Turn Left at the Tower Shaped Like a Giant Letter

[isahellofadrug]

To say that he hadn't expected his day to get interrupted by a interdimensional kidnapping was a bit of an understatement, but it didn't exactly surprise Robbie that much, not with the life he'd led. That this Timebroker guy wanted him of all people on some kind of team? Also not that surprising after he thought about it. This whole thing sounded like something you'd want to toss expendable people at, and it wasn't exactly like many people back home would miss him.

But who he saw after he appeared in the alley of the world he had to save -- from a conflict like the one he'd been responsible for, no less -- that? That surprised him.

Because back home he was dead.

"Buckethead?" He wasn't wearing the costume Robbie had seen him in last, so was this even his Rich? Was it Rich from the past? He didn't look as old -- or as haggard. "Is that really you?"

The Speedball that stood before Rich likely looked different from Rich's Speedball. For one, aside from the costume change, he was taller and far more built than the toothpick Rich knew back home. The transformation always added some height and mass from the kinetic energy dimension and now Robbie was tall enough and muscular enough in his usual form that he looked even more the classic idea of a superhero when transformed.

His face was also different. This wasn't a Speedball who was nearly always laughing and you could tell by looking at his face. He looked like someone that never smiled and his eyes were far sadder.

Comments

[isahellofadrug]

Oh no, they were still doing the reality show -- wait.

"New sidekick?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. A thought occurred to him and he held up a hand much closer to the ground than he and Rich were. "Wouldn't happen to be a little dude 'bout yea high, would he? Wears a helmet about as ridiculous-looking as yours and babbles total nonsense to himself when nervous?"

Was this Rich's timeline so different that Sam'd shown up early? Before Rich died?

If it was, maybe they had a chance, reality show aside. If they were even doing the reality show at all.

"Also, this road trip, it's just a normal road trip? Not a reality TV show thing?"

[wears_the_bucket]

"That'd be him," Rich said with a nod. "Kinda regretting that stint I did as 'Kid Nova' now that I've got a real one to look after."

He scoffed at the reality show question.

"Blue blazes, no. It's bad enough I've gotta deal with Freedom Ring and Ricochet in an enclosed space everyday; there's nothing Nita could have done to me to get me into an RV with them and cameras."

[isahellofadrug]

Robbie closed his eyes tightly and sighed visibly in relief.

Ricochet had laughed him off the last time he'd tried to talk him and the other Slingers into joining the Warriors and Freedom Ring -- that sounded only vaguely familiar, like he was some other random hero he'd seen around. Robbie'd seen and met so many heroes in his long stint of being a superhero that he couldn't exactly keep track of them all.

Robbie opened his eyes again and said, "If you ever run into Nitro on your little cross-country jaunt, be...careful. In my universe, the team ran into him on our road trip and he was juicing -- hopped up on enough MGH to take out a whole neighborhood."

He'd just leave off the fact that he'd done just that, and leave it sounding like he was just giving an example of scale.

So this wasn't his Rich. His friend was still dead, something that he sometimes wondered would've happened if the heroes of his world hadn't been so busy infighting that they could've gone up to space to help out in the conflicts he'd apparently faced up there. Chris, who was more in the know about space stuff, had made it very clear that the big civil war between the heroes had made it so Rich'd had to save the day alone against Annihilus.

Robbie decided to stop thinking about it the same way he always did when he started thinking about how Stamford might've led to yet another friend getting killed. There were certain thoughts people clamped down on because they were unpleasant and some they clamped down on because they were unsurvivable and the idea that his mistake had somehow led to Rich dying alone up in space was one of the latter.

He looked away from this Rich to the entrance to the street up the alleyway. It looked like the street beyond was at an odd angle, like the street was very steep.

They might as well get down to business. Yes, this was a version of his friend but there was a part of him that didn't want any of this to get...personal. Personal meant talking about himself and that was the very last thing he wanted to do. They needed to get a handle on what'd just happened to them, save the people in this world that needed saving, and then try to figure out how to get free of the Timebroker and get back to their home universes.

Or...something. It wasn't like Robbie actually wanted to go back to his.

"We need to figure out where we even are," he said. "We should get to higher ground."

He hopped in place to get some bounce going, and then he kicked off from the alley wall, bouncing back and forth from wall to wall to work his way up to the roof. It was very...controlled. Apparently, this Speedball had learned to control his bouncing a lot better, too. He almost looked like he actually knew what he was doing.

[wears_the_bucket]

Well, that was weird. Rich followed Robbie's path up with his eyes. That seemed...weird. He wasn't sure if what he'd said matched up with this Robbie's past, but there was definitely some kind of hinky stuff that happened to turn him from Rich's ridiculous buddy into...

...Well, the kind of guy who kept coming back from Rich's future to kick him into shape before something big and bad happened.

Mulling it over, Rich followed Robbie up to the roof, using a route a little less bouncy and a lot more rocket-powered.

"Heeeeeeey," he said, coming in for a landing. "Good old San Francisco. Been here before."

[isahellofadrug]

"Yeah," said Robbie. "When you lost your powers, right?"

Maybe it was the same.

"Then we went to that weird secret lab near Yosemite and fought the dire wraith. That's how it happened in my world, at least."

He pointed at an island in the bay.

"That must be where that teen team we're supposed to help hangs out." A pause. "Or, you know, in some other building shaped like a giant letter in their team name."

There it was! At least a little bit of the Robbie Rich knew was in this stranger.

"We should figure out a not-terrible-to-someone way to get some cash and get our hands on a computer to do some research. Even if we need to fight this Timebroker guy at some point and get home, we still have to take what he said about this place seriously and keep all those horrible things from happening here."

Not again. He couldn't bear the thought of seeing that happen again, even if it was another world.

"We can maybe roll a drug dealer or two for some cash after leaving them all neat and tidy for the police. That might give us enough for a laptop, dinner, and a place to stay for the night while we figure it all out."

It also involved theft of the evidence of a crime but whatever. Preventing something horrific was worth it in Robbie's eyes. It was just money.