#free worlds league

[delbeefsteak]

First Completed FWA Lance

Singles are below the wall of text

Finally, after lots of relearning and waiting on international shipments, they're done! Got the whole lance ready for the table. I'm not too big on the Free World Alliance, but this paint scheme slaps. I started with drybrush and speed paints to let me focus on the stripes and details. I'm not super happy about that choice, but it still more or less worked out. These guys pushed me pretty hard away from speed paints or even washes. I think I'm going to start glazing and manually edge highlighting from here on out. All that said, I'm still fairly happy. This lance most definitely passes the "from here" test and is completely servicable for a small loaner lance for 5KBV games.

My biggest lessons from this go around were:

If you use speed paints and need to fix something in your base layer it's going to be rough to try and land a 100% match to the surrounding area. Speed paints are faster, but require a different skill set to do well.

Don't thin your paints to much for edge highlighting. They will constantly get ahead of you.

Sometimes telling yourself you won't go back to fix something can help slow you down. I found it helped me decide to chill out and take it easy after the first few mistakes I refused to go back to.

I need to get A LOT better at taking pictures :/

#battletech #miniature painting #table top games #free worlds league #house marik #purple parakeets

[youngpaddock]

Finally got around to painting a UrbanMech for Battletech that I picked up earlier this year. Now to paint the rest of my Mechs.

#mechwarrior #mech #battletech #free worlds league #my art

[voidwerks]

Did a 300pt game of Battletech: Alpha Strike tonight, my Draconis Combine vs my friend's Free Worlds League. The Dragons operating like cavalry threw him off a lot, as he would expect them to go one way but then I'd have them whip around another. At one point two whipped into a corner to catch a Hatchetman trying to flank, and obliterated it with 6/6 successful rolls. Meanwhile, the Panthers gave the Guillotine and Cyclops a small but noteworthy extra punch. Of special note was the Rokurokubi, who not only survived the match with a single hit point left, but headshot a mech two weightclasses above it with a single shot. He has earned much honor for his unit, and will be getting special attention when I paint him.

#battletech #mechwarrior #alpha strike #draconis combine #free worlds league #house kurita #house marik

[nelkcats]

Help is just a click away

Danny was bored, it's not something new, the Infinite Realms were not the epitome of fun and the portals had been closed after the fight he had with his parents. It was safer that way, no one could get hurt, humans or ghosts.

That didn't mean the halfa couldn't miss them: his family, his friends, or the life he had before. All he had left were the ghosts, which was fine, but it wasn't enough. He felt unbalanced, unwell.

Clockwork told him it was because of his obsession, his obsession to help and protect was being fulfilled but only halfway. He had enough ectoplasm to last a lifetime but Danny was a human too, he needed to see the stars, to help people. He needed it desperately.

Clockwork noticed this and seeing that the boy could not return to his original dimension, he gave him permission to travel to the DC universe as long as he was careful. It was unlikely that they would attack the halfa there, they were all "special" and Danny would go unnoticed. But the boy still wanted to help.

So he formed a small business. He created a simple app and granted help to anyone who made a request. From saving a kitten from the trees to transporting very heavy packages.

It worked wonders and lowered his stress levels greatly. Danny thought he could get used to it, until people started making stranger requests and before he knew it, the so-called "Justice League" was at his door. Of course, he escaped, although that probably didn't help sell his innocence.

#dpxdc #immortal danny #he was bored #and missed his dimension too much #and felt incomplete #He missed his dimension too much #even if everything had ended terribly #Clockwork became his guardian #and tried to encourage him as best as possible #but it was obvious that Danny needed to satisfy his human side #so he allowed him to go to the DC dimension as long as he returned to the Realms frequently #Danny started his business almost for free and in a short time he felt better #until he was asked to save the world and stop a couple of military ships #He fulfilled the request without much problem #but apparently it caught the attention of the League #Danny escaped because he didn't want to be found out #Clockwork warned him that he would not let him enter another dimension if he drew attention and put himself in danger #dp x dc #dc x dp #The League is very worried #a supposedly harmless app became popular #simple requests were made most of the time #but someone desperate asked for something much more complicated #and the person in charge of the app managed to fulfill it #Jason wonders if he should ask for the Joker's death #Not all requests are accepted but maybe if he ask insistently

[imperatorrrrr]

#Edmonton Oilers #NHL #Bearhead Sisters #Palestine #Free Palestine #Solidarity Forever #Gaza #this is honestly brave and metal as fuck #one of the most conservative sports leagues in North America in the middle of a hockey game #women of color make the fucking world go round #you best believe it

[goldengirlgalaxy]

The Princess' Dolls

After Danny has ascended to the throne of the ghost king, something goes wrong with his clone Ellie. Her form destabilizes again, and when they stabilize her, she's physically only five or six years old.

Danny takes to watching her, but looking after a half ghost child is a lot harder than it looks, especially when Ellie learns duplication but can't seem to figure out how to undo it for hours on end, and each clone gets bored really fast. To counter this, Danny makes Ellie a set of dolls, all modeled after the Justice League and various related figures. He even uses a special enchantment he learned to make sure the dolls stay intact no matter what Ellie puts them through.

Ellie loves the dolls and she and her clones have a tendency to put together large productions using them, ranging from superhero fights to sitcom stories to fairy tales to a few 'things' Ellie remembered reading online before she was de aged.

Meanwhile, almost every single Justice League member has been noticing some oddities as of late. They can hear voices from no where, they feel like something is touching them when there is nothing, their muscles sometimes spasm without cause. And, on occasion, they find themselves sleepwalking as they dream of a giant telling a story.

No one brings this to the attention of the other members until several members get knocked out on a mission, only for their unconscious forms to start acting out a play.

(Or Danny accidentally makes several Justice League Voodoo dolls and a young Ellie keeps playing with them)

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #danny phantom #dp x dc prompt #dani phantom #de aging #Danny accidentally makes several Justice League Voodoo Dolls #It's up to you if he made the villains as well #The 'things' Ellie found on the internet was mainly shipping fanfics #Superman and Batman woke up in an awkward position when they passed out during that play session #Are they really Voodoo Dolls if they don't completely control the person? #Neither Ellie nor Danny know about the effects of theses dolls #Up to you if the Justice League is real or fiction in their world #Danny usually watches out her little skits when he has free time #Ellie controls multiple dolls with her clones which is why almost every member feels it #The Justice League is freaking out when they realize someone is messing with all of them at the same time #They are rather shocked to discover its just a half dead princess playing with her toys that no one knew were voodoo dolls

[fantastic-nonsense]

society when everyone finally realizes that Barbara Gordon was more connected to the Suicide Squad, JLA, and Birds of Prey than she was to Gotham-based crimefighting for the first 13-15 years of her existence as Oracle

#one day Oracle!Babs will truly come back to me #and I'll be free of the takes that Oracle is just the Batfam's hacker/comms girlie #and that Bruce is her most important connection to the heroing world #barbara gordon #dc comics #suicide squad #justice league #birds of prey

[radiance1]

A random au thought that I barely thunk up before splotching it on here.

So basically, Danny, Sam, and Trucker are doing some bullshit thing and somehow manage to create a whole ass world out of a tabletop game they were playing or something.

Basically DnD I guess.

But anyways, the three create this world so that they can play and do whatever they want. All three of them have legends about themselves from the npc's they's inhabited the world with.

Tucker is the Pharaoh of the night less desert, known as Duulaman. Freeing the citizens from the rule of the Tyrant god Abanoub and brought peace and prosperity to all across the land.

Sam is the Queen of Nature known as Terra, directly on par and sharing interests with Mother Nature. Her legend is that she freed the Forest of Vita and defeated a powerful void entity who sought to use the powers of Gaia to further its own ends for power. Joining forces with Mother Nature who almost fell to its corruption to end the void being once and for all.

Danny, known as Astraeus, unlike the other two, have two different aspects to his legend. Prince of the undead, and the constellation Star Child.

The first one as you should know, is basically Danny being the prince of ghosts, wherein in the world they made the ghosts (and extending too other undead), were disorderly and running rampant among the other races in the continuation of a war that should have longed ended. So, he rounded then all up and took control because the person who was originally supposed to be doing it was... indisposed.

(Cough, real reason is that Pariah Dark somehow got his ghostly hands on the world cords and was like "Hmmm, my son's world is awfully boring time to spice things up" and then shit happened.)

Which in turn, ended the eons long war between ghost kind and the other races.

Constellation Star Child is one he kind of got on accident, his friends made a joke about him being the spawn of death and time itself and being molded from a star. Which the npc's took seriously.

Also doesn't help that he goes out to explore the void and space around their world on numerous occasions to identify any threats that would require his attention (Which is literally just an excuse so he can go and explore space to his hearts content.). And whenever he comes back, it's like a shooting star falling down to earth.

So, after they've done all of their adventures and when it was time for them to just scrap this world and move on. They just, couldn't.

This world grew extremely on them during their time in it (Despite the unexpected inclusion of Pariah Dark), and they just didn't want to destroy it so they just, stayed.

Not like stay stay, more so they come back to it a lot more than they should. Fermenting themselves as these deities or god-like beings who protect and care for their followers or something.

They created a space for the three of them to converse, known simply as the council. A realm sitting on the plane of reality between the world and the void, basically heaven but not really heaven?

Anyways.

So, continuing on with this, the trio splits apart, a feud in reality carrying into their game world that caused Danny to just leave and explore the calmness of the cosmos so he can clear his head.

Sam went to Mother Nature to talk about it and seek aid about the recent crack in three's friendship.

Tucker just went to take care of his kingdom and confide in one of his trusted advisors, much like Sam.

This is when something unexpected happened. Danny never came back to that world, not as if he went back to his reality.

He just never came back.

Something is keeping him from going back, some powerful threat that he's keeping at bay with all of his might while out in the endless nothingness that is the void.

With the absence of his presence, a powerful void creature who managed to slip between the cracks of Danny's notice suddenly sees he's not there anymore for an extended period of time and has its sights on the core of the world, Gaia, and the two goddesses protecting it. Mother Nature and the Queen of Nature.

To distract the one known as the Pharoah, it managed to find what remained of Abanoub and gave him some of its power to combat Duulaman.

Abanoub worked behind the scenes, slowly rising back to his prime state of power and with the added power of the void entity, he managed to corrupt the roots of Duulaman's kingdom and sow discord.

Unfortunately for Abanoub, it couldn't exactly kill Duulaman, so it instead caught him by surprise and put him into eternal slumber.

The void entity who named itself Akasa, just like the previous one. Sought to use Gaia as a power source, but not just the core, but the two goddesses as well.

And with Duulaman and the Star Child of death out of the way, it was free to do so however it wished, though not to say it wasn't extremely careful when it enacted this plan.

Sam didn't know that Tucker was sent into eternal slumber, nor that Danny was never going to come back as soon as she hoped he would. So, when she went to the council and found that she was the only one there, she knew something was wrong.

Mother Nature was attacked while she was on a different plane, with such a coordinated attack on both her and Gaia by Akasa, Abanoub's army, and a recent addition, Chiwa the undead duchess' pawns. She unfortunately fell and became nothing more than power source.

Sam tried, oh she tried. But in the end, after a drawn out battle between her, Akasa, Abanoub, and Chiwa. She fell as well, with the added power Akasa gained from Gaia and Mother Nature, now with the added source of the Queen of nature. He was basically unstoppable.

That didn't mean all hope was lost, with the last bit of her power, she managed to seal all three of them to specific areas.

Abanoub, the Night less Desert. More specifically Tucker's throne.

Akasa, the realm between the world and the void. The council.

Chiwa, the blood lake of the eternal lady.

Their forces were still at large however, with the ghosts under Chiwa's command wishing to continue the war from eons ago. Abanoub's armies spreading across the world to take over their various kingdoms and be forced under his rule.

All two wished to free their master's, who in turn promised to free Akasa when they were free as well.

The rest of the races didn't take this laying down at all, immediately going to war and managing to hold their ground relatively well.

Both sides were at a standstill, with Abanoub, Chiwa and Akasa sealed they lost a signifcant portion of power.

Whereas with the Star Child gone, the Queen of Nature captured, and the Pharaoh of the Night less Desert sleeping, they couldn't push forward no matter how hard they tried.

So, what did they do?

They came together and summoned people from another world of course!

And who did they summon?

The Justice League.

#dp x dc #sam manson #tucker foley #ghost prince danny #mostly a background thing #Pariah Dark #briefly mentioned but he's there #the Justice League get summoned to help a world currently at war #take the ramblings of a drunk man #(I don't actually drink so hahefhae) #I may be cringe but I am free #Had this in my mind for a split second and it just snowballed from their lol

[delbeefsteak]

Got that King Crab done as much as I can without decals. Those are holding me up since I have to clear coat for the decal BEFORE I base it. I don't like House Marik, but I am loving this paint scheme.

Here's to getting this year started on a better foot!

I accidently gave this guy goofy eyes when I forgot that I already put the lens glare dot on the other side. WHOOPS!

#miniature painting #table top games #battletech #king crab #house marik #free worlds league #purple parakeets

[mitskifan3]

the league going roller skating!! -

matthew

sucks

literally needs a trolley

lucas

decent

gets anxiety when he sees somebody fall because he thinks he’ll run over there fingers or something

todd -

literally just eats the whole time he does not bother

roxie

eats it up!!

has a rhythm w gideon sometimes !!

kyle

slayed. ate DOWN.

can go backwards :3

ken -

also ate down

but cannot go backwards whatsoever

gideon

literally the best out of the group

will eat up the skating rink

has once made besties with some other really good skater

#roller skating #the league of evil exes #scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #scott pilgrim takes off #gideon graves #ken katayanagi #lucas lee #todd ingram #matthew patel #roxie ritcher #kyle katayanagi #btw feel free to add on :3

[voidwerks]

Had my first game of Battletech: Alpha Strike tonight, and the sibko cadets of Epsilon Galaxy performed admirably against a reinforced lance of Marik freebirths. Despite being at a weight disadvantage, my mech's better firepower and positioning allowed me to score much needed hits in the early game to wound the Locust and Shadow Hawk and finish them off in short order. Despite blistering firepower, the Fire Falcon didn't accomplish much through the match, having missed most of its shots. The MVPs were definitely the Kit Fox and Cougar, even though the Cougar was eventually finished off by a shot in the back from the dishonorable Phoenix Hawk pilot. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I look forward to more matches in the future.

#battletech #mechwarrior #clan jade falcon #free worlds league #house marik

[medusamagic]

So you want to know more about Big Barda

As Tumblr's resident expert on all things Barda, and as Kelly Thompson's Birds of Prey run brings far more attention to the character, I figured it was high time someone stepped in and gave the tumblr world a primer on DC's biggest and boldest heroine.

The Basics:

Introduced in Mister Miracle #4 by Jack Kirby, Big Barda was once the leader of Apokolips' premier death squad, the Female Furies. Trained from birth for a life of violence by Granny Goodness, Barda spent the first 250 years of her life as a living weapon. This all changed when she met Scott Free, a gentle Parademon-in-training with a mysterious past and a knack for escapes. Eventually, she and Scott both escaped to Earth, where they fell in love with both the Earth and each other. She's a lover, she's a fighter, she's a Pokémon card expert, but most of all, SHE BIG.

Barda's signature defining attribute is her raw strength. Her raw muscle allows her to keep up with heavy hitters like Wonder Woman. This isn't to suggest that she's a simple-minded brute, however-- Barda has centuries of military experience under her belt as leader of the Female Furies. She's mastered multiple weapons, including spears, swords, and her signature Mega-Rod.

Below are some reading recommendations for anyone interested in Big Barda:

Essential Runs:

Mister Miracle Vol. 1 #4-18 by Jack Kirby (1971-1974)

This was the run that introduced the world to Big Barda, as well as the Female Furies. If you want to know the basics of Barda, there's no better place to start. This run is collected in a trade, as well as a part in The Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1.

(NOTE: Even though Barda doesn't appear until issue #4, I suggest you start with Issue #1. It'll help you get acquainted with the rest of the mythos.)

Justice League International #14-24 by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis (1988-1989)

Big Barda was on the JLI! She plays off the other characters as well as ever, and a lot of what's great about her in Jack Kirby's original run is still here! Definitely check this one out if you want to see her in another team setting. This has been collected in this omnibus.

(NOTE: Once again, I recommend you start from issue #1.)

Popular Runs:

Mister Miracle Vol. 4 #1-12 by Tom King and Mitch Gerads (2017-2018)

Yeah, I know.

Listen, Tom King is a writer with... idiosyncrasies to put it nicely. The characters in the periphery of his stories tend to act really out of character, and his dialogue can be clunky at times. That being said, The Scott/Barda dynamic in this book is excellent, and this book has some of the best art that the Fourth World has seen since the 80s. The series has been collected in a trade.

(NOTE: Did you know that the CIA has over 2003 files on Tom King? Look up "Tom King CIA 2003" for more info!)

Mister Miracle: The Great Escape by Varian Johnson and Daniel Isles (2022)

If you're at all interested in the idea of a Young Adult reimagining of Mister Miracle and Big Barda's origin story with an all-black cast, this book was made for you. It's a bit heavy on the YA tropes, but the Scott/Barda dynamic is really solid. It was released as a standalone graphic novel.

Birds of Prey Vol. 5 #1-??? by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero (2023-)

Admit it, this is the reason you're here. The Cassandra Cain & Big Barda is so instantly iconic, I'm surprised no writer has paired them up sooner. It also helps that this book has the single best Barda look since Jack Kirby's original run. Plus, she gets to throw down with Wonder Woman! What's not to love? This run is still ongoing, but the first 6 issues should be getting a trade pretty soon.

(NOTE: I started writing this before BOP #8 dropped, I had no idea about that thing that happens in the newest issue.)

Stories to Avoid:

Action Comics #592-593 by John Byrne (1987)

This is not a comic book-- it's an infohazard designed to cause pain and suffering to anyone who knows of its existence. Its premise is vile and disrespectful on the surface, and it becomes more insidious when you learn the context of its creation. This pair of issues is profoundly evil, rivaling even Avengers #200 in terms of loathsomeness.

For those who dare to investigate this, Content Warnings for rape, mind control, and human trafficking.

Anyway, let's end on something a bit lighter, shall we?

Remember that Mister Miracle YA graphic novel I mentioned earlier? Barda is getting a graphic novel of her own this summer! It's not out at the time of writing, but the preview pages look promising!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that introduction to one of my favorite superheroes ever. Please get back to me on this, I have no one else to talk to about Fourth World stuff.

#big barda #barda free #dc comics #mister miracle #scott free #fourth world #new gods #justice league international #jli #birds of prey #jack kirby #keith giffen #j. m. dematteis #varian johnson #daniel isles #kelly thompson #leonardo romero #small bat #black bat #cassandra cain #wonder woman #diana prince #diana of themyscira

[l0verseyes]

You are challenged by Ace Trainer Kayn! 🔽

#league of legends #pokemon #kayn #absol #bisharp #krookodile #this has been a wip for so long... be free........... #im honestly still wondering how rhaast would manifest in the pkmn world... i def took him into mind when thinking of pkmn for kayn #krookodile is mainly for rhaast (ground/dark) while absol is mainly for kayn (dark) #bisharp is for both of them (steel/dark) #i rlly like the pawniard line LOL #i think the shadows mechanic is mostly reserved for ghost types but dark type pkmn fit kayn more i think #also absol is def kayn's partner pkmn. i like to think they met at the epool river :) #draws

[wacomart]

Barda demands smooches.

#artists on tumblr #procreate #dc comics #justice league #jack kirby #new gods #fourth world #mister miracle #scott free #big barda

[muiromem]

Just... repeatedly rotating An Idea around in my head

(and yes it's still Tom/Harry/B'Elanna OT3 because I'm obsessed with them, but I also love Janeway's and Tom's weird friendship)

Basically, something Big and Insane and Sci-Fi happens, and somehow all of the known universe in time/space is just sort of.... gone. Or dying, or being destroyed. Stars are going out, everything is vanishing out of existence. Planets, galaxies, creatures and anomalies and time/space itself - all completely gone.

Of course, Voyager is in the eye of the storm (so to speak) of this catastrophe that happened around them, and therefore one of the few things that remains for now (much like Kirk and the crew still existed after McCoy accidentally changed the timeline in "The City on the Edge of Forever"). Obviously, they're trying to stop it - to fix whatever this catastrophe was that could unmake all of existence.

With the wonders of Science-Fiction, there is a theoretical way to fix things; a jump-start essentially, to reset everything to what it was before this catastrophe and repair the wound it created. But even with this theoretical plan, there's something missing: a blueprint, of sorts. If they set off this insane spatial-temporal reaction, everything would be reset, but there's no telling what state the universe would actually be in after it was done. It would be like setting off a Genesis device on a war-destroyed Earth and hoping it would magically return everything and everyone to how they once were. There was nothing to guide this theoretical process of rebirth - and literally everything was at stake.

Even the great minds of Tuvok, Seven, B'Elanna and everyone else are at a loss for what to do. Unless they had someone like Q, omnipotent as he was, how could they feed something into this reaction of theirs to tell it what to do? How could they ever have enough information to rebuild all of existence from scratch?

It's Tom, of all people, who comes up with the answer: let him go.

At first everyone just sort of looks at him like he's insane because, what? What could he possibly be talking about? But even though he can't really remember, Tom still has a theory: the Warp 10 flight.

For a brief time, he was literally everywhere in time and space, all at once. Existing throughout all of existence simultaneously. Could his body, his unconscious mind, have somehow remembered that time? Could it have imprinted something onto him? Perhaps his very cells? He figures if there was a chance, even a small one, that his theory was correct - they had to take it. Because if he was right, then technically he was a living, breathing blue-print of all the known and unknown universe... and their only chance at saving everything.

That's when the riot starts, a great uproar of arguments. Facts and theoretical probabilities from Seven and Tuvok, horror and concern from Harry, even more from B'Elanna and the Doctor. They're startled, angry, because even if that were true the process would almost certainly kill him. And then there's Janeway, putting a stop to all the noise with a hand and saying that if there was a chance this theory would work, if the Doctor or someone could find even a speck of evidence to support it, then she would do it. Because even if everyone else forgot, she'd passed the transwarp threshold too.

Tom tries to argue, Chakotay and the Doctor too, but Janeway insists. She sends Tom to be looked over by everyone for proof of his concept, but says that if the time comes, she'll be the one to do it. As Captain, it's her job to keep everyone safe, no matter what. No one can argue, but no one is happy. Even this one chance at survival feels like it will come at too great a cost.

Time passes, with everyone rushing to do what they can before Voyager is also consumed by the nothingness. But eventually the verdict comes - Tom's idea has merit. His very atoms are somehow encoded with cross-temporal chronotrons and other signs that the theory may work. Once he knows what to look for, the Doctor scans Janeway and sees that she has these markers too, though hers are... fainter, for lack of a better term. She theorizes that it's because she only went through the Warp 10 process once, while Tom did it twice. The Doctor admits that there is a possibility Tom's the better candidate for this mission, only because he has a stronger "imprint" so to speak. Janeway still insists, refusing to send one of her officers to die in her place.

When everyone finally gets this complex and theoretical "reset" device figured out and constructed in one of the cargo bays, Tom begs to come with Janeway. He says that after everything she's done for him, he wants to see her off one last time. She relents, and once B'Elanna has started the reaction up from the safety of Engineering, shining beyond the doors like an imploding star, the two make their way there.

The entire deck has been cordoned off to keep chroniton and other radiations from killing the crew before they can set this whole thing in motion. It's just the two of them there. Tom takes a moment - as the doors open and they're both hit with a wave of heat, energy, and the unknown - and he thanks Janeway properly. For giving him a second chance, for believing in him, and for everything that followed after; like meeting Harry and B'Elanna, and finding a home aboard Voyager. Then he says "get them home" and before Janeway can realize what's happening, briefly thrown by his intense sincerity, he's shoving her aside - hitting the mechanism to shut the cargo bay doors. Inside, Tom grabs some tool and smashes the console so the door won't open without a manual override. That would probably buy him enough time.

Inside the cargo bay, it's like being trapped with the birth of a star; plasma, light, and colors all swirling in strings and shapes and a great sphere of something. There's no special switch for Tom to flip, no complicated sequence he has to follow. The best Voyager's brightest minds could figure out was for him to simply... walk into the singularity and hope for the best. He thinks of his family on Voyager, he thinks of his father and so many things unsaid, he thinks of B'Elanna and Harry and hopes that they'll still take care of each other when he's gone. And to keep them safe, to preserve everything that ever was or ever would be.... he walks into the fires of rebirth.

Outside the cargo bay, Janeway is screaming - trying to get in, to override the doors. She gets them open, only in time to see a tall silhouette disappearing - almost disassembled before her eyes, like dust being scattered away on the wind. Then there's just light - so bright it feels like it somehow pierces through her skin and bones and the very atoms of her being. Then.......

She wakes up. There's no telling how long it's been; all Janeway knows is that she's on the cargo bay floor, ears still faintly ringing, and Chakotay is gently helping her sit up. All around her it's... quiet. The cargo bay looks untouched - no crumpled bulkheads, no scorch marks, nothing. Even the vast, cobbled together machinery for the reset is simple gone. Once her head finally clears, Chakotay asks if she's alright, if her plan worked - but Harry's comm. from the bridge interrupts the question. Excitedly, Harry announces with great relief that the nothingness, the catastrophe, seems to be gone. His scans, Voyager's databanks - everything seems to be showing up normal. As far as they can tell, the universe was back to how it should be.

Back, except for one thing: Tom Paris.

As far as Janeway can see, Tom isn't in the cargo bay. She asks the computer to locate him; the reply is that Lieutenant Paris is no longer aboard. This is announced just as B'Elanna is running in through the cargo bay door, no doubt to see the result of all her hard work. She comes to a halt, looking at Janeway - staring because she wasn't supposed to be here, she was supposed to... After only a fraction of a moment, the computer's announcement finally registers and suddenly B'Elanna is running at Janeway with fists flying, screaming about how could she let him do this? Where is he, dammit, where the hell is Tom?!

She gets a few good hits to Janeway's chest and shoulders before Chakotay holds her back, and Janeway just lets her do it. Because this is her fault - she should have known Tom would try to pull that stunt with the doors, should never have let him come to see her off. She barely registers that B'Elanna's fury soon devolves into angry, choked back tears which Chakotay tries to soothe. When Harry arrives soon after and sees her expression, probably sees Janeway's too, it's all too easy for him to put two and two together. He and B'Elanna end up clinging to each other in their grief. Though Chakotay comes to Janeway to try and comfort her too, to reassure her that she's not responsible, all she can do is look at the cargo bay and see the silhouette where Tom last was - lost now to the ether of the universe.

The next few days are... hard. Harry might as well have aged a decade, and instead of the righteous fury that Janeway had expected, B'Elanna's just gone quiet. When Janeway stops by Sickbay, even the Doctor has become subdued, staring wistfully into the distance at nothing when he'd normally be working on some experiment or other. She still asks him, and Seven, and anyone who might be of use, if there was anything that could be done. But as far as anyone can tell, Tom Paris is gone - he'd sacrificed himself to save everyone else.

But Janeway feels like something is still wrong, like Tom's ghost is... haunting her somehow. It's a figure of speech when she admits it to a concerned Chakotay, but one night, she startles awake from a dreamless sleep, and there he is - standing in her quarters. Tom looks confused, exhausted, and he's... well she can see right through him. He looks at her, seemingly just as startled as she is, and she swears she hears him whisper "Captain?" But then suddenly he's convulsing, curling in on himself with a cry of pain and Janeway is horrified as she watches him.... unmade. It's like he's nowhere and everywhere, born and dying, unraveled but stitched together all at the same time until he's once again vanished into nothingness.

Janeway's heart is racing and she doesn't understand what she just witnessed. A dream? Hallucination? Some alien interference? She goes to the Doctor at 0400 and demands he scan her for a virus, temporal misalignment, anything. She's terrified that this was nothing more than the aftermath of radiation from being so near their "universal reset" as it went off. But there's also a tiny sliver of the smallest, most fragile hope, that this is something else - that there's a chance Tom isn't really.

The Doctor does find something, a strange resonance of sorts, connected - or perhaps coming from - Janeway. He theorizes that it's an effect of being so close to the singularity during the reset. As far as he can tell, she's not suffering from radiation damage, but believes that her guilt over Tom must have caused the hallucination. He offers to devise a treatment, and Janeway begrudgingly agrees. For him to say that what she'd seen was a hallucination though... it felt wrong somehow.

For the next few days, she hardly sleeps, too busy pouring over anything she can find - old Federation logs, complex theories, and all the research and schematics for the device they'd created. All in the slim hope to understand what had actually happened to Tom. Was he simply dead? He couldn't have been wiped from existence or surely, no one would have even known he'd existed. But had he been scattered throughout existence itself, a fundamental building block of the universe now? Seven helps her eventually, though it takes a good deal of persuasion. Chakotay and even Tuvok (though he'd never admit it) become increasingly concerned that she's grasping at straws, just trying to absolve herself of the guilt she feels because Tom took her place - but she knows it's more than that.

And eventually, she's proven right. The so-called hallucination happens again - but this time she's not the only one there. Seven and the Doctor were working with her on some experimental simulations on the holodeck when there's suddenly a terrible noise; something between electro-static and the wails of a dying creature. The holo-grid starts sparking, a console blowing out completely, until suddenly they all watch Tom Paris form out of nothingness before them. Whatever process was involved in his... reassembly, is obviously painful. Just watching the strange tangle of unidentifiable mass contort itself until it could become Tom was sickening. And when he finally takes form, still only semi-opaque, he collapses to his knees, shaking.

Janeway runs to him immediately, unsure what to do but calling his name. Here's there, he's there - it wasn't just in her head. The Doctor and Seven follow shortly, taking tricorder scans in shocked fascination. They ask questions, trying to understand what happened, but Tom doesn't know any more than they do. He says it's like he's everywhere but nowhere - and yet something keeps pulling him back into reality, back onto Voyager. He thought he would die, had come to terms with it, and yet he's still coming back. Even if he'd been completely tangible he looks awful, like he's dying every minute he's there. Janeway tries to reassure him that they'll find him, that they won't just give up, and that manages to make Tom smile. He says knows she won't give up on him - but as he starts to shift out of phase again, face clenched with pain, he asks her to promise him something. Janeway doesn't want to, knows she won't like what he has to say, but she nods anyways. "If you have to - let me go," is what he pleads. "Don't risk Voyager or anyone else for me. Just promise me that."

Janeway can't even form a reply, doesn't know how to let go, how to admit defeat. She's never given up on a crewman before, how could she possibly now? Out of habit she reaches out to touch Tom's shoulder - and even as he's fritzing, starting to disintegrate before her very eyes, she is surprised to make contact. The sounds of tricorders going haywire are behind her, but all Janeway can focus on is the fact that despite Tom literally unraveling in her hands, for a moment, just one moment, she could feel him. Then he's gone.

Everything is different this time - there was proof now, witnesses. B'Elanna and Harry are no longer withdrawn, instead racing full-steam ahead to do anything they can to help. They ask her about Tom of course, about how he's looking, and whether or not she thinks that they can save him. Janeway doesn't know what to say, how to tell them that Tom's clearly in pain and that she has no idea what even happened, let alone how to fix it....

Unfortunately, she doesn't have to. During some experimentation, Tom reappears again - much more violently this time, just when Harry and B'Elanna are present. The very air around them seems to crackle with energy, the temperature changing from too hot, then too cold, and back again. The atmospheric readings are going haywire and when Tom reappears, somehow less corporeal than before, he crumples to the ground in a heap. Harry is openly crying as they run to him, begging him to open his eyes - but when he and B'Elanna try to touch Tom, somehow their hands go right through.

Janeway is completely flummoxed. She'd touched Tom before, she knows she did. But it seemed he was becoming less and less stable each time he returned to a corporeal form - perhaps that explained the change? As the Doctor and Seven are once again running complex scans, Janeway goes to Tom's side and slowly reaches out a hand. As it lands on his shoulder, as Tom tries to sit up, she does make contact. The tricorders instantly go haywire, and Harry and B'Elanna wonder in despair - Why now? Why her? Why can't they touch him? But all Janeway can think is that this is progress. It must mean something, especially since Tom he seems to regain consciousness as she maintains contact, becoming a bit less transparent - a bit more real. When Tom sees Harry and B'Elanna this time, his eyes begin to water too - and Janeway wonders how tears could form in whatever state of flux Tom has become entwined with. But when she removes her hand to give them some space, to ask Tom if he's alright, he starts to fade once more.

This time Tom tries to reach out, to touch Harry and B'Elanna - but is just as unable to make real contact. Instead he tells them he loves them, begs them to take care of each other, to let him go - and it's painful to watch as he's once again gripped by whatever agony has been tearing him into reality and back. Hoping it might do something, Janeway grabs Tom's hand and this time she makes a promise she's going to keep: to bring him home dammit, no matter how long it takes. Just her hold on him seems to stabilize him a bit, taking the floating sands of his dissolving form and pulling them together for just a moment longer... but then the temperature goes haywire, energy crackles around them and Tom is gone once more. With him goes every sound as even the beeping of tricorder scans finally cease. In the silence, Janeway can barely seem to breathe and knows that Harry and B'Elanna must feel infinitely worse. Even more terrifying, each time Tom appears, he seems to be getting weaker, losing whatever cohesion he's managed to retain. She has no real basis to understand anything that's been happening, but Janeway has the sinking feeling that if they don't do something soon, Tom will be lost to them for good.

But then the Doctor clears his throat and holds up his tricorder, and suddenly hope floods back. "I believe I know what's happening to Mister Paris," he says, with not an ounce of boastfulness for once. Instead, the Doctor is as grim-faced as the rest of them, but holographic eyes no longer seem so empty. "And I think there's a chance we can fix it."

The process is... complex. Even for a mind as scientifically adept as Janeway's. The only important part is that Janeway wasn't just imagining that there was something connecting her to Tom. In reality, it was the other way around. Tom wasn't just being pulled back to Voyager - he was specifically being pulled back to her. It was all down to the the second transwarp flight, which they'd taken together. Crossing the barrier had created a sort of tether between them - a connection point across the vastness of reality. When Tom had entered the singularity to "reset" all of existence, in a manner of speaking his very existence was used to rebuild what had been lost. The price for this was Tom himself - every atom and molecule destroyed like the fuel necessary to keep a fire burning. But Tom and Janeway had gone to Warp 10 once together - existing everywhere in time and space at the same time. Because of that, a part of Tom still existed in Janeway, safe from the "reset" aboard Voyager within the eye of the storm. Janeway had unknowingly become a sort of temporal anchor, pulling Tom back into existence where he belonged.

At the moment though, he was trapped - pulled between reality and the strange purgatory of nonexistence. But with the magic of incredibly complex Science-Fiction and Technobabble, the crew essentially find a way to use Janeway's own Warp 10 resonance as both a magnet and a waypoint - to pull Tom back, and then reintegrate him into their time and space with the help of B'Elanna's ingenuity and a lot of Borg-enhanced technology. Harry describes is as being "like a temporal transporter" and that's already enough to give Janeway a headache, so she doesn't try to ask for details. The main idea boils down to grabbing onto what's left of Tom's "pattern" of existence, which has been imprinted onto Janeway, and using their newly constructed technology to "rematerialize" him back into reality.

Once they've found the method a jurry-rigged some machinery, the Doctor is standing by, both for Tom and for Janeway should anything happen. The others are farther off, manning the various machines while Chakotay and Tuvok have evacuated various decks in case of any explosions. The risks are immense, and this time Janeway had actually assembled the crew - asking them if they thought it was worth it. They'd potentially be putting the ship and everyone onboard it in danger, in a last-ditch attempt to bring one lost crewman home. It had warmed her heart when not a single person balked at the danger; Tom Paris saved them, their homes, their families and futures. Why shouldn't they try to save him too?

When the process happens, Janeway feels a sense of déjà vu; the light, the swirling mass of indecipherable colors and shapes and feelings, all cascading before her. This time she's strapped up with various bits of technology, hoping against hope to become the lighthouse that guide's Tom's way. In the very same cargo bay, bulkheads rattle and crumple this time, machines start screaming their warnings, and Janeway can feel the heat and pain and dizziness as radiation tries to eat away at her. But she can't stop yet, she won't stop. Even as the Doctor is yelling that the radiation levels are reaching critical, even as she hears Harry calling out that there's a new singularity opening and it's becoming completely unstable, Janeway sees it - a silhouette. It's only just forming, scattering in and out like a dance of lightning and sand, but it's there.

This time she won't be thrown through a cargo bay door and left to rebuild in the aftermath. This time she listens to her gut, and runs forward. She'd been the only one able to hold onto to Tom before because of whatever this bio-temporal tether was that had connected them - she sure as hell wasn't going to let him go now.

So she runs and sees an outstretched hand, breaking and reforming and scattering like light through a prism, everywhere and nowhere all at once. She ignores the pain and the feeling like she herself might be consumed by the fires of the unknown.

Kathryn Janeway takes a leap of faith, she grabs that outstretched hand, and for the sake of every person on her ship, she pulls.

Watching from afar, all the others see is a gigantic explosion of light and colors and sound. The cargo bay had been nearly cleared out before this process, but every piece of newly-made machinery has been completely destroyed. Bits and pieces scatter the floor, bulkheads have been wrenched open, sparks are flying, and Harry and B'Elanna find their ears ringing as they choke on smoke. They'd erected a level 10 forcefield for protection before starting the procedure, but in the aftermath it's been completely torn away. Even as the environmental controls kick in and start clearing out the haze, they look up from where they'd been thrown to see a massive scorch mark, spread out like a starburst across the cargo bay deck.

At it's center, they see.... something. Dizzy, confused, and still trying to see through ash and debris, initially they can't make it out. Even the Doctor is nowhere to be found, his emitter lying on the floor. It's fritzing but, after a brief inspection, seems repairable. Whatever happened must have shorted out many different systems, as Harry's attempt to use his combadge goes unanswered. He and B'Elanna make their way instead towards the center of the scorched cargo bay floor and behold... Captain Janeway.

She's covered in ash, with burns on her skin and uniform, and as they watch she kneels to the floor. There's something in her hands and after a moment it becomes clear; she's draping an emergency blanket over a long, familiar form. One with a head of messy, tawny blonde hair.

Harry and B'Elanna are running then, falling to their knees as they reach Janeway's side and behold Tom Paris - naked save for the blanket Janeway has brought to preserve his modesty. He's overly pale and clearly unconscious, but he's there, he's alive.

Harry cradles Tom to his chest, rocking him gently and bawling like a baby. B'Elanna runs her hand over Tom's hair, his face, his bare shoulders - anything she can seem to reach. They don't even know if he's fine really, but at least he's breathing. They didn't blow up the ship and they didn't have to lose him. Janeway looks exhausted and it's obvious her burns are painful, but she just stars at her three crewman, clutching onto each other with such love, and she smiles.

It feels like she sits there for an eternity, just watching them, basking in their reunion and the knowledge that they did it. In reality, it must only be a few minutes before the cargo bay doors are being forced open and Chakotay, Tuvok, and Neelix come through, bringing medical supplies and asking if everyone is alright.

By then, Harry is finally wiping his eyes and asking B'Elanna if she can get the Doctor back online because they're probably going to need him. For once, she looks reluctant to work, clearly wanting to stay there with him and Tom. In the end she agrees, but not before pressing a kiss to Harry's knuckles and Tom's forehead before taking the holo-emitter and leaving.

Afterwards it's all a long process of scanning, repairing, and treating everyone's wounds. Janeway tries to shoo Chakotay away once they bring her to sickbay, far too worried about Tom's condition, but he pulls out the big guns. Chakotay knows that she can't say no to Neelix when he gives her those big concerned eyes and tells her that "the crew needs their Captain to be taken care of too". So she ends up lying on a bio-bed for half an hour while the Talaxian carefully treats her burns and radiation poisoning as best he can. Unsurprisingly, B'Elanna gets the Doctor's program and holo-emitter working in record-breaking time, and they're all relieved when he checks over Tom and the prognosis is good; Tom's exhausted, dehydrated, and a bit worse for wear, but he'll be fully recovered in no time. Whatever madness they'd pulled of had worked.

Eventually, he wakes up, still very weak but every bit the Tom Paris they know and love. When he sees how distressed both Harry and B'Elanna are, he even jokes that they put an awful lot of effort in "just for him". B'Elanna looks like she wants to punch him for it, but instead throws her arms around him in a hug, and the three of them share a teary, heartfelt reunion. When the lovebirds have to split off so everyone can get some rest, and once the Doctor has given her a clean bill of health, Janeway goes over to Tom's biobed to see how he's doing.

He's obviously tired but he smiles up at her. However, the first thing she tells him is that she should court-martial him and throw him in the brig for the stunt he pulled in the cargo bay by taking her place. For a moment, Tom nearly believes her. But then Janeway smiles back and pats his hand with hers and says that he may be a reckless idiot, but she's proud to say he's one of her bravest officers. She also sincerely thanks him for what he did, to which Tom replies that she risked everything to get him back, so that probably that makes them even. Janeway doesn't bother trying to make him promise never to do something that risky again, since she knows he'd only break the promise anyways if the circumstances required it. Instead, she says that if he's going to continue doing insane, reckless stunts for the good of her ship, then she'll just have to keep doing insane reckless things to keep his sorry ass alive. She receives the patented "yes ma'am" for her troubles, and Tom says that after all, he learned from the best.

The last thing she does before telling him to get some rest though, is tease him - threatening that, even if she understands why he did it, if he ever tries that switcheroo he pulled with her again, she'll have to tell the gossip mill about all the places she hadn't realized he has freckles.

Janeway can see by his slowly-dawning expression that Tom does recall something about emerging from the nothingness, naked on the cargo bay floor. The last thing she hears as she walks, grinning, away from Sickbay is a sputtered yell of "You wouldn't actually... Captain? CAPTAIN!" before the automatic doors swish shut.

#star trek #voy #tom paris #kathryn janeway #harry kim #b'elanna torres #voy ot3 #voyager #fic ideas #this is what happens when I watch other cool sci-fi stuff #it gives me Ideas that are WAY out of my league #I'll never have the mental capacity to properly write this #especially since I have no idea how to do technobabble #but it can't just Live In My Head Rent Free #so I finally wrote out the concept #and decided to release it to the world #of course as usual it somehow involves Threshold #but there's just so much untapped potential for fic!!! #what with the whole “existing in all of time and space at once” #the writers just GLOSSED OVER that bit but like COME ON #anyways here's nearly 5k words of not-quite-a-fanfic

[helenabertinell1]

#thank you to my buddy’s for this #comics #dc #dc comics #jli #justice league international #big barda #scott free #mister miracle #fourth world #new gods