Welcome to the Omniverse, Claire Ferguson

[Blink]

"Where the hell are we?" Rufus asked as he ruffled around the small rectangular room. He was ruffling through the drawers in the dark compartment as he searched for an answer to his question. When he found nothing, he settled on flipping the small dinner tray that had been left out near the door to the space. "Where did you send us?" He turned around and pointed at Blink, accusingly. "What the hell did you do?" For her part, she was just sitting quietly on the bed that they had teleported onto. Her feet were dangling off the side, and she was staring down at the carpeted floor, as if she was drifting off.

They had been in the Mystical Worlds Museum. She had agreed to be part of a Freedom Fighters group that were stealing an artifact to use for good against a corrupt government. She had agreed to do so without any extra information and without too much of a fight. She had aided a psychopath in acquiring a power-enhancing artifact and watched as he killed everyone that he had worked with. He used all of them. He used her. And the worst part was...she had absolutely seen it coming. It was literally all her fault.

She looked up. "We're at the Luna Moore Inn. Room...507."

"Why?" Rufus asked, again with a stern, untrusting tone. "Why are we here?"

Blink didn't answer. She just looked down again. Why was this the first place she sent them to in the heat of the moment? She had only been here once before. She had been given an offer...and she turned it down. Maybe it was because the person that had sent her here was the only person she could call an ally now. After the mistakes she made.

As if on cue, his voice was heard. You're here for me, Rufus. Both Rufus and Blink looked over towards the door. An older man stood there, though neither of them actually heard him enter. He was leaning with both hands on a walking stick, hunched over as if he was having trouble standing. He had grey hair wrapped up in a ponytail behind him. "It's good to see you again, Claire." He was staring at Blink, which led Rufus to connect who she was talking to.

"Your name is Claire?" He asked, dumb-founded, as if that was the more pressing issue right now. He caught himself and shook his head, pointing his accusing finger now at the old man. "Wait, wait, who the hell are you?"

"His name is Gruu," Blink explained. She remained sitting on the side of the full hotel bed. "He offered me a job to lead one of his good-guy teams. Instead, I went with you guys. Now Vendetta is out there, doing who-knows-what to Coruscant, all because I helped him get his hand on that thing."

Rufus slumped a bit as he remembered his part in the whole thing. He nodded his head at her. "He had all of us fooled. I thought that we had a real connection. That's what I operate on. Loyalty. Relationships. And he was good at me." He took a pause, as if trying to dig up a happy memory, but it only made him frown more. "But now I can see it was all part of the plan. He was using me. Using Tiana, and Psi, and even the brothers. What happened back there is on me. I should have seen it coming."

"It's on both of us," she answered. "I did see it coming and I let it happen."

Gruu finally stepped forward and put his walking stick firmly on the ground, attracting the attention of the teleporter and the gunslinger. "There is plenty of blame to go around, but no time to waddle in it. Your man is currently making his way up towards Tier 1, taking out multiple stormtroopers at a time. He's making a very public spectacle of himself and sooner or later, someone is going to attack him and make a mess of the situation. A larger mess."

"At this point, there's nothing we can do," Rufus shook his head. "What am I gonna do? Shoot him?"

"We have to do something, Rufus." Blink stood up, stepping forward closer to him. "It's our responsibility. Nobody else's."

Rufus furrowed his brow. He was unconvinced, obviously, but he nodded his head down at her sternly none-the-less. "I've never been one to back away from a fight. Especially when I caused the problem to begin with. Let's do it."

Blink took a deep breath and nodded. She was happy he was on board. She was doubly happy that Gruu was there, clearly forgiving her for brushing him off. But before any real conversation about the future could tell place, she had to fix the mistake she made. She had to figure out a way to stop Vendetta's rampage across the city. "Alright...so what's the plan?"