Got a song bug again and had to draw this with my two girls! The song is Dance With Me by Topline Addicts. I’m really happy with the first picture especially!
Our protagonist: Blaine, the Dragonborn Sorcerer, played by @doctor-desi
16 years old at the start of the campaign, she was always curious and excited about exploring, though her siblings stopped her from doing so most of the time. Once she entered school, she gained more freedom. An event not much later in her life changed her forever. Ms. A, her teacher and mentor trained and teached her everything she needed to know about being a sorcerer. A young adult now, she was able to leave her town, Saker Keep, and head into the unknown, waiting to discover whatever the world had for her
With a spell save DC of 13 and a spell attack bonus of 5, at level 1 she’s able to cast Acid Splash, Fire Bolt, Mage Hand and Prestidigitation as cantrips, and Burning Hands and Magic Missile as 1st level spells
What if...the Time Masters took Leonard instead of Mick to become a bounty hunter?
There are a few spots where I tweaked the timeline from the actual episode(s). Didn't think anyone would mind too much. ;)
Very CaptainCanary, as always. Many, many thanks to @larielromeniel, who made this a much better story! Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.
Sara’s not the only one irritated with Kendra. Heck, she’s pretty sure most of the team is, although some are hiding it better than others.
But...
Sara takes another sip of Mick’s pilfered scotch, then glances up at Len, who's seated in the jump chair she’s leaning against and drumming his fingers on his leg. And she thinks about Kruos.
And about waking up this morning after a long and somewhat more satisfying night's sleep, Leonard’s arms around her, about getting a few more exploratory kisses in before Gideon called them to another meeting.
She hadn’t been able to kill Kruos…Len…before any of this had happened between them. Granted, no Savage had been involved there… but with all the history between Kendra and Carter, how much harder would it be to shut that door forever?
That, of course, just makes her a little more annoyed, at Kendra and at herself. She takes another drink of scotch and nudges Len, passing it up to him. He lets his fingers brush hers as he takes the bottle, almost as demonstrative as a kiss in public as far as he’s concerned, and she smiles.
Of course, that’s when Ray and Jax make their appearance, babbling about future tech and the giant robot…and everything changes again. There's a light in Rip's eyes Sara’s rarely seen: the wonder and the tragedy of hope.
“Plot a course for the Vanishing Point," he declares to Gideon. "Tonight, Vandal Savage faces justice for his crimes!”
Rip doesn’t quite pull off his dramatic gesture, though. Because no sooner has he taken a swig of the scotch then Leonard is on his feet, every nerve vibrating, hands in fists.
"No," he says, staring at Hunter. "No."
"Mr. Snart…”
"I go back there, they're going to find me." There's something just this side of panic in his voice, and Sara climbs to her feet, standing at his back, Mick approaching his other side. "They're either going to want to put me down like a rabid dog or they're going to try to break me again. And this time, they won't let a piece...a piece of me remain."
The bridge is silent. Rip stares at Leonard, and Sara thinks there's a hint of sympathy there.
But not enough.
“With all due respect, Mr. Snart,” Rip tells him quietly, “this is about more than you. I will not let the Time Masters have you. But we are going to the Vanishing Point. Now. As fast as we are able.”
Leonard leaves the bridge after that, and no one comes after him, not Sara, not Mick.
He's just as happy about that, really—and he's pretty sure they know that, know that he needs the space with his thoughts, which are chasing each other in circles. He walks the hallways a few minutes, catching himself when the ship shudders to a stop.
Something's going sideways already.
Alexa.
He should go back to the bridge, find out what's going on. Make sure...most of the others...are OK. (He gives less than a rat's ass for Rip right now.) But the panic, the gift of the Time Masters to someone who'd otherwise managed to compartmentalize such things as a teenager, bubbles up again...and he walks.
Memory chases him, nipping at his heels. Death and rebirth, a thousand new ways to be broken. Declan, insisting that his newest creation be his best, gazing at him with a critical eye, as if he were a badly fired pot that needed to be recast. Again...and again...
He's not sure how long he walks before he finds his way to the galley. Sara's not there, but Mick is.
"You remember Alexa?" he asks the other man.
Sara knows enough to give Leonard space when he leaves. She means to give him some time and follow, see if there's anything she can do. Perhaps, at least, distract him.
And then...
The ship's falling apart, and Savage is creepy, and Jax is dying, and then...and then...
Then Len is barreling into Rip's study.
He's seething inside, angry and panicking no matter how hard he tries to hide it, and Sara can't really blame him. And she can't really blame him for any of what he says; it's all true. And yet...
Mick's no happier than Leonard. Rip doesn't really try to argue, just resignedly tells them to take the jump ship, and then looks to Sara.
"What about you, Ms. Lance?"
"Give us a minute," she says, staring at Leonard... then lifts her eyes when Mick and Rip continue to stand there.
"A minute," she repeats.
Rip's face goes blank at the notion of being thrown out of his own study, but Mick laughs and, slapping a hand on his shoulder, guides him out. Sara barely hears them go. She's still staring at Leonard, who's looking back at her with …
She'd almost say, with his heart in his eyes.
He wants to ask her to go with them. He wants to beg. He can't quite seem to get the words out. And Sara's looking at him with this watchful expression, one he just cannot read.
Then she takes a step closer, close enough to touch, close enough to...
"You know, I get it," she tells him quietly. "Everything's going wrong. And they tortured you...it's OK to call it that, Leonard." She reaches up and traces the side of his face, gently. But she doesn’t look into his eyes. "And I don't want you back in their hands any more than you want to be there, Len, believe it or not. No one would want that for someone they...that they care about."
A deep breath. "But if you don't face them at some point, you'll have this hanging over you forever."
She lifts her eyes then, and meets his, and he realizes there was never really any question here at all.
"And I'm not going," Sara tells him. "I have to see this through. I have to."
He doesn't bother stopping back at his room; there's nothing there he needs. He can get a new parka. Nothing he's stolen in the various time periods has enough value to sway him.
So why does he feel his steps getting slower and slower the closer he gets to the jump ship?
There's only one thing he wants on this ship.
"Boss? What is it?"
Things keep happening, one after another. Savage escapes and Gideon goes offline and Sara learns how to fly a time ship. Well...it keeps her busy. It also keeps her from having the clearest idea what's going on in the rest of the ship.
Mick had entered the bridge with Stein, sniping at the older man about how he’d sent Jax off in the jump ship, but Sara’s too distracted and busy to question what that means. Did Leonard go too? Is he still here? If so, then where is he?
By the time the dust settles, with no sign of him, she has to presume that he's long gone.
It's OK, really, she thinks numbly, walking the hallway to her room after they land. Better than giving the Time Masters another weapon. Better than putting him through that again, or having to fight him.
She walks in the door to her room without even looking up, kicking off her shoes with a sigh, turning with a stretch to head to her empty bed. It's probably not a good idea to sleep, but she can rest...
Leonard is leaning there, watching her with an expression that says he's not sure if he can expect welcome or violence.
She's staring at him again. Leonard shifts uncomfortably under that unreadable blue gaze.
"Couldn't do it," he says finally. "Not without you. Well... that's the most important part."
He looks away and shrugs. "And you're right. If I don’t face them at some point, I'll be running from them forever. That might be true anyway, but.... Savage needs to go down. I want a hand in that. This is going to go sideways, but maybe if we stick togeth..."
Sara hits him with the force of a hurricane, a typhoon, a blizzard, so fast he doesn't even see her coming, her hands wound in the collar of his coat and her mouth hitting his so hard that their teeth clash together. He puts his hands to her shoulders to steady her, then deepens the kiss, spinning her around so that she's pressed up again the bed, boosting her up just a little to even the height difference.
When they finally break the kiss, they do it slowly, so slowly, as if neither of them really wants to put any space between them at all. Leonard’s hands are at her waist, and Sara has her arms wrapped around his shoulders, one hand curving around the back of his neck, fingers slowly caressing his neck.
Leonard leans his forehead against hers, and Sara can hear him breathing, the sound ragged in the current silence of the ship.
“Last time I was here,” he says after a moment, in a rough voice no louder than a whisper, “at the Vanishing Point, they took…me…out, and put in ice.” The noise he makes can just barely be called a laugh. “I thought, used to think, that I was the cold one. All logic. And that was how it should be. Just the job, and the thrill of the game.” He sighs. “And then they made me Kruos. And I learned how wrong I’d been.” He pulls back just a little farther, just enough to look in her eyes. “I didn’t feel…anything at all…for a long, long time. Nothing.”
There’s so much pain in his eyes that Sara swallows, hard, bringing one hand around to trail it down the line of his jaw.
“And now?” she asks gently.
“Now…” His eyes are intent on hers as he lets out a long breath. “Sara, prove to me that I’m human. That I’m not their thing anymore. Give me something to take with me, just in case…”
She doesn’t want to hear the words, so she grabs both sides of his collar again, pulling his mouth back to hers.
They don't have much time, and they know it, but they spend what they have proving, to themselves and each other, that they're human, and alive, and here. That their pasts do not define them; that no matter what they've been though, they can still feel.
More than hatred, more than anger. Even something as fragile as...love.
Because there was never any question there, either.
There was never really any question at all.
They're still curled up together in the aftermath, warm and drowsing, when Len's eyes snap open. He stares off into space a moment before his gaze flicks to her.
"Do you hear that?"
"Don't try to distract me," she whispers, running her fingers down his side again.
But Leonard's pulled away in a heartbeat, reaching for the clothing discarded across the floor, throwing Sara's to her. "We...you need to find a place to hide."
"Why?"
"Alexa!"
Leonard grabs her hand, pulling her down the hallway toward the study, pausing only a moment before locating and popping the hatch. He only has time to steal one hard kiss before she disappears into it, her eyes full of anger and sorrow, but too practical to argue or refuse.
The hatch has only just shut when the Time Masters' minions march in, guns at the ready and pointed at the man with the reputation as one of the greatest successes—and failures—of Time Master Declan.
In another circumstance, he might have fought. As it is, he pulls his fingers away from the cold gun and slowly raises his hands.
The faster they get him out of here, the less likely it is they’ll find Sara.
He's not sure what they do with the others. Him, they take directly to Declan. On the way, he wraps his mind in ice again, his soul in cold. He'll do nothing to show that he has any inconvenient feelings for these miscreants; he'd simply rejoined them because he hates the Time Masters, that's all.
That's all.
Declan shakes his head in disappointment, a betrayed father dealing with a prodigal son. Well, Leonard’s dealt with paternal disapproval before.
"Clearly, your conditioning was not as thorough as it should have been," Declan tells him coolly. "Even then, you were the greatest of our hunters, Kruos."
Leonard stares at the Time Master and he thinks of ice.
And of shards all over a bank vault floor.
"Tell me…what is your name?"
"Fuck off!"
"What is your name?"
"Leonard...Snart..."
"What is your name?"
"…"
"What is your name?
"… Kruos."
Sara emerges into a deserted time ship. With one else around, she has to rely on Gideon, and the AI and the assassin concoct a plan to get their missing team back.
Druce takes Rip to the Oculus chamber...and shows him the awful truth.
"No matter what you do, it will happen," he tells the renegade Time Master about the future, "and there is nothing you can do to stop it."
Declan watches as the tall man with the empty eyes is unstrapped from the table in the chamber in the depths of the Time Master compound.
“There is much hunting to be done.” The proud father figure smiles. “Let us start with Sara Lance.”
Back in the hangar, Sara Lance is placing explosives on time ships. She has no one to watch her back again...but Gideon is whispering in her ear.
Back in the holding cells, Rip tells Mick and Ray that they’ve never been in command of their own destinies, after all.
In the armory, Kruos looks long into the eyes of his own helmet…and then puts it on.
The Vanishing Point may be outside time, but within, events tumble on regardless.
The Waverider takes off, piloted by a very determined--and motivated--rookie. The other time ships try to follow…and a certain song echoes off the sides of the hangar as they all fall to the deck.
“Don’t mess around, you just got to be strong…”
While the Time Masters attempt to locate the Waverider, Sara drops secretly back into the complex, leaving Gideon in control of the ship, peppering another area with fire. Sara arrives at the holding cells just in time to take down the guard and knock out Druce. She runs to the cells, freeing Mick, as Stein speaks.
“Ms. Lance, your timing is impeccable.”
Ray’s intake of breath is her only warning. “Or not!”
Sara spins, Mick boiling out of the cell to stand at her side…and Kruos, in full armor, comes stalking out of the hallway. His gun is raised, and it’s pointed right at them.
As Mick bellows, “Snart! Fight those fuckers!” Sara takes a deep breath.
Then, “Len,” she whispers, “fight it.”
They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, facing down the man in armor. Sara can feel the tension in Mick’s arm as they stand, but she doesn’t take her eyes off…Leonard. Always, Leonard.
Who seems, in truth, to be made of ice as he stands there, watching them.
But neither does he attack.
A man in Time Master robes appears out of the darkness, staring at them, his face twisted in anger. “Kruos,” he says, raising his voice, “fire!”
A second. A lifetime.
And a blue-white beam of pure cold erupts from the gun as Kruos…Leonard… swings it around, hitting Declan. The man only has a second to realize that his greatest “creation” never really was at all… and then he hits the ground.
And shatters.
There’s no time to talk, after. No time for “thank god” or “I was so worried” or even “nice shot.” They all pile back onto the ship. Gideon swiftly cedes control back to Sara, who tries to hand it back to Rip, who waves it off. They manage to make use of Kruos’ tech to escape.
And then Rip tells them that none of it might make any difference at all.
"The Time Masters have this thing called the Oculus," he relates, "which allows them not only to gaze into the future, but to engineer it."
And, as a team, they decide… that it’s time to take their destinies back.
Sara helps Leonard take the armor off, later, piece by ugly, functional piece, and if there’s enough symbolism there to choke on, well, they don’t dwell on it.
“You should have run,” he tells her, perhaps a tad too harshly, as he weighs the last protective panel in a hand. “I didn’t lead them away from you for you to trade your life for nothing.”
But she knows him, now, knows how the harshness can cloak all the feelings he usually keeps buried, and doesn’t bother arguing. Instead, she shakes her head and reaches up, capturing his head in her hands and pulling him in for a long, long kiss.
"You're not," she tells him, holding his face in her hands, "nothing."
And any more words that might have been said…well, they’re saved for later.
"Hello again, Rip. Right on schedule."
Of course, they walk right into a trap. Druce and the Time Masters are waiting for them.
Fortunately, so is Jax.
"You thought you were the only one who knew a thing or two about time travel?" the kid quips to Stein, and Leonard can’t help but smile a little to see him, healthy again and rescuing them. But there’s no time for welcomes or congratulations. They make for the wellspring, and Raymond sets to figuring out a way to destroy it.
Rip looks at the group--and fixes on the only team member, other than himself, with knowledge of the Time Masters and their technology.
“You lot, guard the entrance," he tells the others. "Mr. Snart…you’re with me.”
Leonard gives Sara a long look before she leaves—and her, him one in return—before following the captain and the Boy Scout into the cavernous space where the wellspring awaits.
He meant what he’d told her, once. He doesn’t believe in destiny, not really. But something’s still going to go sideways here, he can feel it.
Now, if he can just figure out what it is.
“This is how you die!” Hunter yells at Raymond, anguish and conflict in his voice as the other man tinkers with the innards of the device.
“It’s OK. All my life I’ve wanted to make a difference." Raymond's voice is steady. "Creating a future for you guys without the Time Masters’ influence, that counts.”
Leonard, picking off another Time Master lackey, growls. “Don’t be stupid, Boy Scout!” He turns around just long enough to give the man a blue-eyed glare. "Better to live to make a difference!"
Raymond might have replied, but Leonard doesn't hear him. More of the guards are piling into the room, and for once, he's fighting in concert with the captain, picking off guards here and there, the blue-white blasts of the cold gun mingling with the blue light from Hunter's pistol.
Somehow, they're keeping the horde back. Maybe, he thinks in a tiny corner of his mind, maybe they can pull this off.
He should have known better.
"Uh, oh," says Raymond.
Fuck. Leonard spins around and glares at him.
“There seems to be a failsafe to prevent tampering, which probably includes trying to blow this thing up.” The other man takes a deep breath. “I have to maintain contact with the failsafe in order to destroy the Oculus.”
That’s it. That’s it. Alexa.
For a moment, Leonard thinks about it. About taking Raymond’s place. Revenge against the Time Masters. Blowing their beloved gadget all to hell, himself.
But...Sara.
And isn’t the best revenge, as they say, living well? He knows, now, what he has to live for.
"Raymond," he yells, stepping up, as Hunter gapes at them, "the left arm of your suit! Can you lock it in place?!"
"What?"
"You heard me!"
The Boy Scout's eyes are wide but resolute. Still, he does as Leonard asks, flinching just a little as the other man brings up the cold gun.
Leonard can't say he hadn't been tempted to undo all the upgrades made to the gun, just because of the men who'd made them. But he is, if nothing else, pragmatic, and those improvements were bound to come in handy eventually. He turns the cold blast to a setting he's rarely used, one that narrows and strengthens the output to a fine, highly concentrated beam, fires...and brings it down on Raymond's forearm.
The man howls in pain, but the suit … and the flesh and bone underneath... shear off right under the elbow, the arteries within frozen solid for now. Holstering the gun, he catches Raymond as he falls, noting with satisfaction that the hand is still locked in place around the Oculus mechanism, and starts hauling him off the platform, Hunter belatedly coming around to help.
Mick and Sara come running in when they're about halfway out, Mick scooping up Raymond to lug him the rest of the way to the ship. Sara, her eyes full of relief, falls into step with Len as they make their escape.
Just in the nick of time.
They still have to go after Savage. They still have to rescue Kendra. And, to even Leonard’s sorrow, it may be too late to save Hunter’s family.
But they're free now, unchained by time or Time Masters, and that's worth some small celebration. Raymond's arm had even been reconstructed by some sort of nifty gadget Hunter had had on this ship all along.
The former Time Master is still pondering their next move, but Len and Sara have spent their little bit of time to proving to each other, vigorously, the truth of Rip's words about the Oculus not affecting emotions or such personal attractions.
Sara’s drowsing in his arms—she’d kicked Time Master ass out there, Mick had told him, gleefully—but Leonard’s awake, trailing fingertips down the sheen of sweat on her spine, marveling that he’s actually comfortable here, like this, and more so, that so is she.
After a moment, she opens her eyes and smiles at him, shaking her head at the preoccupied expression on his face.
"What are you thinking?" she asks, reaching out to touch his face.
"About destiny."
"Oof.” But the smile is gone, replaced by a thoughtful look of her own as she props her head on a hand, regarding him. “How so?”
"It’s…I wonder how things would have gone if Declan hadn't taken me to be Kruos, had taken Mick the way the Time Masters had wanted and planned,” he muses. “They orchestrated everything; Declans's the one who went off the script. Might have changed everything.
"I thought Mick wouldn’t have a way to fight them. I think maybe I was wrong. But if it’d been Mick…I don’t know.” He turns his head to look at her. “Maybe things would have happened differently. And maybe I’d never have had the nerve to…”
Sara lifts her eyebrows at him, eyes dancing. “What?” she asks, playfully.
“Hmmm.”
Kruos is gone. And Leonard Snart lives.
"I'm been thinking about what the future might hold," he says finally, lifting his eyes to hers, "for me, and you...
HELLO IT IS I. AQUILA. does this suffice for you i need to return to locking the fuck in about the black tide. also can you give your frog a singular pat on the head i think the little amphibian deserves it
