Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business 21st Century Legion - Original Draft Version

Most of all, Tenz remembered the cold.

Hauled into the back of big pick-up trucks, he remembers the cold cutting into their backs. It doesn't matter that they had clothes on--they were naked on the freezing trip into Russia. He specifically remembered thinking 'so this must be Siberia'. Dark Circle members sat in the back with them, M-16's in hand, yelling at him if he lifted his head to see where they were. Hasim was bloody, having been beaten viciously for trying to fight back. Dirk and Tatiana were chloroformed, in a ball in the corner of the pick-up, and he felt a sudden great fear for Tatiana and wanted to do nothing more than protect her above all. The ride was long, a hell-frozen journey that he knew gave him frostbite all over his body, in places he never knew could hurt. When they arrived, he couldn't get up. So they hurled him off the truck, and his face hit the rock-hard ice, cutting open his lips. He remembers that was the first warm thing he felt in a long time--his own blood.

Tortured again. They'd come so far, and he'd be tortured again. He knew it. Like the Persuader of Seoul, this was forever going to be his hell.

It was dark and musty, and the concrete was how everything was, very cold. He faded in and out but remembered fighting to stay somewhat conscious, to try and make sure the others ended up somewhere safe. Hasim was hurled into some rat-infested cell, and he remembers there being a large pool of water at the bottom of it. They took both Tatiana and him and put them in the same cell, and once again he was thankful for that--he'd protect her, even if he was so scared right now he just secretly wanted her to protect him. The slapped him around for being awake and kicked Tatiana to the ground hard. He didn't understand a word they said and couldn't tell if it was Japanese, Russian, Chinese, something else or all of those. They worked for awhile on a special cell for Dirk, and he knew it was because they knew about his powers. Up until now Tenz had hoped when Dirk woke up he'd set the whole place on fire and burn them all to hell, but now that didn't look like it was going to happen.

Still, he kept up hope. Because when you're being tortured or imprisoned, that's what they are trying to do to you. Break down your hope, your sense of self. You had to stay hopeful, had to have a plan, no matter how outrageous it was, and if it failed, create a new plan.

Still, it was so cold. All he could think about was the cold.

----------------------------

"Tenz?" she whispered, after what seemed like hours.

"Ssh," he whispered back. "I'm here Tatiana." Her face was covered in dirt and some blood. His was too. She could barely stand up.

"Where have they taken us?"

"I don't know. Siberia, I think. It's so cold, it has to be." She was trying to lean forward, but couldn't. He moved next to her and brought her against him in the corner of their grimy cell. She leaned on his shoulder. She was freezing.

"Where are the others?"

"Hasim hasn't said a word. He's in that cell over there. Dirk's in that special one. He hasn't woken up either. They knocked you and him out."

The heard a large door open, creaking in the night. Rusty metal, and then the sound of boots marching along the floor. The voice of Tsuyoshi, the Dark Circle leader, spoke.

"Are they awake?"

"The Vietnamese one is. He won't fall asleep. The others are still out," replied a guard they didn't reailze was there.

"Very well, perhaps they will enjoy meeting their new master."

Anger flushed through Tenz's face. He couldn't control it. How dare they? "You'll never get me to say that, pig!" he yelled, jumping up with energy he didn't realize he had.

Tsuyoshi walked over smiling. "You misunderstand child," he said calmly. "I dont mean myself. I mean the Warden of this great prison. Allow me to introduce you to the KBG's legendary jailer."

A man stepped forward, in a crisp military uniform, complete with striking hat and baton. His face was dark red--he obviously had been burned badly before in his life. His eye was cut deeply from some sort of knife wound in the past--so bad in fact, that it seemed misplaced on his face, more to the center than it should have been.

"Allow me to introduce Nardo," finished Tsuyoshi.

Nardo smiled. In clear, crisp English he said "Get the hoses and wash them down. They stink. Make sure its extra cold," he finished and began putting on black gloves. "The Dark Circle may be less formal than I like," he said with a hint of a Russian accent, "but you can call me Warden," he added, reaching throw the cell towards Tenz with his baton. Whack! He cracked him across the collar bone with it and Tenz fell. "Welcome to your final resting place."

Day 2

"You realize," said Nardo to Tenz, who was strapped into the seat in front of him. "That your father's death was his own fault. He was weak and did not deserve to survive. Nature has a way of weeding out those who do not have the courage to live, and rewards them with death. Had your father simply shown the fortitude to overcome his aggressors and himself become the aggressor he could have saved his family and thus saved you."

Tenz said nothing and turned away.

"He failed you," said Nardo, leaning in close. The hideous red face was inches away. He could feel it breathing on his neck. Closer. "I could bit a piece of your face right off, you realize. Maybe if you looked more like me, you would look at me more, no? We shall see."

Tenz trembled. He couldn't help it. He was scared to death.

"Ha! Very well, not today."

Day 4

"Why won't they speak near or go near Dirk's cell?" said Tatiana.

"What do you mean?" said Tenz. He was exhausted. He couldn't even open his eyes. When he did, he saw she looked ragged.

"Four days."

"Its been four days?"

"I've been keeping count. They haven't gone near Dirk's cell. They can't just be trying to starve him, because they're doing that to us too. They won't even let him see them."

"They're trying to keep him isolated from us. He can't hear us either, because of how his cell is designed. He probably has no idea that we're here. He probably thinks he's in some hole somewhere and no one is around. Oh God...he has no idea what's going on. He must be going crazy."

Day 6

"Get up," said a guard to the lump on the ground that was Hasim. Hasim laid their in a pool of infected water, ankle deep in his cell. "Nardo would like to see you now."

"Please help me," muttered Hasim, unable to stand.

"Helpless animal. You cannot even get yourself to stand up? Very well," added the guard, coming over to roughly hall him to his feet. He had his hands on him for two seconds. Crack! Hasim reached around and broke the man's neck right there, twisting it brutally to the left. He pulled the guards wooden stick and ran at the other guard. Crack! Instantly the guard caught it in the neck.

It was no use. Four guards ran forward, then four more. They were all over him, beating him and wailing on him. It was no use. He almost made it. But it was no use.

Day 7

"By this time, young Ten Zil," said Nardo to Tenz, "you must be wondering why we have not taken the girl to my chambers and given her the same treatment we have given you. Surely you are wondering why she is not tortured?"

Tenz said nothing.

"Is it because you think we are honorable men and do not make war on women? That we would never harm a girl?"

Still nothing.

"Because we are not. In fact, in the middle of Siberia, we are lonely men. And her pale blue skin is very beautiful to us. Surely you know how men are? Surely you realize the lust each man feels for the girl. Surely you realize what is going to happen to her--and happen soon.

A tear rolled down Tenz's cheek.

"I will be first. Then the rest."

Tenz started to weep openly.

"But you can stop it all. You can stop the beatings on your friend Hasim. You can save the girl Tatiana and make sure the soldiers do not have her. You can even save yourself."

Tenz looked directly into Nardo's eyes. "How?"

"Tell me everything I want to know about the girl you know as Maziah. Everything. And if you leave anything out, I will know. And your friends will pay."

It was the ninth day, after Ten Zil decided he'd tell them anything he could if it meant they'd stop hurting Tatiana, Hasim and Dirk, that he realized something very different was happening.

"What do you mean there are no more open cells? This hell hole is vast! There should be hundreds of them." It was the familiar voice of Tsuyoshi

"Yes, there are," said a high ranking guard, "but most are flooded beyond our control. The ice long ago penetrated inside here--don't you wonder why its so cold? Its constantly melting and flooding the whole bunker. It doesn't matter. Nardo said to throw them in with the others. They'll give a brief moment of optimism to them only to later have it squashed."

"This is all a little experiment to him. How did Nardo come to work with us, the great Dark Circle, I wonder?" Tsuyoshi's questions went un-answered. "Very well, then in the with other prisoners they'll have to go"

Now both Tatiana and Tenz tried to position themselves so they could see out their cells. Tatiana noticed Ten Zil had heavy lacerations on his back that he previously had not let her see. Ten Zil noticed that she seemed infinately smaller--as if these last few days had literally sucked some of the weight off their bones. 9 days it had been. Then shockingly, they saw what it was: two young teeange boys, no older than themselves, being pushed through the prison walk-way. One had a green costume on, the other some sort of ninja/samuri get-up (Tatiana wasn't exactly sure what to call it). They looked like boy super-heroes.

"It looks like you all have some new friends," said a guard. The first looked to be Latin-American (or just American?) with jet black hair. He had a bruise over his right eye where he'd been hit. The other was Asian American with short brown hair. He did not look hurt at all. In fact, Tenz couldn't help wondering why they weren't resisting, but realized it was probably the sight of two healthy teenagers in relation to their raggedness that made him feel that way.

They opened up Hasim's door. Hasim looked up, a look of pure hatred on his face. They pushed the first boy in so hard he almost fell into Hasim. "Nardo will want to meet you both soon". Then the second boy, although he barely budged. The guard then whacked the second boy in the back. Apparently, that had gone too far. The boy turned around and grabbed the gun out of his hand, swung it up high and then brought it down hard upon his head. More guards rushed forward.

The Asian-American rushed back out of the cell, chopping and dropping men. Crack. Two more guards down. Tenz's hopes shot up high suddenly. Bam. Another guard. Whack. Another. Hasim was now sitting upright. Suddenly a taser blasted forward and Nardo's voice could be heard loud and clear.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid. Use your weapons you fools. Obviously this boy is extraordinary like the rest. We'll learn why soon enough." The boy was on the ground, shaken from the taser blast. Nardo blasted him again. He kicked him into the cell. "Get the hoses" he said, walking away.

"Val, couldn't you just wait a sec longer...?" said the first boy.

"...no." replied Val.

"Who the hell are you two?" said Hasim.

"I'm Condo," replied the first boy, "and this is Val. We're here to help you."

"Huh. Good luck then."

"You can call us by our other names if you want too. Catalyst and Valor. We're Legionnaires."

"The place is huge Vi, but a lot of it is uninhabited. Still, don't bother going near the soldier's quarters--its disgusting. These men are pigs."

Vi nodded, preferring not to reply to that one. Her imagination already envisioned horrible things being referred to, things she'd rather not think about.

"Tina, what if they saw you?" whispered Vi.

"They didn't," said Tina with a smile. "You know I'm too careful for that. I know you're nervous Sally, but Val and Condo are smart and know the risks. Its the only way we could figure getting them out past these guards while still allowing you and me to sneak around. You know, what we do best," she added wtih a wider smile. She was such a strong-willed girl, thought Sally. She wished she was more like her in so many ways. Smart, pretty, confident.

"What did you find?" said Spirit, looking at the papers Vi was going through. The two were in an unused office. Not Nardo's, but definately one of the Dark Circle's higher-ups. Up until now, they'd deduced that this was a major Dark Circle headquarters, somewhere in the middle of Nowehere, Siberia, Russia. It was a prison, and had been in use by the KBG and then Dark Circle for some time. This 'Nardo' was not a Dark Circle operative, but worked with them. The arrived a day earlier and quickly reconned the whole prison, to discover in horror the four captvies. None were Nura's sister Maziah, but they felt it couldn't be too much of a coincidence. Thankfully, Val had some contacts in Osaka that helped them pick up a trail, after weeks of finding nothing. But luck was on their side, and they stumbled to Sakkim upon hearing rumors of the local prefect having a near heart attack for no reason, and pieced together what they could from there. Then Val came up with the plan to let Condo and himself get 'caught' and taken prisoner, to try and help from the outside. Sally was against it immediately and Tina agreed with her. It seemed overly risky and cut off two great resources. But Val was adamant.

"Look at this," said Vi to Tina. "A strange document. Something else else about an experiment 25 years ago...science and 'magic' working together in unison. That's weird. They outright admit they believe in magic."

"Let me see..." said Tina, interested. She read more. "A major project that took them over ten years to accomplish. Apparently, this Dark Circle is very mystical (or is that 'magical') in nature. So they enlisted the help of some other super-secret group of scientists...the Dominion?...to crack some sort of spell? A spell? Not sure what this means."

"No, you're reading it right," said Vi with some confidence. "Magic and science combined to crack an 'ages old spell to kick-start human evolution.' And then a long list of living metahumans in the last 25 years."

"Wait, wait, wait. Maybe I'm not getting this all right away. Supposedly, some spell was broken twenty five years ago by the Dark Circle and this 'Dominion' to allow human beings to evolve 'naturally'--and so all these metahumans came into being. All of us Legionnaires are in here too. We'll have to talk to Lyle and Brainy about this, I think."

Vi giggled at the sound of 'Brainy'. Spirit giggled too with an 'I know' face.

"This Dark Circle is into some bad stuff," said Vi finally. "They seem really interested in Nura's family."

"Maybe they're all as 'well-endowed' as Nura?" joked Tina

"Well, its her sister especially. This is some weird stuff Tina."

Spirit leaned over and looked at the files. "White Witch? Mordru? Maybe some of these imprisoned teens can shed some light on this..."

They suddenly heard foot-steps and a door creaking. Immediately Spirit went immaterial and fell through the floor, cursing their carelessness and hoping no one was in the room below to see her phase downwards. Shrinking Violet was already small and ran behind the documents, trying to make her way to the edge of the table, so she could leave.

"Why are you so concerned?" said a Dark Circle soldier, apparently to their leader, a Japanese business-man.

"Two teenage super-heroes found wandering way out here in Siberia? Don't be stupid. This is obviosly a set-up. From the report it seems they were caught far too easily. Something else else's off here. They must be a rescue team."

"Rescue team? But sir, we knew of no previous connection between this group of powered teenagers and the Legion. Why would they now be concerned about each other?"

"There are tons of reasons. Think for a minute. The sister, Nura, is with the Legion. It could be that or many other things. It doens't matter. We've caught two of them, and I'm not convinced there isn't more."

"He's right," said another man. Vi peered around the corner. This man was hideous. His face dark crimson, with burn marks all over Horribly disfigured in a way where he almost looked cartoonish. He was disguting. And he had an air about him that was truly villainous. He stood like an old Nazi. "But its no matter. We shall capture them too and add more to our growing community of super-powered teenage prisoners," he said with a laugh. "Look here. The files are all thrown about. Up until now, this room has hardly been used in weeks. Evidently, someone has gone snooping through here."

Vi choked back a 'damn'.

"What? How?" said Tsuyoshi. "Soldier?"

"Sir, we've seen no one at all in the halls, coming in or out of this wing of the stalag."

"You're not thinking about our opponents," said Nardo, as he began to pick up the documents and sort through them. He seemed to be scanning the room. "One can shoot fire from his hands and the other can digest solid metal. So far, two of them have shown enough strength to kill guards on will. They are far different than any of you." He seemed sharp, moving about the room.

Vi made her way around a bookcase, and hopped down on a chair, then to the floor. Tsuyoshi and the other guard stood in the doorway. It would be too hard to sneak out now. She needed to find a place to hide and wait it out. Then suddenly, Nardo turned around and walked out of the room.

There was a silence. Vi climbed back up to a shelf on the bookcase and moved between two books. No one was looking at her. She moved a paper-weight in front of her and hid. She heard the other two talking. "I do not like this Nardo," said Tsuyoshi. "He's too much of an X-factor." The soldier said nothing. Vi wondered where the soldier's loyalty lied. "But we all have our orders..."

Suddenly Nardo burst back into the room carrying something. Vi hid her head and hoped to God he didn't see her. She felt some shifting around. She felt him hovering near. "See gentleman," she heard Nardo say, "you need to think like our enemies." She suddenly felt the paper-weight shift and looked up to see Nardo looking right at her. In his hand was a can of raid. He blasted it at her, the poision flooding her little lungs. She fell to the ground coughing, vomit soon to be coming up. She heard Nardo laughing, and laughing loudly.

"A mini-Super-Heroine! Beautiful. This may be my favorite one so far." He picked her up, and a plethora of colors and images went past her eyes.

"What do we do with this one?" said a guard, walking past the prison cells. Tenz and Tatiana, starving, cold, wet and exhausted noticed the two newcomers in Hasim's cell spring to life and move towards the bars of their cell to see what was happening.

"We'll have to put her in with the fire one. Which is too bad. I'm considering killing her outright." Nardo's voice was logical and clinical. He was obviously weighing his options. "Up until now, my experiment on the Morgna boy was to use pure silence to see if I could crack him. I thought for sure it would have worked by now. This will ruin it...but I'm not entirely sure I want to kill this little speciman outright. She could be a small doll for my offices!" he added with a 'Haha!'. The two Dark Circle members looked at him funny which he didn't notice. "Through her in with the fire one."

They watched as Dirk's cell began to open. No noise came out and it was pitch black in that corner of the hallway still. Tenz hoped Dirk would rip fire out of the doorway and fry them all, but it didn't happen. One guard hurled Vi into the cell, to which Nardo said "not too hard you idiot."

They walked back and Nardo noticed how close Val was to the bars. "You. You apparently are as healthy as the day you came out of whatever whore of a mother you had." Val said nothing. "Yes, a hero. Hero's are the most fun to break." There was something in Nardo's voice that was different. Pure hate. He looked at Condo. "We'll get to you too." Nardo turned back to the soldiers. "In this cell, we have not one, but two prisoners who have fought back against the Dark Circle and have taken down your peers. Surely these are the two you hate the most?" The guards nodded in agreement, but had no idea where Nardo was going with this. "I propose a fight to the death then. For the amusement of the guards. This one here," he said pointing at Val, "against this one here," he added, pointing at Hasim, who sat in the back of the cell, ragged and peering out through the shadows. "The loser, of course, dies, and the winner will get better lodgings in the officers quarters with a full dinner for himself and two friends of his choosing. Yes, I think this will be a good idea. See to setting it up."

Nardo and the guards walked out. Tenz and Tatiana tried to hear what was happening. Condo looked at Val and Hasim. "This could be our chance. This could be what we're waiting for."

"They've got Vi," said Val. "We need to move quick. What do you say?" said Val to Hasim.

Hasim peered over his knees at Val. He seemed angry beyond belief. Furious in his silence. They couldn't help wondering if he had broke. Hasim said nothing. "I'll do whatever it takes to get out of this hell," he said flatly.

Tatiana looked at Tenz and the two had the same strange look. "This is what Dirk needs" she said hoarsely. She looked at the bars to her cell. In the left corner she had been using her powers to create a darker shadow there, so no one could see in. There, Tenz had chewed through a hole small enough for Tatiana to escape. She looked tired but she smiled at Ten Zil. Her skin was now completely ligh-blue. She looked beautiful with her raven colored hair. "It took me a few days, because I kept thinking Mon or Blok would come free us," she said to Tenz, putting her hand on his shoulder. "But it'll be up to us. And we can do it."

Dirk saw the light come shining in as the door opened. The guards expected him to cringe at the light, but he didn't--he'd been using his powers on and off to make sure he remembered what light was. Such was Dirk Morgna, the Sun Boy.

They threw in a tiny girl, the size of his hand. Now, he knew, he truly had gone crazy. It was almost comical. How long had he been here? Who knew? No one spoke to him in days. (Weeks? Years? No, it couldn't have been). He thought about a lot of things. About his life. About the surrealistic life of a male super-model. How drab that compared to this new life. About how nice Bruce Wayne had been to him and virtually changed his life three years ago. About the current life he ws living with these strange, but wonderful people. Then he thought about movies. And music. And football (soccer to his American friends). Then, for no reason, he recited to himself the entire history of Prague, Bohemia, the Czechs, and then Germany, the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church, and then on and on and on and on and on...

Now, a tiny girl. Yup, he'd lost his mind. She was coughing. No, she was dying. Poisioned. (In his madness he must have gained medical expertise he thought). Should he talk to her? Would that be like admitting he was mad? Or would it be funny, and thus a way for him to beat his madness. She was kinda cute in a six inches kinda way.

He picked her up. "There, there now," he said. "You need to open your lungs. If you were my height, this wouldn't be a problem. Then it would barely phase you." She looked right at him, tears running down her face. The coughing continued. And then quite suddenly, she grew.

Seconds later, Dirk had a full-grown teenage girl (in a very flattering purple costume) on his lap. She had her hands on his shoulders and was breathing as hard as she could, sucking in clean air. She was trying to speak. "...*cough*...panicked...should have grown to normal size...*cough*...too scared...*hack*...almost died until you said *cough* that...lungs are much bigger, able to survive...oh God..."

Dirk, when he realized this should have been the exact minute he really fell over the edge, really lost his mind, really went totally loopy, suddenly felt calm and at ease. "Shh," he said. "Don't talk. Breathe for a minute. Let the air in. You're OK now."

"Thank you," she whispered, still breathing hard. She leanred forward and put her arms around his neck, and her head on his shoulder. "Thank you," she repeated. The hug felt amazing. He didn't realize it yet, but he needed it more than she did.

---------------------------------

A brief time later, she sat next to him.

"So, the Legion of Super-Heroes. A very grand name."

"Yes...it is," she said. She seemed a little embarrassed by her earlier willingness to hug him while sitting on his lap. "You've been in here for a long time."

"Only days I hope." He seemed concerned about this.

"Yes, or you would have starved. That reminds me! I have a granola bar in my pouch. You can have it," she added, giving it to him.

His hunger hit him all at once like a ton of bricks. "Violet, I could kiss you," he said. She seemed even shyer at that comment. He couldn't help but like that. "I still might" he said with a bite.

"We're going to get out of here. Valor has a plan, and he and Catalyst are in the cell with your friend Hasim. Spirit is still out there too, she hasn't been caught yet. This is a tougher situation than we planned for (we're all still kind of new at this), but we'll make it out."

"Good. My friends...I can only imagine what terrible things they've done to them. Bastards."

"They're alright, but its only going to get worse. They've been through some terrible things, but I don't think Nardo has progressed to the truly horrendous yet. He builds to it...its part of his torture techniques. I'm...worried. I want to get out of here. My being caught wasn't part of the plan. What if it doesn't work."

"Violet, you just told me we'll make it out. I believed you. Now you're doubting yourself. I think I believe what you said before. We will make it out. I know it."

"I know, I know..." she faded off. "Torture. What a terrible thing. What a terrible world..." she seemed to be a bit in shock over being poisioned still.

"Yes. But people like you are changing that. I know you're worried. Believe me, I know."

"Sorry," she said with a smile. "I've been here thirty minutes and you over a week, and I'm the one freaking out. I just...just want to make sure it doesn't end here. Not now. There's still so much to do in life."

"Like what?" said Dirk. He was enjoying this conversation. It was his first in a long time.

"I don't know...see the Cubs win a World Series. I need to read books I've kept putting off. I...I've never even kissed a boy." She had no idea why she was being so open.

"No?" said Dirk, quizzically. He looked at her strait in the eyes. "Violet, look at me. We're going to make it out of here, ok?" His face was right near hers. He could feel her warmth. "Ok," she whispered. "You can read those books and watch the Cubs..." he whispered back. "Ok," she said. "And..." he faded off. And then he kissed her, slow and softly.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," said Spirit. She was panicking. They had Shrinking Violet now. That was definately not part of the plan. She phased from one room to the next. "What am I going to do...?"

She moved throughout the Stalag, ducking past guards, with no destination in sight. "Everyone but me is captured..." She moved towards the main hall, and found herself back tracking towards the entrance. "Wait, wait, wait," she thought. "Get a grip Tina. What, are you leaving now? Calm down. Think it out. That just means you'll have to free them. Sure, no big deal right? It'd be like sneaking your friends out past their parents. And hell, you're the best at that anyway." She wandered closer to the main doors. This was the most heaviliy guarded of the room.

She stuck her head outside. Snow everywhere. Ice on the ground. It looked biting cold. "Hm...how are we going to get out of here once I break them out? Definately should have that figured out in advance." She wandered a bit more. "Its no use. This is going to be as hard as it gets. Oh well, I signed up for it. Time to face the music. Its only my friends lives at stake." She smiled. "Confident you may be," she sound aloud, "but you're such a drama queen."

"You look like you could use a hand," she heard and turned. And there before her was the strangest site: a girl, no older than herself, standing regally before her, like a Princess. Another girl to her left, wearing a white robe over her clothes, silent but with a determined look. Floating above them, a heavily muscled boy--no, young man, holding a spear. And the strangest of all: a creature made completely out of rock. "Good thing too...because we need a guide to get us in there," said the Princess.

"And so, I have given you this chance, something I would rarely do, to achieve better quarters and a decent meal, for yourself, and two of your companions. All you simply have to do...is kill the other one." Nardo spoke so loudly, and took such great pleasure in how his disfigured face made others nervous, that he was beaming at himself. He couldn't get started fast enough.

There stood all the guards, in the hallway between cells, with Nardo on one end and Tsuyohi on the other. Condo did not feel good about this. The kid, Hasim, had said nothing. NOTHING. They wanted to plan a way to use this to their advantage, to break everyone out, but Hasim said nothing. Val quieted up after that too--Condo thought Val might be thinking of his own life too now. No, this was not how they wanted to do things at all.

"Bring them out," said Nardo, and the opened the cell. Condo didn't move. Val rose to his feet, and for the first time in days, Hasim did as well. Hasim looked terrible. Like a beaten, malnurished dog. But his eyes. His eyes looked like fury. He wanted to kill. He was going to kill. Only then did Val realize how dangerous Hasim was.

"Your name, Legionnaire," said Nardo to Val.

"Valor."

"Hm. Sounds impressive. Yours, young killer?" he said to Hasim, referencing the fact that Hasim had already killed two guards.

"Nemesis," said Hasim coldy.

"Ah! You too have a special moniker! Perfect!" yelled Nardo laughing. One guard looked at another like he was mad. The other guard gave a 'yup' look.

"Well then," said Nardo, slowly, drawing it out. Tenz and Tatiana moved towards the bars. Condo did too. "...begin."

WHACK. Hasim sucker punched Valor with a right hook to the face, knocking him backwards. The guards started to howl. Val couldn't believe he'd just been nailed like that. Hasim was on him immediately, fighting in close. Val double backed with a chop and a elbow to the ribs. Hasim came in hard with a blow to the lower spine. "He's playing for keeps" thought Val, "then so will I." He hit Hasim back with a viscious blow across the chin. The went toe to toe at this point.

"No!" Condo yelled, and Tenz and Tatiana looked horrified. Nardo was laughing. Tsuyoshi looked uncomfortable. The soldiers were screaming with delight. Hasim lept at Val and Val fell backwards, caught Hasim, and flipped him ten feet down the hall, almost nailing Tsuyoshi. Hasim stood up, and a soldier grabbed him--he turned and broke the soldiers neck. Val leapt at him. The soldiers scrambled, moving into fray indignantly, not believing one of their own just went down too.

Nardo could be heard above all, "all's fair boys! He shouldn't have jumped in! Let them fight!" It was to no avail. The tide was moving and the fight continued in that direction on its own. Crack! Hasim nailed Val. Val nailed him back with a kick in the thigh, sending him to the ground. A guard grabbed Val. Val chopped him so quick it sent the guard reeling.

Pure chaos was breaking out. Hasim vs. Val vs. all the Dark Circle Soldiers. They all started getting into it. Evidently, over a week of hearing Nardo torture teenagers had unnerved them to the point where they'd been itching to do something, even if it meant a small riot. The fight continued down the hall.

"Are you crazy?!" said Val, grabbing Hasim by the throat. Val was covered in blood and bruises.

"Its working, isn't it?" said Hasim angrily. Val stopped. So, this was an act? Or was Hasim just playing it by ear at this point? It didn't matter anymore. They were far enough from the cells. Time to forget this Nemesis vs. Valor fight--it was time to fight the Dark Circle.

----------------------

And quite suddenly, with Nardo running after them, the soldiers were all gone.

"Is that...Is that part of the plan?" said Tatiana to Condo across the hall.

"I guess," replied Condo.

"Good enough for me," said Tenz, yanking back the bars he had chewed threw. It was a small hole. Tatiana fit through with ease--ten days of starvation had not been kind to her thin waste.

"You too Tenz. It probably will be just as easy," she said. They turned to Condo.

"No worries," he said, using his power to accelerate the rust at an incredible rate. "I've been doing this to the bars all day. They're useless. Hi," he added, breaking out of his cell and meeting them face to face, "they call me Catalyst."

"Tatiana Mallor," she said, and a smile came across her lips for the first time in what felt like eternity, "and this is Ten Zil Kem."

"Charmed," said Tenz hurrying, "but what about in there?" He was pointing towards the cell with Dirk and Vi.

"On it," said Catalyst quickly, as he laid his hands on the hinges. "I have some degree of increased strength, so once I rust the hinges, I should be able to yank it off. We need to be fast before the soldiers realize what's happened."

---------------------------

Valor and Hasim now stood back to back, against all the soldiers. One by one, the Dark Circle began to fall.

"Nardo, you fool! This is your fault!" yelled Tsuyoshi

"Yes, but look at their unity," he said, "its amazing. Who would have thought? I'll remember this for the next time--"

"Next time? Everything is ruined! Are the other prisoners even being watched--?"

<span style="font-size: 30px;">BOOM!</span>

"What the--?"

A burst of pure, white light entered the main entrance of the stalag, and gusts of freezing cold icestorms breezed in. Standing before them was Maziah bint-Mordru bin-Ahmad Al-Nayal. The White Witch. And before they could react, Monius Elysius, carrying Tatiana's spear, flew in at top speed, past them all, grabbing them one by one, and ending any chance of conscious thougth.

--------------------------------

Dirk and Shrinking Violet first heard the creaking and moving of the door, and felt a strange anticipation build. And then, not so suddenly or quietly, it was ripped off. Before them stood Condo, Tatiana and Tenz. Dirk just smiled. Vi helped him to his feet and he came over and hugged his friends.

"Dirk...we were so worried," said Tatiana, not being able to hold back a tear. Tenz hugged him twice as hard.

"Lets get the hell out of here," he said, and they moved forward.

"Need a hand," said a voice and they turned to see Spirit, phasing into the room through the door. She had a bright smile on her face. "Consider this jailbreak in full effect. She went solid and kicked open the door. Jacquie walked through. "Yes, it definately is," she said with a smile. Her smile left her lips though when she saw her friends. She ran over and gave Tatiana and then Dirk a hug. They looked terrible--starved, beaten and exhausted.

And then without warning, Nardo walked into the door. And he saw them all, shocked, and dropped his baton. Quickly turning, he ran out of the room. "NO!" yelled Dirk, and he was after him. They followed.

--------------------------------

Mon-El, Maziah and Blok continued to round-up as many Dark Circle members as they could while Hasim and Valor fought on. Hasim stopped for a minute, catching his breath, and up ahead he saw none other than Tsuyoshi watching Maziah. He ran at him.

Tsuyoshi pulled a gun out and aimed it at him. "Fool! I'll still kill all of you if I must!"

It was no use. Hasim had a strange power--he could defeat any one opponent. The gun misfired and Hasim had it out of his hand so fast, Tsuyoshi had no idea before Hasim used it to crack open his face. Tsuyoshi whispered something about it not being over, but for him it was--Hasim had been pushed too far. Crack!

--------------------------------

"Dirk, wait!" screamed Jacquie, but Tenz grabbed her arm.

"Its too late Jac. Let Dirk go."

"You're not going Tenz?" said Tatiana, knowing full well the extent of torture Tenz had gone through.

"No. I just want to leave here."

"Let's go then," said Jacquie. Up ahead they saw Blok.

He was solemn. "Let us leave now," he said. And then in an act of humanity, he reached down and scooped up Tatiana into his arm, and then Ten Zil too and carried both of them out.

-------------------------------

Nardo was out the door and on the ice before Maziah and Mon saw him run by. Everyone was pouring outside at this point, and Dirk knew why. Mon-El and Maziah were going to destroy the base completely. They would raze it to the ground. Good. But he wanted Nardo.

Nardo ran across the ice and knew he was in pursuit. He turned, and saw Dirk Mornga running after him, just in time to see Dirk fire a blast of pure heat towards him, knocking him off his feet and onto the ice hard.

Dirk started to slowly walk forward now. "You are filth, Nardo. Pure filth." He wanted to say more, but just didn't have the words anymore.

He began to heat up the ice Nardo was standing on. Nardo watched defiantly. "You won't do it. I'm not afraid of you burning me alive! I've done far worse! Haha!" He was a lunatic.

"Goodbye," said Dirk, and Nardo realized his plan. The ice gave way underneath and Nardo fell into a watery pond out in the middle of Nowhere, Siberia. It was ice cold. Dirk continued to melt the ice around him. It grew in size. It would take a miracle to pull him out. Slowly, Nardo sank.

Dirk walked back.

-----------------------------------

With a show of incredible force, Mon-El and Maziah shut down the Siberian Dark Circle base--permanantly.

"Here," said Tina, helping everyone onto a truck she had stolen. They managed to get one out, but the others were destroyed. They had blankets and rations for them. Condo was driving, but the inside was saved for the coldest (Tatiana and Hasim). "We'll get you whatever you need," said Tina now, taking charge.

They left the Dark Circle soldiers there in the midde of Siberia, at the destroyed base, with their leaders dead and gone. "Let them figure out how to survive," said Tenz.

No one said anything for some time.

Mon turned to Tatiana and handed her the spear. She took it and he held her. She was too weak to reach all the way up arond his large frame, so he held her. Dirk finally let go and collapsed in the blankets. Vi held him tight also. Val and Hasim nodded at each other, and there appeared to be some animosity. Perhaps Hasim had been so ready to survive he would have killed Val? Jacquie wrapped her own personal cloak around Hasim and had him sit in the truck next to her. He was asleep in minutes. Blok could have journeyed through the Earth to wherever they were going, but stuck it out, adding warmth to the back of the truck. Tatiana reached out her hand to Tenz, who took it. She smiled at him.

"Where are we going?" said Condo

"Train station some ways away from here, but its there. We'll drive all day if we have to," said Val. "As long as we leave here."

-----------------------------------

Nardo floated for some time, freezing to death in the icey cold water. This death was a torturous way to die. That, he had to admit, was slightly humorous. More than slightly.

And Nardo enjoyed a hearty laugh.

"Okay, wow."

"You get used to it"

"Do NOT ask me where we are. I haven't a clue."

Sul, Tom and Tikhik had emerged from the teleport gate into a crowded street, choked with cars and people. A few gawped, but most carried on through without blinking.

"Sul, can you read that sign?" Tom pointed out a cardboard sign on a lamppost, written with oriental characters.

"Uh-uh. English and Cantonese only. I don't think it's Mandarin though, so it might be Japanese. Might."

"Are you two planning to stand here all day? I don't want my tail crushed underfoot."

"Where do we go?" Tom shrugged. "I don't see any open spaces we can stop on, and there's no friendly people stopping to help us like Ming did in Hong Kong."

"One of these days, I'll drum into you that "Ming"'s my surname, even if it comes first... watch this," Sul sighed, took her huge backpack off and proceeded to shimmy up the nearest lamppost. She clambered back down with bad news. "Tom's right, there's nowhere unclogged at ground level as far as I can see. If we need somewhere to stop for five minutes, we're..."

"Not leaving this city, I couldn't manage another long-distance gate right now."

Sul muttered a non-English word, while Tom said, "We need to go somewhere - find an empty house, a warehouse, somewhere we can sleep tonight..." after which he and Sul looked at Tikhik.

"I am not teleporting blind into people's houses on a vague chance their houses might be empty. People have a right to privacy."

"Tik, let's just look around for a while before we get arrested for standing about like this then, huh? We're a bit noticeable." Tom finished.

"Fine, but I'm only going in if the place looks completely empty."
___________________

As they stepped through the gate into the fifth apparently-empty flat they'd tried, Tikhik gasped, "If this one isn't it, you can carry me out. No more portals."

"You said that last time," said Tom, squinting into the dark apartment.

"...and the time before," added Sul, whose enhanced night vision meant she could see clearly even in the low light. "Looks promising, hang on a minute."

She dashed through the apartment quickly and came back to where the other two stood a few minutes later. "This looks like it - it's been stripped bare apart from a small pile of junk in one corner. There's cold water and a toilet but no power or hot water. Should be okay for an indoor campout for a couple of days without getting disturbed - the dust is about an inch thick!"

Tom put his rucksack down on hearing that and began feeling around the outside pockets for a torch, but Tikhik, absolutely exhausted from teleporting just crouched down, pulled the bedroll off his back and was asleep within seconds of crawling inside.
______________________________________

When Tikhik awoke, it was near-enough midnight local time. Walking through the open door - his night vision wasn't as good as Sul's, but it was still more than human - he found Sul and Tom sound asleep in the next room, sleeping bags wrapped around themselves, the camping stove they'd used to cook their meal of tinned beans & sausage still lying there, along with the remnants of the meal itself.

After the uncomfortably lengthy process of a visit to the toilet, he stopped and wondered what to do. He was wide awake and not particularly hungry, but he was nowhere near ready for the next long jump even if Sul and Tom had been.

Coming to a decision, he walked back into the room he'd slept in and proceeded to open and close a gate there a few times, increasing the size of the "scar" and ensuring he could easily teleport back. He then opened a gate properly, and exited to go for a walk...
_____________________

He exited onto a side-street, far quieter than where they'd landed earlier, yet still not deserted despite the hour. Ignoring the glances from passers-by, which he was used to by now - a thought which depressed him in and of itself, he walked with no direction or destination in mind for some time.

Eventually, he noticed the pavement traffic start to thin, but didn't think much of it as he turned down a side-street and then into another one. There, he stopped abruptly upon seeing a teenage girl, lying unconscious on the ground, being kicked by a gang of six or seven youths.

Instinctively, he immediately opened a portal beneath her and teleported her to his side, wincing slightly as she fell to the ground beside him. The gang spun around, looking for their prey. When they saw her and the giant insect standing over her, several of them shrank back from a confrontation with the demon with glowing eyes. Others, braver or stupider, charged at Tikhik. However, Tikhik opened a pair of specific portals, and the leader fell, stuck halfway, his legs waggling uselessly in the air behind him and almost kicking him.

"‹Leave now.›" Tikhik spat the Russian words at them. Though they could not understand the words, they understood the tone and those who were able scarpered, while the final one followed once Tikhik widened the portal and allowed him to fall to the ground.

"‹Barbarians...›" Tikhik muttered, relieved he hadn't been forced to follow through on his implied threat as he looked at the girl he'd saved. Close up, she was older than he'd thought - 16 or 17, although her slate-grey hair made her look older still - and didn't look or feel badly injured by the boots of her assailants, although his claws were not the best means of detecting such injuries. What she did look and feel, however, was dirty, malnourished and in a baggy lilac poloneck and brown ankle-length skirt that had seen far better days...
_____________________

Tom yawned as he awoke. Sleeping on the floor with an air-mattress and sleeping bag was more comfortable than Sul's tiny couch and he didn't have a crick in his neck on waking up for the first time in three days. The bare window showed that it was still dark outside, and Sul was still fast asleep in her own sleeping bag.

He yawned again, stood up and stretched before looking at his watch. No wonder he'd woken up before Sul for once, he'd only been sleeping for four hours. Wondering what woke him up, he grabbed a torch and decided to look in on Tik. When he did, he got a surprise in the form of a girl with grey-black hair lying on the floor beside Tikhik.

Before he spoke, Tikhik turned and looked at him, "Tom? Thank fairness - help me put her on my bed, gently."

Without a word, Tom set down the flashlight where it would still help him, and tried to get his hands under her armpits to lift her, before pulling back with a yelp. Tikhik looked a question at him, and he explained "I got an electric shock off her sweatshirt - it must be nylon or something." He pulled his jumper down over his hands and did it again, and started to shift her in the right direction - when the torch failed. Instantly, Tom froze, planning to set the girl down gently before moving her any further in the dark.

"Leave it." Tikhik opened two gates above them. While the green glow from them wasn't hugely bright, it was enough for even Tom to see by, and he completed setting her on Tikhik's bedroll without further incident.

"So who is she?" Tom finally asked his friend, who explained the circumstances in which he found her. After listening patiently, he said, "I get why you couldn't take her to a hospital, and obviously you couldn't just leave her on the street, but what now?"

"I don't know. She has no broken bones that I can tell - there are a few cuts, and some bruising may show soon, but I think I found her just at the moment they started."

"I meant..."

"Hi guys." Lost in thought and talk, they hadn't noticed as Sul walked in, stretching. Noticing the girl lying on the floor in the early daylight coming through the window, she said, "Do you make a habit of picking up girls everywhere you go? I'd just like to know now."

"I went for a walk, after an hour I found her under the boots of a gang kicking her to death. Do I need to give a blow-by-blow account?"

"Shouldn't you be taking her to a hospital then?"

"If you know how to find one, explain to the staff what happened and pay the bill without speaking or reading a word of the language or having any of the local money, of course. Besides, I don't think she's badly injured, I caught them just as they were starting."

At that, Sul bent down to feel the girl's forehead, before pulling her hand away with an "ow" as a spark jumped from the girl. Intrigued, Tikhik touched the back of his claw to her forehead, but the spark that resulted was smaller and he didn't feel anything.

"Your shell must be non-conductive," Tom mused.

"I think we guessed that," muttered Sul, sucking at her sore finger. "Hang on a minute," and she left the room briefly before returning with two pairs of rubber gloves. "I spotted a packet of these on the junkpile earlier," she explained as she tossed one pair to Tom. "Warpies, warpies everywhere... that must be why your thugs were 'kicking her to death'."

"What do we do then?" Tom asked, putting the gloves on too.

"We wait." Tikhik replied. "I'm not leaving her here in this state with a group who tried to kill her not far away. With luck..."

Just then, the girl stirred. Moments after her eyes flicked open, she was standing, her back against the wall, metres away from them having moved faster than even Sul could follow. Her mouth opened, but it may as well not have for all they understood her. Even over and above their inability to speak her language, she was speaking at a rapid-fire pace they would have struggled to understand in their native tongues.

"Slow down, we are not going to hurt you," Tikhik said in English, before repeating it in Russian just in case and Sul followed, saying the same thing in Cantonese.

A look of intense concentration covered her face, and she answered in English at a very slightly slower pace, "Itsnotjustme-Idontwanttohurtyou"

"Why would you?" Tom asked

"ElectricityOverchargedBoom."

"Boom?" Tom looked at his two companions

"What's your name?" Tikhik asked quickly

"NorikoAshida-Nori."

"Nori, could you discharge safely if I got you to an open space?"

"I thought you said there WERE no ope..." Sul began to say before being cut off with a look from Tikhik.

"Yesbut..."

"Right," Tikhik opened a portal in front of her, which made an unusual sucking noise, "Tom, I need you to make her light as soon as she's through the portal. Lean through after her if you need to. Nori, walk through at normal speed now."

Nori visibly tried to keep her speed down, but still went through at tremendous speed, when Tom immediately tried to obey Tikhik's instruction, but Nori's scream and Tom's "What the bugger?" rang through.

"TOM!" Tikhik yelled, worried he had let Nori fall as he lent through the portal himself, which exited above the thin cloudline.

"I've... got her, but so has the wind," Tom muttered through gritted teeth, and I don't know how much longer I can keep her up before she's out of my range."

"You won't have to," Tikhik muttered himself, clamping his beak tight shut as he opened a wide portal to catch Nori from being swept away, then strained to keep it and the closer partner portal open as well as the ones they were leaning through. "NORI. DISCHARGE!" he yelled, and in response had a tremendous flash which blinded both him and Tom for a moment. When his vision cleared, he saw Nori falling, but managed to create a portal under her in time, which she entered vertically and exited horizontally toward them at tremendous speed. Tom desperately reduced her weight as she tumbled toward him, but still fell backward as she hit him, fortunately not causing significant injury to either. After the ordeal was complete, all three collapsed - Tikhik and Tom exhausted from the strain, and Nori out cold.

"What now?" Sul asked after she thought she'd given Tikhik and Tom enough time to recover.

In response, Tikhik sighed and said, "We wait until we can ask her some questions. Given that she's starving, dirty, overloaded, in danger and quite possibly homeless though, I will not just leave her here to die."

Riding the Intra-Euro Express

Thankfully, it was only a days ride to a train station. A day driving in the freezing cold, holding on to one another for warmth, trying to smother each other in blankets. Mon stayed with them and Blok stayed with them--they needed the warmth. But they finally got to one.

They were twelve now, but there was plenty to do. Tenz, Tatiana, Dirk and Hasim had been starved for ten days. Luckily, the Dark Circle had supplied them with enough to water so they wouldn’t drop dead. They needed to eat, but too much too quickly would overdo it. Jacquie saw to this. Mon couldn't believe how tiny Tatiana looked. It was breaking his heart. They were all frozen too…there was a genuine concern that they would come out of this with pneumonia or something worse. It was Dirk’s power of course that saved them from that—he kept generating enough heat to ‘warm them up’.

The four Legionnaires did everything they could. They checked train schedules, did a count of all the stuff they had (a lot of what they had with them had been lost). Blok, of course, could not come near the station, despite it being out in the middle of nowhere. Maziah stayed with him on the outskirts.

“They’re all so close,” said Condo to Tina. “It’s like each one is best friends with the other.” They were watching as Jacquie made sure they were all eating. Mon, usually serious and tense, was actually laughing and trying to keep the mood light, between rubbing Tatiana’s shoulders and then rubbing Tenz’s with his ‘super-strength’ to make him squirm.

“They’ve been through a lot together. I hope the Legion grows more and more like that,” Spirit replied. “I’m not sure why this group doesn’t just join the Legion here and now. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. But apparently they have sort of mission to attend to, and it stems from Nura’s sister.”

“Maziah. Where is she?” asked Spirit.

“With the rock creature. He seems to be the one guiding them on this mission.” Condo looked over and Vi had joined the group, sitting next to Dirk and Jacquie. She was motioning Val over to sit with them, and he did, next to Jacquie. Condo noticed a lingering animosity between Val and Hasim. Hell, there seemed to be a hidden animosity between Dirk and Hasim too. Some type of mutual dislike and mistrust.

“That’s our cue Condo,” smiled Spirit. “When Vi gets the courage to sit with the other group, it means you and I should be mingling too. We’re all in this together for a little while longer.”

Hasim was next to Jacquie, who was making sure he was eating. He liked being close to her—and didn’t like anyone else being so. Jacquie, however, was acting more maternally than anything, at least in Val’s mind. As if she was making sure Hasim was being fed and taken care of, because the rest of group was not paying any attention. Val liked Jacquie immediately. She was strong and a definite leader, but she was very feminine and beautiful too. Val remained somewhat quiet, but not too much like Vi. She was the first to walk over but she said little. In fact, she kept paying attention to the Morgna kid more than anything.

“So, you’re Dirk Morgna, famous super-model?” said Tina sitting down with that easy-going smile. She sat next to Tenz, who uncharacteristically became nervous.

“Yes, that’s the Sun Boy,” said Hasim for him, with a snicker. Dirk shot him a look.

“I guess you don’t like being called ‘Sun Boy’ anymore?” said Condo.

“No, I hate it,” smiled Dirk. “It was OK when I was fourteen, but I’m over it.”

”You know Bruce Wayne too?” asked Tina.

“Yeah, he’s a great guy. Not much older than us really…”

“You know, our group has all codenames, and there’s people with similar names to ‘Sun Boy’,” said Val suddenly. “We have a ‘Cosmic Boy’ and a ‘Kid Quantum’ to name a few.”

“You think we should have codenames?” asked Tenz. “But we’re not Legionnaires.”

“Not yet,” said Tina, still smiling. “But I’m thinking maybe you should be.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Mon suddenly, and quickly. He evidently didn’t want them to seriously consider this. “From what I’ve learned of your group in the last day, it sounds very idealistic and something that could be truly beneficial to this age. But we have our own concern right now. Unfinished business that must be taken care of. Although she’s not with us right now, Maziah, and Blok for that matter, is never far from any our thoughts.”

They all seemed intrigued, Tina especially so. “We’ve heard about this a little. But Maziah is Nura’s sister, who is also a Legionnaire. It seems to me the two paths don’t have to be mutually exclusive,’ she said. Before anyone could reply she added, “but there’s no need to commit to anything now. Just a thought. Super-powered teenagers that act like heroes…it just seems to fit,” she finished.

It was quiet for a minute.

“I think Dirk should be Sun Boy,” said Tenz finally. They all laughed.

Not soon after, they all boarded a train, heading out of Siberia and into Europe again. Siberia, to them, would always be neither Europe nor Asia. It would be a cold, lonely, frozen hell on Earth.

“Those were some incredible fighting skills,” said Val to Hasim. He was passing him in on the way to the bathroom. They had a whole train car to themselves.

“Thanks,” said Hasim. He did not return the compliment.

“What’s his problem,” whispered Vi to Dirk. She was sitting next to him again, this time on the train car. Hasim was near them, but sitting by himself. Jacquie was talking to Mon in the back.

“We don’t know,” said Dirk. “But I’m glad you noticed it! Up until now Tenz and I thought we were the only ones.” He smiled at her. She still remained very shy, but they definitely shared a ‘moment’ at Nardo’s Gulag. She was very pretty.

Farther back, Condo was talking to Tenz. “Still thinking about codenames?” said Condo.

“Not really no,” said Tenz. “I’m thinking about super-hero uniforms. You guys have these cool ones. I thought they would look a lot stupider in real life, but they seem to work pretty well. We should have them too.”

“But, I thought you guys weren’t going to be super-heroes?”

“I’m not sure if eating matter in all forms is a real super-power…”

“Are you kidding me?” laughed Condo, “that’s the most original power ever! You’d be like the Sex Pistols of Legionnaires!”

Farther back stood the massive form of Blok. It had gone on long enough, they had decided, that Blok had to sit farther away from the group. Tatiana couldn’t take it anymore and simply used her darkness to cover him, leading him directly onto the train. Maziah seemed to think this should have been her responsibility, so she cast a minor spell so only the eleven of them could see him. She now stood by his side. Blok and Maziah had no problem with the rest of them telling the Legionnaires about Mordru and their story. After all, they were Nura’s friends and allies. But they did not tell the story themselves.

Blok looked slightly different now. More rounded and curved, almost slightly more human. His old form had been completely destroyed by Vykros, and it was of some comfort to know that Blok could live through such an attack and still be the same old Blok.

“This is all so amazing Blok,” said Maziah. “First Marla Latham tells us all about these Legionnaires and now we meet them. And Nura is such an important part of their group!”

“I agree Maziah,” said Blok ominously. “Surely this is a sign that we have a chance against the strength of Mordru? After all, where both large armies and countless individuals with amazing abilities have tried, it make take a Legion of these amazing individuals to defeat him this time.”

Maziah smiled at him. She had grown to trust him so much. “You smile as if you had some hand in this meeting, Blok. I fail to see how that could be so, but your mysterious to me even now.”

“My apologies Maziah,” he said.

“I don’t mind it,” she smiled back.

The two of them were supposed to be listening as Jacquie spoke to Spirit, with Mon-El and Tatiana as well. It appeared that Spirit had taken on the role of ‘field leader’ for the four Legionnaires and was doing all that she could to help plan their next moves.

“I guess we always just figured England would be were we’d be going,” said Jacquie. “Back to Tatiana’s manor.”

“To be honest,” added Tatiana, “we really had no real plan after that. Just get home and then make our plans on how to deal with Mordru.”

“Well, the UK is still a far way off,” said Spirit. “I am from Austria, and my mother is a diplomat there. If you’d like, we can all head to Austria and stay there for a brief period, so that you’re not constantly on the move. You can stay there all you like, we’ll even stay with you. Since you would only be returning to England to plan, you can plan there.” There was a genuine since of wanting to help on her part, and it was that honesty that made them trust her. Otherwise, it might have seemed to she was asking too much.

“That might be a good idea,” said Jacquie. “After all, it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as it’s safe.”

“I have no need to go back home,” said Tatiana. She held Mon’s hand tighter. She had found her place in this world. The kiss with Mon back in Sakkim was still never far from her thoughts. “Will it be a problem for us to show up unannounced?”

Tina thought about it for a moment. “Not if I can get there ahead of time. I don’t think it will be a problem at all. I’ll make sure all accommodations are taken care of—my family is very well off so there won’t be any problems,” she finished. She turned to Mon, “I’m sorry about before. I don’t want to seem pushy…I just wanted you to know what I thought…” she drifted off. Mon could be intimidating in his seriousness upon occasion.

He smiled at her. “I understand.” He turned to Jacquie and Tatiana. “If it will save time, I can take Tina to her home and get there in less than a few hours. That should more than enough time to give us the head start we need.”

”You can?” asked Spirit.

“I’m very fast when I fly,” replied Mon. He turned to Tatiana. He was unsure, but she seemed very put-off suddenly.

“That sounds like a good plan,” said Jacquie. “You two go on ahead and will take the connecting trains into Austria. Just a nice day or so of train rides through Eastern Europe…” she said, letting them see her exhaustion for the first time.

“We all need rest,” said Tatiana. “This will give us a good opportunity to get some.”

“Where’s Mon?” asked Tenz when Tatiana sat back down next to him.

“Gone. He flew up ahead.” She did not look happy.

“Hm, good thing you seem so OK about it,” said Tenz.

“He’s with ‘Tina’,” she said, making a face as she did it. “You know, little Ms. Perfect Legionnaire.”

“Uh, yeah…” said Tenz, realizing this might not be the best time to joke with Tatiana. “…I, er, didn’t even notice her before…”

Tatiana couldn’t help it. She was mad. She desperately wanted Mon to stick around. After all that just happened to her, she just wanted some comfort…some time with him. But no, he has to run off with the cute little Legionnaire while she stayed her with her ‘blue-skinned, tortured self’. As she thought those last words to herself, she cringed at her own annoyingness, even to herself.

“I don’t blame you,” said Condo to her quietly. “Tall, chiseled, strong jaw line? That Mon-El is a babe,” he smiled at her.

“Waitaminute,” said Dirk to Vi. “Val teaches you all how to fight? From what Tenz told me, the guy kicks ass like no one else.”

“Yeah, he’s trying to help out a lot of us that never really have been in a fist fight before,” replied Vi.

Dirk looked over at Val. He was in the seats behind Hasim and Jacquie. Jacquie had finally fallen asleep, and now Hasim was awake next to her. Even when he thought no one was watching him he looked mean. Dirk thought he was guarding Jacquie like some crazed German Shepard. Then, surprisingly, Dirk saw Val try to look over and see what Jacquie and Hasim were doing…why was that? Ah.

“Val,” whispered Dirk. “I here you teach the Legionnaires how to fight.”

“I do,” said Val. “Do you have any training?”

“No, but I was hoping you could teach me too. I’m tired of getting captured and beat-up.”

“I would gladly teach you,” said Val with a small nod.

“Great. I’ll do what I can for you in return…” he said with a smile, and then a nod in Jacquie’s direction.

“Children,” said the voice of Blok suddenly. He was hovering over them all. “I would recommend you use this time as the Princess has, and get some rest. You are all exhausted and need it. Even you Hasim.”

There was a finality in his voice that made them not want to question him.

“When did he get all fatherly?” asked Dirk to Vi and she giggled.

“Blok, you didn’t go to Austria ahead of everyone too?” asked Tatiana. “You usually do that.”

“I know,” replied Blok. “But I wanted to stay with Maziah right now…she’s been through a great deal.” He walked back to his seat.

Tatiana fumed.

Extract from the diary of Ming Sul, age MYOB

Been a couple of days since I last wrote in here. Since then, we've moved on from Japan, and Tikhik's promise that we'd end up in a very cold place at some point has held true. We think it's Siberia, but a fact I've learned quickly is that we're never sure where we are unless some "Nice Person" tells us - or at least Tikhik's not, and that extends to the rest of us, in practice.

Even with the absolute, bone-chilling cold of the place though - and it doesn't matter what you do, you're ALWAYS cold - one thing it's got going for it is the view. It's so absolutely barren, it's spectacular (it wouldn't be for long if you were stuck here, I guess, but for a couple of days - Wow).

So, yesterday was pretty simple in theory, a pain in the butt in practice. When we arrived, me and Tom set up the tent, Tikhik and Nori went inside, then me & Tom got to bury it under a thick layer of snow to keep it warm. Joy. After we were done and Tik let us in with one of his gates (since we had to bury the entrance too), I was only good for letting off ZZZs.

Then, this morning when I woke up, Tik was already awake - which reminds me, I need to have a word with Tom on how much Tik sleeps. I think I've only seen him sleep once since I met him, and that was between the big jump from Hong Kong to Tokyo and then making him teleport us round the city for somewhere to stay. At most, he goes to sleep after me, and wakes up earlier, and I'm a light sleeper & an early riser (unlike Tom...), so, although I can't really speak for snow-shovelling day, he can't be sleeping much, and that can't be good.

Anyway, Tik was already awake, so I got him to let me out (once I'd suited up against the cold even more...) and went out to have a look at the view and wake myself up properly. Once I got back (with, I swear, iced sweat on my forehead! Honestly), I saw what he'd been doing - trying to get Nori to eat some soup, and not doing very well.

Ever since he found her the way he did, he's been... well, not obsessed, since that sounds creepy, but it's like he's trying to be her dad or something. I think he might be transferring all his I-want-to-save-the-captives energy to her until we get to a place he can. Maybe I don't understand him as well as I think, but I think he's got a huge saviour-complex. He can't save himself from being a bug, so he has to save everyone else instead...

As for Nori herself, she's like a different person from the hyper-screwball she was in Japan. There, of course, she had electricity up the yin-yang, but here, there's nothing or near-enough. So, where there she was mad (her brain was fried or something from all the electricity running through her), here she can barely lift her head, and she's sleeping like 23 hours a day. We've managed to get more than the tiny bit of sense we got out of her here that said, because of it. At least she's coherent right now for the time she's awake.

Apparently, she really was homeless when Tik found her, like he thought. Her dad kicked her out when her powers emerged - which, besides how unfair it was, was a double blow since she usually can't think straight, since when there's mains electricity about, it goes to her head and scrambles her brains. She says she literally doesn't know how she's survived all the time on the streets, since she can't remember much of it, but the reason she speaks English so well is because her father demanded it and brought in tutors when she was a young kid to make sure her and her younger brother, Keitaro (I'm guessing the spelling) did. He sounds like a real bastard.

Guess I did get lucky - all I get is the odd broken glass when I forget my own strength. Tik & Nori got it rough with their powers, and saviour-complex or no, Tik's right when he says we're going to have to see if we can help her when we hit civilisation again.

No Great Insights on Tom - he's the same Tom, heart-on-sleeve and all. I'm not even sure there ARE any Great Insights to be had on him - which isn't to say he's shallow, more that he's so honest he can't hide anything to become a Great Insight later.

Anyway, the rest of the day was boring as hell. Tik looked worried over Nori while she was sleeping, Tom slept quite a bit, we couldn't really go out in the cold, so we just sat, talked a bit, I read a bit (Tom couldn't, since we can't use the torches with Nori around, since the batteries go flat in less than a minute), and I'm catching up on this.

Hopefully, we'll be moving on tomorrow, and it should be a bit warmer - it can't get any colder anyway. Fingers crossed!

One Week Ago...

"I can see his nose!" Mick exclaimed while staring at the Ultrasound scan.

"Behave Mick," Laura slapped her husband's hand down as his overexcitement threatened to have him take to the air, wiggling slightly at the cold jelly on her stomach.
_______________

One Year Ago...

"Insect Queen... Behind you!"

Laura turned straight into a kiss from her new boyfriend. Mick was the town's resident hero - not that a small town like San Drew really needed a superhero - even big cities like New York and Metropolis didn't have any super-... well, anything, making the news yet, but the mayor still dubbed Foreman the Town's Official Hero, he was an official Deputy in the sheriff's office, and he flew overhead regularly on the lookout for what little crime there was.

And now she regularly joined him in flight. The serum's effect on her had been undeniable. The most important thing her new body had given her wasn't the looks, it was the confidence that came with them. Before, she'd always hidden at the back of the class, in the corner of a room, alone in her bedroom. No more - now she'd given herself the confidence to Stand Up And Be Counted, and the little mishap with her turning into Were-Bugs could be shrugged off just the same, once Mick had saved her. Now she was in control of her powers and her life, and she was in love. What more could she want?

She giggled and chased after Mick, her wings making a deep buzzing sound as she flew at top speed.
_______________

Eight Months Ago...

"I now pronounce you Man and Wife. You may kiss the Bride."

He spent a second looking the new Mrs. Laura Russell straight in the eyes before pulling her tight in a deep, passionate kiss, to which she eagerly responded. The clapping and cheering from their relatives didn't even register.

He remembered their first kiss like this, when she had been the one to grab him. It was when the STAR Labs technicians, who had tested him after he'd first gained his powers, said they'd found a way to stabilise her, with a ring that pulsed on a frequency that kept her form stable the way she willed it. It had been such a surprise - first that she'd kissed him at all, and then when he found out how he'd been her crush for years and years, but she'd been too shy to tell him. Obviously, that had changed.

As the kiss progressed, he phased into remembering his own "origin," when he'd been jogging just outside town when he saw a meteor land just over a ridge. Entranced, he touched the glowing object... and woke up the next afternoon in a STAR Labs facility. They'd tested him thoroughly for powers - unbeknownst to him at the time, they were testing him for psi-powers as part of a massive program they were participating in with two deep-black government agencies¹, and were disappointed at his lack of mind-manipulation powers, as he'd found when looking for information on other fragments of the meteor that might have empowered others. What he did get were super-strength and flight, his two fantasy powers, which he used to become Foreman, hero of San Drew. But the confidence was an act, until she kissed him and said she loved him.

The kiss broke only when they started to run out of oxygen. The night was even more special.
_______________

Four Months Ago...

"Well? Come on, come on..."

"Wait just a minute Mick."

"Well?"

She sighed. Sometimes, he was so enthusiastic he came across like a little boy. It was one of the things she loved about him. "It's changing..."

"Well?"

"Yes it is, it's changing."

"Well? Come on, come on..."

She looked up, stony faced. His own face fell, and on seeing that she couldn't contain her smile any longer. "You're going to be a daddy."

Some reports later suggested his cry of delight could be heard from the moon. This is of course arrant nonsense - there's no air on the moon.
_______________

Now...

He clasped her hand tightly as she strained and the head started to poke out, whispering words of encouragement to her as she finally came to an end of the marathon labour. Once the baby was out, the midwife took care of the placenta and handed the exhausted Laura her baby boy, wrapped in a white towel. Mick bent down to look at his newborn son, whispering the name they'd chosen to him. "Welcome to the world, Christopher Charles Russell."

Both proud parents smiled. A couple of weeks before, they'd heard of the forming of a Legion of Super-Heroes. If it had come a year earlier, both would have considered going for membership. But now, they were happy where they were, in San Drew, with each other, and their new son.

<span style="font-size: 10px;">Footnotes:

¹ - Cadmus and Checkmate. STAR were looking for additional recruits for the program that begat Tela.</span>

The private jet came in to land perfectly on the runway at Workforce HQ.

"Nice jet," Polarity called as his brother stepped off.

"Brande leant me it, along with his pilot for the day," Cosmic Boy replied.

"Hope you thanked him."

Cos sighed. "'f course. Ready?"

"As I'll ever be...," hoisting his bag over his shoulder, Polarity stepped aboard the plane for his flight home. Getting time off for this had been a nightmare, and there was no-one to see him off as the plane left the runway empty once more.
_________________________

"So, when'd it happen?"

"They're not sure exactly. They found her around 7am, and think she'd been lying there for two or three hours."

"Geez..."
_________________________

Three Hours Earlier:

"Cos, wait..."

Walking across the helipad, ready for his trip to the airport, he turned to see the three Trinities rushing towards him.

"Lorna?"

"You didn't think we'd let you sneak away without making sure you're okay, did you? Losing a gran isn't something we'd wish on anyone." "We just wanted you to know we're thinking of you." "And if you need someone to come with you, as a friend..."

"Lorna," He took Trinity-Neutral's hands in his, "the best thing you can do for me right now, as a friend, is to get yourself sorted out. Go and see Irma. Deal with your lost fortnight. Please."
_________________________

Four Hours Earlier:

Spark saw Paul get the call in the rec room. She couldn't hear what was said, but she could see from Paul's face that whatever it was it was Bad News. As soon as he walked across, shoulders slumped, she rushed to see what was wrong.

"Paul, what..."

Briefly, he remembered he technically wasn't talking to her over her reaction to his relationship with Enrapture, but Meta wasn't around - and wasn't exactly a shoulder to cry on anyway - and he needed to talk to someone. "It's my gran... t-they think she's had a stroke."

Ella instinctively threw her arms around Paul, comforting him for a minute before pulling out to have her hands on his shoulders. "How - when...?"

"I don't know, I think Rex mentioned the details, but I-I didn't catch them properly. He's going to call back when he's made travel arrangements if he can."

"Do you want me to come with you to see McCauley?"

"W..." Polarity was cut of in mid-sentence by a cough from Enrapture as she entered the room, and Spark noticed an instant change in his demeanour, as he stopped trembling.

"Hi Meta," he sad, kissing her on both cheeks. Listen, I can't see you tonight, my gran's been taken ill and I'll need to go and see her. Sorry..."

"Don't worry about it Paul, I'm sure there will be other times. You go and see your gran, okay?" Her tone struck Ella as being like nothing more than patting an obedient pet, as Paul left the room without taking any further notice of her.

After he left, Ella walked towards Meta, who didn't flinch in the slightest at the shorter girl approaching her. "Can I help you, Eileen?"

"I want to know where you get off playing with Paul's mind. I didn't think people like you really existed until I met you."

"'People like me'? How interesting. If you're that jealous, perhaps you shouldn't have said you weren't interested."

"My exact words were 'I don't think of you that way.' And I don't, I think of him like a brother. And, it might be news to you, but you don't bone your brother."

"Really? I thought where you came from it happened all the time."

In the corner, Andromeda tensed, ready to intervene if things got any worse, with sparks flying from Ella's eyes as it was, but Ella controlled herself enough to say, "If I see one sign from now on that you've played with his mind in any way, or you do anything to hurt him, you'll be on the receiving end of enough electricity to light up New York for a year. Understand?"

"Completely. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be out of here in half an hour and there was something I wanted to do." Meta calmly pushed Ella out the way, walked over to a computer terminal and sat down, while Ella seethed where she stood.
_________________________

As Paul and Rex approached the hospital room, neither quite knew what to expect. At the door, Paul made an "after you" gesture to his big brother, and reluctantly followed him in.

"R-R-R-Re-x-x-x-x! P-P-P-au-l-l-l-l-l!"

Their gran was sitting up in bed, a bandage over a significant cut on her head from where she'd fallen, but she didn't look too bad all things considered. Her new, terrible, juddering stutter, however, meant Paul struggled to hide his wince. Their dad, at her bedside as they arrived, shot a "don't mention it" glance at him.

In the meantime, Rex was speaking, asking her how she was, and she replied in the same juddering voice, making her impossible to understand.

Paul sat there, not quite silent but not saying much, for half an hour in extreme discomfort. When he eventually excused himself to go to the toilet, Rex followed after a couple of minutes and found him sitting on a toilet seat, crying in an open cubicle. He crouched down in front of him, forced a smile and clasped his shoulder in reassurance, but a few tears ran down his face too.

Igor Kuria was the easygoing type. Being the child of a Russian woman and Kenyan man who had grown up in Canada made him unusual already. Wasn't all that made him unusual though.

A tall guy and pale-skinned Asian woman came into his repair shop together one day, one with a Aussie accent and one with an accent he couldn't place but wasn't Canadian. More unusual.

"Hi," said the woman, "we were told to come here if we needed, ummm... 'unusual tech.'"

"'Pends what you mean by 'unusual'. I had one woman come in the other day asking for a v'brator with six hundred settings and option for extensions. Not the sort of thing I do, but I do do stuff other folks can't. What is it?"

"It's for a friend of ours," replied the guy, "she needs help, and..."

"Whoa - not a doctor friend."

"She's not ill - well, not in the conventional medical sense anyway, so a hospital couldn't help her, and she's tried enough times."

"It's hard to explain," continued the woman, "could you some and see at least? We'll pay you for the time even if you can't do anything."

Igor was tempted. Mostly out of curiosity, true, but still... "Sorry, don't do house calls. If your friend would come here, then maybe..."

"She can't. That's part of the problem. If..."

They saw his face, looked at each other, shrugged, and the woman leaped over his head while the guy pointed at him and pinned him to the ground. In return, Igor pointed at the guy's ankles, and a trail of green technology spurted from his finger, wrapped around the guy's ankle and pulled him down, freeing himself.

"We" the woman was making him dizzy "-didn't-" with the way she was jumping around him "-come-", keeping out of his reach "-here-" after she saw "-to-" what had happened to the guy "-fight!" who came with her.

"Doing a good impression of it sister, since you went for me first. So if you would stop hopping like a cricket, I'd be much obliged."

She stopped and looked at him cautiously. "What we said was true. Our friend needs help - her powers are killing her. She needs something to stop her absorbing electricity out of the air and overloading herself, and that's why we came to you for help. We didn't know you were superhuman yourself or we'd have explained earlier."

"Okay, okay, I'll come."

"Thanks. I'm Sul, by the way, and this is Tom."

"Name's Igor, but my friends call me the iGod."

Tom and Sul blinked at him, clearly trying not to laugh.

He noticed their response. "Ah, go ahead. Doesn't work on them either"

They sniggered.
___________________________________________

As they knocked and were let in to the locked and empty warehouse they were staying in by one of Tikhik's portals, they saw he was standing protectively over Nori, who was twitching uncontrollably.

"She's getting worse," he said as they walked over to him, "after being uncharged for days, suddenly being in the middle of power lines was too much for her, and she's already too overloaded to safely discharge." Suddenly, he registered Igor. "So who's this you've brought anyway?"

In response, Igor let out a stream of Russian words neither Sul nor Tom understood. Seeing their surprised looks, he said "C'mon - the name's Igor. Mom would never have forgiven me if I hadn't learned the mother tongue."

"You just said you'd 'had a large amount of me'," Tikhik groused. "Now shut up and help her."

Igor let it go and his arm suddenly shifted into a mass of green machinery. Tikhik blinked.

"I'll explain later," Igor's smile was gone now, and he was focused on his task. The other two had explained Noriko's problem on the way over - she absorbed electricity from nearby things; electrical appliances, power lines, you name it; and couldn't control it. And when she got overloaded, she started talking too fast, and then she thought so fast she became incoherent, then she ended up like this. And the only significant way of getting rid of it were massive blasts which weren't really an option.

Gingerly, very carefully, he extended a tendril from the midst of his disassembled arm. This was going to be tricky to do without overloading himself, and he mentally created resistors, transformers and circuit-breakers along the length of the tendril, bulking it up, to protect himself from the surge that came as he made contact.

The pain was worse than he'd expected, given his precautions, but it was bearable and he could tell that he could take it safely for a while. Now came the first of the tricky parts, as he extended the tendril around her neck until it joined up with itself and pulled it tight. Somewhere on the periphery of his consciousness he heard Gates shout something, but it didn't really register as he extended mini-tendrils from the main one into her skin, concentrating on avoiding nerves and significant blood vessels on his way to her brain.

Gradually, the longer it went on, and the deeper he got, the more he could filter out the signals from the electrical storm assailing his senses, until he could feel her mind brushing against his. He shouted her name into the maelstrom, trying to get her attention, unconsciously speeding up his perceptions to match her own. He tried again, and was rewarded with a whisper, almost indistinguishable in the storm, and he chased for the source. Then he saw her, or a representation of her, curled in a foetal position and barely aware of what was going on in the storm.

Reaching her, his avatar touched the shoulder of hers, and she turned to look at him. Her first words were confusion - who was he, how was he here.

"My name's Igor," he said gently. "Your friends looked me up to help you, and that's what I'm trying to do."

"Can you... take this away. Let me think clearly?" Her avatar shifted slightly as she said this. It had matched her real-life self, with lank grey hair, but her hair now shifted to an electric-blue bob.

"Sort of." He spent a moment feeling for his other tendrils, and confirming what he'd thought. "I can calm this down temporarily - I'll leave you with a collar like this" a green circlet, covered in rough circuitry, appeared in his hand, "linked into your brain, it'll fool your body into keeping you at a safe level, instead of the overcharge/undercharge mess you have just now. But it won't last forever - in two-three months, it'll be burnt out with the voltage you channel."

"What then?" Her oversized purple poloneck shirt had faded to a tight white crop-top as she got excited, but the poloneck began to reappear as he told her it was only temporary.

"Up to you. I can feel it - you can control your powers Nori, you just never had the chance to learn how with the way they turned up. I'm giving you that chance. Whether you take it is up to you..."

Her face looked confused for a moment, then determined.

"One more thing. I've leeched enough electricty off you for you to wake up now. When you do, there's a pole in front of you. Grab it and force all the electrity you can through it. You'll probably conk out afterward, but when you wake up, you should be clear-headed enough to say thanks."

He severed the tendril, woke up and fell back. He wanted to lie down, but it wasn't safe and he got up and motioned the others away while he ran, as Nori woke up, grabbed the pole as he'd told her, and discharged into it in a blinding flash. Once the flash was over, he saw her collapsed on the ground and motioned the others to go back now. The pole itself was melted almost to slag, but the electric field around Nori herself appeared to have protected her...

Nori woke up, and the first thing she did was pick at her collar. She knew she needed it, and was grateful for the chance to think clearly for the first time in... and she couldn't believe this... three years, but she had an itch she couldn't scratch all the way around her neck.

"How yo feelin'?"

She turned to look at Igor, "Stop faking that stupid accent."

"Hey, I..."

"You didn't in my head, you were being honest there, you're faking it here."

"But..."

"Enough. We're not tourists and this isn't one of your acting classes cueball."

"How..." Igor looked completely flabbergasted.

Nori just shrugged. "You were in my head. You must have left some info behind. Thanks for the fix, by the way."

At that moment Sul stuck her head round the corner and said, "Ah, you're up & about. Tik wants a word if you've got a minute."

Nori shrugged "Sure" and was gone from Igor's sight between eyeblinks, leaving him confused.
_________________

"You were asking about me?"

Tikhik jumped as he heard the voice behind him, as if from nowhere, and turned to see Nori grinning at his reaction, putting any and all thoughts momentarily out of his head.
_________________

"So what's your story?" Sul asked Igor, breaking him out his trance.

"Grandparents on my dad's side were Kenyan, but they emigrated to Canada when they were in my twenties with my dad. When my dad grew up, he met my mom, who was a, well, defector not to put too fine a point on it, from the old Soviet U and they got married and had me. When I was five, I tripped and fell - nothing unusual, except that instead of forming a scab it got covered in this green machinery, which got covered over with skin and everything was alright. Except I could feel it, stuff shifting inside of me - never told them though. Then, three years ago, they both died in a car crash. Been on my own since."
_________________

Nori knelt down opposite Tikhik, leaning back against her heels, while he got his head in order.

"So, how are you?" he finally asked.

"Weird - I mean, I feel weird. This collar-thing's itchy & just having my head clear & working at its proper speed after all this time, its, well," she spent a moment searching for an alternative word, then just shrugged and finished, "weird!"

"How much do you remember?"

"Not much. The occasional thing here and there, but 99% of the past three years is just gone. I do remember an impromptu skydiving lesson though, and you spending what seemed like a whole day trying to get me to eat soup while I was frozen and wiped."

"You looked hungry," Tik shrugged.

Unconsciously, Nori tilted her head slightly to the side slightly on hearing the way he said it, but what she said was "Whether I was or wasn't then, I'm starving now. I don't think I've eaten actual food in the last three years, so..."

"Go and have a word with Tom then - he's over there - since he's the one who normally heats food up for us. Just don't eat too quickly if you've not..."

"Ta..." and Nori was gone.

"You can't said much for someone who's spent the last week panicking about her." Sul's voice caused Tikhik to jump just as he was about to settle into one of his "brooding periods", as she'd taken to calling them.

"She's alright, and that's the important thing," Tikhik said, before adding, "Were you listening to us? I thought you were talking with Igor..."

"He was just telling me his family history, nothing that can't wait, and I wasn't too bothered about hearing it; so when I heard that crackle she makes when she's running so quick, I came to see whether you'd really fallen out within five minutes of actually meeting her."

"She was hungry, and I sent her over to Tom to have some food."

"Ah-hah. Right."

Tik just shook his head...
_______________________

The next day, Tom woke up late as usual, and looked around the warehouse. While the only windows were at roof level, they lit the warehouse up fine, and it looked like there was no-one around at first, until he eventually saw Tikhik on a gantry up near the roof, looking out through the windows.

While the steel platform itself looked solid enough, Tom didn't trust the slimy, rotted stairs that led up to it, and expected that Tik hadn't either, so he walked over to just below the gantry and concentrated. He'd been working on levitating without the wild tumbling that had characterised his earlier attempts, and had just about got to the point where he managed to keep the centre of gravity low enough to prevent that without risking pulling his feet off his legs, but this was higher than he'd tried before and he was nervous all the way up, until he managed to grab the edge of the gantry and pull himself onto it.

Tik didn't seem to notice his arrival, but Tom knew from experience how faraway his mind could get when he was staring out like this, and shook his shoulder to get his attention. "This what you do when there's no sea around?" he asked.

"I'm fine Tom, just thinking..."

"I guessed. Where is everyone?"

"Sul and Nori found some Japanese banknotes in one of Nori's pockets, and went to see if they could exchange it for local money, then get some new clothes for Nori which fit her. Igor just went home last night after you went to sleep."

"I thought he was interested in coming with us?"

"From what I saw, he was more interested in Sul. Apparently, she's still coming with us though, and he may or may not come back to go with us as well, and if he does, I suppose he would have to be at least somewhat interested in what we're trying to do."

"Right. So when are you planning to eat something?

"I..."

"Don't give me that Tik, I know you too well. For the past few days, you've been teleporting big chunks of food away when you think no-one's looking. Specifically, what is it? McCauley, Nori, nerves, what?"

Tikhik looked at his best friend, "All of those in their way, but mostly I was just thinking again, looking down there at this town - I'll never be able to do that again, ever. I can't go home - my parents would never believe it was me, and even if they did, how fair would it be to them?"

"Tik, I'm sure..."

"No, they'd be like Nori's parents. I never quite fit in - that's why I went on that trip to the US, to try and fit with my classmates. And now they're dead, and I'm like this. And how many others did McCauley kill, maim or mutate? I saw someone turned into a misshapen monster with two front legs and a huge tail. I saw someone locked in a spacesuit because they couldn't breathe normal air. I saw, I sau,..." his voice cut out. It didn't tail off, it just stopped halfway into the last syllable.

Tom put his hand on Tik's shoulder. "Deep breaths, come on. I know it was horrible, and I know we can't put right what he did wrong, but we can stop him doing any more. We WILL stop him."

Tikhik's voice finally broke back through, in the form of a loud sob. "Yes," he finally forced out, "we will."
________________

"Slow DOWN!"

Ming Sul could outpace any Olympic athlete over any distance. As she shouted, she was running at 30 mph and had been constantly for almost ten minutes.

Noriko Ashida was leaving her trailing.

"NORI! Slow..."

"...down?" Suddenly, Nori was running alongside her, backwards, small bolts of electricity bouncing from her bare arms to her exposed torso and back again, easily matching her for speed despite jogging backwards. She had a wide grin on her face.

"Okay," Sul panted slightly as she slowed, Nori slowing with her, "okay..."

"Sorry," Nori's grin dropped as they slowed and she saw how flushed Sul was.

"S'okay," Sul gave herself a minute, and pushed her long black hair, matted with sweat, out of her face before continuing, "just the first time I've ever been outrun, ever. How fast were you going?"

"I don't know - it's the first time I've ever been able to stretch my legs like that - ever. Felt good, especially being able to feel the wind on my skin without all that stuff weighing me down."

Indeed, Nori was barely recognisable as the girl Tikhik had rescued from the gang a week earlier. Besides the fact that she was clean, her too-big poloneck and skirt had been replaced by a white croptop, slightly baggy jeans and white trainers. The single biggest change, though, was in her hair. Her lank grey hair, which had obscured her face, was gone, replaced with a short bob. Dyed electric blue - as she'd said to Sul when picking it, how could she resist? She also wore a rucksack with some extra clothes, including a jacket and underwear, within - her old clothes having been dropped off at a charity shop, on the offchance someone would want them.

Sul had recovered her composure by this stage and looked around the chilly country road. "We'd better be getting back - it's starting to get dark."

"Fine..." Nori sped off, before running back and saying "Come on," and starting off again at a slightly more sedate pace.

Sul just shook her head and started running.
__________________

They arrived back at the warehouse just as the sun was beginning to disappear and the western sky was a dusky blue, and on knocking hard the way they'd arranged, a green portal appeared to let them in.

Of the three, Tom was the first to notice Nori's new look as Tik and Igor talked. Not that he actually said anything, more that he boggled at the difference.

Igor, when he looked, was less shocked as it resembled the look her avatar had had as it got more optimistic, but still muttered something about the degree of change. Tikhik just said, "Nice haircut," and left it at that before announcing that they were leaving the next day and Igor was going with them. And that, with luck, they would be in range to teleport within the day when they landed, and they needed a plan. Sul, exhausted, slumped down beside them as they talked. Nori wasn't sure how she should take the responses as she sat down too.

Micro shifted against the squishy thing to his left. This wasn't going to be pleasant. He proceeded to close his eyes as he saw the huge three-pronged metal implement head towards him and scoop him up. As soon as he felt the damp warmth close around him and the shifting of the soft ground, he grew.

In moments, prisoner M11811W194's head was scattered around the walls of his cell in 3003 seperate solid pieces, to count nothing of the innumerable blood splashes and leaks accompanying it as his heart continued to pump for several moments, blood gushing out of the gaping wound that was his neck, small amounts leaking down his windpipe and foodpipe as it did so.

"Justice is served, huh?" Micro mused aloud as he, enclosed from head-to-toe in a black drysuit with blood-splattered one-way mirrored mask, jumped to the window, grabbed the bars, and shrunk down to minisule size, before growing for the descent into the black hole which appeared in mid-air.
___________________

Mano looked at the camera. This was going perfectly, damn it. All the information they'd been given suggested that the group who had shot Ultraboy was small, a close-knit group of ten to fifteen people, although they were well organised and made free use of the "Second Amendment."

The member who'd actually shot Ultraboy had already been assassinated by Micro, who was in the home of another member now, waiting for a chance to hitch a ride on him, unnoticed, to allow them to track the meeting place. Intel suggested a meeting was due tonight, triggered by the gunman's death ironically enough, suggesting that their sense of self-preservation was on the blink.

It would be one to remember.
___________________

Micro reported in. They were all there, little ducks in a row.

Wolf checked his claws.

Tellus sighed audibly.

Mano just stared straight ahead.

The three rushed out their van, and Mano vapourised the door of the ordinary-looking domestic residence.

"Good evening gentleman."

Every single man in the room went for his gun - only to inexplicably drop it on the floor in response to a pulse from the nodules on Tellus' back. Micro grew and went to join the others.

Mano continued, "recently, you tried to send a signal to Leonard McCauley. Mr. McCauley doesn't take "signals" very happily, so he's asked us to RSVP to you in person. I am truly sorry about this, but I have no choice."

Mano began the rout immediately, grabbing someone with his left hand of Pain, and crushing his throat one-handed as the man tried to scream.

Micro was more creative. He shrunk down so he could walk into the pores of someone's leg. He then expanded his arm, shattering his limb. He then repeated the procedure with the man's other four limbs... and then left him to bleed to death.

Tellus crushed another's skull with his club-like tail and used his telepathy to give another man a fatal aneurysm,

Wolf slashed another in half, crotch to sternum, his claws rending both flesh and bone easily, leaving only his head and upper neck intact as the man screamed in his last moments.

Mano continued, using his Right Hand of Destruction to clear the path to someone's heart, then ripped it out with his left hand and held it in front of the man for the thirty seconds it took for the light to fade from his eyes, as the beating slowed and stopped.

Wolf and Tellus double-teamed someone else, Wolf sundering his legs from his body before Tellus caved his chest in with his tail.

And so it continued, until all that was left of the group was a pile of corpses, several in bits or with holes in them, lying on the floor, blood staining the carpet and floorboards beneath.
____________________

The four walked calmly out to the van and drove off afterward, to a pre-determined safehouse. They wouldn't make contact with the outside world for at least a week to prevent directly linking the massacre to McCauley. Each had their own thoughts in the matter - Mano had no particular sympathy for their cause, but hated to do anything at McCauley's pleasure. Wolf, now the red mist was fading, was troubled. Tellus closed his eyes and slept, and Micro listened to techno-rap.

A successful mission.

Endgame, T-1 day

Andromeda lay curled in her bed. She'd heat-visioned the door to seal it - probably a mistake, but the least of her worries right now, with the dry red stain still on her gloves. Blood still on her hands.

The day replayed itself in her head yet again. It had started innocuosly enough - Polarity was away visiting his sick gran, and had been due back later in the day, so there had been only six at breakfast, which went quietly. She'd been paired with Enrapture for the day, and had made a note to ask her at some point about the current situation - her and Spark fighting wouldn't help anything, but it wasn't something she'd got round to.

It was at the third and longest call of the day It had happened.

There were no photographers or anything of the sort, amazingly enough. It was an arms manufacturing depot which had called them in for half a day, to get her to scan for spy-devices and Enrapture to scan for infiltrators, having suspected something was going on.

An hour in, she'd heard an odd buzz in the background and had investigated, tracking it down to the middle of a crowded area. After prompting Enrapture to scan the area, someone had recoiled momentarily from the probe, then suddenly moved at a speed only Andromeda could follow, shifting his arms into guns. At that moment she'd seen it - a silver necklace, with a Triangle-shaped pendant glistening white in the light. The gunman had moved toward Enrapture, displaying his immunity to her telepathy now he was ready for it. He'd raised his "arm" - then his head had blown into a million fragments. At the end of Andromeda's fist.

Shocked at what she'd done, she'd frozen while Enrapture took charge of the scene, scanning for others. Andromeda then excused herself, calling HQ to pull Dragonmage off his PR stunt and send him in as a backup before taking off, flying high. She'd had the power to stop the guy, she'd killed him. And, and...

Even as she arrived back, however, they already had the news that they greeted her with - there wouldn't be any charges, the local PD had "understood" the need for the force used in the light of an apparent terrorist attack. "In a post-9/11 world", they "understood" that you couldn't be too careful when dealing with terrorists, especially super-powered ones.

If they understood it, perhaps they could explain it to Andromeda.

Endgame, T-12 hours

Trinity stood at her window, watching the pouring rain, the three of her brooding silently, thinking about what Cos and Shifter had said.

Her talk with Shifter had pointed out to her the inconsistancy in her refusal to get help, that she couldn't explain, and Cos' plea for her to get help even as he was going off to see his gran's possible death weighed on her. She felt trapped in an ever-tightening box, and wanted out.

She envied the Legionnaires who could fly. New York city streets weren't equipped for going for a proper walk, the canyons formed by the skyscrapers combining with the sheer mass of people to ensure she, after growing up in a small town, just couldn't lose herself in a walk. But flying... she'd only done it once, before the flight rings were confiscated, but even then, in formation with the other Legionnaires...

She remerged, turned and headed down the corridor, intending to pay someone a visit...
_________________________

"What flight rings? Remember - they were all taken."

"Lyle, if you and your boyfriend didn't secretly make a hundred new rings to replace the confiscated ones, I want to know who you are and what you've done with Invisible Kid."

Lyle blushed slightly at the reference to Catalyst as his "boyfriend," but not at her expectation. His silence told Trinity all she needed to know.

"Where?"

"Lorna, they're for emergencies. I've not been going off flying every five minutes - and I've wanted to often enough." He saw her face and knew what it meant. "I can only give you one anyway - we didn't make anything like a hundred."

"One'll be enough. Thanks, Lyle."
__________________________

Soaring through the air, rain lashing across her face, Trinity was free. Only, she wasn't. Even there, in mid air, she still feel the weight of her problems pulling her down to Earth.

"Well, what did you expect?" Purple's nagging voice, denied physical expression by the danger of splitting in mid air, cut through her reverie, "that we'd get into the air and all our troubles would just suddenly *be* so far away?" Instantly, her other selves started to argue with Purple, and her head threatened to explode. She couldn't split to relieve it, and she could barely keep aloft through the internal conflict.

Floating in mid-air, her tears added to the rain on her cheeks.
__________________________

Irma was sitting with Garth on her couch, arms around each other, when she heard a knock at her door.

Disentangling herself, she walked over and opened the door to see Trinity standing there like a drowned rat.

"Help."

Endgame, T-5 hours

McCauley sat in his chair in the early morning light, reading Enrapture's report on the incident at the arms factory the previous day. Clearly the right choice had been made, and there was nothing worth worrying about. He leaned back in his chair. Apart from the annoying matter of the "statue" in his garden having vanished the previous week, presumed stolen - which while very annoying after the trouble he'd gone to to get hold of it, wasn't a major problem of the order the insect could have caused, and he expected that it would be retrieved shortly - everything was going smoothly...
______________________________

Endgame, T-4 hours

"I'll ****ing kill him!"

For even Trinity-Purple to use such language was rare. For Trinity-Orange it was absolutely unprecedented.

But while Leviathan's giant hand was holding the three Trinities down until they'd calmed enough to function, their anger wasn't directed at him. And one glance and the countermances of the others looking on showed that, even if they weren't ranting, they shared their teammate's anger at her violation.

Someone would pay.
________________

Earlier, Lorna had finally broken down and asked for help from Irma, after a month since her return from her mysterious disappearance.

For Tela, finding something big hadn't been unexpected. But what she found was. She wondered how to break it to Trinity, but as she was in Trinity's mind, her unease - though not the specific cause - was communicated to Lorna herself.

"What is it?" Lorna asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

Irma choked. She had to tell her. "Remember how I said everyone has psi-shields to some extent, and I said yours were especially strong and we worked on making them stronger still?"

Trinity nodded.

"Well, since we did that, someone's put a...," she struggled to find the word, "a 'door' in your shield. Any telepath who knew about it could get into your mind without any effort and..." again she paused, this time simply to collect herself. This was disgusting... "alter your mind without effort in any way they wanted to. They could make you do anything, forget anything, make fake memories, alter your personality.... To whoever did this you wouldn't be a person, just a..."

She stopped, overwhelmed by the mix of fear, panic and rage coming from Trinity, who split trying to make sense of it all. Purple asked who, Neutral asked if whatever damage had been done could be undone. Orange said nothing.

"I don't know yet. Once you remerge, I'm going to put you to sleep and see what I can do - I should be able to undo the damage." I hope, she didn't add aloud.
______________________________

Endgame, T-2 hours

Tikhik was the first to emerge from his own portal, naturally enough, but Tom, Nori, Sul and Igor weren't far behind, and they stood for a minute, looking over the famed Metropolis skyline from the southern slope of Mount McCauley, of all places (formerly Mt. Apricot). Tikhik knew he was almost there now, and they went down into the city to kill a few hours while they planned.
______________________________

Endgame, T-30 minutes

Andromeda lay in bed after a sleepless night. She hadn't changed her clothes, and so still wore the bloodstained costume from the previous day when she heard a crackling at the door, and saw a white flash melting her weld from the previous day. She lay back as the weld was broken and Spark opened the door.

"Laurel?"

Andromeda didn't show any sign she'd heard.

"Earth to Andromeda..." Spark looked very worried at seeing her lying back, eyes open, Andromeda thought. Pity she was wasting concern on her.

Ella paused for a moment, then looked Andromeda straight in the eyes. She wasn't breathing, but she knew that didn't mean anything with Laurel, given how long she could hold her breath for.

"LAUREL!" She yelled straight in Andromeda's ear, while letting off a huge flash right in front of Andromeda's face. Even Andromeda couldn't remain impassive at that combination, and yelped, rolling off the bed away from Spark.

"Laurel, are you okay?"

"If we say I'm not, hypothetically, would you say a bright flash in front of my face and someone shouting in my ear when I've got super-sensitive sight & hearing would help?"

"You scared me."

"Maybe I scare myself... look!" she thrust her bloodstained gloves at Spark.

Spark paused, trying to think for a moment on how to react to Andromeda's hyperemotional state. "Laurel, it's done. For better or worse, it's done," she said firmly, "If you can't deal with it, maybe you should try and get help, or ask if you can take a break. C'mon, I'm here to take you down anyway, since Paul's just got back and McCauley wants to see us all, so you can ask him there. Go and get a fresh uniform and I'll wait while you get washed."

Laurel allowed herself to be steered towards the shower at that, while Spark called McCauley to explain the delay.
________________

"WHAT!?" McCauley sounded utterly shocked at the concept of an unscheduled request for time off - and immediate time-off at that - with the added audacity of him being interrupted having already been delayed by the requestee, "Out of the question, I have clients expecting you specifically for the next fortnight. Now, if I may continue.."

"Please, I can't continue like this for now. I need a break," Andromeda's voice was becoming uncharacteristically raised.

McCauley didn't read the signs. "No."

"Please,..." She was outright pleading now.

"No."

Laurel swallowed. Hard. "I need to do this. I'd rather go with your permission, but if I must, I'll go without and quit."

"You can't. You signed a contract saying you would obey my orders for its' duration, and I'm ordering you to land and to remain within this building until I say otherwise."

Andromeda floated down, straining against herself. But she was not about to drop it. "Let me go!"

"No."

"Let me GO!" she shrieked

"Drop it Laurel," Spark muttered too quietly for anyone else to hear. She was regretting having brought up the idea now, and was worried about what was going to happen to Andromeda if this kept up.

"No."

"LET ME GO!"

"No."

"LET ME GO!"

"No. Now obey me and be quie..." McCauley stopped suddenly. Andromeda had fallen forward, her head, elbows and knees on the ground, screaming.

Andromeda stood slowly, then silently hovered in the air, eyes glowing red.

McCauley gaped at her as it dawned on him what had just happened. He'd pushed her too far. Her programming was gone, her memory restored.

The chained princess had cast off her shackles.

She was become Death.

His Death.

Endgame: Ignition

Andromeda hovered there, unspeaking for a few moments, her only movement a slight trembling in her limbs. McCauley took advantage of that to press a button on his watch, and a lilac-skinned elven girl appeared.

"Send her somewhere - anywhere away from me and my property!" McCauley screamed at the girl. At that, Andromeda began to tear towards him, eyes still glowing, but not faster than the blink of an eye. She was gone.

"Now, send me you-know-where. And you -" he gestured at the other Workforcers, "- you, protect this place. Except you -" he pointed at Enrapture "- you come with me."

This time the elven girl raised two spears and threw them at McCauley and Enrapture, who both vanished. Then, for the first time since she'd been forced to ignore Trinity's pleas for help, the girl known as Blink smiled. McCauley screaming to send the leader of his Workforce away "anywhere away from him and his property" could mean only one thing. And she'd taken the command literally - and taken her first chance to do something to stop her "master."
____________________

Earlier:

Cosmic Boy's helicopter landed atop the skyscraper which contained Legion HQ. Unaware of what had happened shortly after his plane had left Polarity at Workforce HQ, he tore toward and down the stairs, the lift too slow for him at that moment. The only time he paused at all was to collect himself outside Trinity's room, and then only for a moment.

"How is she? Who did this?" he walked in, imbuing his voice with all the authority he could command after a trying three days, between his gran's stroke and the... horrible... news about Lorna.

"She's... well... she's angry." Tela, now sitting alone at Trinity's bedside, sounded exhausted as she spoke, "I've put everything back into place as best I can for now, and I treble-checked all the 'back doors' are shut and nailed locked, but her levels of emotion are making it difficult."

Cos remembered when the call came in from Garth six hours before at the hotel where he'd been staying, filling him in on how Trinity had finally come to ask for help, and the shocking results of her initial scan - how Trinity had been made to forget the fortnight, through a "back door" inserted into her mind, making her like "a puppet on a string." Cos had rushed back immediately, and guessed that Tela had been working constantly to undo the damage since Garth's phone call. He asked a couple more questions, got answers, then said, "You can't do anything more for her just now then?"

"I'm keeping her in REM sleep, trying to let her work out her anger without Gene having to pin her to the floor again."

"If she wakes up, I'll handle her. Go to bed. You look like you need to sleep yourself pretty desperately."

"But,..."

"GO! That's an order."

Normally, Irma would have argued, but after a busy day and a night of psychic surgery, working to undo the injury which had been done to Trinity, she was exhausted and her resources were low. She simply didn't have the strength to argue, and so trundled off to bed and hoped that Cos knew what he was letting himself in for.

Cos was left alone by Trinity's bedside, and while she still slept, dialled a number he kept in his head on her bedside phone.

"Brande." The gruff voice always answered the phone curtly, so much so it seemed almost out of character to those who knew him well, but Cos detected an even quicker edge to it than usual.

"Mr Brande, it's Rex. I'm at her bedside now, and I just sent Irma to bed. She was exhausted."

"By damn, how IS she?"

"Irma says she's stablised, but she was very angry..."

"Understandably so, I'd say!"

"I agree, but it means she can't quite get a bead on whether she's done or not. Most of the damage, at least, is fixed though and all the back doors are - quote - 'shut and nailed locked' - unquote. No-one's using her as a puppet again."

"Who was it?"

"Apparently, Leonard McCauley."

On Cos' answer, Brande went silent. That was very bad. Cos had come to know the old man well since he'd helped to save his life, and his anger was usually accompanied by a verbal explosion. He'd only seen him go silent once in anger, when his face twisted in a snarl, his fists balled up so tight that the skin almost split at the knuckles, and following pronouncements were in a low growl composed of pure hatred, leading Cos to fear he might have a stroke or heart attack.

Trying to move Brande's thoughts away from McCauley and back to Lorna, Cos asked when he was due in.

"An hour," Brande said in the low voice he'd expected and feared, "Damn weather's cost me at least two hours, and I won't land at JFK for at least forty-five minutes. I'll be straight up when I get there - keep an eye on her Rex, please."

"You don't have to ask, sir..." Cos' eyes turned to Lorna's sleeping form and hung there for a long moment. "Cosmic Boy out." Placing the phone on the reciever, he took Irma's seat by the bedside, and held Lorna's hand in his own while he waited for her to wake.
______________________

"Look up there in the sky!"

"Is it a bird?"

"Is it a plane?"

Tikhik looked at his comrades, an expression somewhere between annoyance and amusement on his face.

"Come on, we're in Metropolis! The place Superman's set," Sul grinned. "You have to say it!"

"Not on your life,..." Tik said, adding, "American capitalistic figleaf symbol..." under his breath.

"Hey, look up there for real!" Tom called, as they saw a red-clad figure blast across the sky, leaving a fiery trail behind.

They ran to see where the trail landed, unfortunately missing the "BREAKING NEWS" on the TVs in a nearby shop window saying "Trouble at McCauley Industries Workforce?" in the process.
______________________

Cos felt Trinity stir a moment before she groaned. "Hi. How do you feel?"

"Drained," Lorna leaned forward and rubbed her face, "Like someone got inside and sucked all the life out of me..."

"Irma said you took it pretty hard..."

"There's another way to take it? Did she tell you what it turned out to be?"

"Yeah. She also said Gene was making some calls to get a green-light."

"'Calls.' 'Green light'. Didn't need a green light for..."

"Shhhh..." Cos gently took her in his arms and held her until she stopped shaking.

"It's not just me either - what I saw - I think Paul and Garth's sister got similar treatment. When I figured that out, I decided it didn't matter what happened to me and went for the nearest phone when I should have kept doing what I had been, looking for a way out. I should have... I DID realise what would happen, and I did it anyway. Stupid..."

"Lu, listen to me - It is not your fault. Okay? It's the fault of whoever did this to you - McCauley and the people he employed to do it. Not you."

"But..."

"What's Purple saying just now? Is she saying 'But...' or 'Kick butt'?"

Trinity smiled weakly as confirmation.

"Well, sometimes, just sometimes, it's Purple you should listen to."

"Speaking of listening; listen Cos, I... I..." she stuttered for a moment, then moved closer, lips pursing.

"No...," Cos gently pushed her back, "You have no idea how much I'd like to... but not when you're barely hanging together like this."

"Cos... I..."

"I'd feel like I was taking advantage. Please..."

Before they could continue, however, there was a loud crash, and both instinctively rushed out to see the cause. As they reached the lobby, they and the other Legionnaires who had dashed to the source of the noise saw it - a hole in the ceiling, and a dent in the floor occupied by Andromeda.

As Andromeda groggily raised herself to her hands and knees, wondering what had happened, she felt a muscle twitch in her back as what seemed like a giant rubber ball hit it, but didn't think much of it.

(Rebound, on the other hand, thought much of it as he was penalised for his hasty attack by being sent through the hole in the ceiling, then rattled around helplessly in the room above until Kinetix caught him while preparing to mend the ceiling some moments later.)

She wondered what had happened - she'd been accelerating toward McCauley, then suddenly he wasn't there and the ground was another floor height away, and she'd been so surprised she'd gone straight through one floor and almost the next one too.

Her eyes snapped open, still staring at the ground - of course, she'd been teleported. Which meant she could be anywhere. Which meant she'd have some explaining to do about the floor at best.

She contemplated making a run for it, until a male voice "coughed" and she pushed herself up to see almost the whole Legion of Super-Heroes standing around her. In their own lobby, she recognised. Crap.
_______________

Cos wasn't sure how to react. After all the news the past eight hours had brought about McCauley, and what he'd done to Trinity, and presumably to the Workforce, suddenly the leader of the Workforce was standing... well, floating... in the middle of a bunch of debris caused by her crashing into the building. Without punching a hole in the outside. And she looked at least as surprised as anyone else there at what had just happened. He subconsciously moved in front of Trinity while taking a moment to decide on his course of action, especially with the team reportedly and visibly keyed up by the news.

"Legion, a..."

"Stand down." Cos cut Leviathan off before he could finish giving the attack order. Given Andromeda's confusion, the fact that she'd not attacked anyone despite her speed (Chuck didn't count, since she hadn't even seemed to notice him), her overall power level, and their location all combined to make fighting a bad idea. "Andromeda, what's going on?" he asked her over the murmurs, hoping Irma would be awake enough if needed.

"I-I-I..." she stuttered, trying to stall for a moment, before deciding, "I need to speak to you, privately. And Live Wire as well."

"All right," he said quickly, before adding, "provided Trinity can come as well. If this is what I think it is, it concerns her too."

Andromeda looked puzzled, but agreed. Before they left the lobby, however, Leviathan waylaid him to demand he be included in the talks too.

"Gene, firstly she's non-hostile. If she wasn't, she could have knocked most of us out before we even had our bearings. Secondly, you were about to give the order to attack her; she's hardly likely to trust you. Thirdly, get Irma up, we might need her. Fourthly, I need you to keep pushing for a green light more than ever at this point. Okay?"

"Fine," Leviathan said, with a tone that said the opposite. Under the cirumstances, however, Cos didn't have time for military 'intelligence', and walked over to the right-hand door, indicating that the others should follow.

"Wait a minute Cos..." The four looked around, to see Zoë floating down from fixing the ceiling, "I just wondered if Andromeda would like her costume fixed first"

Laurel looked down at her badly ripped costume, and asked Kinetix if she would do it - and to the surprise of those there, could she give her an actual change, not just a fixed-up costume. Zoë thought for a moment, thought about the Andromeda star-galaxy, and with a wave of her hand changed Laurel's ripped blue costume into a suit with black sparkly legs, collar and shoulders, a large four-pointed star to match her hair colour in the middle of her chest, and white covering the rest of her torso and arms, with her sleeves ending in gold chains around the wrists.

Laurel liked it for the most part, but asked for the chains on the wrists to be changed, to which Zoë reluctantly obliged, making her wrists match the material on her shoulder and legs. When she got the chance to design for someone else, she liked to keep the whole look as she envisaged.
_________________

Once they were ensconced in a spare bedroom, Andromeda proceeded to spill her guts about what had happened to her, and Cos, realising that she needed to let it out, just let her talk for the most part, taking mental notes on how it compared to Trinity's experience, Garth sat and looked edgy, and T-Purple marched around the room while her other selves sat very still.

Once Andromeda had finished, Cos looked at Trinity-Neutral, and she asked him to tell it, which he did as briefly as possible. Afterward, they sat in silence for some moments, interrupted for Cos by a flash from Tela to let him know she was there and had been waiting for a quiet moment. Feeling her exhaustion, he confined himself to one question - could she be trusted?

«She's telling the truth, if that's what you mean. She's in an even worse state than Lorna was though - she only broke the programming and blocks because she was already teetering, and McCauley literally pushed her over the edge, and she's transferring a load of self-hatred from... something... she did recently - I can't see what, it's too raw - onto him over and above everything else. If you take her when you go to confront him, she'll probably kill him and then herself.»

«Right... thanks,» Cos closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, «One more thing before you go back to bed - can you make her really, really tired, the sort of tired where she can't keep her eyes open and needs at least eight hours sleep desperately?»

«Now more than ever, wh...» then it hit Irma. She blamed her own tiredness for making her ask the question, «s'okay, got it. It should hit her within the next couple of minutes.»

«Thanks Irma - go and get a few hours yourself. We'll need you again before long.»

He felt her go, like a buzzing he hadn't noticed until it stopped, and looked around.
________

Laurel was sitting, trying to make small talk with one of the Trinities when she felt the wave of tiredness suddenly wash over her. Trinity-Orange noticed her head slump and grabbed her shoulder in case her head hit the table, but Laurel waved her away, forcing her head up straight.

"You alright?" T-Orange asked.

"Fine, I think everything just caught up with me."

"If you want some rest," Cos broke in, "you can use this room - it's a spare."

While Trinity-Purple gave Cos an odd glance at the way he said it, Laurel was in no position to say no, and they filed out the room to give her a shot at sleep. Cos pointed out the standard dressing gown and towels as they left the room, but Laurel didn't hear - she just fell into the bed, costume and all, and was asleep within moments.

Three Hours Later:

"For the third time - NO!"

Garth took half a step back, clenched his fist so tightly it hurt and closed his eyes before they started sparking at the idiot. Irma noticed the gesture and put her arm around him quietly while Cos tried to convince the bureaucrat what they needed to do. In the meantime, Lorna was staring daggers at Gene, who was making no audible effort to back Cos up despite what they'd agreed and looked like he wished he hadn't. Cos himself, meanwhile, seemed to be the calmest in the room - true, there was a slight strain at the edge of his voice, but he had himself well under control, despite being baulked by a person at least three levels too junior to authorise anything, but who refused to allow them to access the higher-ups.

The Legion's command structure wasn't suited to initiative.

"Let me explain. Again." Mr. Bureaucrat cut Cos off - again. "Mr Leonard McCauley is a well-known and respected businessman. He has connections to both the current and incoming Presidents. His company is an employer of thousands of Americans. If you even consider this... this...," he couldn't find a word and carried on, "have you any IDEA of what damage this will cause to the United Nations?"

"Any idea if there's anyone in this building with balls?" The words spat from the back, Garth beginning to lose whatever semblance of restraint he had and earning a sharp glance from Cos for his trouble.

"I understand, sir," Cos continued, "but..."

"But you really have no idea what it's like not to be in control of your own mind, do you?" Irma broke in.

"N-now, see here Tela, you..."

"Oh, I wouldn't control you. Make you a puppet on a string, make you wear a dress and sing 'On the good ship lollipop', make you go against your beliefs, destroy your confidence. I *COULD*" and there Irma let it hang for a moment, ignoring the looks Cos and - especially - Leviathan were giving her, as the functionary looked terrified, " but that's not the sort of thing I would do. But McCauley would - McCauley HAS. Would you like to see what Trinity experienced after McCauley took her captive?"

The bureaucrat stuttered and subconsciously retreated from behind his desk closer to the corner where the two windowed walls intersected, stuttering that, no, it wasn't needed.

"But you don't REALLY believe me, do you? You're just saying that because you're scared - you think I'm making it up, exaggerating it, don't you? You're practically screaming it at me. But..."

"Tela!" Cos had finally had enough - Irma was pushing this too far.

"Look," the grey-suit-and-tie-man still looked scared, but was clearly making an effort to pull himself together, "let's say you did push past me - what then? You do the same with everyone until you finally bully someone into saying 'Yes'? If you want to do this thing you need evidence - HARD evidence, irrefutable evidence - that what you're saying is true. Until then,..."

"I understand, sir, thank you." Lorna looked on, aghast, as Cos turned and started herding the group out of the room at that point, not moving until she felt his gentle but firm hand on her shoulder spinning her round, and didn't speak to him as they went down in the lift, as they climbed into the front taxi with Leviathan while Garth and Irma took the rear, or for the whole taxi ride back to HQ. Which, she saw, Leviathan spent with a "told you so" look on his face until she finally couldn't look at him and Cos any more and turned to stare out of the window.

When they arrived back at HQ, however, and she opened the door to get out, Cos stopped her with a hand on her shoulder - "Wait Lu - I've arranged it with Gene, we're just here to let him off before we go jet-skiing."

"I d...," she started to protest, but Cos gave her a hard stare as Leviathan got out the taxi, "Fine....," she sighed and slumped back into the seat once more.

She was so P.O.ed at the situation that she almost didn't hear where Cos told the driver to take them. On hearing it, her eyes snapped open and she turned to stare at Cos.

Cos broke out in a smile, "What - you really bought it?", which led to him getting a punch in the arm. "Hey - I could hardly say 'We're off to rescue Paul and Ella and shut McCauley's brainwashing operation down' in front of Gene, could I? R.J. set the wheels in motion just before he had to leave HQ, and Lyle & Reed were setting the details up while we were over at the UN. Sorry I didn't mention it, but, you know, you looking happy in the same taxi as Gene after that..."

"Wait, so you're saying that you knew that was pointless and it was just... what... a sham to keep Gene quiet?"

"Of course not - we had to try it. If it had come off, we could have had the whole team - minus the AWOL four - rather than just me, you, Garth, Irma and the sneaky pair. Come on Lu - I need your head in the game here - there's only six of us, and we're going to need to stick together. Andromeda would have been a big help, and we had to leave her behind because she was on the ragged edge. If you're not up to it, please, tell me now."

"Don't worry - I'm up for it. No-one's catching me out ever again."

Cos heard, but ignored the minor change in wording, and hoped everything would go alright as he leaned back and shut his eyes. He was - they were - committed now, and if this went wrong...
______________

Half an hour later, they arrived at the small, private airport where Brande kept his private jet on NY trips. And there he got a surprise - where he expected two Legionnaires to greet them, there were four.

"Nura?"

"Hi Irma," Dreamer let a corner of her mouth twist into a smile on seeing her friend's shock, matched by several of the others as she stood there, her silvery hair and costume making a sharp contrast with her chocolate-milk skin, then turned to the team leader, "Cos".

"Should I even bother asking?" Cos sighed.

"I saw you were short handed, and I thought that, since you stopped Leviathan from kicking me off the team the other day..." As she said this, Trinity gave Cos a 'her too' glance and wondered how many others Gene had tried to boot off.

«Besides, I thought you might need a friend,» Irma felt her psi-link with Nura spark into life.

«Nura, I'm sorry that...»

«Don't worry about it - I know how you've been rushed off your feet. 'Sides, what you don't know, Gene can't try to sack you for,» Nura grinned and Irma felt a phantom hand clasp her own and squeeze, and she smiled back.

"And Quislet?" Cos gestured at the small silver ship hovering around Nura.

"He's been following me around for the past two days and I can't shift him - you know what he's like."

Unconsciously, every other team member present nodded simultaneously in agreement.
_______________

Ella sat in a darkened corner of the Workforce HQ, trying to get everything to add up. Laurel had snapped. And McCauley had seemed prepared - shocked and scared, but prepared. Meta had always been his "pet" - in case something like this happened? That meant...

Suddenly, she was hit by a blinding migraine before she could continue down the direction her thoughts were going. "That... means..." she muttered out loud, trying to keep her mind on-track, but it was no good. She let her mind go blank, shut her eyes and leaned back, taking deep breaths as the migraine passed.

When it eventually did, she tried to pick up her train of thought - but it was no good, it was gone.

She tried to retrace her steps, thinking about what she'd been thinking about, but even as she was struggling to do that, Polarity found her. "Ella, we're wanted down at the rec room."

"Great..." she muttered, following Paul down with a sense of unease, made worse by it being so vague.
_______________

The phone on his desk buzzed. "Sir, there's a plane approaching. What should...?"

"Let it land - there's no profit in shooting it down. It may be nothing - and even if it is connected to Andromeda's betrayal, she would survive it and others may too; and we would damn ourselves either way.

And, if it must be done, let it be done surely..."
_______________

"Lyle says we're safe to move," Irma announced. The plane trip to the McCauley facility which incorporated the Workforce's HQ had been tense - with Cos and Garth nervous over their siblings who they hoped to find there, Trinity very quiet over what had happened to her and was to come, and Irma herself nervous for her friends and what would be expected of her, it could hardly be otherwise. Dreamer, Lyle and Shifter - less personally involved - had done what they could during the flight, and Quislet had buzzed around as usual, but, all the same - tense.

Once Lyle had "told" Irma it was safe for them to leave the plane, therefore, they wasted no time in moving out, meeting up with him at a side entrance to the Workforce HQ.

"I only did a quick scout," he explained, "but there's something downstairs I think you should see - something which certainly falls under 'hard evidence' in my book."

Cos said, "Lead the way," and they filed in turn down a corridor into an open area that Trinity, at the back of the group, presumed to be one of the Workforce's training rooms - a gymnasium, by the looks of the various pieces of equipment scattered about, she thought, rather than the more... active... room Polarity had described to Cos on their last visit. As she was looking around to see this, however, she happened to glance up as a reflection caught her eye. A reflection which came off a piece of glass - which appeared to have Leonard McCauley at a desk behind it. She looked at the rest of the group, carrying on ahead of her, and wrestled with herself for a moment - what was he doing there, surely he'd be a million miles away from trouble; she'd said to Cos - at the very least she should point it out to him; this was personal... the strain made her split.

T-Purple took one second to look each of her other selves in the eye, and ran for a door below the glass, at the opposite end from where the other Legionnaires were going. T-Neutral looked at T-Orange, thoughts bouncing between the two without words, until, after what seemed like forever but was less than a minute, they followed their more impulsive self. If they waited until Cos and co were ready, McCauley might escape - he had a teleporter, after all - and she would, could, never let him escape to do to anyone else what he'd done to her.

They caught up with T-Purple after a couple of minutes, where she was waiting for them expectantly at the foot of some stairs, the link between the three letting her know they'd followed and telling them where to go. Merging into one once more, she ascended the stairs, but was stopped at the top by someone she recognised, the sight of her sparking her anger still further.

"I'm sorry, Mr. McCauley isn't available just now. But if you'd like to leave a message, we can finish what we started at Hallowe'en," Enrapture smirked at her.
_______________

Meanwhile, the other Legionnaires had continued out of the gymnasium down an open corridor. Caught up in their own thoughts, they only noticed Lorna's disappearance when Cos, immediately behind Lyle at the head of the group, glanced back as they turned a corner.

"I told her," he muttered to himself as he stopped the group.

"Cos," Lyle broke in upon seeing his face and realising the situation, "we can't go back - if she's been captured she could be anywhere, and if she's gone off herself she knows the risk - and could still be anywhere. We need to press on, get some pictures, then see if we can find the Workforce and Trinity."

Cos bit back the response he had been about to make and saw the logic in what Lyle had said. "Okay, but we need to move faster here. Hurry up."

Lyle took the hint and started running, but as they descended a flight of stairs, they had to stop again, as Dreamer gasped aloud and they spun to look at her.

"There's something big coming," Dreamer said as Tela took her shoulder, "Something else else bad..."
_______________

Unaware of what was happening not far from his office between Enrapture and Trinity, McCauley stared at the screen on his desk, currently showing CCTV of the statis level, and saw the seven Legionnaires approaching the area that held the actual statis tubes.

This was worse than he'd expected - he'd thought they would have gone straight to the recreation room where the bulk of the Workforce was waiting for them, or perhaps even attempted to go after him, personally, with the glimpse of himself he'd given them, driving them into Enrapture's hands with the rest of the WF able to be called after them if necessary. However, he couldn't send the Workforce down to the statis level...

Tapping his pen on the desk, he came to a decision and picked up the phone, pressed four buttons and spoke. "The Legion are coming. Open pod H-07."

In his ear, he heard buttons clicking as the person on the other end checked what was in the pod in question. "But...," the voice said in the tone of one trying very hard to stay composed and doing so poorly, "But... but... he's uncontrollable!"

"As with the fire girl and the orphanage, uncontrollable can be helpful in the right circumstances. Open the pod."
_______________

He woke up, entombed in a small tube.

"Hello," said a canned female voice, "You have just spent nine months in suspended animation..."

He felt himself getting angry.

"...as a direct result of the beings trying to prevent this pod from being opened, which it will do in thirty-four seconds. In the meantime..."

A roaring sound was heard, and the Legionnaires turned toward the pod in time to see it rent asunder by what was within.

"Free? Now... finally..."

The Legionnaires subconsciously began to back away slowly as they saw what was emerging from remnants of the pod...

"...HULK WILL SMASH!"

Sul was the first to reach the figure they'd been tracking - Nori might have been outright faster, but she didn't have the strength and natural climbing ability Sul did, and so had to wait at the base of the twelve-story building with the others while Sul checked that "laughing boy" was still there, with Tik saving his strength.

Sul enjoyed the chance to really stretch herself in the climb, hand over hand in the small crevices allowed her in the building's design, and reached the top in a surprisingly short time to see the red-clad figure hovering there - no flame like the trail he'd left along the sky; nor, indeed, any sign of any movement on his part at all. Leaning over the edge, she waved to Tik to bring the rest up; then started edging cautiously towards the floating figure, trying not to startle him.

A point which became academic when the glowing portal opened directly in front of him, leading her to curse loudly in Cantonese.
_________________

"Hulk..."

Yes, we know. Learn what a personal pronoun is... Lyle thought as this "Hulk" crashed through the ceiling like it was tissue paper, before coming straight back through, nearly landing on Tela in the process. "We need to get this away from those pods!" he shouted, "if this thing lands on any of them..."

Cosmic Boy took the hint and directed most of the others towards the stairs while he and Garth unloaded at it, cutting loose with their powers for the first time ever. Initially, they made progress as the Hulk fell backwards, struggling as its' skin charring under their combined onslaught. However, just as they had it pinned, and the last of their five comrades made it to the stairs, the blackened area impossibly began to heal even as they continued blasting, and it picked itself up and started walking straight through the barrage towards them.

"Puny humans - they think they can stop Hulk and trap him again. Idiots - you can't stop Hulk. Hulk is..."

They cut the power and ran for the stairs, while the Hulk suddenly flew forward, barely missing Garth, into a wall. The whole building seemed to shake as he impacted.
_________________

Trinity and Enrapture circled around each other, sizing the other up.

"What - no witty remarks, no 'You won't get away with this!'es before I make you bark like a dog, amongst other things?"

"I don't have anything to say to you. You're a puppet who likes the strings since you can get off on your sick urges and get away with it. And, d'you know what else?"

"No, and why should I care?"

Trinity, psi-sensitive as she was, felt the tingle a split second before the psi-bolt was launched, and that was enough for her to split just as the bolt reached her, tangling it and pulling at Enrapture's mind in her self-psi-link. Enrapture screamed in pain for a moment, then collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"Because I was going to tell you your door was shut. But you've guessed that now, right?" T-Purple spat. As Purple and Neutral walked down the corridor, Trinity-Orange checked for a pulse. After she was sure she'd found one, she left Enrapture to join her other selves at the big door.

There, they looked at each other.

«Please Lord, let us get through this,» Orange thought
«Let us get the answers we need,» Neutral continued,
«Give us answers or give us death!» Purple finished, ignoring the stares of the other two. They remerged, and Trinity opened the door slowly.

The first thing she saw was the elven girl, facing away from the door, who'd looked for all the world like she'd wanted to help her that night, and couldn't. Moving quickly, she hit her hard on the back of her head with the edge of her hand, and she crumpled to the floor. After taking a second to make sure she was out cold but otherwise okay, she turned to face McCauley and spoke...
_________________

Garth, from behind the Hulk, zapped the floorboards out from under him momentarily. The Hulk hadn't even been fazed by his impact with the wall, apparently. As he and Cos had chased after the others, he'd crashed through the floor behind them, and collapsing the floor was, at best, a delaying tactic.

«Straight ahead, right, left.» Irma's telepathic "voice" rattled through his head, and a glance at Cos showed he'd heard it too. With the Hulk barely behind them and catching, the sharp right turn made them skid slightly, but his size and weight meant that his foot actually wore through the floor, giving them the time they needed to make it into the gym - not the one they'd entered through, this one appeared to be empty of both people and objects, until they looked and saw Dreamer, Quislet and Tela in one corner. They rushed to join them.

"Where's...?" Cos had been about to ask for Lyle and Reed, but didn't get the chance as the Hulk bounded in - only to find Shifter's body wrapping its' way around them. Irma took her cue to launch a psychic assault on the huge man-like creature, only to find her attack bounce off its' tremendous psi-shields. A moment later, and it ripped Reed off and threw him away.
_________________

Tears flowed freely from Spark's eyes - even without thinking deeply, she could see that they were in a no-win situation.

When the word of a battle between a huge, green "Hulk" and the Legion in their own HQ had started, the Workforce had been called in for "containment" - meaning, the team were under orders to assault - and assassinate if possible - any Legionnaires who escaped the big green brute; Except her brother, but that was only a small mercy. She wanted to help, to swoop in and save them - or at least help them. Instead, she sat there watching them on a monitor, ready to go and, and...

Paul, his own eyes bloodshot, put his arm around her and leaned against her. Her mind frantically looked for a loophole, as it seemed like, whatever happened, her and Paul would lose as the beast marched slowly toward the Legionnaires with the menace in its' moves...
_________________

"...and into it, he poured his cruelty, his malice, and his will to dominate all other life."

Trinity cocked her head. "Sauron in Lord of the Rings. But it describes you too. All of this -" she gestured with her hand at the sounds of the fight raging elsewhere, "It's you. Your cruelty. Your malice. Your will to dominate. If only we could just chuck a ring into a volcano and be done with you.

What I don't get is what's my part in your sorry scheme. I don't know what Enrapture took out my head at Hallowe'en, but it can't have been worth this risk. And when we found out about it, obviously this was going to happen, Andromeda or no Andromeda."

She looked at him, straight in the eye. "So what else did you do to me?"

At that, McCauley just threw his head back and laughed. Trinity split into three, and T-Purple advanced on him, and without the slightest objection from the other two, punched him square in the face.

"Who ever said..." "...it was about what we would do TO YOU?"

The Trinities gasped in shock. Two Leonard McCauleys now stood in front of them.