A muted war of two was raging behind Gabriel as he flitted to the portal. Cracks formed in the cavern faster than he could perceive. Even with sensors, and Alfred, he had no chance of following along with the battle.
He rushed to the churning phosphorescent portal, careful to keep his mind as small as he could. The way Quantum moved made him wary of being noticed. He didn't want to end up charred to ash - or worse.
He made it to the gun without trouble, but when he grabbed it, it wouldn't budge. He pushed harder, but it felt like pushing on a mountain. Temperature warnings informed him the energy would melt through his gauntlets in under a minute. Releasing the morbid device, he wondered if he'd need to spend antimatter charge to remove it.
Lucian kept the portal from growing, but it was starting to get away from him, growing out where he didn't have it pulled tight. It looked like he was trying to tie a sheet around a pile of laundry that was just too large.
He wasn't going to be able to close it alone.
If Gabriel fired, Quantum would notice. He needed to be ready to run - but what would he do if the blast wasn't enough to destroy the gun? There wasn't time to stop and investigate this unfamiliar - possibly alien - tech, and there would be no second chance.
Power to 100%. Alfred didn't have a better idea either.
"Knock knock." Ephemeral knuckles wrapped against Gabriel's head, and his blood ran cold. This voice wasn't Alfred.
A frenzied scan of his surroundings showed no signs of any changes.
"It's me, Gabe." Memories of the nightmare void came flashing back. The feeling of the energy told Gabriel this was Lucian's voice in his head. It was rougher, more mature. Time moved differently in whatever dimension he'd been in these few short weeks.
"I almost didn't notice you cloaked over there - you were almost invisible, how do you- no, nevermind, I don't have much time. My... crew can't hold that thing off long. Either we close this doorway in the next few moments, or we die - on both sides of the Gate."
Gabriel tried sending thoughts back to his brother, but it didn't seem to work since Lucian kept talking.
"It's been a while since I felt your presence in the void. Looks like it's been longer for me than it has been for you, eh? I hope you've been well, brother."
Lucian's smile outshined the gilded hall, even as he strained against the interdimensional tear - warm nostalgia mixed with pride in his eyes. "I thought I might never see you again."
There was so much Gabriel wanted to ask. Where had Lucian been? What had he done to wind up in this exact spot at this very moment? What could have been a mere coincidence felt like fate - but providence, it seemed, had a sense of humor.
After years of sharing exhausted half-smiles from opposite sides of missile-proof glass; after watching each other face experiments, tests, and trials; after they'd fought on Gabriel's way out of the lab - this was the reunion the Universe saw fit to give them?
"You wouldn't happen to have a psionic dampener lying around, right?"
Lucian made direct eye contact with his - supposedly invisible - brother and chuckled at the exasperated face he made.
"I had to ask, y'know? Just in case you did. "
Gabriel raised his gauntlets as a question.
"Hitting that gun-looking catalyst with antimatter might not be the smartest move... but it might be our only choice."
For a moment, Gabriel had more than half a selfish mind to yank his brother through the portal and fly away to some oceanside paradise. Would any of this be worth it if he lost his only family?
No, Lucian wasn't his only family. A scene of Falco chucking his old socks for Lilith to disintegrate while Rosenquartz laughed found its way to the forefront of his mind. Family was more than blood.
Then, Melody's face and the promise he'd made her streaked through his mind. Things were more complicated than just losing his brother again.
Now wasn't the time to run. Gabriel would do right by the people counting on him.
Desperation tainted Lucian's smile as he looked over his shoulder at his crew. The cloud monster's tendrils had reached inside itself and sent a gleaming suit of armor careening into the stands. A cacophony of screams rose in response. Hundreds of thousands of bodies flocked away from the wreckage.
The cloud roared in triumph and made a beeline for the portal. Lucian winced when his friend took the hit and redoubled his efforts on the portal. He had people counting on him, too. Whatever had happened through that portal to turn Mass-Homicide Lucian into Help-Save-The-Day Lucian must have something to do with his 'Crew.'
Gabriel might not be the greatest Hero, the most selfless, or even the right one for this mission, but then again, who was? Maybe being a Hero had more to do with being in the right place at the right time than anything else.
Quantum and Zero sneaking around and plotting against each other for a decade made it clear as day - no one was all Hero, all the time. Maybe no one was ever 100% Hero, but today it didn't matter - everything hinged on what Gabriel and Lucian did next.
Nodding to his brother, Gabriel coated his gauntlets in antimatter and reached out to crush the laser gun.
"Wait, not yet! The dampener, remember? I have one. Don't glare like that; it's rude. Just making sure I really had to spend my trump card. Listen, as of now, the catalyst exists in a space outside your reality. Once I dampen the energy stream, that should bring it partially back into your dimension. When that happens, hit the catalyst with everything you have. Hold nothing bac - agh!"
"LUCIAN!" A feminine yell came through the portal as a smoky appendage fastened around Lucian's body. A massive blinding beam of energy evaporated the tendril off and eliciting another shriek from the creature. The armored fighter took up position directly behind Lucian. The suit was statuesque and made of some kind of crystallized energy.
The cloud monster wasn't in the mood for a stare-down. Belting an earthquake of a roar and a shower of orange sparks, it surged forward, but Lucian's partner spread her arms and released one of the explosions Gabriel had seen before. The monster reared back but charged once the blast ended.
Their protector, however, was not done.
The energy armor released pulse after pulse, beating the monstrosity back time and time again. Whatever the energy was, it made all of Gabriel's systems malfunction at once. Power flow to the gauntlets began to taper off.
Alfred, are we still operational?
Scans indicate electromagnetic interference on a cosmic scale. Nearest comparison: magnetar emissions. Adjusting system recalibration rate to match pulse frequency.
Power started flowing again. The gauntlets had barely finished coating again when the cloud backed away growling. It began to expand, blocking out the view of the other dimension with its growing, turbulent bulk.
"Dwarf is low on potential! He's making his move. Close the gate! Lucian, Code Black-Out, Code Black-Out!" Lucian's partner boomed.
Frenzied excitement took hold of Lucian's expression, but his eyes lost luster, and he frowned when he looked back to Gabriel. "I wish we had more time.... "
"NOW!" The armored figure shouted in panic.
Lucian's brows furrowed, and a stream of words flew into Gabriel's head far faster than anyone - even a speedster - could have spoken them aloud.
"There's so much to say... but I'll settle with: sorry for letting you down at Iodine. I still think about that day; it was a long time ago - for me. If you hadn't helped stop me, I might have lost my mind forever. I'm grateful to be the man I am today - thanks to you. Now don't make that face; I'll figure out how to get back - if we survive this, you'll meet my crew someday."
Vibrating blue power started pooling out from Lucian's eyes, then out of the pores in his face, arms, and legs. It made his body too blurry to make out any details, and readings indicated he was radiating several unknown elements. He violently pulled on one side of the portal, almost closing half. Then he blurred into motion, shoving something into the portal stream.
All of a sudden, the laser opening the portal split in two. Now, half of the laser was aimlessly searing a hole in the cavern wall. The portal gun started to shake in the air - gravity was affecting it again. Lucian's blurry face peered through the portal one last time, a wicked grin below two glowing blue orbs.
"Before I go. Your friend will need help in roughly ten seconds. Quantum is kicking ass and Zero's out of gas. If things were different, I'd stay and help - but I have a feeling you won't do too bad yourself. Oh! If this process doesn't break it, take care of the dampener, please. It's been with me through a lot. Are you ready?"
Gabriel nodded.
"I'll see you... when I see you, I guess. I love you, Gabe. Good luck." Lucian blasted off towards the core of the smoke creature, his energy expanding outwards and wrapping around the dark mist until they looked like two storm clouds wrestling to the death.
"I love you too," Gabriel whispered as he fired.
The gun - and what remained of Photon's essence - shook violently inside the antimatter beam as it slowly disintegrated. Without a catalyst powering the ancient portal, the gate began to ripple shut. As it closed, a grey metal object fell from the doorway with a thump - the dampener. Gabriel moved to retrieve it but stopped short in surprise.
It was Lucian's prosthetic arm.