's always had, but the smile is genuine, proud, sincere. He loves her.

Until the end of forever. Until the end of time.

There's a pause. She's ready, but she glances back at Helena and yells, "Helena! No matter what happens… Remember this place, this time. And make it matter." There's something so very personal in that request, that demand, that rasped order, before she looks back up at her husband and nods, that smile making her glow.

Only she really is glowing. Not the violet, or lavender, or dark purple of before, but something even brighter. Something without any color. White. The highest form of her augmentation in the future. One single thread. All of it going to her husband.

There's little for Cat to do now but watch. She's reminded Peter of what he needed to pull this off, she'd some time before spoken with Helena when she handed over the package, she doesn't know Odessa is present present to try killing in a slow and brutally painful way. Cat ducks her head and turns away when the flash comes from the sky, taking care not to look at it. Only when it's faded away will she turn around again to watch departures.

For her, there is calm confidence. Good hands are being sent back to do whatever they can at shaping their own futures, and this is trusted in.

Peter's eyes close, as that sudden flash of energy rolls over both he and Gillian, creating arcs of white lightning that jump between the two as if they were both living Tesla coils. The energy rebounds back and forth, and it's clear the exchange causes them both considerable discomfort as Peter begins to tense up, his hand holding Gillian's shaking violently. When his eyes open, his irises are nothing but vibrant white rings.

"As soon as it opens… go— I—I don't know how long I can keep it open!" Clenching his free hand into a fist, Peter turns towards the center of the helipad, even as the black helicopter is beginning to take off, the pilot looking down behind his mask at the scene playing out on the roof of the building.

When Peter blossoms his fingers outward, the air twenty feet from him dimples inward like water being sucked down a drain. Bright blue storm clouds of energy swirl and churn chaotically as they form a massive rotating disc of blue-purple energy with a jet black center about the size of a small house. The moment the vortex opens, there is a sudden drawing wind that sucks towards the entrance, lifting corpses of the FRONTLINE agents up into the air, tumbling end over end as their remains cartwheel into the black hole.

Peter clenches his jaw as the wind picks up, and finally the reactive supercharging between the two causes the hole to double in size as both of them begin emitting a brilliant white radiance from each other, arcing back and forth between the two augmenters. In that supercharging, the wormhole continues to grow, cutting like a saw into the top of the roof, swallowing a large portion of Pinehearst Tower, splitting the top of the building like a sword through wood, crumbling stone and lifting the rock up into the whirling event horizon surrounding the inky black spot at the center.

Peter lets out a pained howl as his legs buckle, neck muscles tensing as he keeps his hand open as the edges of the swirling disc begin to slow and calm, becoming almost mirror still despite the massive gravitational tear it has created in the roof of the now creaking building.

"Go!" He screams, the wind drawing towards the wormhole causing his hair to flutter and rustle around, his necktie nearly horizontal as it flicks up and down in the vacuum, "Go!" The black hole's edges turn into razor thin lines of trapped light, a perfect disc of black gradient that fades to bright violet on the edges. At the call, Lucrezia dismisses the insects that were swarming around her, and moves towards the wormhole, her hair fluttering in the vacuum. Jessica and Django walk up alongside of her, and Jessica finally discards her assault rifle. "Wonderful," she spits out, before leaping bodily into the black center of the disc, disappearing in a flash of light before even touching it.

Lucrezia winces, breathing in a deep breath before approaching the wormhole, and as she draws close, the light that reflects off of her pulls towards the disc, and she struggles to maintain her dignity and stance before being sucked into the black pit at the disc's center, vanishing in a flash of light.

Django looks back to Helena, as Isabelle struts up to the disc, looking back over her shoulder, before she leaps in, vanishing in a flash of light.

There's a long stare at Helena from Django. "See… you on the other side," he murmurs, and then turns, leaping into the black hole with another flare of blue-white energy. Clearly struggling to keep the disc open, Peter's entire body shakes and trembles as the disc continues to rotate slowly, half-buried in the top of the tower.

Elle has little time to respond to Helena's calling of her name before she feels herself grabbed by Trask. Grasping the urgency in his posture in a second, she wastes no time in obligingly half-rapidly pacing, half-running towards the remainder of the group while still being effectively pulled along. The distance to the newly opened wormhole is quickly eaten up this way, disappearing beneath light and catlike footsteps. Yes, there are times when it's nice not to be wearing five-inch heels.

Wind whips blonde hair about the electrokinetic's face as she nears the portal's pull; it's partially blinded by a thick strand of her own hair that she pulls away from Trask, right when she's next to it.

She lingers for a single moment, a sliver of hesitation, before she steels herself — takes a step — and is herself sucked through in a pulse of light.

Trask is a moment behind Elle, as she is pulled through he turns to look at those who are left, he takes a nice long look at this future…that may never be after all because he steps through this door way. He thinks of what is gained, what is lost and what is being taken with him, and he takes a long swallow and wipes a tear from his eye, before taking that last step across the threshold into nothingness.

Alexander takes one brief look around, a scowl on his face and a certain air of resignation in his eyes as he leaps for the vortex.

As the others are leaving, Helena turns to take a look at those she's leaving behind. Gillian is regarded with a solemn gaze, and a slow nod. Perhaps only she will understand the words that Helena mouthes, but they are: Fight to live. She looks then to Peter, at his strained face, and for him, there's a smile. "You were right behind me." she confirms as if to convey in those words how proud she is. But he's not the last person she looks at. The last person she looks at before leaving this future? Is Cat.

"Thank you." she yells across the other woman. She gives her a nod, and reaches out, putting her hand over the satchel resting at her hip. "I'll see you soon, Cat." She'll see all of them soon.

And with that, Helena turns and makes a running leap for the vortex.


Ten Years Earlier


The moon hangs heavy overhead, amidst partly cloudy skies that look like a black cotton patchwork, seeking to obscure the light of the moon, to snuff it out. The wind is colder here than it was a moment ago, but everything else feels so hot. Breath finally catches Helena's lungs, breath that was stolen away by an infinite vacuum between time and space. Her back arches, eyes wide as she stares up at the patchwork night's sky, smoke rising up off of her body.

It's a rooftop, that much is certain by how cold the breeze is. Django and Lucrezia try to pull themselves together, looking up to the sky, even as Jessica shakily rises to her feet. Everyone is smoldering, clothing singed, small sparks of what looks like static electricity crackling over their bodies.

Helena's backpack lies tossed to the edge of the roof, contents strewn out all across the flagstones, syringes of the formula lying scattered in every direction, some of them cracked and shattered, others looking to have boiled into a clear fluid on the inside. A handful, though, look alright, even if Isabelle is laying on a couple. Not far away, the USB drive that Cat had sent along with Helena lies warped and bent, smoke rising up from it.

She rises up to sit, her hand sweeping across the rooftop, curling her fingers closed as she gets to one knee, looking around at the sculpture affixed to one side of the roof. It looks like a stone ring flanked by cherubs, one of them has a bullet hole in the center of his chest.

The sweetest price you have to pay

Beyond the statues and the ring, there is a black and jagged skyline of Midtown Manhattan. Not Unity Park, not the revitalized world they had come to know, but the grim and bleak, gray wasteland of the irradiated scar at Midtown's heart. There's no lights here, no life atop the Deveaux building's rooftop, only the cold, lonely wind blowing through the skeletal remains of skyscrapers.

The day the whole world…

Django leans forward, resting his hands on the stone railing beside the sculpture. His jaw sets, eyes grow wide, and then his head hangs slowly, mouth pressing closed as he swallows in a dry and uncomfortable manner. "I…" his head comes down to rest against the railing, "I feel sick."

…went away.

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Previously in this storyline…
There's No Place Like Home, Part II

Next in this storyline…
String Theory

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