Surprise Revival? [Video, a day or two after Kaidan's return]

[loveshishammer]

[Here's a communicator signature nobody was probably expecting. Thor revives a little later than most of the crew, possibly due to it being done in a slightly different manner than most-- him being... you know... not from the ship.

But here he is, on the screen, a backdrop of Salvation and stars beyond her framing his confused but relieved face, apparently back from being dead. He's also lacking in his armor, since that presumably went down with his body in the plague city. He'll summon it back eventually, but for now he has more important things on his mind: like whether they succeeded at all. Enjoy the shirtless Thor on the screen, guys.]

Well! How many people made it back from our excursion into the wastelands? And how long have I been away? I apologize for my absence, and my, ah, death. I admit I was not really expecting it.

[Despite trying to take on a couple hundred wraiths with nothing but a hammer. He's Thor, okay, and he's only experience almost-death once, and that as a mortal.]

Comments

video

[cannotrest]

[Somewhere in town, the smirk on Ashley's face says she's very much enjoying the unexpected eye candy.]

I'm told it's around a week. And I wouldn't say I 'made it' back [given that she, uh, died] but I'm back anyway.

[loveshishammer]

[Thor smiles, back, though he's not entirely putting together why she's looking at the screen quite like that. It's brief, though, because her words make him frown.]

What happened after my death? Did we succeed?

[cannotrest]

Mission accomplished, yeah. [She's so proud of Kaidan.] Temporal engine's in our hands now instead of the middle of nowhere.

[loveshishammer]

Excellent! ... do we know how to make it function? Can we now move in time more freely?

[cannotrest]

That part, I'm not so sure about. Gonna have to get the tech heads onto it.

[loveshishammer]

I suppose I will have to ask, as well. We have advanced technology in Asgard, but I rarely cared to learn of its inner workings, and I will admit none of it was meant for traveling through time.

[cannotrest]

Yeah, for all our technological developments, especially in the last few years, time travel's still the stuff of vids for us. The most I know about advanced technology is how the right ammo can mess with it.

[loveshishammer]

Aye, that is about where my knowledge of it stands, as well.

[He offers her a smile of kindreds: knowing how to blow shit up is way more fun than knowing how it works, amirite Ashley?]

Has everyone returned? I saw no one else, inside Salvation. Am I very late coming back?

[cannotrest]

[a grin back, because DAMN RIGHT it is]

As far as I know, yeah, you're lucky last. We should all have some kind of 'back from the dead, found the engine' party.

[... that was a joke.]

[loveshishammer]

[Except Thor looks like he might actually approve of that idea.]

If we cannot use it immediately, perhaps we should! It was quite a feat, and if most of us perished... there is reason to celebrate, either way.

[cannotrest]

[For a moment, she looks surprised, and then thoughtful.]

Could be a good boost for morale. I'll see what I can do.

[damn_it_jim]

Well. That's a sight I didn't think I'd be seeing.

[Bones' eyebrows are arched, but the message they convey of 'shirt, seriously' is probably lost on someone from a culture with a less buttoned up approach to the male torso than his own.]

In more ways than one. Not that I'm not glad to see one less death's a temporary one, but you didn't arrive on Salvation, you fell out of the sky.

[loveshishammer]

Aye. I'm not entirely certain how it happened, myself. But I did indeed wake in a pod, just like the rest of you have. The last thing I recall was being overcome by wraiths in the quarantined zones.

[He hasn't quite put together the actual reasoning here yet. He also hasn't asked Salvation yet. He might do that shortly, here, actually.]

[damn_it_jim]

[Bones' eyebrows remain lifted, but now they're paired with a low whistle.]

When you throw yourself on a metaphorical grenade for folks, you don't do it halfway, do you?

[At a loss for what else to say ('My condolences on the horrible death you just got better from'?) he focuses on practicalities.]

Do you need me to autoclave your gear again, or have the Authorities got that covered?

[loveshishammer]

[Thor pauses, then winces. Maybe it's a good thing he hadn't bothered "getting dressed" yet.]

No one will be able to collect it from the quarantine zone, unless any survivors were kind enough to collect it... I will have to summon it. So you are correct, it will requite your special cleaning.

[damn_it_jim]

I thought at much.

[Bones looks wryly pleased at his prescience.]

If you can, try and whistle for it at the edge of the zone -- the Authorities will probably be in less of a flap if it's in a biohazard bag before it passes through town.

[loveshishammer]

I will do that, then. Can you perhaps provide me with the bag in question? I could fly to you to collect it, but I have a feeling more people would complain of that than would approve.

[Given, yeah, naked. Plus the hammer probably could use some autoclaving, too.]

[nodavinci]

Good, you're back. Now we don't have to talk the harbormaster into letting us set a boat on fire.

[Tony might be burying his relief under flippancy, but he's doing so badly - he hadn't expected to hear from Thor again.

Ever.]

[loveshishammer]

You were going to do that for me?

[Thor is surprised and actually rather touched, and there's a bright smile for you, Tony.]

I am honored that you would follow the customs of my people for me, Stark.

[nodavinci]

It seemed like the thing to do.

[Because as far as they knew, it wasn't like they could bring him back.]

You're the last, by the way. Everyone else woke up a few days ago. Bit of a surprise, really - there's usually some attrition when the pods need to spit more than two or three people back out at the same time.

[loveshishammer]

Perhaps Salvation knew we would be needed. I apologize for my tardiness. I imagine it is related to not having a pod for me to begin with. I am still not certain how it was accomplished.

[nodavinci]

You were dragged back in time with us, too. The mechanisms might be linked. We've figured out a lot about the pods, but the power crisis and the whole "reality burning down around us" issue took some of the attention off of a full study.

...Salvation could probably tell us herself, if we asked.

[loveshishammer]

That would, of course, be the intelligent thing to do. Ask Salvation.

[He taps his communicator a little, clears his throat, and asks,]

My lady Salvation, if you are listening, could you kindly tell us how it came to be that you could revive me?

[If that doesn't work, he'll go inside and find a terminal, but this seems an efficient first step.]

[outer_npcs]

I was able to establish a link to you during the temporal fracture half a year ago, when you met my primary node at the center of this reality coil.

[Salvation's voice comes clear across the communicator, as pleasantly neutral as ever.]

It allowed me to retrieve your data and restore you when you fell in the Wasteland.

[loveshishammer]

[Thor's face lights up in memory.]

Ah, yes! I remember that, though at the time I had not known what you meant. Would that be why I seem to remember dying twice, then?

[outer_npcs]

[There's a brief hesitation.]

I do not believe so. I will need to perform some diagnostics, but it is possible that your death in proximity to a vessel with similar capabilities to my own may have resulted in a minor temporal echo - in you recalling an event that occurred in the same location and position in the timestream, but on a different segment of the reality coil.

[loveshishammer]

It is possible. What I recall is an explosion in some other ship. Perhaps it was the same one, and somehow another version of me was there, when it was damaged. Does that help?

[nodavinci]

...Huh. We blew the ship in the wasteland after Alenko got the drive out.

[By which he means 'I hung back to overload the ship to give him a head start', but shh, that doesn't need to be shared over the open network.]

[anomaliiiiies]

Thor?! Um. Well, that's a sight I wasn't expecting. [In more ways than one]

[loveshishammer]

Jane.

[His expression is somber, even apologetic.]

I am sorry for my absence. I did not mean to worry you.

Video

[kettchmeifyoucan]

How are we defining 'made it back'?

[loveshishammer]

'Lived through the experience' is a good measure. Were we, all of us, defeated, or did some of us survive to accomplish our task?