It was the end of the world. The end of her world.

As an alternate universe native, Raine had been following rip-related news with interest so when details came through that the science nexus gate of dimensional whatever was closing, it inspired more than a few feelings for Raine.

She didn't dare go back across the universe. Some SUPER agents might be here, but SUPER was born over there. Over there, it was way worse. She never got to say goodbye to her family. Or pack her bags. She hoped Rianne was doing okay. She hoped her credits were still going to be accepted for transfer, but she hoped her previously accumulated debt would not.

Not only was this a once-in-a-lifetime event. This was maybe even a once-in-a-universe event.

Raine left work the moment 4:59 ticked over to 5:00 and booked it to the flatiron building area. She wasn't the first one to get there, it looked like some plans had been cancelled unexpectedly and those would-be new world explorers were now left gawking. No one seemed to be going in or out as usual. In fact, no one seemed to be going in or out at all. The platforms had been pulled away. They were too low to reach where the wobbly nebulous border of the portal was now anyway. It was definitely smaller, and Raine intended to stay and watch until it was gone 100%. Just to make sure.

Someone spread out a picnic blanket. Another group had pulled chairs out. The mood was relaxed in the low traffic spot where Raine settled in with the other wait-it-outers. She'd grabbed a drink from the bodega on the way over, afraid to miss a thing. She didn't realize it was going to go so slowly.

People came and went. Giving up on it. Giving up on any excitement. One of the restaurants nearby turned in to an alternate universe radio station as the sun went down around 8pm. They played break up songs with ever degrading fidelity until sometime after 11:30 when a person's voice came over the speaker.

"I hear zzzzt-cult to transmit betwee-berhhhhhhh and I know I'm only a radio show host. But from the bottom of zzzzzt that brought our two worlds together. Here's a zzzzzzz that feels right. I sincerely hopberrrhhh.

Yesterday brought the beginzzzzzt-orrow brings the end, though somewhere in the middle we became the best of friends.

Goodbye fri-kerrrrhhhhhh.”

Raine, along with many others, stood to witness what must finally be the end.

There was no doctor to declare it dead, but the music from the speakers changed to something soft and local. The rip finished zipping itself back up and then drifted into nothingness like a fleck from a fire caught on a thermal updraft.

The rip had closed.

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OOC: If you have a rip closing reaction, feel free to post it here! You do not have to physically be at the close! Feel free to watch on ViewTube or your favorite local TV station. You can even read about it in passing, days later. It took approximately 24 hours for the rip to close and this was a much quieter passing then the initial opening.

Impact stepped carefully into the lab, ready to call on backup if life arose from what seemed to be a defunct operation. The information was sent to them in a USB thanks to Agnes, but since receiving it… well, no one had heard from her since then. Since weeks before then, in fact. Impact wanted to believe in the best case scenario, but deep down, she had a pit in her stomach.

For the time being, Impact could not let herself get caught up in what could have been the loss of one of her old friends. She was checking on the facility suggested by Agnes, but based on the empty halls and the lack of power outside of flickering emergency lights, the ownership decided to shut this place down fast. Impact had a flashlight mounted on the glove of her uniform so she could get a good look of what she was investigating. The last thing she needed was a surprise.

It was hard to make out colors with the lack of light, but the splatters along various walls appeared to be blood marks. Whatever happened hear was messy if those splatters were left behind unattended. If this was the right place, she wondered what kind of mess she was looking at.

Impact examined the lab, looking for clues. In the haste of the operation being shut down, stray pieces of evidence were left behind. Logs of progress reports on the clones. Actual clones. Some that made it to maturity and some… well, the reports were vague, but the USB had been clear. She always knew SUPER had some kind of involvement with genetic experimentation, but this was something horrifying. ”We’re going to need to touch base with the MRO X-Men. Combatant’s intel was… unfortunately accurate.”

”Um… Impact, there’s been a news update. That might not be possible…”

Rebecca, freshly changed into civilian clothes, stood in the heart of New York City, dumbfounded. A day earlier, the spot she was standing on would have teleported her to another world. Now it was just another part of New York conveniently close to a frozen yogurt place. The checkpoint was still there in case the rift reopened, but there was no saying if it would. For all anyone knew, a rift that was opened for the past year was gone forever, leaving people on one side or another.

Who ended up where? Raine and Cait? The former was possibly hiding out on the other side and the latter was assigned to work with teams on the other side for better coordination. Were those just two more friends, gone forever? After five years of building the team back up, it seemed it might be dwindling around her again.

Even more toubling… what of the “Weapon S” program? Was that still her problem, or was it one of the projects relocated over the past year? Whatever the case, there was now no way to warn Lodestone, Mirror, Shard, or any of the other X-Men of what they might be dealing with.

Rebecca sighed, shaking her head and raising her phone to her ear. ”Okay, I guess you were right. We have to proceed forward with the assumption that the rift is closed and whoever is on that side now… well, we can only wish them the best. I guess it’s time to regroup, see what we’re working with… and rebuild. I’m heading home. Kiss Alex for me in the meantime.”

It was once in a lifetime. How could he turn it down? Booker never took the opportunity to cross into the other world. Oh he was tempted. He wanted to live out every fantasy / sci-fi adventure that he had ever read. But there was an inherent problem with that, namely the fact that this whole event was most likely caused by mutants. As much as Booker wanted to crossover, his fears that his adapted aura would negatively affect the spacetime continuum still played heavily in his mind. He didn’t want to be responsible for it closing and trapping people on one side or the other. However, it seemed that it may happen anyways -- he just wouldn’t be responsible.

News was going out everywhere that there were signs of the rip shrinking. People were saying that this was it: either this would be the end of times or it would be the end of just the doorway. Some fled from it. Others accepted it. Booker didn’t think it would be the end of the world, rather, it was just the universe healing itself from something rather...unexpected. Nature had a way of fixing itself so long as people don’t jab obnoxiously at the wound.

So, here he was, standing nearby and licking an ice cream cone. He was fresh off work, wearing charcoal pants and a matching vest while he sported a rather colorful and heroic bowtie. This was a nice way to cap off the day, wasn’t it? Ice cream, a warm day, and witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime celestial phenomena. God he loved New York sometimes.

Getting a good place to stand, Booker wore sunglasses as he peered through the rip. He wasn’t close enough for his aura to affect it, but he could see it very clearly. There were even a few people on the other side who waved at him as they passed, one going so far as to jokingly place her thumb and pinky to her ears and lips in a crude gesture to call her. Obviously that was impossible; he couldn’t imagine how much his carrier would charge for a cross-dimensional call.

He smirked and waved at the person before they vanished from sight and went back to his strawberry-chocolate swirl ice cream waffle cone. But as he lapped up a wayward sprinkle that tried to slink onto his hand, he grumbled, and tabbed at his knuckles with a napkin. His eyes glanced briefly to the rip where he noticed a rather odd scene -- someone was running.

His head tilted, curious. He couldn’t exactly make them out through the sheen of the rift but they seemed to be moving with haste. A prayer was muttered under his lips. He hoped that that wasn’t someone who from this world getting trapped on the other. With a glance to them, at the closing corners of the rip, he turned to look for an authority figure to maybe see if the poor woman could be helped. But before he could flag anyone down he turned back just in time to watch the rip seal.

Booker stood there, staring at the spot, his ice cream still dripping on his fingers. He only caught a clear glimpse of the woman before the tear was gone and, oddly, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she looked a little...familiar. Offering this stranger a silent prayer that she was where she was supposed to be, he headed off and hoped the strange flutter in his stomach would go away with time.

Paige awoke with a headache. She usually did; her powers had faded over the night, but she was still stuck with the aftereffects of a night of drinking. Her stomach had woken her up. Pains in her stomach were growing more frequent as time went on, and she knew too well it was tied to the symptoms of excessive use of Ambrosia. She was stuck in an awkward spot; the Ambrosia was killing her, but if she stopped taking it, her employer might kill her first. More than that, she still loved the feeling Ambrosia gave her. To live as a mutant. To more easily forget the past.

She untangled herself from Skye. Over the months, her fellow dancer was the only woman who was allowed to know Paige’s secret. Skye was the only person Paige trusted with the truth of her humanity, and because of that, they were made closer for it. Paige reached over the woman’s body for the glasses on the nightstand. Another effect of the Ambrosia; her eyesight was deteriorating, so whenever she was not on stage, she was now wearing glasses.

Letting her friend, or whatever Skye was now, rest in bed a while longer, Paige threw on a pair of shorts and a shirt that rested off one shoulder. She sauntered into the kitchen, turning on the television and the coffee maker. Over the soft hum of her coffee brewing, she caught the tail end of a news report. ”There is no saying if this will stop or if this ends with the closing of the Rift we all grew used to for the past year. We will be bringing you ongoing coverage of the shrinking Rift throughout the day.”

Paige stood there, stunned. Ever since Gawain-then-Maya made an appearance at the club, Paige had been considering making her way over to the other world for one reason: Booker. She had asked one of the girls working on the other side to look into the possibility of a Booker Bookman living in the other world. It was possible the name would be different, but she had to find out. And when she did, she had to spend months wondering about her alternate universe brother.

She always found reasons not to go visit him. He was not her Booker; not really. He might have his own Paige, or might not have a sister at all. And what if he saw her and he was just… disappointed. That fear kept Paige from making a move.

Now, though… now her window was closing. She wondered what to do; what if the Rift was closing forever? She ran the risk of being displaced from her own life for the chance of knowing the man who was sort of her brother? It was a weighty choice to make. When she left the apartment, she was still undecided, but she did have her wallet and her ID in her back pocket, just in case.

She finally made it to the Rift, and even as it shrank, it still put the feeling in her gut that something was wrong. Maybe it was best that she just return to her apartment, curl up with Skye, and—

It was him. Through the Rift, it was hard to tell right away, and he looked older than she remembered, but sitting there, eating ice cream without a care in the world, was Booker.

Paige did not know what she was going to do and her feet seemed to move on her own, but before she realized it, she was running toward him. She would deal with the consequences and what could and could not be undone later, but she saw her brother there and she had to give herself the chance to get to know him. She could almost feel the pull of the Rift, ready to bring her over to the other side.

And then it was gone. Paige actually tripped at the unexpected shift, leaving nothing in front of her but her New York City. She looked around in a panic, but she knew in her heart she had not made it. Booker was nowhere to be seen. There was a numbness that filled her as reality hit her. She had a chance and it was gone now.

“Do you need help getting to your feet, dear?”

Paige looked up at an older gentleman offering her a hand and accepted it with a polite nod, but she did not speak. The Rift was closed. Booker was dead, but the Rift did not change that. She did not have her brother, but maybe she could take solace in knowing he was out there in another reality, alive and happy and eating ice cream. Maybe if she focused on that, the pit in her stomach would go away.