Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Legion Tryouts - Razorfist of Neptune Colony

It was only the second open tryouts for the Legion of Super-Heroes, then not even a dozen strong, and Saturn Girl stifled a sigh and forced herself to retain the appearance of attentive interest, as another applicant with no chance whatsoever made their way back into the crowd, shoulders slumped in dejection. Seeing through her façade, Cosmic Boy took the initiative and called the next hopeful forward. “From Neptune Colony, Razorfist?” he said, a slightest emphasis on the applicants chosen name the only indication of his disapproval of that name.

Despite his somewhat brutal sounding name, the young man who jolted forward with a start of nervous energy, he had a clean-cut appearance and a powder-blue one-piece uniform that would not have looked out of place in the proposed Legion Academy, nothing at all like the grizzled Khundish space-pirate his name suggested.

“Hi!” he waved cheerily, and then appeared somewhat flustered, seemingly uncertain as to what to say next.

Saturn Girl felt a moment of sympathy for the earnest-seeming young man, remembering her own discomfort with being the center of attention, and how it must be even more difficult for a young person who lacked the discipline of a Titanian upbringing. “How about you tell us how you gained your powers, Ron-Karr?” she asked, before the moment grew more uncomfortable, prompting the young man with her most reassuring expression. He flushed and stammered, apparently awkward around girls, in addition to being just awkward, but turned to look slightly to her side, at the plastic expression of Chameleon Boy, who might as well have been a display mannequin for all the animation he’d displayed before previous applicants.

“I’m from Neptune Colony, which you already knew,,,” he adds lamely, remembering that he was just announced as being from Neptune Colony a moment before, “and there was an accident with a spatial compression field generator, which was supposed to create a new hyperplastic from the gases mined from Neptune itself.” A complex series of expressions passed over his face as he talked, and to her Titanian senses, an equally complex series of memories and emotions swirled around him as he relayed this simple sentence, suggesting that whatever this ‘accident’ had been, it had been quite the experience.
“And, long story short, I can now compress myself into a nearly two-dimensional state.” He finishes abruptly, skipping over whatever experiences led to this transformation with a visible sense of relief. By way of example, he transforms his hand into a flat state, which looks painful, and yet seems not to cause him any distress as he waves the flattened appendage to and fro, so thin now that it vanishes from sight entirely when perfectly edge-wise to her vision.

Unlike the inhuman patience Cham was displaying, Lu was getting fidgety. ‘Must be something to do with having the energy of three girls in there,’ Imra thought with amusement as Triplicate Girl spoke up, “Well, we’ve seen what you’ve got, let’s see what you can do with it.” The Legionnaire from Cargg jabbed a control on the console in front of her as she spoke, and a boxy servo-droid whirred to life on the edge of the platform bedfore rolling forward on it’s treads. It already bore a few scorch marks and a large dent on its left side from previous applicants, but was still capable of action, and its two uppermost grappling pincers extended from it’s body on tentacle-like limbs.

“Whoa!” exclaimed ‘Razorfist,’ stumbling backwards a step before catching himself, startled by Luornu’s abrupt transition to the demonstration phase of the audition. The machine moved forward relentlessly, and Ron-Karr stopped his retreat before stepping completely off of the audition stage, settling into a pose of concentration and muttering under his breath. Thanks to her telepathy, Imra was able to overhear his words, ”What would the Main Man do? Oh yeah, attack!” and with that, his body seemed to deflate into itself and become a rippling sheet that lashed forward, his whip-like arms slicing cleanly through the metal tentacles of the advancing droid, so that it’s mechanical grabbers clunked heavily to the ground. He spun to stand behind the droid as it shut down, recognizing that by the parameters of this exercise, it had been ‘beaten.’

With an excited whoop, Razorfist expanded back into a fully three-dimensional state, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Impressive,” Cosmic Boy remarks, genuinely surprised at how effective Ron-Karr’s nearly two-dimensional limbs are as offensive weapons. “And yet, we have a code against killing, and so we need to ensure that your powers also have non-lethal applications.”

He gestures and Colossal Boy steps onto the platform as the droid whirs back to life long enough to roll off of the demonstration stage. Colossal Boy carries a bo staff, and clicks a button to reveal the crackle of a taser-charge at one end, as he movies towards the applicant, spinning the staff almost absently as he stares at the applicant.

With a hissing sound, Ron-Karr’s body once again deflates just as Colossal Boy moves forward and smacks the non-electrified end of the staff into his mid-section with a loud clunk, having successfully distracted him with the energized end. Razorfist barely moves, and it is apparent that he retains his full mass in this state, compressed into a paper-thin state, making his form superhumanly durable. A high pitched laugh is his response as his arm moves to slice though the bo staff, but his foot simultaneously lands on one of the grabbers fallen from the droid earlier, and he pitches forward out of control, his razor like fingers plunging deep into Gim’s midsection!

Gim topples backwards with a choked cry, but Ron-Karr also continues to fall forward, and unthinkingly reaches out to stop his fall with his other hand, without expanding it back into a three-dimensional state. He falls atop Gim, his second hand also plunging deep into the Legionnaires torso, accompanied by a rush of blood. Horrified by this turn of events, the other applicants begin crying out as Saturn Girl is stunned by the sheer pain and shock coming from the two before her. Gim is moments from blacking out from agony like she’s never experienced, even second-hand llike this, and Ron-Karr seems trapped in this moment, hands hot with another person’s blood, and frozen in disbelief.

Imra can hear Rokk calling for emergency medical services, and senses the confusion and fear in her companions being dealt with in different ways. Rokk is distracting himself with a shell of professionalism, unwilling to allow himself an emotional reaction at this time. Luornu is paralyzed for a moment, and then there are two of her, one frozen in horror, the other icily calm, as she somehow excises the part of herself that is too horrified to function in a duplicate, while her other body moves forward to help staunch the bleeding. ‘I didn’t know she could do that,’ Imra thinks, before shaking herself out of this, recognizing an urge to focus on minutiae, rather than aknowledge the gruesome scene before her. She can feel the revulsion in Ron-Karr’s mind, that he is about to recoil and, with his razor hands buried deeply in Gim’s guts, make things much, much worse. A deep strike into his mind, uncomfortably similar to how he has struck deeply into Gim, and Imra reinforces his own hesitation and traps him in recurring doubt. Splitting her focus, she blocks Gim’s pain, granting him the unconsciousness he so desperately craves.

Chameleon Boy says something in a questioning tone that she barely hear, so wrapped up is she in the world of the mind, with Gim’s pain and Ron-Karr’s horror throbbing and howling around her like an unholy choir. “Whatever you can do to help, just do it.” She says to the Durlan. This jolts him into action, and he moves to stand with Luornu, who has her hand carefully on Ron-Karr’s shoulder, “We need to get them separated, but Gim will bleed out…”

“I will take his place and block the flow of blood.” Cham says, dark eyes focused on the injuries before him, and his own hands shapeshifting into many long green tentacles.

“Ron-Karr,” Luornu says in a calm tone, “You need to return to a three-dimensional state before you withdraw your hands, so that the pressure of your fingers and hands block any blood vessels that have been severed. If you withdraw in your current state, you’ll just do more damage, and he’ll bleed to death.”

Imra nods, and seizes control of the young applicant’s body, not giving him a chance to screw this up in his fear. Ron-Karr’s body inflates and Imra hisses at the fresh rush of pain shocking Gim back into consciousness. He convulses and she loses control of both men as they each recoil, resulting in a shower of blood covering both of them, and Cham and Lu, who react quickly, Lu shoving Gim back and Cham’s tentacle-fingers plunge into the terrible wounds in his stomach, writhing like eels as they burrow into his flesh.

When she recovers, Cosmic Boy is standing by her side, casually supporting her while barking instructions to others to make room for the emergency medical techs who have just arrived. In this close proximity, she can’t help but ‘overhear’ his own fear and uncertainty, even if he gives no outward sign of his own distress, and she shudders involuntarily at this vast gulf between his surface self and his deep self, so much like the Titanian ideal, in some respects, and yet feeling strangely deceptive to her, with her alien yearning for someone whose surface self more accurately reflects his deeper self.

Shaking off the welter of strong emotions that batter at her own poise, Imra enters a meditative state, and begins projecting it to the immediate area, imposing a sense of calm and clarity. She can feel gratitude from Rokk, as he seizes the iniative to gather up the remaining applicants, getting them out of the way of the medical team, who are loading Colossal Boy, and Chameleon Boy, who at this point cannot safely disengage from his teammate, into an emergency vehicle. Luornu has gathered her own focus, and is in three places at once, helping Rokk to wrangle the applicants, holding the door for the emergency med-techs, and keeping an eye on Ron-Karr, who is rocking on the ground, staring at his blood-soaked hands and locked in a moment of recurring horror. Imra recognizes that no good can come of this, and that every moment he spends in this state is causing increasing harm to the young man, and so once again forces her way into his mind, sending him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

One-third of Luornu looks up as he slumps to the ground, mingled relief and concern on her face, “Is he going to be alright? I know I should be worried about Gim…”

“But Gim’s in the hands of doctors now, and this is something we can do something about. Something else else we might *have* to do something about.” Imra finishes, not needing telepathy to know what Lu is thinking.

“What are you thinking?” Rokk asks, curiousity mixed with concern tinging his presence.

“Ron-Karr was locked in that moment, reliving it with horror and denial, at first, but was becoming desensitized to it more rapidly than I’m comfortable with. I’m at least partially to blame for this,” she says, wracked with guilt over how quickly she’d seized control of the young man, in defiance of her training, and Titanian tradition (and UP law, for that matter). “By taking control of him in that moment, instead of trusting him to do the right thing, I created a sense of powerlessness in him, which goes hand in hand with an abrogation of responsibility. I fear that he might avoid blaming himself, and turn to resenting the Legion, and me specifically, for not trusting him to be brave or heroic, and instead simply treating him like a threat to be managed, which could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as he lashes out by becoming a threat…”

“So that’s the why of it. What’s the what?” Lu asks, her other two selves now standing with the applicants.

“Unfortunately, the best thing for him right now might be to prove him right. We’ve already given him the impression that we don’t trust him with that power, perhaps we should take it away from him.” Imra says.

“Can we do that? I don’t mean ethically, because that’s an entire other cartfull of ore, but from a practical standpoint, can we reverse whatever happened to him to give him those powers?” Rokk asks.

“Can we just make him forget these powers, and this experience, if that’s the problem?” Lu adds.

“It would be a serious task, because there’ve been so many witnesses, and we’d need the SP to agree with it, since there’s been emergency personnel involved. If Ron-Karr is constantly being asked about it or reminded about it, any mental conditioning won’t hold up, and there will have to be some sort of story about where he was today, why he came to Earth, etc.” Imra says, distracting herself with the details, to avoid the larger implications of where this conversation is going, meddling with the memories of a dozen people…

“Don’t change what we don’t have to,” Lu says, “He has powers, he came to Earth to tryout for the Legion, but his powers are only to become thin, not razor-sharp, and he didn’t make the cut.” The Legionnaire from Cargg winces at the unintentional pun, “So he goes back to Neptune, or makes a life on Earth, or whatever he would have done if he got rejected normally, and subconsciously holds back and never uses his powers to cut people.”

Rokk nods, “If not ‘do no harm,’ this is, at least, do the least harm…”

And so, a discussion that started out theoretical progresses into inevitability, as Imra finds herself convincing each of the applicants present to agree to have a selective mind-block preventing them from speaking of the events of the day, for the good of the young applicant who could come to great psychological harm if allowed to remember how his powers had nearly killed another person. A few even asked to have the memory removed entirely, as they had no desire to remember such a sight! Ron-Karr himself is cleaned up, a task that Lu takes to with quiet professionalism when Imra finds herself unable to focus in the presence of so much blood. She takes some small comfort to see that Rokk makes an excuse and leaves the room, having studiously distracted himself from the sight of gore, but now looking a little pale at the sight. She then makes the necessary changes to the young man’s mind, imagining the look of shocked reproof from her childhood trainers as she does. ‘Is this what my future as a Legionnaire holds? Does it start here, and end with my being asked to cover up mistakes, or even wrongdoing?’

Imra vows then and there to police the use of her powers, and the Legion’s own behavior, to prevent that sort of thing from happening, and makes a note to talk with Chameleon Boy when he returns about establishing some sort of covert group within the group, to keep an eye out for such things..

Wow Set this was a great and emotional try out. it evokes so many things like the moment in Identity Crisis when Batman and Dr. Light are mind wiped and the implications of that. But on such a different level. Imra and Lu really understand that they could be creating a potential villain but understand the need to change his memories.

I'm glad Gim was able to live and they made Ron Karr forget his lethal usage of his powers.

I'd want my memory erased too if I was there for that.

I like this alternate take on Imra being the real reason behind the Espionage squad but also that its like an ethics committee.

great but gruesome tryout.

Thanks! I've always wanted to do more with him, and his power is potentially cool.

I had intended to have a scene with Ron-Karr regaining his memories (thanks to Saturn Queen) and going a bit off the deep end, and having to be taken down by Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl (who, thanks to their powers, aren't in as much danger from him) in my last fic, but ended up cutting it for space, and because I hadn't written this story yet, establishing that he previously was more dangerous...

Even in a vignette-ish story like this, I can't help but plant seeds for future development, such as Ron-Karr's complicated memories of how he got his powers, which I envision as starting with some sort of involuntary transition to a purely 2 dimensional world, in which he had a series of adventures before finding his way home to our three-dimensional universe. Plus, foreshadowing is fun, like having Imra think that Rokk is perhaps a bit too different between his inner life and his words and actions in the outside world, and, as a telepath, Imra feeling more comfortable with someone whose inner self and outer self are more similar, like Garth, who hasn't always been terribly 'deep.' Imra doesn't know that she's going to end up with Garth at this point, but we, the audience, sure do!

I also really, really wanted to focus on some of the older Legionnaires, like Imra, Lu, Cham, etc. and setting a story before people like Brainy and Dreamy were even members gave me some freedom to play. I'd love some official stories set in these days, particularly of the 'first five' Legionnaires of Imra, Garth, Rokk, Lu and Tinya.

I always did think it was odd Ron-Karr didn’t take a code name. This explains it well. nice moral dilemma that Imra and co faced, nice deadly application of Ron ‘s powers.

Lu being able to distribute aspects of herself among her triplicates at will is a very nice touch! like how confident and calm she and Rokk and Imra were outwardly while dealing with things inwardly. Cham initially turning to Imra for instruction was a nice touch too

Thanks! Because I tend to write fics from later in the Legion's history, I feel like I haven't gotten to touch on Lu, and the various aspects of her power, or how they might develop or be expressed, so I was pleased to find a way to expand on her innate abilities without necessarily giving her a new super-power or something. (Much like I allowed Star Boy's addition of extra mass to someone to also potentially serve a defensive role, in my last fic.)



I wanted Cham to come across as more 'alien' than he typically does, since this would be in his first year (possibly even first months) off of Durla, and the UP in general (and even his fellow Legionnaires) might only know the orange humanoid version of Durlans and not the green tentacle-monster face they wear at home.

Thanks again for the comments!

This was awesome, Set! I really like how it ties a whole lot of things in together like the Espionage Squad, and Ron-Karr traditionally not ever having made the best use of his power and so on while still making all that stuff a natural part of the story rather than just ticking off a checklist of continuity touchstones.

The whole thing with Gim being wounded was very visceral as well, which works to sell how horrific this would be for everyone at this stage of their lives...and your comment about Ron-Karr having adventures in a 2D world has got cogs turning in my head now, thanks! I might use that for something later on myself

Thanks! Glad you liked how I kind of seeded past events (the formation of the Espionage Squad, for instance) into this tale of the Legion's early days!

[quote] The whole thing with Gim being wounded was very visceral as well, which works to sell how horrific this would be for everyone at this stage of their lives...and your comment about Ron-Karr having adventures in a 2D world has got cogs turning in my head now, thanks! I might use that for something later on myself [ /quote]

I kind of wanted to highlight how dramatically effective 30th century medical technology was, by going a bit further with the wounds than a comic book would have, back in the Silver Age, anyway. It was nearly instantly fatal, and tremendously messy, by 20th century standards. Gim could have lost use of his legs, a dozen feet of intestine, a kidney, a big chunk of his liver, etc. if he'd survived that sort of injury in the modern-day, but in the 30th century, he'd probably have been up and about in a few days, or a week, tops. It makes the Legion 'code against killing' kind of interesting, in that a low-powered blast from someone like Lightning Lad, which could easily lead to permanent nerve damage, or internal electrical burns that would be untreatable today, would be easily considered 'non-lethal' in the future, where 'untreatable' and 'permanent' are very different things.

Thanks again for reading and commenting, and I'm glad you liked it!