Outside Town Hall, Saturday Evening

[weirderthanthou]

"Shouldn't they be back by now?" Jesse said warily, staring at the time machine... thing... sitting in front of them. On the curb. As one does.

The redhead beside her in the furs and the metal blew a strand of hair away from her face. "The tricky thing about time travel is that it's relative," she said. "I think. But I can give it a tweak, just in case something's going wrong on our end."

"Sure," Jesse said. "It can't h--"

Aloy slammed the blunt end of her spear into the machine with a loud thunk that would make engineers everywhere either nod in understanding or scream in horror. Possibly both.

"... That should do it."

There was a big flash of light.

[[ strike team! feel free to ping your return to this post. people who might still be hanging around town hall, feel free to boggle. as of now, you are all back to normal. ]]

Comments

[anomaly_research_nerd]

Connor was definitely there hanging around. He had been there when the team left, which he had been planning on doing to make sure the tech and all worked when everyone headed out. But once he found out Michael was going to be actually going as part of the team to deal with this mess, it would have taken a Megladon or a Spinasours to get him to leave.

And so Connor sat on the steps, one of the ADD handhelds in his hand. He knew it likely wouldn't receive anything once the team had made it to 1995. But that wasn't doing much to calm the nervous flopping in his stomach at the deafening silence of the tech.

It had to be working. It was going to work. The team would be alright. They would be home soon. It was just taking a little longer than expected. Nothing to worry about... At least, that was what Connor was telling himself for what seemed like the hundredth time since he had lost sight of the team, and Michael.

"You better not up and die on me, Michael..." he muttered, trying not to think the worst as he waited.

[canondisasterbi]

Michael had not up and died. He hadn’t even gotten injured!

(He totally also would have thumped the time machine with something heavy, good job Alloy!)

He appeared in said flash and ran his hand through his curls as he looked around.

“Did it work? Is Taylor Swift the president?”

Hey, Isobel would have laughed.

[anomaly_research_nerd]

The flash of light had caught Connor's attention, and then an instant later so did the voice.

"Michael! You're back!" Connor said with a grin as he jumped to his feet and hurried over. And sorry/not sorry Michael, you were getting a hug and an attempted kiss- any audience be damned right then.

[canondisasterbi]

Michael at least had no complaints about that.

“Oh no,” he teased, after a quick kiss in return. “We got the wrong Connor. This one’s too confident.”

[anomaly_research_nerd]

Connor had to chuckle at that.

"Well, could do worse for an upgraded version no?" He smiled, then went a little serious as he looked at Michael again. "You're ok right? Not hurt or anything?"

He had dealt with plenty of injuries with the team back home, but it was a skill he was all too happy not to have to tap into.

[canondisasterbi]

“I’m good,” Michael promised. “We’re all alright. Worst thing that happened was having to watch a weirdo do a stupid dance.”

[anomaly_research_nerd]

"Good... I was, worried" he said, dropping his gaze slightly, now feeling silly for being so worried. "Not that I thought you couldn't handle it. Glad it all went well. Did... did you guys figure out why all this happened in the first place?"

[canondisasterbi]

“Nope,” Michael said with a shrug. “Guy turned his friend into a toy, got mad at us for defending ourselves, said something about someone not showing up to rescue us, turned his friend back into a person, then disappeared. It was . . . I was going to say ‘very weird’ but I’m not sure that quite covers it. It was like getting sucked into someone’s 90’s themed Vine mash-up.”

[anomaly_research_nerd]

"Yeah, weird sounds about right, even for around here" Connor said with a slow nod. "Glad you guys were able to save us, though. The baddies were a bit much." Connor was really relieved that everything had gone well. He had been driving himself crazy with the seemingly endless stream of 'what ifs' that were running through his brain during those hours of waiting. "Did the tech and all work fine?" he asked.

[napking]

"Oh," was all Gray had time to say before a wave of exhaustion hit him and he sat down right where he stood. He looked briefly like he might be on the verge of crying about something, but then he slumped over, sound asleep.

[heroic_jawline]

"Aww, kid," Steve said, crouching down. "Let's get you back to the dorms, okay?"

[napking]

Unfortunately, Gray was deeply unconscious and would not be responding to Steve anytime soon, his body having suddenly remembered that the eight hours of sleep it had gotten each of the last few nights was entirely insufficient. But he would very much appreciate some assistance in getting back to the dorms. If Steve would be so kind as to drop him on a couch in the lobby or something that would be much more comfortable than this random patch of ground.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve could definitely do that! He picked Gray up without effort and headed towards the castle.