He gasped at me again. “You... can tell Aleta is with me?”
“You have two souls, and both those souls have names. Yes. Your souls and fates are woven together, but they are done so by strands of Fate. I will simply separate you via a different method, leaving you both fully intact, as it were.”
He closed his eyes, and I did not doubt he was speaking to his wife inside. The glowing white orbs opened quickly. “We would see this done,” he agreed swiftly. “What must we do?”
I raised a hand. “Do not resist. I am going to Cast a spell called Godmerge, which will fuse you into me. I will then simply Duplicate both of you out, ejecting your souls as I do so. You will both be completely independent entities, the only interwoven Fates between you connected to me, not to one another... and they will be quite faint.
“Are you ready?” I asked calmly.
“As you will!” he replied, spreading his arms wide.
Asgardian magic can be so useful for some things. Particle effects swirled around the two of us, reached out to cover him, and drew him and the wife he was merged with inside of me.
Without hesitation, I promptly Duped them both out, expelling their souls with the cosmic-energy Duplicates to actualize them as fully independent entities once more, and effectively reversing the Godmerge as I did so.
Aleta materialized first. She was a tall and gorgeous blonde woman in gold and starfield attire, gasping as she materialized fully and looked around in astonishment. Magic swirled and hissed, and Stakar materialized as well, looking exactly as he had a moment ago, only he was able to look her in her eyes now.
They stared at one another, something they had not been able to do for a very long time, and then came together in a natural hug, more brother and sister than husband and wife, having been far more intimate than lovers for some time now.
Both of them had tears coming out of their eyes. True freedom from Fate was something only he knew, but she was no longer a prisoner bound up in his Fate, free to pursue her own desires and path as well.
It was not that she was a curse to him, but he was a Curse to her, over and over in multiple lives.
But not here. Here, there was an Eternal Source making a new Fate!
I left them to pursue their own devices. The worst parts of their relationship had not happened yet, so they should have an amicable parting...
-----
“I shall return with you to the future for a short time,” I told the threesome at the table with me, to their immense surprise.
“What?” blurted out Nikki, looking at me in shock. I could tell she felt rather threatened by having another woman as imposing as me around.
“I will do so long enough to get you set on the right track, no more,” I assured them calmly. “I have Cosmic Awareness. Do you know what that is?”
They looked at one another. Martinex, the most educated of them, spoke up in his crystalline voice, “It is as profound as it sounds?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I sensed your ship the moment it arrived, and both the dimensional and chronal direction of it. I can sense tides of conflict from halfway across the universe, if I so desire, and the threads of Fate weaving through everything and binding all to one another.” I looked them over calmly. “I have been in the presence of those who are the last of their kind. There is a mystic significance to such people that cannot be imitated. You do not bear that mark.”
It took them a moment to comprehend what I was saying, and then all three of them surged to their feet, blurting out the same thing in three different ways.
I just nodded. “Yes. Somewhere, there are other survivors of your peoples, and I can find them for you.
“There is no terrible urgency. You go back when you go back, and you arrive when you arrive, it doesn’t matter when you leave here.
“In the meantime, you might want to take care of the opportunities here to train up. There are things here that the Terra in your own past simply didn’t have, and you might want to avail yourselves of them, particularly in the mastering of your innate racial abilities...”
--------
“I understand your name is Yondu. Is my accent intelligible?”
The blue-skinned alien with the spinal crest looked to be delighted to be addressed in his own language. “Oh, your accent is a bit old, but quite understandable!” he whistled back to me. “However did you learn it?”
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“I downloaded it off the translator in your ship’s systems an hour ago,” I admitted, extending a hand, which he took firmly. “I’ve spoken with some of your compatriots, and I would like to extend the same offers to you.”
“What manner of offer?” he asked in interest, walking with me along the promenade.
I spoke to him of profound archery, spiritual disciplines, and great powers that came from within, instead of from more technology. I also noted to him that there were ways to improve his yakka arrows into weapons of truly devastating power, and they needed not work just by whistling anymore.
He was very interested as we whistled and clicked at one another, me showing him holos of Tribal dojos and students, indicating they’d be happy to teach him as one of their own kind of people, and by the time I was done, he was completely sold on the process.
-------
“My whole crew is dying to stay here and learn stuff from you people now,” Major Astro half-laughed at me. “This world certainly has far more things going for it in many ways than my own did,” he admitted ruefully. “Whole schools dedicated to psionics and martial combat, let alone openly practicing magic?” He shook his head sadly. “You’re really making me question my loyalty to the America of my world here, Dynamo.”
“Well, that’s hardly a bad thing from my perspective, Major,” I admitted to him. “You’ve been informed there’s a Vance Astro here, and his mutant power has already been activated, right?”
“Yes, I was.” He hesitated a moment before speaking again as we strolled. “I am not sure if I should meet him or not...”
“His father has already been incarcerated for child abuse. His fate in prison is not going to be good. They don’t like people who mess with kids there.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer man,” Vance admitted acerbically. “What business do you have with me, then?”
“Well, first order of business, we can get you out of that suit. The temporal wasting you suffer from is unnatural, and we have the means to get rid of it.
“Secondly, we’d like to get you enrolled at Cynosure and really start mastering your psionic abilities. You’re just using them as a mutant, which is kind of a crutch. You can do so much more with them with Psion training that it’s just not funny. I think you could really use that edge when you decide to return home.
“Since you’re here, and your mission is already successful, you can spend as long as you like to get ready to go back, maybe even bringing that knowledge with you to help your people,” I encouraged him. “You have no rush, as you’ll get back at the same time regardless if you spend a day or a year here. Take advantage of it, Major. We both know you have to go back eventually, as you don’t belong here, but you can go back a LOT stronger than you arrived here.”
He looked thoughtful at that. “You’re right, I’m pretty much self-trained on my psychokinetic powers. Some actual instruction would be really cool,” he conceded. “Sure, I’d love to get some formal training. Are there any costs attached?”
“Huh. Let Wrench look over your ship here, and see what we can see. We’ll take nothing, but if we can figure stuff out, well, that’s worth a lot. Future tech is just as good as super-science and alien tech, you know?”
“I do. I’m not that far from our old tech levels that I don’t realize how great and powerful some of this stuff is. The self-sealing hull technology we have is the best. Ask Martinex about it.”
I grinned. “I will!”
“And... you can get me out of this suit?” he asked, voice catching a bit. “I was told it could be lethal...”
“Remove the excess chronal energy attached to you, lock you in with an Eternal’s blood to keep you the right age. Eezy peezy. Lady Flux has already agreed to donate some for you. We can head down to the med bay and be done with the whole transfer and Ritual in under an hour.”
“Really?! Wow!” He looked around sharply, the dark metal on his face making his expression hard to read. “I don’t have anything going. Let’s get that done!”
----------
Freedom’s Lady was quietly locked up, sort of. In reality, we were going through it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for tech we could use. Even the Xandarans were interested in what turned out to be a slightly improved version of their own self-sealing hull designs, and some of the weapon systems were just spectacular, quite a bit beyond most of the alien ships out there today, if not the Xandarans... although the Xandarans didn’t make a habit of using similar systems.
Also, being able to timejump an entire ship was an incredible feat of engineering, even if they did have to slingshot around a star to do it.
The whole crew disembarked, mostly to take advantage of the available training. Starhawk took off for Russia, then made his way to Titan and maybe other points, nobody knew. He was free of his fate, his future was only his choice, no others, and where he went, it was all him, finally.
Yondu was sent to the College of the Zen Eagle as a special project for the masters there, while Wrench and I endeavored to make him up some modified arrows and the like to use.
The rest of the crew headed for Cynosure, and Powered/psionic training there. They all had very different gifts, but it was plain as soon as they arrived and saw all the different mutants there that they’d have absolutely no problem fitting in.
Major Vance was a handsome brown-eyed, brown-haired fellow outside his chrono-suit, and obviously very happy not to have to wear it anymore. I noted Aleta seemed quite taken with his new look and energy...
-------------
I was on call effectively 24/7 now. That didn’t mean I was out doing stuff that much, but if something came up that needed a heavy hand, I was on call for it.
That wasn’t anything new, of course. The whole thing of playing in the super leagues was being willing and able to go at almost any time if there was an issue. The thing now was the scale and the locations of the stuff, which were all the way up and just about anywhere, respectively.
Primus actually took on a lot of this load, being the first-responder about half the time. That was his job, he took it seriously, and devoted a lot of time to it. Comet, Flux, and the Lantern would normally trade off when he had down time, but now Mimi and I were here, and we were actually even more suited to get to places fast. Kismet was always eager to help out, but she was always paired with someone else, due to relative inexperience... but she learned quickly, certainly.
Paragon, Wrench, and the Atom only hit the field if things were bad, supporting from LaGrange, teleporting in devices and remote mechs if needed, and making sure the Station’s defenses were never compromised if the big organic guns were not in residence, as had been known to happen more than once.
It was also the reason Callie always stayed behind, too. Luring away Primus and Comet meant it was a lot easier to infiltrate the station and deal with those still there, or so a lot of invaders thought. Said invaders also happened to get spaced a lot...