Last Daughter of Krypton: Legion IC

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Legion HQ

M'onel nodded slowly. "Cos. Keep me posted; I'm here if you need me."
He paused. "Might I also suggest XS for the Galtos assist? We might also need your assistance with fast-tracking Legion candidacy for another individual. The, ah, visitor from The Vatican is a serious technological powerhouse. And unlike certain Shadow Lasses, she does not rub me the wrong way."

"Not a bad idea M'onel. Get our new arrival a room, then head down to the gate, and bring her with you. Once we get a fix on the Five I want you guys ready to rock and roll."

Rokk then switched to answer Cham. "I though of that Cham, but I need to keep a response force here too. We have been hit in two different places, and what happens if i send off everyone else, and we get hit here? Also, head down to VM3's room and see whats up with her. She's not answering her com, and her ring isn't even registering at all."

Something screwy was going on but damned if he knew what it was. All that Nth metal down in med bay was making his teeth itch.

 

[Varshanka]

Allana Lang - Legion Lobby

M'onel nodded slowly. "Cos. Keep me posted; I'm here if you need me."

He paused. "Might I also suggest XS for the Galtos assist? We might also need your assistance with fast-tracking Legion candidacy for another individual. The, ah, visitor from The Vatican is a serious technological powerhouse. And unlike certain Shadow Lasses, she does not rub me the wrong way."

"Not a bad idea M'onel. Get our new arrival a room, then head down to the gate, and bring her with you. Once we get a fix on the Five I want you guys ready to rock and roll."

Rokk then switched to answer Cham. "I though of that Cham, but I need to keep a response force here too. We have been hit in two different places, and what happens if I send off everyone else, and we get hit here? Also, head down to VM3's room and see whats up with her. She's not answering her com, and her ring isn't even registering at all."

Something screwy was going on but damned if he knew what it was. All that Nth metal down in med bay was making his teeth itch.

“A room is not required if my services are needed.” Allana remarked. She wished not to be a difficult situation. She was needed. She would help.

“Diagnostics complete, Knight Lang.” The Cortical machine-spirit whispered in her skull. “Detection of subharmonic transplaner intrusion in the flight bay. Bioform signature matches profile of Phantom Girl.”

“Acknowledged,” Allana answered. Weapons systems that had gone online at the initiation of the transplaner intrusion returned to standby in microseconds. Always ready for war and battle, she was. Whenever the Will of Truth required it.

 

[Wyldfire]

Rec room 1,2,3,4, dining room 2 and many other places.

Boredboredboredbored. It had seemed like a strange gift at the time but she adored it till today. A ping pong table. An natique that looked out of place in Rec room 4. Jen had a horrible habit when she stressed out she got hyper. A hyper superspeedster is something you really wouldn't want to see.

The table was almost impossible to see with the Purple, white, and gold blur surrounding it. This had always been a fun game for Jen. It was a game she always won and lost. Except for today. The ball was hit in a high slow, even for the rest of the team, lob and the blur exited the Rec room. Through the passageways, there had to be someone fun around. Not in Rec 1 or the other two.

The ball was almost to the net. "Ohmygod,forgot to eat". she said as she blurred into the dinning room and grabbed up a bunch of kono fruit and stuffing one into her mouth continued her quest.

she blew through the main lobby as the whole techintruderthingiewiththereallysprockingcoolarmor was, and with all the dire doings she just continued on out of there. Nofuntobehadthere.

She thoughtabout Brainy's lab for a second and changed her mind. Last time she'd been bored and went in there almost cost her her life. It'd made Brainy turn alotta different shades of green too. Now that'd almost be worth a second attempt. Nah, not today, too much bad's happened today.

She blew through medbay just to peek and see how things were there. Just Jan, Saliday, and the injured and dead there. It was in medbay that the idea had hit her.

The ball was almost hitting the table as Jen blew back in, dropping the pile of clothes she was carrying from the laundry. She blurred to the table and vollied the ball back and blurred to the pile. She returned the volley in one of Ayla's costumes. Round and round the table she went changing back and forth from Ayla's to her own costume.

"Not a bad idea M'onel. Get our new arrival a room, then head down to the gate, and bring her with you. Once we get a fix on the Five I want you guys ready to rock and roll."

JOY! Ohjoyohjoyohjoyohjoy. Something to do. Time to kick butt! She dropped the paddle and blurred off to the Transfer tunnel and the ship. She came to a stop in the middle of the bridge area. In Ayla's costume. With everyone staring.

Ohnonononono. "Berightback." she said as she blurred off the ship back to the rec room and changed back into her own costume then in half a blink was back in her own costume.

Slowing her words down to normal she said "Sorry about that Ayla. Didn't mean anything creepy by it. I was just tired of always beatiing myself at ping pong so I figured I'd play you a game or two and you were up by two when the call came in for me to join up here."

 

[ChasNicollette]

M'onel, Ceriel, Kid Quantum. The Lobby.

"Not a bad idea M'onel. Get our new arrival a room, then head down to the gate, and bring her with you. Once we get a fix on the Five I want you guys ready to rock and roll."

“A room is not required if my services are needed.” Allana remarked. She wished not to be a difficult situation. She was needed. She would help.

M'onel regarded her quietly. "Really? Are you sure? You did say you haven't properly eaten today. Best to take what respite we can when we can get it. It's really no trouble, the autobutler can even attempt to synthesise comfort food from home.

"I'm sure you'd rather enter combat, if need be," M'onel suggested, "refreshed somewhat rather than not refreshed at all. But if you're sure?"

M'onel gestured towards the lifts, into which first Tasmia and then Ayla had vanished. "Either way. Whether you're, ah, 'ready to rock and roll' or if you need a bite and a quick nap, it's the same direction. I'm sure we'll be using a ship and a Threshold rather than the standard StarGate network, seems to be S.O.P. 'round here for the heavier stuff."

He held out his hand to her. "Come with me."

Ceriel saw fit not to interact with any of this. She was... Presence help her, she was distracted. She was staring straight up, through the ceiling of the lobby and at a little bit of an angle.

"Go with him."

She'd again felt the curtain between the realms part.

Not like the tinkling of silver bells on the harness of drawn horses but like a clocktower bell, booming and tolling.

This was not the summoning that had taken her grand-daughter.

Something had come through. Something. Familiar. Something old.

"Take rest or make ready," she murmured. "Either way. Go with him. I shall return at speed as soon as I can."

Her wings spread. "Godspeed."

Her wings snapped downward, and she hurtled upward, she was a blur, silver and black. She was gone.

********​

She snapped through matter like it was thin puddled water erected perpendicularly, she breezed through matter like it was empty space and her crimson eyes narrowed as she soared...

Her wings flared, she braked, she hovered...

...her wings folded behind her as her bare feet settled to a stop on the floor of R.J. Brande's private rooms.

And she stopped, there. J'onn, she knew he was here, she still couldn't believe it.

But the man standing before him. She had heard rumour of The Scion of Shadow being finished his task, his indentured servitude. But she had thought he had been quit of this planet forever.

On the other hand...

Prophecy.

She stared at Wraith's back as he faced J'onn J'onzz.

She could feel the power bleeding off of him. He was not bells, he was thunder and he was claws on a chalkboard, he was unrest and he was the shifting of darkness at sunset.

"Great God," she murmured, shaking her head. "Kyle."

"I know who the Child of Darkness is, and it could be no darker a being." I paused , the shadows in the room flexing and twisting from my inner turmoil, "It is Zod J'onn, and this time he has all the power of Hell inside him to make worlds kneel before him."

Ceriel stumbled back, her scarlet eyes widening. "Zod. Hells Entire."

She closed those eyes and covered her brow with the heel of her hand. "'He is awake.'"

********​

Down in the Lobby, Kid Quantum frowned warily. She was all for being hospitable. But she had been plenty suspicious of The Legion, when she'd met them a year ago blaming them for her brother's death. She'd had to choose between The Legion and The Amazers...

Oh, god. Oh, my krexing god.

They're dead.

They're all dead.

She rubbed her arm and the wind went out of her sails.

Well. Even if Allana wasn't what she seemed, who better to keep an eye on her than M'onel himself?

She had been avoiding this. Her fellow Xanthanites had died in battle. She'd been operating on pure professionalism... but even that had its limits.

She had to go tell James. She had to go visit The Hall of The Fallen, and then visit the deceased Amazers.

Jazmin turned, giving one last look over her shoulder to Magdalena and M'onel.

And then she hurried towards another set of lifts.

Behind her, too fast for Jazmin's quantum senses to detect more than a hyperelectric ripple of speed force energy, and that only if she'd been looking for it, XS screamed by.

Almost too fast for M'onel to hear her. Almost too fast for M'onel to catch a fleeting glimpse of her blurred form whistling past...

He smiled softly, glanced at Allana. "Did you pick that up? That was one of ours. Didn't take her long to get the message. But, then. It never does."

 

[Varshanka]

Allana - Following M'onel

“Incoming hostile. Hypersonic disruption. Force field maximum density.” The Machine Spirit whispered. Spikes launching from the heels on a thought. Snapping out. Locking her in place. The will of God would move her. Nothing less.

Motion trackers locked on target, auto-defense batteries prepared to flick out and detonate on the projectile. Biosensors engaged. “Tracking bioform….”

The girl ran into the room.

She paused for the briefest of moment’s. A blur of sound. The girl ran out.

“Translating. Decelerating ligua code.” "Be right back."

“Bioelectric form has been identified. Non hostile. Defensive systems standing down.”

He smiled softly, glanced at Allana. "Did you pick that up? That was one of ours. Didn't take her long to get the message. But, then. It never does."

“She was identified as a non-hostile, but no datafile is accessible on that subject. A sandwich will be more than sufficient.” Allana replied. “What are Threshold and StarGate? These terms are not identified or translated by the Machine Spirit.”

Following M'onel, she listened as Ceriel departed. "Godspeed indeed, Guardian. Godspeed indeed." she said, looking up and nodding.

 

[ChasNicollette]

M'onel, Kid Quantum. The Lobby, The Hall of The Fallen.

“She was identified as a non-hostile, but no datafile is accessible on that subject. A sandwich will be more than sufficient.” Allana replied.

The woman had an interesting way of talking. When she wasn't being all, well, formal and prayerful? She was efficient. Stringing concepts together with a minimum of fuss.

She reminded him a great deal of one of the colonies he'd settled back in the day. The Dominators' experiments on this particular group had unleashed ancestral memories in them rather than activating any particular metagenetic response, and as a result they'd reverted to an earlier stage in their collective culture without losing any of the technical advancements of their modern culture.

Good people. Hard workers.

Tended to infighting, much to his chagrin.

He hated to leave them like that, but there were other groups he'd had to take care of.

"You do have good sensors on that thing."

"XS," he replied, "that's letter 'X,' letter 'S,' is our resident superspeedster. I mean, Powergirl and Ultra Girl and I, we're no slowpokes when we get going, but she, ah, that girl can really. What was it Garth called it? She can really cheese it."

He smiled faintly. "And speaking of 'cheese,' the sandwich is an Earth specialty. Apparently they invented the thing? Little country that's underwater now."

He glanced back over his shoulder at Jazmin passing through the doors of another lift and he wondered what was going on with her. His whole spectrum of powers, and he didn't have a shred of telepathy.

Ah, well. What do you get for the man who has everything?

He glanced at the floor where Allana's spikes had deployed.

He tried not to react. After all, he'd done more damage than that his first day here. At least he'd been outside when it had happened.

Mental note: couple divots in the front walk for our friendly neighbourhood Athramites to fix.

Sprock. Talk about your stiletto heels.

He takked the key for the lift.

“What are Threshold and StarGate? These terms are not identified or translated by the Machine Spirit.”

He considered this for a moment. When he'd settled that world, he'd been pretty far from where he'd eventually discovered Earth.

(Could it be? Really? Grife. I'm too old.)

"Godspeed indeed, Guardian. Godspeed indeed." she said, looking up and nodding.

Lar didn't know what to make of this at all, and it caused him to hesitate. He looked in the direction of her looking up and nodding and assumed, quietly, bewilderedly, that this was one of those formal/prayerful things.

Lar shook his head. "You'll have to get back to me on 'Machine Spirit.' Is that some sort of A.I.? I knew an A.I. once. He was my best friend growing up."

But then he resumed gazing at her visor, at her faceplate. "Essentially, 'round these parts, there's three ways to beat the sublight speed limit these days. Pretty standard outside the UP are warp engines, also called hyperspace or hyperlight drives. But these are relatively slow and extremely costly. Whole planetary economies have gone bankrupt for the fuels involved. More recently, however, The Legion's illustrious founder R.J. Brande introduced a thing called a StarGate. There's specific jump-points throughout The United Planets, and if a ship reaches one of these it can shave weeks, even months off of its journey, transiting to another one of those jump-points. StarGates have done more, apparently, to unite The United Planets than even The Legion, and apparently that's saying something.

"Just in the last few months," M'onel continued, "through the miracle of modern science, we've developed a further improvement on StarGate technology called 'Threshold.' Unlike StarGates, you only need one fixed point, a generator point, which can beam a Threshold portal to pretty much anywhere in the known cosmos or beyond. Visionary that he is, Mr. Brande has already integrated the technology into our own headquarters, but The UP is hesitant to embrace it without thorough testing, carried out by our own Brainiac Five. (He's the smart one.) Until we get the go-ahead, we have to get approval for each and every Threshold we project."

He glanced up at the dial of the lift as it ticked downward. "But all we need, right now, is just a lowly elevator."

At long seeming last, the doors wssshed open, and he held the door with one hand, gesturing ahead of him. "After you, Lady Knight."

********​

Jazmin stood quietly, gazing up at the statue of her brother. Proud and strong. Hands on his hips, as if he'd just adjusted that beloved stasis belt of his.

A tear trickled down Kid Quantum's cheek.

She keyed her Ring's comm. "Rokk. Call me if anything explodes. I need some quiet time."

 

[Varshanka]

Allana and M'onel - in the Lift

At long seeming last, the doors wssshed open, and he held the door with one hand, gesturing ahead of him. "After you, Lady Knight."

Stepping into the lift Allana stepped into the corner. A position that allowed her sword to be drawn if need be. “Aye Eye? I do not know that meaning. The Machine Spirit is called CORTical ANalysis and Augmentation profile Celestial Augmentation Unit Isiah fifty-three five.” Holding out her hand the air shimmered above her palm.

A small winged figure made of beams of light stood there. Barely five inches tall the image was gender neutral Bearing qualities of both. “Interesting,” it said. “Genome pattern match is confirmed.” But whether through it’s own programming, or a deeper understanding of body-language than any normal AI should possess, it said nothing further on that subject.

With a flick of light the image vanished and Allana closed her hand. Ready to hold her shield one more if the need arose. “Are these Threshold devises faster even that Fatal drive ships? The would have been useful against the Strogg. Perhaps these.. Gates amongst the Stars are how the Strogg are moving.. Have any of these gates ceased to function recently?”

Inside her head she was trying to adjust what he was saying. Heavenly Gates? Gate to Heaven? The Truth would never allow such a thing. Mortal man was not meant to walk upon the shores of Heaven. The Words he was using had to mean something else. She didn’t understand it fully, so she allowed the Machine Spirit to continue with automatic lingua code translation. For now. She would learn they way these people spoke. Some day.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lightning Lass, Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass. The Cruiser.

Sighing deeply and steeling herself, Ayla climbed aboard.

She made her way through to the cockpit and slid her butt into the co-pilot's seat.

Tinya was meandering her way stiffly, bitterly through the preflight checks, but from the diagnostic readout on the computer, she'd already finished them once and had started doing them again just to give herself something to do to pass the time.

Ayla touched Tinya's shoulder gently. "Hey, you."

Tinya smiled a phantom of a smile. "Hey, yourself."

Ayla paused, and examined the Bgztlian's haunted expression. And decided, in a flash of old farmgirl wisdom, to ask a question that was two questions: "Are we good to go?"

Tinya made a little noise somewhere in her throat. "We're ready for takeoff. But I can't promise we'll have any happy landings."

An answer that was two answers.

Ayla gave her friend's shoulder a squeeze of encouragement.

But then the cockpit grew a little bit darker as Tasmia entered and slid into another of the seats posted around the circumference of the ship's little saucer section. Putting her booted feet up on the console, she affected disinterest in the whole affair.

Ayla scowled at her, unable to keep a few licks of lightning from seeping out around the scrunch of her eyes.

Tasmia ignored her. "So what are we waiting for? Don't tell me The UP's bogging us down in red tape again?"

Grunting, she glanced at one of her readouts, and noticed that the projected crew manifest had just updated. "Actually, we--"

She came to a stop in the middle of the bridge area. In Ayla's costume.

Around the circle, three jaws dropped.

"Is this the Dark Day that Terrans celebrate in autumn with the costumes," Shadow Lass frowned, "or is this the Fool's Day from springtime where everyone does things that are disjointedly ridiculous?"

But none of the girls present were Earth natives and none of them could think of a reply.

With everyone staring.

"Berightback." she said as she blurred off the ship back to the rec room and changed back into her own costume then in half a blink was back in her own costume.

Slowing her words down to normal she said "Sorry about that Ayla. Didn't mean anything creepy by it. I was just tired of always beatiing myself at ping pong so I figured I'd play you a game or two and you were up by two when the call came in for me to join up here."

Ayla smiled softly, and gestured in a conciliatory manner. "Hey, don't mind me. Lightning's been a motif for your family a lot longer than it's been for mine. We're only first-generation metahumans."

Tinya actually managed a smile. "Looked good on you."

"Helps to have better legs than the original," Tasmia cold-quipped, and Ayla scowled at her.

Ayla took a deep breath, though, and thought better of it. "Hey, I was beating Jen at ping-pong, I can survive getting shown up in the 'stems' department."

 

[ChasNicollette]

M'onel. En route.

Stepping into the lift Allana stepped into the corner. A position that allowed her sword to be drawn if need be. “Aye Eye? I do not know that meaning. The Machine Spirit is called CORTical ANalysis and Augmentation profile Celestial Augmentation Unit Isiah fifty-three five.”

"Artificial Intelligence," M'onel clarified, feeling a bit like there was more of a language barrier than their conversation would let on. "Mine was called 'Babbage.'"

Holding out her hand the air shimmered above her palm.

He quirked an eyebrow.

A small winged figure made of beams of light stood there. Barely five inches tall the image was gender neutral Bearing qualities of both. “Interesting,” it said. “Genome pattern match is confirmed.”

M'onel kept his face as neutral as the hologram's gender. And busied himself checking their progress on the floor indicator.

Whose genome just got matched with what?

Why do I get the feeling the cat just ditched the bag?

With a flick of light the image vanished and Allana closed her hand. Ready to hold her shield one more if the need arose. “Are these Threshold devises faster even that Fatal drive ships? The would have been useful against the Strogg. Perhaps these.. Gates amongst the Stars are how the Strogg are moving.. Have any of these gates ceased to function recently?”

"Instant transmission," M'onel nodded, managing to make the jump between the guttural F'T'L and the word "fatal."

(Unless "Fatal" means Faster Than Life?)

"Or, very nearly instant."

He frowned, though. "I can't say who else has discovered the principles of Threshold travel. But The Strogg... man, I remember those guys. No, the Strogg are technically outside U.P. space, they wouldn't have access to the network. I don't think? We've got The Khunds on one side of us, and their Affiliated Planets. Near Xanthu. And on the other side..."

He frowned, trying to remember what he'd learned of Galactic geography since he'd been back. Superspeed learning helped, but he was only so bright.

"The Strogg. Near..."

He frowned at Allana as the door again wssshed wide, presenting them with a dormitory hallway. Figuring this was a better bet for a quick sandwich, summoning the autobutler to an apartment, than it would be to deal with fast-talking Tenzil Senior in the cafeteria, he'd programmed the lift to bring them here. And from here, they'd go to the Threshold Hangar Bay.

But other things were on his mind now than where they were going next.

But right now he was wondering where they'd been.

"What planet did you say you were from, again?"

 

[Varshanka]

Allanna Lang - En-route

"What planet did you say you were from, again?"

Stepping into the hall the sensorium informed her the region was unoccupied. Tactical sensoria readouts mapped the zone, cross-matched it with blueprints that had been uploaded and informed her she was in the region of the sleeping cells. Dormitories. Single person living quarters. Larger than she was used to. Possibly intended for two occupants per room.

“I am from the Kingdom of Caer Lial, Planet Caerleon, Kingdom of Isles Principality.” Taking in his facial expression, she added, “The Tech-priest claims we are Planetary designation Thirty-Seven Four fourteen.”

As it had been explained to her it meant that the Thirty-seven surveyor ship had detected the planet as hospitable. The four hundred and fourteen planet it had located in it’s route across the darkness of time.

 

[Wyldfire]

Shvaughn Erin.

She listened as Cos assembled his teams. It wasn't too difficult to track Validus' energy trail. It was harder to keep her nose clear of Lallorian cyber sniffers. Shvaughn was glad the Five hadn't waited a few more months for this, seeing as Lallor was in the process of negotiations with the U.P. for improved detections and cyber defense systems. But then again, with the lose of the Heroes, Lallor might begin negotiations for U.P. membership.

Shvaughn knew that the Five had split up, but why would they? She wouldn't be able to provide any sort of profiling or logistics for this until she knew where all of the Five were and why Mano had been on Takron.

As she was locking in the course the Four (? Maybe?) were taking she caught a comm signal directed at the Empress' ship. It took her a bit before she threw up her hands. She copied the transmission and keyed her Com. "Brainiac Five, please forgive the intrusion but I am sending you a broadcast I just caught being transmitted to the Empress' ship."

She hung her head as she finished, "I have to admit it's more than I can handle. Could you please consider putting this on the highest priority? This encryption smells of Tharok, I need to know as soon as possible what the message is before I can make any recommendations for team deployment. I don't want to see Rokk feed too small a team to do the job on the Witch."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Saturn Girl

(OOC:sorry, I completely forgot to get her on the boat.)

Saturn Girl rushed in and threw herself down in her seat. "Sorry, sorry! Got held up a few in the control room. Ready to go now."

What she didn't say was that what held her up was the darkness spreading in Rokk's mind. It wasn't madness, but he had never felt so... hard before. If he did got meet the Five, they were going to see a Cosmic Boy that had not ever been seen before.

 

[Wyldfire]

Saturn Girl rushed in and threw herself down in her seat. "Sorry, sorry! Got held up a few in the control room. Ready to go now."


Jo heard Imra, and noticed the cattiness that was about to bring her up the ladder had quieted. The crap between she and Tinya was to be expected, but for Shady to be this big of a bitch was unneccesary. And poor Ayla and Jen getting caught in the middle of it was not sprocking cool.

Jo did however climb the ladder poking her head up from the lower deck, "Hey Imra, who got assigned to getting VM3 back? I mean one minute she was there and the next I was the only one in her bed."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Imra looked at Jo with confusion in her eyes, "Back? Wasn't she in her quarters? She got hit pretty hard emotionally & I though Rokk was going to reserve her a day so she could sort it out. She's missing?"

 

[Wyldfire]

Is it dream or Nthorex?

She laid in peace for what seemed centuries, then they came. Cutting and tearing into her mind. Leaving her nearly mindless, and then leaving, leaving her to heal. As time would pass she would recover more and more of herself. Then it would all happen again, the sounds of the ships and the wings. The rapists had their way with her again and again. Then the healing would begin again.

When Dawnstar felt the invaders coming again she tried to run but felt herself moving only along the same path she had been for the entire dream. Why couldn't she break free. Her heart rate accelerated. Something wasn't right. They came and savaged her. There was nothing she could do to save herself.

As she lay only semi sentient a warm blue light bathed her and a voice said "Rest easy, hope always comes to those that truly need it." Dawny could see the being, a Durlan, but the dream part of her didn't have a clue what this tiny being was. I was almost like the invaders but it had a different form.

A voice Dawnstar had trouble identifying for a second said "What hope is there for me? They come and come again and hurt me. Take my mind from me."

It was the voice of her Tribe's Totem spirit. It sounded young and hurt. The Durlan answered. "I will help you. I will bring you the means to defend yourself and I will give you the tool to rekindle your hope and shape the means to defend yourself. Be kind to the next batch of bio forms to come to your planet, for they are the means."

Five more blue pin points appeared around her. The six beings all pointed their hands at her and she felt the surge of hope that overcame her as they began to pour energy into her. She felt her mind finish rebuilding itself, she felt strong.

Words poured through her mind and she/her totem spirit spoke them "In Fearful Day, in Raging Night,
With Strong Hearts Full Our Souls ignite
When All Seems Lost in the War of Light
Look to the Stars...
For Hope burns Bright!"

The six others had joined in in this oath. Once done the first being looked at her and said "Welcome Lantern Starhaven, welcome to the Blue Lantern Corps."

With that they left and she went back to sleep, only to be disturbed with the arrival of newcomers. These newcomers were confused and scared. Their transportation, their ship she had learned from their thoughts, had malfunctioned and sent them crashing onto her.

Dawnstar's mind reeled. The tribes had been redirected to Starhaven to protect her. The radical shifts in their Physiology had been guided by Starhaven to protect her.

Starhaven poured comfort and feelings of safety out to her protectors to be. She saw the faith of her people and began visiting those with a higher esp er capacity, going to them in form of the spirit animal that each of the tribes followed.

Dawnstar felt a surge through her body, a surge similar to what she felt in the dream. But the dream (or was this really memory?) didn't stop.

Starhaven showed the tribes where small veins of her memory was. They in turn fashioned weapons with them. And when the original invaders, the Thanagarians, came the tribes made war in defence of Starhaven and Starhaven in unseen ways helped the tribes making what should have been a savage act of butchery on the Thanagarians part a raging war that cost the Thanagarians more than they would have.

Hope poured through her as the tribes and the Thanagarians eventually came to the Pact that was still honored today. Peace had been made, and Starhaven could rest again. Until another long awaited event began. The event that would require Starhaven to send forth a champion from the ruling Tribe. The Falcon tribe.

 

[ChasNicollette]

M'onel. Dormitory Levels/Residential.

She stepped into the hall, and he stepped after her, glancing ahead but not removing the whole of his gaze from her.

“I am from the Kingdom of Caer Lial, Planet Caerleon, Kingdom of Isles Principality.” Taking in his facial expression, she added, “The Tech-priest claims we are Planetary designation Thirty-Seven Four fourteen.”

The numbers were just noise, to him, he didn't recognise those. "Kingdom of The Isles" seemed almost intentionally vague, it was worse than "Asteroid Archipelago." And what was that? Caer Lial? Carlisle?

Though he found himself certain that if he crossreferenced those aforementioned numbers with The Encyclopedia Galactica, they'd match deep-space probes from the early days of Earth astrogation. They'd match that one little planet.

Because there was a word he did recognise.

He had been there a few months, he couldn't remember exactly how long. He'd had to spend the majority of the time with an atmospheric filter mask over his head, because their work with heavy metals had kicked up enough lead to kill him. The helmet had been vaguely reminiscent of the armour they'd all fashioned for themselves...

It had been the first planet he had "seeded" with the humans and metahumans he had rescued from The Dominators. He had spent longer there than he probably should have, but they were all obsessed with baronies and duchies and powers and principalities.

But there had been wise men amidst the thanes and the beserkers. And one of these wise men had promised him that Lar could move on, could continue his work, could find homes for the other ships waiting in orbit.

'We will make this one world. As Arthur Pendragon once remade Britannia, once united it under a single banner, The Table Round of Camelot, so too will we unite this planet under a single banner. The Planet Caerllion. From the Welsh.'

'"Fortress of The Legion."'

A thousand years later, a long time ago, and there it was: Caerleon.

He was pretty sure Jan would quote something here.

Something along the lines of: 'be sure your sins will find you out.'

He didn't lie. Not quite. He looked at her for a long moment, and then kept walking.

"Autobutler," he declared into his Ring's omnicom, "track my Flight Ring to Residential. We require a room-code programming for guest quarters and a pending order for foodservice."

"Compliance."

He looked again at Allana, voice and face as neutral as could be. "'Caerleon.' Sounds like a nice enough place."

 

[Wyldfire]

Imra looked at Jo with confusion in her eyes, "Back? Wasn't she in her quarters? She got hit pretty hard emotionally & I though Rokk was going to reserve her a day so she could sort it out. She's missing?"

Jo's face froze as it sank in. "Oh bloody fraking Nass! Jo you mental little psychobitch!" Ultra girl let go of the ladder and flew up hitting the comm station.

"Cos, you can flay me when we get back, but I think someone snatched Jaymie. I was with her when she got dragged into darkness." She turned giving Tasmia an alltogether different look.

"If I didn't know better I'd say someone on this very cruiser might be able to enlighten us. Cos, can I interrogate Tasmia to see if her or the old assed shadow we met this morning had anything to do with it? Please Cos, I won't break too many bones."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Lightning Lass, Phantom Girl, Shadow Lass. The Cruiser.

Saturn Girl rushed in and threw herself down in her seat. "Sorry, sorry! Got held up a few in the control room. Ready to go now."

"Hey, no rush," Ayla grinned amiably.

It was pretty easy to treat the blonde Titanian as a member of the family. After all, Imra'd known Garth so long...

...and everyone everyone everyone had a feeling about those two...

"Jen just got here herself. And Jo's still double-checking the gunpod."

Jo did however climb the ladder poking her head up from the lower deck, "Hey Imra, who got assigned to getting VM3 back? I mean one minute she was there and the next I was the only one in her bed."

Ayla blinked. "Wait, Jaymie? What happened?"

Inwardly, however, concerned as she was for VM3's well-being, she couldn't help but make a mental note: Well, that's another one I can check off of my list, I always sort of wondered. Now, if we can just get a clear answer on Vi...

Tinya's grip on the arms of her seat were white-knuckled within her gloves. And her cheeks were aflame with the light of twin red suns.

'In her bed.' In. Her. Bed.

Well. That was. Not how I'd. Like to find out about that sort of thing.

She riveted her attention to her station's readouts and tried her ferocious best to smother the bitterness, jealousy, and fury that tried to bubble up on her face. She hadn't even thought that Jaymie would be--

--that she would--

--she only ever saw Greystone spending all that time with Wildfire, she thought they must have had a secret thing, no? Was it all a miscalculation? Maybe Jo's professions of devotion all were hollow noise and she'd been sprocking the little blue-haired girl all along.

Grife.

Tasmia ran her tongue over her teeth and said not a word, she only took in the hunch of Tinya's shoulders and the fire on Tinya's cheeks and she grinned cheerfully to herself. You couldn't buy entertainment this good.

Imra looked at Jo with confusion in her eyes, "Back? Wasn't she in her quarters? She got hit pretty hard emotionally & I though Rokk was going to reserve her a day so she could sort it out. She's missing?"

Jo's face froze as it sank in. "Oh bloody fraking Nass! Jo you mental little psychobitch!" Ultra girl let go of the ladder and flew up hitting the comm station.

Protective, Tinya noted, with that sinking feeling. Possessive. That's as good as confirmation.

"Cos, you can flay me when we get back, but I think someone snatched Jaymie. I was with her when she got dragged into darkness." She turned giving Tasmia an alltogether different look.

Tasmia arched her eyebrows, seeming to say: As if it's any business of mine who you're with?

"If I didn't know better I'd say someone on this very cruiser might be able to enlighten us. Cos, can I interrogate Tasmia to see if her or the old assed shadow we met this morning had anything to do with it? Please Cos, I won't break too many bones."

Tasmia held up a single finger. Not a rude gesture, just an indication of one.

"First of all," Shadow Lass declared, icy calm, eyes dancing with darkness and challenge, "you ignorant brute? It seems like your snarking about my 'long slutty night of disappointment' was born of hypocrisy: apparently you've had your share of disappointment tonight, given the pretty little things vanishing from between your covers and/or between your legs."

(Tinya's grasp on the arms of the pilot's chair was almost enough, even without Ultra-Strength, to tear the things clean off.)

Shadow Lass ticked up a second finger, two.

"For another thing," she grimaced, "I'm hardly his keeper, this 'old assed Shadow' you describe. As you had suggested, he doesn't want anything to do with me. I'm hardly privy to his whereabouts or his motivations, let alone whether or not he's kinky enough to abscond with his own barely-legal superdescendant. He is a god and therefore is beyond my mere analysis."

Third finger. Three.

"Third of all. 'Josephine.' You want to fracture my skeleton? Really? Really-really?"

The third and second fingers folded away, leaving the first finger, crooking in an unmistakable beckon.

"I would love to see you try."

"Oh my holy sprocking grife, Shady," Lightning Lass gazed, horror-stricken.

"No," Tinya breathed, sounding almost shell-shocked by this entire exchange, she'd moved beyond brokenheartedness she was just too tired for it. "She's right: I'd like to see Jo try that, too. Perhaps for. Different reasons."

 

[Wyldfire]

Ayla blinked. "Wait, Jaymie? What happened?"

Inwardly, however: Well, that's another one I can check off of my list, I always sort of wondered. Now, if we can just get a clear answer on Vi...

Tinya's grip on the arms of her seat were white-knuckled within her gloves. And her cheeks were aflame with the light of twin red suns.

'In her bed.' In. Her. Bed.

Well. That was. Not how I'd. Like to find out about that sort of thing.

She riveted her attention to her station's readouts and tried her ferocious best to smother the bitterness, jealousy, and fury that tried to bubble up on her face. She hadn't even thought that Jaymie would be--

--that she would--

--she only ever saw Greystone spending all that time with Wildfire, she thought they must have had a secret thing, no? Was it all a miscalculation? Maybe Jo's professions of devotion all were hollow noise and she'd been sprocking the little blue-haired girl all along.

Grife.

Tasmia ran her tongue over her teeth and said not a word, she only took in the hunch of Tinya's shoulders and the fire on Tinya's cheeks and she grinned cheerfully to herself. You couldn't buy entertainment this good.

Imra looked at Jo with confusion in her eyes, "Back? Wasn't she in her quarters? She got hit pretty hard emotionally & I though Rokk was going to reserve her a day so she could sort it out. She's missing?"

Jo's face froze as it sank in. "Oh bloody fraking Nass! Jo you mental little psychobitch!" Ultra girl let go of the ladder and flew up hitting the comm station.

Protective, Tinya noted, with that sinking feeling. Possessive. That's as good as confirmation.

"Cos, you can flay me when we get back, but I think someone snatched Jaymie. I was with her when she got dragged into darkness." She turned giving Tasmia an altogether different look.

Tasmia arched her eyebrows, seeming to say: As if it's any business of mine who you're with?

"If I didn't know better I'd say someone on this very cruiser might be able to enlighten us. Cos, can I interrogate Tasmia to see if her or the old assed shadow we met this morning had anything to do with it? Please Cos, I won't break too many bones."

Tasmia held up a single finger. Not a rude gesture, just an indication of one.

"First of all," Shadow Lass declared, icy calm, eyes dancing with darkness and challenge, "you ignorant brute? It seems like your snarking about my 'long slutty night of disappointment' was born of hypocrisy: apparently you've had your share of disappointment tonight, given the pretty little things vanishing from between your covers and/or between your legs."

(Tinya's grasp on the arms of the pilot's chair was almost enough, even without Ultra-Strength, to tear the things clean off.)

Shadow Lass ticked up a second finger, two.

"For another thing," she grimaced, "I'm hardly his keeper, this 'old assed Shadow' you describe. As you had suggested, he doesn't want anything to do with me. I'm hardly privy to his whereabouts or his motivations, let alone whether or not he's kinky enough to abscond with his own barely-legal superdescendant. He is a god and therefore is beyond my mere analysis."

Third finger. Three.

"Third of all. 'Josephine.' You want to fracture my skeleton? Really? Really-really?"

The third and second fingers folded away, leaving the first finger, crooking in an unmistakable beckon.

"I would love to see you try."

"Oh my holy sprocking grife, Shady," Lightning Lass gazed, horror-stricken.

"No," Tinya breathed, sounding almost shell-shocked by this entire exchange, she'd moved beyond brokenheartedness she was just too tired for it. "She's right: I'd like to see Jo try that, too. Perhaps for. Different reasons."

Jo's eyes pulsed to an orange with the energy of her flash vision seething from the sockets "You really wanna go Mallor? Or is this you ritual suicide?" Never taking her eyes off on Tasmia she continued "You Wazzo have no right to order me to do anything. Threw that away when you tossed me like an empty Gellato of the month carton."

Jo was having a hard time not letting the vision go. This wasn't entirely Tas' fault but she was available and volunteering to be a scape goat. "Yeah I was in Jaymie's bed a bit ago. It doesn't take a genius to recognize shell shock and one never leaves someone like that alone."

She shifted her gaze at the last second and slagged the chair nearest Tasmia. "Go ahead and Talk sprock about me, but Jaymie's a good kid and I would never take advantage of her when she's not well." She glanced at Tinya "Despite what some might think. I am not a vulture to hit on a rape victim."

She turned her back on Tasmia back to Imra, shifting to invulnerability as she did. "Now do we go on with this sprocking mission, or do we do something for Jaymie? If they've got the handle on Jaymie, I'd like to go visit my last address of record so I can hit several someones not on my own team."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Saturn Girl

Just the conversation in the cockpit was harsh enough to make your hair stand on end.

Imra was getting it from both her ears and her mind, and what people were saying was nothing compared to what they were thinking!

"Grife! Ladies, need I remind you that we are a TEAM! I watch your backs, you watch mine, and we all take down the bad guy. What I see in here is a bunch of children sprocking taking bits and pieces out of each other. We are heading off to a planet full of criminals, the worst of the worst, and they are NOT CONTAINED! You ladies are going to sit down, cut out the stupid flarg, and act like a team, or I am going to spend the remainder of this flight making sure the next time someone says sunshine you all think you are chickens! Do I make myself clear, or do you need a demonstration? And if you think Rokk won't back me up you are free to cal him and get his take on it. I am sure he could come up with something much, much worse!"

She paused, looking at each woman in turn, her eyes like cold steel.

 

[ChasNicollette]

GL 2261, The Doctor, VM3. Shadow. (apologies to Gaiman and his True Thomas.)

"Yeah. We should get J'onn for this." my daughter said, her voice low and quiet.

"Your right, we should. I'll go fetch his jolly green behind, I can't just reach out and grab him like I did you girls. Blood ties mean quite a bit with magic. Your uncle John could explain it, but it would take a few hours, and quite a few pints."

I smiled to myself, remembering the cantankerous old pain in the ass.

"Not to mention more than a few awkward drunken diatribes beginning with," Liz reflected, ruefully, wryly, "'when I was dating your gran.' Which would, invariably, get him a right smack from poor dear Auntie Zed."

"Bit of a trend, with him," The Doctor mused amiably, eyelids at half-mast. "These dark-haired women."

"Like you're one to talk," Liz harrumphed. "Between Gran and Auntie Claire? I've heard the legends."

The Doctor made a 'don't shoot' sort of gesture, and shook his head, and appeared, for a moment, haunted. "That's completely unfair. I loved a blonde, once."

Liz arched an eyebrow, speaking volumes.

The Doctor grinned, the moment had passed. "No. Nonononono. I mean, not that he'd have minded, but no, it wasn't him."

Jaymie took a deep breath. These people were bizarre, and they spoke in unspeakable riddles, but it seemed as though she was safe here. Either that or she'd had a psychotic break, and she was dreaming all of this in Ultra Girl's arms, but either way she was perfectly safe.

Besides, Jonah. Jonah wasn't going to let anything bad happen to her. (And she had a good feeling about that guy with Jonah that kind of looked like Jonah.)

She cleared her throat. "'Uncle John?'"

"Constantine," The Doctor explained, simply, with portent. "John Constantine."

"The John Constantine," Liz clarified.

Jaymie paused. And digested this. "The frontman for Mucous Membrane?"

Liz' eyebrow quirked.

The Doctor about died laughing. "(That's the one! Heeheehee. That's the very one!)"

"I'll be right back. Liz, why don't you explain to Jaymie where she is and get her a bit up to speed with our little family here." I said, then shadows swirled and I was gone.

"Never asks for much, does he?" Liz muttered. "'Here, summary and exposition, describe transplanar existence and a clan history that spans thousands of years.'"

Resolutely, now certain she had gone 'round the twist, and determined to make the best of this, Jaymie gathered The Doctor's coat around herself, found a chair, and plonked her butt into it. "I should be sitting down for this."

The Doctor nodded easily. "Good thinking."

Jaymie met the mystery man's gaze without flinching. "Right, then. What is this place?"

The Doctor tapped his chin with a fingertip. "Too right, straight to business, fair do's. Well, part of it has to do with branes, the bulk, and The Bleed, which, really, isn't as 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' as it sounds--"

"Third grade," Jaymie nodded easily.

The Doctor paused. "What?"

Liz smirked faintly.

"Third grade science," Jaymie reiterated. "We learned about various models of The Universe, The Multiverse, and The Omniverse. Parallel vibrational Earths and the spectra of hypertime."

The Doctor's lip quirked, and he looked for all the worlds like someone had given him an early Christmas present. "I love this century. Tell me, was there a club at your school for recreational mathematics?"

Jaymie's brow furrowed. "You mean, like, happy primes, and stuff? And carrying out the square root of pi to umpteen sprocking places? Yeah."

The Doctor beamed. "One-point-seven-seven--"

Liz coughed. "Grand-dad."

The Doctor jumped. "Right. Yes. Sorry. 'this gob doesn't stop.'"

"Suffice it to say," Liz described, "that just as light has a spectrum, just as emotions have a spectrum, subdivisible, each individual timeline has a variety of planes synchronised with it. Our Universe has a Heaven and a Hell, so does The Universe next door. But it goes much more in-depth than that. There's also Limbo, and Faerie, and the realms of The Endless. Many of these infinite worlds have all of these, some worlds have some of these planes but not others. Germane to our conversation, however, are Heaven, Hell, and what lies between."

"Well," Jaymie frowned, "Earth. Which is to say, our material Universe."

"Well, yes," The Doctor resumed, in his science-teacher voice. "But that's not the only thing. 'One of these things is not like the other.' There's also Shadow. Right smack between Heaven and Hell, just like Earth and its cosmos. The other side of the coin; Earth is scientific with whispers of magic, Shadow is magic with whispers of science. And of course, if there's battle between Heaven and Hell, not only are Earth and Shadow caught in the crossfire, collateral damage, but they too get drawn into the conflict. It's a three-dimensional chess game. And like with chess, sometimes, there are pieces more powerful than the others."

"The Scions," Green Lantern pointed out. "The Scion of Heaven, embodying Love and Light. The Scion of Hell, embodying Hate and Fire. And The Scion of Shadow, embodying Power."

"Your great-great-howevermany-great-grandfather is The Scion of Shadow," The Doctor explained. "And he's come back from long Exile to help the latest Scion of Light defeat the direst Scion of Fire ever to walk this plane."

Quietly, quietly, Jaymie processed this. She had a hand on her forehead, and she thought her brain was going to explode. But quietly, quietly, she processed all this.

"Don't we get one?" she wondered.

"Beg pardon?" Liz wondered right back.

"If we're the final battleground between Good and Evil, Love and Hate," Jaymie continued, choosing her words carefully, choosing her words as she went, "don't we get a say?"

The Doctor and Green Lantern exchanged a look.

VM3 scowled softly: "What I'm asking is: who's The Scion of Earth?"

Hands in his pockets, The Doctor walked quietly up to Jaymie. He sank down to one knee in front of her, elbow atop his upturned knee, and he gazed up at her, gazed up at her with those dark dark eyes.

And he smiled a secret, secret smile as twinkles danced somewhere within the dark darkness of those eyes.

And he recited, soft and sing-song and reverent and irreverent:
"'Every nation has its king who sleeps beneath the hill.
And in its time of greatest pain
He'll wake, and war, prevail, and reign,
And happy days are here again...
But for now he sleeps under the hill — the hill —
For legends are buggers to kill.'"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Shadow Lass, Phantom Girl, Lightning Lass. The Cruiser.

Jo's eyes pulsed to an orange with the energy of her flash vision seething from the sockets "You really wanna go Mallor? Or is this you ritual suicide?"

"Please," Tasmia sneered. "'Suicide.' Like I'd ever go down without a fight."

Never taking her eyes off on Tasmia she continued "You Wazzo have no right to order me to do anything. Threw that away when you tossed me like an empty Gellato of the month carton."

Phantom Girl flinched. She had, in a way, been trying to take Ultra Girl's side, but obviously, obviously, now, they were well and truly past that point.

"Cherr-Berr," she whispered, softly, and closed her eyes. "I only ever liked one flavour of gelato. I only ever liked Cherr-Berr."

(Two whispers which were one whisper.)

Jo was having a hard time not letting the vision go. This wasn't entirely Tas' fault but she was available and volunteering to be a scape goat. "Yeah I was in Jaymie's bed a bit ago. It doesn't take a genius to recognize shell shock and one never leaves someone like that alone."

"'Shell-shock?'" Phantom Girl frowned. "I've been arguing with my mother all morning, apparently it's Take Your Daughter to Work Day, what did I miss?"

"We'll brief you on the way," Ayla promised. "It's been. It's been pretty awful. Jo almost killed Validus, and VM3..."

"I watched the mission log on the lift," Tasmia harrumphed. "VM3 cracked like an egg when her best friend exploded and that funny-looking she-hulk--"

She shifted her gaze at the last second and slagged the chair nearest Tasmia.

Shadow Lass curled her lip and flared her nostrils. She could taste the hot hot light from that flash vision. Shadows gathered around her fists, around her eyes, the darkness in the room began to wobble and undulate.

"Go ahead and Talk sprock about me, but Jaymie's a good kid and I would never take advantage of her when she's not well." She glanced at Tinya "Despite what some might think. I am not a vulture to hit on a rape victim."

Tinya went as pale as the white portions of her uniform. "I didn't-- think you-- I didn't know. About that. Really? She got--"

"Not really," Tasmia pursed her lips, measuring her words. "Not actually."

Ayla's voice was ghostly. "Close enough, looks like."

She turned her back on Tasmia back to Imra, shifting to invulnerability as she did. "Now do we go on with this sprocking mission, or do we do something for Jaymie? If they've got the handle on Jaymie, I'd like to go visit my last address of record so I can hit several someones not on my own team."

"I can quit, if you want," Tasmia hissed at Jo's back. "I could resign my Ring. Then you wouldn't have to worry about intra-team nicey-niceties."

Just the conversation in the cockpit was harsh enough to make your hair stand on end.

Imra was getting it from both her ears and her mind, and what people were saying was nothing compared to what they were thinking!

"Grife! Ladies, need I remind you that we are a TEAM! I watch your backs, you watch mine, and we all take down the bad guy. What I see in here is a bunch of children sprocking taking bits and pieces out of each other. We are heading off to a planet full of criminals, the worst of the worst, and they are NOT CONTAINED! You ladies are going to sit down, cut out the stupid flarg, and act like a team, or I am going to spend the remainder of this flight making sure the next time someone says sunshine you all think you are chickens! Do I make myself clear, or do you need a demonstration? And if you think Rokk won't back me up you are free to cal him and get his take on it. I am sure he could come up with something much, much worse!"

She paused, looking at each woman in turn, her eyes like cold steel.

Saturn Girl was a Founder.

She was a former Sci-Cop and she was an Alpha Class psi and she was one of three that had impressed R.J. Brande into changing the worlds. And all of them remembered that. All of them remembered that as they stared into those eyes.

"No need," Ayla murmured. "No need. You don't need to call Rokk. We know the drill. We'll behave. Only. You didn't answer Jo's question; do we have VM3 covered? She's one of us."

"I don't know what 'flarg' is," Tinya admitted quietly. "But I'll cut it. Whatever we have to hash out, me and Jo? For my part, it can wait 'till we get back."

Tasmia stood and nudged the slag of the flash-visioned chair with the toe of her boot. "You can count on me. I will kick nass and I will take the names. When the time comes and when I am called upon, I will know who is the enemy and who is cohort. Fear you not. I will know. And I will do."

"I will earn my keep."

She sniffed softly, and headed back down to the living quarters. "For now, though? In the interest of cooling-off and withdrawing my 'negative' influence, I shall remove myself."

Slithering out of sight, Shadow Lass shook her head. "I'll be in my bunk."

 

[Wyldfire]

Ultra girl, XS, and Vi.

Jo's eyes pulsed to an orange with the energy of her flash vision seething from the sockets "You really wanna go Mallor? Or is this you ritual suicide?"

"Please," Tasmia sneered. "'Suicide.' Like I'd ever go down without a fight."

Never taking her eyes off on Tasmia she continued "You Wazzo have no right to order me to do anything. Threw that away when you tossed me like an empty Gellato of the month carton."

Phantom Girl flinched. She had, in a way, been trying to take Ultra Girl's side, but obviously, obviously, now, they were well and truly past that point.

"Cherr-Berr," she whispered, softly, and closed her eyes. "I only ever liked one flavour of gelato. I only ever liked Cherr-Berr."

(Two whispers which were one whisper.)

Jo was having a hard time not letting the vision go. This wasn't entirely Tas' fault but she was available and volunteering to be a scape goat. "Yeah I was in Jaymie's bed a bit ago. It doesn't take a genius to recognize shell shock and one never leaves someone like that alone."

"'Shell-shock?'" Phantom Girl frowned. "I've been arguing with my mother all morning, apparently it's Take Your Daughter to Work Day, what did I miss?"

"We'll brief you on the way," Ayla promised. "It's been. It's been pretty awful. Jo almost killed Validus, and VM3..."

"I watched the mission log on the lift," Tasmia harrumphed. "VM3 cracked like an egg when her best friend exploded and that funny-looking she-hulk--"

She shifted her gaze at the last second and slagged the chair nearest Tasmia.

Jenn flinched at this. Looked like Ultra girl had kinda proved her point that it would have been suicide to have jumped in that fight.

Shadow Lass curled her lip and flared her nostrils. She could taste the hot hot light from that flash vision. Shadows gathered around her fists, around her eyes, the darkness in the room began to wobble and undulate.

"Go ahead and Talk sprock about me, but Jaymie's a good kid and I would never take advantage of her when she's not well." She glanced at Tinya "Despite what some might think. I am not a vulture to hit on a rape victim."

Tinya went as pale as the white portions of her uniform. "I didn't-- think you-- I didn't know. About that. Really? She got--"

"Not really," Tasmia pursed her lips, measuring her words. "Not actually."

Ayla's voice was ghostly. "Close enough, looks like."

Jenn spoke up here. "I think Talok's as hard as the 'Bor if Shady's opinion's honest. I evacced the corpses and most of the injured there. I can't really blame VM3 for her reaction, if I weren't in hyperspeed so much I'd of had a fit too."

She turned her back on Tasmia back to Imra, shifting to invulnerability as she did. "Now do we go on with this sprocking mission, or do we do something for Jaymie? If they've got the handle on Jaymie, I'd like to go visit my last address of record so I can hit several someones not on my own team."

"I can quit, if you want," Tasmia hissed at Jo's back. "I could resign my Ring. Then you wouldn't have to worry about intra-team nicey-niceties."

Just the conversation in the cockpit was harsh enough to make your hair stand on end.

Imra was getting it from both her ears and her mind, and what people were saying was nothing compared to what they were thinking!

"Grife! Ladies, need I remind you that we are a TEAM! I watch your backs, you watch mine, and we all take down the bad guy. What I see in here is a bunch of children sprocking taking bits and pieces out of each other. We are heading off to a planet full of criminals, the worst of the worst, and they are NOT CONTAINED! You ladies are going to sit down, cut out the stupid flarg, and act like a team, or I am going to spend the remainder of this flight making sure the next time someone says sunshine you all think you are chickens! Do I make myself clear, or do you need a demonstration? And if you think Rokk won't back me up you are free to cal him and get his take on it. I am sure he could come up with something much, much worse!"

She paused, looking at each woman in turn, her eyes like cold steel.

Saturn Girl was a Founder.

She was a former Sci-Cop and she was an Alpha Class psi and she was one of three that had impressed R.J. Brande into changing the worlds. And all of them remembered that. All of them remembered that as they stared into those eyes.

"No need," Ayla murmured. "No need. You don't need to call Rokk. We know the drill. We'll behave. Only. You didn't answer Jo's question; do we have VM3 covered? She's one of us."

"I don't know what 'flarg' is," Tinya admitted quietly. "But I'll cut it. Whatever we have to hash out, me and Jo? For my part, it can wait 'till we get back."

Tasmia stood and nudged the slag of the flash-visioned chair with the toe of her boot. "You can count on me. I will kick nass and I will take the names. When the time comes and when I am called upon, I will know who is the enemy and who is cohort. Fear you not. I will know. And I will do."

"I will earn my keep."

She sniffed softly, and headed back down to the living quarters. "For now, though? In the interest of cooling-off and withdrawing my 'negative' influence, I shall remove myself."

Slithering out of sight, Shadow Lass shook her head. "I'll be in my bunk."

Jo stayed tense and silent, pretty much in a near killing mood. She needed for the team to get to the Galtos and quick. "Mallor had a real good point in all her squeeking. Maybe those of you that weren't there earlier oughta watch the mission feed while we get ready to crack heads," she stepped into the hole that was the ladder well and plummeted to the deck below, "By the way bosslady, weapons systems online and prepped. When it's time they're ready for whoever is gonna play Squajhunt."


Jenn just shrugged and blurred to sit next to Ayla "Safest place aboard ship I think."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salu watched the readout on Dawnstar as the brainwave activity spiked and a surge in her condition occured simultaneously. "You seeing this Jan? She's either having a serious dream or some sprocking Scary monsters are bugging her. Either way she's healing faster than before. Guess you were right about the metal."

She took a second and verified that Gim and her Ord were still okay. If they both woke up at the same time this could get bloody uncomfortable. It was so obvious about Gim's crush. And even Ord knew about it, it was one of the things she had to continually reassure him that it was a one way thing.

 

[Varshanka]

"Autobutler," he declared into his Ring's omnicom, "track my Flight Ring to Residential. We require a room-code programming for guest quarters and a pending order for foodservice."

"Compliance."

He looked again at Allana, voice and face as neutral as could be. "'Caerleon.' Sounds like a nice enough place."

“ ‘Tis a rat infested warren of brigands, thieves, liars, cutthroats and backstabbers it is. And that’s amongst the Court. The nobility as it were. The peasants are worse. ‘bout the only time they stop is when the Strogg start raiding again. And even then it doesn’t stop. Not really.”

“In truth it’s a dark pit of depravity and sin. A place that will forge a soul into a knight. An kill the weak. Shredding them like chafe in the wind of a threshing wheel.” Within her helm Allana’s jaw creaked. Tightening until teeth threatened to shatter. “Sometimes even good Knights are tossed out with the chafe as well, though.”

Sighing she tried to find the light in the darkness. “But sometimes, if you see the sun just as it rises across the western vale. At just the right moment the light caresses the wheat, and turns the whole vale to a land of shimmering gold. Then.. then you realize it just might be worth fighting for.”

 

[ChasNicollette]

M'onel. Dormitory Levels/Residential.

“ ‘Tis a rat infested warren of brigands, thieves, liars, cutthroats and backstabbers it is. And that’s amongst the Court. The nobility as it were. The peasants are worse. ‘bout the only time they stop is when the Strogg start raiding again. And even then it doesn’t stop. Not really.”

Lar leaned against the wall of the hallway, listening to her talk. Again and again, he was reminded how much better a job he could have, should have done. He helped them fight until they could stand on their own. He had been thirteen, and tall for his age, and wise beyond his years.

But his wisdom had had limits, and he had left them for a ten-year quest across the stars, leaving people behind wherever he went. To face the ravages of the cosmos in uncertain times.

He had left that lonely little kingdom in the jaws of a terrible enemy. He should have stayed. He should have fought. He could have brought down the superpeople from the cloaked orbiting craft that only his X-Ray eyes could see...

But no. No, no, these people were angry and chafing and they had been imprisoned and wronged.

He saw the infighting amongst these humans with their awakened memories, how much worse would it have been if he had thrown different varieties of metahumans into the mix as well? They would have split into groups, the lightning-casters, the mindreaders, the ferrokines, and they would have torn that world apart. Bad as the fighting had been with one set of people, intelligent but powerless, it would have been worse with angry mobs of divided superhumans.

No. They had had to wait. And they needed to grow up as a species before they could be united.

So he left, and he scattered them. He planted them like seeds and willed them to grow.

Winath, Braal, Carggg...

He had found the remnants of an ancient civilisation on Titan, a moon of Saturn, and the domes of this had had compatible atmosphere. And that was where he had left the last group. The telepaths. Beautiful and eerie.

Before he had crash-landed on an island in an ocean on the planet called Earth. The same island, it turned out, which had inspired the latent memories of Caerllion. (Caerleon.) The same island which had invented the sandwich. The same island which, some thousand years later, was gone now.

He had been twenty-three, then.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. And he was. For lots of things.

“In truth it’s a dark pit of depravity and sin. A place that will forge a soul into a knight. An kill the weak. Shredding them like chafe in the wind of a threshing wheel.” Within her helm Allana’s jaw creaked. Tightening until teeth threatened to shatter. “Sometimes even good Knights are tossed out with the chafe as well, though.”

And that was another thing. This reminded him of The Phantom Zone. "Limbo." "The Howling." "The Black Desert."

A prison intended for the worst of the villains across almost thirty galaxies.

But there had been good people in there, too. Raya Ro-Zan. Kara Zor-El and Var-Sen, briefly.

And himself. Good Knights tossed out with the chaff into a world that either murdered the dying or kept them alive forever.

He still didn't know how he had gotten there. A flash of white bright, not unlike a Threshold, just breaths away from dying, he had heard the thin dark-eyed man call his name...

He had been gone. And he had been imprisoned. He still didn't know how.

But then again. Here he was.

'I am gonna live,' he had promised. And here he was. Quite alive. And wasn't that something?

Sighing she tried to find the light in the darkness. “But sometimes, if you see the sun just as it rises across the western vale. At just the right moment the light caresses the wheat, and turns the whole vale to a land of shimmering gold. Then.. then you realize it just might be worth fighting for.”

'Blue suns are cold suns, even when they shine.'

(This had been a mantra of sorts, for Raya. Every time she had taken a watch outside of their tent, she had recited this.

To which Lar had sometimes secretly added: '...and red suns are a pain in my ass.')

His own planet, Daxam, orbited a red sun called Valor. And when the prison cells had opened on the Dominator ships and the Earthers had demanded to know their saviour's name, that had been the first thing he had thought of.

Yellow suns, on the other hand...

He smiled faintly. "Life is always worth fighting for. It always always is. If you have a good life, a happy life, people who love you, it's worth fighting to defend that. If you have a dark life, and broken, and fearful, then it's worth fighting for a better one."

"Only life matters. Because where life is there also is hope, and you never let them take that away. Not without putting up your dukes."