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FEAR

Notes: Reboot-era story. This is a character piece where we jump between Legionnaires, getting into their heads a little. My way of trying to give depth to some post-boot characters we’ll likely never see again. Not too many of the heroes are named in their pieces, but it should be obvious who‘s who.

I love how I can’t admit to failure. And I know it’s because I fear it. My name is Rokk Krinn, and for the past five years I think I’ve ranked somewhere in the Top 10 Most Stressed Sentients. It’s hard trying to work with the government and hold-together a group of over two-dozen teenagers with super-powers. Especially now, on Legion World. Staff members to pay, relationships with the Science Police, Kwai, and the U.P. council to maintain. Grife, I’m not even Legion leader anymore…but it all comes down to me. Because I was the first leader. I was a founder. I took upon the responsibility then, and still do to this day, because I never, ever…want to fail. Some of the worst moments of my life have been letting myself…or my friends…down. Lying to them during the Chu operation. Losing a Magnoball game when I was a kid with my manager prepared to beat winning out of me. Having a dozen of my friends presumably killed in a spacial rift…thanks to a metallic outpost. I should have been able to patch it.

I just got done spearheading a meeting, on Jazmin’s request. I think my contemplative mood was obvious to everyone. It’s late and we’re all tired, which is why I must have slipped a little speech out about fear. It’s a problem we have to face, not avoid. I hope they all listened. Consider it my uplifting thought of the day, team. I’m sure individually you all have problems. At least, I hope you do. If you don’t, then I wasted your time…and I failed again.

----

Oh, Rokk. You don’t have to be from Titan to know there’s a lot on your mind. You didn’t look well at the meeting. It hurt to watch you at the end. I know you’re worried about something, but I’m trying not to pry. I’m always in control and I won’t lose that reputation.

But I’m afraid. Yes, you were right, we all have fears. Even with telepaths much more accepted in the galaxy thanks to the Titanet and maybe even me as a Legionnaire, there’s still so much a woman has to worry about when all it takes is a daydream to let my telepathy slip and receive or transmit something I shouldn’t.

Sometimes, when things are really overwhelming and Garth is in one of his moods or Wazzo just yelled at us, I sit back and think. All this work and stress is my life. I love the Legion. I wanted to be a Sci-Cop and this is so many steps above that, in every light from action to success. But it’s bad nights like that where I wonder if this is right for me. Not everyone is cut out to be a Legionnaire. I could never leave, though. It’s more than being a figurehead as a founding member. So many people are my friends. I don’t want to leave them. The team relies on me. In the heat of battle, I’m the one who links our minds together. Many a mission have been won thanks to catching a particular criminals thoughts or being able to coordinate dozens of heroes efforts into a solid movement.

I think of where I’d be right now if I had left and let everyone down, and I think that all I’d feel is regret. But then I have regret now. I regret leading Cos on when we were in the past. I regret manipulating my teammates with Tinya when we were lost. I regret not knowing what everyone is thinking of me, and then I regret knowing when I do find out.

No matter what I do, there’s always something to regret. And I hate that feeling, that I did something wrong and can’t undo it. How silly it is, that with all my mental power and all the stress I encounter, the only thing Imra Ardeen fears is regret.

---

Stepping on people. Yes, it’s silly, I know. But growing up I used to be afraid of stepping on people. Literally. I’d stay down on the lower levels of Imsk, preferring to work-out or play in microscopic form. I’ve heard so many horror stories about people who didn’t understand shrinking and grew at the wrong time, killing a neighborhood. I mean, really. All it takes is one person wandering around in what few hills aren’t settled on the planet. They drop a batball or something at full size and it could roll into town center, crushing us all. We get so few visitors on Imsk because of this fear. We build very few things at regular height because we’re afraid of what might happen to the greater public if more Imskians decided to walk around at full length. It’d be hard on resources too.

It’s worse now, in a way. I haven’t gone home in a few years. That’s not something to be proud of, but I fought so hard to be a Legionnaire that I was too prideful to ever leave them. Then, when a Blight crisis comes along or something that makes me want to run home, I can’t because the Stargates are down.

Maybe it’s for the best. I’m not normal anymore. I’m a mutant. I grow. Not just to normal height, but I can grow upwards of 30 feet tall. That’s pretty scary. I’m as confused today about my new growth power as I was years ago, receiving it after Leviathan died and the Emerald Eye left me. Earth was the first place where I didn’t have to fear. Yes, I had social anxieties because I was so shy, but I never had to worry about stepping on people. I was one of the shortest Legionnaires around. Now, all of a sudden, I’m the biggest. I don’t have to be on Imsk anymore to have that fear of stepping on people more than ever.

It’s a good thing Legionnaires fly. So many times I would have crushed my teammates thanks to a rapid size-shift had they not been in the air. But still, it’s a worry. Especially on the cramped confines of Legion World. That just shows I’m not a normal Imskite anymore. Legion World is the size of my planet almost and I consider it small. But it is. I sit around sometimes where I shouldn’t at full height. In the club house or the command deck. No one complains because I’m a Legionnaire. It’s then that I sit and look around at everyone. They’re so small, even though they used to be stories above me when I was Shrinking Violet. How ironic, I think. I used to be afraid of stepping on people, but I was never afraid of being stepped on. I wish I could go back and let that be my worry. I watch the little people run around Legion World, and I think about what would happen if I sneezed at this height or if I fell asleep.

It scares me. I’m Salu Digby…but everyone calls me Vi…and I hope I never, ever, step on someone.

---

I wonder if Founder Legion wanted us to share examples? He talked about fear a lot. I do not really know what the word means. It’s not talked about amongst the Kwai. These emotions. They are not new, and yet they are, because I have never paid attention to them before.

I think I know what fear is. I have dreams sometimes. There is no Legion and I am back living with my tribe. We still live under fear of the Progenitor and he hunts us down. My people do not want to fight, but I cannot sit still. It is in my blood. So I fight. And I win, because a warrior must. But I turn back around and my people are deleted. Because they do not fight and one Lonestar is not enough to protect them.

So that is my fear. It haunts me every night. It is why my Legion Friends are so important.

I should ask Smart Legion if I understand the word right.

---

Do you remember Gim Allon? Most of the world knew him as the Legionnaire Leviathan. Not Vi, the girl, but the guy before her. Yeah. He’s dead now.

In some ways, that makes him my biggest fear. Irony intended on the ‘big’ part.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not scared of him. I don’t really believe in ghosts that haunt you. Even alive we didn’t always get along, but I never hated him. I knew he was just pushing me to be a better Legionnaire and even I was aware that I became his personal verbal punching bag when he got mad. You’ve got to think that would make me happy when he died, but it didn’t. It hurt. Like hearing Monstress died or losing my home world all over again.

I fear Leviathan because ever since he left I feel like he’s watching me, from heaven. I don’t want to disappoint him and make him think all his training was for nothing. I don’t want to prove him right by being weak or giving up. I want to be the best Legionnaire, or rather hero, I can be. I fought long and hard against Robotica. I lost a lot of friends and gained a few more thanks to that nightmare. All the while, I kept fighting. I wouldn’t run, not even in the end when the last boat had left and staying meant certain doom. I wouldn’t let the Khunds push us around or tell XS how wrong she was for not killing. I stood up to them, because I never back down. I will never give up. Some might see me as a bit stubborn. Leviathan taught me that.

So I must never disappoint him. Because I know better, and the biggest fear I have isn’t losing Nura or even watching my people scream as machines tear them apart. It’s feeling that guilt that I’ve let Leviathan down, and I promised myself I’d never dishonor him. I meant it.

---

It’s kind of an evolving process with me. Being afraid of things. Every stage of my life there’s something different that doesn’t seem to matter anymore after I grow up.

When I was a kid, I feared for my brother. He was a solo, it had to be hard. When we got our lightning powers, I feared for him more. Him running away broke all known barriers of terror, so I went after him. Then I found him, we fought, and thanks to Ayla I learned that my brother was messed up and I no longer had to worry about him or what the lightning in our bodies could do to us.

Then I learned to fear for myself. I had lost my arm. I worried if it would ever grow back. So many times I’d come close to having science be able to restore it, once magic even brought it back. But every last time we hit a wall or it was taken from me. I feared for the future. How could I ever love Imra or hold her with one arm metal and five times as cold as the other? Would that send chills up her spine in the wrong way if we ever went to bed together?

How stupid I was for worrying about my arm. I got it restored good as new, and then I throw it away again. Not just my arm, but my other arm too. And my body. And my life. In that moment, where I had everything again and was giving it up, for the first time I didn’t worry about myself and instead worried about my friends getting home.

Now I’m back to square one. Fearing for myself. I wish I had a flesh and blood arm again, even one. But I don’t even have flesh anymore. I don’t have anything of Garth Ranzz’s. I’m trapped in the body of a former friend and a horrible enemy. I’m different elements. The world scares me now as much as myself. I sense the composition of things now. I have Jan’s ability to transmute matter. The things I could do, all as horrifying as what he did as the Progenitor. All the while, I posses the gift to restore my body. To turn the Tromium I wear into flesh. To change my hair back to a certain color and give me the build and look of my old body back. It’s at my finger tips, I just lack the knowledge to use this new transmuting power.

So I’m stuck. Again. Fearing for myself because I’m too conceited to know better. Because all I ever wanted to be was a brother, son, husband, and hero. All of which I’m so close to accomplishing, like changing myself back. But I can't do it, not yet. So I’ll never be able to be looked at or celebrated as myself, Garth Ranzz, ever again.

---

I go to bed every night. Sometimes it’s next to my husband. Sometimes, depending on scheduling and monitor duty, I don’t. Though Jo sometimes fails to make it to bed at night, there’s one thing that never fails. I sit in my bed, close my eyes, and pray to all the gods that a cure can be found for my son. I worry about his rapid aging more than my mother, or my marriage, or anything else in the world.

I fear for him. I pray for him. I’d do anything else for him that he asks, because he’s mine and I love him. The scary thing is, he’s not even four months old and he can already ask me to take him places and ask why I won’t let him drink Silverale with Uncle Wolf. Yes, gods, I fear for my son.

---

Fear. What does Cosmic Boy know? He has it easy. He’s just another cog in the system. He doesn’t see the big picture, like an outsider to democracy does. He doesn’t see the bigger threat that can come if the U.P. continues it’s ways. He’s not responsible for sharing a message ignorance won’t receive.

Though I was loathe to admit it at first, I love my comrades. I love the ways of the Legion. I’ve even come to respect the United Planets and the way it does business. But just because I respect something doesn’t mean I don’t worry about it.

How often has Earth come under attack? How often has time been wasted during a crisis in the galaxy with politics and disagreeing dogma? I wish the bipeds would stand up, because you know they can, and realize that multiple governments working with multiple rules trying to satisfy everyone is just wasting time and going to lead to more trouble. It’s depressing for even I to think of all the innocents that have died because the great R.J. Brande or Winema Wazzo waited an extra day to send relief efforts because they had to go appease the delegates or make sure everyone knew how to take care of themselves or had enough supplies before worrying about their own.

I tell the others my ideas sometimes and they laugh. Even Thom pretends he cares to listen but then he runs off to his precious Dreamer and totally proves my point about how needy and unprepared bipeds are in their support systems. When the system fails, I’ll tell them, “I told you so.” But that’s not what I want, being right like that. I wish they would listen to me, but it’s not the avoidance of my allies that I fear. It’s that they know full and well what their homeworlds do, what they as an organization do, and yet they still go about and like to elect the most popular person to be in charge or decide to work things out with people because surely no one in the universe is ever truly wrong. Don’t they know that sometimes a sentient just has to be told? Does it occur to them people may listen? They do it to me all the time, and I don’t fight back. I might think about it, but I won’t be a hypocrite anymore. So I stay quiet.

I fear for the bipeds, because I know they can see as well as I can that there’s problems in their government, and yet it’s the one thing they never rally behind to save.

…there’s also a murdering man from the 21st century who personally has it out for me. And he just happens to be sitting in a jail cell five levels down, kept close like everyone’s favorite uncle. Now HIM, I fear.

---

Perhaps it’s because Linsnerians don’t really have quite the same, exact feelings and concepts as humans. I know we most certainly don’t share all the same words. But I couldn’t relate that much to Cosmic Boy tonight and his speech about fear. I looked the word up on my databanks and shifted through archives of memories where I experienced sensations that related to the term. Holed up on that prison asteroid. Facing a Green Lantern. Trying to face-down Darkseid and the whole of the Credo. I have feared, I suppose. But it does not bother me. I categorize it as memories that were fearful and move on.

Why, then, does the concept of fear seem to bother Cosmic Boy so? I’d ask him to explain, but there’s only so much feeling a techno-organic creature can relate to before I realize the organics are just concerned about the wrong things.

---

It’s a horrible thing to dream that the person who’s closest to your heart is dead. It’s even worse to find out they’re actually not dead, but still alive. Why? Because when you’re precognizant like me with a spotless track record, it’s depressing to know this miracle won’t last long. Thom IS alive, but surely he’s to die or be lost to me…again.

I feel such sadness in that vision, too. Surely it’s a true emotion from the future. Of course, I feel sad now whenever I see it, even if Star Boy is right beside me or he’s sending me random pictures he finds on the Infonet over my Omnicom. Because I’m never wrong, and for me to be right, the only boy I’ve ever loved has to die.

What if this happens again? I don’t mind being wrong if I predict rainy weather on a planet we’re visiting without climate control and it’s actually dry. But I’ve never been wrong before on something like that. What if it only happens with big events I foresee? I foresaw the end of time when we faced Darkseid and yet we’re still here. Though, what if I am indeed never wrong? What if Thom really has to die and time is still to end?

When I was a girl, I wanted to be a Legionnaire so bad. I was such a ditz, on more than one level. Now that I have my dream, I’d give it up in a second if I could take the boy I love away and hide him from all the Roboticans and Time Trappers of the galaxy. But I can’t. Because my foresight is never wrong.

I can’t think about it anymore. Every time I do I hurt.

I’ve never feared being wrong so much.

---

You’re colder than you should be tonight, Cos. When I lay my face down on your pale white shoulder and just want to go to sleep with you, I can’t because you’re cold and sweaty. You worry so much. I want Imra to mind-scan you when you get stressed like that, but that isn’t fair to her.

But is this fair to me? I’m usually the stressed one and it’s wonderful to have you there for me, Rokk. I don’t mind looking after you like right now. In fact, by my count I’m indebted to you 2,000 more times for every complaint about the team or the government you’ve had to listen to since I became leader. Since we became an item. Since we decided to…be together. And yet, is this fair?

You’re the first and only person I’ve ever given myself to and this is only the fourth time we’ve slept together. I count. It’s been a long day at the office, so to speak, and all I want to do is fall asleep feeling the warmth of your love. Not the cold of your fear. Is this fair that because you can’t open up, my unhappiness now has to extend from 8 am - 10 pm to a 24 hour deal?

Fear. You talked a lot about that today. What do you fear, good sir? You, of all people, have nothing to be afraid of. I can think of twenty-six active Legionnaires, dozens of staff members, and an infinite number of civilians that would die for you. I’m one of them. I used to have my own worries, but not anymore. Now, it’s the team. The team I lead. The people that follow me. You’re one of them.

I fear for you Rokk Krinn. And anyone else loyal enough to listen to the commands of a silly Xanthian girl that still likes to listen to her music channels loud and cries herself to sleep when alone because she doesn’t think she’s good enough.

---

I used to fear losing Tinya, until I actually sat down and realized how many times that’s happened. When she died, my world fell apart. I was so glad to find her alive again, but I always worried about having to live that way again. Afraid, depressed, and alone. I promised myself I’d enjoy every moment with her and never let her go, because there’s so much more to fear from the world when she’s gone.

And then it happened, and I didn’t even realize it. She was gone. Not for a second time, but for a third time as well. I thought she was lost to us after the Rift, but then we found her again. Only it was a mental construct from Imra…Tinya really had been gone the whole time. I was upset. But I wasn’t just afraid of what to do without Tinya. I was afraid of Imra. What she could do and what I could ever say to the great girl from Titan. I worried about so much more, such as my life, thanks to being hunted by Ra’s Al Ghul that sometimes I worried…and it wasn’t about Tinya at all.

She came back to the team and I didn’t even see her for the first day. Once upon a time you could have told me she was only 10,000 light years away and I would have torn after her. They tell me she’s downstairs in my dormitory, with my first child, and all of a sudden I want to stay upstairs and run errands for Triad longer. How scared, instead, I am of having her. The responsibility comes back. I’m still a Legionnaire too. Everyone knows how bad of a multi-tasker I am. It comes in the job description of my powers, for grife’s sake.

They call me Ultra Boy. I’ve got about 12,000,000 fan club members on the Infonet and yet I’m a horrible person that has it all wrong. I don’t fear losing Tinya anymore. I instead fear how I don’t care or worry about that anymore. It’s not right. I’m a sprocked up individual.

---

I used to be afraid of being a hero. You know, all the danger and fighting. How odd that it’s what keeps me alive now. It gets my endorphins pumping and lets me get a good run going. I never feel happier. How could I have feared it?

But with all my talk, I’m still not the super heroine with a back-bone I’d like to think. I cry in horror holos instead of romantic dramas because I’m always so scared and when you live at my pacing, those long suspense shots just really freak me out. I think about my family, all tossed throughout time or dead and I miss them. I wonder what my father does and why he doesn’t threshold to visit me that often even though he’s into advertising and should always be traveling with his campaigns.

I’m hopeless at love too. I’m so obvious with my crushes and every guy I ever get a decent chance with decides to go join the Science Police or…actually, no. Dyrk was it.

So this is what I think I fear: Not knowing better. I was afraid of being a hero but I got it wrong, I expect things of people that maybe I shouldn’t, and I never know what’s going on with guys until it’s too late. I might be the fastest girl alive physically, but I swear I have the slowest brain.

---

You want to know fear? It’s having a Brainiac, perhaps the smartest creature in the galaxy and the one person able to probably cause any number of miracles just by solving a math problem right, tells you that you’re dying. That there’s no cure and that it can’t be reversed. Bad enough I don’t have a body, now I can’t have a life either.

What’s the difference between me dying right now compared to whenever it’s supposed to be? I won’t have kissed anyone. I won’t have written any great novels. I won’t invent anything or cause world peace. I can’t even succeed with my pals sometime when they have all these bonds that go way back. I’m just two people turned into balls of energy and thrown into a suit with nothing to do. While they sleep, I think. And when I think, I remember. I’m dying.

I’m scared, Cos. You happy? I don’t want to die.

---

I’ve…not done everything right that I should have. Perhaps that’s not the best way to say it. But I can’t see how else to put it. Since birth, I was entrusted with protecting my planet. Like my mother and her mother before her and her father before her. It is in my blood. There was so much training and pain I endured to make sure I’d be ready for the responsibility.

Then I failed my people. I fought the wrong enemy…an enemy that has since helped my world several times over and provided me with a group of friends and family I now live and serve with today. But I still failed. No, that’s not right. I was a disappointment.

There’s so much I hate about disappointing others. When I let them down, I feel like I can no longer be trusted. I feel like I have done harm and that my skills and abilities aren’t good enough. Suddenly all my words don’t have merit and I am not a dependable individual. I hate that feeling. I’m a trained fighter. I was supposed to be responsible for my entire world. As a Legionnaire I’m responsible for an entire galaxy and looked up to by thousands of fans, my planet, and most importantly…the many people I fight alongside. How awful it is to be held back from a fight. To be told I ruined a plan or have one of the voices of my ancestors speak to me from the shadows and try to guide me. They try to help me or tell me these things because I’ve done something wrong. Because I have not done what is expected and I’ve disappointed them.

Never again. I’ve promised it once, and I will promise it to myself again. I will never have to be told what I did wrong and I will never step down from a fight. There are trillions looking up to me. Generations of my ancestors, too. I’d hate to disappoint.

---

Hmm. Fear.

…no, Val. Focus on other things. I can’t harp on a weakness that I can’t work out of my routine or train myself to go around. I have to be strong. I am a man among the mighty of this star system and I refuse to come up with something I fear to be used against me.

Date with Lialla tonight. Does she really want to go watch that action holo? For a master of karate, cinema fight scenes are like watching elva-birds fly into windows. On purpose.

---

You know, it’s my fault the boys are dead.

Back on Rimbor. I was the head of a gang. The wolf pack we used to be called, thanks to my ferocious looks and style. We got mixed up in something real bad…or rather, I did. Tinya Wazzo came into my life. I don’t know how, but she became a friend to us. Part of the territory. Hub liked her because she was a cute celebrity, even if she was getting heavier by the day being pregnant. That’s when I began to take more care of her. The slower or weaker she got from the pregnancy, the more she became Wolf. The more I wanted to look after her.

It’s ironic the boys died the day she gave birth. Crooks sent in to take her and the baby away storm through the place and took my guys out, one by one. I came outside and found a Dominator, Carggite, and some other thing standing over pools of blood and our already broken-up flat. The day where my concern peeked for Tinya more than the boys was the very day I lost ‘em all. I had a responsibility as gang lead and I blew it. They were three of my best and now they‘re gone. The only two who survived aren‘t what I‘d consider group muscle. I knew a few old pack members who are taking care of them, but it’s not the same. I let the Wolves down. I let, specifically, my Wolves down.

Sorry, guys. But I ain’t letting it happen ever again. I’ve got a new pack now. There’s a lot more of us and they stand out in a crowd, but they’re good people. They call themselves Legionnaires. Maybe somewhere Hub watches the vid-screens in the slums and smiles when he sees me flying around with all these squeaky-clean rich kids. I don’t know how I’m honoring the guys’ memory by doing that, but I sure as hell ain’t letting anymore low-lives hunt innocent people down or try to take over the world. Or worlds. Whatever.

They’ll have me to deal with. I’ve got a score to settle. The only thing I fear is not putting enough fear into the hearts of those that would hurt me and my pack. Old or new.

---

I know fear.

Fear is what happens when every morning, I wake up and look in the mirror. And I forget that I’ve been transformed into this half-biped body. It’s the sheer horror, all over again, of discovering my new form. Then I take control of my senses and realize this is nothing new. It’s also nothing I can fix. Sure, I could make people see the old me easily. They could even hear my scales against the metal. They could smell me. The ones with ultra-hearing could hear my cold-blooded heart. But it wouldn’t be real. It would be an illusion.

They say money can buy anything. They’re wrong. I’m a royal princess, Princess Jeka Wynzorr of Orando, and every morning I wake up and fear how powerless I really am.

---

There’s very little in my life to worry about. As the last Terrorform around now, many know my power and few like to mess with me. It’s odd, how confused and worried the Legionnaires are about me, but really I’m fine.

Yes, no one get confused. I’m Zoe Saugin. I’ll admit I’m still power-hungry, I willingly choose not to wear clothes anymore, and I only just last month figured out that I could use my powers on myself to grow my nose back. Fancy that. As a teen I used to use my powers on myself all the time. …course, I also wore clothes to mess with too.

I can still think, and speak, in complete sentences. I just choose not to. Not that I’m lazy, but things with me are…different now. It takes effort to communicate with people, because they’re not something I’m attuned to anymore. Energy flow. Time. Evolution. The planet. I feel all of it now. How I can make it better and how I can help it. But it’s hard to hear what Vi wants when she won’t speak up and understandable that I don’t talk much with the others when they don’t know what to say to me.

Who can blame them? I’m something else. I claimed I was over my power lust. I think I was. Then I became a Terrorform hybrid and that all changed. I was scared and still am of what I can do…but the power! I healed M’Onel, the toughest Daxamite I know. With the flash of my eyes I can bloom seed states into individuals. There’s so much I can do. I can’t give it up. I can’t go back to being a girl. When all the Terrorforms expended their power to revitalize Xanthu, I coordinated the attack … but I never dared use my power to help. I couldn’t lose it. I watched as every last one of them changed back to their baseline forms. Not me. Should I be afraid that none of the Legionnaires questioned why I stayed this way? Of course not. They thought I was hurt in the explosion that transformed Sensor. Of course not. You know, I still feel bad for her. I could have helped her. I felt the way she was flowing in evolution and I could have started to change her back, but…something wasn’t right. Perhaps I was still ashamed for not helping on Xanthu.

Power hungry? Very. Fearful? Not really. I can do anything, you guys. There’s so much more out there. I lie awake at night and listen to the energy transfers going on in the electronics and I feel each of your hearts as potential energy ripens into kinetic.

That’s when I stop and realize how much I could do. To anyone or anything. Perhaps you guys should be the ones to fear. But no, I’ll never hurt you. I only ever wanted to be a hero and provide, and I will. I just hope that if anything ever goes wrong, I’ll have my friends there…to stop me.

---

Alone in the Stasis Zone for a thousand years. Sure, the Progenitor may have me beat on isolation time, but the point is…it was very long and very boring. I hate it. I could never do it again.

Which is why I know that sometime, one day…I’ll have to make a sacrifice like that. There’s only so many super things I can do and good moments I can have before I must get trapped again. What if the serum Brainy came up with fails and I’m left for dead…or have to go back in the Zone?

No. Never again. I’ll take the death gladly, and until then pray it never happens and fear that it will.

---

Fears? Of course, Cos, I’ve got plenty. When have I not? I was born unloved, with a facial deformity to boot. I was raised in horrible conditions that I had to run away from. Thinking of the past is enough to fear.

But there’s more now. Living a thousand years in the future is still really hard. Metropolis was overwhelming enough, but Legion World? Especially after coming from simple Steeple and having been out of the loop for so long? It’s a bit much.

Then there’s the whole thing with my body. I could care less about my facial scars, but that’s the least of my problems. I’m trapped in iron form now. I used to think of the sacrifice of being trapped in metal form, just to have a perfect face and be normal. I never realized how blessed I was then. Friends who loved me, that I could feel when they hugged and smelled when they were near and…God willing one day…taste when we kiss. But now I can never do that. I can never fear. I have a heart of iron and the body to match it, and if I ever could switch back I’d probably bleed to death from wounds and have fingers fall off that weren’t reattached properly by the monks on Steeple.

Yeah, Cos. I have plenty to fear. But all you want to do is yell at me for making Superboy that costume. All Karate Kid wants to do is spend time with Lialla. No one is willing to listen to my fears anymore.

---

I want to say I wasn’t thinking about Cos’s words, but I surely must have been since one of my sisters brought it up. Sometimes Purple runs her mouth. I really shouldn’t let her outside. But she’s right because she’s me, I can’t help it. There are things in my life that scare me too. I’m not immune to the big, bad, fear demon. I’ve got three good ones, too.

I hate feeling like an outcast. That’s my biggest one. Everyone I loved up until Granny and R.J. told me I was different and broken. My whole planet thought so. How odd that trillions of people wish to make me feel that way at home, when I can leave Cargg and find so many more people who like me for my differences and think I’m the most perfectly put together thing alive. And Chuck said that and he’s an educated architect, so it has to be true.

Another thing I totally fear is losing control. I’m really just one person, but when I split and have three different bodies and personalities exposed it’s so easy for my friends to see how much of an oddball I am. I can’t even get along with myself all the time either. It has to worry them when they go to work on assignments with me whether I’ll be shy, calm, or assertive. I hate having to force-split, I call it, because my inner selves are disagreeing with one another. It’s embarrassing and we always end up causing a scene, usually in front of important people or hot heroes from the 20th century.

The third thing I fear is losing those I care about. The Legion and R.J. have done so much for me, like I said. They actually like me and put me in positions of power where I get to press buttons and order what kind of food I get to poison all the guests with at a delegate bash at R.J.’s place. It’s a lot of work and responsibility, but I admit I’ve got the womanpower to do it. Anyway, I hate losing my friends. When they die it always hurts. Even when they leave or get lost somewhere, which I swear happens so much. They mean the world to me. I admit certain parts of me like certain Legionnaires more than others, but they’re all nice. And with Brande gone a lot more these days, they’re all I have left. I’d hate to be left alone again. Without my friends. Without Granny Murlo. Without R.J. Alone where a world that thinks I’m broken may dare to try and come fix me again.

---

I’m on monitor duty right now in the Command Deck and Chuck really isn’t that talkative. Working on a gadget or something. So I get to start thinking. Hooray for that. It’s not that I hate thinking, but there’s just so much to do on a busy place like Legion World. I love to socialize! Being trapped in this chair for the next four hours, especially at night when few people save for Triad and some Sci-Cops come by, really ruins my evening. I’ll go and mope about it or something.

There’s just something about meeting people. I love analyzing and watching things. As a Durlan, I record every form I see in my mind naturally. It gets filed away as a template I can morph into later. But I just look like what I scan, I can’t mimic it perfectly. That’s where my social-life comes in. I mean, I really do love to hang out, but as a Durlan there’s so much more it offers to me. It shows me how people talk and what kind of pacing they live by. I watch others and note without thinking how they walk or carry themselves. It’s these little traits I learn from being a busy body that make me a more convincing mimic than any form I could assume. It’s the little touches that matter.

When I’m stranded like this, I can’t read or study anything. My mind loses things to do and I sit and live in the silence. This boring silence that I hate. Maybe I even fear.

Speaking of touches, Ayla and I haven’t really hung out that much. I’ve got to fix that. I should buzz her. Maybe she’s not asleep yet and will come by for a visit…

---

Oh, Cos. Oh, Imra. Get a room. You two aren’t even dating each other anymore but I can see when one of you is hurting and the other one looks depressed, ready to play nurse-maid. Isn’t that what we have Dr. Gym’ll or Dr. Ryk’rr for?

Yeah, I’m not big-bad Ayla. I fear things too. Why shouldn’t I? I have…or perhaps, had…a psycho terrorist for an older brother who now makes me feel like I’m caring for a preschooler. I’ve got a daredevil brother whose so hard on himself and always wants to play the hero, even at the expense of his own life. How many years of my life do I have to lose thinking he’s dead only to have him pop back up? My parents worry me. Every year the crops get worse and I don’t know how they can sustain themselves, even without the kids there. I should really send more credits home.

So many of my friends have problems too. My brother’s not the only one having an out-of-body experience. Bubbly Kinetix is now some weird, stoic, naked Terroform. Sensor’s body mutated and she couldn’t be handling it any worse. Ferro’s trapped in iron form. We just found out Wildfire is about to die…and I barely got to know him. Tinya and Jo’s kid is about to become older than they are. Cham gets upset and it rubs off on me when Lyle spends all his time in the lab with Brainy now. Judging from the meeting tonight, Cos may be heading for a paranoid break-down.

I should be more supportive. I try. But the world seems so much darker now. I guess we’ve all grown up. They all have their big problems, but there’s only so much I can do for the other Legionnaires. For my brother. I can be there for them and…that’s about it. Sometimes I fear I’m not smart enough…not important enough. Like I’m no help at all.

I’m tired. I need to stop moping and get some sleep. Hopefully everyone, super-villains included, will play it smart and not wake me up.

---

This is going to sound stupid, but it’s been on my mind and is distracting my work right now more than the beeping monitors and devices in the lab. Cosmic Boy talked about fear at the meeting tonight. I have a long list, let me tell you.

I’ve got acrophobia. Yes, the great inventor of the flight rings, Invisible Kid, is actually afraid of heights. Maybe not heights per se, but falling from them. I don’t think it’s a great way to die. When we used to ride in cruisers, no one ever noticed how I’d grip the seat during take-off or landing. Very few caught on to the nervous banter or silence I may give depending on the length of a ride in space. Which is odd, because in the weightlessness of space there’s really so few places for me to fall to my death. I don’t fly by myself either. My ring got melted off by Starfinger…or Element Lad…once and…well, I worry about it happening again. That’s why I always make Brainy or Vi tag along with me. That’s why I tend to just follow the crowd as we do our group fly-bys, never leading the way and never trailing behind. If I fall for some reason, I want the M’Onels or the Ultra Boys to be able to catch me. Because really, I don’t want to fall to my death. It’s just not a great way to die.

There’s more. I told you there was a list. I don’t like failure either, or being singled out or picked on. That’s why I stay out of sight sometimes, glad to be invisible. I was horrified when I became Legion leader once and I almost too gladly gave it up so I didn’t have dozens of people trying to find me everyday. That’s why my rivalry with Brainy sometimes borders on the unhealthy. He’s smarter than me and more clever than I’d like to think, but I will never admit that out loud. I don’t want to be the weaker one. I can do more than invent new flavors of ice cream and put two and two together. It’s mean, but I’m glad Brainy got lost for a year. When he came back, all our old guards were gone and since then we’ve accomplished so much together instead of apart, trying to outdo each other. It also gave me time to study up on chronal research and be on a closer page about it when talking to Querl.

What else? Surely there’s more. It’s a big, scary galaxy…two of them now, in fact…and I’m just a young Earth boy that turns invisible and knows how to be sneaky. There’s a lot to fear.

Brainy walks into the lab now and I stop. I pretend to look busy on one of the monitors, hoping he won’t look over my shoulder and see that it’s still booting up the sequencer arrays. He types away on his Omnicom and strolls over to his side of the lab without a word. Within moments it feels awkward and I have to break the silence.

“What did you think of Rokk’s meeting?” I ask.

Brainy looks over to me and rolls his eyes. “I’d rather those morale boosters weren’t mandatory.”

“Well, they’re not the greatest but…” I pause, looking over and watching him for a second. “What about that little spiel about fear?"

“What about it?”

“Does the great Brainiac 5 fear anything in life?”

Brainy looks up from his Omnicom, stares forward for a moment, and then goes back to working. “Our morale boosting meetings.”

END