Dave awoke to find himself on a space craft. In fact he was trapped on a
space craft.
"Whoa!" he said, feeling deja vu. He knew exactly where he was. It was the
day the alien invasion and the crystal wave came, juts after the Fringe had
saved Blaquesmith's soul from Mephisto. All in all, a bit of a crisis,
which he hadn't helped by trying to play the hero and travelling to the
mothership to destroy it from within. All he had done was get captured and
stopped other teleporters from rescuing him. At this point in time the wave
was about to hit, or everything had returned to normal. But if things had
returned to normal, then the other him from this time period should be
coming back from the M'Krann Crystal.
He knew that he had been trapped in the other reality created by
Blaquesmith's time warping powers, which had been known as the Age of
X-Wars, where everything had been different and his counterpart had
returned to this reality with him and Dave had been forced to kill him to
prevent it. It was not a memory he enjoyed. However he knew this was the
way it should be, as many people had spoken about events he didn't
remember. When time was restored it had back tracked but for Dave it was if
nothing had happened so he was missing about half a day that the other
X-Warriors knew of. He'd often thought that strange and wondered if
something had happened to him, but after a while he had no longer cared. Jo
was still in C&C, defending it from the attack. He flexed his powers and
was free in a moment.
"I don't get this," he said, "When the hell am I?" He made his way around
the craft until he found a window of some description. Not glass but a
force field. The Earth was below him, and he gathered that this was not the
mothership, which had been behind the moon, out of view of the planet
below. From what he could gather by looking at the sun on the Earth, it was
about mid afternoon in America. His memory wasn't what it was without the
other parts of himself, but from what he thought he remembered it was just
after the wave hit. He hoped. Behind him was a movement, a door opening and
Dave turned and fired a shard of iron from his hand in to the alien, almost
instinctively. His time on the Crimson Shadow had increased the edge he had
always had, and some things could not be forgotten easily. He went through
the door and found himself on some sort of command centre. There were only
two aliens working the controls and Dave dealt with them quickly and
quietly. They had been scanning something and he watched the monitor to see
what it was.
Blaquesmith released White Tiger's hand and gritted his teeth. Everything came down to this moment and he hoped he wouldn't screw up again, or the consequences would be dire. He looked at Crystal one last time, and realised he didn't know how she felt - not any more. He wanted to help her but this was more important and he outstretched his hands, trying to control the wave, forcing it to abate with every inch of his temporal powers. He saw his crime replayed over and over for all to see. With the concentration and shock he forgot to watch his back.
Dave nodded. Between those in the other reality and Blaquesmith's attempts
they had restored everything to normality, but it hadn't happened the first
time around because there had not been another reality to help him. Now
that he understood how things had been restored he wondered why he would
not return until later. Then he saw an exhausted Micah felled by an alien
blast. His friend was under attack.
"The hell with that!" he said and using his powers on the ship he turned
it's guns on the attacking vessel and blew it to atoms. Then he felt a
transporter beam around him as he teleported to the lead alien vessel. He
wondered if the ship he had destroyed was the one blocking teleportation as
he came face to face with one of the strangest creatures he had seen. A
quick glance around told him he was surrounded. Their leader spoke and
Dave's knowledge of languages allowed him to translate.
"We thought we had dealt with this one. Time to fix that." Dave smiled as
he flexed his powers, thinking he'd show them. Except this time there was
nothing.
"Ah, heck," he said as each of the aliens surrounding him levelled their
weapons. The leader looked at Dave and seemed to smile. He raised his arm
and spoke one word.
"Fire."
The alien weapons flared and Dave ducked and weaved, avoiding the blasts.
One clipped his arm, but he pushed past the pain. It was only a matter of
time before he was killed in the crossfire. Of all the ways to go, he
thought cursing his stupidity, this was not one of them. Without his powers
he was no match for these aliens. They seemed to be wearing body armour as
well, which meant that a fight was out of the question. He needed a weapon
but his assailants were not forthcoming.
"Hey," called a voice from above. Dave looked up and saw someone he should
have expected.
"Thank God," he said, as he was passed a weapon.
"No problem," said Dave Goldfish as he jumped down. "Need a hand?"
"Anytime," said Dave and they started firing back at the aliens who were
surprised at the fact that there was a second terran and both of them had
weapons. The distraction was all the two Dave's needed and soon the fight
was over. However the battle was continuing and the war for the Earth was
nowhere near over. "Now what?"
"I have no idea. I wasn't here remember?"
"True. But people thought we were."
"That's a point. Feel up to saving the planet?"
"Just a sec." Dave looked at Dave and concentrated as he had done before
and a spark of cosmic energy flew between them. Both became equals, knowing
what the other did. And the transfer had done something else - restored
their powers.
"Let's whupp ET's ass!" they said together, with a grin. Then they saw that
there were several ships descending planetwards. The invasion had begun.
As the Sun Crusher docked with the alien mothership, Blaquesmith stepped off with his team. "Let's hurry up and take care of this thing and get back before Fever kills us herself for skipping out on her." They all checked their laser pistols. After the alien ship had fired on his attacker, Blaquesmith had been able to pinpoint the location of David Goldfish as he transported up to the mothership.
He looked at the small crew he had been able to gather. Impulse had been nearby in a commandeered alien shuttlecraft and was quick to pick up his allies on top of the mountain where Blaquesmith had tried to hold back the crystalline wave with White Tiger. From there they had been able to dock with the Sun Crusher, which Weeble, Kat, and Psyfire had been using to attack the alien ships. Together they had arrived here to find Dave and blow up the main threat: FX was already readying the Hellicarrier for an all out assault on the city destroyers which were moving into position.
"Split up! Kat and Weeble, Psyfire and Impulse! Watch each others backs and look for Goldfish! We don't have much time!" They ran off in different directions. White Tiger was close behind him. "Are you ready for this?" She nodded quickly, and he fired back over his shoulder at an approaching alien attacker.
He looked at her in the moment that the alien fell. He wondered what would happen in the future. An odd idea coming from him, but he had this unescapable feeling of destiny that was creeping in on him. And it scared him. He pushed the thought aside, concentrating on the mission. Focus was necessary, focus he had honed back into shape with Fever in the training room at his ship after his fall to this Earth. An Earth he had been forced to abandon.
He turned the corner and was batted aside by a long tentacle. He fell backwards, his gun falling from his hand. The aliens rushed Tiger, who started to shift into an attack mode, but was quickly overwhelmed. They dragged her off. "Micah!" Blaquesmith reached for her, trying to telekinetically pull her back to him. He was unsure of her emotions, but he loved her more than life itself. More than the universe he let collapse to save her. They disappeared into the black, and a long tentacle wrapped around her neck and dragged him into the darkness...
The Dave's watched as the alien vessels were shot out of the sky.
"The rest is history," said Dave as he watched. He knew that Impulse and
the others would blow most of the ships out of the sky and those that were
lucky enough to land were quickly dealt with by the legions of X-Warriors.
It was one of the few times where all the teams worked together to
safeguard their way of life.
"If a crisis is all it takes to unite everybody, we should have created one
years ago," said the other Dave.
"Yeah," sighed Dave. "It's too late for that though." Then he thought of
something which he'd forgotten. "Oh damn."
"What?"
"Blaquesmith, Weeble and a few others are going to hit the alien mothership
and rescue us.. me... one of us. Except we're here. The real DG won't
appear for several hours, when Jo finds his body on the surface of the moon
and teleports him back to C&C. But there's already one of us in the Bar and
Grille at the same time."
"The nightmare." After everything had returned to normal, the Goldfish had
a nightmare about being hunted down by the Fringe and being killed. Jo had
contacted the Fringe about helping Dave as his powers were raging out of
control, but they maintained he was in the Bar and Grille. But by that time
the second Dave had gone, leaving a confused Fringe and perplexed Dave, who
had awoken. He had tried to investigate the occurrence but had never found
out what had happened. Now he had at least some indication.
"Exactly. Jo won't reappear on Earth until around the same time as I do,
her teleport being thrown out by the chronal distortion of the wave, so we
have to get over to the mothership before the X-Warriors come as the rescue
party."
"But the ship's on the other side of the moon. We'll never get to it in
time."
"There is a way," said Dave, with caution. "We could teleport"
"No way," said his counterpart. "The last time we tried that we nearly died
and it cost us Sapphire."
"But there are two of us now. Between us we can surely make it. It's risky
but we can do it."
"Or go down in a blaze of glory, irrevocably altering the timestream."
"The way I see it, we don't get a choice. If we don't we irrevocably alter
the timestream anyway. Besides, the odds are in our favour."
"Because it's already happened?"
"Uh huh."
"That is no guarantee. You know the scions of the avatarr have an immunity
to paradox. That's how we remember when time is altered."
"I know. But if you don't help, I'm doing it solo."
"And kill us both? No, I'll help. Nothing else I can do.
"
"I knew you'd see it my way."
"Stop smiling and let's do it." Both Goldfish knelt down and placed their
hands on the cold alien metal that constructed the ship. Using every iota
of their powers, they combined to force the ship and everything in it to
depart form its location to the mother ship. The energy and power needed to
perform such a task was immense and taxed both of them to their limits but
this time they had the energy required to keep the ship from crashing.
"Okay," said Dave as he got to his feet. "I won't be doing that again in a
hurry."
"Me neither. Come one, let's get to the cells. Once history has repeated
itself then we can figure out where we go from there."
"Agreed." They made their way to the cell block with little to no incident,
which was helpful as it gave them chance to get their powers back up to a
useful level. Both of them were exhausted and if they'd been forced to
fight they'd have been killed. The reason for the lack of resistance was
simple - the mothership had been getting ready for departure. The invasion
of Earth had failed and discretion was the better part of valour. Then they
felt the crunch as something docked with them. This was not good and they
sent all their remaining forces to deal with the new threat. The other Dave
secured Dave in with his powers, knowing that Blaquesmith would be here any
moment to rescue him. However, they needed a reason why Dave couldn't
escape. There was only one option - unconsciousness.
"Sorry," said his counterpart and punched Dave in the head, knocking him
cold. There were some advantages to knowing yourself and your weaknesses.
He hid in the shadows and waited. Dave waited for Blaquesmith's arrival. Something wasn't right here and he
wondered what it was he was missing. Think, you fool! he thought and then
it came to him. If he remember his history correctly Blaquesmith had been
abducted right before the eyes of the others.
"Oh, flamin' hell!" he said remembering the rest. Blaquesmith had been
rescued by a mystery X-Warrior. It was himself - Dave Goldfish. That would
mean that a mass paradox was forming. How could Dave be rescued by
Blaquesmith, who then rescues Dave without Micah knowing that something was
wrong. Unless he thought of a damned good explanation. This had to be the
universe testing him, and he had to pass this one first time. "Oh, flamin'
hell!" he said again and went to find his friend. And kick some aliens
senseless in the process.
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