Welcome to the Omniverse, Claire Ferguson

[Blink]

"Did you have to hit her so hard?"

"Probably not. She had it coming, though."

"Still...we're trying to ask for her to help, not break her neck."

"She'll be fine. Call it a lesson learned."

"For who?"

"Her."

"She's awake."

The last choice that Blink heard was unfamiliar. Her head stirred a bit as she started to regain consciousness. The first two voices were easy to identify. One was Rufus, the big, bald guy that she had fought in the alley earlier that day. The second voice was the black girl that had kicked her outside of the Luna Moore Inn; Blink didn't know her name, but she did know that she did not like that woman. The last voice was deeper, almost like a growl. When her green eyes opened, she could see that third person was staring at her, which is how he knew she was awake.

She blinked her eyes a couple more times as she tries to get the haze out of her head. The first thing she felt was a powerful throbbing on her forehead where she had been struck. She flicked her pupils back and forth across the room to figure out where she was. It was a large room, but it seemed to be pretty run-down and dimly lit. The painting on the walls were dark blue, but seemed to be chipped and peeling off from age. Most of the lights above her were out, leaving only little pieces of the room illuminated. Rufus was located near the only door, leaning up against the frame. He had a trench-coat on, which made him look less intimidating then the wife beater he was wearing earlier. The dark-toned woman with the obnoxious afro was sitting on a dusty table up against a wall. She had on a brown vest, shirt and pants that made her look like a hipster. Finally, Blink looked at the third person in the room - he was sitting right in front of her, examining her as she woke up. He was bald, just like Rufus, but was much skinnier and had his face covered with tattoos. He reminded Blink of a teleporter she had dealt with in her original universe.

Blink tried to move forward to stand, but she felt her limbs restrained. Her ankles were secured tightly to the chair she was sitting in. Her wrists were handcuffed to the rests, so she could at least move them, but not very far. When she looked up in surprise, she could see the three onlookers tense, as if waiting for her to do something. "What the hell is this?" She asked, accusingly, "Are you kidding me? I've been in this city for like five hours and I'm already kidnapped?"

"I told you," Rufus said from the doorway. "I just wanted you to meet the boss."

"This isn't what I could call a great welcoming committee," Blink spat back. "Fighting me in an alley, then grabbing me on the street? Not a good first impression."

"It's important," is all Rufus said in response.

Blink squinted to show her anger. The glare went right past the man with the face tattoos and right into Rufus' bearded face. "I don't care how important it is. You are going to let me out of this chair right now if you want me to listen to one damn word you have to say." Her gaze shifted from Rufus to the man in front of her. "You hear me? Let me out of this damn chair!" Her fingertips began to glow as she prepared to unleash some of her energy. Annoyingly enough, the man with ink on his face did not move. He just smirked at her. "Fine!" She screamed, obviously frustrated. "You think a stupid chair is gonna hold me? Think aga-aaaaagh!"

Both Rufus and the dark chick tensed again as Blink lit up in glowing pink energy. Even the stranger in front of her seemed to react as she tries to teleport. But the chair was bolted down tightly to the ground. When her portal shifted around her, the chair being stuck to the deck made it impossible to move it, causing her her whole body to convulse. It felt she had tried to yank a semi-truck through a small hole and threw her back out. She let out another scream as she released the energy, collapsing back into the chair, panting. That didn't work. She looked up, her chest heaving as she tried to recover her breath.

The skinny guy stood up. He was taller then Blink expected, and she could now see a weapon holstered at his belt: a machete inside a brown leather sheath. "I know that you're mad," he said calmly. "...But all of this is just for a chance to talk to you. That's all I want to do." Blink glared up at him, squinting her emerald eyes again. "If I let you out of that chair, can I count on you to please just hear me out?"

"You sure that's a good idea?" The afro-girl asked. She moved to stand in front of the table she was perched on.

Blink watched as the man in charge brought his hand down to the handcuff around her left wrist. He had a key between his index finger and thumb. He ignored the black woman behind him. "Well? Can I trust you?"

Her eyes flickered between the man in front of her and the bearded muscle-man at the door. Rufus nodded his head to her, as if he was signaling her that it was okay. Despite her short, violent history with the man, his reassurance of her situation made her feel better. He felt sincere compared to the other people in the room. She looked up at the man questioning her and nodded her pink head. "Yes."

"Good," he said, smiling. He clicked the key into her cuff and then unlocked it. He moved to her right wrist and un-did that one, too. He seemed tense as he waited to see if she reacted, but she didn't. She just rubbed her wrists and watched what he did. Once he was satisfied she wasn't going to attack him, he moved down and unwrapped the tight bungee cords around her ankles. He backed up away from her, giving her room to breath. She thought about running - it wouldn't be terribly hard to port to the door, dispatch Rufus and run for it. But she didn't know where she was, nor who was waiting for her in the rest of the run-down building. So she sat there, waiting, like a good little girl.

The man sat down in his chair, watching her for a moment. Blink glanced at the other two bodies in the room. Rufus hadn't moved, but the woman now had her hand on the hanging gun off of her belt. It was a sawed-off shotgun, dangling at her side.

The tattoo'd man noticed her gaze and looked back. "Rufus, Tiana, let me talk to her in private."

"I don't think that..." The woman started. That must have been Tiana. It was good to get a name to the boot that was on her face earlier. "I mean, she could-"

"You're making her nervous, T." That was Rufus. He nodded his head at the instruction for his leader. "Come on, let's go get some food."

Tiana didn't seem to take that well. She had a scowl on her face at being told what to do. Blink kept a dumb stare at her, trying not to contort her face to show how she really felt. She felt a smug sense of victory when Tiana headed out of the room with Rufus, clicking her tongue. That inner-smile died when she returned to reality, looking face to face at the stranger in front of her. Despite his kindness of telling the girl to leave and undoing her bindings, Blink had to remind herself that this was the guy that got her kidnapped in the first place.

"Okay," he said, letting out a sigh. He put his hands on his skinny knees. "I'm sorry that it took such a...show of force to get you here. Let me introduce myself, eh? My name is Vendetta."

"Vendetta?" She asked, looking confused. "What kind of name is Vendetta?"

"What kind of name is Blink?"

Claire looked surprised at the comeback. "Fair enough," she relented.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush with you. Obviously my real name isn't Vendetta and I hope your's isn't Blink. I'm not trying to recruit you to be my friend." He tone had changed. He wasn't being unfriendly, but he certainly wasn't trying to keep her calm anymore. He had switched to all business. His learned forward, causing the dim lighting to reflect a bit more off of his bald head. Blink realized the face tattoos were like arrows pointing upwards. "I have something planned and I need someone that can do the things you can do. It's a paid job, it's mildly dangerous and it's not entirely legal. But it will help the quality of life in this city. It will even the playing field."

Blink must have looked confused, because it got a bit of a chuckle out of Vendetta. "Who exactly are you people? Bank robbers?"

"If the job calls for it, yes," he nodded, "We are the Coruscant Freedom Fighters. We fight for the lower verses in this city. You've seen the top tier, right?" Blink gave a head nod of affirmation. "It's shiny and clean up there. Security is full force. The people are friendly and polite. But the lower you go..." he made a hand movement his fingers, as if they were stepping down stairs. "The worse it gets. The more neglect you see. And the people that live down there, in the depths of this city...there's no getting out. There's no earning your way to a higher tier. You just become forgotten about. It's bad down here, and a lot of this is the citizen's faults. But nobody is trying to fix it. That's where we come in."

Blink had heard versions of this story before. She had traveled the multiverse back home and seen plenty of bad governments and growing rebellions. In her experience, both sides had tendencies to be at least a little corrupt. That's what led her to be suspicious. "Why do you need me?"

"We're going to rob a museum," he said matter-of-factly. "There is a weapon there. It's not lethal, but it's useful. It will help turn the tide and make them listen to us. It's the only thing that is going to get us taken seriously as a threat. I need you because you're a teleporter, and that's a big part of our plan to get to the item."

"I can't be the only teleporter in the city," Blink shot back. She knew she was good, but there had to be a reason why they wanted her in particular.

Vendetta nodded, agreeing with us. "You're not. We could have hired anyone. But you're new here. Less likely to have been corrupted. And you're a known figure. The fact that you made it deep into Dante's Abyss puts a bit of celebrity on you. Having you associated with us, even if it's temporary...it's a plus."

"A plus for you. Sounds like a headache for me."

"Nothing worth doing ever came without a bit of consequence."

That sounded like a political slogan. Blink didn't care for it. But she nodded her head anyway, to be polite. The whole thing sounded like a noble idea. She applauded rebellions - heck, she had been a part of a few herself. "Listen," she tried to explain, "I think it's a great thing you're doing. If it's really as bad as you say it is, then yes, someone should stand up for the little people. I don't know if you're doing it the right way...sounds like innocent people could get hurt this way. But regardless, it's not my fight."

"You don't think so?"

"No, I don't. I'm new here. You said it yourself." She shrugged. "I don't have a negative opinion about the government. Or the city. I don't even know if I'm staying."

"Let me show you, then," he offered. He seemed to be genuine, at least. "Stay with us for a few days. Help us go over the plan, case it out. If you don't want to stay, no hard feelings. But give me a chance to give you a purpose in this city." He stood up, offering his hand out. "I can show you how you to make a difference in the Omniverse."

She seemed hesitant at least - it was that default level of distrust that she had in her heart. She compared this offer to the one she had earlier, in the hotel, with Gruu. Both offers were basically all about fighting crime - one was about doing it on a military level, and this one was doing it as a rebellion. She felt like a tool being passed around because of her abilities, and it wasn't a great feeling. But when she weighed the offer up against the alternative (which was nothing, at this point), she brought her hand up and took Vendetta's in her palm. She shook his hand as she stood up. "Alright. I'll give it a shot. See what you guys are all about."

"You won't be disappointed," he promised. He nodded his head to the door and then moved to walk towards it. Blink rubbed her wrists that had been previously cuffed and followed him out.

Gruu had offered her to be the leader of a silly superhero team, and she turned him down only to kind-of join a group of freedom fighters. She felt a bit like a hypocrite. But something in the way this group approached her and pitched the idea turned her on. They fought her head on to show their strength, and then forced her to listen. They weren't rude (for the most part). They were standing up for something bigger then themselves. It made sense to her to at least hear them out further. They were more like what she wanted to represent.

Not to mention, it wasn't like she had any better ideas.