One minute, Parker had been in the midst of unpacking a box that was, so far, surprisingly boring because all she’d found in it had been cookbooks, and the next? A flash of red appeared, opening up near herself, Hardison, and Eliot and before she could even react, it had sucked them through and dropped them on another world. After a little acrobatic tumble that got her to her feet immediately, she spun in a circle, noting that the guys were with her, then stopped when she saw buildings.
They were standing under twin suns on a dusty sand dune, right outside of a town that looked the exact same color as the sand, and all she could say in the moment was “What the hell?!” Shading her eyes, she peered towards a group of people slowly wandering nearby, and pointed. “Oh hey, that guy has eyes sticking up from his head, like on stalks. I didn’t know eyes could do that.”
Hardison did not land as gracefully as Parker did. In fact, he ended up doing a not-very-graceful summersault and landed on his back with his butt in the air for a long moment. He groaned as he re-adjusted to the new position that wasn’t ‘putting away the plates’.
It was only when Parker started to talk about a guy with eyes sticking out of his head did he climb to his feet and realize they were not on Earth. “What in the hell?” He looked around and things were oddly familiar in a way that shouldn’t be real. Of course, being in a world with superheroes shouldn’t be real either.
He followed Parker’s gaze. “Holy shit… “
There wasn’t time to avoid the portal, but Eliot managed to land on his feet on the other end of it and immediately scanned the area for Yelena, frowning when he didn’t see her. On one hand, he was glad that she hadn’t gotten caught up in whatever this was, on the other, he didn’t relish the idea that they were separated for who knew how long.
He focused on what Parker and Hardison were saying and turned to look in the same direction, groaning at what he saw. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eliot said. “A desert under two suns. We’re in one of those dumb movies you made us watch.” That was directed to Hardison.
“We need to find shelter and a source of water,” he said, immediately focusing on the practical.
“That,” Parker replied, pointing at the alien. When Eliot figured out where they were before she did, the blonde automatically glanced up at the suns, then shielded her eyes a bit and looked at the two of them. “Wait, this is Star Wars right? I’d ask how, but….this might be fun.”
Then Eliot had to bring up the practical and she made a face, but nodded because he was definitely right. “Let’s go. Shouldn’t be hard to do a little shopping,”, Parker said as she waved her fingers lightly in the air.
“First of all, Star Wars is not dumb. It’s a classic.” Just for the record.
Hardison brought his hand over his eyes to get a better look at things and to survey the surroundings better. This was definitely out of the movies, though things looked way cooler in person.
He turned to Eliot. “You’re here on an awesome planet and that’s what you think about?” He shook his head as if to say ‘come on man’. He did actually expect it though considering he knew Eliot.
“Okay fine.” He sighed just a little. “We should go this way though -” He gestured. “We should find an actual settlement and stuff.”
“Do you have any idea what we’re likely to find?” Eliot asked. “From what I remember, there is a lot of war in those movies. I’d really rather not stumble into something like that.” It was going to be hard enough to keep the two of them safe on another planet, in another galaxy, without ending up in the midst of an intergalactic war.
He did realize that he would need to defer to Hardison’s knowledge of the universe though, even if he was the best equipped for survival.
While the two guys talked, Parker slipped away for a few minutes, heading for the nearest group of other travelers while they were distracted. By the time Eliot pointed out there was a lot of war in the Star Wars movies, she had returned and held out brown desert robes to both of them, already wrapped in one of her own.
How’d she do it so quickly? She’s Parker.
“The name might’ve been a hint. Star Wars. Otherwise it’s just false advertising, and that’s rude.” And almost as bad as music piracy, in her book.
“Did you pay for these?” It was a stupid question because it wasn’t like Parker - or any of them for that matter - had money that was even remotely the same to this world. Even though Hardison asked it, he still went to put on the robes. They weren’t quite Jedi robes, but he could pretend. Maybe they’d be lucky and run into some Jedi cloaks too.
“Uh, well, I guess it depends on when we are in the timeline. I mean, there’s always going to be Sith and stuff, but I’m looking around and I don’t think we need to worry about Death Stars just yet…. “ His eyes widened with a lightbulb moment, though mixed with excitement. “Hey maybe we can change the story! I mean, okay, so like, Palpatine is a bad guy, right? But at the beginning they didn’t really know that? Maybe we could like, warn people or something.” Was he bold enough to suggest somehow they do what they did back home to the Sith?
Well…. He was kind of starting to think about it.
Eliot knew better than to ask a stupid question like if Parker paid for something. He simply accepted the robe and donned it, grumbling under his breath about how stupid he looked. All he could do was hope that they weren’t stuck here as long as he and Yelena were in Camelot or he might lose his mind.
“Or you could get arrested and executed for speaking out against a beloved leader,” he said in response to Hardison’s suggestion. “We would need proof before we could try to change things.”
Parker laughed at the question and didn’t bother answering. It wasn’t as though she even knew what kind of money was used around here, and for now blending in was important. When he talked about the timeline stuff, she rolled her eyes - while a misinformation campaign would be fun, those were usually easier with someone like Sophie around, and for the moment she agreed that they needed to get their bearings before they started making too many plans.
“Let’s just get into the city, find out what’s going on, then decide who or what we’re going to do next.” By now, she was fully wrapped in the dark brown desert robe, only her face showing as she grinned at her boys.
“Follow me!”
There were some things about living on a desert planet that were cool - like being in freaking Star Wars and droids - and then there were things that sucked about a desert planet…. Like all the sand everywhere all the time. Hardison wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get all the sand out of all the nooks and crannies when they got home. If they got home. It’d been three days now and no end in sight.
Today, though, was going to be exciting and yes, Hardison had woken up like a kid at Christmas. He was currently leading the way.
“You guys are going to love this part. Plus? We’ll be able to see Anakin. Can you believe that?!”
.
“Oh goody,” Eliot said, his tone feigning excitement. “It’s like a dream come true.”
In all honesty, this place was pretty cool, not that he would admit it. He was disappointed that he hadn’t managed to get his hands on a lightsaber yet, but pod racing might actually be fun. Of course, he’d be able to relax and have more fun if he knew for certain they would be heading back to New York soon. He hated knowing that Yelena was there, likely worrying about them. The only thing that he hoped was that time was passing more slowly at home like it had when they were in Camelot and she would only have to worry for a few hours.
“He’s the little boy, right?” Parker followed along in Eliot’s wake mainly because it was the easiest way to get through a crowd, since he didn’t really have to do all the pushing that Hardison would before that. Still, that didn’t stop her from skimming a few pockets and bags along the way, guaranteeing that a large number of beings would be leaving with fewer items after the races.
“I want to fly one. Drive one? Whatever. I want to do the thing.”
It hadn’t even occurred to Hardison they could drive a pod racer. To him, he kept thinking of being here like one of those time travel movie things where you were meant to mostly be an observer. But Parker was right - they could race. Well, more like Eliot and Parker could, Hardison wasn’t sure he could do it.
“You probably can. I bet you have enough on you right now to enter and we could con our way into getting a pod racer.” They were good at that part, after all.
If they were going to participate in a pod race, Eliot was damn sure he wasn’t letting Parker have all the fun of flying it. “We’ll need two,” he said. “Or else we’ll have to take turns.” He figured a pod would be even more exhilarating than his beloved Challenger.
As much as he enjoyed their time in New York, he did miss going on adventures with his team. They’d been cautious about picking up Leverage operations due to the tentative relationship the portalees had with the locals.
“Two pod racers, got it,” Parker said with a grin, glancing around them, then tapping both her boys on the shoulders to get them to follow her. Five minutes later, they were looking at the pit area from a nice vantage point, and she handed them both a pair of the high tech Star Warsy binoculars she’d picked up, then lifted a third pair to her own eyes.
“Hardison, pick out a couple you think would work for us. Then we can get in, knock the crews out, and take them for ourselves,” she said with a hint of glee in her voice.
“You say that like this isn’t looking at a dozen delicious cakes and I’m starving.” He said it while still looking through the binoculars. Maybe he shouldn’t feel like he was a kid in a candy store, but he did. He looked for a little bit before he sounded excited. “Oh! Oh! Those two.” He gestured to the left. “See those guys? They’re pretty dumb. But their podracers are pretty good.”
The podracers Hardison chose looked like a good option to Eliot too. Not only did the crews look easy to fool, they were near the edge of the track which made them easier to approach without being seen.“Those look good,” he agreed. “Man, I’d love to take apart one of those engines.” Maybe he’d have time afterwards to do that. Right now, the goal was to race.
They took a few minutes to discuss their plan and then put it into action.
She smirked a little as she stared through at the racers, then followed his direction to a couple on the side. After studying them and the crew for a minute, she nodded.
“After the race,” Parker told Eliot, before they got down to business.
Twenty minutes later, she and Eliot were side-by-side, each in their own podracer, and she was grinning at the controls as she spoke so that their comms would pick her up.