Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business The Oracle at Delphi

Projectra has reached low-orbit, and subtly changed the apparent position of the Earth below them, so that if Ol-Vir turns his deadly heat vision to the city, it will miss the planet entirely. But she’s aware from his suspicious movements and squinting that he’s no longer entirely unaware, so she forms an image of herself only visible to his enhanced vision, and is rewarded by him firing a blast of heat vision towards that image. She moves it just a second too late, quite deliberately, and Ol-Vir is ‘rewarded’ by the sight of ‘Sensor Girl’ suffering a nasty-looking burn to her side as she suddenly appears in a dozen places, still obviously hurt, but fully visible. He smirks and is surprised to hear his own voice aloud, “Illusionist… How?”

Projectra causes her voice to sound all around him, as if each of her visible images are speaking somehow across the vacuum of space, “You hear what I wish you to hear, child.”

Ol-Vir gloats, reveling in how Projectra can apparently hear his ranting, even here in orbit. “Bah, now that I know it’s you, your illusions are meaningless. You can’t hurt me…” To punctuate his point, he lances a half-dozen images with heat vision in a second, and Projectra allows them to disperse, as if disrupted by his attacks, replacing them with a massive image of her masked face before him, surprising enough that he recoils as it booms forth in a thunderous voice.

“CAN’T HURT YOU? THE ILLUSION OF PAIN, LITTLE MAN, IS PAIN!” With that, the image of Sensor’s face vanishes and Element Lad is floating in its place. Ol-Vir’s eyes widen even as he denies what he sees, but it doesn’t matter, the pain has already begun and he looks down to see his tunic transforming into lead. The too-familiar fire spreads through his torso, a wrenching sensation like every cell being squeezed and pouring forth liquid molten agony directly onto his nerves. With every beat of his heart, the pain spreads through his body as the lead poisoning causes his body to cramp up with such force that he can feel his bones straining under the pressure of his convulsing muscles. He can’t hear over the sound of his own screaming, which he knows he shouldn’t be able to hear at all, and his throat feels like it’s going to tear itself apart with the screams yet to come. The only respite is blissful unconsciousness, which claims him after mere seconds that feel like an eternity of damnation, as his body goes into shock.

Projectra dashes forward, passing through the image of Element Lad as it fades, aware that she might have mere seconds to react before Ol-Vir recovers from this ‘phantom pain.’ Hand shaking, she slaps a neural restraint to his temple, and then, unwilling to chance it, slaps a second restraint to the side of his face. In case the adhesive fails, she rationalizes to herself, aware that if one restraint fails to keep him in beta-induced sleep, a second one certainly won’t help. Movement behind her causes her to jerk, her nerves frayed and suddenly feeling very visible, and very vulnerable. An SP craft has approached, and she can see a familiar form hidden behind layers of ship-steel and vac-sealed suit, all as transparent to her enhanced senses as if nothing but clear sky lay between them. She can hear SP Officer Gigi Cusimano speaking, even across the void of space, and remembers to re-activate her Flight Ring’s communications features, despite having no real need of them to hear Gigi’s words. “That was amazing! He was so powerful, and you made it look easy!”

Overcompensating at her own nervousness, Projectra retreats behind an icy hauter, more suited to Queen than Legionnaire. “Power is an illusion. I am a Legionnaire, and a Queen, ruling over a proud warrior tradition. He is but a confused child. The outcome was never in doubt.”

Gigi just raises an eyebrow dubiously and mutters, “Yes, your majesty. We all have our illusions, far be it from me to deny you yours.”

Under her mask, Projectra smiles wistfully. Years before, a younger Projectra would have bridled at being addressed so casually by a 'mere commoner,' but she is older and wiser now, aware that the woman who has come to her aid is by no means 'common,' and thankful that she has made acquaintances here, friends even, who know her so well, a luxury she never knew when she was hopelessly mired in the illusions of class and station in which she'd been raised.

Giving no impression that she has heard Gigi’s muttered aside, Projectra replies, “Let’s get our ‘guest’ to more secure accommodations, shall we?”

Oh, this is wonderful.

* The Legion has always been political: it is, after all, where the leaders of worlds send their offspring for schooling, after all. Nice summary.

In 5YL, Tellus ended up with the Dark Circle, even more overtly political than in TOS.

In the Reboot and Threeboot, the Legion was even more politically motivated: sustaining the status quo in the first instance, and opposing it in the other.

* You depict Projectra as far more powerful that she is usually displayed in the comics: I think this is appropriate. Many of the Legionnaires are far more powerful than ordinarily depicted, when you carefully consider just what they can do.

And Projectra dancing in the Mission Monitor Room with the 'ghost' of Karate Kid... she is well on her way to becoming the Mad Queen we all know she is going to end up as, if she lives long enough.

* And Ultra Boy's Heroic Weakness is cruciferous vegetables! Who knew?

* I am always afraid reading other people's fanfic that i am going to steal from them. Well, I'm just warning you: I plan to use Organus (the anti-Blok) in the near future.

Thank you!



I've dragged some politics in with both Element Lad and Tellus, neither of whom are traditionally seen as political creatures, which, particularly in the case of Tellus, stemmed from an urge to stretch him out into new spaces, and sort of throw to the wind that he spends all his free time just floating there looking fishy, just because we've never really seen him doing anything in his off-time but lounging around watching other people.



I feel like her new powers as Sensor Girl have never really been clearly defined, other than that she was intended to be Supergirl, originally, so her enhanced senses seem to be roughly on-par with a Kryptonian's (as most recently seen where she's using distance vision and hearing to search for the Earth First leadership, and Earth-Man borrows her powers to do likewise, assisted by his knowledge of what they look like and in what sorts of places they are more likely to hang out). In earlier appearances, her illusions seemed to be mostly visual manifestations, and rarely suggested audible or tactile or olfactory components, but I obviously went all-senses with her here. Ol-Vir could hear the cries of pain, smell the burning, feel the crunch of impact and spatter of warm blood, and, later, also feel the worst agony he'd ever felt in his life come back for an encore performance. I did try to limit her range. With the cheeky notion that distance is an illusion, Sensor Girl could *theoretically* have unlimited range, being able to see and hear things, and create illusions over interplanetary, or even galactic ranges, but that's just too big to wrap my head around, and I even had Ol-Vir fly out of her immediate presence and her illusions fail to keep up, perhaps because of physical proximity, perhaps because she doesn't have super-speed and couldn't adjust her illusions as fast as he could move and process information...

As for her dancing with Val, and reminiscing about him, that was just my cheating way to get to write an appearance by a character who is dead, and likely going to stay that way.



Tinya, apparently!

I needed an appearance by that alien looking fractal broccoli in my far-future fanfic (kind of like how Star Trek the Next Generation kept using that spiky horned melon as their 'alien fruit' on the show).



You are welcome to do so! Organus ended up on the chopping block (along with many other things), simply because I had to prune this story down to a manageable size, and weed out anything that didn't move it forward. I had a whole arc involving the return of Prince Pharoxx from the grave, his exile from Orando and his eventual turn to underground heroics on the 'heroes badly needed here' world of Avalon.

Okay, break week is over, time to get back to work. This turkey ain't gonna write itself!

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The brown and gray world was bleak and all-but lifeless, a stubborn sort of lichen being the ‘all-but’ that kept it from being completely lifeless, making it just the sort of place the Dark Man would choose to indoctrinate a bunch of confused orphans into bitter would-be assassins, fed on lies and a burning need for revenge on the ‘heroes’ who ‘let their world die.’ Fragments, some as large as moons, were all that remained of Dryad itself, some still glowing a sullen red with the heat of that world’s destruction, even years after the event itself, and so the Dark Man had only needed to point to the sky to remind his charges of their world’s fate.

It had been a simple matter for Lazon to disable the automated SP satellite that kept watch over this abandoned site, while Neutrax prevented it from getting a warning signal out with his neutralizing stare. Silver Slasher and Titania piloted their purloined cruiser in for a landing. Here, in the hidden base where they had gained their powers, the League of Super-Assassins would find the equipment necessary to greatly increase their powers. At least that was what Neutrax had told the others…

Attempting to make conversation, feeling like an odd man out on a team including Mon-El and Shadow Lass, an obvious couple, Night Girl,
who seemed as thick as thieves with Shady, and the second man to be called Karate Kid, the taciturn martial artist from Lythyl named Myg, Tyroc idly mentioned that their team seemed to be color coordinated, with Mon-El, Myg and himself in red, and Shadow Lass and Night Girl in black. Shadow Lass had tilted her head at that and left, returning from the rear cabin in a somewhat retro metallic gold outfit that brought a smile to Mon-El’s face, but merely left Tyroc confused as to what he’d said to prompt this, and wondering if he should change his outfit as well…

The Legion cruiser left hyperspace in the outer reaches of the Dryad system, safely beyond the range where planets, moons, asteroid belts and other celestial bodies would make leaving hyperspace dangerous, entering the system proper at sub-light velocities. Shadow Lass and Night Girl jointly piloted the ship and handled ship’s sensors, all-too aware that the fugitives they sought could have been forewarned not only of their imminent arrival, but perhaps even their exact team roster, by this mysterious Oracle. Mon-El stood behind Shady, one hand on her shoulder and gaze distant, as he used his own Daxamite vision to peer far ahead, with a level of precision that even the ships sensors could hardly match. Behind them, less familiar with the operations of the Legion cruiser, and lacking any sort of interplanetary ranged sensory abilities, Tyroc and Myg sat uneasily near the emergency escape hatch, aware that they were very likely flying straight into an ambush, and just waiting for the hammer to fall.

They reached the target planet without incident, one orbit out from where Dryad once spun, and Lydda stated for those in the back, “The SP watch-station has been destroyed.”

With a jolt, the cruiser’s lights, thrust and artificial gravity all cut out abruptly, leaving the inside lit only by the ghostly wan light of Dryad’s collapsed dying sun. Mon-El reacted with such speed that Myg found himself tumbling into Tyroc as the airlock blew and they both were ejected into space, their transsuits already active against such an eventuality. As they recovered their equilibrium, using their Flight Rings to orient themselves and stop their headlong plummet into space, Tyroc and Myg could see Shadow Lass and Night Girl exiting the tumbling cruiser behind them far more gracefully.

A brilliant red flash in front of them resolved to the form of Mon-El, blocking the energy form of Lazon, a brilliant crimson humanoid figure of cruel light, which lanced again and again at the cruiser, only to be stopped by the Daxamite’s invulnerable body. Lazon abandoned attempts to destroy the Legion cruiser, and instead targeted Legionnaires, again to be stymied time and again by Mon-El’s combination of super-speed and invulnerability. Lazon’s incredible speed may have been a match for the Daxamite’s own superhuman speed, but he had no counter for Mon-El’s far more superhuman reaction speeds and ability to anticipate where the villain was aiming to strike by the orientation of his gaze. Lit by looking arcs of brilliant crimson impacting against their Daxamite protectors’ invulnerable body, moving in short, sharp bursts of speed, the remaining Legionnaires touched down on the planetoid to confront those Assassins incapable of flight.

Tyroc’s transsuit chimed a warning, and he realized that the faint mist that had sprung up suddenly around him was corrosive, no doubt the work of Mist Master, and he was relieved that the planetoid possessed an atmosphere, however thin, capable of transmitting sound, if not at his full power. Closing his eyes and holding his breath to avoid the eye and lung scarring that would quickly result if Mist Master succeeded at melting through his transsuit, he signaled his Flight Ring to lift him back out of the acidic cloud, knowing that it would follow him like the living thing it was. He shrieked to disperse the gas around him with a powerful sonic pulse, and opened his eyes and took a quick breath of untainted air (heavily processed by his transsuit) and then set up a harmonic rhythm pulsing in resonating frequency. [i]I don’t know that you could dance to it, but it seems to be working,[/i] he observed to himself as the mist began to coil and whip around in a frenzy, each individual particle trapped in the resonance, unable to escape the beat he’d created. “Dance, puppet, dance!” he said to himself with a smile, only to sense movement in the pounding fog. A voice cried out, “Watch out!” as something gleaming and metallic shot just beneath him and Myg stumbled backwards into him. A clang accompanied Silver Slasher slamming into the ground, as he realized that Myg had intercepted her and sent her sailing under him, instead of, her more likely target, straight *through* him with her razor-edged metallic body…

A burning sensation in his calf was the first hint that the Silver Slasher’s foiled attack hadn’t completely missed, as she had sliced open his transsuit, and before it could self-seal, Mist Master’s acidic form had begun to seep into the shallow cut. Tyroc realized only then that he’d lost concentration on his harmonics and allowed Mist Master to regain control of his gaseous form, as Myg said curtly, “Get him back under control, I’ll keep her busy.”

Tyroc scowled, considering mentioning that if Myg had done a better job of ‘keeping her busy,’ he’d have never been hit in the first place, but he remembered that the martial artist had no super-powers, and was already doing more than his share… Instead he altered the harmonic slightly, not giving Mist Master time to adjust and set the surrounding fog back to pulsing to an eccentric beat. Mist Master’s growl of frustration only added a sweet counterpoint to the rhythm, and Tyroc floated higher, to avoid any more leaping attacks from his fellow would-be Assassin.

Again she emerged from the unnaturally pulsing fog, greenish-brown poisons streaking from her acid-etched metallic hide as she came at him like a missile, and as he began to dodge far too slowly to avoid her unexpected ability to leap five meters into the air, a red and black-clad arm reached out and smacked solidly into her calf, mirroring her own early strike on Tyroc, but more like a push than a damaging attack. She veered in mid-leap, with no ground to balance against, over-corrected and began to spin out of control, so that she missed Tyroc handily, even with her dangerous steely fingertips flailing about desperately to tag him on the way past, before falling back into the mist. A loud clang of metal striking stone suggested that her landing was as graceless as her flight and Tyroc concentrated on altering the tempo slightly, making Mist Master pulse even more drastically than before, attempting to keep the pressure on the gaseous villain, so that he never had time to adjust.

Deep within the mist, he heard Silver Slasher snarl, “Fine! I’ll kill *you* first!” and with sonar enhanced senses, could see her spring to her feet and leap at his fellow Legionnaire, who moved with minimal grace to sidestep the assault like a bullfighter. In motion, Silver Slasher was a blur, and too fast for Tyroc to get a bead on, but when she landed and twisted for another attack on Myg, a long sweep of her leg that he leapt over, Tyroc was finally able to get a clear shot at her. Closing his eyes once again, to focus purely on the sonar echo of the villainess, he unleashed a short, sharp sonic blast, stopping his harmonics for only a fraction of a second, and giving Mist Master no opportunity to refocus himself.

<<BANG!>> The sudden shockwave caused Silver Slasher to stumble, and Myg seized her moment of disorientation to use her own move against her, sweeping her leg out and causing her to fall flat on her back. <<POW!>> Again she was a sitting duck to Tyroc, and again he paused his harmonics for only the briefest instant, slamming Silver Slasher back into the ground with another sonic shockwave as she attempted to rise. She looked up to see Myg’s booted heel coming down on her head as he squatted into an axe-kick, and a final clang of metal on stone signaled the end of the battle, for her, as she faded into unconsciousness.

Tyroc turned his focus to the harmonic hum, elevating it to an unpleasant screech and causing the trembling droplets of fog suspended beneath him to oscillate at ever more frenetic frequencies, vibrating themselves into ever finer quanta of mist, until they were barely visible, holding that note for a long moment until letting the effect end. The fog dropped to the ground and slithered like an explosion in reverse to a single point, forming into the figure of a groaning man, on his knees and disoriented by the stresses placed upon his gaseous form. Before Mist Master could stagger to his feet, Myg had crossed to him and backhanded him with a closed fist, sending him right back to the ground, joining his fellow Assassin in unconsciousness.

Tyroc descended to finally set foot on the rocky surface of the planetoid, and Myg looked up as he did so, brow furrowing. “You are sweating,” he said simply and Tyroc replied defensively, “I was just in a fight…” before Myg shook his head and reached for the medkit at Tyroc’s belt. While digging through it he gestured with one thumb at the unconscious Mist Master, “That one likes to turn into nerve toxin, and your transsuit was pierced. Take a shot of universal antidote, just in case.”

Tyroc was about to dispute his teammates uninformed diagnosis, but recognized that he felt light-headed, and unsteady on his feet, which was hardly normal, instead lifting his leg and gripping his knee so that the shot could be administered closer to the wound. “Nerve toxin? I guess it’s good that one of us read the briefing…”

Myg gave a sarcastic half-smile as he administered the shot to Tyroc’s leg, “It’s also a good thing that one of us carries a medkit…” He handed the medkit back to Tyroc and turned to the sight of combat in the distance. “Let’s go help the others.”

Author's Note: In case it's not obvious from the scenario, I'm using the new-ish version of Tyroc with the red costume and sonic / sound manipulation powers. And I'm using Myg, just because I can.

Klar & Set, thanks for the reminder about Fume - I had completely forgotten about her!

Projectra's fight with Ol-Vir was well done...I like when ridiculously powerful characters (like an unhinged Daxamite) are actually treated as being ridiculously powerful. It makes the victory mean something if you can see how difficult it actually was. Also nice to see a bad guy smart enough to know the consequences of killing a Legionnaire may not always be worth it

Thanks, that was my main goal there, to show off how ridiculously powerful Ol-Vir was (and, by comparison, Mon-El or even people with only some of their powers, like Ultra Boy or Night Girl), and to then have Projectra/Sensor pull out the big guns she never gets to show off when she's surrounded by other people.

The whole idea kind of came out of nowhere. I feel like, barring her fight with the Emerald Empress where she ends Sarya's life, Jeckie hasn't really gotten much of a chance to show off what she can do since her return as Sensor Girl, and bam, there the idea was. While I don't dislike her, she's hardly the first Legionnaire I would have consciously chosen to write a solo story for!



Yeah, the fates of those who have killed Legionnaires (Computo and Nemesis Kid, in particular) seems like quite the deterrent, to anyone who isn't completely crazy!

Anywho, one more bit to finish up this sequence, then some connective tissue, then on to wrap up this third of the story.

By comparison, the last third should go fast, as it's plot twisty, but Brainy's on the case, so twists should unravel pretty darn fast, 'cause he's pretty darn smart!

Shadow Lass has shrouded their arrival with a vast cloud of darkness, and as the darkness boils away like fog before Neutrax’s emergy-dissipating gaze, Lydda flies directly up to him through the rapidly evaporating darkness and punches him with merely human strength, which proves sufficient to crack his visor and rock his head back into the headrest of his chair. She quickly flips around behind him and puts him in a chokehold, with one arm around his throat and her other hand on his forehead, angling his head so that he can’t bring his potentially deadly neutralization field to bear on her. Even with limited strength, under the dim light of Dryad’s shrunken sun, the slender man is no match for her, and his struggles are in vain.

Lazon rages as he slams into Mon-El again, to no effect. “Red solar radiation is supposed to drain his powers,” he complains in Neutrax’s direction, unaware that Neutrax cannot speak, and is indeed gasping for aid, unheard and unheeded.

Mon-El remains focused on his task, but mutters a soft reply, “Brainy found a solution to that. It won’t work on me.” Lazon’s form shifts to green and rebounds again from the Daxamite. “And Kryptonite radiation *never* worked on me,” Mon-El adds.

Lazon, form shining with his default golden-white glow, hovers in front of Mon-El, “I was just hoping you’d remain still long enough…” A grey beam from the side flashes over Mon-El, and he visibly weakens as Neutrax manages to focus his gaze on the hovering Daxamite, before finally succumbing to Night Girl’s chokehold and slumping in his chair.

“Yes, I just beat up a dude in a mobility chair. I’m not proud of that…” Lydda mutters, having not noticed that Neutrax had managed to catch Mon-El in his last-ditch attack. Shadow Lass, who has been keeping Titania enshrouded in darkness and hovering far out of her reach turns in alarm, and both Lazon and herself realize that Mon-El is now powerless and vulnerable at the same time. Lazon’s reactions are no more superhuman than Shady’s, for all his speed, and her darkness propagates as fast as his light. He transforms into a deadly laser-pulse just as she directly affects him with a darkfield, attempting to dissipate his light-energy into her endless night. His form is shot through with tendrils of darkness, while rays of light gleam through the darkness attempting to devour him, and seconds pass before an anguished scream signals his defeat, and Shady relents. The human form of Lazon emerges from the victorious darkness like a starship’s prow from a nebula, and Mon-El moves to catch him as he falls. Even without Daxamite strength, it is no effort at all to bear Lazon’s weight, as he has shriveled like a man who has starved for weeks, and seems frail and old, some percentage of his actual physical mass having been lost with the damage to his light-form. Shadow Lass looks shocked at the damage she has wrought, but quickly conceals any sign of distress, resuming a mask of determined poise.

Almost too late Shady remembers Titania, no longer stumbling around in the dark, and she turns to see a massive boulder being launched at Lydda, who, even in this sullen half-light, lacks the strength to survive such a blow. Fortunately, the darkness at her command is no creeping fog that need cross distances at mundane speeds, but is the negation of light, traveling as fast as light itself, and the scene goes black just before the massive stone reaches Lydda, who has no time to dodge aside, but merely shoves a fist forward, meeting force with force. The explosion sends shards of stone in all direction like bullets, but even through the darkness, Shady can see that Lydda is unharmed as the Kathooni woman flashes her a quick thumbs up, being one of the few other Legionnaires who can also see clearly in Shadow Lasses darkfields.

Mon-El also orients faultlessly on Titania’s position and floats towards her, signaling for Shady to drop the darkness. She wants to shout at him for taking such a risk, but allows the darkness to disperse. Hovering before the angry red-head, Mon-El says in a quiet but confident tone, “It’s done, Titania. Your friends are all down, and you know as well as anyone that the Legion had nothing to do with the destruction of Dryad. There’s no reason to fight.”

“There’s every reason to fight, Legionnaire,” she snarls in return. “It’s all we’ve got left, after everything was taken from us.” She gestures wildly at the sky, where the burning embers of her home world smolder fitfully. “Even if all we had was a lie, the dream of revenge kept us alive, and now you’ve taken that from us, too.”

“You need purpose? What about all those other Dryadan refugees scattered around the sector, building new lives for themselves? Wouldn’t it be a better use of your power to help them with their daily struggles, to keep anyone from exploiting them, to help them carve a home on raw untamed worlds where your strength could move mountains and divert rivers?” Mon-El reasons in return.

Shadow Lass and Night Girl keep quiet, not wanting to say anything that might disrupt this fragile moment. Tyroc and the second Karate Kid also arrive, but at a hand gesture from Lydda remain at a respectful distance, letting this play out.

Titania looks to her fallen comrades before speaking, and then points to Neutrax, “He told the others that we were coming here to find the equipment that the Dark Man used to empower us, to make us even stronger. But that was a lie. We were going to use the machines to strip us of these powers, which ruined our lives, and were turning Ki-Lan and Yer into monsters…” she says, gesturing in the direction of Silver Slasher and Mist Master, slumped in the distance.

Mon-El is surprised by this admission, and then shakes his head, visibly saddened, “Don’t you think they would have taken your powers away at Takron-Galtos, if it was that easy? Tharok’s clone lied about many things, not just the destruction of Dryad. He was no more the source of your powers than he was the source of Blok’s.” Titania scowls at this reminder of her former teammate, who had ‘betrayed’ the Assassins to join the Legion. “You are meta-humans, selected from the thousands of Dryadan refugees because you had an active meta-gene, not because the ‘Dark Man’ gave you anything. Your powers are as much a part of you as…” the Daxamite fumbles for a second as he realizes that he is the only Legionnaire present with racial super-powers, “as mine are a part of me.”

Titania’s fists clench as she exhales slowly, and Mon-El realizes with a heavy heart that this is not a fight that can be talked away. “And there it is, another lie, another hope snatched away. I told you the fight was all I had left, Legionnaire…” Titania says, slamming a boot down into the ground with such force that a shockwave of dust arises around her, blowing him back.

<<Get clear, my love!>> warns Shadow Lass over their telepathic earplugs, unsure that she could be heard over the sound of the shockwave that has thrown those standing into the air like game pins. The dust clears and Titania is kneeling, clutching her head and groaning. Tyroc floats into view, concentrating on some sonic manipulation, and over the same telepathic connection informs his teammates, <<Sonar-induced vertigo. It won’t last…>> Myg moves in with a blur of motion and strikes her with a knife-hand to the neck, recoiling with a cry of pain. “Val Armor makes using that nerve strike against an invulnerable target look easy…”

Shady and Lydda converge on his heels and Lydda slaps a neural restraint on the last conscious Assassin, sending her into induced beta-wave slumber, before turning to her former student, “And you are no Val Armor, not yet…” Myg just nods, rubbing his hand, “That much is clear.”

Shady, a second behind Lydda, eases Titania to the ground, and glances to the other unconscious Assassins before muttering, “Never a cop around when you need one,” finally looking up her Daxamite lover with a disapproving glare, “You could have been killed!”

He just shrugs, with an unconcerned look, “Are you saying that I can’t last five seconds being as vulnerable as you are every day of your life?”

“Not if you’re being foolish,” she retorts, blithely ignoring any attempt on his part to turn things around. “Although if you want to spar with me under power restraints, and learn to fight without your powers…” she begins, with a measuring look, already knowing the answer, as Mon-El gives her a half-smile and throws his hands up in defeat.

The Assassins were easy enough to load onto the cruiser, and Myg and Tyroc have gravitated back to the rear compartment, with the unconscious villains.

“So, our first missions together as Legionnaires, what with my recent return, and your recent admission,” begins Tyroc, attempting to spur some sort of conversation. Myg grunts a non-commital sound that does little more than indicate that he has heard. Tyroc makes a face and plunges forward, “I heard that you were hard to work with.” Myg laughs once, but does not reply, turning to look at Tyroc with a raised eyebrow, as if encouraging him to continue. “And I heard you were dead…”

Myg just rolls his eyes and sits up, “The Time Trapper was summoning people out of different timelines to tear down the Legion, including an evil version of Superboy, and yes, an old white man who spelled his name differently than I did, and talked space about the Legion. I’m not white, or old, or dead, so obviously he wasn’t me. For one thing, when I die, it won’t be fighting some loser named Radiation Roy whose super-power is *paralyzing rays,*” he adds with a snappish tone. “As for ‘hard to work with,’ I’ve read the same about you…”

Tyroc grins and nods at this not-unfair comment. “I was. As sole peacekeeper and lawman on Marzal, I was used to making the rules, and for everything to go like clockwork, maintaining order in a mostly post-crime society. Out here in the wider world, there were a hundred competing cultures and languages and traditions, and it was making me crazy what people could and couldn’t do. I just wanted to go home, where I was the one in charge, and everybody followed the same laws and customs.” He shakes his head, “I was the ultimate whiny ex-patriate, so sure that my way of doing things ‘back in the old country’ was the best way, and that everything was being done wrong here, too permissive, too forgiving.”

Myg shakes his head in agreement, “I felt the same way. Growing up on Lythyl, I had to fight for everything, starting with my freedom. Out here, everybody seems to just be handed things. They don’t have to fight for their food, or shelter, or respect. It’s just given to them, and, to my mind, they seemed not to have earned any of it. I saw Earthers in particular as soft and demanding and spoiled, not willing to recognize that they had fought for this, for thousands of years. Maybe not individually, but their parents and ancestors had fought to make this world better for them, so that they wouldn’t have to struggle for basic survival. Night Girl, and the other teachers at the Academy had to beat it into my head sometimes, but we wouldn’t have transsuits and cruisers and hyperspace if every single person was spending every day just fighting for their daily food, and shelter for the night, and respect.” He stretches his sore hand again as he speaks, going through the motions of the knife-hand he had attempted on Titania.

“You could get something for that hand…” Tyroc says, reaching for a medkit before Myg waves him off.

“It will heal on its own quickly enough, and the pain is another lesson.” Myg says, smiling. “This isn’t a tough guy thing,” he adds, moving once again through the knife-hand strike, “By feeling exactly where it hurts, I can tell *exactly* what I did wrong.”

Tyroc nods, understanding and approving. “Is that the hand?” he asks, knowing that he’s poking at what could be a sore spot.

Myg just laughs, “Yes, that is indeed ‘the hand.’” He can tell that Tyroc is dying to hear it, so he leans forward, “I was still in the Academy, having just chosen the name Karate Kid, after the first martial artist from Lythyl who became a Legionnaire, the son of the infamous Black Dragon himself, when Projectra showed up to ask what right I thought I had taking her husband’s code-name.” He smiles, ruefully, remembering the moment clearly, “I was young and full of myself…” he pauses, “Well, younger and even more full of myself, and I pushed her hand away. She did not take well to my ‘laying hands on her,’ and before my eyes, my hand withered up like the hand of a mummy who’d been dead for a thousand years.” He flexes his hand as if still not entirely trusting it. “I couldn’t feel anything. Just a moment of pain, and then it looked, felt, even *smelled* like a dead thing hanging off the end of my arm.”

“How long?” Tyroc asks.

“Three days. I heard some whispers that other Legionnaires had talked to her, but she wouldn’t relent. Not until I publically apologized, and then ‘whoosh,’ all flush with blood and good as new, with a pins and needles sensation like it had fallen asleep.”

“Remind me never to piss her off…” Tyroc said, and the two of them shared a grin.

And up to the big finale of this chapter, the confrontation with the Oracle!

Which I haven't written quite yet, but yeah, I'll get right on that.

Random thoughts I probably should have mentioned earlier, although some I wanted to save as surprises;

Brainiac 5 is currently leader of the Legion. Element Lad is deputy leader. Dream Girl just acts like she's in charge. Qu'elle surprise.

This version of the team includes classic members;
Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl, Lightning Lass, Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy, Brainiac 5, Shrinking Violet, Timber Wolf, Mon-El, Ultra Boy, Shadow Lass, Element Lad, Dream Girl, Star Boy, Tyroc, Wildfire, Dawnstar, Invisible Kid 2 and
eighties recruits Sensor Girl, Tellus, Quislet and Polar Boy, and
newer blood, Night Girl, Chameleon Girl and Karate Kid 2/Myg, as well as dimensional refugee, Gates.

Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl are on reserve, but would show up, for instance, to kick Mekt's ass if he ambushed Garth or something whacky like that. Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Girl are teaching at the Academy. Mysa and Blok are on the Sorcerer's World.

Infectious Lass is also a member of this Legion, but she's been on Daxam, working with other Somahturans to reseed Daxam's micro-biology, and not been available for mission work, and she brings the active membership to 25, which feels 'Legion-y' enough for me.

Tyroc, Gates, Myg and Infectious Lass were intended as surprises, and so mostly didn't get mentioned until I was using them.

It isn't any specific animus against Dragonwing, Chemical Kid, Glorith, Comet Queen or Harmonia Li that have kept them out of this story, but there were already too many plates to keep spinning, and if I was going to add even more, I'd be inclined to consider people like Nightwind, Power Boy, Lamprey, Gravity Kid, Variable Lad, etc. and the madness would never end. (The team is still a bit dude-heavy, with fifteen ish guys and ten ish ladies, but I didn't want to add five more ladies, or cut five guys to artificially balance that out.)

I just wrote that role call off the top of my head, so I'm *sure* I've forgotten someone...

And back to the story...

“I see with crystal vision,
Some visions I keep to myself.”

.

In a darkened chamber, a bulky cyborg looks up and announces to her companion, “The Coluan has found Delphi. But he still doesn’t know that we can hear everything they say… Shall I warn our Oracle?”

The slimmer figure who had been napping in the seat next her stirs, “No. Either he’s foreseen it already, or he hasn’t. Either way, he’s no longer of use to me. Prepare everything important, we’ll be leaving within the day.”

The cyborg turns to obey, ceramic-reinforced limbs moving heavily across the stone floor, but still questions, “If they don’t know, how can you be sure we’ll have to leave?”

Her companion stretches, wondering if there will ever come a day when she can sleep for more than a few hours at a time, and does not have so many things to keep track of, “Just because we can’t figure out how he’ll know, doesn’t mean that he won’t. Coluan brains are slippery. Best to plan for him to have figured it out, even if he’s given us no evidence that he has.”

“Greenskins. Almost as smart as they think they are,” Gladiatrix grouses, “I suppose you’re right. You always are…”

“I wish,” her companion mutters, having already resumed monitoring her datafeeds.

.

The Cruiser was in-flight before Brainy briefed his team that they were going to assault the Oracle directly, headed for a sparsely occupied region of space roughly at the center of UP space, and surprisingly close to Earth. Other cruisers departed at the same time, heading to different destinations, to deal with arising threats, and only Projectra remained to watch over Earth while the mission teams (and disparate single Legionnaires and duos) deal with the sudden upsurge in threats across UP space, as if the Oracle had foreseen an opportunity to strike in many places all at once, and advised his ‘customers’ that now was the time, splitting the Legion’s forces up across the vast territory under UP jurisdiction.

Brainiac 5 refused to be outplayed in this crude manner, and took calculated risks, shorting several of his mission teams by a member here, or a member there, and dispersing the rest of the Espionage Squad to assist with threats that the SP might not be able to handle alone, leaving Earth in the hands of a single Legionnaire (and the Academy, of course), and even bringing in external assistance…

For his team, Brainiac 5 had selected Lightning Lass and Colossal Boy, heavy-hitters itching for some payback from their ambush at the hands of the Interplanetary League, Dream Girl, who wouldn’t be sidelined from a mission to deal with someone suspected of being a rogue Naltorian, Cosmic Boy, who, of them all, was the most level-headed and able to serve as backup leader, Ultra Boy, always useful in a fight, Quislet, whom Brainy had initially found fascinating, and more recently come to find best in small doses, and Infectious Lass, who had just returned from extended duty to Daxam, where she had been helping to reseed the micro-organisms that lay at the base of that world’s ecosystem, still ravaged from their extinction at the hands of the Darkseid-influenced Daxamites (a project expected to take many more years to see fruition). He anticipated no need for subtlety…

As Phantom Girl was unavailable, away on a mission involving an Armory of the Ancients, and some members of the Legion of Super-Villains, Brainy had also called upon an unexpected resource, claiming that a Bgtzln would prove necessary.

And so it was that Solon Darga, the ‘Super-Reject’ known for a hot second as Phantom Lad, lay strapped into a machine of Brainiac 5’s devising, looking somewhat uncomfortable at the Legionnaires around him, as if still feeling a bit guilty about his fifteen minute career as a super-villain. “Are you sure this is going to work, sir? I’d hate to mess this up…” he said quietly to the Coluan inventor, who was fiddling with a conduit, making (unnecessary) last minute adjustments. “I have complete faith in you, Mr. Dagra. Just phase when I tell you to, and then begin to ‘unphase,’ and the machine will do all the rest. You’ll feel a strain, but no physical pain.”

“We have reached the coordinates,” Cosmic Boy calls from the command bridge, and Brainiac 5 takes command of the ship from the rear station and orients it precisely, before giving Phantom Lad the go-ahead. The young man’s body grows pale and translucent, and the lights dim in the Cruiser as the machine draws power from the resting engines. As he attempts to re-solidify, he flickers growing momentarily paler and then more solid, and his face shows the signs of exertion, although he makes no complaint, unwilling to show weakness in front of these heroes he’s so embarrassed himself in front of before.

A pale cone of energy emits from the front of the cruiser, and as it falls upon the seemingly empty space ahead of them, a pale ghostly outline of a space station appears, shimmering at first and then shuddering into full view, as the machine has greatly amplified the Bgtzln’s powers to bring the entire station out of phase. Solon shudders and turns fully solid as the machine sparks and dies. Brainy turns and shuts down power to the machine completely, before releasing the energy restraints that had held Solon in place. “My machine has shorted out their machine, that was keeping this Oracle’s hidden base in Bgtzln phase. Expect to find one or more Bgtzlns in the station, but they might not be in any shape for a fight.”

“That’s for sure,” mutters Solon, “I feel like I just tried to lift a car…”

Cosmic Boy is already at the airlock, “Suits on. Solon, you’re staying with the ship. Keep her safe.”

As the Legionnaires disembark the cruiser, Cosmic Boy opens a private channel to Brainiac 5, “Is that why you didn’t bring Tinya on this mission? You knew that whoever powered the machine would be powerless anyway afterwards?” Brainy replies curtly, “Exactly. No reason to short our own resources.”


.

Phantom Lad!

I always wanted to see him again, and Brainy's reason for using him is classic Dox manipulation...it's pretty cool seeing Myg in action too, I thought it was a big waste of potential how he was killed off in LO3W so unceremoniously. The story about his hand definitely sounds like something a pissed off Jeckie would do

And the League of Super-Assassins are always fun to see again...looking forward to seeing how this all comes together at the end Set!

He just came out of the blue. Of the original 'super-rejects,' unlike Calorie Queen or Magno Lad, I don't recall ever seeing him again, which suggests that his rehabilitation stuck and he slunk home in disgrace, so when I realized that I needed Phantom Girl for the big finale to this chapter, and that I'd forgotten and used her in the fight against the LSV (vs. Akka), I had to dig around and look for another Bgtzln in a hurry!

But I don't need him for more than 'uncloaking' the Oracle's space-station, Delphi, so he can watch the rest from the ship. He's been used. Now he can be discarded. Soft, strong and disposable. Like a Kleenex.



Yeah, it seemed like a fun way to deal with the 'who gave you permission to call yourself Karate Kid' elephant in the room, and also serve as another way of showing off what sort of things Jeckie's mastery of sensory perception could do. I also wanted a Myg / Tyroc conversation, because they obviously never got to meet, and it allowed me to explore two people with limited characterization in one scene.



Thanks!

Almost done now, the finale of this chapter is stewing in mah brain!

cool beans Set!

Jeckie showing the full extent of what she can do, including overloading Ol-Vir with pain, was great. I always did feel she was nervous and anxious underneath her queenly mask, a characterization you had down pat.

I love the rest of your takes on Legionnaire powers and abilities - Tinya phasing others, Brin using long-range tactics against Sun-Killer, Jan’s speed being affected by how close elements are to each other, Gates being able to comprehend where warps lead, Tellus’ choice of using telepathy over telekinesis, Tyroc and his harmonics, how Myg thinks in a fight, Dirk burning out pheromones, Brek using his flight ring to hammer two opponents, Shady’s darkness, Mon trying to talk Titania down, Lydda’s abilities without her powers.

Brainy and Phantom Lad! Myg and Tyroc bantering! Gates and Tellus’ differing takes on politics! Tinya and Mon both alluding to Shady’s hand to hand skills! Jo and flatulence! Jan dealing with proposals for Trom!

and the villain reasoning out why he/she (sorry, I missed this detail and am lazy to look as i’m on my phone) wouldn’t kill so many Legionnaires!

so many things to like about your story. can’t wait for the finale

the only real quibble i have is that Gates didn’t get as much action, but it made sense in the context of the story. and he certainly had some excellent lines!

Yeah, I wanted to pay homage to how she used to be 'the fainting one', and yet also was the queenly one, a poise of regal confidence over someone who isn't always 100% sure of herself (and yet has matured enough over the years to be able to laugh at herself and recognize her own 'illusions').

The line, 'The illusion of pain, little man, is pain!' was ringing in my head when I came up with that notion, and I was dying to write that scene!



I had a lot of fun exploring the various characters both personality and powers, and it's totally cool that you are enjoying it also.

I liked how personality and powers sort of combined at times, with Sun Boy, in particular, both able to change the chemical nature of the pheromones by heating them up, and yet also more able to 'ride the wave' of chemical attraction/arousal just because he's such a horn-dog, and his 'beast' is 'well-fed,' compared to most other Legion men, who might have a harder time functioning through being overwhelmingly attracted to someone.

Lydda being able to punch / chokeout Neutrax even without her powers just made sense. She's pretty active, and has served as a combat trainer, while he's a scrawny dude in a chair...



I am strongly motivated to get this done, so hopefully I'll have the next update done tonight at work and posted by the morning!

And then on to the final chapter!

Thanks for the feedback!

As the team moved silently to the surface of the now-revealed station, gleaming white in the darkness by the light of the distant sun, Cosmic Boy registered the launch of multiple metallic objects, standard anti-meteor point defenses meant to pulverize or deflect incoming cosmic debris. With slight effort, he deflected each by micrometers, enough so that they missed their intended targets by many meters, by the time they reached them. Within moments, they had passed close enough to the station to be out of the arc of fire of such point defenses, although they remained on the alert for other defenses. Not for the first time, Rokk regretted that Shadow Lass had been on another team, as her darkfields were their best defense against lasers, the second most common close-in defense for stations of this type, but they were in luck, as no laser fire erupted, and they landed safely on the hull of the station.

Brainy had guided them to an airlock, and quickly broke the codes to cycle them in, before than Lightning Lass could resort to her more direct solution of frying the controls.

While the airlock cycled, Rokk decided that the tension needed breaking, and attempted some casual conversation, “So Brainy, how did you know that Solon would be able to overpower however many Bgtzlns are in here?” Brainiac 5 gave Cosmic Boy a funny look and replied with the exaggerated testiness that he knew amused his teammates and put them at ease that we was just ‘one of the guys’, “A Bgtzln was just needed to trigger the machine. It did all the work. It doesn’t matter how many Bgtzlns they have, or how good they are, my machine is better than their machine, as you’d know if you’d read my briefing…”

Over the open channel, Rokk could hear Ayla laugh and Jo mutter ‘Spaced!’ before he quipped back, “There was nothing ‘brief’ about your briefing, Brainy. It was 75,000 words!”

“He’s got you there, nobody reads your briefings,” Colossal Boy added to the good-natured ribbing.

“Quislet does!” chirped the contrary little spaceship that had accompanied them. “Many hands make light work!”

Rokk switched back to a private channel to Brainiac 5, “Do you have any idea what that meant?”

Brainy replied with a chuckle, “I never say this, but your guess is as good as mine…”

The airlock door cycled open and the Legion emerged into an empty corridor.

“Uh, where is everyone? They know we’re here, they were just shooting at us…”

“I may have crashed their internal sensors and cycled all of the airlocks on the station while I was getting us in here.” Brainy said nonchalantly.

Lightning Lass slapped Brainiac 5 on the shoulder, “You rule Brainy, I don’t care what everybody says.”

Brainy’s momentary look of discomfort flashed by almost too fast to be registered, but none of it entered his voice, “Let’s be serious now. Expect armed resistance and meta-human resistance. We know that at least Bgtzlns and Naltorians will be present…”

Colossal Boy scowled at the corridors, a hair over two meters in height, not at all conducive to the use of his growth powers, and noted the presence of pneuma-tubes running along the sides of the corridor. “And Imskians. Those are rapid transit tubes for getting Imskian or Neo-Ant engineering crew around quickly.”

“Noted.” Brainy said as the team reached a central hub, and a dozen humanoids clad in identical blue and white two-tone bodysuits looked up at them with mixed expressions of trepidation, surprise and resignation.

All hell broke loose as the crew of the Delphi raised weapons and opened fire!

Quislet whooped, dashing through the incoming weapons-fire and proving too small and fast a target to hit, but succeeding in drawing some fire away from his teammates, although prevented by the need for constant movement from bringing his own powers to bear.

‘At least he seems to be having fun,’ thought Lightning Lass sourly as she advanced under a shield of flashing lightning and booming thunder, batting away incoming plasma blasts with her own electrically-charged hands, thankful for the tiny pinpoints of targeting laser-light that allowed her to tell where the shooters were aiming. Behind her Colossal Boy advanced into the larger room and looked up at the shooters on walkways and gantries above them, and smiled. As easily as reaching for a jar from the top shelf, he expanded, his giant shoulder knocking one walkway completely over, people spilling from it to fall to the ground below with cries of alarm, and his now-enormous arm sweeping the second walkway clear a moment later, leaving the Legion to face only the forces on the ground.

Ultra Boy had been invulnerable, and providing cover for Infectious Lass, but seized the opportunity to shift to ultra-speed and disarmed the seven enemies that Colossal Boy had just brought to the ground, pausing to shift to ultra-strength and crush all of their weapons into a single mangled lump and toss it aside. As he did, his head rocked back, and an otherwise lean man with disproportionately large biceps expanded into view in front of him. The Imskian cried out in pain as his over-developed arm snapped under the strain, but remained standing, as did Jo, who pushed back off of the wall he’d fallen back against. “Imskian Explosive Uppercut,” Jo muttered. “Gotta remember to loosen up, or you’ll break your arm.” The Imskian met his gaze and opened his mouth to reply, but Jo just backhanded him into immediate unconsciousness. “Not interested.” Jo grunted, rubbing his jaw and shifting to invulnerability while he recovered from the weekend athlete’s sucker punch.

Dream Girl had entered hand to hand combat with one of the white-and-blue-clad station residents, a middle-aged man who seemed her match in skill and, to her surprise, precognitive ability. “The Oracle?” she queried, watching him move to counter a strike she had not yet begun to make, and similarly lifting a leg to avoid a sweep that he was only beginning to crouch into. Her opponent laughed at that, suggesting not, and Nura got a good look at his face, for the first time, having been too focused on the movements (and potential future positions) of his fists and feet, and gasped, recognizing the bold red sign of a Naltorian deathmark. She was facing someone who had foreseen his own death! He stopped as she hesitated, allowing her a moment to recover her focus, and she relaxed her posture entirely, “I have not foreseen killing anyone today…”

“You are not my death, seer Nal. It is an honor to meet you, even under circumstances such as this,” the marked man said with a small bow, before gesturing around at the wild melee surrounding them. “The Oracle is there. Fare well. I have a destiny to meet.” He added, pointing to an armored figure just crossing the room to enter the fray, before backing away from the impending fight, avoiding a rogue blast from one of his allies’ weapons with a casual duck of his head.

Quislet dashed across her line of vision, four or five Imskians clinging to the hull of his tiny ship, attempting to blast their way into the Teallan's tiny ship, and her momentary concern for his safety evaporated as she heard him cackling with glee as he performed loop the loops and turns that no vessel with a corporeal crew could possibly manage, shedding one of his Imskian boarders in the process, who managed to tumble to the floor, return to her full size, and become messily sick on the floor, before veering into Colossal Boy’s massive thigh with a sharp impact, causing the remaining Imskians to fly in all directions, at least temporarily incapacitated.

“Sorry!” she heard from above, where Gim had apparently not realized that Quislet had rammed into him deliberately, and assumed that he’d just gotten in the tiny Legionnaire’s way…

She returned her focus to the man who had been pointed out to her as the Oracle. He loomed before her, attacking and ranting indiscriminately in her vision, and she blinked to clear that and focus on the present, where he was still bearing down on her, but, indeed, already ranting.

The Oracle was a thin man, appearing taller because of his odd armor, but she suspected that he was as short as or shorter than herself, perhaps no taller than Polar Boy, but far leaner. His hair had been shorn away completely, and dozens of interface cables whipped like locks, free of whatever inputs they normally occupied. His armor was translucent ceramiplast over a two-tone blue and white bodysuit, like everyone else on the station, showing off the lean body beneath, which she found an odd choice, since he wasn’t much to look at. His face, in particular, was drawn and pale, with sleep-ringed eyes bulging frenetically from their sunken sockets and hollow cheeks. Under it all, she could see the ghost of a once-handsome man, but whatever hell he was putting himself through had ravaged his health, and, from the sound of his ranting, not done his sanity any favors either…

“I have foreseen your coming, seer Nal! Your gifts may be exceptional even among our people, but with my machines, I have transcended the need for sleep entirely, so that I live a constant waking vision! You but glimpse the future in dribs and drabs, I *am* the future!”

His armor clearly contained some sort of exo-skeletal strength enhancement, as he moves too quickly, and strikes a downward blow hard enough to dent the floorplates, or crush the bones of anyone who, unlike Nura, would have still been standing where he struck. Because of his armors transparency, he appears to be floating a few inches above the floor, and to be moving in an unsettling manner, jerking fitfully and blurring into motion. Nura found it easier to focus on where he was going to be with her precognitive insights, than to try and look at him directly. With the superhuman speed and strength his battlesuit afforded him, it was all she could do to stay ahead of him, for all her anticipatory skills…

“Rokk,”she says simply, not able to spare breath or attention for a longer conversation, and Cosmic Boy turns from where he was wrapping semi-conscious station crew up in metal cables to gesture at her armored figure. “His armor doesn’t have any metal components,” he said, and the Oracle interrupts to gloat. “It is all as I have foreseen! Your defeat is inevitable! Surrender and my telepath will erase your memories of this encounter, and we shall continue our business, after I make an example of whichever of my customers betrayed our location…”

Pausing to hear himself speak, the Oracle’s monologue is interrupted in turn as Cosmic Boy magnetically tears metal plates from the floor with a <sproing!> and hurls them like giant spinning shuriken at the armored figure, who flails about with out of control enhanced reflexes and strength, clumsily knocking most of them away. “You can’t do that! I have foreseen your surrender! This is a trick, a lie, stop lying!”

Dream Girl hurls herself the side to avoid a deflected metal floorplate and shouts to the others, “Ignore him, he’s insane, but that battlesuit is no joke…”

“You’re insane!” the Oracle shrieks, chucking a metal floor panel at Dream Girl, who twists aside at the last moment. “Soma, take them!” the Oracle calls to some unseen figure, or perhaps to some imaginary deity or power, Nura is not sure if he has grown so far detached from reality…

A blast of lightning from Lightning Lass flies under the Oracle, who leaps over it with superhuman ease. Behind him, a technician who had been avoiding the fray is shocked into unconsciousness with an ‘eep!’ and Ayla just shrugs, and attempts another bolt, steadying her left ‘blasting’ hand by gripping her wrist with her off hand as she aims. Next to her, Ultra Boy’s eyes glow blue and he mutters, “Dodge this, nutjob,” before the glow fades abruptly and he and Ayla both tumble to the floor, to lie in a tangle of limbs, like puppets with their strings cut. Moments later, Colossal Boy joins them, shrinking to normal height as his consciousness recedes, his last thought not to crush his teammates. Cosmic Boy as well stumbles against a wall and slides down it, as if shot, a soft snore the only indication that he still lives. Still in the corridor, Infectious Lass throws her hand to her forehead dramatically and drops into a dead faint as well, crumpling up gracefully like a flower blooming in reverse.

A blue-and-white jumpsuited man holding an unusual device steps forward, over the fallen Infectious Lass, and turns his strange weapon on Dream Girl, who recognizes the sensation of beta-wave induced sleep, such as from a neural restraint, only somehow being projected at range. ‘Of course,’ she thinks groggily, ‘Soma, for sleep…’ As a Naltorian, she has greater command of her sleeping mind, and can resist the effects, but it takes all of her concentration, and so it comes as a great relief when Quislet flies straight into the beam and then departs his ship to inhabit the sleep-inducing machine itself, causing it to form into a pair of cuffs over this Soma’s hands and forearms.

Moments later the impromptu restraints crumble, and Soma turns to Quislet, who has returned to his ship, only to face an overwhelming psychic assault that leaves the tiny Legionnaire’s ship trembling in mid-air. “Fool, my device was only making my telepathic commands to sleep harder to resist,” the Titanian boasted, “Even if I can’t put you to sleep, I can still put you to death!.”

His poise falters as a wrenching cramp in his gut disrupts his concentration, and he looks down to see a pale hand gripping his calf. Infectious Lass, no longer feigning sleep, smiles up at him. “Bacterial intelligences don’t sleep, at least, not like humanoids,” she confides, “I’ve got forty trillion brains, so you’re totally outnumbered. You should probably go somewhere and purge now…”

As ‘Soma’ curls up on the floor, helplessly dry-heaving in misery, Infectious Lass pulls herself to her feet. Unseen behind her, an unsteady Imskian enlarges and readies his plasma pistol in shaking hands for a shot, only to drop as an elongated orange limb extends a fist to the side of his head. His gun drops with a clatter, as he drops with a thud, and Drura turns to see a crystal-leaved ornamental plant shudder into the form of Chameleon Boy, who says, “Thank you! That telepath was really cramping my style! He knew everyone on the station, so I had to stick to forms that he wouldn’t scan, like furniture and decorations…”

Brainiac 5 has ignored the fray, for the most part, trusting to his force field belt for his own protection, and his teammates skills and abilities to handle whatever challenges come their way. Reaching an interface console that his teammates, or their foes, haven’t destroyed with poorly-aimed destructive forces, proves to be enough of a challenge for him, and he quickly interfaces with the one he finds, bypassing it’s encryption with contemptuous ease and beginning to scan records of the Oracle’s customers, it being quicker to simply view and remember the data, than try to download it (which would require breaking yet more encryption).

The Oracle grew increasingly erratic at the rapid change in circumstances, having been elated to see his telepath fell so many Legionnaires, only to see his victory snatched away by Infectious Lass. He swiveled in place, taking in each disastrous turn of events, until he spied Brainiac 5 casually accessing his files and snarled, “Impossible! You keep lying! This never happened! But I can stop you…”

Some sort of silent signal from the Oracle causes the lights to flicker as alarms sound. <<Self destruct enabled. One minute until core overload.>> “Now you have to leave! I’ll kill you all, you filthy liars! I can salvage this!”

Dream Girl has retreated to the slumbering Cosmic Boy and kicks his leg on her way to Ultra Boy and Lightning Lass, who have fallen together. Rokk groggily starts awake, and Nura shouts, “Shut this idiot up,” as she avoids a chunk of debris thrown by Oracle by diving on top of Ultra Boy and Lightning Lass, both of whom jolt awake with an ‘oof’ and a ‘whoa!’ respectively.

She rolls to her feel, her knees and elbows somehow managing to catch Ayla in the gut and Jo in the face in the process, and hears the reassuring <sproing> of Cosmic Boy’s magnetic manipulation forcing yet more metal into actions that stress their structure. Floor plates, some already detached previously, others wrenched up in this fresh display of power, swirl around the Oracle, and while he tries to adjust to a dozen possible targets, they swoop in en masse and wrap themselves around him, restraining his limbs.

Lightning Lass, accepting a hand up from Ultra Boy, blasted the metal-wrapped villain before he could tear his way free, shorting out the systems in his battlesuit, and leaving him barely conscious, protected by the non-metallic insulation of the suit. A moment later, Quislet flitted into and out of the battlesuit, so that mere moments later it shuddered and collapsed, leaving the Oracle helpless and exposed, looking like a frightened child, confused and in denial about how his much-touted predictive abilities failed to anticipate such an utter rout.

Shut the self-destruct system down,” Cosmic Boy ordered, “you’ve lost.” The bewildered Oracle attempted to do just that, but the system continued its silent countdown, and Dream Girl suddenly received a precognitive flash of the station exploding, imminently. “He can’t, we have to get everyone out of here!” she cried, grabbing the nearest half-conscious person she could and dragging them towards an airlock.

A nearby monitor projected an image of the Naltorian she’d initially faced, surrounded by a hellish red light, sweat pouring off of his face as he shouted over the sound of an overloaded reactor behind him, “I’m manually damping the reaction, it will buy you an extra forty-five seconds. Get them out seer…”

Ultra Boy was a blur of motion, using ultra speed and ultra-strength in bursts to grab restrained captives and move them into the nearest airlock, the one they had entered, and finding that the Legion cruiser had docked to that very airlock, allowing him to immediately begin cycling people off of the doomed station.

“Can you shut it down, Brainy?” Cosmic Boy asked, as his magnetic powers seized up restrained individuals by the metal he’d used to restrain them, and floated them quickly out the same corridor they’d entered, in Ultra Boy’s wake. Brainiac 5 is lingering at the console, attempting to memorize as much data as possible before leaving, and merely says, “No. Too much damage to the chamber. I’ve remotely piloted the cruiser to the airlock we entered.” Chameleon Boy, Quislet, Infectious Lass and Lightning Lass quickly follow in Ultra Boy’s wake, helping people, or hauling unconscious bodies, as they could, while Dream Girl paused to speak to the death-marked Naltorian on the monitor, “We’ll get them out,” she assured him, seeing that he was nearly unconscious from the irreversible radiation damage he’d already suffered in the belly of the reactor, he looked up, eyes sightless, and smiled weakly. “It was my first vision. I was thirteen. I save…” he coughed and nearly collapsed, until only a hand remained in view, and a whisper, “thirty eight people…” The hand slumped back out of view and Dream Girl clenched her fists and flew out of the room, followed by Cosmic Boy. “We’ve got to get him out of there…” the Braalian said, but Dream Girl stopped at the edge of the airlock and grabbed his arm and flung him forward, cycling the doors behind the door of them. “He’s already dead. He’s been dead for decades, its fate that’s finally caught up to him.”

On board the cruiser, Rokk turned back to the airlock, only to see the station receding away from them, as the cruiser had somehow already engaged its engines to get them away from the station, and he banged his fist on the airlock in frustration. “We could have saved him!” Dream Girl places a hand on his arm but he shakes it off angrily, “Don’t give me that fate nonsense, Nura. We’ve changed the timeline before.” She grabs his arm again more forcefully, spinning him to face him, his own angry tears confronting her own, “Yes, we have. And how did that work out for us? Do you want to create *another* Time Trapper?”

Any reply is cut off by the silent flash of light visible in the viewport, as Delphi explodes and the cruiser gently rocks with the end of the Oracle’s dream.

And so endeth the tale of the Oracle at Delphi!

There's so much to comment on here set I'm almost giddy!

This I really enjoyable, from the individual Legionnaires on the Armoury Asteroid each dealing with their opponents using their brains rather than raw power - particularly liked the Tellus and Sun Boy's sections, and Brek dealing with his two by using his flight ring was inspired.

As commented above by Klar, it's pretty obvious that politics would come into the teams relationships, they seem to be moulded to play that part.

The Projectra scene with Ol-Vir initially bugged me to be honest but when I thought about it you have absolutely nailed her potential powers - she has previously removed all sensory stimuli from the Persuader, including touch, and also the description in the last series of canon described her abilities as manipulation of sensory data - and pain is definitely a feeling that she could possible create under that remit. The clever twist that Ol-Vir moving at super speed made her lose her control over him was well done - she may have an endless range but she still needs to focus her abilities so if the recipient isn't where she is focussing then they won't be affected - brilliant limitation to a crazy power set.

The League were a pleasant surprise, particularly Mon El trying to reason with Titania - someone he once said needed chained up. Its an interesting point you raised there about the survivors of Korlon/Dryad and how they must have lost everything when their sun novaed and the survivors would be eking out their existence now. I wonder what sort of support the UP would offer? Lydda showing she doesn't need her abilities to take on a villain was great too - she came across as very capable and determined, which she must be to have hung around waiting for Rokk to make an honest woman of her.

In amongst a lot of great scene's the one with Myg and Tyroc stands out to me. Not only as it adds to Jeckie's imperious character but it was just really nice after all the action to have the two of them be friendly to one another. It made a great counterpoint to the violence just before it as well as adding another layer of character development and history to your story.

Brainy has taken a pretty powerful team - very versatile and experienced - there's going to be fireworks!

The throwaway line that Drura had been reseeding Daxam's micro-organisms was class!

Ha, Phantom Lad! What a great surprise! And the reason for taking him - his exhaustion after the machine had done it's job is typical Brainy - nice one Set.


"as you’d know if you’d read my briefing…” Ha! Good line.

Your Quislet is intriguing and fun - the perfect mix for that character, reading your version (and also Raz's) makes me almost regret writing it out from my own fan-fic.

Neo-Ant engineers? Cool! very evocative and another great throwaway line. Things like this just add deliciously to the whole future vibe without forcing outrageous descriptions of wacky pseudo-scientific randoms onto us. Very neat!

The final battle gave us a nice focus on Nura which is always welcomed by me.

Sorry, I just hit post by mistake there...

Brainy opening the airlock, and disabling the security and opening the other airlocks without tripping ant more alarms, and doing it quite casually just adds to how tremendous he is in this team. Also like Raz, you have a great handle on how to write him where he's smart, effective and not too over-bearing.

Anyway, the Naltorian death mark is a groovy cultural addition to an already rather odd culture. The Naltorian giving Nura respect well done, but then when I think about it really it's kind of expected as everyone from her world knows she will be a High Seer at some point.

I was a bit disappointed not to have read more of what Rokk and Gim were doing, though it made the battle scene a good length to read. Also, if you had followed my drawn out style of writing there we would still be in the airlock...

Quislet dealing with the Imskians by crashing into Gim was funny as was Gim then apologising for it.

The Oracle must have known he was going to be defeated, surely, so I wonder if that's what drove him over the edge? His battle armour was certainly effective, and luckily for him was non-metallic.

Having a telepath on site with a sleep ray was a sneaky - these subtle abilities are always the tricky ones to defeat aren't they? Quislet being almost taken out by the telepath was unexpected, I would have thought that that sort of attack wouldn't work but then there is a consciousness so why not? Drura's comment about having forty trillion brains really highlights how alien she is, and also how effective she can be.

Brainy being Brainy and playing to his strengths by raiding the Oracle's data while his teammates dealt with the physical threats was another nice moment for him. Dream Girl accidentally elbowing and standing on Jo and Ayla was funny. In the end it's clear that there just isn't enough fire power on Delphi to take ot a big team of Legionnaires, and the Oracles eventual defeat is nicely done using teamwork and a little strategy.

I was really impressed by the team saving as many of the Oracle's staff as possible - excellently done. And the final moment with the death marked Naltorian was tremendous... I save thirty eight people! Sperb!

The exchange between Rokk and Dreamy at the end was tense - and is it in canon that somewhere, Nura's meddling led to the creation of a Time Trapper?

Set, you have excelled, this is a great read, enjoyable, exciting, funny, action packed, even poignant, in fact everything a good story should be.

I really hope that this means we can expect more, more, more!

WOW. Powerful ending, Set! that whole business with the heroic Naltorian lackey... did he even want to be a villain? or was he just resigning himself to fate?

Gim recognizing the Imskian tubes was a nice touch

Especially liked Quis and Drura in battle, and Cham’s surprise appearance - a very Brainy move

also loved the banter at the start, with Brainy being “one of the guys”

I was about to quibble that Drura hadn’t gotten much action, like Gates, but you have them both great scenes

can’t wait for more!