Last Daughter of Krypton: Legion IC

[ChasNicollette]

Returning his bow she moved as smoothly as she could in the armour she wore. It wasn’t the gleaming armour she’d get when she returned. But it was functional.

But she had a quest. A task.

“By my word I will complete the task they give me Lord Knight. Or I shall perish in my trying.”

She almost turned away from him. Almost. Her hip swiveling. The motion begun. Then her forhead crinkled and she stopped. Her head turning back, her chin dipping down as an eyebrow climbed. “You said ‘"You will be called upon to save a life which seems, at first, to be nae worth saving. But in saving this life, you will save yourself." ‘. How can you know what will come to pass?”

He, too, had begun to turn. And stopped, as she spoke to him, he listened to her, not quite looking at her, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"It is perhaps not for nothing," he chuckled faintly, "that I share a name with the man whose dreams wrote Revelations. But no man in this world knows the future, nae really, Lady Knight, least of all me. That sort of knowledge is given only to On High."

He turned more fully to face her. "Choice, chance, destiny. They're all the same thing, in the end."

Sir John tugged on his ear, and smiled a sad sad smile at her. "But that future in which you perish trying? I very much prefer the one in which you work out your salvation. I do nae know the future, Lady Knight. But I can hope for the best, and do my best to push things in the right direction. Just as you can."

 

[Varshanka]

Allan Lang

Nodding, Allana lifted her helm and resealed it on her head. A future where she didn’t survive was rather bleak. At least for her. But she’d die if it served the greater good. But she’d die fighting. And she’d take a few misbegotten Friends of the Dark with her if she could.

Stepping back she bowed once more to the Green Knight and the strange Lord Sir John Smith. And with a flick of her heal she was running for her mount. A hard gallop faced her. A hard gallop. A quest. And new armour for winning the challenge of the Chapel.

 

[Wyldfire]

Jo answered Power girl through gritted teeth "Course I don't mind, more the merrier," she made the switch from Invulnerability to Flash vision, "Time to burn you sprocking monsters."

Her flash vision flared just as her temper did. "What's wrong with me?" she thought as her flash vision hit Validus on the clear dome. She'd seen so very many sprocked up things in her young life, but for some reason this had her going off the scales. Her thoughts also kept trying to slide back to Tinya, seeing Tinya torn up like the women of the Wanderers and the Lallorians which didn't help with her notoriously sprocked temper.

She didn't know her temper had help from the quantum disruption that had burned the once beautiful asteroid. She had no idea that her powers were in a very dangerous flux. The quantum energy was mixing with the Ultra energies. Under the wrath of her gaze the dome that shielded Validus' brain began to glow.

Garth hadn't thought it out. He knew better but he'd still grabbed the axe. He'd barely had time to speak as the axe took to the sky, discharging a counter charge to Garth's own causing his hand muscles to lock onto the haft.

The axe took to the sky under it's own power. "Oh bloody nass." Garth was launched along with the axe, it kicking and bucking in his grip while it kept him locked to it.

The axe was off in a flash dragging the Legionnaire with it.

The Empress' head was on fire. Damnable Lantern. Damned damned Lantern. Her rage tempered her will, willpower that had her under observation by the Corps itself, and her will fueled her connection to her precious eye. Her beloved Eye.

The eye blazed up from where it had nearly fallen under the barrage. It's mistress needed it, and it could never fail her. She was all that made it live, and to fail her was unacceptable. A malevolent sentience gleamed in it's pupil as it turned her will into action. It cyclotron ed her will into the palpable force that struck out at the Lantern with all the hatred The Empress felt for that entire organization. The fury of it in her memories. "Sarya of Vengar, you have what it takes to become a Lantern, save for compassion, restraint, and a sense of humanity. Leave this place knowing what you have lost and will never have. Never to be a Green Lantern."

That had been before she had found it. Before they had become as one, in an eternal embrace of souls. It had changed itself to suit her sense of outrage, taking the very color of those that had spurned her. Let them know that she may never be a Green Lantern, instead she would be the Emerald Empress. One day to make that very Corps tremble for their transgressions against her nobility.

The eye flared an energy pulse at the Lantern. A pure slap of rage and power. It began to pummel at the Lantern with the heat and fury of Sarya's rage.

Ord groaned as he began a slow and laborious shift from Ultra girl's power (His body didn't seem to want to let that go.) to Brin Londo's. Brainiac Five was right. Ord needed the healing factor about now. "I'll live I think Brainiac." he managed to say before falling into a healing sleep.

Through Brainiac Five's ring an answer came garbled and crackling "Shvaughn here Brainiac Five, will try to get your requested Legionnaires to you A.S.A.P." Shvaughn took a breath as she looked over the readout and giving Rokk a look as if to apologize for usurping his position as leader.

She looked back the the readout and checked it twice. "Querl, you might want to watch out. I'm getting an exotic energy flux. From Nah's ring biofeed. Don't know what's going on their but she going thermal on the power readouts."

Shortly after the team had left through the threshold she'd left mission monitor. There'd been no reason for her to have brought herself to any one's attention. She'd have been useless, seeing as she knew that particular asteroid so well. It was Ord and her favorite place to meet when she got leave from the Legion and he could be spared from the Heroes of Lallor. She'd seen how badly their beloved nest had been burned.

Salu Digby a.k.a. Shrinking Violet entered the med bay and began prepping it for the varied physiologies of the team, as well as those of the Lallorians. That asteroid was in their space and they might be involved as well. Goddess forbid that. Please let Ord be okay.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Kingdom of the Isles Principality.
A Few Years Ago.​

They turned, and they faded away in amongst the copse of trees that adorned the roadside. They walked off into the woods.

And as they walked, the armour worn by Dame Wilhelmina faded away also, bled away into emerald smoke, molten light, cast to the winds...

...and beside The Doctor walked Elizabeth Greystone, Green Lantern.

He drew his sword and batted away a few pesky branches.

They walked in silence for a moment.

"'Wilhelmina Normandy?'" she wondered, not unreasonably.

He grinned, and his Estuary English accent returned seamlessly. "'Silent Knight, Holy Knight.'"

She rolled her blue eyes. "I'll grant you I do like Christmas carols. But you don't find that a tad irreverent? Salting genuine predictions of doom and gloom and devastation with your little inside jokes?"

The Doctor's grin faded. "She got the message. Or at least, all the message I could rightly give her. She'll be ready."

Liz frowned slightly, as they strode through the woods to a clearing, where The Blue Box waited. "I hope so."

The Doctor held up his hand, and snapped his fingers, and The Box's door swung open.

He moved to step inside, but saw that Liz had again hesitated.

"Few more stops to make," he prompted gently. "Miles to go, promises to keep, all that."

"It doesn't strike you as wrong," she murmured, "to go in there wearing a holy symbol, and speaking like Knights of The Round, to speak of The Grail as if we were worthy to speak its name?"

The Doctor digested this for a moment, and sheathed the sword with which he'd dueled The Sycorax. "Divinity and it's lack are at the heart of what's coming. (The opposite of divine.) If we can't handle that sort of concept now... Symbolism is sometimes all that can stitch a sentient's sanity together in the face of the incomprehensible, all I did was borrow that symbolism."

He shook his head. "Besides. The Holy Grail?"

He smiled faintly. "Who was it, d'you think, sent that nice bloke Arthur and his lot after The Cup in the first place?"

Liz' eyebrow quirked, evidently she thought this was a stupid question. "Maerlyn."

The Doctor arched his eyebrow, no quirk, just a full on arch.

And he didn't quite smile as he climbed into The Blue Box.

Liz stopped. Stopped stock-still.

"Oh," she blinked. "Oh, no way. No, you weren't."

And she hurried into The Box and the door slammed shut behind her.

"No way."

VWORRRP. VWORRRP. VWORRRP.

Leaves scattered on the wind, and they were gone.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Legion HQ

"Oh bloody Nass!" Cosmic Boy uttered once the video feed went live from the rings on the battlefield. The feed was buzzing, flickering, but it was good enough that he could see the grisly field of battle, and follow the fight as it went on.

Saturn Girl also watched as the battle unfolded. Her heart lept into her throat when The Persuader knock Lightning Lad down and prepared to cleave him in two *GARTH!*

That was when both Legionaries stopped breathing as the night rose up and swallowed the madman whole, dragging him down into the cold embrace of the earth.

"Sprock me!! Did he just kill him??? Did Wraith just kill him???"

"I don't know and I almost don't care. You can kick his ass after they get back, if they get back Cos. They need backup, like now!"

"Dispatch all remaining standby units Shvaughn. Also contact SP and have a armored medical extraction team ready to go once the coast is clear. I am expecting more caualites.... what the sprock is Garth doing Imra?" asked a suddenly bewildered Cosmic Boy.

"I think he's grabbing that sprocking axe. He knows not to grab that axe. No, no he doesn't. Can I please go now, I need to thump somebody on the head after I save his sparky behind. Hey! waitaminute, if the axe is acting up then your fossil didn't kill Persuader."

"Hey thats right. Knew he was still a good guy! Go, Legionaries, take them down hard!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Jo answered Power girl through gritted teeth "Course I don't mind, more the merrier," she made the switch from Invulnerability to Flash vision, "Time to burn you sprocking monsters."

Her flash vision flared just as her temper did. "What's wrong with me?" she thought as her flash vision hit Validus on the clear dome. She'd seen so very many sprocked up things in her young life, but for some reason this had her going off the scales. Her thoughts also kept trying to slide back to Tinya, seeing Tinya torn up like the women of the Wanderers and the Lallorians which didn't help with her notoriously sprocked temper.

She didn't know her temper had help from the quantum disruption that had burned the once beautiful asteroid. She had no idea that her powers were in a very dangerous flux. The quantum energy was mixing with the Ultra energies. Under the wrath of her gaze the dome that shielded Validus' brain began to glow.

The radiation shielding that Green Lantern had placed around her blocked most of the heat. She couldn't use her infrared vision to read the exact quantity of heat, because the visor blocked that...

But oh, it looked brighter than it should have. And the transparent carapace over Validus' cerebrum was starting to grow glowing white white hot...

"Jo," Powergirl frowned, "hang on--"

Hot hot heat. "(Oh, fuck.)"

She snapped back the visor of her helmet, no time to check if her back was enough to The Empress and the Lantern that she'd not be exposed anew to K-rads, no time no time...

If Jo boiled Validus' brain, she'd kill him. And the monster had all that psychoelectric energy built up in there, maybe even the detonation would blow this rock clear in half. And it would kill Jo, too, no doubt, no time to switch back from Flash Vision to invulnerability.

Caroline took a deep breath. And blew.

Wind poured from her lips and streaked across the intervening space; wind billowed, a draught of absolute zero...

...she prayed to Great Krypton's Ghost, for whatever that was worth, that the sudden shear in temperatures wouldn't cause the dome to warp and shatter...

...she prayed that she would only counteract Ultra Girl's heat with her own...

Arctic frost waged war against radiant heat for the life of a monster of dubious sentience and of minimum deserving.

Caroline couldn't talk while she was blasting this gale-force, but her blue eyes pleaded with Jo: 'What are you doing?'

Sweat began to bead upon the skin of her face now laid to the open.

And the sweat froze on her skin at the cold of her breath.

Powergirl was tiring.

'What are you... doing?'

Garth hadn't thought it out. He knew better but he'd still grabbed the axe. He'd barely had time to speak as the axe took to the sky, discharging a counter charge to Garth's own causing his hand muscles to lock onto the haft.

The axe took to the sky under it's own power. "Oh bloody nass." Garth was launched along with the axe, it kicking and bucking in his grip while it kept him locked to it.

The axe was off in a flash dragging the Legionnaire with it.

Maybe it was getting hit in the face by The Persuader's face, maybe it was the quantum pollution sprocking with his own internal electrical field, but Garth was not qualifying for Coluan citizenship anytime soon. Idiot.

"SON OF A BASTIIIIIITCH," he cursed, old-fashioned, as he hurtled through the air. He tried desperately to alter his own charge to drop the axe, tried to use his Flight Ring to counter the lashing and thrashing and the jutting through the air...

"Nonononono," he gritted his teeth, and the wide wide stony ground yawned up beneath him...

The Empress' head was on fire. Damnable Lantern. Damned damned Lantern. Her rage tempered her will, willpower that had her under observation by the Corps itself, and her will fueled her connection to her precious eye. Her beloved Eye.

The eye blazed up from where it had nearly fallen under the barrage. It's mistress needed it, and it could never fail her. She was all that made it live, and to fail her was unacceptable. A malevolent sentience gleamed in it's pupil as it turned her will into action. It cyclotron ed her will into the palpable force that struck out at the Lantern with all the hatred The Empress felt for that entire organization. The fury of it in her memories. "Sarya of Vengar, you have what it takes to become a Lantern, save for compassion, restraint, and a sense of humanity. Leave this place knowing what you have lost and will never have. Never to be a Green Lantern."

That had been before she had found it. Before they had become as one, in an eternal embrace of souls. It had changed itself to suit her sense of outrage, taking the very color of those that had spurned her. Let them know that she may never be a Green Lantern, instead she would be the Emerald Empress. One day to make that very Corps tremble for their transgressions against her nobility.

The eye flared an energy pulse at the Lantern. A pure slap of rage and power. It began to pummel at the Lantern with the heat and fury of Sarya's rage.

Sarya of Venegar had reminded The Guardians of Sinestro of Korugar, and not without reason.

Liz felt it.

Felt it in the instant before it hit her, a shift in the Eye's demeanour, a fluctuation in the temperature of the air, she felt it coming--

--just barely in time.

Her left hand gestured, a sharp, upward stroke, like a conductor before an orchestra, and on her right arm formed a shield. A shield shaped like a stylised version of a policeman's badge, an emerald version of the golden shield worn first by Jim Harper, The Guardian of Metropolis, and then by Jake Jordan, The Manhattan Guardian.

Bigger, wider, Green Lantern made the shield. She crouched behind the shield's profile and the hammering flashing searing force of The Empress' unrighteous indignation drove her nearly to one knee, pushed her back so that her boot-soles carved miniature troughs in the rock...

Every Green Lantern Ring functions pretty much the same. The difference comes between the individual Ringbearers, and as The Rings respond to imagination... every sentient imagines differently.

Jordan-- not Jake, mind you, Hal --had been straightforward. Basic objects to perform basic tasks. Stewart had thought like an architect, building his constructs from the ground up with internal structure. Rayner had been an artist, his imaginings vivid and fully-realised and gorgeously stylised.

And Greystone? Greystone was a fantasist. Her father was a warlord in a mystic plane and her mother, her mother had had read to them out of Tolkein and Lewis and L'Engle and on and on and on...

Sweat poured down her face, her dark hair clung to her skin, the shield was already cracking.

Time to hit back.

She fractured the shield and reformed it instantly and there stood an emerald construct of Thor of The Aesir... Thor was massive, and he pushed against the onslaught of The Empress' attack...

...his green skin sizzled and popped and his long green hair caught on fire as he pushed towards The Eye and The Empress...

...the ground cracked under his boots...

Liz pressed against Thor's back, urging him on, pushing him onward, struggling to maintain his structural integrity, struggling to concentrate...

She took a deep breath. Cleared her head.

Poured it on.

A tendril of Green whiplashed out of her Ring, a short sharp circular gesture of her hand, the tendril lashed out out out and around Thor and in and back and down and it congealed, thickened, blossomed, a massive girthsome serpent...

It slithered instantly into a coiled configuration, it's cobra hood spreading wide, its tongue flickering at the air, and then it dove, it dove, it struck, green green fangs glistening in the starlit air... it dove to drive its fangs deep into the core of The Eye...

...and in the instant in which the snake formed, Thor finally lost cohesion, raising his hammer and dissolving as he roared a battlecry in Ancient Norse...

...The Empress' attack tore him to shreds but Liz was already gathering her legs beneath her, powering her limbs, leaping up up over the coruscating destruction of Sarya's attack...

...armour of her own took shape, not metallic...

...Ring energy formed around her, forming a shell which shapeshifted solidified, wings spread from her back, her hands became talons her feet became hindpaws and she crashed from the air, crashed down at The Empress not as a woman but as a furious shadow-eyed hawk-winged lion-strong Griffin...

A Basilisk thrashed for The Eye and a Griffin pounced at The Empress and Green Lantern wasn't taking fear for an answer.

Ord groaned as he began a slow and laborious shift from Ultra girl's power (His body didn't seem to want to let that go.) to Brin Londo's. Brainiac Five was right. Ord needed the healing factor about now. "I'll live I think Brainiac." he managed to say before falling into a healing sleep.

He glanced at Ord. "Maybe you won't be the only survivor of this massacre after all."

...and he arched a blond eyebrow as he found the Lallorian hero unconscious.

This gave him pause. "Hm. (Talking to myself, again.)"

Through Brainiac Five's ring an answer came garbled and crackling "Shvaughn here Brainiac Five, will try to get your requested Legionnaires to you A.S.A.P." Shvaughn took a breath as she looked over the readout and giving Rokk a look as if to apologize for usurping his position as leader.

Absently, detachedly, Braniac nodded. Five of his fingers flew across the PD3, taking scans, making calculations, taking atmospheric samples and analysing the rise and fall of the various energy levels, attempting to isolate a particular psionic singature imprinted on the scattered, shattered quanta...

"Thank you," he intoned, though in his detachment he didn't sound particularly grateful. "You're a credit to the force."

She looked back the the readout and checked it twice. "Querl, you might want to watch out. I'm getting an exotic energy flux. From Nah's ring biofeed. Don't know what's going on their but she going thermal on the power readouts."

He paused. One nostril puffed. And he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, good grife," he opined incredulously. "Look, I really am quite busy and--"

He paused again, and saw Garth hurtling through the air attached to The Atomic Axe. And saw Powergirl and Ultra Girl trading thermal extremes all over Validus' forehead.

"--I have to do everything myself."

He shoved the PD3 into a belt pouch.

"Right, then," he grimaced. "Multitasking."

He reached down and grabbed the unconscious Ord Quelu and, grunting as he hoisted Duplicate Boy across his shoulders in an ancient-fashioned fireman's carry, took off and flew the fallen Hero of Lallor back over to the Threshold.

"Incoming!" he yelled into the Threshold and into his Ring and pitched Ord through.

Then he turned back to the battle.

Took a deep breath. Tugged at the collar of his uniform. And refused to admit that he was the slightest bit frightened.

Brainiac Five took off at a sprint and went airborne. He tugged his PD3 back out and automatically began keying this in with his force-field belt. It was only a matter of time before the quantum disturbances began to cause his field to deteriorate, too, its energies were also made up of quanta. But! If he could set it to produce a multi-layered lattice of different complementary forces, and then cycle through the layers randomly, switching out the surface force and sandwiching multiple varieties of force therebeneath, he could minimise the infection and contain its spread, maximising his field's half-life. A gravitic layer, an electromagnetic layer, a chronal tachyonic layer, a quantum chromodynamic layer...

Energies glanced off of him as he flew, but he was not distracted.

He landed in a puff of stonedust beside GLiT Rond Vidar.

Rond was busy discovering his own tendencies as a Lantern.

When they'd talked in The Time Institute, Greystone had explained to Vidar the basic process in using the Ring. Point and think and above all concentrate.

But she, too, had mentioned that, very Kipling-esque, there was no wrong way to use The Ring, so long as one kept to the credo of The Corps.

That each Lantern, that each exceptional Lantern, would overcome fear, overcome the weakness to yellow, and would find their own method of shining their light over dark evil.

Rond was a would-be time traveler.

And this coloured his approach to Lanternhood. At least at first.

Garth Ranzz hurtled headlong towards the ground, towed by that damnable axe, and Rond Vidar pointed his Ring at the ground where it looked like Garth would hit...

Causality.

Cause and effect. One thing leads to another and domino effect...

...Lightning Lad crashes to the ground and splatters every organ in his body...

Unless.

His Ring flashed. Flashed green Green light.

And a massive crash-cushion inflated in the space between Garth and the ground... the axe tore through the construct like a laserbeam through vacuum, but it still had enough cushioning to keep Garth from becoming asteroid street-pizza...

"D'ooooophhh!"

...and then The Axe hurled him aloft again. "GYAAAAAAAHHH!"

"A good start," Brainiac nodded. "Treating the symptoms, not the cure, though."

Rond tilted his head, shook it, exasperated and pleading. "Open to suggestions."

"Good," Querl nodded, and pointed to his PD3. "Scans indicate that the axe's internal energies are forming a circuit between themselves and Ranzz' electrical stores, essentially binding Lightning Lad's grasp to the haft. He couldn't let go of that axe if his life depended on it. Which, come to think of it?"

"So I should--" Rond hesitated. "I should insulate 'Lightning Lad' from the axe and he'll be able to let go?"

"Indubitably," Querl agreed. "Try not to sever his fingers, however."

"Great," Rond grunted.

And scrunched his eyes, squinted, pointed his Ring hand, tried to steady it with his off-hand, just struggling to line up with the hurtling axe-ganked Lad...

The Ring flashed.

And Garth howled.

Howled as emerald force-auras took shape around his hands, cutting the electrical flow with an audible snap, howled as he flew one way and the axe flew the other...

"'Yyut-tah-dah,'" Querl smirked faintly.

And then whirled to face Valkyrie M3, who had been crouching guarding the fallen Mano, maintaining those ice-bonds.

"You," he declared. "Bronze Star."

Jaymie's eyes narrowed. "Me."

Querl pointed at Powergirl and Ultra Girl. "Need you to keep me safe from the thermal catastrophe happening over there. Your immunity to extremes of temperature and your ability to manipulate said extremes is key to my survival."

Jaymie blinked. "Don't you have a forcefield? Besides, I'm making sure that this guy--"

Querl takked a touchkey on his PD3, and Mano's modified trans-suit fluttered subtly. "I've altered the atmosphere the suit's producing to keep him unconscious. Now, enough quibbling; let's go."

Jaymie opened her mouth. Shut it again.

And Brainiac flew off, and she followed, and Rond Vidar stood there looking dumbfounded. "'Yyut-tah-dah?'"

Jaymie flew in close to Brainiac, and Brainiac narrowed his eyes.

And unbuckled his forcefield belt.

He could already feel the skin on the left side of him starting to go numb. He could already feel the skin on the right side of him threatening to blister.

But then VM3 swooped in, placed her hand on his back, and her energies flowed forth, and his thermodynamics re-averaged...

...they streaked in, swooped up, Jaymie barely managing to follow Brainy's lead...

...and Brainiac Five buckled his belt around Ultra Girl's waist.

The field flashed into place, sealing her off from the quantum disturbances with a multi-layered force-cycling energy shield.

"Don't worry," he quirked an eyebrow. "It doesn't mean we're going steady."

Rond stood alone in the middle of the battlefield.

And his eyes rested on Tharok, thus far unchallenged.

He hold out his right fist, his Ring hand.

"Cause and effect," he murmured.

"Ring."

*Waiting.*

He hesitated: "Uh... 'hack?'"

*Cyberform interface enabled.*

And Rond began attempting to impose his will on the mechanical aspect of the deadly Tharok.

 

[Wyldfire]

"Hey thats right. Knew he was still a good guy! Go, Legionaries, take them down hard!"

He'd been standing in the gate and almost tripped over the incoming casualty. He looked back and said "XS, think you can get him down to med bay? I've got a bit of a brawl to get into."

The dark complected girl nodded and blurred off with Duplicate boy towards Medbay.

Gim Allon took three running steps through the threshold and as he hit ground on the asteroid he began expanding under the befuddled and hurt Validus. He matched the giant size for size as he landed a right cross. "There we go! There's my favorite punching bag!"

Ultra girl shook her head and said to Brainy's withdrawing figure "Glad to hear that, soooo not my type." What the nass was wrong with her one minute she was out of her mind pissed and now, with Brainy's bad fashion statement around her waist she was back to her normal self. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. "Damn, I think Gim just cut in on us PG. Double date on Tharok?"

The green fangs sunk in. Pain! Agony. Outrage. Then twin structures moved for the two, trying to separate Her from it. The eye flared again, this time reversing it's tack. Instead of obliterating the construct the eye devoured it and began a draining maneuver down the connection between the construct and the ring bearer. As it did that it put a wall of emerald fire between the onrushing construct and it's Love. Draining from the wielder to power the wall.

The Empress knew what her precious was doing and laughed "Come now little Lantern. I was going to be the best of you all, but your precious Guardians were afraid of me. Give me your ring and I swear I will let you and the Legionnaires walk out of this with your lives."

The axe changed it's trajectory coming back after the usurper. It was closing fast on Lightning Lad when it hit the ground digging up a furrow, coming to a stop ten feet from him. "Not on my watch." came the voice of Thom Kallor from the direction of the threshold gate. "Try to move with the weight of Earth on top of you."

"Warning. Systems under cyber assault. Engaging primary ICe defenses. Fatality level omega."

Tharok's human eye went to a slit as he said "Identify source. Burn the PD3 that Coluan is using to hack me." At a thought his cyber arm shifted and morphed into a phase oscillator weapon. Two micro rocket launchers rose out of the cyber shoulder and thigh.

Then he saw the new Lantern looking his way. he decided to be neat this time and launched one micro shield breaker and it was joined from the second launcher with a Psi disruptor rocket.

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

As battles go, this one was not impossible to follow. Liz had one bag guy (girl in this case) tied up dealing with her. Her mothers love of art and imagination showing in how she wielded the ring she wore. The other Lantern was going after a big guy, almost like Dent but instead of scarring he was half machine, like some bastard version of Metallo. No idea how tough he was going to be, but Lanterns could normally hold their own. The kid I had saved was currently free from the halberd, and it looked like the big one was facing off with two of the other kids.

Didn't look like they were doing much either. It looked pissed.

My theory was proved correct when it roared and quicker than I though possible threw a boulder the size of a large car at the Kryptonian girl, knocking her back and down. Thats about the time more kids started pouring through the rift, one of them having a growth ability and he closed with the big clear-skulled thing. They traded punches, hard enough to shatter rocks around them, then it hit him in the face with some kind of blast from it's head, and the kid went down, face bloody and smoking. He shrank, and the creature raised one foot to crush him while he was down.

Not happening. I blasted the creature with a darkbolt, hurtling it back several hundred yards and knocking it on it's ass.

Time to take this one down.


I called upon Shadow, I was Shadow, and it answered it's Lord with a song of darkness and power. Around the behemoth, darkness unlike any seen in this universe in a millennium enfolded it.

"GET CLEAR OF THE DARKNESS!"I yelled in my battlefield voice. "You don't want to See what comes next" came out much quieter.

I watched the beast flail about in rage as it wandered, striking at anything it could reach. Anything near it was powdered in it's mindless fury. I kept the field centered on it, until it entered the shadows thrown up by a large boulder.

Prefect.

*Come to me. Your Master calls you forth to fight. Blood and fear await you. Come, vanquish this foe, but slay him not lest you gain my ire!* was sent out across planar boundaries, and answered by those I commanded.

I dropped the field and in the shadow of the rock hundreds of glowing green eyes emerged, followed by a horde of creatures of every shape and size called from Shadow. Claws, fangs, spines, coils, all forms that can ravage a body swarmed over the behemoth. His great blows crushed some, which melted away into shadows. Blast of energy rended others, but the swarm never slowed, never lessened.The creatures cries of rage grew louder, then more shrill, then finally silence.

I stepped into a pool of darkness and out by the torn and bloody body. (Strange blood, not like any I have seen. more like ichor.) It was breathing, but it would not be moving anytime soon. I could feel the bloodlust of my minions, feel their hunger to rip and tear, which was held at bay by their fear of me.

I dismissed them, and they vanished into pools of darkness, leaving the mortal world for the land of their birth. I rarely used shadowspawn, but people were dying here. I looked up at the young woman who had been using some sort of heat vision, and saw the horror of what she had seen etched across her face.

So be it, she was alive, as was the one who was almost crushed by the beast.

 

[Wyldfire]

Medbay.

Jenni blurred in carrying the first casualty. This was a familiar dance between the two girls, Jenni bringing them in with an initial triage and information to speed up the care they would need to survive, and Vi providing the care to keep them alive until Dr. Gym'll could arrive from Medicus One.

But Vi watched Jenni set the body down and just look back at her. Then it hit her who it was on the table. Oh Goddess no! "Ord? Is he?"

Jenni sighed and gave her friend the most reassuring face she could. "No Sal, not dead. He's on the mend as we speak. Definate case of Londo syndrome. He's not usually this kind of hairy is he?"

Vi almost fainted. He was going to be okay. He was using Timber Wolf's healing factor to fix himself up. Jenni broke in on Vi's thoughts. "Vi I got a bad feeling on this one. I need to get out there to get any casualties back here."

Vi nodded. "Yeah, me too Jen, me too. Go and don't bring me any casualties unless there are any."

And with that the "Medicus express" was on her way through the threshold.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Fate didn't bother with the Threshold. He didn't need it. He trusted the magics he had learned instead.

Take me where I am needed most. Fate thought as he allowed the magic to wash over him. In a second he was on the asteroid. Standing behind Liz Greystone.

"Need a hand?" Fate levitates above the Lantern. "Empress, I suggest you stand down and just surrender. You don't have the power to over come The Legion. It is Fate." Fate summons a blast of eldritch force. The blast sails directly for the Eye. Even as the blast is heading, Fate summons a sword and shield of mystical energy and flies as fast as possible on the tail of the blast. Hoping to catch the Eye of guard. Disorientated, perhaps the Emerald Empress can be taken down. Under the helm, Jonah sees the advancing Timber Wolf. Grinning he begins to sing. "Los Locos kick your ass! Los Locos kick your face! Los Locos kick your balls into outer space!"


Wildfire didn't need to be asked twice. As soon as the orders were given he was through the portal.

"Alright chowderheads! Now ya done it!" Wildfire flies straight for Tharok. Sending blasts of anti-energy to intercept the rockets. Wildfire continues strafing, trying to provide cover for his friends.


Cham was waiting. Then things went bad. XS was running in and out, gathering the hurt. Or worse. Grabbing Timber Wolf Cham shifts into a huge flying dragon. As he bursts through the gate he flings Timber Wolf into the fray. Timber Wolf flies, heading straight for Empress.

"Think fast Witch!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Garth grinned at Kallor, gave him the most emphatic thumbs-up he'd ever given. "Owe you big, Thommy. Sprocking serious."

Colossal Boy came striding in and battered the monster away.

But before Powergirl could nod her acceptance of Jo's offer, pressing the advantage Gim had just provided...

She got mangonelled.

Validus hurled a rock the size of a house at Gim, it sailed o'er, and all Caroline could do was stare at it. Superspeed failed her, deer in the headlights, oh dear oh dear oh dear--

The K-rads had gotten to her, the quantum corruption had eaten away at the bio-converted solar energy in her cells, changed it to red, her powers were flickering in and out--

--the rock hit her and she didn't have a forcefield belt, her lead armour dispersed into a puff of green smoke with the impact, she went down.

"Gy'aaahhh!"

The rock shattered with her beneath it and the wind was gone from her lungs.

"Agh. Ghhn. Fuck."

Brainiac whipped his head around, pointed at Powergirl, glared at VM3: "Help. Her."

Jaymie's red eyes were frightened. Not of The Five. But of Brainiac. "But you just gave up your-- Yeah. O'course."

And she flew to Caroline's side, dropping to one knee beside the fallen Kryptonian hybrid. "We gotta get you out of here--"

But then. Darkness happened.

Wraith happened.

The voice raged and the darkness caged and Jaymie was rooted the spot. As fearful and terrible as Brainiac's sentiment had been, so much more was Wraith a terror to behold.

Validus couldn't see what he was fighting, he lashed out wildly, tearing up chunks of GX-3396...

...but then an army of comparatively Liliputian monsters came at Wraith's beck and call, Giger-esque creatures carved of deep deep darkness.

And Validus fell beneath them. Fell hard.

"Holy sprock," Jaymie breathed, and her voice froze with her fright.

"No kidding," Caroline scrunched up her face, wiping away blood and stonedust.

As it turned out?

Brainiac Five had been multitasking.

But he had not yet gotten to that particular task.

As it turned out?

Rond had been looking Tharok's way thinking about cause and effect.

But he had not yet considered this particular effect.

Regardless of any datalink to Tharok's system, the PD3 was easily located.

And despite the giga-q-bit virus barriers on all of Brainiac's personal devices, the micromolecular processor heard Tharok's call. And it combusted. It sizzled and it died.

Brainiac Five howled in dismay, dropping the device, watching it tumble towards the rock below.

"No--" he whispered. "I needed to-- I still could have--"

"I was going to save her."

It shattered when it hit.

He looked away, his eyes slamming shut. "Sprocknassit."

Rond Vidar had proven his bravery but perhaps not his tactical wisdom.

He had bitten off more than he could chew.

His eyes widened and defensive posture he grabbed his wrist he pointed The Ring and a forcefield started to form nascent out of Ring-light--

Wildfire's first shot hit the shield-breaker dead-on and the projectile went to pieces, too close, too close... Rond tumbled backwards, head over heels...

...he had almost landed in a heap when the psi-disruptor died mid-flight.

His masked eyes were so wide they nearly fell out of his head.

Eloi and Morlocks.

I'm not dead.

Energy guy. Thank you.

Somehow, somehow, he got his feet beneath him.

He clambered to stand, though he was holding his side and his world was whirling.

1,001.

1,001.

1,001.

Gonna be one of them.

Can't die now.

Somehow, somehow, he got his eyes on Tharok.

And he swung as if all of history depended on it. Hauled off.

The Ring flashed.

Giant boxing glove.

It was Elizabeth Greystone's turn. It was her turn to burn from the mindside out. The Empress was using her own power against her, drawing off her Ring power, this was inconceivable, unprecedented, this was...

She wanted a Ring of her own.

She wanted a Ring of her own, and for this, for this, she would bargain all the lives of all these good brilliant beautiful people.

For the Ring she would spare their lives. Over the Ring she would kill them all.

And this, above all, proved her unworthy.

"Had your chance," Liz replied, through blood and sweat and tears, trying desperately to cling to last vestiges of Ring-power, to exert her will against the combined willpower of The Empress and The Eye. Trying to keep that energy from being wrested away. Trying to stay in this fight.

Trying not to be afraid.

And then.

Her cavalry arrived.

Fate.

Fire burned before her. Her mind was tied in knots.

But the man in the golden helm was above her and singing nonsense and she could only nod, yes, she agreed with this turn of events.

Short Circuit. How appropriate.

Magic coruscated and sword and shield came into play.

And lycanthropic beastie fastballed through the air for The Empress herself.

Green Lantern rose to her feet. And with a twist of her mind, she snapped the link between The Eye and her Ring. Snapped it like an overextended rubber band.

"Ring," she requested. "Power check."

*Power Levels 11.23%.*

Dare not recharge. Don't want to give her more juice to work with.

Her will is fueled by rage. More a Red Lantern than a Green.

Barely enough power left to--

Wait.

She pointed her Ring fist at The Empress' forehead.

The Empress tangling with Londo.

And ordered her Ring to perform a localised temporary memory wipe.

Forget rejection.

Forget the Corps.

Forget your will to fight.

Just this once. Just for now. Forget.

Forget your reason to kill us all.

The Ring flashed.

*Power levels near-critical.*

Hopefully, that had been enough.

 

[Wyldfire]

Enough!

Things were happening way too quickly. The five were sorely outnumbered and the plan was falling apart in ruins. The eye was beginning to be over tasked keeping her safe. The feral was all over her. If it weren't for the skein of emerald about her she would be sorely injured. The Lantern was trying something stupid, but it was tasking the eye. And then she saw the Helmet of Fate and saw her next acquisition. But another day for that.

"ENOUGH! Sarya bellowed with the eye managing to amplify her voice. "Tharok, show them out final displeasure. It is time!"

Tharok dodged the strafing from Wildfire and gave the technopathic command to his cyber half "Initiate the device. Audio announcement on timer."

A mechanical voice boomed through the air. "Antimatter detonation in t-minus fifteen minutes."

The Empress smiled despite herself and an emerald glow surrounded her teammates as well. "Farewell Legionnaires. Have fun finding poor poor Re-Animage. They say he can't die. Leave him and you'll find out."

With that the fields flared blindingly and the Five were gone.

But an emerald shimmer wavered in front of Fate and the Lantern. "You two, keep my baubles safe until it is time for me to take them. Fate, let Nabu know he will have better company soon."

And the shimmer faded out.

 

[ChasNicollette]

And the shimmer faded out.

And M'onel, faster than a speeding bullet, flew for her with countenance grim.

His hand closed on nothing.

He stood there, staring at his empty fist.

"Sprock," he murmured. "Well. Could have been worse. Hard to imagine how, but..."

"Could have been worse," Liz agreed.

M'onel nodded to Fate, and to Timber Wolf. "Good work."

Liz nodded. "Yeah. Cheers."

Brainiac landed beside Powergirl and VM3. "Are you okay? Is she okay?"

He raised his hand to flag down XS. "Ognats. We've got wounded!"

Caroline grabbed Jaymie's hand and both women stood.

"Honestly," Powergirl shook her head. "Just a boulder to the face. I'll be fine."

She staggered a bit, and Jaymie caught her even as she caught herself on Jaymie.

Jaymie worried, now. "You sure?"

Caroline harrumphed. "Five minutes under a sunlamp."

Brainiac took a step back. It's never easy. Caring. It never gets easier.

And kept his thoughts to himself.

"What the sprock does he mean," Garth snarled, stalking across the surface of the rock, "it coulda been worse? All those super-senses, and he's sprocking blinder than Bats. All these people dead and we didn't avenge 'em."

Jogging along beside him, Ayla shook her head. "Could have been worse. More people could have died--"

"More people are gonna die," Garth grunted, "they're still out there."

"We'll find 'em," Ayla promised, glancing furtively at Cham, but returning her attention to her twin. "We've got Dawnstar."

"Speaking of whom," Brainiac cleared his throat. "It seems like we need a tracker. Need to find an AM-bomb. Need to find a trapped self-ressurectionist. Quickly."

Liz held her Ring hand aloft, her head was ringing but she could still find focus. "Ring. Scan."

*Insufficient power.*

Liz' lip quirked. "Sufficient power to establish commlink with Oa?"

*...working. Please hold.*

"Keep me posted," she nodded, as she jogged over to Rond.

M'onel attempted to use his enhanced vision, and an agony speared him behind the eyes, he took a step back. "What. What was that?"

"Quantum pollution," Brainiac grunted. "Ostensibly the final legacy of Quantum Queen. We need to get that rectified if we're going to stand half a chance of finding Re-Animage and Tharok's little housepet. The damage to this environment might even be sufficient to jam Dawnstar's powers."

He clapped his hands together. "To which end: Kid Quantum, Element Lad?"

Xanthu native Jazmin Cullen's eyes gleamed gold as she approached. "What do you need, Brainy? I can feel it. It's crawling in my skin. Infinite probabilities of the multiverse... like gazing into a quantum mirror... except it's shattered, the mirror's broken, seven years bad luck."

Behind her, Element Lad, Jan Arrah of Trom, walked with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and he had his tongue out like he was trying to catch snowflakes. "It's very. Interesting."

"Yes," Brainiac harrumphed. "Absolutely captivating. Do what you can to return this place to baseline normal. Arrah, you may have to convert subatomic matter, neutrinos to positrons to protons, what have you, you may have to transmute the atmosphere itself. Cullen: harness the energies you see corrupted, see if you can't piece the looking-glass back together."

Jan shook his hands out of his sleeves. "I shall endeavour to bring about the balance that this place lacks. Perhaps this will soothe the souls here lost."

Brainiac hesitated. "Funny you should mention--"

Jazmin's lip quirked. "You want me to see if I can find her in this? You really think she survived?"

Brainiac smiled. Ever so faintly. Always were smarter than your brother.

"It's a chance in a trillion, but we have to take it," he nodded.

"Understood."

Tiny golden spheres rose around Jazmin as she lifted her hands, utterly countless in number.

Jan folded his hands in prayer, and magenta power crackled in his aura.

They went to work.

Liz approached Rond. "You copasetic, Vidar?"

Rond nodded to her, and indicated Wildfire. "Yeah. Thanks to this guy. Pulled my fat from the fire. Uh, so to speak."

Liz nodded firmly, respectfully to ERG-1. "A thousand thanks. A thousand and one..."

*Commlink established.*

Liz held up her Ring, and glanced at Rond. "I'm about to show you a trick. What to do if your battery's six hundred Sectors away and you're running on empty..."

A floating projection of a miniature Guardian appeared in front of her, looking surprised. 'What can we do for you, Elizabeth Kara Greystone?'

Liz ignored The Guardian. "Use it sparingly, however. In direst need. Because they hate it when you do this."

Rond's eyebrow arched.

'Green Lantern--' the Guardian attempted again, frowning, irritated--

Liz hauled off with her left fist and punched the projection in the face.

'--zzzzffssshphzzzzttttt!--'

"Holy sprock!" Rond recoiled.

And power windmilled around Liz' hand, around her Ring, the green green power drawn across millions of lightyears from The Centre of The Universe. Power absorbed into her Ring.

Liz flexed her hand, and smiled a rare little smile. "An old friend first figured that trick out in dark and terrible times. Only seems fitting to use it to prevent further dark and terrible times."

She shook her head. "I am going to get such a tongue-lashing."

Rond blinked. "To say the least."

Liz beckoned to Wildfire. "You're the anti-energy fellow, is that right? There's an antimatter bomb. Could you absorb the explosion if we can't defuse the device?"

"Fifteen minutes," Brainiac shook his head. "Less, now. On an asteroid of sufficient mass and gravitational attraction to maintain atmosphere-- unless Dawnstar's power works first try, we're not going to find them."

He frowned. And glanced over at Fate, at Wraith. "(Paradigms of Colu, I'm never going to forgive myself.)"

He coughed. "Fate. Piltdown Lad. Can you... scry?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I watched as the bad guys ported out. Damn, there goes the blessing of stupid enemies. I concentrated, releasing a trickle of power so I could understand the kids around me. It didn't take long to learn that we had a situation still.

Then the green kid asked me if I could scry.

Could I here? I had already done things that would have been impossible to me back in the days of Bruce, Diana and Kara.

Maybe I could scry. Or maybe, I could do better. Shadows swirled around me and I shed my armor for skin. I needed to be more human to do what I planned.

"I believe I can find what you want, but it's not going to be pretty to watch." I walked over to Brainiac 5, and drew my mithril knife. Before he or any others could react I made a shallow cut on my palm, then reached out to him and drew a eye on his forehead in my blood.

"This will link you with the scrying. This is old magik I am about to do, so it may be a bit.... intense." I said, as I walked over to a flat rock, almost like a short podium.

"I hate this part." I muttered as I laid my cut hand down on the rock, then plunged the dagger through my hand and into the rock. The power I had been gathering exploded out of me, and sensation crawled through my psyche. I could feel Brainiac piggybacking in the back of my mind, the framework of the spell shielding him from the shadow madness. I could also feel the asteroid. From the strangely charged particles on the air to still warm blood on the rocks.

"Ask your question. I am connected by power and blood to this land. If what you seek is here, I will find it."

 

[Wyldfire]

Dawnstar. The willful bitch has arrived.

She entered the atmospere hot. As soon as the distress beacon had sounded and the team selected she'd taken off. She'd been at her top speed before she passed Uranus, and once into interstellar space she was moving at .99 light. She entered her own space sector and had requested Starhaven portal to direct her to the asteroid.

She keyed her ring and said "Dawnstar on site. Where am I needed? I am on landing trajectory slowing for landing."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Liz approached Rond. "You copasetic, Vidar?"

Rond nodded to her, and indicated Wildfire. "Yeah. Thanks to this guy. Pulled my fat from the fire. Uh, so to speak."

Liz nodded firmly, respectfully to ERG-1. "A thousand thanks. A thousand and one..."

Wildfire nodded and gave a small salute. "No problem sugar. Any time."

Liz beckoned to Wildfire. "You're the anti-energy fellow, is that right? There's an antimatter bomb. Could you absorb the explosion if we can't defuse the device?"

Wildfire tilted his head slightly and outstretched his arms. "C'mon baby, I never seen an energy form I couldn't absorb. Only real problem is this.... I might rupture my containment vessel. Maybe 'tween you and you apprentice you can keep me in one piece? And hey, don't let me catch ya staring too long at the goods."

"Fifteen minutes," Brainiac shook his head. "Less, now. On an asteroid of sufficient mass and gravitational attraction to maintain atmosphere-- unless Dawnstar's power works first try, we're not going to find them."

He frowned. And glanced over at Fate, at Wraith. "(Paradigms of Colu, I'm never going to forgive myself.)"

He coughed. "Fate. Piltdown Lad. Can you... scry?"

Fate grinned as the sword and shield disappeared. He grinned under the Helm. As Wraith began his work Fate began to levitate. Taking on a pose similar to those of the ancient Yogi. "I will assist if I am needed, though I would most certainly wish to see K-Wraith's attempt. Wildfire, don't flatter yourself. I was there the last time you ruptured. For most a swirling cloud of Anti-Energy isn't exactly a turn on."

 

[ChasNicollette]

"I believe I can find what you want, but it's not going to be pretty to watch."

Garth's eyebrow quirked as he and Ayla approached. "Pretty compared with what, exactly? The Times-Five-Carnage that this place just witnessed?"

Ayla coughed. "That doesn't sound like gratitude to the guy who pretty much solo'd two of The Five, saving your hindparts in the process."

Garth harrumphed. "Whatever."

I walked over to Brainiac 5, and drew my mithril knife. Before he or any others could react I made a shallow cut on my palm, then reached out to him and drew a eye on his forehead in my blood.

Brainiac opened his mouth first to decry the barbarism involved in the palm-slicing, and then, eyes suddenly absolutely wide, his mouth then curdled in response to the bodily fluids painted upon his brow.

"That's. That's very. Unsanitary."

You often go dolloping potentially biohazardous material on your co-workers? he wondered.

"This will link you with the scrying. This is old magik I am about to do, so it may be a bit.... intense." I said, as I walked over to a flat rock, almost like a short podium.

Brainiac attempted to peer upwards at the runic image there, and this presented a rather comical expression, futilely attempting to see one's own forehead without a mirror, reprehension at the medium of this adornment.

"I hate this part." I muttered as I laid my cut hand down on the rock, then plunged the dagger through my hand and into the rock.

Caroline vanished with a yelp, carried off by XS despite her protestations of quick recovery. As fast as Caroline Harrison was, after all, Jenni Ognats was faster. She was from a whole different family of speed.

Which left Jaymie gawking at her ancestor's stabbing himself through the hand. Into a rock. Partially crucifying himself...

She recoiled. She couldn't help herself, she had been trying to be coherent and had been trying to not be so judgemental about the throwbackery and flungforwardery that Wraith represented but holy holy sprocking sprock...

She'd already thrown up, and she didn't repeat this. But the look on her face was not one of... appreciation.

She glanced at Brainiac and was--

Wait, what?

Brainiac Five no longer had that aghast look on his face but one of bemused delight and surprise, eyes calmly closed. "It's just like The Groupmind, back home. It's like plugging into cyberspace and navigating the bio-optic conduits at the speed of thought, a Coluan's natural habitat--"

He paused, and harrumphed. "(I have to admit, your brain has a lot less wasted space than I would have thought. Much of it allocated to memory storage rather than realtime processing, but still. Less empty-skulled than initially I gave you credit for.)"

"Ask your question. I am connected by power and blood to this land. If what you seek is here, I will find it."

"Hm."

Fate grinned as the sword and shield disappeared. He grinned under the Helm. As Wraith began his work Fate began to levitate. Taking on a pose similar to those of the ancient Yogi. "I will assist if I am needed, though I would most certainly wish to see K-Wraith's attempt. Wildfire, don't flatter yourself. I was there the last time you ruptured. For most a swirling cloud of Anti-Energy isn't exactly a turn on."

"'K-Wraith?'" Jaymie mouthed, recovering somewhat. "Sprocked nomenclature, Fate Boy..."

But then her thoughts trailed into his verbal barbs flung at Wildfire, and this made Jaymie's thoughts derail. She hadn't been there...

But it kind of made her wonder what Wildfire would look like to her thermal senses.

She looked away from ERG-1, quick as she could, before she could be tempted, so to speak, to undress the energy entity with her eyes.

Egah.

She keyed her ring and said "Dawnstar on site. Where am I needed? I am on landing trajectory slowing for landing."

Brainiac opened one eye and held up his Ring hand. "Hold off on planetfall just yet, Dawnstar. There's been something of a catastrophe and time is short. Perhaps if you're outside the quantum static, you'll be better able to perceive objects and targets therewithin. We're going to pool our resources. Two magic-users performing scrying and you with your own tracking ability. Fate, and Pilt-- Wraith. I want you two to seek out the weapon. It's not entirely without merit that our missing Wanderer and the antimatter detonator should be packaged separately. So you find the bomb, its place of power. Dawnstar, I want you to seek out the missing Wanderer called 'Re-Animage.'"

He closed that eye again. "Either we'll find them together or we'll find them separately, but either way we'll find them and get our 'sprocking nasses' off of this deityforsaken rock."

"Green Lanterns," Liz nodded easily to Wildfire, "actually have an interesting history with antimatter. Suffice it to say?"

She didn't smile, but her darkened eyes glinted. "We will be completely professional."

Rond was walking along behind them, still feeling very much out of his depth. "'Apprentice?'"

Liz paused. And examined her father with his knife through his human hand and into the rock. She digested this without permitting a single hint of emotion to cross her countenance.

Dinner conversation is going to touch on some interesting topics.

M'onel, starting slowly slowly to feel the red-sun burn of the quantum detritus, walked stiffly over to Kid Quantum and Element Lad.

"Any luck so far?" he wondered. "I mean, I don't mean to distract. My micro-vision's about useless, but I heard Brainiac, and it doesn't take a genius--"

But then Jazmin looked squarely at M'onel, and there were golden quantum tears in her eyes.

"Oh."

"Sprock."

Kid Quantum shook her head, clawed her hand through her tightly-wound, close-cropped curls. "She's gone. Quantum Queen was... when she changed into her various quantum states, she was the living personificiation of the principle of quantum entanglement. But she got sliced by the axe. Right down the middle. And all her entanglements got... de-tangled. She can't cohere again. She can't ever."

M'onel bit the inside of his cheek. "But is she. Is she... conscious? Forever a phantom?"

Jazmin smiled faintly. "Small mercies. No. Her neuropsychic net's been dispersed and converted. Psionic energies are quantum-based too, remember, telekinesis and telepathy. She's been all burned up. Quantum ashes on solar wind."

M'onel nodded. "Small mercies."

Element Lad eulogised softly: "Where I come from, much philosophy is made of the states of matter. And death, and life, these are just different phases, different states. Quantum Queen has simply entered another state. And if she is as blessed in her passing as she was a blessing in life, she has her friends with her."

M'onel did not consider himself a prayerful man. It was hard to be religious when you were hiding from your status as a secular Messiah. But he passed this moment, this moment here, in silent contemplation.

Caroline's yelp completed as she skidded to a halt on a medbed, she moved to bitch out XS, but the speedstress was gone again, fleet of foot and faster than a speeding psychon...

She sat there for a moment. Staring aghast. "Can't believe she-- how could she-- I can't believe she--"

And then a yellow sun-lamp zipped into place beside her, and the blue-white-gold-brown blur was gone again.

Powergirl's cheek twitched.

And at first, she refused to switch that lamp on.

Instead, stiffly, she rose to her feet, her now-tattered cape wafting behind her as she made her way over to Duplicate Boy and the Shrinking Violet that cared for him in more ways than one.

...all of a sudden, any affrontery committed to her person seemed less than pertinent.

"Is he okay?" she worried. "Is-- is there anything I can do?"

 

[Wyldfire]

"Hold off on planetfall just yet, Dawnstar. There's been something of a catastrophe and time is short. Perhaps if you're outside the quantum static, you'll be better able to perceive objects and targets therewithin. We're going to pool our resources. Two magic-users performing scrying and you with your own tracking ability. Fate, and Pilt-- Wraith. I want you two to seek out the weapon. It's not entirely without merit that our missing Wanderer and the antimatter detonator should be packaged separately. So you find the bomb, its place of power. Dawnstar, I want you to seek out the missing Wanderer called 'Re-Animage.'"

He closed that eye again. "Either we'll find them together or we'll find them separately, but either way we'll find them and get our 'sprocking nasses' off of this deityforsaken rock."

"I understand." The young Apache said. "I am searching for his Biochemical scent. It will be easier when I can cover more space in my search."

Dawnstar gained altitude until she was skipping off the tainted atmo. The search was on.

Caroline's yelp completed as she skidded to a halt on a medbed, she moved to bitch out XS, but the speedstress was gone again, fleet of foot and faster than a speeding psychon...

She sat there for a moment. Staring aghast. "Can't believe she-- how could she-- I can't believe she--"

And then a yellow sun-lamp zipped into place beside her, and the blue-white-gold-brown blur was gone again.

Powergirl's cheek twitched.

And at first, she refused to switch that lamp on.

Instead, stiffly, she rose to her feet, her now-tattered cape wafting behind her as she made her way over to Duplicate Boy and the Shrinking Violet that cared for him in more ways than one.

...all of a sudden, any affrontery committed to her person seemed less than pertinent.

"Is he okay?" she worried. "Is-- is there anything I can do?"

In her mind the rest of the team probably didn't see much use for her power. She got small. Not an Earth shattering power by any light in the sense of what the team did most of the time. But it was one she had found a very practical use for. Here in Medbay. Many of the team had no idea that she knew them as well as she did. Jo was one she knew probably the best. She'd sewn Nah up from the inside out more times than she'd care to think about.

Caroline was a first in her bay though. She wished it had been on any other mission than this one. Especially with Caroline being awake and cognisant. Vi'd just gotten done with her primary call on the bodies of Psyche and Monstress so she wasn't at her best.

"Yes, Ord's in a healing coma. He's using Londo's healing factor." she turned to face Power girl, her own costume covered in fluids that would make even Wildfire shut the frag up when and if he ever figured out what they were.

"And what you can do is lay your Semi Kryptonian ass back under that Yellow solar tanning light and give yourself a tan and a recharge."

She knew that sounded bitchy, especially for how the rest usually saw Little Vi. She sighed and said "Sorry about that, but this has to be the worst mission I've ever had to deal with. You and Ord are the only living that Jenn's brought in." A tear slid down her face.

"First they bring in my man in the condition he's in and next Jenn's bringing in attrocity after attrocity. What's happened to them? Even the Five haven't ever been this savage before. Please tell me there aren't going to be any trials for any of the team killing one of these animals. I'm glad I was here and not there. I'd be kicked off the team if I had been. I'd have killed one of them."

 

[ChasNicollette]

"This is for long forgotten light at the end of the world..."

Caroline was a first in her bay though. She wished it had been on any other mission than this one. Especially with Caroline being awake and cognisant. Vi'd just gotten done with her primary call on the bodies of Psyche and Monstress so she wasn't at her best.

Suddenly, Caroline realised just how out of her depth she was. Walking up, she'd only taken in the living patient, she hadn't realised that all those other people strewn about were... not... living.

Death was something she'd never really given much thought. After all, she was descended from Supergirl, The Supergirl, The First Supergirl. And Kara Zor-El had returned from Death's Door more than once. (Well, at least once.)

Death was something that happened to other people.

None of The Legion's losses had happened during her tour of duty, it was easy to relegate that stuff to the dusts of recent history.

But here she was. Looking at Death. Looking it right in the face.

"Oh," she murmured. "Oh."

"Yes, Ord's in a healing coma. He's using Londo's healing factor." she turned to face Power girl, her own costume covered in fluids that would make even Wildfire shut the frag up when and if he ever figured out what they were.

Caroline tried not to breathe in. She knew her super-powered perceptions were still good enough that she'd be able to identify every last one of those varieties of-- person stuff...

She hadn't gotten to know The Amazers or The Wanderers or The Heroes of Lallor. She'd known Tyroc briefly, but he'd left The Legion only a month after she'd joined. She'd always meant to look up Dev-Em, but that only... would have been awkward.

(There were supposed to be Kryptonians on Sanctuary, too, but she'd never looked them up, either.

Awkward.

She didn't want them to think that the current inheritor of their planet's starkly beautiful legacy was a loser and a fuck-up who couldn't even control her powers.

Kryptonians were something of an endangered species. Now Dev-Em was gone. And they were endangered all the more so.)

She hadn't known these people. Though standing here now among their fallen, she suddenly realised that she should have.

There was one called Elvo, and one called Evolvo Lad, she'd read about them and she'd always gotten them confused...

All those things I can do. All those powers. And I couldn't even save them.

She reached out and touched Monstress' hand. (Jaymie had liked Monstress.)

Then gently, gently, she brushed back a little strand of polar-white hair from Psyche's face.

God.

"And what you can do is lay your Semi Kryptonian ass back under that Yellow solar tanning light and give yourself a tan and a recharge."

And that line hit her in the face like a Validus-hurled rock the size of a house. Her head whipped around and she scowled in frightened surprise at Salu. No shy Violet was she now...

She knew that sounded bitchy, especially for how the rest usually saw Little Vi. She sighed and said "Sorry about that, but this has to be the worst mission I've ever had to deal with. You and Ord are the only living that Jenn's brought in." A tear slid down her face.

Caroline hesitated. "Garth's alive, too. He got his--" she pointed to her nose "--he got his nose broke. But he's. Okay."

But she knew what feeble comfort that was, and she quieted herself.

"First they bring in my man in the condition he's in and next Jenn's bringing in attrocity after attrocity. What's happened to them? Even the Five haven't ever been this savage before. Please tell me there aren't going to be any trials for any of the team killing one of these animals. I'm glad I was here and not there. I'd be kicked off the team if I had been. I'd have killed one of them."

Caroline stood there.

She didn't yet go to the lamp.

She stood there.

She covered one eye with her hand, covered half her face. "We didn't. Kill any of them. I can't imagine that. That there would have been... prosecution? If we had. Maybe enforced leaves of absence from the team, but-- it's a moot point. We took three of them down. But Tharok and that Eye woman, the Eye woman did a mass teleport thing and they were gone."

Caroline paused, and her voice was as heavy as anything Star Boy had ever weighed down, and her heart was heavier still, so heavy that even she, Last Daughter of The Daughters of Krypton, had trouble standing up under their combined weight.

"We didn't kill them," she murmured. "We didn't even beat them. They're still out there."

"They're more evil than they've ever ever been. And they're still out there."

"...fuck."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Wraith

I rarely used this spell in Shadow because it was so draining. Here, it was literally killing me. Blood magic is dangerous at best, and this was a very powerful Blood spell. I could feel the Legionnaire in the back of my head, and then he started exploring.

Not very polite. I slapped him back into the back of my mind *No browsing kid. I don't know what an antimatter bomb looks like, so start thinking real hard about what one should look like, and I'll start searching.*

Eventually we worked it out, and I started to feel the burning wrongness on the rock. Down there, under the cooling towers of the fission reactor. Once we found it it was blazing in our sight. I knew the kid had it, now it was up to them to get rid of it. I shut Brainiac 5 out of my mind, snapping him fully back into his head, then pulled myself up out of the spell, dropping my senses out of the asteroid. I could feel blackness all around me. Shouldn't have done this here.

I tried pulling the dagger out but it wouldn't budge, and more of my life force poured down through the blade.

"I need help." I said weekly."Pull the blade out, I can't do it. I can't..."

Darkness washed over me and I went down.

 

[Lunaramblings]

Fate watched as bad went to worse. He could feel the energies being sucked out of Wraith bit by bit. Then he felt it go Wrong. This was why Nabu hated Blood Magick.

As Wraith collapsed Fate was already there. Fate took the dagger and yanked. Tearing it through the flesh. Speaking words of disjunction. Words that would break the spell Wraith started. In an instant the bond was severed and Wraith was free. Though still not in good shape.

Nabu was screaming to teleport him to the tower. But Jonah knew better. He remembered how Uncle Merick used to threaten Uncle Kyle that he would teleport him and screw with his powers. Those powers may be all that were keeping him alive.

"Cham! All haste! Get us out of here. Now!" Fate yelled.

Cham swooped back by, still in this draconic form and grabbed the two. In a moment they were flying back through the gate.

"He used Blood Magick. Infernal nonsense. Never ends well. He is bleeding. Stupid spell was draining him of his Life Essence. This is why Magick is for the professionals. Remind me to remind him to stick to the darksome warlord schtick and leave the magicks to me." Fate began to chant quietly. Eerily two voices issued from the Helm. Jonah and Nabu, both chanting different magicks. Both trying everything they knew. He seemed to have stabilized but he still had a nasty wound. And no telling what other damage.

Cham meanwhile had shifted back to his Durlan form and was standing quietly. Gently he placed a hand on Fate's shoulder. A show of solidarity. A show of respect. A show of understanding.

 

[ChasNicollette]

...and then he started exploring.

Not very polite. I slapped him back into the back of my mind

"Not very polite" would describe Querl Dox at the best of times.

But to invite a Coluan of any stripe into a data storage device, hardware or wetware, and to expect him to not have a peek about, this was asking far too much.

He blinked at the virtual impact on his biomnemonic avatar and rubbed his virtual face.

"Begging your pardon," he scoffed. "You try to pay a sentient a compliment..."

*No browsing kid. I don't know what an antimatter bomb looks like, so start thinking real hard about what one should look like, and I'll start searching.*

"There are a variety of possible designs," he ticked off on his fingers, "the variations in which depend on the type of antimatter one is utlising, the relative density of the molecules, or what-have-you. As the simplest molecule, hydrogen and its isotopes are easiest to convert into their negative counterparts, but that's assuming the antimatter is being synthesised locally-- likely using artificial baryogenesis --and not harvested from an alternate universe.

"Common to all designs, however, would be the extremely dense electromagnetic fields required to 'bottle' the antimatter until such time as it is released to interact with the 'positive'-matter of our surrounding universe. So we should look for that, then. An electromagnetic 'bottle.'"

Eventually we worked it out, and I started to feel the burning wrongness on the rock. Down there, under the cooling towers of the fission reactor.

Querl's lip curled. "Ah. A fissile variant. Normally, such things are arranged in an approximation of a fusion reaction, but they've combined the gross inelegance of the 'atomic bomb' with the raw angry hungry destruction of antimatter. Wouldn't surprise me if they've gone to the trouble of... antiplutonium..."

Once we found it it was blazing in our sight. I knew the kid had it, now it was up to them to get rid of it. I shut Brainiac 5 out of my mind, snapping him fully back into his head--

Brainiac flinched, blinked several times, staggered a little bit as he reoriented himself. "(And he says I'm not polite.)"

--then pulled myself up out of the spell, dropping my senses out of the asteroid. I could feel blackness all around me. Shouldn't have done this here.

I tried pulling the dagger out but it wouldn't budge, and more of my life force poured down through the blade.

"I need help." I said weekly."Pull the blade out, I can't do it. I can't..."

Darkness washed over me and I went down.

Green Lantern's darkened eyes went wide and she ran for her father. "DAD."

And in her voice. There was fear.

In sympathy, Ayla's own heart leapt into her throat. "Ohgods. Ohgodsohgods."

As Wraith collapsed Fate was already there. Fate took the dagger and yanked. Tearing it through the flesh. Speaking words of disjunction. Words that would break the spell Wraith started. In an instant the bond was severed and Wraith was free. Though still not in good shape.

"Cham! All haste! Get us out of here. Now!" Fate yelled.

Cham swooped back by, still in this draconic form and grabbed the two. In a moment they were flying back through the gate.

And without even a thought, without even an impulse, both Ayla Ranzz and Liz Greystone were airborne and hurtling across the Threshold...

"Not letting you out of my sight," Liz breathed.

"He used Blood Magick. Infernal nonsense. Never ends well. He is bleeding. Stupid spell was draining him of his Life Essence. This is why Magick is for the professionals. Remind me to remind him to stick to the darksome warlord schtick and leave the magicks to me." Fate began to chant quietly. Eerily two voices issued from the Helm. Jonah and Nabu, both chanting different magicks. Both trying everything they knew. He seemed to have stabilized but he still had a nasty wound. And no telling what other damage.

Liz stood there, stood there, horrified, the fear like an alien parasite creeping throughout her circulatory system, swallowing the courage at her heart.

One of the last memories she had before her Taking, her abduction, was sitting in The Cave during downtime and watching a movie. "First Knight."

And Sean Connery said to Richard Gere: "He who fears nothing, loves nothing."

And the opposite, apparently, was also true. Because Liz had found things again in this Universe to truly love, so also did she fear for their safety.

J'onn was back. And her father was back. And she dreaded the terrible things that might happen to them. She dreaded the things that might happen to her to take her from them anew.

She could imagine the little yellow spectre laughing at the back of her brain and her jaw flexed in consternation.

This could become a problem.

But she didn't waver.

She cleared her mind as best as she could, stilled the tremors therewithin.

"Can you transport him to Shadow?" she attempted, softly, suggesting this to the two consciousnesses warring to bring Wraith back. "He could recharge there. Can you breach the dimensional barrier and send him across?"

Cham meanwhile had shifted back to his Durlan form and was standing quietly. Gently he placed a hand on Fate's shoulder. A show of solidarity. A show of respect. A show of understanding.

Ayla slipped her hand into Chameleon's.

She didn't say anything. She didn't look at him.

She just held his hand and stood by his side.

*********​

Back on the other side of the Threshold, Brainiac stared after the departed heroes for a moment, and then shook his head as if to clear it.

"Unfortunate," he muttered.

But then clapped his hands together. Back to business.

"Right," he called out, both out loud and into his Ring, "we've got a twenty on the explosive, and it's a jabberwock. ERG-1, Cullen, Arrah, 'Teen Lantern,' you're with me. Nah, I'll have you along, too, if only to serve as a human shield for me. Ognats, be alert for a full-speed all-hands evac."

He took off, flying in the direction of the weapon. "Dawnstar, how're we coming on Re-Animage?"

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Vatican

"Not a military unit child, The Legion of Superheroes. It's a group of superpowered youths that follow a code and do quite a lot of good within the UP. Normally you would not be accepted, but I pulled some strings with President Chu and got you in. Daniel will tell you further on what you are to do." The Monsignor said, then he took a seat behind his desk and looked over to the young man.

"Now Allana, you will be a pro visionary member of the Legion when you arrive. We have already synched your communications array with all Legion frequencies, and have downloaded a brief history of the Legion and it's bylaws and regulations are in your databanks. Suffice to say it is not as tightly controlled as the units you are used to working with, but they have one ironclad rule." He said, then looked down on the young woman. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her.

"The Legion never takes a life. To do so for any reason is grounds for immediate dismissal, and quite possibly formal charges. If you can't do this, then we need to select another Knight, for the Church HAS to have a voice in the upcoming battle. The texts were very clear, the Child of Shadow will face the Child of Darkness, and all will be lost unless the Light joins with Shadow. I know it's not talking about me, I have a different task."

"Which I wish you would reconsider. I don't like what father has in store for you Daniel." Said the angel.

"It is my destiny Gaberiel. Why don't you summon The Guide so we can get our young lady off to do her job." said the Scion of Heaven to his grim faced companion.

 

[Lunaramblings]

"Can you transport him to Shadow?" she attempted, softly, suggesting this to the two consciousnesses warring to bring Wraith back. "He could recharge there. Can you breach the dimensional barrier and send him across?"

"It could be possible. But I believe it may be unneeded. The wound on his hand is closing. He is rapidly stabilizing. I believe that he may need only rest. Come, Liz, trust me. Give him time. If you would like I can bring him to a move private location for you to sit with him? By the way, you look good. For your age."

Cham meanwhile had shifted back to his Durlan form and was standing quietly. Gently he placed a hand on Fate's shoulder. A show of solidarity. A show of respect. A show of understanding.

Ayla slipped her hand into Chameleon's.

She didn't say anything. She didn't look at him.

She just held his hand and stood by his side.

Cham's eyes went a little wide. His antennae quivered slightly. For so long he had wanted closeness like this. But not at a cost like this. For several months now Fate had been assisting Cham in delivering small surprises to Ayla's room. Just small shows of affection. Had she figured it out? Was most likely just the shell shock. The terror and the depravity that they had just witnessed. That's it. Best not to over think it.

Despite his thoughts, Cham squeezed Ayla's hand. Gently. But definately an affirmation of her gesture.

"I have never seen carnage like this. The Five are beyond what I have ever seen them. This.... this assault, it seemed to have no purpose short of carnage. They must be stopped."

Cham's jaw set firmly. Cham squeezed tighter on Ayla's hand. A reaffirmation of their connection. If only for the moment.

*********​

Back on the other side of the Threshold, Brainiac stared after the departed heroes for a moment, and then shook his head as if to clear it.

"Unfortunate," he muttered.

But then clapped his hands together. Back to business.

"Right," he called out, both out loud and into his Ring, "we've got a twenty on the explosive, and it's a jabberwock. ERG-1, Cullen, Arrah, 'Teen Lantern,' you're with me. Nah, I'll have you along, too, if only to serve as a human shield for me. Ognats, be alert for a full-speed all-hands evac."

"Get me to it Brainy. I will do what I can."

He took off, flying in the direction of the weapon. "Dawnstar, how're we coming on Re-Animage?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

There had been times. In this life of hers. That she had been given to wear mortal flesh, and walk this world as one of them.

She had been one of them. Once. Now, however, she was in The World but not of The World.

She had been human. Mortal. Once. And while it was not generally the policy of The Presence to remake perished mortals as members of the angelic hosts, there were... exceptions.

She had been a warrior and a priestess and they had chosen to make her part of a new sept of The Eagle Host.

She was an angel of The Raven Host.

This Present Darkness was soon to rear its grotesque countenance, and she could petition The Throne of Grace to permit her perhaps to meet that Darkness in combat in solid form, but for now...

...she was but the sound of bells. A still small voice.

Meant for only one mortal this time to see and hear.

Angels were, after all, first and foremost, messengers.

Messengers. And guardians.

She crouched atop a roof, her bare toes curled upon the shingles of a house overlooking The Vatican Gardens.

Her eyes were red, with black slits for pupils, feral eyes, eagle eyes.

Her skin was palest white, with a silver sheen, marked with innumerable untranslatable symbols, runes from the furthest reaches of Scripture. Her armour, boots that covered not her feet, armguards that covered not her hands, a shell that surrounded her torso, covered that which discomfited mortals but left her free to move...

She had a helmet, though this was more of a diadem, as it left her long dark hair free to flow.

Her wings were black as night, massive and strong, with feathers that shone with curious highlights.

At her side was sheathed a sword.

She sat. She waited.

Her wings shifted with the breeze, but no mortals hurrying through the garden below would look up and behold her.

But then came the summoning. A song through the choirs, the ever-after hosannas of the angelic overmind, the songs of the voiceless choir, she heard him.

Gabriel.

The fullness of Time had come.

Her wings spread, almost of their own accord, spread to their magnificence, and as her body unfurled from its crouch those wings clapped downwards, and she flew, ascending to wheel about and slice through the air above The City.

And when she landed, she landed with all the force of a snowflake.

Great black wings folded behind her, loosing a single feather to drop upon the cobbles. Her bare feet wafted over the same floors through which Allana's bootheels had snapped only minutes before.

She stood. Inclined her head to The Archangel. "Hulloh, Gabriel."

She glanced at The Monsignor, but of course, he could not see her...

She inclined her head still further to Daniel, but neither did she bow. "Your Eminence."

And then, and only then, did she fix her gleaming eyes and smile her coolly inviting smile upon Dame Allana Lang of The House of Kent.

(Her flawless smile.)

"M'Lady," she instructed. "You will come with me."