The young man stood before the Council with the other members of his training class. They had been called here following the final portion of their training.
They have to give the final spot. My scores were better than the rest of the applicants. There is no law against… he thought as they stood at attention.
"Angdar Fel," a booming voice said and snapped his attention to his left.
"Sir."
"You scored higher than any other in the final three phases of training."
"Thank you sir," he felt a relief starting to wash over him. If this kept up, he was going to be the youngest member of the Wingmen of Thanagar since his ancestor in the late 20th century.
"All flight related, if I read the reports correctly," the man said flipping through the folder in front of him as if he was pretending to read it.
Angdar felt a wave of anxiety swelling up in his stomach. He waited what came next...knowing that his future relied on biases and discriminatory practices being put aside in order to give him the spot that he rightfully deserved.
"It is the opinion of the Council that Fed Gandorn shall be moved to the top of the recruit list."
Two Wingmen cadets down from him, he heard a barely audible sigh of relief. Fed had been on his heels during the entire training.
Angdar closed his eyes and sighed. Once again, the fact that he was born with natural wings, and that he did not have to rely on the Nth metal to fly, proved that he just did not belong here on Thanagar. When he was younger, he had learned that once a century (or so the myths and legends went) that a true wingman was born. While those born with natural wings would seem to be revered in a society that focused so heavily on the bird mythos, they were treated as outcasts and pariahs. Totally out of fear and jealousy on the part of the general populace. Most that were born thus were usually forced from Thanagar and took up residence on other planets. Some fought against the prejudice and tried to live their lives in relative peace. Most did not succeed. Thanagarians were very superstitious and shunned them. The fact that the superstitions came from jealousy born centuries ago seemed to matter to very few.
"We're truly sorry recruit, but laws are laws. You should be thankful that you made it this far without being discovered."
Angdar took his helmet off and threw it on the ground. He removed the harness that he wore out of respect for the tradition of the Wingmen of Thanagar and threw it next to the helmet. He did not actually need either to fly, and the Nth metal was wasted on him in that regard, but he had hoped beyond hope to make a difference on Thanagar. To be the first Wingman since his ancestor to have true wings, but that was not to be. His lineage was the one that produced the natural winged Thanagarians, and because of the betrayal of one over a thousand years ago, they were shunned. All others of the family tree born without wings were accepted as was any other Thanagarian.
"I had hoped my history and performance would have gotten through your archaic rules. I'm sorry, they are not laws...they are old hates that old fools like the council cannot let go of."
The Lead Council member stood to say something, but Andgar lifted off the floor with a jump and furious flap of his wings that scattered the papers on the councils table all over the meeting hall.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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Angdar flew for about an hour before heading towards his home. He wasn't sure what to do. His family would be disgraced now, but they would be alright, their friends would protect them. He, however, would have only two choices: live as an outcast...or leave his home. He was 18 and had never been off planet, Besides, where would I go? he though to himself.
As he landed on the roof of a building within his sight of his parent home.and was surprised to see three Wingmen waiting for him. His first thought was to flee, but he landed and walked right to them. "Can I ask what you are doing here?" He said with much more confidence than he felt. His ears were listening for the sound of any other Wingmen in the vicinity. He learned to trust his senses more than anything else. He could see further than anyone he knew, could hear a birds wings before most others could even see it, and his skin seemed to alert him to any minor shift n air pressure or temperature.
The senior officer stepped forward and held out his Mace. The one to his right stepped forward and held out his spear. The one on the left stepped forward and held out his shield. Behind them, he saw a bag full of various weapons from the arsenal of the Thanagarian Wingmen.
"What are you doing..."
"The Council was wrong Angdar. With every test, every mind scan, every physical training exercise. They didn't tell you the truth about your scores."
"What are you talking about? You mean I did worse than they said and they were just trying to make me feel better?"
The one on the left spoke next, pulling a file from a bag he had around his shoulder. "This file contains your scores compared against your class of recruits."
Andgar took the file and began to open it.
"No. Let us tell you what the results were."
He closed the file and nodded to them, “okay then.”
"You scored the top of your class in every category imaginable."
Angdar blinked several times. "They told me that I did very well in most of the categories, even scored highest in most..."
The one on the right now moved towards him and spoke, "the thing that they didn't...no, refused to tell you or any of us...was that you scored higher in every single category than any Wingman in the archives."
Andgar looked from one to another several times. His mind raced. The archives went back To the beginning of the Wingmen themselves. "Why would they then refuse to..."
"Because you scare them. What you represent scares them. The leadership council of the Wingmen does not want individuals like you on the force...because you're not going to go with their whims and take the bribes and payoffs that they use to maintain control of the populace."
"Then why are you..."
"We're representative of those that are tired of what they have been doing...and we chose to represent the greater good, and do what was right for once in our sorry existences."
They handed him their weapons and backed up three paces each.
"I don't understand."
"We were sent here to kill you, but instead...we're going to help you escape this forsaken planet in hopes that you can get help for us."
"Where would I go...who would possibly help Thanagar?"
The lead Wingman smiled. "There's a planet called Legion World..."
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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The Wingman could not finish the thought as Angdar whipped his head around to the south. “We have company coming.”
The three of them looked at each other and nodded. Two of them grabbed Angdar by the shoulders and smiled at him. They let go and ran to the edge of the building, pulling other weapons from their belts.
The main Wingman walked to Angdar and handed him the bag with various weapons in it. As he took the bag from him, he realized that these Wingmen had gathered a collection of Nth metal weapons. They were the most valuable and dangerous weapons on the planet. They weighted next to nothing and were stronger than just about any material in the universe. They were know to hurt Daxamites when used properly. Great care had to be used when wielding them, as their lack of weight made it wasy to hurt oneself as easily as ones opponents.
“Take these and go. We will hold them as long as possible.”
Angdar felt tears welling up in him. “What about my family?”
“GO!”
An explosion came from several blocks away.
“GO NOW!”
Angdar grabbed the weapons and took off from the roof and plummeted towards the street below.
He could see that the building his parents lived in was on fire. Wingmen were searching the wreckage. He heard a scream of rage and saw the Wingmen that had encouraged him to leave fly into the Wingmen and take out three of them before they knew what was happening.
He turned and saw that the other two Wingmen were close to falling, but they had taken down dozens of Wingmen already.
He saw a tag on the bag and glanced at it. There was an address and taped to the back of the tag was a cruiser ID Key.
Within moments he was at the hanger. Before him was a Thanagarian Wingman Cruiser.
He boarded and started the take off sequence.
“Time to go Angdar,” he said to himself quietly, “it’s time to find your destiny on this Legion World.”
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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Angdar sat in the pilots chair and sighed. He had stopped crying for his family. They were gone and there was nothing that he could do about it. Of course it was being blamed on the actions of three rogue Wingmen who destroyed his parents residence, killing 73 people in the destruction, and killed 17 of their fellow Wingmen before being taken down.
He was reported among the deceased. As were the rest of his family.
He shut his eyes and wondered if they were really dead, or if they had been taken captive. He would return to find out, but first he needed to get some help.
“Time to find this Legion World that they were talking about,” he said to himself.
He stood up and stretched his wings out. The cockpit of the cruiser was made to accommodate the Wingmen in full gear, so there was room for him to move around freely.
He was not exceptionally tall for his age. He was 6 feet tall, somewhere at the average range for Thanagarians. Where he differed was his build. He was bigger physically than most, and that had a lot to do with his natural wings and the muscles they built on him by him simply using them.
He had steel blue eyes that could see for miles with great accuracy. He had blond hair that was at regulation length for Wingmen, but just barely. It was at the edge of what was acceptable, and he vowed to let it go for a while out of spite for what they had done to him and his family.
The really peculiar thing about him though was that he weighed way less than any sentient being would think by looking at him, given his bulky size. He weighed less than half that of most people his size, if not less. There was also the durability of his skin. Some at the Academy had hypothesized that he was invulnerable to harm, but the truth was not that grand. He just had really tough skin that could take anything up to a small projectile weapon without breaking. He bruised readily enough, but his mutation had given him a durability that surpassed most anyone outside of a Yellow Sun Daxamite.
He looked around the cruiser to see what other things he could use. There were various Wingmen helmets, weapon belts, boots, knives and all sorts of other weapons.
He smiled to himself and ran his fingers through his hair. “All the makings for a grand impression…I hope.”
He looked around some more and found some rations and settled in to watch the news of the Universe, or at least the United Planets.
Thanagar was a insulated society. They didn’t prohibit news from the United Planets from being seen, but they did discourage it. Most Thanagarians kept abreast of some of the United Planets, at least enough to know the general news happening. Currently, there had been a lot of talk amongst the channels regarding war. War from almost every imaginable direction.
Angdar watched and caught up. He had studied the United Planets in secret over his 18 years, and was pretty up at least as to who was in and out of the United Planets general assembly. He knew Weber’s World, and knew of most of the higher level members there.
He scanned the archives on the ship for Legion World and found several entries. He sat down and programmed the ship to take him to the coordinates provided and turned to watch some information on Legion World and this group called the LMBP.
From: Turn around... | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
In the days that it took him to close in on his destination, he had studied this Legion. He knew the current membership, at least the information that was generally available to the sentient beings of the United Planets. He felt comfortable enough to approach them and find if they were the ones to help him when he was ready to return to Thanagar one day.
The obvious choice was to go straight to this Legion World they had established, so when the alert went off that he was at long last approaching it, a sense of anticipation filled him.
He wondered who among the Legionnaires were still there. Wondered if they would accept him, like the people of Thanagar would not. There was only one way to find out.
He say at the controls and hit the communications button. "This is Angdar Fel of Thanagar requesting permission to land." He fed the proper codes provided to him with the rest of the things that the Wingmen had given him...including their lives.
He waited as he approached the turn back point if he did not have approval.
"Ship W76678, please proceed on the following course, and welcome to Legion World."
Angdar sighed and let a smile wash over his face, He had made it...now to find some Legion members.
>to be continued in the Lord of the Oval<
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