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Vee, THANK YOU for Emerald Dreamer. She's hotter than I had imagined! Her sister is lovely, too.

Emerald Legion, Chapter four.
“Presenting, Kid Cosmos!” – wherein one of our Champions reveals the how’s and why’s of his journey to Earth.

********************************************************

Rokk shuffled uneasily, waiting for the Queen to finish her meeting with the Orandan ambassador.

After a seemingly endless round of particularly insincere, ‘Oh no, it’s *my* honor, majesty,’ they finally left and Sarya’s smile remained frozen on her face until the last of them had bowed and curtsied their way out of the room, at which point she flung her barely-touched goblet of Orandan dream-wine behind her. “Even your choice of beverages is both sweet and bland. Good riddance.”

Rubbing her temples, she noticed her Champion standing patiently and motioned him forward.

“Do you require something Champion Krinn?” she asked perfunctorily.

“If this is a bad time, majesty…”

“Do not waste my time with sycophantry. This world has far too many diplomats already. Always speak your mind to me without fear.” the Queen gestured impatiently.

“I was just curious, about the Champion’s Garb you selected. It’s Braalian mag-steel, but it takes months to energize the structures once they are assembled, and I can’t imagine that you had this lying around just in case you ran into a potential Braalian Champion…”

“Certainly not.” She admitted. “One of my agents found it for sale. The magnetized discs were crafted for the Braalian Export Commisioner to wear to his wedding.”

“The one that didn’t happen, because his intended eloped with their best man?”

“Correct,” the Queen smiled. “Apparently he had no interest in having such an unhappy reminder hanging around and ordered it disposed of. His aide decided that ‘disposed of’ meant ‘sold for a tidy profit.’”

“But it’s perfectly calibrated to my preferred resonance, which is pretty rare…”

“Unique, actually, but quite available to anyone who bothers to look up the vital statistics of reknowned magno-ball celebrity, ‘Kid Cosmos,’ three time planetary champion at the Braalian annuals. You do still have a few fansites active, you know…”

Wincing, Rokk attempted to lead away from this line of questioning, “So you just ordered it re-calibrated?”

“Correct. It may take months to charge the matrices, but it takes mere hours to re-calibrate them to your unique specifications.” The Queen steepled her fingers and leaned back. “Now, perhaps you can answer me a question. Tell me the story of ‘Kid Cosmos,’ his rise and fall. Tell me of this ‘ferrous hydraxaline.’”

Face darkening, Rokk’s posture stiffened, but he answered, eyes fixed on the enormous dinosaur directly behind the Queen, as if unwilling to meet her eyes.

“I was three-time champion, top of the rankings, with thousands of fanatical fans who followed me around like I was some sort of god. People paid more attention to my comings and goings than the President of the Mining Consortium. But there’s always someone waiting for you to fall, so they can be number one, and some of them aren’t willing to wait. After three years, one of my rivals decided to slip ferrous hydraxaline into my food. They had people *living in my house,* pretending to be my loyal fans, scrubbing my back, bringing me breakfast in bed, and, oh yes, *poisoning* me.” Rokk’s fists had unconsciously clenched and his arms shook with anger, he took a steadying breath before continuing,

“Small doses of Faith boost a Braalian’s magnetic intensity, although it makes fine control more difficult.”

Sarya raised a finger to interrupt the narrative, and Rokk looked stunned momentarily, as if he’d forgotten he had an audience, “Excuse me, ‘Faith?’”

“It’s the street-name for ferrous hydraxaline. They first discovered it as a clear liquid seeping out of a crystalline formation in an underground temple, and the visitors to the shrine would dab the liquid in their eyes, which would allow them to see metal veins in the walls. They called it ‘faith.’ It was never particularly safe, and sometimes people would go blind if they used it too much. Over the years, they refined it to be a thousand times more potent, and a thousand times worse for you…”

“Occasionally, some loser will use Faith to boost his power, to try and compete out of his league, but generally the lack of control gets them in more trouble than the power-boost is worth, and there is inevitably long-term nerve damage as crystalline structures start forming in the nerves and tearing apart the cells.”

“They fed me enough of the stuff to kill a half-dozen people. Turns out the flunkies they had dosing me up overdid it in their drive to impress their boss. I had mood swings, which the press loved. Every week there was some new report of me flipping out and threatening someone, and it was only a matter of time before the power-surges became too intense for me to control, and things just started falling apart around me. My body was so full of Faith by this point that they didn’t even need to drug-test me, the doctor could feel the contamination when they brought him into my cell. It took a dozen people to shut me down, my powers were so out of control, and so artificially boosted, and I was ranting and raving about plots and conspiracies and jealousy.”

“Ironically, I was right about that. There *was* a plot. But it didn’t matter, my entire nervous system was so degraded by that time that their attempts to remove the drug from my system was just as dangerous. The drug had *replaced* my nervous system, and if they removed it, I’d be paralyzed. It didn’t matter that it was obvious that I hadn’t willingly attempted to overdose and kill myself, I would never compete again, and my title was stripped. I spent the next six months in and out of hospitals, living in my parents’ house while they tried to deal with my imbalances. My mind, my body, my powers, all of them were going haywire, and I was a constant danger to everyone around me. I’d be so angry that they had to slide food under the door, or even call in security to restrain me, and then I’d be so depressed that my brother would skip work-shifts and classes to sit by my bed because they were afraid to leave me alone.”

“Finally, I gained enough control that I could get up and walk around under my own power, but the doctors were baffled. My nerves were gone, rotted away, but still I was moving, and the veins of crystallized ferrous hydraxaline served somehow as magnetic conduits. I wasn’t ‘walking,’ so much as jerking myself around by sheer magnetic manipulation. Lots of therapy later, I was able to walk, and talk, and feed myself, and spent a lot of time apologizing to my family…”

The queen looked puzzled, “If everything was starting to finally come together, why did you choose that time to leave Braal?”

“Lots of reasons. I *hated* Braal. One minute, I’m the most popular man on the planet, the next, I’m some cheating druggie pariah, and the people who used to wait for hours to shake my hand are now defacing my statue outside the coliseum and spitting at my brother when they saw him on the street. My people are hyper-competitive, and the only thing that gets the crowd howling more than a hero, is to see a hero fall…”

“But it was my all about my brother, really. Pol worshipped me, and he never gave up on me. He was never as good at anything, and he just got used to that. Anything he did, I’d done two years before, and yet he seemed fine with that. When I fell, he was so angry, but he never believed for a second that I had cheated, and he stood by me. But when the doctors came back with their reports of ‘miracles’ and being able to walk again and being more powerful than ever before, I failed to realize what this would mean to him. He saw it as his chance to be like me, and he started taking Faith.”

The Queen looked alarmed, “Did it harm him, as it did you?”

“We caught him in time. There wasn’t much nerve damage, and they managed to repair it all, but I couldn’t let him keep thinking that I was some sort of role-model, so I faked a massive relapse, and convinced the doctors to spread the word that my systems were failing again, and that I’d be paralyzed for life, my powers burnt-out and uncontrollable. We agreed that it was for the best that nobody on Braal think that the fluke that had happened with me meant that they should dose themselves with that poison on the one in a billion chance that it didn’t cripple them, or worse.”

“So I left for Earth, for some ‘experimental treatment’ that might allow me to live a ‘normal life,’ and I’d planned on keeping a low-profile until I could fake some sort of exo-skeletal suit.”

Rokk lifted his arms and smiled, “And now, I’ve got this suit, and I’ve told Pol that I’m still paralyzed, but this special suit lets me walk around like a normal person… As far as anyone on Braal knows, I’m a cripple, only able to move my limbs through the use of special machines.”

“I was a hero on Braal, celebrated for my athleticism and mastery of my powers. Now I’m a cautionary tale. Parents warn their kids not to be like me and waste their lives.”

The Queen settled back into her seat, having been unconsciously leaning forward, “Thank you for sharing this part of yourself, Champion Krinn. Your words are reassuring to me.”

“Reassuring? I don’t understand…”

“If I had ever had any doubts about my choice, which, I must stress, I have not, you would have reassured me that I was correct in my choice. You are indeed a Champion.”

Set, this si a great story you are giving us. Please keep it going.

Glad you like it! Thanks for the encouraging words! I'm also enjoying your artistic use of the CoH character generator. I'm jealous!

A few more sections have written themselves, much to the disruption of my sleeping habits...

As with the previous sections, this is very much an alternate universe, so I apologize in advance for horrific violations of much-loved characters, and completely re-interpreted world-settings, since I've never been entirely fond of the depictions of Titan, Braal or Winath.

*********************************************************

Emerald Legion – Chapter 5
“Dysfunction” – Imra learns an uncomfortable truth about Garth


The reception at the Xanthu’un Embassy was fascinating to Sarya, full of exotic animals and fragrances and energetic performances. Certainly the colors were tiresome, black on black on black, with the occasional splash of yellow, but apparently the colors chosen were considered to be quite complimentary to those with visual ranges to see them.

She had artfully dodged the Winathian Ambasssadors thrice, but this time she was out-foxed, caught between a babbling pack of Athramites and the droning introduction of a Dryadan emissary who… would… not… shut… up! In a classic pincer movement, the twin Ambassador flanked her and appeared at each arm, and the while she had not sought out this encounter, she had to admit admiration for their tactical acumen, and gratitude for ‘rescuing’ her from the Dryad, who had spent the last several minutes reciting his family lineage.

Cutting them off as they began their legendary two-pronged verbal assault, “Yes, I *have* received your missives, and yes, indeed, one of my new Champions is from Winath. Garth Ranzz is a fine young man and does your world a great honor.”

“Be that as it may, Highness, his family has expressed some concerns. Apparently, he left homeworld unannounced and they simply wish to contact him, if he happens to be available…” the Ambassadors wore matching smiles, and Sarya had already forgotten which of the two identically clad twins was which. She pointedly looked in-between them, “Champion Ranzz has fulfilled the Ritual of Choice, and is a lawful adult, is that not true?”

“Be that as it may, Highness…” one began, while the other expounded, “reports of his injury raise concerns…”

“*Then* he is free to live on Winath, or Earth, as he chooses.” Sarya cut in, placing a hand on each Ambassadors chest and pushing them gently, but relentlessly apart, to clear a path between them, “*If* you have a message to pass on from his family, and I’m *sure* that it is merely an oversight that his communications have not yet reached them, I will be happy to pass that message on at our next meeting. Champion Ranzz is a hard-working and honest soul, and I have no doubt that even as we speak he has his hands quite full with the pressing duties of his station. Good day.” Giving the Winathians a spare moment to produce a message, Sarya summarily bulled through their carefully constructed barricade and walked away.

*******************************************************************

Garth Ranzz dozed intermittently, ring-hand flung over his bare chest while his other arm was currently entangled under the snuggling form of Imra Ardeen, who was idly toying with the fingers of his ring-hand. The regen-pack was gone from his shoulder, and only a bare patch of skin, slightly pinker than the surrounding tissue, gave any sign of the near-mortal wound so recently inflicted.

<Garth?>

“Mmmm?”

<Can I ask you a personal question?>

“I guess, s’not like I could keep anything from you anyway,” he replied with a sleepy half-grin.

<You know I’d never pry into your mind, I was just curious about something.>

“I trust you, I’m sorry, go ahead,” Garth’s eyes were open now, and his voice revealed his concern that he’d said something wrong.

<I’ve been reading up, and Winathians usually don’t leave home-world without their twins. I hate to ask, because I’m afraid to bring up something that might be bad…>

“No, no, I have a twin. Heck, I have two siblings, actually…”

<Two? How is that possible? I thought all Winathian births were identical twins?>

“I’ve got an older brother, Mekt. He was a singleton.”

<Did something happen? Was there an accident?>

“No, not unless it happened real early. By the time mom knew she was pregnant, the doctors could only find one baby in there. At first they thought it might be a false pregnancy or something, but it was real enough. He was just alone.”

<That’s a big deal on Winath, right? To be all alone?>

“Yeah, it’s like being born without any legs or something. Like someone being born on Titan without telepathy, I guess… Anyway, he was all messed up, because of that. And then me and Alayn were born, and it just kind of reinforced what a freak he was. He didn’t like us much, and we didn’t really understand why he was mean to us, and so angry all the time, so *solitary.*”

<Did something happen to Alayn?>

“Yes. Well, no. I don’t know. We were just normal twins, like any other. I’d get up in the morning, and he’d be stretching and I’d run my hand through my hair and he’d run his hand through his hair and we’d both nod and head off to school. We didn’t need a mirror, we could just look at each other and see what we looked like. I’ve read that twins on other worlds end up dressing different or getting different hair-cuts or act different, sometimes one becomes ‘the confident one’ and the other becomes ‘the shy one’ or something, but that’s not how it works on Winath. We don’t *want* to be individuals. If my twin looks like me, if I’m wearing the same shirt, if he finishes my sentence and I catch the book he drops before it hits the ground, that’s how it’s *supposed* to be. If an off-worlder can’t tell us apart, that just means that we share something that they lack, not that there is something wrong with *us.*”

<And?>

“And then Alayn started keeping secrets from me. Well. One secret, anyway, but it was the biggest secret. I’d wake up, and he’d already be up, looking at himself in the mirror like he was staring at a stranger, and I couldn’t figure out why. I’d catch him looking at me, like something was wrong with my face and he wouldn’t tell me what. I never figured it out. I shouldn’t have *had* to figure it out, he was my twin. I should have *known.*”

<Known what, Garth?>

“When we reached the age of Choosing, he started taking Pro-Fem, and calling himself Ayla.”

<Oh!>

“Yeah. Oh. I couldn’t understand. It’s the way we are, to be like each other, and here he was deliberately choosing to look different, to become a different person, as unlike me as could be. It was the worst kind of rejection, like something was awful and ugly about me, that he had to change himself so badly to get away from me. I was angry and we fought about it all the time, and as the months went by, his body kept changing and every day his face looked less like mine, and I felt a little more of myself slipping away.”

<That must have been hard, but wasn’t it Ayla’s choice to make? I’m sure she didn’t make this choice to hurt you…>

“Yeah, I get it now, but it was so hard to deal with. Mekt would laugh at us, say we were a family of freaks, first him, then Alayn, and now he was gonna stick around just to see what sort of freakshow I turned into… And then there was the accident, and the scientists were poking and prodding at us, and I just couldn’t take it. I left. Walked into town and caught a ride to the spaceport, and begged every ship-captain in port to just get me off of Winath.”

<And that’s how you ended up on the Quantus?>

“Yeah, Captain Frake said I looked like a ‘healthy specimen’ and ran me through my paces, but I got a working passage out of it…”

<Souls in repose! Oh Garth, I didn’t know…>

“What? Oh no, it wasn’t bad or anything. I would have done anything to get off-world, and all she wanted was to get off period. I guess the big dumb meatworlder look really draws in the sophisticated inner world sorts...” The bitterness creeps in, no matter how dismissive Garth attempts to sound.

<Don’t you dare! You’re not a dumb farm-boy, and Sarya would march right in here and smack you for thinking that! The Queen of Venegar says you’re destined to be a hero, are you going to tell her otherwise?> Imra was sitting up now, holding Garth down with her hand as he tried to get up.

“Uh, no. I think she’d kick my butt.”

<Right, and she’d have to wait in line, because the line to ‘kick your butt’ would go around the building and I’d be in it twice! And don’t for an *instant* think that the big, dumb lunk thing is the only thing you have going on. You don’t think *I’m* attracted to that, do you?>

“Uh, there is no right answer here, is there?”

<Probably not.> Visibly calming herself, Imra continued with less fervor, <My turn. I grew up on Titan, a frozen chunk of hell where the people have to live inside pressurized arcologies, to protect them from the way-below-freezing temperatures and the too-thin-to-breath atmosphere. Everyone’s a telepath, and the concept of privacy? Non-existent. You wanted your brother to always be there, even drew comfort from that? I would put on a pressure suit and go stand on the methane glacier, just so I could be alone or five minutes out of the day…>

“I’d go crazy, if I didn’t have open skies…”

<Most of my people can’t stand open skies. They go crazy if they *aren’t* all lined up like vegetables all in neat orderly rows in their cozy little packages. At the age of Inclusion, when we are considered adults, we finally get to move out of the common rooms into our own private chambers, barely even big enough to stand up in. Our exercise routines consist of yoga and stretching exercises, because there isn’t enough room for us to be running around or playing any sorts of sports. Most of us are so wrapped up in ‘the life of the mind’ that they are only dimly aware of the physical world, creating works of art, or scientific theories, or doing remote work.>

Imra runs her hand over Garth’s chest,

<None of the males on Titan have muscles like this. None of them have *hair* on their bodies. None of them have skin this dark. Oh, sure, everyone’s in shape, because of the yoga and the biofeedback exercises, but nobody’s ever even seen meat, let alone eaten any. So when I say that I’m not one of those inner-world bimbos like Captain Frake, understand that you are as far from the Titanian standards of attractive as a man could get.>

“I didn’t mean…” Garth begins, but Imra puts her hand over his mouth,

<I know, I’m just making sure *you* know. If my mother saw you, she’d think I was completely insane, but it isn’t your muscles that I see, it’s your loyalty and your honesty and your longing for family and connection and stability. All these things are attractive to me.>

“Wow. Um, thanks. I’m going to sound really shallow if I say that I like your eyes, right?”

<No, just insincere. It wasn’t my eyes you spent the morning thinking about…>

“Hey, you said you wouldn’t read my mind!”

<I didn’t have to, I was there, remember…>

“Uh, no, actually, I’m forgetting. Help me remember?” Garth said with a grin, taking Imra’s hand in his own and leaning up to meet her.

***************************************************************

Ah, a satisfying haul, Rokk thought as he balanced the tray of finger-sandwiches he’d managed to abscond from the reception going on upstairs. Time to see if the troops are…

A low sound from Imra’s quarters stops him in his tracks and he closes his eyes as he recognizes that it could only have come from Garth.

‘Well, that certainly didn’t take long.’

Having completely lost his appetite, Rokk sets the tray down on the floor and activates his Champion’s Ring, flying down the corridor at such speed that the pale green curtains whip about ferociously at his passage.

‘I *so* need to get laid.’

******************************************************************

A decent interval later;

“Hey, do you smell food?”

<No. You’re insane.>

Bounding out of bed, Garth is at the doorway, poking his head out the curtain.

<Garth, put some clothes on before you leave my quarters!>

“I’m not leaving. See?” Proudly holding up a platter full of tiny sandwiches, “Food.”

<The valiant hunter returns. My hero. Close the curtain already.>

“Rokk must have brought us breakfast in bed. He’s so cool.”

<Uh, yeah. I’m sure that’s *exactly* what happened…>

“You don’t think he’s jealous, do you? And how do you manage to sound sarcastic in your head?” Garth mumbles around a sandwich containing unidentifiable meats and vegetables soaked in a pungent curry sauce.

<I’m not really sure. About either of those questions.>

“’Cause I talked to him about that earlier, about us just being friends and stuff, so I think we’re okay.”

<What!?!>

“You know, the whole male/male thing.” Garth made some sort of complicated docking maneuvers with his hands, betraying his uncertainty about the matter, “I’m not really into that, and at first I thought I hurt his feelings, ‘cause he seemed kind of angry, but he’s been okay with me since, so I think he’s over that man-crush thing...”

<HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!>

“Imra, are you okay?”

<HAHAHAHAHA! Snort.>

“Okay, breathe or something, you’re freaking me out…”

<BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!>

4 more chapters are written (and I hope and pray that the story ends there 'cause I could sure use some sleep), but I like to give them a day between writing and posting. I change my mind like a wild mind-changing thing, and it will be easier to totally change my mind *before* I hit post...

Random details not explicated in the text.

1) Titanians never talk, much like in the Waid / Kitson boot. However, 'never' does not mean 'can't.'

2) Garth's powers flip on and off like a switch. Medical science can detect nothing out of the ordinary about him when he's not calling up the lightning, no electrolyte imbalance or tiny power generators in his cells or excess bio-electricity. So he can have machinery, like a regen-pack, strapped onto him, use normal medicines, etc. Where does the lightning come from? Not my problem. It just works.

3) Queen Sarya, like most Venegarians of royal blood, is stronger than a human male twice her size, but not Spider-Man strong. The Eye of Ekron holds the collective memories of every ruler of Ekron past, and they give her advice, comfort, a surprising level of willpower (including effective immunity to telepathic control) and limited psychic powers, equivalent to what the Rings give the Champions. She doesn't fly around because... she doesn't like heights. But anyone who suggests that she is *afraid* of heights (or anything else) is cruising for a butt-kicking. Fair warning.

4) Queen Sarya is in her mid thirties, has been for quite some time, and will be for several more decades. Another thing not to be mentioned, ever.

5) Kathooni males don't leave Kathoon. They are smaller and weaker than Kathooni females, and not terribly bright, being both easily confused and easily frightened. To the great joy of sentients of other species, Kathooni women are tall, strong, classically beautiful, and, best of all, fascinated by the concept of independent-thinking males who suffer the amusing notion of being 'equal' to females. This is utterly irrelevant to the story, but I find amusing and share for no reason at all.

6) There is no six.

Emerald Legion – Chapter 6
“Tell me of your homeworld, Usil.” – In which our young Champions share their impressions of their birth-worlds…

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The three Champions had used their Champion’s Rings to ensconce themselves atop one of the spot-lights, watching the moopsball play-offs from a spectacular vantage point that no one else could challenge.

“I just don’t get it. *Team* sports? Where’s the glory in that?” Rokk muttered, not for the first time.

<Cooperative exercises are useful, Rokk. You have to admit we worked well when we coordinated our actions and didn’t all attempt to run rampage against those gunmen…>

“That’s different. This isn’t life or death, or military action. It’s for *fun.* What’s fun about sharing the glory?”

“I beginning to think I’d never last a second on Braal.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad, Garth. Yeah, we’re hyper-competitive, but it brings out the best in people. It gives people something to strive for, goals and dreams and all that.”

<That’s easy for a sports-prodigy to say. But it doesn’t work out for everyone, does it Rokk?>

With a heavy sigh, Rokk concedes the point. “That’s for sure.”

Garth was trying to figure out the game again, “This game is stupid! They just run around for like, a few seconds, and then call time-out to argue about all these stupid rules for another half-hour.”

“On this we are agreed.”

<We’re all colonists, come back to the mother Earth, but we don’t really have anything in common with these people. Tell us about Braal, Rokk.>

“Not much to say. It’s just a rock that exports lots of exotic metals. Just about everyone is tied to the mining and enrichment consortiums, and we work like beasts, and then play twice as hard when shift is over. Our SP branch is the second highest paid in the UP, because we keep them so busy cleaning up after us. The only spectator sport more popular than magno-ball is bare-knuckled bar-brawling…”

“Second-highest paid?”

<The detachment to Rimbor is the highest paid, I’ll bet.>

“Yeah. Even we can’t compete with actual professional troublemakers.”

<Everyone has magnetic powers, right?>

“Not like mine, but yeah. When we settled Braal it was an accident. The third planet was lush and hospitable. Braal, the fourth planet, was a shattered lump of metal and rock that had been split open by a cometary impact a few million years before. The molten iron core spewed out in an enormous fountain that scorched Braal’s smaller moon, and formed the magnetite ring surrounding the planet today. The planet was all lopsided and broken, and after some ridiculous number of years, all of the chunks of iron that had rained back down to the planetary surface degraded into particles the size of sand. The entire planet was one giant desert, but the sand dunes were made of tiny chunks of iron, and when the moons passed overhead, the magnetic fields would sweep across the deserts and hurl up mile high clouds of charged iron particles that spent the next million years wearing everything else on the planet into dust.”

“So, obviously the colony ship wanted the third planet, and got sucked in by the magnetic forces?”

“Exactly. They had planned for it, but an asteroid shower damaged the ship and brought them too close to Braal, and left them unable to escape its’ pull. The captain realized that she’d drain the ships fuel and burn out the engines, and still not be able to escape, and then have nothing left to make a safe landing. So she accelerated towards the planet and cut the engines to save power.”

“Ballsy move.”

“Yeah. She tore into the atmosphere like a meteor, and only engaged thrusters when she was nearing impact, slinging the ship along the surface and letting the atmosphere break their velocity. She went all the way around the planet two and a half times before the desert sands, attracted to the charge the hull had picked up during entry, reached up and pulled the ship from the sky.”

<I don’t get it. Was it a sand-storm or some sort of magnetic interference?>

“The charged iron sands were attracted to the ship as it passed overhead, and the more of them clung to the hull, the more they slowed the ship down, and weighed it down… Fortunately, they also ended up cushioning the ship from the worst of the impact. The captain died, and six other crewmembers. The passengers in cryo-sleep were heavily shielded, with triple redundancies and all back-up power reinforcing those sections, and still, 23 of them couldn’t be revived. At planetfall, two crewmen and 227 passengers were left alive, on a planet with an unbreathable atmosphere, and magnetic fields so intense that most of their machinery flat out wouldn’t work.”

<What a nightmare!>

“Yeah, the first year was rough. But the passengers were all scientists and explorers, resourceful folk who had leapt at the challenge of colonizing a new world, so far out on the fringe that they knew it would be years before anyone came to check on their progress. They couldn’t live on the surface, so they tunneled down, using the airlock tubes to make a passageway down through the iron sands until they hit rock. Then they used cutting torches that they’d ripped off of the useless worker-droids to bore down through the rock and fashion caverns, which they immediately began to seed with renewable food sources, as they were already running short on rations. Thoughts of colonizing the surface were abandoned when the exploration teams were attacked by what turned out to be unknown forms of electromagnetic life. The head of the team was Resa Martel, and she was unconscious when they brought her back, her suit having been overloaded by the energy discharges, and having some sort of epileptic fit. She recovered quickly, but the researchers discovered that she had been pregnant, and that the baby seemed to have retained some sort of magnetic charge. Because of the high iron content, just about everyone was suffering mild metal poisoning, but she seemed to get healthier, and months later, gave birth to Genn Martel, the first Braalian. He was born with bright purple eyes, and a powerful magnetic field, and the colonists knew that everything had changed…”

“So the purple eyes, everyone on Braal has those?”

“Actually it’s a reaction to all the iron in our systems. Like me, Genn should have had blue eyes, but all the iron makes our eyes look purple. If a Braalian would have green eyes, the red from the iron would make them brown, and if they were already supposed to be brown, they would end up looking dark red. Purple is kind of rare, actually. Dark red is the most common eye color.”

<I’m surprised that the colonists so quickly accepted a child that was so different.>

“Ah, you’re already getting ahead of the story, Imra. And no, they didn’t all welcome the new child. A few superstitious weirdos, already stressed out by the living conditions and the shortages and the various energy disturbances said that the child was possessed by the energy creatures or something. Anytime something would go wrong, they would blame it on the birth of Genn, claiming that he was cursed or something. The other colonists were forced to move Genn and Resa into secluded rooms and guard them day and night, after a few fanatics attempted to kill them. It was nearly a civil war, until two other women gave birth to children with dark red eyes and similar magnetic anomalies. Neither of these women had ever been to the surface or encountered an energy creature, and that took some of the fire out of the movement. The last hold-out, a true fanatic who had snapped under the stress of the living conditions, ended up being killed by his own wife after she discovered that she was pregnant. She wasn’t about to let her husband kill her ‘demon-baby,’ and killed him with a plasma welder.”

<That’s horrible!>

“The other colonists banded together and held a vote. It was determined that she’d acted in defense of her child, and her desperate act was actually applauded. Five years later, she became the first elected leader of Braal. Who would have thought killing your husband would be the first step to a successful political career?”

<Only every woman in the universe, ever?>

“Heh, she’s got you there, Rokk.”

“Anyway, the shortages remained harsh, and it seemed like they ran on the brink of total collapse for three generations. During that time there were constant fears that the rationing system would fail, and there were constant rumors of a ‘death lottery.’ According to the rumors, anyone who didn’t perform a vital function would be denied a sustenance ration, to save vital supplies for those who were necessary to the survival of the colony. It never actually happened, but it had our people at each others throats for years, and even centuries later, we remain hyper-competitive, as if we aren’t going to get fed if we don’t break records and exceed expectations.”

<These fears only lasted for a few generations, and your people are *still* affected by them?>

“Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess fears rarely do.” Rokk conceded,

“Finally, the colonists encountered an underground sea, and a form of algae that was subsisting off of geothermal activity and chemical synthesis. It wasn’t much, but it was a carbon source, and they quickly turned it into a food supply. The days of rationing were at an end, and the deeper mines had turned up many forms of radioactive materials that could be used for power sources. Things were looking up, and over the next two centuries, exploration teams discovered that the electromagnetic life-forms were vanishing. Every decade there were less and less encounters, until it seemed that they were completely extinct. The Spiritualists of the Crystal Unity claim that for every birth on Braal, one of the creatures was replaced, and that each Braalian is a composite creature, both flesh and energy, but most people don’t believe that. Because of the whole ‘demon-child / possession’ incident, Braalians have a strong dislike of that train of thought, associating it with the crazies. I know that *I* certainly don’t feel ‘possessed’ by any sort of electromagnetic entity…”

<And yet, I don’t feel ‘possessed’ by the organisms living in my cells, or the ones in my bloodstream, or the ones in my intestines. Why would you be aware of a creature that has become an indistinguishable part of you?>

“I guess it’s possible. In any event, the worst of the storms seemed to vanish along with the entities, and over the next few centuries, the colonists were able to begin building on the surface, and soon established contact with the United Planets, who had never realized that there was an thriving subterranean civilization trapped on the world that they had marked as ‘off-limits’ and a ‘navigation hazard.’ We communicated by laser, until a Coluan scout-craft landed in our main city, completely unaffected by the magnetic storms, and the diplomat’s *kid* ended up showing us how to get our antique worker-droids active despite the magnetic interference. Something else else that took him a few hours of pondering, because he was bored, something he called ‘adaptive heuristic response,’ and it revolutionized our world. Any stubborn insistence that we didn’t need the UP after all we’d accomplished on our own vanished overnight.”

Rokk shifted as the night breeze whipped Imra’s cloak into his face. “Well, that’s it for Braal. You’ve pumped me for info, now it’s your turn. Tell us about Titan.”

“Yeah! I heard it’s cold there.”

<Very. Titan is the oldest Earth colony, but no one knew that for a long time, because we were hidden from Earth for centuries.>

“But Titan’s in the Earth system! How could they miss it?” Garth protested.

<Let’s start at the beginning. Telepaths have been native to Earth for millennia, but rarely welcomed. Sometimes burned as witches, or persecuted as ‘demon-children,’ like that first Braalian child, the only telepaths that survived were the ones who learned to hide their gifts. By the early 22nd century, there were enough of us being born, and humanity was so closely connected, that it became impossible to deny our presence any longer, and some cultures turned paranoid and began to cull any child that showed signs of the gift. There wasn’t a culture on the planet that didn’t strictly regulate telepathy, declaring telepathic contact to be ‘mental trespassing,’ or eavesdropping, coercion, espionage or even rape!>

“That’s just crazy!”

<Everybody had secret shames and fears back then, Garth, and would die, or, more likely, *kill,* to keep those secrets. Telepaths were the ultimate threat to society-as-it-was, and so we found it increasingly impossible to live in peace among ‘normal’ humans. The first proposed withdrawal was at a summit in Europe, a summit that was attacked by racist terrorists, resulting in the deaths of some of the most outspoken and publicly-known telepaths. It was in Amundsen City that the Earth’s telepaths began to gather, but even Antarctica wasn’t far enough away, and they came up with a desperate scheme. Earth was constructing it’s first large-scale colony ship, intended to take five hundred colonists to settle Mars, and the telepaths seized control of a cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, and traveled to the launch site in Hawaii, where they co-opted the entire site with their combined powers, and left Earth completely, leaving the would-be Martian colonists stranded on Earth, wondering what had happened.>

“That’s awesome! How did they know how to fly a spaceship? Did they have telepath-astronauts?”

<No, but a few hours alone with the original pilots, and the telepaths knew everything they needed to know. They knew that Mars was not an option. Earth could too easily retaliate, and yet the ship was not sufficient to leave the system. One telepath had worked as an intelligence agent for several nations, under various guises, and had learned of an alien base abandoned under the ice of Titan. It had been ultra-classified, and he wiped all knowledge of it’s existence not just from the data-records, but from the very minds of the few who knew of it. That was the telepath’s goal. They practiced mind-over-body techniques and entered trances, to reduce oxygen consumption and eliminate the need for foodstuffs, since the ship didn’t have supplies adequate for their longer-than-projected voyage, and upon entering orbit around Titan, they quickly located the base, and shuttled the people down over the course of several weeks, stripping every usable thing they could from the colony ship, before programming it to fly to Jupiter and plunge into the Jovian atmosphere in front of the exploration satellite orbiting that world. As far as Earth knew, the stolen colony ship had fallen into Jupiter’s gravity well and died with all hands.>

<The colonists spent the next centuries confined to the alien base, lacking the technical know-how to expand the facility. It took many generations before the technology was re-invented necessary to add onto the structure, and by then our people had grown accustomed to the bleak sterile surroundings, cramped conditions and tasteless protein bricks assembled from raw elements by automated machine. Making sound, or showing emotion, was considered rude and disrespectful. We became a race of pale-faced ghosts, never speaking, eating only tiny bites of tasteless food and drinking only water.>

”It sounds as hard as what the Braalian colonists went through, in it’s own way.” Rokk noted sympathetically.

<And yet, it was paradise. I would sit in my tiny undecorated quarters, gray walls over my gray sleeping mat, close my eyes and soar through skies of colors I had never seen with my own eyes, surrounded by living creatures I only knew from the memories past down over a dozen generations. We live a life of the mind, and most Titanians are content with that.>

“But not you.” Rokk added.

<No. I had to see these things for myself. I didn’t want to relive someone else’s dreams of sunsets that I would never see, of flowers and birds and a world with warm scented breezes where children and run and play in open fields. Mind-pictures weren’t enough. I had to *feel* these things for myself.>

“Is it everything you’d hoped?” Garth asked, as Rokk had fallen quiet.

<So much more. I want to go back to Titan and shake them and scream in their heads what they are missing. We don’t have to hide anymore. We don’t have to live like that. There is another world out here, of sights and sounds and scents, and it’s so *real.* Not dreams or psychodramas, actual flesh and dirt and sound.>

“Wow.”

<But they’d think I was crazy. They’d ‘calm’ me with soothing platitudes and psychic readjustment, saying that I was ‘overstimulated.’>, although the Ring keeps her warm, Imra wraps her cloak around herself anyway. <I’m never going back there. It’s all I’ve ever known, but it was never my home.>

Garth massaged his shoulder, which had stiffened up from sitting in the same position for so long before standing up and stretching, “Well, I guess it’s my turn. But it’s kind of a let-down. Winath was colonized only 200 years ago, and there really isn’t any big drama. It was a rich, fertile planet, and we moved in and planted some stuff and now it’s the bread-basket of the galaxy…”

“I’m sure it’s a *little* more interesting than that, Garth.”

“Winath was old when we found it, really old. It had been crawling with life for millions of years, but a radiation wave-front from an exploding supernova in the next system had sterilized most of the living creatures on the planet. It was perfect for colonization. A million years worth of fertile chemically rich topsoil, oceans teeming with decaying organic matter, an entire dead ecosystem lying in front of them, and it was all fodder for the new plants and animals that they introduced. We measured the topsoil on our farm once, and it went down nine and a half meters!”

“That’s a lot of tordek poop...”

“Yup. It was like a graveyard when the colonists landed, and they just dropped seed and stuff started growing like wildfire. The planet was just waiting for new life.”

“And that’s when they discovered the twin thing?”

“No, that’s a myth. Stuff grows fast on Winath because the soil is so rich. If you used the right fertilizers and genetically modified crops, you’d get the same crop yields on Braal. The only reason the colonists have twins is because we’re gene-modified that way. Our sperm trigger a chemical reaction that causes a fertilized egg to divide exactly once, and then chemically repel towards opposite sides of the womb, so that the two fetuses don’t get in other’s way during development. They remain connected by something sort of like an umbilical cord, so that if even one egg implants, the other one is ‘tethered’ and won’t be flushed out, to help prevent single births. It was intended to speed up colonization, but it’s become such a way of life that they never changed it back.”

<Yikes. The colonists *chose* to always bear twins? That’s quite a commitment…> Imra thought, her hand brushing over her stomach dubiously.

“Yeah, it was. There was no way the women were willing to just bear twins as is, there was almost a riot. So the first generation of genetic modifications caused their hips to expand slightly, to make child-birth easier on the body. It’s kind of a galaxy-wide joke that Winathian women are ‘full-figured.’”

“That must be the source of the term ‘child-bearing hips.’”

<On behalf of women everywhere, we prefer ‘Juno-esque.’> Imra declared defensively.

“Juno-esque it is, not that *you’d* ever need to worry about that…” Rokk backpedaled diplomatically. “So the farm animals don’t actually have twin births?”

“Some were modified in the earlier years, but for the most part, not any longer. It’s just the people. And those stupid space-legends about crops producing double the yields because of some weird energy field? That would be really nice, but it’s just a load of crap.”

<What about your powers? Rokk and I come from worlds where everyone can manipulate their bio-magnetic field, or read minds, but Winathians aren’t generally known for throwing lightning…>

Garth looked down for a second, but was smiling, maybe a bit too broadly as he replied. “Winath isn’t just the breadbasket of the galaxy, it’s also got the most sophisticated weather-control systems ever constructed, since our whole planetary economy revolves around crop schedules. Turns out that those big signs at the weather control sub-station that say, ‘danger, don’t touch’ are actually important…”

“Garth, I don’t need to be a telepath to know that’s not the whole story.”

“Look, I don’t want…”

“No, you look.” Rokk stood up quickly and moved so that he right in the taller man’s face, “We’re your friends Garth, and that means *if* you want to talk about something, then we’re here, any time, no matter what.” Garth’s mouth started to move again, and Rokk smoothly put his hand over it, blocking any protest, “And it *also* means that if you *don’t* want to talk about something, we aren’t going to pry, and it’s none of our sprocking business.” He removed his hand from Garth’s mouth. “Got it?”

Garth looked to Imra, unsure of her reaction, “Imra?”

<Everything Rokk just said. Every word. Applies to me as well. We’re not your parents, Garth, we’re not here to judge.>

Garth folded his friends up in his arms, “I love you guys! You guys are the greatest, you know that, right?”

“Oh, I’ve known that for years, Garth, but thanks for saying…”

<And we’re so modest, too!>

Emerald Legion interlude
“Are you now, or have you ever been?” – Where Imra asks the most important question of them all…

*********************************************************

The three had returned to the Embassy and loitering in front of Imra’s quarters, as if hesitant to end the evening they had shared.

<I have a question, for both of you. It’s the most important question, ever.>, a playful smile flitted across her face and her eyes sparkled in the dim lighting.

“Shoot.” Garth responded confidently.

“I retain the right to lie about it, if it might serve to embarrass me…” Rokk qualified with a grin.

<You first Garth, are you a dog person, or a cat person.>

“That’s important?” Garth’s eyebrow raised skeptically, “We had dogs on the farm. Two or three, usually, and they were hard-working and helpful. When we wanted to go run around in the fields and play fetch, they’d play with us, even when Mekt was being a turd-for-brains. They were big dogs, working animals, and so they’d bowl us over and wrestle with us, and we’d have to team up, because they were so strong, but they never hurt us, it was just play. It was great. Dogs all the way.”

<And yourself, Champion Krinn?> Imra said with a slight curtsy.

“’Champion Krinn,’ is it? Well, very few people on Braal had Earth-pets, or any other sort of pet, unless they were really rich. It was a status symbol to have an Earth-pet imported, and they had to stay indoors, because the iron content of the atmosphere would poison them. Even then, the vast majority of Braalian pets were fish. But, as planetary champion, I was expected to live a conspicuous life-style, and I had an Earth-cat, Benni. I’d be gone for days at a time, doing tryouts and exhibitions and sponsorships, and I’d come home and she’d be sitting on the couch, looking at me like, ‘Oh, you’re home.’ It was the perfect pet for my life-style. I could come and go, and she didn’t suffer at all for it. I had this metal ball that made tinkling noises, and I would make it roll around on the floor and she’d chase it around. It drove her crazy when I’d make it fly around above her head and she’d leap for it and try to pull it to the ground. But she knew it was me, even if I was sitting across the room. When she didn’t want to play, or got really frustrated, she’d ignore the ball and walk over and swipe my leg…” Rokk’s smile faded and his voice trailed off.

<That’s a wonderful story.> Imra thought, looking so beautiful in that moment that Rokk was able to put aside the unpleasant memories that followed.

“And I think we’ve figured out you’re a dog-person,” Rokk added with a wry grin, nodding his head in the direction of Garth.

<Don’t be so sure. We had no pets at all on Titan, but we had *memories* of earth-pets that had been handed down for many centuries. They were our most prized possessions, these worn and faded memories of life on Earth, and they were a valuable commodity among our people. I have memories of running through grass and tossing sticks and handling tiny kittens, but I’ve never actually seen any of these animals with my own eyes.>

“We have to do something about that! That’s just crazy!” Garth exclaimed, as it was a great offense that Imra had never gotten to have a pet of her own.

<Yes, now that I’m Earth, getting to meet real animals is definitely high on my agenda.>

“You’re stalling, Im. What is it, dog or cat.” Rokk insisted.

<Well, I like dogs…>

“Saw that coming…”

<If I might finish?> Imra said with a glare, hand on her hip, until Rokk gestured that she continue, <Thank you. I like dogs because they are loyal and dedicated. Their feelings are all out there in the open, they have nothing to hide and they are always happy to see you. If you cry, a dog will curl up next to you and lick your face, and it doesn’t matter where you go, a dog will try to follow at your side, no matter what.> at Rokk’s smug look, she added, <*And,* I like cats. They always seem so commanding and confident. Everything they do looks graceful and deliberate. They never look like they’re sorry or confused, as if anything they’ve done is exactly what they meant to do. They never doubt themselves, and I always wanted to have enough self-confidence to be able to walk into a room and own it like they do.>

“So why did you think Imra would be a dog-person, Rokk?”

Rokk’s smile turned mock-innocent and the faint glow from his eyes shone through the shadows as he bowed his head, “Oh, no reason at all. On a *completely* unrelated note, how did you guys like those little sandwiches? I think the green curry added a pleasant feistiness to the dish, gave it certain… *lasting* qualities…”

Imra’s face flushed with embarrassment, but Garth just smiled broadly.

“They were awesome, thanks buddy!” Garth nudged Imra, “See, told you!”

Rokk afforded Imra a smile before turning away, “I’m off to bed guys. I was hoping to do some training together in the morning, learn to coordinate and try that crazy team-work concept the Earthers are so on about, so don’t stay up too late…”

“Night man,” Garth waves absently to Rokk’s receding back, turning to see that Imra has already stepped into her quarters. Looking both ways, Garth pushes the curtain aside and pokes his head in, “Hey, ahh…”

<Oh come in already, you silly man.>

Emerald Legion, Chapter seven
“Practice makes perfect” – wherein lessons are learned, and much butt is kicked

********************************************************

Garth looked up blearily to see that Imra was already up and dressed, wearing some skintight bodysuit of silvery-gray, over which she was even now attaching her golden psi-metal adornments.

“It’s not morning already,” Garth strenuously objected, flinging one arm over his eyes to block the light now filling the room.

<Yes it is, and it has been for some time. Rokk’s already up and on his way.>

A rapping at the door-frame served to underscore to Imra’s statement, and Rokk could be heard outside, “Wakie-wakie, kids. Time to kick each other’s butts…”

<Come on in Rokk, we’ll be ready in a second.>

Somewhat dubiously, Rokk entered the bedchamber, pointedly looking at the wall, only to start as Imra stepped directly into his view. He sighed in relief upon noticing that she was completely clothed. “So, no Champion’s Garb today? You are going to have to learn to fight in it eventually…”

<I know, I just want to work with what I know before I start adjusting to that outfit. I’ve already made an adjustment to the cloak so that it pulls free without effort. The last thing I need is someone grabbing the silly thing and yanking me off-balance…>

“A good choice,” Rokk then raises his voice, “Will Garth be joining us today, or is he afraid of getting his ass kicked by a girl?”

Pulling his Champion’s Garb up, Garth hops one-legged into view. “Yeah, yeah. I’m ready. Bring it, oh, talker of big talk.”

“No bracers today?” Rokk notes, pointing out the missing bits of Garth’s Champion’s Garb.

“No bracers, ever.” Garth corrected, “They were made of conducive gold, and it’s hard enough to aim lightning bolts without the pull of the metal making it arc back towards me. The stuff has a mind of it’s own, and I don’t want to have to fight my costume to use my powers…”

<Ok, move it. I’m getting bored already.> Imra declared in a no-nonsense tone that left both of her fellow Champion’s looking questioning at each other as she strode out of the room.

In the room that the Champion’s had cleared out in sub-level 3, Imra was stretching in a manner that caused Rokk to stop dead in the doorway, only to have an inattentive Garth plow right into him, before pausing to similarly admire the view.

<Keep staring at me like that and the next thing you’ll see is me kicking your ass.>

“So, Garth, your girlfriend has suddenly transformed into the master of smack-talk.”

<Get your champion-of-the-world-washed-up-ex-sports-god butt out here, ‘Kid Cosmos,’ and I’ll make you eat those words.>

Garth just threw his hands up with a bewildered expression on his face. “Shouldn’t have called her ‘fiesty,’ man. You brought this on yourself.”

Rokk stepped out onto the mats with Imra, who was just uncoiling from a yogic posture on the ground in a move that some gymnasts would consider challenging.

“Well, you’re certainly flexible…” Rokk began, but was suddenly backpedaling desperately as a rain of blows came at his face, seemingly from all directions.

<Less talky-talk, more fighty-fight, pretty-boy.>, Imra thought with a cool mental clarity that Rokk found as disturbing as her aggressive attack.

‘Ooof’ Rokk was getting punished, and only the reinforced metal structure of his Champion’s Garb was going to spare him from bruises on the ribs she had just kicked. “Aaagh!,” and then he was on the ground, having had his legs swept out by a graceful spinning sweep. She was back on her feet and smiling at him.

<Wuss.>

“Can we have a time out for me to catch my breath, Kung Fu Super-Chick?” Rokk pleaded, hauling himself to his feet.

<Sure. Want a blankie and some warm tea with that?>

“Seriously, Im, what’s up with you?”

<Nothing’s ‘up’ with me, I’m just a better fighter than the both of you put together, and it’s my job to whip you into shape. And, for your information, I don’t like ‘Im.’ My name is Imra. Champion Ardeen, if you piss me off…”

“Now wait a second…”

<No, you wait a second. I’ve been training my body since I was old enough to walk, and while Titanian physical conditioning isn’t *currently* an active combat art, it was designed from the martial arts styles of old earth. What looks like fluffy prana-adjustment moving meditations are a series of effective blocking and striking techniques. You’re an athlete. You’re hell on the magno-ball court and in great shape, but you’ve never actually *fought* anyone.>

“And you have? I don’t think so…”

<I’ve practiced all of these moves since I was a girl. And yes, when I hit you just then, it was in fact the first time I’d ever actually struck someone with these techniques. Are you going to tell me that they weren’t effective?>

“No. You know what you’re doing. I get that, and I’m ready to learn, oh, sensei.” Rokk added with a sarcastic half-bow.

<I just want you to know one thing Rokk…> Rokk’s eyebrow arched and she continued with a grin, <This is going to hurt *you* a lot more than it hurts me…>

Garth watched the two of them move, and it was clear that now that he was mentally prepared, Rokk was able to block most of her attacks, although he seemed to be moving in slow motion compared to her. His own attacks were perfunctory at best, and it seemed increasingly obvious that Rokk was still not taking this seriously. “Man, don’t do it, she’s gonna mess you up…” Garth muttered, but it was too late and Imra yanked Rokk forward as he made a half-hearted strike past her head and as he stumbled forward she leapt into the air, sprung off his back and kicked him hard in the back of the head. He went down like a thunderbolt, but rolled to his feet in time for Imra to just miss a stomp to where his head had been a moment before.

<You *suck.* No wonder they stripped your title!>

Garth winced as Imra’s head rocked back from the force of Rokk’s backhand, and he rushed forward as she staggered back. Rokk was already apologizing, hands in the air, “Stone! I’m sorry, oh lords, I didn’t mean…”

Imra shook her head and regarded him with a grin, rubbing her sore jaw, <Don’t apologize, dummy. It’s about time you started actually playing to win and not jerking me around.>

“But…”

<Shut up, Rokk. I *made* you hit me. I earned that, and I’ll throw the regen-pack on it and not even have a bruise in the morning. It’s all part of the new game we’re in. Are you honestly telling me that if one of those gunmen at the Mindfire den had been female you would have held back? ‘Cause she would have shot you dead, and walked right over your corpse to shoot at us, buster, and we can’t afford that kind of thinking…>

“It’s not a ‘because you’re a girl’ thing, Im…, *Imra.* My hardest challenge match was against a girl. She put me in the hospital, actually. It’s a ‘don’t like to hurt my friends’ thing.”

<That’s very noble, but training was your idea, and we aren’t training how to lose here. We’re training to survive, and to survive, sometimes you’ve got to be willing to do things you don’t want to do. Do you think I really want to hit you?>

“I *was* wondering for a minute there…” Rokk said, rubbing the back of his head pointedly.

<Do you think I want to hit Garth?>

“No.”

<Garth, you’re up. If I sense you holding back, you aren’t allowed in my quarters for a week.>

Garth and Rokk both blinked at that bald statement, and Rokk was the first to react, “Oh wait, I didn’t realize that there was an incentive plan, can I try again?”

<Don’t push it, buster. I’ve got more where that came from.>

“You sound like an old holo-vid, Imra, nobody talks that way,” Garth said confidently as she lunged towards him.

Rokk watched the two of them move, and Garth was using his mass to good effect. He didn’t have the advantage of a metal-reinforced suit to cushion her blows, but he just kept shrugging off her attempts to throw him off-balance. Finally he got ahold of her arm and in a second he had wrapped around her like a python, and she was barely visible behind his biceps as he threw them both to the ground and drove the wind out of her with his weight.

“My big brother liked to wrestle with us, it was get good or get beat up...” Garth explained with a grunt as he continued rolling around, smacking Imra into the mats with every roll, keeping her off-balance.

<Yes, very clever. Off, now.> Imra thought as her dainty fist drove backwards straight into his crotch.

Rokk missed a second of the action as his eyes involuntarily closed in sympathy for his fellow male, but when they opened, Garth was rising shakily to his feet looking pale and Imra had rolled to one knee a few meters away, where she was wheezing for breath.

Neither of them seemed to be interested in pressing the attack, and all three were startled by the arrival of Queen Sarya, who chose to announce her presence by clapping her approval for the scene she had just walked in upon.

“Highness,” Rokk said with a bow, “we didn’t expect to see you down here…”

“Whyever not, Champion Krinn? This figure doesn’t maintain itself,” she added sweeping her robes off to reveal a skintight bodysuit similar to Imra’s but in a dark jade green. The figure in question was a fine one indeed, bulkier than Imra’s, but with no trace of fat, and indeed quite shapely for her age, which Rokk was not nearly suicidal enough to inquire about…

Garth had already put two and two together, and walked gingerly over to Rokk. “So, we’ve just been suckered.”

Rokk realized that he was right, Sarya and Imra had clearly talked this over, there was no other explanation for their matching skin-suits.

Sarya stepped onto the mat and said, “So, who’s first…”

***********************************************************************

The three young Champion’s sat on Imra’s bed, which seemed to have become their informal meeting area.

“So,” muttered Garth sourly, holding a heating pack against his back, “Venegarian women have super-strength.”

<And they’re resistant to telepathy.> added Imra, massaging a hand-shaped bruise on her arm. <Or, at least *she* is.>

“Lesson learned. Queens who have to face regular honor challenges to hold their thrones are not to be underestimated.” Rokk agreed.

“Wait a minute.” Garth began and Imra just shook her head. “You were cheating!”

<Obviously, Garth. I’ve never been in a physical fight in my life. Remember when Rokk hit me?>

“I’m really…”

<It’s fine, Rokk. The point is, he hit me because he *wasn’t thinking.* I made him so angry, he just acted, and that gave him the advantage against a telepath. I couldn’t anticipate that he was about to hit me, because he realized that he’d hit me the same time I did, as it was already happening.>

“Then how come I was able to grab you? You weren’t setting me up for that dirty hit, were you?” Garth glared suspiciously.

<Well, it was the plan, I had no idea you were going to crush the breath out of me so effectively. The slamming around and keeping me disoriented thing was very effective. If you hadn’t stopped to gloat, I wouldn’t have been able to get my bearings…>

“Hmm. Things sure would have been different if I’d used *my* powers,”, Garth proclaimed before turning to Rokk and drawing a deep breath. “Rokk, I’m not sure how to say this, but you were really moving slow out there…”

<It’s true Rokk, I’ve seen the vids of your championship matches, and you moved like a dancer. When you were on the court, your serves were blindingly fast and incredibly coordinated, but I didn’t see anything like that today.>

Rokk remained quiet, eyes closed, with his hand against his head, shaking it slightly as if attempting to deny his friends questions.

“It was the same at the drug-lab. You floated in, and sort of hung there in the air, using your powers…”

“Enough! Yes, I’m slow and clumsy.”

<That’s not what I meant…>

“No, but it’s the truth. I *was* really fast and coordinated once, but that was back when I had a living nervous system.”

<What?>

“I don’t get it, you’ve got nerve-implants? I thought those were supposed to make you *faster?*”

“No. The short version is that I got poisoned by a rival player, and the drug he used killed every single nerve cell in my body, except for my brain, which was protected by the blood-brain barrier. I was paralyzed and powerless.”

<Oh, Rokk…>

“That sucks! Did they find out who did it?”

“Oh yeah, the pony-tailed creep is in Takron-Galtos. They ruled it attempted murder. He won’t be out for years.”

<But, you were walking when I met you, and you had regained your powers…>

“The drug ended up replacing my nervous system, settling down in the same pathways where the cells had been. It’s a crystalline powder, superfluidic in structure, and it contains and channels my magnetic field. It’s actually a lot stronger than a normal Braalian nervous system, but it *isn’t* a nervous system. I can’t walk, or move my arm, or any of that. I’ve spent over a year re-training my biomagnetic field to move my muscles for me, and even then, I have a regulator chip installed in here,” Rokk tapped his chest, “to keep my heart and lungs and other systems working when I’m sleeping, or in case my powers fluctuate or are blocked. So yeah, I’m just a little bit cyborg, Garth. It’s Coluan photonic tech. Any normal tech wouldn’t work in a Braalian system, due to the magnetic fluctuations.”

“So yeah, I *know* that I’m slow, and clumsy, and nothing near what I was a few years ago, when I was a star athlete. I can walk, but I can’t run. I can’t dance. I can’t jump around or do gymnastics or roll to my feet. But every day my control improves.”

<I’m sorry Rokk, I had no idea.> Imra said, placing her arm on Rokk’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I just thought you were a little cocky or something.” Garth said

Rokk laughed, “Oh, I am cocky. And I meant what I said. Every day, I improve. A year and a half ago, I couldn’t get out of bed. Today, I’m ‘clumsy and slow.’ Next year, I’ll be as fast and coordinated as either of you. And I *will* regain every single move I’ve lost. That’s not a fantasy or goal or a dream. That’s a *fact.*”

“I believe you buddy.”

<I was so critical about the Braalian love of competition, but it’s really made you into the fighter you need to be. I’m proud of you, Rokk.>

Emerald Legion, Chapter eight
“Blood is 7.3 times thicker than water” – wherein our young Champions face their greatest challenge

********************************************************

The Kathooni delegation had not been formally accepted into the UP yet, so they had no Embassy of their own. Instead the reception was in the sprawling Talokkian Embassy, the otherwise lightless interior of which was decorated in gleaming Kathooni sparkle-crystals, and the many glistening decorations of the various Ambassadors and their retinues. The Talokkian staff themselves wore only armor-like accoutrements of reflective metal, and, as Ambassador Ravin proclaimed, ‘bathed only in the radiant magnificence of their guests.’

Queen Sarya had dressed in robes of deep jade green, effectively black in the dim surroundings, but orbiting her crown was a fist-sized star emerald, which had been specially treated to glow with its’ own verdant inner fire. Her face was bathed in a soft green light, and shifting shadows played over her face as the stone completed its’ circuit around her head. Imra had treated her gossamer cloak to radiate the subtlest pale green hue, not enough to cast any light of its’ own, but merely enough to be visible in the dark as a glimmering emerald shadow. Her Titanian psi-metal adornments shone with their own pale amber glow, and in the shifting light sources, seemed to move of their own volition, like serpents of gold writhing over her legs and arms. Garth had allowed the white and gold segments of his own Champion’s Garb be treated with a fluorescent dye, and cut a bold figure, with his face underlit by the dramatic white lightning bolt cutting down his torso. Rokk had skipped any cosmetic alterations for the occasion, and in the unlit shadows, the pale violet glow of his eyes cut through the darkness with a surprising intensity.

“Great, we’re all gussied up, and I can’t see a sprocking thing.” Garth complained.

“Just watch out for that Talokkian Ambassador. I think he grabbed my ass when he was introducing himself…”

“You *think?* How could you not be sure?” Garth muttered, wondering not for the first time was in this glass he was holding, since he couldn’t actually make out what color it was, only that it had a suspiciously thick texture and tasted like nothing he could identify.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe ‘cause it was dark? Could have been anyone, really. Well, anyone wearing a lot of metal, I could tell that much…”

Garth got an evil look on his face and cupped a hand to his mouth, but Rokk nudged him in the ribs before he could make any sort of embarrassing announcement.

“What? I was just gonna holler across the room to Imra and ask if it was her…”

“Oh great, get us both killed why don’t you,” Rokk laughed. “What’s she doing over there anyway?”

“She said that she thought she ‘heard’ another Titanian in the room, but she’s having trouble finding them, so she’s on the prowl.”

Any reply died on his lips as the room suddenly exploded into brilliance, and the assorted delegates were left reeling and blinded by the explosion, as a thunderous display of *lightning* poured down in the center of the room.

The Talokkian and Kathooni in the crowd were most stricken by the brilliant display, and Garth could just make out a figure standing in the midst of the brilliant bolt of lightning that was traveling upwards to splash across the ceiling in a display of sparks and electricity.

<Surrender immediately, and die. There is no ‘or.’>, came a powerful telepathic command that neither Garth nor Rokk recognized, although the source was recognizably female. The command seemed to surge around in their minds like a crashing wave, repeating endlessly, and both found themselves momentarily unable to react.

A red flash, likely invisible to the light-sensitive members of the delegation was followed by a gut-wrenching stench, and Garth sank to his knees retching.

“Sweet siblings, the stench! What is that?”

“Sulphur dioxide, I think. And it’s killing them,” Rokk choked out, pointing at the fallen delegates, now clearly suffocating on the floor. “Rings, protecting us from the worst of it.”

“Thanks, Exposition Lad,” Garth muttered through his hand, futility trying to block the nauseating stench. He suddenly pointed, “There.”

Rokk turned to see a man in a blue and red outfit, wearing an unusual helmet and his eyes glowed red, much like the same energy flash that had preceded the sudden change in atmosphere.

“Venusian, methane-breathers, allergic to oxygen.” Rokk gasped, as he raised his hands and dozens of sharp-edged metallic Talokkian items of tableware flew towards the figure. Both Champions were surprised to see the man’s eyes flash red again, and the metallic projectiles dissolved into water and splashed harmlessly across the figure.

“We need to,” Rokk began when suddenly the room went dark again and he was suddenly lifted from his feet by a massive discharge of electricity which left him gasping and on the razor’s edge of consciousness.

Garth stepped into the current, blocking it with a stream of lightning from his own hands, and saw a familiar face backlit by the flaring discharge.

“Mekt?”

“Hey, little brother. Fancy meeting you here…”

Garth advanced slowly, his own streams of electricity matching the single blast that his brother seemed to be effortlessly sustaining, “Why are you doing this, these people…”

Mekt kept talking manically, ignoring Garth’s words, “You had the right idea, Garth. Winath was a dead end. Why stick around and watch little Ayla finish her transformation? Crying all the time that you’d abandoned her and thought she was a freak…”

“Shut up!” Garth screamed, switching from just holding his brother’s discharge at bay and pouring out all of his rage.

Mekt stepped back, a look of amused surprise on his face, and raised his other hand to focus fully on keeping his brother at bay. “Come on, you know I’m right. She’s a freak, and you couldn’t stand looking at her freak face. You were right to leave her behind. Who needs a twin, anyway? I sure didn’t…” his face twisted into a hateful sneer, and Garth felt himself falling back under the blistering strain.

Rokk had regained his breath, and noticed that a half-dozen men in masks were walking among the fallen ambassadors and snatching up items of jewelry and shoving them into sacks at their waists. The Venusian was watching him with arms folded, apparently considering him no threat and waiting for him to make the first move. Across the room, he could see Imra standing directly in front of another woman in what appeared to be some sort of uniform. It was obvious they were having some sort of mental battle, as Imra’s arm was frozen in the attempt to reach the woman, and both of them showed signs of strain.

Of the Queen, there was no sign, and Rokk realized that they had only minutes before the delegates began to die from oxygen deprivation, but every time he seized control of a metal weapon to use, the red-eyed man just shook his head and it turned into water in a crimson flash and fell harmlessly to the ground. The man’s environment suit was made of some material that didn’t respond to his magnetic powers, and his hopes of cracking the man’s life-support systems open were dashed.

Sensing a heavy source of metal across the room, Rokk activated his Ring,

<<Garth! Switch targets, I’ll take care of your brother, you shoot the Venusian!>>

<<No!>>

<<Garth, do it!>>

Suddenly, Garth dove to the side and Mekt’s lightning blasts flew harmlessly into the drinks table, where several of the local beverages proved to be flammable. Garth fired a double-blast of lightning at the flat-footed Venusian, and as Mekt turned and started tracking the lightning to where his little brother had landed, a 200 kilo metal gong crashed into his back and threw him to the ground.

Rokk used every erg of his magnetic strength to press the metal gong down, pinning the lightning wielder to the ground, while trusting Garth to handle the Venusian. His trust was rewarded as the scent of sulphur abruptly vanished to be replaced with sweet, sweet air, heavily tinged by the odor of the electrical fires touched off during the brothers’ exchange.

He shifted his position carefully, and he could now just make out Imra and the Titanian woman now face to face, faces glistening in the flicking firelight as sweat poured down their foreheads, muscles straining as they gripped each others arms. Slowly, Imra leaned forward and it almost looked like she was going to kiss the other woman when she suddenly shouted in the other womans’ face, “BITCH!”

The older telepath looked shocked and flinched visibly before attempting to regain her mental focus, but it was too late and she closed her eyes and slumped backwards, stricken instantly unconscious by Imra’s mental assault.

The sack-toting henchmen attempted to flee, only to find that the room had been sealed, presumably by the villains themselves and while Rokk kept his concentration on making sure that the lightning wielder was pinned, Garth and Imra made short work of the remaining henchmen.

The main doors wrenched open with a squeal, and Queen Sarya and Kathooni Ambassador Marin strode into the smoke-filled battlezone, accompanied by a half-dozen statuesque armor-clad Kathooni security women, who quickly moved to see to the fallen delegates, most of whom were sputtering and choking, but seemed none the worse for the wear.

Within minutes, SP troopers also entered the room, and the criminals were manacled and led away.

Being dragged out, Mekt was red-faced and screaming, “Your idiot friends won’t save you Garth! I will destroy you for this! You’ll abandon them like you abandoned us, you don’t deserve friends, you don’t deserve family, you’re *nothing!*”

Garth was trembling with rage, and his hands were crackling and sparking with energy. The SPs continued trying to wrestle the struggling Mekt out of the room, but Garth had moved into the doorway and was blocking them from getting Mekt out, “Go ahead, let him go.”

Rokk stepped between the brothers, “Garth, no.” he placed his hand on the taller man’s chest, carefully avoiding his hands, which were tossing off tiny bolts of electricity that arced towards Rokk’s metal suit, shocking him painfully.

“Get out of my way, Rokk. I’ll burn you down.”

“No you won’t.”, Rokk maintained, only managing to hold himself steady in the wake of the stronger man by using his magnetic powers to hold himself in place.

“You think you can stop me?” Garth said coldly, his eyes glowing with blinding golden energy.

“Go ahead!” Mekt ranted, “Incinerate the fool! Nothing can stop us!”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. *You* are going to stop you.” Rokk pointed behind him at Mekt, who, thankfully, had been gagged by one of the suspiciously strong Kathooni amazon-women.

“I know you won’t attack me, because that’s what *he* would do. And you’re nothing like him.”

Suddenly the glow faded from Garth’s eyes and he turned away, shoulders shaking. “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”

By that point, the armored Karthooni had given up on dragging Mekt out on his feet, and instead rolled him into a decorative tapestry, heaved him into the air and carted him off like produce, struggling feebly as Garth pointedly turned again so that his brother couldn’t even catch his eye on the way by.

Imra came up behind Rokk and put a hand on him as he sagged in relief. <Thank you. I could have stopped him, but it’s far more important that he stopped himself.>

******************************************************************************

Hours had passed, and the young Champions had returned to the Venegarian Embassy. Imra and Rokk sat in her room, while Garth had asked to have some time and soared up into the night sky.

<Do you think he’ll be able to get past this?> Imra asked, the concern tinging her thoughts.

“It’s got to be hard for him. It seems like nobody can hurt you like family.”

<Not just family. It’s the people we love that have the power to hurt us. We give them that power.>

Rokk looked around the room, as if the answer would be sitting in the corner, waiting to be found. “I’m not a telepath, Imra, but I know alone, and I don’t think Garth needs to be alone right now. I think that’s the *last* thing he needs. You should go to him.”

<No. *We* should go to him.>

“You guys have a thing…”

<That’s not the ‘thing,’ he needs right now. He needs friends. He needs family, and we’re his family now. You and me both.> Imra extended her hand. <Let’s go find our family.>

Emerald Legion, Chapter nine.
“Diplomacy, by Night.” – the beautiful coming together of two cultures
[Warning: Semi-Adult content. Huh, huh, I said 'semi.']

**********************************************************

“Hey Rokk, you decent?” Garth called out before barging in anyway.

”No, I’m sprocking amazing,” Rokk said, looking up from his hammock, where he’d been reading a pad on linguistic commonalities and the development of Interlac.

Garth waved his own pad enthusiastically, “Guess what I found…”

Rokk gestured impatiently and the pad tore itself out of Garth’s grasp and flew to his own hand.

“Hey!” Garth protested half-heartedly as he crossed over to lean over Rokk as he viewed the pad.

“It’s a nice likeness,” Rokk began, somewhat bewildered as to why Garth would have a spectrum-enhanced depiction of his backside.

“Wait for it…” Garth cautioned as he selected for the image to advance in half-speed, and Rokk watched as the Talokkian Ambassador glided by on his left, hands primly folded in front of him, while a second figure moved past quickly on his right, and a hand snaked out and gave his butt a firm squeeze.

“Image freeze, and pan out.” Garth said, and the image pulled back to reveal the Kathooni delegate leaving the chamber with Queen Sarya. The hand in question was attached to one of the Kathooni retinue, a heavily-armored amazon of a woman who had copped a feel without breaking stride. “Freeze there.” Garth added unnecessarily to he datapad. “And there we have it. The pressing mystery of Ass-Grabber Lass, resolved.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t Ravin. Guy’s a galaxy-class perv…” Rokk conceded, before looking up to the proudly grinning Garth, “While I’m grateful, was this really what you’ve spent the morning looking up?”

“Actually, I was reviewing the security footage of the break-in. It was Mekt who sealed the doors. They meant to suffocate everyone and leave no living witnesses. That Titanian woman was just there to keep them from calling for outside help and keep them pacified while they died…” Garth’s voice was shaking. “I can’t believe he’d do something like that. I’m so sprocking stupid…”

With a heavy sigh, Rokk rolled out of his hammock and stood in front of his friend. “I’m sick of having to yell at you, Garth, so sprocking listen up this time!”

Garth started to lean back, but thumped into the wall behind him and had nowhere to retreat, “Wait, what?”

“I am sick to death of hearing you go on about this stupid farm-boy thing.”

“Actually, I am…”

“You *were* a farm-boy.” Rokk interrupted, punctuating his words by poking his friend in the chest. “Not any more. And you were never stupid. I’ve read up on Winath, and on you, and your flight trainer gave you the highest marks anyone got on the entire *planet* when you were fourteen. He said that you were a natural, that you could take apart a skyburner and put it back together with your eyes closed, and he said that he *hated* that you went back to the farm and didn’t stick with piloting as a career choice.”

“It’s just natural talent, ‘though, like your magno-ball, it’s not like *science* or anything…”

“First of all, you have no idea what it takes to play magno-ball, so don’t even compare the two, and second of all, there is a hell of a lot more to piloting than instinct or natural talent. You have to deal with hundreds of variables, all with enough speed and wit to avoid any of a dozen possible disastrous decisions. Flying doesn’t take balls, Ranzz, it takes *brains.*”

“I kinda used both, actually…”

“Regardless, if balls were all you used, you would have died on your first solo flight, and certainly not gotten highest marks.”

“It’s just, all my life, I wasn’t smart enough. I always thought, if I’d been a little smarter, I would have been able to figure out why Mekt hated us. I would have known what was up with Alayn, *Ayla,* know the right things to say to make it easier...”

“You can’t live other people’s lives for them, Garth. They’ll make their own choices, choices you never would have imagined for them, but it’s not your fault, and you’re not responsible for Ayla’s choice, and you sure as hell aren’t responsible for Mekt…” Rokk’s face softened as he came to a sudden realization. “It was Mekt.” Garth didn’t react, and Rokk stepped back, “Mekt’s been telling you that you were stupid all your life, hasn’t he?”

“He always knew stuff, and he’d just give me that look when I didn’t know something, like I was one of the meat-animals or something…”

“He was *older* Garth. *Of course,* he knew stuff that you hadn’t learned yet.” Rokk shook his head, “And this is the problem with Winath.” Garth looked puzzled at the shift in topic. “You guys are all set with the twin thing, but you have no idea how to deal with an older brother.” He shook his head, "Mekt was *jealous,* Garth. *You* had the twin. *You* were the 'normal one.' *You* were the one that got accepted into piloting school."

“It’s not just Mekt. It’s everyone. Imra took all sorts of molecular science and neural psychology classes. She talks about that stuff and I’m just lost.” He points at the pad depicting the Talokkian soiree, “And here. You’re all like, ‘sulphur dioxide’ and, ‘he’s Venusian, they breath methane and oxygen kills them’ and I’m like, ‘hey, dude has a bowl over his head!’”

“Garth, I don’t even know where to start. Braal is a mining world. Sulphur dioxide is a common industrial smell. And it’s also a commerce hub, and sentients from all over the sector come for the magno-ball play-offs. I’ve met Venusians before. I had to sit through an excruciating dinner with the head of the Venusian Gas-Mines, smiling the whole time as the poster-boy for the Blacksteel Cartel.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I know *some* stuff. You know *other* stuff.” Rokk punctuated his statement by tapping Garth in the forehead with his own pad. “Like that the Talokkian Embassy had spectrum-enhanced surveillance of the event. *I* didn’t think of that…”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I can keep up. Especially with Imra being so… so…”

“Cerebral?”

“Yeah.”

Rokk steepled his hands in front of his face, drawing up his nerve. “Garth, if you ever mention this, I’m going to deny it.” Garth looked alarmed, but Rokk steam-rollered on before he lost his nerve. “It *kills* me to say this, but I had a month to impress Imra before we hit Winath to re-supply. So there I am, a good-looking, witty, charming *sports-star,* well-versed in interacting with sentients of all sorts. Since I was fourteen, I’ve had anyone I wanted and she chooses *you.* She’s Titanian, Garth. She didn’t choose you for your arms or that floppy mess you call hair. She chose you because *you’re smarter than I am.* She knows it. I know it, and the only ‘stupid’ thing I’ve seen about you is that *you* haven’t figured it out yet.”

“I..”

“Don’t. I’m never saying this again. Just don’t.” Rokk turned and flew out the door, leaving Garth standing in Rokk’s room, head spinning with notions that refused to take purchase.

Garth sat down heavily on Rokk’s hammock. “Wow.” The hammock promptly overbalanced and he flew backwards onto the floor with a heavy crash. “Oof!” Looking up from the floor at his legs, still hanging off of the hammock, he lay there, sides shaking as he laughed silently, still spun by his friends words, “Yeah, I’m a real genius…”

*************************************************************************

Rokk was sitting atop the Embassy, checking the pad and getting alternate angles. Each of the Kathooni security agents wore their armor in a slightly different style, and his target wore silvery torso-plate that resembled a one-piece swimsuit, covering her from crotch to neck, while leaving her arms, legs and head bare. She had a similar plate of steel on her left thigh, and another on her right calf. Her arms were similarly mismatched, with a bulky pauldron on her left shoulder and an ornate bracer, almost big enough to call a shield, on her right forearm. Underneath, a skintight black bodysuit covered the rest of her skin, although her milky-skinned fingers and toes were exposed, and her strong-jawed face. Her hair was a tower of black, held in place by far too many shiny silver pins.

Checking the other members of the delegation, he confirmed that each had a different style of body armor, and he was positive that he could recognize this one, even in the dark, based on the positioning of the metal covering her body.

He then looked up Kathooni courtship rituals. No reason, just bored, he managed to convince the tiny protesting voice that said, ‘what the sprock are you doing?’

The Kathooni mission was located in bowels of an administrative building, as the Kathooni had no Embassy of their own. Rokk stood in front of the entrance, wondering what the hell he was doing here. He was just looking at the pictures. And then he was just figuring out if he could recognize her. And then he was looking up how to say ‘take off your clothes’ in Kathooni. It was all perfectly harmless, and it was a train-wreck that would only stop if he turned around right now.

The door opened in front of him, and the chamber before him was pitch-black. So much for leaving before they notice, he thought wryly as an irresistibly strong arm reached out of the darkness and pulled him into the darkened room.

In the dark, he could feel a half-dozen metal-armored figures moving towards him and a deep voice sounded next to his ear, making him jump, “Jath, it is the purple-eyed one. His garb speaks of his mating status.”

‘Mating status?’ He finally managed to resolve the metal signatures, just in time to recognize that the woman in question was now directly in front of him. “Your eyes burn with lust,” came the husky voice and suddenly he felt the mail-mesh of his shirt bunch up as the woman grabbed his shirt and yanked him forward.

“Uh, hi, I was just passing by,” Rokk began lamely as he stumbled to regain his balance, wondering where he had lost control of this encounter, and then remembering that he’d never actually *had* control to lose.

“I will take you now,” the voice said matter-of-factly, and suddenly everything was spinning. By the time he got his bearing, Rokk realized that he had been hauled over the woman’s shoulder and she was carting him off like… well, like they carted off Mekt, come to think of it. And, oh yeah, her hand was on his ass again.

“Actually, I was thinking we could have something to eat, get to know each other…” Rokk protested in a voice that sounded far too high-pitched for his comfort and suddenly everything was spinning, and if not for her hand on his chest, he would have fallen over when she set him back on his feet, apparently in another room entirely.

“Oh hey, we haven’t even been introduced, I’m…” Rokk began, only to be stopped by the presence of strong fingers clamped over his mouth.

“No names. You have not yet earned my name.” the voice commanded, and with a sure confidence pried open the fastenings on the front of his Champion’s Garb. “Your armor will not serve you in this battle.”

“I…” Rokk managed to get out before she had peeled him like a banyo fruit, and he noticed that the room was just a bit chilly all of a sudden. The hand began relentlessly pushing him backwards and Rokk had just about had enough of this. Using his magnetic powers, he anchored himself to the floor and stood his ground, and heard her grunt lightly as she pushed harder against his chest. “Neither will yours,” he snapped, and with a series of pinging noises unfastened all of the snaps on the Kathooni woman’s armor as well. He felt a slight breeze and heard a loud clang as the woman pulled her now unfastened breastplate free and flung it across the room. Suddenly, despite his best attempts, he was flying through the air as she re-doubled her push, and his unscheduled flight ended in a massive pile of pillows piled in a corner. ‘Satin, I think,’ he managed to ascertain before the woman was on him like a tidal wave, pulling him under. The last sounds that he could identify as words sounded like, “Impertinent male! Learn your place!”

********************************************************************************

The waterfall was roaring past him, no, *through* him, and his body was shuddering with its’ passage. It seemed like it had been going on forever, and only now was he being born to consciousness from a place of warm soft darkness. He finally realized that it wasn’t a waterfall at all, it was his heartbeat, pounding so fast that it was like a piston engine, one continuous low thrum, the individual beats no longer recognizable as distinct events.

Slowly he felt the world spin into being around him, and Great Smithy, his body felt like it had been subjected to some sort of medieval torture! He was sprawled across the scattered pillows, and dimly became aware of voices in the darkness.

“It yet lives. I owe you two crystal moons and a blade of steel.”

“I would not have killed the male. Venegar would demand recompense.”

“I but jest, the wager was of the hours until the male recovered consciousness. His fortitude is unnatural for one of the lesser races. I desire him now.”

Rokk felt as well as heard a blade of steel slide from a leather sheath and a voice he recognized, as if from strange dream, said, “I announce claim.”

He felt metal-clad bodies shifting position and belatedly realized that he was lying naked in front of a bunch of people who could see in the dark. For some reason this seemed far more important than any impending knife-fight, but his feeble attempts to pull a pillow over himself were foiled by his arms, which trembled as if he had been pounded into jelly, shaken vigorously and then poured back into his skin.

“Stand down. I would not draw steel over an out-worlder, no matter his exotic skills.”

‘Exotic skills?’ Rokk thought? ‘Lady, I spent the last hour and a half *fighting for my life!* That wasn’t ‘skill,’ that was desperation…’ Clearly these Kathooni didn’t appreciate how strong they were.

“I leave you,” a voice announced matter-of-factly and the others left the room, and Rokk was again alone with his tormentor.

He had just managed to lean forward, ever so slightly, to discover that yet indeed, *everything* hurt, and not for the first time he cursed the fact that a man with no nervous system could still know pain.

“Drink this, you must replenish your fluids,” the voice ordered, and a cup the size of a serving bowl was thrust into his chest. He managed to grab it before too much of the hot fluid spilled onto his chest, and the smell was somewhat like Earth coffee, the beverage of choice to the Braalian working class. He sipped the rich liquid, and felt a pleasant burn travel down his throat and into his stomach, which, predictably, immediately cramped up at the intrusion. Still, a pleasant lassitude followed, and the pain faded away. “What is this stuff?” Rokk managed to say, shocked to realize that he had drained the entire bowl.

“You would call it an ‘energy drink.’ It is used after battle to soothe the nerves, and runners use it to carry messages from clan to clan, so that they may travel over many days without rest.”

‘Yikes,’ thought Rokk, not liking the sound of ‘many days without rest’ as related to his current position. “Actually, it’s making me a little sleepy.”

“I am not versed in your physiology. Perhaps it is poison to your kind.”

‘Well, *that’s* reassuring.’

“Would you like more?”

‘Why the hell not.’ “Please.”

As he sipped at the second cup, he could feel that the woman was crouching in front of him, no doubt seeing him clear as day even in the darkness, while he was only dimly aware of her location because of the heavy metallic residues in the cosmetics decorating her nails, skin and hair.

“I’m not clear on your customs. Should I tell you my name now?”

“Names are sacred things. If you give me your name, I will gain power over you.”

'Yeah, like I'm so on top of the situation, now...' Rokk thought sarcastically, “You could just look it up…”

“I already know what your people call you, Rokk Krinn, Champion of Venegar. But you have not *given me* your name. Do not do this, if you do not mean it.” The woman shifted before him, and he could feel the brush of her hair, which had come unfastened and was now hanging ankle-length about her like a cloak. “Would you know me?” she asked, and her voice for the first time was soft, uncertain. “Yes.” Rokk said, without hesitation, reaching out to take her hand firmly.

“My Clan is Jath,” she said with some firmness, and then leaned forward to almost whisper, “My name is Lydda, and I give it to you.”

He wasn’t sure if it was the drink, but Rokk felt his world shift around him, and understood. He leaned forward and said softly, for her ears alone, “My Clan is Krinn. My name is Rokk.”

She breathed into his ear again and somehow made his name sound like sex, “Rokk.” She leaned back slightly, “But this is not the name by which I shall know you. I shall make for you a name that none but we shall speak, when we are like this,” her hand dropped possessively to rest below his stomach, and Rokk winced with the reminder that his next date was with a regen-pack.

Her face hovered before his, and he could just make out the reflection of her silvery eye-makeup in the purple light of his eyes. “You are Thall.”

Trying desperately to remember any words in Karthooni, “Plaything?”

“Ha! No, that is Thole, and yes, you are that as well. Thall is the name of the comet that passes our world every seventh year. It ignites great storms of light that flicker like fires in the upper sky, and the ground below is bathed in purple light. Predatory beasts stalk the harsh light, taking advantage of our discomfort, and the males cower in fear. We take them into dark places and hide from the violet fire in the sky. We comfort them through this time.”

“My eyes. You said they burn with lust…”

“Yes. Your eyes call to our brightest fears. But I am a warrior. I have stared into my fear, and found there a mate.”

Her hand began to move again slowly on his stomach, as if tracing patterns only she could see. Rokk was surprised to feel his body responding to her touch. He reached out for her hand, “Lydda,” he said, saying her name very softly, “I can’t do this again. Not yet.”

“Release your fears, little male. I will not break you. Our time of battle is done. Now it is the time of peace,” she relaxed next to him and softly stroked his face.

“Uh, I’m not sure about Kathooni males, but the rest of us don’t like the phrase, ‘little male.’” Rokk noted. ‘Especially when we are naked,’ he added silently.

“It is a term of affection only, Thall. For the challenge at hand, your anatomy is…” she cast a measuring glance. “sufficient.”

‘Ouch.’ Thought Rokk. ‘Oh yeah, that’s *much* better. Note to self; Kathooni pillow-talk to be avoided at all costs…’

*****************************************************************************

Rokk limped into the Embassy quietly, attempting to stick to little-used corridors, but resigned himself to his fate as he turned around a corner to find himself face to face with Imra and the Queen.

The Queen looked up with a distracted expression and not a trace of emotion passed her face as she looked him up and down. “I trust the other person looks worse for wear?”

<Garth! Bring the regen-pack! Rokk, what happened…>, Imra said, eyes wide with concern.

Drawing a breath, Rokk decided to get it over with fast, “Yeah, it’s a funny story. I got married.”

<WHAT!?!>

He heard a crash as Garth came around the corner and dropped the regen-pack in the middle of the hall. “WHAT!”

Rokk just closed his eyes and hung his head as the Queen of Venegar began laughing.

Regal and confident,
Powerful and strong,
Sarya of Venegar
felt so right when so wrong

A foe worthy of the Legion,
though in the end she did die,
for Sarya overestimated herself,
and underestimated the Eye

Despite this failing,
which one must surely address,
You cannot speak of great Legion foes,
Without mentioning the Emerald Empress

Some older Green things from me...I'm working on something new

Emerald Empress

Emerald Legion, Chapter ten
“That which does not kill us, generally hurts.” – In which Rokk and Lydda redefine marital bliss

**************************************************************

Lydda awoke to find herself alone, and Kand in her doorway, laughing roughly.

“Your pet outworlder has fled already, Jath. You offer him your name, and he takes it and runs like a mongrel with a scrap of meat.”

Lydda rose with a scowl and began seeking out her armor.

“Shall I help you prepare for the hunt?” Kand offered teasingly, shrinking back as Lydda hurled a blade into the wall next to her head.

“Leave. Or fight. But do it now.” Lydda growled, satisfied to see Kand’s eyes narrow and her back as she turned away.

Lydda prowled out into the common area to the sounds of her fellow warriors coarsely discussing the events of the night before, and Kand shot her a venomous glare of superiority. Brushing past her roughly, she reached the outer doors and hesitated for a moment.

“It is day, warrior. Death rides high in the sky.” Kand began, tauntingly, only to gasp along with the others as Lydda slammed the door override and opened up the portal. “Jath! No outworlder is worth this! I take back my words, do not risk this for that male!”

Lydda squinted at the glare of the dimly lit hallway and moved into the hallway, slamming the portal shut behind her and moving further into the soul-searing light of the Metropolitan day. She could hear her fellow warriors at the end of the hall calling, “Jath! Do not do this thing!” but she walked right out of the building into the full rays of the devil-sun, staggering to her knees under its’ merciless intensity. She felt her long hair streaming behind her in wild disarray, and knew that she was unfit to be seen, even by outworlders in such a state, her armor mismatched and her hair un-groomed, but she would die before she let this male escape with her pride.

She could only open her eyes the tiniest fraction at a time, and only for an instant, and then would stagger a distance before having to peek again. No matter how thinly she cracked her eyes, no matter how she shaded her gaze with her hands, there was always something bright and reflective within her sight to seemingly throw the fires straight into her fevered mind. She stumbled on, desperately trying to retrace her steps to the Venegarian Embassy, but unable to recognize any of the landmarks of the night among these bright buildings and milling outworlders.

A hand fell upon her arm and she whirled around to strike, but the deadly rays of Earth’s sun had poisoned her strength so that she could not even dislodge the outworlder’s frail grasp. “Oh, hey, are you okay lady, you look sick. I can take you to Met General…”

“I need to get to the Venegarian Embassy.” Lydda gasped.

“If it’s atmo poisoning, you need to get whatever mix your people breathe…,” the outworlder began, and seemed to be leading her towards one of the outworlders flying carriages.

“It is not. I breathe oxy/nitro. It is this cursed radiation. The Embassy,” Lydda insisted, feeling a tiny scrap of pride boil away as she added, “*Please.*”

“Okay, okay. Just sit here,” the elderly male said, and she felt a seat beneath her and felt a hatch closing against her side. Another hatch opened to her left and the vehicle shifted with the addition of new weight. “Clear for take-off,” the voice added, laughing and then the vehicle lurched forward. Lydda attempted to open her eyes ever so slightly, but the elderly man was wearing white pants, and she was immediately blinded by reflected glare. He could be taking her anywhere, and she was not strong enough to even fight an old human male in this light.

The vehicle stopped and the voice returned, “Okay, here’s Venegar. Boy, she’s got a thing for green, I guess.” Lydda was already prying at the hatch, but it opened before she found the fastening. “Okay, last stop, all ashore who’s going ashore.” The old man cackled, apparently having succeeded in amusing only himself.

Taking his arm and leaning heavily on it to pull herself out of the low-slung seat, Lydda quickly pulled her arm free. “I am in your debt.” She quickly unsheathed a blade from her wrist-sheath and the man gasped and pulled away.

“Whoah, nelly!”

She stumbled forward and gripped the man, placing the blade into his hand. “It is a blade of steel. My payment to you.”

“Alrighty then, you have a real nice day.” The voice quavered, lowering in volume as he beat a hasty retreat.

Lydda leaned against the side of the Embassy, still cool in the mid-morning shade, and followed the wall around until she found the entrance, which, of course, was in the middle of the brightly lit sunward-side. She was all-but crawling by the time she made it through the front portal, and slid down the wall to the side, out of the sickening light and heat.

She rested for a moment, trying to determine whether or not she was gathering her strength or laying down to die when a heavy footfall came into range. “Hey!”, came a male voice, “are you hurt? I’ll call a medic…”

A large hand, like that of a beast, gripped her shoulder and she squinted to see a large outworlder, one of Venegar’s Champions. Abandoning any attempt at subtlety, she whispered, “I need darkness. Light is poison.”

“Right. Dark you want it, dark it will be.” The male said as he pulled her to her feet and led her into a side-chamber. She heard him turning off the sources of illumination, but light still shone into the room through the open doorway, not at all blocked by the gauzy translucent curtain. “Right.” The male said, stepping out of the room and turning off the lights in the hallway. “Is that better?” he asked, sounding inappropriately concerned for a woman not his own.

“Yes.” Realizing belatedly that she had only a single blade remaining, and might have need of it soon, Lydda pulled a silver ring off of her finger. “You have my gratitude,” she said, tossing him the ring. “If I might also have some water?”

“Uh, sure,” Garth said, placing the ring down on a shelf. “But water’s free. You don’t have to pay me for that…” He returned with a pitcher of water and a glass.

Lydda looked at the extraneous container and set it on the shelf, drinking directly from the pitcher until the roiling in her stomach settled.

”You’re that Kathooni security person, right?”

“I am Jath. I am seeking my mate.” Lydda added, leaning forward and seizing the male’s wrist.

“Oh, I’m taken. But thanks.” Garth said, trying to dislodge the woman’s grip, which seemed ridiculously strong for someone who couldn’t get up a minute ago.

“Your words are nonsense. Your mating status is plain to see,” Lydda said, irritated by the male’s attempts at deception.

“No, really,” Garth grunted, trying with all of his strength to budge a single one of this woman’s steely fingers. “Spoken for, most strenuously spoken for…”

She released his wrist suddenly and Garth fell back. Only the presence of a wall stopped him from ending up on the floor as the tall woman stepped right up to him and placed her hand on his chest.

“If you are spoken for, outworlder, why do you advertise your availability with this display?” her hand traced the white lightning bolt down his chest, onto his stomach and Garth involuntarily laughed as he stepped aside before her hand could trail lower. “Any can see where this line leads. Why draw attention to what you do not offer?”

“Cultural misunderstanding,” Garth babbled, still backing away. “That doesn’t mean anything to us, just, y’know, a lightning bolt. Which is me!” his hand crackled with a display of electrical energy, and Lydda recoiled from the sudden light.

“Sorry, light bad. I forgot…”

“Enough of this babbling about your ignorance. Summon Champion Krinn to me now, I have words for him.”

“He’s not here. Do you want to wait in his room?”

“Is there light between this place and that?”

“Well, yes, but I could turn them all off…” Garth began, “or, I’ll be right back!” and he dashed out of the room at a dead run.

Lydda stood, unsure of what to do next. The outworlders were all insane, and she had sold her honor cheaply to a male who respected nothing. She wanted to cry, but tears were for children, and so she stood, turmoil eating away at her.

The heavy footsteps of the male returned, clearly running and out of breath, and she placed a hand upon her last blade, in case of treachery.

Garth swung around the corner, only to get momentarily tangled up in the curtain. In his hand he had a device that Lydda could see no use for, but at least it did not resemble a weapon.

“Okay, this might work. What spectrum of light do you see in?” Garth said breathlessly and Lydda thought back to her lessons.

“Ultraviolet is our primary spectrum. We also see in what humans call the ‘visible spectrum,’ but our sensitivity is such that under any lighting conditions comfortable to your eyes, we are blinded.”

“UV. Great. I’ve got these old-style pilot’s goggles. They were a gift from dad, from when I finished pilot’s training.” The male babbled, pulling out a small container and spraying some foul-smelling substance onto the round glass portions of the device. “And this,” he said, shaking the container, “is the super-dark green spray paint that Sarya’s been using on every single damned thing she sets eyes on…”

He swirled the items through the air, and Lydda tensed, as she now recognized that the ‘goggles’ bore close resemblance to a throwing snare for catching flying prey. “Okay, it’s dry now. Just put them on.”

Lydda accepted the item in her hand, and closed her eyes, resignedly asking. “How.”

Garth reached around and attempted to fasten the goggles, only to be hurled back into the wall so hard that he spent the next minute catching his breath. “You will not dress me!” the woman shouted, dropping the goggles onto his lap. “Demonstrate.”

Garth picked up his goggles, ruined now with the lenses blacked out for this crazy bitch, and showed her how to put them on. “See. Like that.” He then pulled them off and flung them at her head.

Lydda snatched the ‘goggles’ out of the air, puzzled at the male’s attitude, but resigned to the fact that she would never understand their outworlder madness. She put the goggles on and the room was blessedly dark. She peered out into the hallway and she barely had to squint, even looking out into the more brightly lit areas.

“This is acceptable.”

“So glad you sprocking approve. Rokk’s room is this way.” Garth said, pushing past her in a manner that had Lydda reaching again for her blade, before realizing that this male *claimed* that he was the property of another, and she had no idea as to his bid price. It would not be acceptable to damage him when she did not know if she could repay whatever value his mate placed upon him.

They reached another chamber, the same size as the others, with a strange net against one wall.

“This is Champion Krinn’s chambers?” Lydda exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yes.” Garth muttered in his best surly tone, arms crossed as he stood in the doorway.

“It should be larger than the other rooms. I misjudged his status.” She complained. “Where are his sleeping quarters?” she said, looking around.

“He sleeps on the hammock.” Garth ground out, each word sounding like it had been dragged kicking and screaming from his mouth.

“Hammock?”

Garth just nodded his head and Lydda stared again. “Wrapped up in ropes, like a snared beast? Hanging above the ground?” Lydda shook her head again. This was the least of the madness. She crossed to the room controls, next to Garth, who moved slightly away as she approached, and turned off the lights in the room. Still light poured in from the hallway, and Lydda extended her hand towards the container he still held in his hand.

Garth tossed it to her and walked away as Lydda began spray-painting the flimsy curtain with a thick coat of dark green.

<<Imra! You *have* to meet the missus…>> Garth broadcast through the Ring, dripping sarcasm as thick as paint.

*******************************************************************

With a forced smile on her face, Imra stepped out of Rokk’s room, to see Garth leaning against the wall in the hallway, rubbing his chest, where a bruise was already forming, and sporting a clipped smile to match her own.

<<Interesting lady, huh?>>

<Psychotic, solipsistic, self-centered, violent, ill-tempered, delusional, barbaric, primitive, rude, condescending, arrogant, sexist, possessive…> Imra trailed off, still clearly not done yet.

<<territorial?>>

<Territorial! Nasty, crazy, freak *bitch!*>

<<I think you’ve covered her better qualities, yeah.>> Garth added as he wrapped his arm over Imra’s shoulder and they walked down the corridor away from their new guest.

*******************************************************************

Rokk awkwardly sashayed through the doorway, a large package of puffed pasty stuffed with cream cheese and crab meat in his hand, and he idly munched one of the freshly-made appetizers, savoring their steaming warmth as much as the sweet blend of flavors. Humming to himself, he continued to (badly) dance his way down the corridor to Imra’s quarters, where his Ring had already informed him his two fellow Champion’s were in residence. Knocking on the doorframe he could see that the two were clothed and sitting upright, so he leaned his head in and juggled the package of treats only to frown as the two wordlessly pointed in unison towards his room, wearing matching dour expressions.

‘Alrighty, then. Must be a lover’s quarrel thing going on. Best leave them to it.’ He gave up on the sad attempt at dancing-while-walking-while-eating, recognizing that he was already doing two more things than he could get away with, and just walked to his room, only to slow as he saw the green paint dripping from his lank, sodden curtain…

Gingerly pushing it aside, he looked into the very dark room, and immediately sensed a familiar armored presence.

“Hey honey, I’m home! Succulent cheesy crab-puff?”

Succulent cheesy crab-puffs exploded across the room as Lydda back-handed the offending offering away and shoved Rokk against the wall, with a blade to his throat.

“Okay, I’m trying to cut back, too…”, Rokk stammered, acutely aware of the press of cold steel against the suddenly hammering pulse in his throat.

“Do you wish to dissolve this mating contract, Champion Krinn?” Lydda growled right in his face. Rokk was momentarily distracted by the sight of ancient earth aviator’s goggles in the middle of her face, which also put them right in the middle of his face, and he could see that someone had painted the goggles dark green. ‘That whacky Sarya. Someone needs to take her paint-cans away,’ his brain offered by way of useless commentary.

“What? No, look Lydda, I don’t…” and then his face went numb with the force of her blow, and he was pretty sure that his jaw wasn’t really in the exact place it was meant to be. Sure enough, it clicked when he pushed it back into place, and *then* it really started hurting.

“You do not call me that name. Not until this dispute is done.”

Rokk stood up slowly, arms raised and palms forward in his best ‘I surrender, don’t kill me’ stance. “Look, Jath, I don’t know why you are angry. Please tell me what I’ve done wrong.”

“*What* you’ve done wrong?” Lydda said, knife slashing the air as she made her point, “*Everything* you’ve done wrong!” her hair whipped around wildly and she laughed hysterically. “Look at my hair!”

Rokk didn’t even know where to start. “Could you make me a list? We can start with the hair…”

“We had an agreement. We were to be mated. *I gave you my name!* And you, you, aaaa!” she turned around and ripped his hammock from the wall, “And you sleep in a fishing net! Like prey!” she flung the hammock to the ground and sat down on the floor, her hands over her face.

Torn between backing away and hopping the first shuttle back to Braal or comforting the sobbing woman, Rokk, as always, took the more dangerous route and knelt down in front of Lydda, carefully avoiding the side with the knife, and ran his fingers through her long hair, trying to unsnarl the tangles that had formed while she slept.

“Please, tell me what I’m supposed to do here. I should know, but I don’t. I know it’s my fault.”

Lydda regained her composure with effort and looked up, her silver eye-makeup glistening as it streaked down her face. “We are mated. It is *my* place to give you shelter,” she looked around at his room. “It is *my* task to return from the hunt with food, and to feed you,” she batted at an offending crab-puff. “It is *your* role to be there when I wake, to groom my hair and prepare me for the day’s battle. It is your task to bathe me and place my armor upon me. And when I return, you are to take the weight of my armor from me and cleanse my wounds.”

“I wake, and you are gone. You take my name and leave like a thief in the day. I must walk through fire and pain and death to find you. I must take charity from offensively-dressed and deceitful outworlders who mock our ways. I must wait for you in a shelter that I have not given you, and you come to me bearing food that I have not provided for you. Have I nothing to offer you?”

“Oh, Lydda, I had no idea,” Rokk ran his hands through her silky hair. He reached out with his magnetic powers and turned on the faucets to the bath in the next room. “I will bathe you, my big, strong, kinda scary warrior-woman. And then,” he added, handing her a crab-puff from the floor, “You can feed me.”

He rose slowly to his feet, pulling her up with him. “We’ll get this right.” She smiled slightly, and they crossed into the bathroom.

“You would use a week’s water ration to apologize to me?” Lydda said, her eyes wide at the sight of the filling tub.

“Uh…” Rokk began, but was cut off as Lydda pushed him into the wall.

“We must fight more often, my extravagant Thall.”

This story continues to write itself in my head.

Vote now!

1) Should I be starting a seperate thread for it?
2) Should it remain here?
3) Should I be sticking my finger in a light-socket until the voices go away?

Garth, Imra and Rokk have gone slightly sideways, but Lydda has just most suprised me. I didn't plan to include her at all, and suddenly she's moving in! I thought *I* was writing this?

I vote it should remain here Set. I think its awesome and I love how you've gotten into this exhibit!

And the photomanips, City of Heroes designs and artwork are kick-ass all around!

I vote to keep it here, too. I have to admit that I've gotten behind in reading it, so I need to play catch-up, but it belongs here.

'Kay, keeping it here then. I was just worried about cluttering up the thread with my long-winded narrative that shows no sign of slowing down. Thanks for the votes of confidence!

And so, chapter, uh, eleven? The talky-talk is boring me, so next chaper will have more fighty-fight, I think.

Canonically, Lydda Jath has super-strength only at night, thanks to an experiment performed by her scientist father. But I find that insanely boring, so my Lydda Jath and my Kathoon will have *no* relationship to that, although I kept the big hair, 'cause I like the big hair...

*********************************************************

Emerald Legion, Chapter eleven
“Way of the Warrior.” – being primarily a treatise on Kathooni ways

****************************************************

Rokk had spent the better part of the afternoon learning how to get Lydda’s hair just right, piling the many kilos of night-black hair into a towering mass that could likely repel blaster-fire.

“So, you’ve never considered doing a sort of page-boy thing?” Rokk mumbled around the mouthful of silver pins he was storing in his mouth while his hands worked frantically to stave off a structural failure to the port-side that threatened to set him back to square one, “Crew-cuts are *very* military, and, and, very liberating! I think you’d look very professional, very warrior-y, with a high-and-tight…”

Lydda just smiled, enjoying the touch of her lover’s hands as he worked, “A warrior does not cut her hair. It invites possession by evil spirits, silly man.”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Rokk added, eye twitching involuntarily, “What *was* I thinking…”

Patiently, Lydda lifted a hand to ward off disaster. “Twist,” she demonstrated, torqueing the queue with such tension that Rokk thought she was going to rip her scalp clean off, “Fold,” she curled the thick braid to that it settled around on itself, “Hold,” she secured it in place with a single finger, “Pin.” She waited for him to produce a silver pin and lock the final piece of the intricate arrangement into place.

“Whoah.” Rokk stepped back. “I think it’s gonna hold this time,” he said in a weak but hopeful tone, having said this the three previous times he’d *thought* he’d gotten it right.

Lydda gracefully rose from her seat and leaned slowly back, so that her towering coiffure was a horizontal bar of black, and yet it held. Rokk’s lip quivered. If it collapsed this time, he was going to be the one sitting down in the middle of the floor and crying…

Lydda’s body suddenly twisted and she flipped effortlessly across the room in an acrobatic display that had less to do with agility and more to do with raw power. Rokk winced as he realized that he would have torn every muscle in his body if his body every twisted like that, but as she landed, he noticed that, most importantly, her hair remained intact.

She crossed the room and took Rokk’s hands in her own larger, calloused ones. “My outworlder Thall. The males of my world train for years braiding each others hair, so that one day they will be able to please their mates. I treasure your soft, clever hands.”

Rokk idly wondered what the Kathooni word for ‘emasculate’ was, but found himself distracted by the energetic kissing that then followed.

“And now, I shall show you how to decorate my skin.” Lydda said brightly, mistaking Rokk’s groan of frustration for enthusiasm.

*******************************************************************

<<Champion Krinn.>> came the Queen’s voice through his Ring. <<Ambassador Marin commands your attendance. You will follow her directions, without fail.>> and with that, the communication ended.

“Crap.” Rokk said and Lydda, who was busy explaining to him that all of her cosmetics must be laced with silver, and no other metal, to avoid offense to Clan, looked up concerned.

“Your Queen commands your attentions?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“The ring on your hand shone with green fire, and your eyes became distant. You were hearing a witch-voice in your mind. I know the signs.” Lydda explained.

“I’m not done with your makeup, ‘though…” Rokk said, not sure if Kathooni tradition had any protocol for males with jobs…

“Nonsense. Allegiance to Clan always comes first. Venegar is your Clan. Attend to Clan. I will return to my own duties, and you will come to *my* quarters when your own duties are done.”

“I’m not sure if that is the best idea…” Rokk started before Lydda placed a hand on his chest.

“But. You will *not* leave my sight wearing *that.*” she pointed at his Champion’s Garb.

“What do you…” Rokk began as Lydda snatched the half-empty container of spray-paint from the shelf and walked towards him, shaking the can purposefully.

“It’s an aerated dye-mixture, you don’t need to shake it…” Rokk said, lifting his arms and resigning himself to whatever sort of mark she was going to make upon him. He’d already spent three years of his life sporting Blacksteel Cartel corporate branding on his stomach, so it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to being a walking billboard. She carefully sprayed the lighter colored panel of forest green covering his stomach and crotch, so that it matched the darker panels on his shoulders, sides and outer limbs, and then spun him around and did the same to his backside. The forest green panels on his inner forearms and thighs apparently got to remain.

“Now all will see that your manhood is claimed by another.”

“Great.” Rokk thought sourly. ‘And if it soaks through and dyes my skin, it should only be a month or so before it wears off…’

*************************************************************************

Lydda had ripped down the paint-darkened curtain that served as Rokk’s ‘door,’ and had flung it over herself to block the sun’s rays as she dashed to the vehicle that Rokk had summoned. He closed the door behind her and got in beside her, surprised to note that even this brief exposure had left her exposed hands warm to the touch, as if her body had somehow absorbed the light striking her body.

“Quadplex central six. And can you make sure we come in from the east side?” Rokk requested and the cab-bot blinked its ascent as the vehicle smoothly pivoted in place and leapt into the traffic lanes.

“I am concerned that the Ambassador wishes to speak with you. What if she disapproves of our mating agreement? I am her vassal, she could dissolve the contract…” Lydda fretted, while Rokk attempted to allay her fears.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, hon. Maybe she just wants to meet me, or give me her blessing?” even *he* couldn’t believe that, unless ‘her blessing’ involved jumping through hoops of burning plasma or defeating a clawed tusk-horn with a pointed stick. His limited understanding of Karthooni culture suggested that, ‘challenge-to-the-death to prove worthiness’ was more up these people’s alley than, ‘welcome to the family, sit down and pretend that you’re interested in my father’s boring stories!’

Arriving at their destination, Rokk made sure that Lydda was under her impromptu sun-shade and then opened the door and they dashed into the building, protected by the afternoon shade.

Moving down the hall, Lydda made a noise of disapproval as they reached the Kathooni delegate’s quarters, and moved to the other side of the hall and stuck her blade into the light-fixture. It sputtered and died. “Our enemies seek to restrict our movements,” she explained matter-of-factly, and Rokk smiled as he felt an EM signal go out to the building’s repair droid.

“Those bastards. That’ll show them.” Rokk said agreeably as the portal cycled open and they stepped into darkness.

“Jath! You yet live!”

“I told you that she would drag the male back for punishment,” another voice smugly affirmed.

“And you thought the outworlder sun would be the death of her. I will have my crystal now,” another said in the back of the room.

Rokk could feel the presence of armored figures moving in the darkness, and after learning about cosmetics from Lydda, could feel the iron-laced facial-markings of a Sangti, and the traces of gold decorating the nails of the Auri. He didn’t know their names, but he could feel their Clans, based on the elements they used as decoration.

“Your hair is acceptable. Surely the male did not…”

Lydda’s voice cut through the chatter. “He is an outworlder. Outworlder males have clever hands.” Lydda punctuated her statement by taking Rokk’s hand in her own and leading him through the darkened room to another chamber, and as the portal closed, leaving the other warriors behind him, Lydda whispered. “The Ambassador holds our fate in her hands. Do not babble.”

Rokk became aware of the Ambassador, or, at least, of a figure draped in copper ornaments, but wearing no steel armor. ‘Clan Cupri,’ he remembered from his crash course.

“Jath. You will rest.” a surprisingly feminine voice declared.

Rokk felt Lydda stiffen, and her hand left his and he felt them cross across her chest as she knelt on the floor.

“Ly… Jath?” he whispered, touching her shoulder, but got no response.

“She but sleeps. My words are for you alone, outworlder.” the voice stated flatly, and he could hear the jingling of copper trinkets as the figure adjusted herself in her seat.

“You are outworlder, and Jath has made a hasty decision, as is typical for a warrior.” Rokk was attempting to come up with a retort to that, but the voice continued on, “I have no doubt that there have already been many miscommunications between the pair of you, because of her rash choice, and I will give you the choice now to walk away from this thing with no shame upon your Clan. I will inform Jath that I forbade this thing on grounds of tradition, and she will grow angry with me, but accept my authority. You will not speak to her again.”

“No wait a minute, you can’t do this…” Rokk said, bristling at the thought of being ordered away.

“I most certainly can. I see that I must educate you. Firstly, I am mortal, like you, and at times, I must draw breath to continue speaking. You are not to mistake these pauses in my words as an invitation for you to fill the air with your own chatter. I am a Seer. I bear the knowledge and wisdom of my people, and have no need to hear whatever thoughts burn behind your devil-eyes.”

As Rokk bit his tongue and did not interrupt her again, she continued, “Since we were children, Jath has been a warrior in spirit, if not in truth. One time, a building caught fire, and while true Warriors stood paralyzed with fright at the sight of the blinding fires, Jath rushed in and pulled another child out of the flames. When the Clans were forced to rally forces against the Great Beast, Jath was the one who insisted on playing the role of bait, to lure it into our blades, and hers was the first to draw blood. Ever she has seen the thing she fears, and rushed towards it instead of away. Were she a Seer, she would be deemed a fool. Were she Commonfolk, she would be called mad. But she is a Warrior, and so her nature is called bravery, and it is her gift to us all. And so it came as no surprise when she came of Age, and walked into the caves to seek out the gods’ challenge. Less than one in a hundred women of Kathoon choose to enter the caves, and of those, only one in four pass the challenges, and return with sanity, health or life intact. Upon passing the challenges set down by our ancestors, we are offered a choosing. A few choose to seek the wisdom of the past, and become Seers, as did I. The greater portion recognize, as Jath did, that their nature is that of the Warrior, and so the ancestors forge a pact with them, and lend the strength of a thousand Warriors past to their limbs.”

Rokk felt his eyebrows raise. He’d known that Lydda was strong, stronger than anyone he’d met, but this sounded impossible!

“And now, it should come as no surprise to me that she took one look at the death shining from your face and has, once again, rushed towards her fears, blades flashing.”

“I don’t think it’s just that…” Rokk began, only to be cut off quickly.

“I can not state with enough force how little I care for your thoughts. The wisdom of a hundred lifetimes whispers within my soul, and you are but an outworlder child. I see past the horror of your eyes, to that which burns within you. I see that you are unsure of your place in the world, are unsure of your feelings for Jath and that you protest me out of stubborn pride. You have not felt the sting of love in your breast, and your alien body burns with forces that have burned away much of what made you mortal. I can see you as you are, Rokk Krinn, Champion of Venegar. You are no more Braalian than I, and as your flesh fails, your will grows stronger. You are of flesh, but also of energy, and I see you as a hint of the future of us all, a thousand, thousand years hence, when the many children of Earth fly the stars on wings of spirit, and the way of flesh has long since fled the universe.”

Rokk shook his head at her words, a soundless denial frozen on his lips.

“Do not deny my words, child. You do not know me. You do not even know yourself. How can you know Jath? She is a Warrior. A thousand passions burn in her blood, and she has devoted her life to containing these feelings, to tap their ancient strength in defense of her people. It is a lonely life, the Warrior’s way, and for many generations, Clans found themselves looking the other way when the mates of Warriors were found maimed or slain by the terrible rages that burn in a Warrior soul. They hauled their broken bodies away, and selected new mates, rationalizing it as a necessary sacrifice to have the power of a Warrior standing at their side, all too unwilling to recognize the terrible cost taken by the Warriors themselves, ever to see the things they love destroyed at their own hands.”

“Are you still so sure that you would know Jath? Will you love her, even as she rages? Will your magnetic sorcery serve to defend you from her blows? Has she chosen more wisely than even I can foresee?”

Rokk had focused his awareness on Lydda, still crouched and motionless, like a statue, as he considered the Ambassadors words. For the first time ever, Lydda seemed small and fragile, all folded up and awaiting a fate that she could not contest.

He made his decision and stepped up to Ambassador Marin, stopping only when he could see the reflection of his eyes in the copper triangles descending from her ears, feeling a thrill as he heard her hiss and pull back from his approach. “I am Rokk Krinn, and I *never* lose. I will never give up on Jath. And *nothing* will stop me from being with her as long as *she* wants to be with me.”

He felt the Ambassadors many-ringed hand on his chest, but her touch was light as she pushed him back down a step.

“A Warrior choosing another Warrior. It is without precedent.” her voice softened. “I will not forbid it.” Rokk could feel her adjust again in her seat, regaining her composure as he stepped back. “Jath. Arise, but remain silent.”

Lydda got to her feet smoothly and moved to stand beside Rokk, and he reached out in the darkness to take hold of her hand, which was clenching and unclenching nervously. He massaged the back of her hand, attempting to convey silent reassurance. He felt the circuits of a datapad hum into life in the Ambassador’s hand, and, in a business-like tone, she said, “Venegar.” A few moments later he heard Queen Sarya’s voice, “Ambassador Marin. Always a pleasure.”

“As well. I seek to purchase quarters in your Embassy. As you know, Kathoon has no Embassy as of yet, and it is displeasingly crowded in these quarters.”

The Queen’s voice sounded amused, “I have a room in mind. For payment, I would ask for service of one of those delightful Warriors that serve you. I find them most impressive. The one named Jath, perhaps?”

Rokk felt the world spinning around him as he realized that the Queen had yet again outmaneuvered him.

“This is agreeable.” Marin acceded. “If Jath were to reside in the quarters you have selected, it would leave more room for my business here. It is an auspicious arrangement. I will order it so. Good hunting, Venegar.” and the communication ended.

Rokk could feel Lydda’s hand tighten uncomfortably as she absorbed the implications of this exchange.

“Jath. You are now on detached assignment. Until I say otherwise, you will follow the commands of Sarya of Venegar as if they were my own. Do not bring shame to our people, or to your Clan, by giving her reason to regret her choice. I have also secured quarters for you…,” and she paused and he heard copper trinkets jingle as she set down her datapad. “And your mate.”

“Ready your things, the detachment begins immediately. Dismissed.”

Rokk was still blinking at the suddenness of the exchange, and the Ambassador impatiently repeated. “Dismissed! That means you leave now.”

Lydda all-but dragged him to the doorway. The Ambassador’s voice came again, sounding amused this time, “Jath. Outworlder or no, remember that he is only male. They are as children. Do not grow frustrated if you have to tell him everything twice.”

Rokk’s jaw worked soundlessly, but the door opened and Lydda pulled him out of the room before he could come up with an appropriately scathing response. After the doors closed she squealed and leapt up into his arms, bringing them both crashing to the floor.

“Ow.” Rokk protested, but again was distracted by the enthusiastic kissing, until he felt the presence of other armored figures pressing around to watch and heard the exchange of crystals as they wagered on how long he would remain conscious this time…

*****************************************************************

Lydda tore through the chambers, wrapping up blades and armor and skin-suits and other strange items into a large square of cloth. Rokk had taken to waiting outside, as many of the things she was gathering contained no metal, and so were effectively invisible to him. He could feel the presence of an iron-clad Sangti hovering near him, but she seemed content simply to stand there, arms-crossed, radiating contempt.

“Jath has chosen poorly. You are small and weak.”

Another voice came from behind the sullen Warrior, and Rokk recognized the resonance of gold. “He is larger and stronger than the males of homeworld, Kand. You are just angry that Jath will not be here to arrange your hair.”

He could feel this ‘Kand,’ reaching for a blade, resting her arm on the sheath, and noticed that the gold-adorned Auri had done likewise. He backed away slightly, not wanting to get in the middle of a duel.

“See, he cringes from the threat of steel. Ha! He is no sorcerer. A male cannot be a Warrior, he offends us all by wearing metal above his station,” He could smell Kand’s breath as she advanced upon him and his eyes closed to slits as he sent a pulse of energy into Kand’s knife.

“Draw steel and find out, Sangti.” Rokk knew enough to know that referring to Kand by the name of her Clan was an insult, and sure enough he felt her strain to pull her blade. His eyes shone more brightly as he redoubled his magnetic pull on her blade, trying to hold it in the sheath against the monstrous force she was exerting. With an audible snap, the handle of the knife broke off, and Kand was left holding a chunk of ivory, the metal of her blade still securely within its’ sheath.

“Ha!” said the Auri, and then commented to the entire room tauntingly, “Kand has forgotten how to use a blade!”

Her hand shot forward in a blur, and Rokk thought she was going to pull his head directly from his body as she flung the knife-handle away with her other hand. He shot every ounce of magnetic force forward, using her armor to throw her away from him, while stabilizing himself with his Champion’s Ring. She flew across the room like a missile and clanged loudly against the wall, and yet he could feel her staggering unsteadily to her feet, growling incoherently.

Lydda came dashing into the room from behind Rokk, a blade in each hand, just as the portal to the Ambassador’s quarters whirred open.

“Cease!” came the Ambassador’s delicate voice and every Warrior kneeled in place. “Witness.” The Ambassador said sharply and each of Warrior women got to their feet. The hands of the other four Warriors in the room raised and pointed towards Kand. “Kand. Do you wish me to release you from service, so that you pursue blood-vengeance?”

Kand’s voice was made of strangled fury, “No Seer. I serve only you.”

“Then this is done,” and the Ambassador closed the portal with a clang.

Rokk couldn’t help but notice that the other four Warriors pointedly stood between Kand and them as they left, and was grateful for their silent support.

As the heavy door cycled open, the Warriors hissed and drew back as the light-fixture directly across the hall having already been repaired by building maintenance. Rokk stepped across and smashed it with his fist, satisfied when it sparked once and died. A localized EMpulse disabled the signaling device, so that the maintenance droid wouldn’t become aware of the damage for some time. As the doorway cycled shut he could hear the Auri and Ungste Warriors voices loudly proclaiming from the darkened room

“Well struck, Champion!”

“A righteous blow against our enemies!”

**********************************************************************

Sarya made a show of welcoming Jath to her service, presenting her with a dark-green bodysuit to replace her previous black suit, and a set of jade-green tinted lenses that wrapped over her eyes, and replaced the paint-marked aviator’s goggles. Jath handed the goggles back to Garth, who accepted them with a passing attempt at good grace and then Sarya showed them to Jath’s quarters, which were half-again the size of Rokk’s room. Rokk was not surprised to note that his own belongings had been placed within Jath’s quarters while they were away, and shrugged his shoulders at the inevitability of it all.

“You honor me with these quarters, Highness.” Jath said, bowing her head to Sarya, who neatly sidestepped to avoid being struck in the face by the half-meter-high arrangement of hair.

“Ambassador Marin explained to me your requirements. I would not want to make you appear incapable of providing appropriate shelter for your mate,” the Queen said, with a grin towards Rokk before making her exit.

Lydda had finished examining the fixtures, and finally noticed the hammock, lying amidst Rokk’s possession. “I will get no rest tied up in that thing. We will sleep on cushions.”

Rokk examined the room and produced a pad, quickly sketching out his ideas. “We can compromise. You like to sleep on something soft, I like to sleep up above the ground.” He handed her the pad, showing a loft built into one corner and Jath scowled.

“Your ways are madness. There is no room for games of love.” She quickly pointed at the image of the loft. “You will lie here. I will be here,” ‘on top, obviously,’ Rokk thought, “I will arc my back like this,” she demonstrated, thrusting her armor-plated breasts into his face, “and I will strike my head on the ceiling.” She flung the pad back into the pile of possessions yet to be sorted. “We will sleep on many soft cushions,” she pointed into the corner, “there. Flung onto the floor, we shall nestle into them like puppies against their mothers’ warm belly.” That settled, Lydda turned and began arranging her weapons on the wall.

‘Home, sweet home,’ Rokk thought with a grin, moving to begin unpacking.

************************************************************************

“So ‘Jath’ is the name her Clan gave her, and ‘Genti’ is the name of her Clan itself?” Garth clarified, as he checked out Rokk’s new quarters.

“Yeah. She has another name, but it’s a personal thing, and only family are supposed to know it, so if I sprock up and call her something else, just pretend you didn’t hear it, ‘cause I have no idea how she’ll react if she thinks I’ve told other people…” Rokk said, voice lowered, as if she might come around the corner at any moment.

“Check. No using the pet name.” Garth said, checking out the hammock in the discard box. “No more swinging from the rafters, I see.”

Rokk pointed at the enormous pile of pillows taking up the corner of the room. “’Where we shall nestle like puppies against the belly of their mother,’” he air-quoted.

“Looks cozy.” Eyeing the arrangement critically. “No blankets?”

“No, you just pull pillows over yourself until all anyone can see is a pile of pillows with two heads sticking out.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.” Garth said with a grin.

Rokk sat down on a cushion and put his head in his hands. “I have no sprocking idea what I’m doing.” Garth frowned at the sudden change. “I’m eighteen years old, light-years from the only life and home I’ve ever known, and *married* to someone I’m not sure I’ll ever understand! What the hell was I thinking?!”

“Rokk…” Garth began, only to trail off as Rokk kept talking, looking despondently at the floor.

“All my life, it’s been me, me, me. Focus, training, discipline, always moving ahead like a dune-shark, never looking back. Every tryout, every match, I saw hundreds of people desperately trying to be like me, to reach what I had, and I stepped over every single one of them without once thinking of them as people. And then life on Braal gets less fun, and I’m moving on again, my family, my career, my trainers, the corporation, all left behind to pick up the pieces, yet more wreckage in the wake of my *selfish* life.” Rokk’s fist slammed into the wall behind him in frustration.

“What if I do it again?” Rokk looked up, eyes imploring, “What if I sprock this up and run away again, and Jath becomes just another broken thing I’ve left behind?”

“Awesome.” Garth said, looking down at his friend as he folded his arms and leaned back against the wall.

“What?!”

“All these times you’ve had to pull my head out of my ass, and I finally get to return the favor.”

“I’m so sprocking happy that my total nervous breakdown is amusing you…” Rokk said bitterly, hauling himself to his feet and heading for the door.

Garth jerked forward and grabbed ahold of Rokk’s shoulder, and there was a moment when it looked like Rokk was going to hit him, but the moment passed. “*If* you were half the self-centered jerk you’ve just described, you would never have said any of that. You wouldn’t care if Jath got hurt, you wouldn’t be worrying about sprocking things up.” Garth turned him around, so that they were face to face, but Rokk was looking down now, unwilling to face his friend. “Yeah, you’ve made a choice I don’t think I’ll *ever* understand, but you’ve never backed down in your life. You didn’t ‘give up’ on Braal, you moved on because it didn’t have anything left for you. What, were you going to become a miner? Maybe live off of sponsorship residuals for the rest of your life, a washed-up has-been former sports-star, wallowing in disgrace? I don’t think so. You’re right Rokk, you’re only eighteen years old, but your life is nowhere near over. It’s just beginning, and it wasn’t going to be on Braal.”

“You said it wasn’t my fault, the choices that Ayla made, the choices that Mekt made. You were right. And it isn’t your fault that all those people you beat *weren’t good enough.* Do you really think that creep who drugged you would have felt guilty if he kicked your ass in the championships? Do you think he’s got a list somewhere of all the people he stepped over to get to that championship match?”

Rokk nodded in the negative when it became clear that Garth was waiting for an answer.

“You said that I was smarter than you…” Garth began, but was cut off as Rokk raised a hand in protest, “Oh no, I categorically deny saying anything of the sort.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but I hear your story about running away and leaving wreckage in your wake, and I think of this other guy who ran away from his home-world, and left behind a promising career and a loving, if somewhat messed-up, family. Maybe you’re not the only one who looks back and sees things he’d wish he’d done differently, but unless you’ve got a time-travel machine, we’ve got to move forward, and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past.” Garth could see that Rokk was more relaxed now, and grinned as he pointed at the regen-pack leaning against the shelf, “And what the sprock are you thinking, letting a woman who can tear steel with her bare hands touch your body? Are you nuts? I thought I was insane, dating a telepath, but you had to be all competitive and do something even crazier…”

Rokk laughed, tension evaporating out of him visibly, “Yeah, there’s a whole ‘woman of steel, man of tissue paper’ thing going on, but we’re working on it.”

“More information than I need, thanks…” Garth said, stepping back towards the doorway. “I’ve gotta meet said telepath for lunch, wanna join us?”

“Nah, Jath should be back any time now, and I should be here.”

“You’re crazy, man. If psycho-woman tears off anything important, I’m gonna be there saying, ‘I told you so.’”

“Yeah, well, your girlfriend can tear apart your *brain,* so don’t be late.”

Garth’s shot Rokk a dubious expression, “I really hadn’t thought of it that way…” and turned around to see Jath standing in the doorway.

“Uh, hi.” Garth said lamely, moving to one side and then the other, but unable to exit while Jath was blocking the doorway. “Nice to see you.”

Lydda walked past him into the room. “No it isn’t. You do not like me. I do not like you. Do me the kindness of being honest, and I will respect your honesty.” She said curtly to Garth, before pointing to the door. “Now go dine with your mate, and whisper of I am a rude barbarian. I will dine with my mate, and we shall speak of you not at all.”

Wincing at this blunt, and unfortunately accurate, description of the last few days, Garth beat a hasty retreat.

“He really doesn’t mean anything by it, hon,” Rokk began, but Lydda cut him off. “Yes he does. And it does not concern me. He is your friend, and it seems that he is a good friend, to you. That is acceptable. There is a saying among my people. ‘The louder the family protests, the stronger the pairing.’ My kin do not approve of you, and the family you have chosen for yourself does not approve of me. It is fitting.”

Satisfied that the discussion was over, Lydda produced a bag full of cheesy crab-puffs. “The hunt was successful, although the vendor was unable to adequately describe what sort of beast has such a crunchy, yet delicate, hide and such flavorful innards.”

Rokk smiled and sat down with his wife, to explain the wonders of puff-pastry.

The writing may slow down a tad at this point. Up until now, it's been going so fast that I've had up to four chapters 'on hold' because I didn't want to post them all in a row. But I've cleared the backlog.

A hint of chapters to come (which may or may not come about as planned);

Trouble on Venegar! (aka Return of the Queen)
The Mindwitch rebellion
A tale of three Ranzzes (aka the missing Ranzz origin-story)
Whatever happened to? (aka Themiscrya reborn)
All Naked, All Gay, With Goats! (just kidding)

***********************************************************

Emerald Legion - Chapter twelve
“The plot coagulates” – because no Legion tale could be complete without the ubiquitous Giant Killer Robot fight

******************************************************************

Sarya of Venegar had a pain in her skull from these endless arcane rituals and ceremonies that the delegates referred to as ‘diplomacy.’ She had developed a great respect for Orin Fex, of Colu, who would stand aloof and spoke only matter-of-factly. His rudeness was comforting, in it’s own way, as compared to the slippery words of Ravin of Talokk, who would say one thing while meaning another or the sickening platitudes of the Orandan Ambassador, who could sit for hours talking and talking and talking more, and never come to any decision at all.

What madness could compel a people to hold meetings to decide when they are going to hold still other meetings? To argue for days about what business they will discuss at a meeting in the future? One thing was certain, the United Planets was in dire need of the strong hand of monarchy.

Her pad buzzed with a high priority incoming message and she closed the document on Winathian crop genetics to answer the call from the SP sector chief. “Yes, Commissioner Rellos?”

“Highness.” The man said perfunctorily, clearly distracted by something occurring on another screen. “You mentioned previously that the city could call upon your Champions…” he began, clearly attempting to be diplomatic, but rushing his words in some urgency.

Sarya decided to speed him along, “I will dispatch them at once. Where do you require them?”

The man turned to actually face the pad, having apparently expected to go through an extended conversation to get to this point, “Dockside. They won’t be able to miss the… disturbance.” The image on the pad shifted as he turned it to face the image he was seeing on his own monitors. What seemed like a child’s playtoy, a metal-clad knight, was moving slowly and jerkily across an indistinct terrain, lights flashing. The scene pulled back, and Sarya could see that the machine was taller than most of the surrounding buildings, and that flying SP vehicles were being swatted from the sky by its’ over-sized limbs, or blasted spiraling into the ground by the blaster cannons affixed to its’ shoulders. She could just make out the words written in Interlac on its’ chest as it turned towards the camera.

Turning her thoughts inwards, Sarya’s mind touched the Emerald Eye and broadcast a command to her Champions Rings <<Champions! Report to the Metropolis docks, immediately. Assist the Science Police against the… Giant Killer Robot.>>

“They will arrive shortly,” Sarya promised, and then severed the connection, having noticed that the Commissioner was already attending to other matters.

****************************************************************

“Giant Killer Robot?” Garth said dubiously as he and Imra sailed into the throne room and directly out a service hatch constructed in the crystal ceiling.

<That’s what the lady said.> Imra thought, humor tinging her mental ‘voice.’

In their chambers, Rokk was flying out the door when his forward motion was arrested by a steely grasp on his ankle.

Lydda was pulling a blade from the wall with her free arm, while casually holding him in mid-air with the other. “You will bring me to the battle.” She said, matter-of-factly, pulling a mask over her face.

“Lydda, it’s day…” Rokk warned, wondering how she could possibly be holding him in place, against the force of his Champion’s Ring. She should have been pulled off-balance, if not physically dragged along with him.

“I am prepared.” She said, sliding her new sun-lenses into place, and he noticed that the new outfit Sarya had provided covered every inch of skin.

“Hold on,” Rokk said, moving around to grab her around the waist, and then suddenly he was free and they surged forward.

With a rush of magnetic force, Rokk caught up with Imra and Garth. Fortunately, Jath’s extra weight didn’t seem to be appreciably slowing his flight, although he was concerned about expending too much of his magnetic reserves before even getting there.

Within moments, the rampaging machine was visible, a dozen meters in height, and plated in red and gold armor, with blaster cannons that could only have come from a scout ship of some sort firing indiscriminately into the surrounding warehouses. Humanoid in shape, it seemed to ignore any resistance from the SP drones buzzing around it, swatting them aside, or blasting them down, without stopping it’s relentless advance.

<<Going in,>> Garth announced through his Ring, swooping low and erratic over the ground with such grace that Rokk felt a moment of jealousy. Blasts of lightning flew up into the machine as Garth wove between its’ legs, rotating in mid-flight so that he was blasting it in the back as he soared up behind it. The blaster-cannons lacked the field of fire, and the robots entire torso pivoted, so that it was facing backwards while still walking forwards. Both cannons opened fire at the flying Champion, and his friends winced as he dropped from the air. But he had deliberately dropped before the beams reached him, and was again flying low, using the ground as cover as he moved in for another run.

“There,” Lydda pointed and abruptly let go of Rokk and plummeted to the ground, landing with a heavy impact that fractured the ferrocrete beneath her, only to stand up, fully in the shadows of a warehouse.

Rokk took advantage of Garth’s distraction to come up behind the giant machine, and unleashed an electromagnetic pulse directly into the back of its’ stumpy head. The machine pivoted again with blinding speed, completely unaffected, and a giant limb sent him flying out of control into the distance. Only his magnetic powers saved him from broken ribs as he repelled himself away from the metallic limb, and so avoided the worst of the impact, but still he floated in mid-air, attempting to regain his bearings.

<<This isn’t working, it’s completely shielded!>> Garth announced as he unleashed another blistering barrage into the creature, only serving to score the black letters on it’s torso, which indeed proclaimed it to be a ‘Giant Killer Robot.’ The returning blaster-fire caused an explosion in a fallen SP drone, and the shockwave caught the wildly veering Champion unprepared, sending him into a building with bruising force.

Imra hovered in the air, watching and feeling more helpless than ever, but observed that the robot had completely ignored Rokk, hovering in mid-air, a sitting duck, and was even now walking past Garth, stunned on the ground. She began to hatch a plan as a tiny projectile embedded in the creatures’ torso. She could see Jath, hugging the shadows and staring at the other blade in her hand uselessly. The machine hadn’t even noticed her attack.

Jath threw her blade down in frustration and turned to a freight-loading machine that must have weighed several tons. Calling upon every name of every Warrior soul she could remember, she braced her legs and heaved. Imra watched with shock as the freight-hauler slammed into the robot and nearly knocked it from its feet. While it stood reeling, Imra enacted her plan, telepathically contacting the dozen SP troopers engaged in a constant retreat, futilely sending long-range blaster fire at the armored behemoth.

<Strike here,> Imra said, presenting an image of the left-most blaster cannon, <Now.>

The speed and force of the compulsion was such that half of the SP snipers were shooting before they even realized that they had not received this command from the Commissioner over their head-sets, and the blaster-cannon quickly became a smoking ruin.

<Again!> Imra commanded, redoubling the strength of her compulsion, forcing the image of the remaining blaster-cannon into the minds of the SP troopers, and like puppets, their arms jerked and they again lay down a coordinated stream of plasma-fire at the remaining turret, until it too was a smoldering husk. She could feel that most of the SP had recognized her command as telepathic this time, but few chose to resist, having witnessed the effectiveness of her telepathic sighting.

The machine had regained it’s footing, and pivoted towards Jath, stomping towards her at speed, as the Warrior woman belted it with every single object available within her area of shadow, including several cargo crates that must have weighed many hundreds of kilos. Garth had just drifted uneasily into the sky and Rokk was flying quickly back into the fray, but neither arrived in time to prevent the massive machine from crouching and striking Jath with a blow of such force that she rocketed back through the air like a missile, limbs limply pinwheeling as her body spun, clearly unconscious, or worse.

“NO!” Rokk screamed, reaching out with all his magnetic might to try and slow her flight, magnetic forces pulling against her metal armor. Jath landed hard a hundred yards distant, and sparks screeched as she slid another ten meters before stopping in a tumble of battered armor and bleeding limbs.

The machine stomped forward, ignoring all other targets, bearing down on Jath’s still form. A dozen support beams rocketed past Garth, magnetically propelled like shot from a rail-gun, some sinking directly into the machines back. From her vantage point, Imra could see that one of the make-shift spears had penetrated deeply and saw sparks. Her voice echoed in their heads, <The shielding is breached! Now, Garth!>

Flying in just behind the projectiles, Garth placed both hands on the protruding spar and channeled every bit of power he could muster through it and into the belly of the beast, only to be hurled clear as it spun again.

He looked up at the enormous machine towering over him, holding up his hand as a shower of sparks rained down, and the breath he’d been holding finally released as he realized that the robot was dead in place, noisily shutting down with loud clanks and thuds.

Imra descended next to him and pulled him clear, thinking that it was about to topple over at any second, but it remained standing, smoking and leaking fluids, a grotesque statue.

Rokk had landed in front of Lydda and found that he had barely enough magnetic capacity remaining to lift her body and carry her back into the shadows, where he sat next to her and began trying to peel off her battered armor by hand.

Imra led Garth over to their friend, <Rokk, I’ve got a medical team on the way. She’s still alive.> she thoughtcast.

“I know,” Rokk said without looking up, removing the breastplate that was restricting her breathing, and adjusting her bracer to support her broken upper arm. “It’s my role. She brings me food and gives me shelter. I remove her armor after battle and cleanse her wounds.” he said numbly, as if reciting a child’s rhyme.

*********************************************************************

“How long must I wear this device?” Jath complained.

Checking the read-outs on the regen-unit, Rokk set his hand on the back of her neck and massaged it, “The rest of the day, Jath. You were very lucky…”

Imra and Garth sat around a conference table, across from Rokk and hover-chair-confined Jath. Sarya was at the head of the table, finishing up a conversation with SP Commissioner Rellos.

Pointing at the pad, depicting the battle, Imra had doubts, <This thing had an agenda. It knocked Garth for a loop, and Rokk, and instead of going for the kill, it completely ignored both of them and continued marching along, blowing stuff up.>

Garth was looking at maps of the area, running scenarios to attempt to determine if it had some target, but was running into no obvious targets. “Where did the sprocking thing come from, anyway? 10 meter assault mechs with the words ‘Giant Killer Robot’ stenciled on the chest don’t just grow on trees…”

The Queen had finished her conversation with the Commissioner and answered Garth. “The individual components all arrived today on different transports from all over the United Planets. The SPs have not yet found any correlation between these shipments, other than the fact that all ended up in the same storage facility, and burst free of their containers and assembled themselves into the final machine you defeated.”

Rokk turned to Imra. “The robot may have ignored me and Garth, but it definitely went for the kill on Jath. She couldn’t have been the target, could she?”

Jath cut in, “Perhaps it simply recognized me as the threat it had not been prepared against?”

<What do you mean, Jath?>

“It was a robot. Immune to your mind-speech. It was shielded against Ranzz’s skyfire. And it was shielded again against your mastery of metal,” she added, looking up and placing her uninjured hand over Rokk's.

<That sort of shielding could just have been a coincidence…> Imra began, but Garth cut her off.

“No. Jath is right. The cost to shield a machine of that size against all forms of electromagnetic disruption would be astronomical. Nobody would do that unless it was specifically designed to face that sort of assault.”

Sarya chose that moment to interrupt her Champions. “At the present, the Commissioner is quite grateful for our assistance in this matter. It would be prudent, for the time being, to not suggest that our presence has incited this incident, at least until we are in full possession of the facts.” At the matching concerned expressions, Sarya clarified. “I am not suggesting that we lie, or shirk responsibility if this theory does indeed prove to be true. I merely stress that we will find the SP less than cooperative in the investigation if they believe us to be a part of the problem…”

“The cunning hunter knows when to wait quietly.” Jath agreed.

“Okay, work with the SPs for now, ‘fess up if we find any more evidence that this was targeted towards the Embassy.” Garth conceded. Suddenly looking up, he added, “Jath should have a Ring. Rokk doesn’t have unlimited power and it’s going to cut into his effectiveness if he has to carry her around.”

Jath started shaking her head, but Sarya was the first to speak. “That would be inappropriate. Jath’s loyalties are to Kathoon and Ambassador Marin. She is a guest, and a welcome one, but I would not ask her to abandon her calling.” Jath nodded, satisfied with this explanation.

Sarya closed her eyes and thought aloud, “I can place a new order for Braalian mag-steel, although it will take some time to produce to specifications.” Turning to Jath, “the new armor I will provide will be as strong as your own, but also contain a powerful magnetic charge. This will be of no use to you, but will allow Champion Krinn to draw upon your armors’ reserves as well as his own.”

“He will be able to draw strength from my presence on the field of battle?” Jath asked, leaning back in surprise.

“Correct.”

Jath smiled.

*******************************************************************

Imra had been quiet for some time as Garth traced out projected trajectories on his maps and Rokk rubbed Jath’s shoulders. She finally bit the bullet and broadcast a thought, making sure that everyone at the table ‘heard’ it,

<I’m glad you were there today, Jath, although I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m also glad you were here to add another viewpoint on the robot’s motivations.>

Jath’s face was impassive and her head tilted slightly as Imra spoke in their minds. She scowled, “I have not sought your approval, but it is welcome. You also fought well, instructing the male security forces in the proper use of their weapons.” Her head bobbed, and at first Imra thought she was nodding, but it was clear that she was starting to lose consciousness again.

“Okay, bed-time for the lovely lady in the regen-suite, I think,” Rokk said, turning Jath’s chair towards the exit, pausing only to turn to Imra and whisper, ‘thanks.’

Imra smiled, eyes closing briefly as she nodded to Rokk, and then turned to see if she could help Garth determine the robot’s goal.

Emerald Legion, Chapter thirteen
“Endings and beginnings” – wherein more questions are raised than answered

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Lydda had been in a regen-induced stupor when the Kathooni delegation arrived at the Embassy that evening, having heard of the battle on the news-nets (or, more likely, through the diplomatic gossip-line, which possessed some sort of faster-than-thought network). Ambassador Marin accepted the Queens invitation to return the following evening, when Jath would be available for company.

Rokk spent the next morning watching her sleep fitfully, punctuated by fits of loud snoring that he had come to associate with the warrior-woman, while searching the commerce boards for a supply of metal wire. He managed to locate a suitable quantity, at a reasonable price, and it was delivered before lunchtime. He fed Jath, who woke only long enough to swallow three bowls of soup in rapid succession, until he could feel her stomach bulge slightly with the warm broth, and then immediately dropped right back into a deep sleep. The read-outs indicated that her bones were setting well, the regeneration procedure proceeding without incident, and the soft tissue damage from her torn muscles and ligaments was completely repaired. He made sure she was comfortable, and set a pitcher of water within arms reach, before collecting his 100 kilos of iron wire and heading down to the training area.

Seeing Imra in the training room, walking on her hands, eyes closed as she slowly placed one hand before the other while striving to maintain her balance on trembling arms, Rokk turned slowly to find another area to work.

<Come in, Rokk. I could use the distraction. It will help me practice my focus.>, Imra broadcast, her thoughts as steady and calm as if she was not currently trembling with exertion, as sweat dripped off her brow as she regained her balance after another ‘step.’

“Okay, I’ll just go over here,” Rokk gestured, realizing belatedly that she would have no idea where he was pointing, with her eyes closed, “out of your way.”

He set the box down and began feeling the currents of the dozens of meters of coiled wire. Pulling out a plasma cutter, he began measuring out lengths just under two meters, straightening them with a pulse of magnetic force, and laying them on the floor next to him while he worked.

Twenty minutes later, he had a large collection of these wires, and he waved his hand theatrically, causing them all to stand at attention, perpendicular to the floor, clustered together like a forest full of thin metal trees. Portioning sixteen wires out from the rest, while holding the rest steady, he caused them to begin looping around each other, the metal twisting and bending before his eyes as his mind imposed a new order upon the metal. Holding that batch steady, he then continued to separate out other batches and twist them similarly, until he had a dozen thick ‘braids’ of metal, interwoven among each other.

At some point Imra had finished her hand-walking, and was now running up the wall, Champion’s Ring glowing faintly as she used it to lessen the pull of gravity on herself, but not negate it, requiring her to use her leg muscles and continuous forward motion to keep herself off the ground.

She paused, fully activating the Ring and floating in mid-air, staring at the construction taking place in front of her motionless friend. His hand sat idly on his knees and his eyes had gone out of focus. Imra could tell that he was no longer *seeing* the metal with his eyes, only sensing them through his magnetic perceptions. His breathing had become shallow, as if his body was falling asleep, while his mind worked furiously.

She initiated a very light mental touch, enough to alert him to her presence without startling him out of his deep focus, and after a second he replied, “Yeah?”

<I didn’t want to break your focus. Can you talk and do this at the same time?>

“We’re about to find out.” He said matter-of-factly, the metal towers swaying slightly with the effects of his now-divided attention.

<This is an amazing display of concentration. You are holding up a dozen different items at once, and also performing fine manipulations. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I wouldn’t have thought anyone not trained on Titan would have such focus.>

“Magno-ball requires you to be able to calculate trajectories instantly, and to perform split-second micro-analysis of the currents your opponent has charged into the ball. If you don’t spot them in time, the ball could jink off in an unanticipated direction as the currents shift, and, well, you lose.” ‘and I don’t lose,’ Rokk added silently, the unspoken motto that had gotten him to the world championships, and the motto that had gotten him back on his feet.

Imra noticed that he’d slowed down his work, and the metal components weren’t moving as quickly or precisely, and knew that the conversation was taking its toll on his concentration.

With a sudden wrenching sound, all of the dozen tall twists of metal wrapped around each other and tightened in a constricting embrace, and suddenly Imra was staring at an iron representation of Jath’s towering coiffure. His eyes opened and he took a sudden shuddering breath, as if waking up, but a smile crosses his features.

<I thought you were refining your powers… You’re practicing hair-styling?> Imra said with a disbelieving tone coloring her thoughts.

“I’m doing both,” Rokk said with a grin, hauling himself to his feet and staring down at his creation. “I’m going to wash Jath’s hair with a ferromagnetic-laced conditioner, and then I’ll be able to do this.” He looked down and the wires all suddenly whirled apart with a screech of tortured metal and stood waving like trees again before reconstructing themselves perfectly in an instant into the twisted tower of wire. His hands were shaking with the effort and leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily, but he seemed proud of himself.

Imra stepped forward concerned, <You just learned to do that, right now?>

“Yeah. Don’t know what you can do until you try, right?” Rokk said, wiping sweat from his forehead, but still grinning broadly at his accomplishment.

<I’m concerned that you might over-exert yourself…> Imra began, noticing that his lips were pale and the shaking in his hands had not yet subsided.

Looking done at the trembling hand Imra had started to reach for, Rokk closed his eyes and the trembling stopped, “I’m fine, Imra. You stick to the telepathy, I’ll handle the magnetic stuff.” He waved and the iron sculpture flew into the box with the remaining wire, and then the entire mass lifted and floated into his arms.

<Rokk, please, I’m just worried. Your entire body is dependent on your magnetic powers, if you overtax them, you could end up in bed again.>

Rokk’s face flushed, “Look, Imra, I know you’re just being a good friend and looking out for me, but trust me, I damn well know my limits and I know what’s at stake if I burn out.”

*****************************************************************

Ditching the wire-sculpture in a storage room, Rokk returned to their quarters to find that Jath had rolled over in her sleep again, and needed to be adjusted to make sure that she didn’t slow down the blood-flow to her arm and reduce the effectiveness of the regen-treatment. She woke bleary-eyed, looking around confused and he smiled down at her.

“Hey, sleepyhead. We’ve got company coming tonight and I need to get you into the tub.” Jath groggily let him lead her to the bath, and he spent a half hour making sure that the torn tissues in her shoulder had not stiffened up while she slept, massaging them to work out the tightness in the newly-rebuilt muscles. He then got to work on her hair, while she dozed in the warm water.

By the time Jath was fully conscious, she was back in her hover-chair, with Rokk finishing the last braids of her hair. She awoke to see the leftover silver pins flying back towards the shelf, and held a cautious hand up to check her braids. All was in order, she was pleased to discover.

She got out of the hover-chair, displeased to note that she still had a soreness in her hip and was limping slightly, and crossed over to a mirror to examine her mates handiwork.

Rokk remained puzzled how she could see her reflection so clearly when all he could make out in the dim room was a shadowy figure, but she turned her head and seemed to notice the presence of the tiny flecks of metal that sparkled in the conditioner that he’d used. “This is not iron?”

“No, it’s a blend of manganese and bismuth. I wouldn’t decorate you with the metal of another Clan.” Rokk reassured her. ‘Especially not the Sangti,’ Rokk added silently.

*****************************************************************

Ambassador Marin and four of her five remaining Warriors arrived soon after sunset. Kand, Rokk was pleased to note, was not among them, having apparently expressed a desire to guard their quarters for the evening.

The room was dark, and the Warriors talked of the battle, but the descriptions were lacking, given Lydda’s limited view of the action, trapped in the shadows of the warehouse. Rokk stood behind Lydda through most of the exchange, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and found the occasional silences to be even worse. The Ambassador had produced a pad and was displaying SP footage of the battle, and the Warriors had crowded around, making the room feel even more oppressive than ever. At the sight of Lydda hurling the freight-hauler and the giant robot rocking back unsteadily, a cheer went up, and they started arguing about whether or not this or that ancient Warrior had done something more impressive.

Distracted and having lost track of the conversation, Rokk suddenly noticed that the Warriors had gotten very quiet, and he felt their heads were turned in his direction. Looking down at the pad, he saw the image of Lydda’s body lying in the shadows, her head cradled in his arms as he pulled her breastplate off of her, and he had to look away.

The Ambassador turned off the display with a click. “We leave now, Jath. A great victory, you bring pride to us all.” On the way out of their quarters, each of the Warriors brushed his arm softly as they passed.

*********************************************************************

Imra’s head turned as she received the telepathic communication, quickly descending to the floor of the training room. She had been, unsuccessfully, she noted sourly, attempting to replicate Garth’s seemingly instinctive ability to maneuver quickly while in flight using a series of suspended hoops. No matter how she focused, she couldn’t seem to match his speed and agility on the aerial obstacle course she had set up, and he seemed to be able to do these things while exercising his powers!

She had recognized the mind-contact only as Titanian, and so did not bother to change her clothes from her sweat-soaked workout suit, knowing that another Titanian would care as little for details of personal appearance as she did. Arriving in the meeting area, her fist-sized golden psi-crystal pulsed with a rosy aura, and she placed her hand upon it, sending her thoughts threading through the psi-net to speak with her caller. The image resolved in her mind, and she could see Reyu Nataal, the young Titanian that had been rescued from the Mindfire dealers. Her mental self offered the equivalent of a hug, and Reyu accepted it, but quickly broke direct mental contact.

<It is good to see you up and about Reyu.>

The young Titanian male was still regrowing his hair, from where they had shaved it to attach their machines, and his psychic posture radiated discomfort and unease. Even by lax Titanian standards, his appearance was disheveled and spoke of his inner turmoil. As a mental projection, he could easily have faked a happier guise, but he clearly cared nothing for appearances at this point.

<Thank you Imra. I wished to contact you before I left Earth.>

Imra stifled a sigh of disappointment, <You are returning to Titan, then?>

<Yes, I’m going home. I won’t leave Titan again.> he said with conviction.

<I understand Reyu. Really, I do. But those monsters can never harm you again.>

<It doesn’t matter. There will be more. There will always be more, Imra. They sold the Mindfire, but others bought it, and those others are still out there. Someone will arise to provide for them, and more Titanians will be snatched away to be…> his mental voice trailed off, unwilling to continue the thought.

<I will not contest your choice. Your safety, both of body and of mind, are the important thing. The Commissioner says that they are trying to track down the customers…>

<The Commissioner! He says they are to be punished, and instead I hear that they are being sent to Takron-Galtos, to sit in tiny rooms with only their memories. He said this was a *punishment?* It is a respite! A *vacation!* Where is the justice? They should be peeled and their organs given to the less fortunate.>

<Reyu!>

<I will not take it back, Imra. They deserve punishment, and instead they will sit and be *bored.*>

<There is nothing I can say to make this better, Reyu. They treated you like a meat-worlder treats an animal, to be harvested and exploited.>

<There is something I would ask of you, that is why I contacted you.>

<Anything I can do, Reyu, you know that.>

<The Commissioner asked me not to speak to the press about certain details, so as not to hinder an ‘ongoing investigation,’ but I knew from his thoughts that he lied, and simply wanted to prevent a panic.>

Imra was momentarily taken aback by Reyu’s bald admission of reading the Commissioners thoughts without permission, but, given the circumstances, she could hardly fault him for being short on trust, <Go on.>

<They took from me Imra. Not just the fluids they extracted from my spinal cord. Not just the finger they severed to terrify me.> Imra winced at this reminder, that he had shown signs of having many injuries inflicted upon him, only to be regenerated back to health, so that they could do it all over again. <No, they shaved my head and cut into my skull. The doctors have confirmed that part of my psipareital lobe has been removed.>

Imra’s shock was wordless, but clear through the link.

<They took part of me, for reasons that the Commissioner could not explain. My telepathy remains adequate, I am not crippled by the loss, but still, they have reached into me and scooped away part of my self, Imra. The Commissioner knew only that the equipment necessary for the procedure was not at the Mindfire lab. Someone came there with surgical equipment, cut open my skull, took a part of my brain, and then took their equipment and left. I cannot fathom why. Do they mean to clone themselves a telepath? Or an army of them? Do they think they can insert these cells into another, to give them telepathy like ours? It is simply too horrible to consider such things. I thought Mindfire would be the worst horror that the universe could unleash upon me, and then I find that they are not only feeding on our pain, but they are feeding upon our brains?>

<I swear to you, Reyu, I will find out what is going on here. I will put a stop to this.>

<I would urge you to return to Titan, but I know you will refuse. I only beg you to be careful, Imra. I know, in my soul, that not every sentient around me is a monster, seeking to prey upon me, but the fear is too great. All it takes is one of those alien faces to be the one. Please be careful. I do not want to hear that you have gone missing…>

<I will Reyu. Please watch yourself on your return journey. I know that you will not feel safe until you are home, and hope that time comes swiftly.>

<My shuttle is boarding. Be well, Imra.>

<Be safe, Reyu.>

The rose-colored radiance faded and Imra pulled away from the crystal with a shudder, looking around wide-eyed. Her room had seemed so magnificent and spacious when she arrived, but now the walls were too far away to provide protection, and she pushed her bed into the far corner from the open doorway, cursing the Venegarian custom of open doorways, and crawled up onto her bed, back pressed against the walls, staring at the doorway.

When Garth arrived an hour later, she was in the same position. He spent the next twenty minutes tearing down the gauzy curtain and re-activating the former museum chambers security door…

Emerald Legion, chapter fourteen
“Curiouser and curiouser” – on the disposition of allies and enemies

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Ambassador Sivar Banel of Titan had been expecting this contact for some time, but was annoyed at the timing of it. Still, he raised a finger to silence his guest, and placed his palm on the amber disk of psi-crystal.

<Ambassador, have you heard from Reyu Nataal?>, Imra’s mental voice began brusquely.

<I expedited his passage home only this morning. His shuttle should have departed by now.> the Ambassador thought reassuringly, <It is good that you have contacted me, Imra, I had meant to make contact with you regarding the Nataal case.>

<That was weeks ago, Ambassador, and now I find that details regarding his treatment have been suppressed by the Commissioner.> Imra began, gathering a head of steam.

<At my request, child. There are currently six hundred Titanians on Earth, and many thousands scattered across the United Planets. It would serve nobody to create a panic, save the monster who would thereby be warned that we are seeking them.>

<The people must be warned, Ambassador. Surely, you can see that their safety is more important than the mere appearance of order?>

<Imra, you are young yet, and not versed in the ways that these things must be done. I have many considerations that you have clearly not considered. Any can look at the evening newsvids and see the Champions of Venegar flying over the docks, saving the day like the knights in some ancient tale of romantic fiction, but *I* must dwell in the real world, where it has been said that up to a dozen SP personnel may be filing complaints for unwarranted telepathic coercion.> the Ambassador stated forcefully.

Imra thought back to the moments after the battle on the docks. None of the SP personnel seemed bothered by her actions, and several had actually praised her for her quick thinking…

<No. You are lying to me now. I will discover why you would protect these monsters over your own people.>

The crystal went dark under the Ambassadors hand and he looked up at his guest. <The girl will be trouble, Commissioner. And I sympathize with her position.>

“Ambassador, we cannot afford to let this information get out. We cannot risk this predator escaping us again.”

<And if Champion Ardeen goes public?>

“If Champion Ardeen goes public, then Reyu Nataal will be asked to corroborate her testimony. And he will be unable to do so, won’t he, Ambassador.” The Commissioner said pointedly.

The Ambassador’s eyes narrowed to slits, <I like none of the interpretations of that comment, Rellos.>

Commissioner Rellos raised a hand, “I simply mean that the unfortunate young man will be in counseling, and that it would be a poor time to have press hounding him for details of the horrors he was forced to endure. Nothing sinister was intended.”

<And if she persists?>

“If were to persist, you would find a request upon your desk to have her extricated back to Titan.”

<On what grounds?>

“For her own safety, of course. Between the Mindfire dealers, the protesting SP officers and whatever enemies she has made by fomenting panic and discord among the Titanian émigré population, it would be safer for her, and others, if she were back home.”

<I was unaware that any formal protest had been lodged.>

“As of yet, only concerns have been expressed. But perceptions change over time, and the situation remains fluid.” The Commissioner settled back in his chair, satisfied that this business was resolved, for the time being. “Now, about that other matter.” he added, pointing towards the shacked and hooded figure seated behind them.

<Eve Aries is exiled from Titan. We will not take her. Treat her to your justice.>

“The iridium and rhodinium mesh will block her telepathy?”

<Correct. Even still, the mesh must encompass at least 60% of her head. Some telepaths find their abilities atrophy when confined in this manner. Others acclimate to the dampening effects of the metals, so if her guards report anything out of the ordinary, the mesh must be expanded. If needs be, her mouth should be covered, and she should be fed intravenously, and tubes inserted to provide her with oxygen. No guard with access to the release codes to her confinements should be permitted within ten meters of her person.>

“That sounds quite extreme. What if there is an emergency in the holding facility, and she must be moved quickly for her own safety?”

The Ambassadors eyes were cold, <Then remember the many dozens at the Talokkian Embassy whom she held passive and unresisting as they suffocated and felt their lives slipping away, but were powerless to even crawl to safety. If the holding facility catches fire, let her burn.>

Ambassador Banel blanched at the cold-bloodedness of his own statement and shuddered. <Please leave now, and take *that* with you.> he added, pointing at the bound Titanian.

********************************************************************

Sarya had been called upon as a ‘neutral third party’ to arbitrate a trade dispute between Cargg and Talokk VIII, as Venegar was one of the few UP worlds that had not yet a firm trading arrangement with either power. It was to be her first official diplomatic task, and she had been interested in the nature of the arbitration process.

That was then. Now she just wanted the damn thing to be over.

Ambassador Ravin swept majestically across the floor, gesturing broadly, glistening bracers of armor decorating his slender arms, enormous night-black cloak billowing. He had foresworn his usual jewelry of gold and wore only select bits of armor, and mere scraps of cloth, showcasing his lean body. His presence was calculated to appear majestic, and yet hungry, as if he represented a proud but poor and hard-working people. Sarya had lost interest in his specific words some time ago, but made a point of every time he compared his own proud warrior-people to those of Venegar, or his own situation, as Ambassador from a less technologically savvy world, at risk of being ruthlessly taken advantage of by sophisticated inner-worlders and their Byzantine ways, to her own situation. Six times so far.

Finally he concluded, and favored Sarya with a precise courtly bow, before sweeping back just majestically to his delegation, whereupon she was certain that she saw a functionary praising his performance and kissing his hand.

Representing Cargg, Veanli Guampti shuffled into position, the picture of contrition. Her clothing was subdued, and evoked the innocence of a child, with ruffles and bows. Sarya noted with amusement that her shoulder-length hair had been cropped to a boyish length, and her bangs hung to her large and expressive eyes. She informed Sarya of how Cargg had no significant material resources of its own, and was only able to compete economically by taking advantage of the unusual stable wormholes orbiting the world at three specific points. In perpetual risk of being nothing more than a waystop, always being bypassed by the bustle of commerce, her people had ended up on the short end of many deals, and now had a surplus of unwanted cargo that they hoped to sell at spare profit to themselves. The unfair terms of the deal brokered between her naïve and unsuspecting self and the rapacious and worldly Talokkian Ambassador would only bring hardship to her people. It would be grossly unfair for her people to be punished for the unwise choices of a foolish girl, so far from home. Sarya watched raptly, wondering if the girl would go so far as to shed tears, but apparently she realized that this would be a step too far.

She finished her presentation with a curtsy, and trudged away, biting her lip and wringing her hands, looking for all the worlds like someone had just landed a shuttlecraft on her little brother.

Sarya signaled that she would review the documents, and instead chose to watch the delegations out of the corner of her vision. The Talokkians had put up a silence field, and begun arguing most strenuously. After a point, the gesticulating became effusive, and the field became opaque as well. She idly thought that if they butchered each other in there, she would not have to hand down a ruling… The Carggite delegation was quiet and respectful, the picture of control, and Ambassador Guampti chatted quietly with his daughter, heads downcast as he held her hands in his own, the very picture of a solicitous parent.

Sarya looked down at her pad, which recounted the pesky little detail that the Carggite surplus had resulted from over a decade of cheating, swindling and extorting the diverse worlds that came to make use of their unique system of wormholes for expedited transit. ‘Sometimes you fell the tree. Sometimes the tree fells you.’ She thought, recalling her childhood in Vaul province.

She signaled her readiness to decide, and the Talokkian privacy field shimmered and fell, revealing that Ambassador Ravin was now seated, and one member of his delegation had apparently lost consciousness at some point during the conversation, and was now being tended to.

Ravin and Guampti stepped forward. Guampti’s step did not betray her mood, although she did not shuffle quite so mournfully, while Ravin did not so much ‘swoop majestically’ as thunder forward gracelessly, standing with his voluminous cloak folded about himself, no longer seeming interested in showing off his ‘lean, hungry’ physique.

“Ambassador Ravin,” Sarya began. “Your presentation was equal parts fantasy and farce, and I was particularly unimpressed by your incessant attempts to evoke my sympathies by comparing Talokk to Venegar, and your own situation to mine.” Ravin closed his eyes, and Sarya could see the slightest tremor move through him as he contained some angry retort. “Young Miss Guampti,” Sarya said kindly, fingers tenting as she leaned forward supportively, “Your performance was, if anything, worse. I find for Talokk VIII. This arbitration is ended.”

Sarya stood quickly, crushing the pad in her hand contemptuously and flinging the broken shards to the floor in front of the two representatives, before striding from the meeting chamber.

Behind her, she failed to see either Guampti’s display of temper as she stormed off, or Ravin’s calculating stare at her receding form…