Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business 21st Century Legion (vol. 1): Remastered

Jeanne Chu despised R.J. Brande.

The secretary general of the United Nations had much more important things to do, in her mind, than entertain the billionaire industrialist who, it seemed to her, had free run of the United Nations building in New York, and easy access to most of the member governments.

If the truth were to be known, she was jealous of Brande and the admiration her international colleagues held for him. Chu had worked her way up the hard way: through the political machinery of her predecessor, Secretary General Thawne. She had seen the shady dealings and power plays of his administration first hand, and had participated in them only to the extent that it was necessary to get ahead. Now that Thawne had been forced to resign in disgrace (a murky issue surrounding the murder of a brother and sister named Allen had surfaced), the power was Chu's.

Some power. As Secretary General, she had no real authority over international affairs, and no way of preventing member nations from acting on their own accord, as recent history showed. But that would all change, she could feel it. Somehow, she would show the world a better way.

"Mr. Brande is here to see you," came the voice of her administrative assistant.

"Send him in," she said, her voice cool and calculating, betraying not the slightest hint of her derision for Brande.

Brande entered the spacious office, bounding with energy, as he always did.

An hour later, he left in an altogether different mood. Unbeknownst to Brande, he had handed Chu exactly what she was looking for. This proposal of his -- this "Legion of Super-Heroes" to be supported and sanctioned by the UN -- would be her instrument in consolidating her power over the unruly member nations.

Brande, of course, didn't see it that way. He intended the Legion to be used for more altruistic purposes. What was the phrase he used? "A symbol to bring people together."

Such naivete from a man of Brande's stature she could hardly believe.

Brande appeared to instantly regret bringing his proposal to her attention, but it was too late. The Legion would have everything the UN could offer: access to other nations, powers of arrest and detention, even a magnificent headquarters to be erected a few blocks away -- where Chu could keep an eye on them.

There was only one aspect of Brande's proposal that she shot down: his choice of Legion leader, a young Minnesotan named Rex Kline (or Cosmic Boy, as Brande preferred). Kline may have been a sports hero in his hometown, but that wouldn't give him enough experience or standing in the international community to lead a UN-sponsored Legion.

No, she had someone altogether different in mind ...

Young Jenni Ognats looked out over the calm sea, the sun's light playing gently on the cool blue water. It was so peaceful, so beautiful... It reminded her of her mother.

The beach had been her favorite place, ever since she was a little kid. Mom and Dad would always take her there, teaching her how to swim in the shallow depths, helping her build towering (well, they looked like towers to a three-year old!) sand castles, and just enjoying the peace and quiet.

It had been heaven.

Until suddenly one day her mom had gone. Dad took her to the beach as usual, but instead of getting into the water, he sat her down and told her that mommy had gone far away. Even then he had been trying to hold back the tears. She couldn;t understand why her momma had left there. Not then, not now.

All she knew was that her momma and uncle Don would never have left on their own. Someone must have made them. The same person who chased Aunt Iris and cousin Bart away. The same person who nearly killed her father on the day of her eighth borthday party. And from that day she swore she would find that person when she was old enough.

Five years later, she finally understood it all. Shortly after she had turned thirteen, she had discovered something amazing about herself. She was trying to catch the school bus, hoping she wouldn;t get yet another detention that day, because she so desperately wanted to make it home early so she could surprise her dad on his brithday. While she was running, she closed her eyes and prayed.

When she opened them, she was already by the school gates.

She had shown her father that very night, thinking how happy he would be. But she was wrong. He cried again, just as he did that day momma had gone away. And he had told her the whole story.

Secretary General Thawne had been forced to resign, but Jenni was sure that someone else had helped commit the crime that he had been accused of, and many others that had been hidden away, with no witnesses left to tell the tale. She had almost given up hope, when she heard about the Legion's formation. Maybe now she could gain allies, friends who would help her find out the truth and rid the world of the evil powers manipulating it.

She had made up her mind. Leaving a cloud of sand in her wake, she ran towards New York.

Reed Daggly sat down at the radio controls and smiled. Nobody had noticed that he wasn't the real co-pilot! The disguise was working perfectly. He took off his sunglasses and reached for the carryon bag he'd brought with him. Unzipping the small accessories pouch he was startled to find his pet chameleon sleeping on his iPod. The lizard's skin blended perfectly with the music player and made him seem almost invisible.

Good Grief, he thought, how did Proteus get in there? He quickly zipped the pouch closed before amiable reptile woke.

"The Eye has awakened!!!" Monius Ellysius' telepathic scream was so loud that, on the plane over the Caribbean Sea, Irma Ardeen jolted in her seat. "What Eye? And was that Latin?" She was very puzzled indeed. "Who thinks in Latin these days?"

"The Eye has awakened!!!" Sara Romanescu, chamber maid at the Royal Palace of Moldavia, stopped washing the laundry in the dark, damp basement of the palace. "At last!"

"The Eye has awakened." Princess Jacqueline Proiectra of Moldavia was looking through the window of the Royal Castle, not at the snowy fields below, but further, much further. "It has finally come to pass." She had been preparing for this since she was a small child, preparing and watching Sara, the last child of the Romanescu clan. This was of course the reason she was given her powers by the Oracles. When Sara made telepathic contact with the American girl, she knew that she had to intervene, to listen, but in an inobtrusive way that would not put Sara on her guard. So she created Jacquie, a small child that listened to most telepathic conversations, but said very little. As far as she could tell, Sara had not realized that Jacquie, the small child in her telepathic conversations, was the Princess in the upper chambers. Why would she? Protocol dictated that the Princess never had any contact with the chamber maids, and the two had not exchanged more than very few words over the years.

But Maizah had not been fooled. Almost immediately after Jacquie had joined the telepathic group, Maizah knew that she was being deceitful. She found a way to bypass Irma's telepathy, and confronted her. Jacqueline of Moldavia, faced with the threat that her spying would be exposed, had no choice but to explain herself to Maizah. She would have found out anyway, she was the daughter of the Archmage Mordru! And so Maizah became her sole confidante, the only person who knew the reasons for her life long dishonorable behaviour. And she swore never to tell anybody. Not even her sister Nura.

"The Eye has awakened!" On the train to Moldavia, Maizah Al-Nayal shuddered. She bent down and continued studying her books, she would soon need all the magic at her disposal. Hopefully she would be able to give Jacquie the time she needed. She just found it regrettable that she had to die so young.

In a cavern in the Austrian Alps, Azura Saunders lay on the floor, unconscious. The Archmage Mordru Al-Nayal was using all the means at his disposal to bring the Emerald Eye of Akron under his control, but he was not being very successful: even after giving part of his Emerald energy to the American girl, the Emerald Eye was more than a match for the mage. After seven hours of relentless battle, Mordru was defeated. The Eye rose from the cavern, seemed to hesitate for an instant (Zoe or Sara?), and then moved eastwards.

From a mountain top over his destroyed village, Jan Arrah watched the Emerald glow. "The Eye has awakened". He turned back and continued his trip. Hopefully R.J. Brande would be able to help.

At first everything worked as planned. The Legion's plane landed at a secret airstrip in the Putumayo region, on the eastern slope of the Colombian Andes. Three hours later, after an uncomfortable walk through the rainforest, Luthor Corp's facility was in full view.

Rex assumed the leadership role quite naturally. Without saying a word, he directed Tina towards the main gate. She phased through, and opened it from the inside. She had disposed of some of the guards, and the rest were quickly put to sleep by Irma, who at the same time took a mental map of the installations from their minds and transmitted it to all other Legionnaires. Garth and Rex immediately moved towards the right, towards the place where the alkaloids were stored. Quentin remained close to the entrance, and Irma, Tina and Lorna started moving towards the offices.

They did not get very far. Seven large, heavily armed robots were standing in front of them. Irma was the first one to fall, her powers utterly inadequate to deal with this type of menace. Lorna fell shortly afterwards. Rex, Garth and Quentin, who had heard the commotion, rushed to the aid of their teammates and witnessed Tina singlehandedly disabling one of the robots by phasing through its electrical system. Two others were destroyed by Garth and Rex, but they were overpowered by the superior firepower from the four remaining ones. After that, it was just a matter of time before Quentin and Tina were defeated, too. An army of guards appeared with sonic blasters, aimed them at the two remaining Legionnaires, and the battle was over.

The soldiers carrying Lorna Durgo were surprised when she suddenly disappeared into thin air. Her second body had stayed outside of the Lexcorp facility, and by merging with it, she was able to escape her captors. When she arrived at the plane's landing site and saw the unconscious body of the pilot, Lorna realized that things were worse than she thought. And where was the co-pilot? She moved quickly to attempt to revive the pilot, and while doing that, an identification card fell out from his shirt pocket. Luthorcorp, it said. At this point, Lorna Durgo looked up to the sky and saw a green glow. A flying girl??!!!

Thousands of miles away, Jeanne Chu was finishing a phone call. "Yes, Mr. Luthor, I'll keep you informed. Thank you for your support." She hung up the phone, and smiled.

Ramiro Puerta, soldier of the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, was standing immediately behind Reed Daggly when the explosion occurred.

From deep within the Earth's core magma shifted around. "The Eye has awakened!" It must be fought as it had been when it had first arrived on the planet and many times since. Slowly oozing upward and upward the thought rose. "The Eye has been awakened and must be fought!" Up through the Core, to the Outer Core, to the Lower Mantle, to the Upper Mantle. "The Eye has been awakened and must be fought!" As the thought neared the crust of the planet, a shape in the magma began to emerge. Humanoid with great mass. The shape reached the crust and began to cool, hardening into solid stone, but stone that moved. "The Eye had awakened and must be fought!" The stone figure began to punch up through the crust of the Earth.

Departing from the Moldavian train station, Miazah Al-Nayal settled back into the car that had been sent for her by Princess Jacqueline Projectra. She took a break from her studies to view the green fields that flew past the window. She wondered if this would be one of the war zones in the coming struggle. Suddenly a section of the field swelled up and erupted. Clods of Earth and stone rained down everywhere. The driver skidded and swerved to avoid the debris and finally crashed into a fence post.

Miazah dug herself out of the piles of books that had fallen on her. She checked the driver. He seemed fine, but unconscious.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

Someone or something was approaching, Miazah turn to see a giant person - no more like a giant block in the shape of a person.

"The Eye has awakened and must be fought!" croaked from the Block.

Dirk Morgna stood proudly at his father's side. Sure, the cameras were all there for his father, but it was fun for the 11-year-old to imagine he was the center of their attention.

His father was the Czech scientist in charge of overseeing the construction of the world's first solar/nuclear power plant. Funded mostly by Wayne Enterprises, the plant had been built in a remote part of the Czech Republic, where scrutiny would be light and fallout from an accident would cause minimum damage. Now his father was ready to throw the switch, and the world's press was there to cover it.

But Dirk was getting bored with his father's long speech and nature was calling. He slipped quietly away and headed to the restroom. As he was leaving the stall, something heavy hit his head. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he looked up and saw his attacker, Dr. Regulus -- the Luthor Corp. spy Dirk had caught when he overheard a telephone conversation.

When Dirk woke up, everything was dark, and he wasn't even sure he had awakened. But then the space around him burst with light, and he felt an enormous surge of power and heat rip through his body.

The light lasted only for a second, but it was enough to knock him out again. He came to and felt his way around, looking for a door or something that would give him a clue where he was. With no luck, he finally slumped against a wall and started to cry. But then he felt himself falling backwards through the wall. He turned and discovered it was melting where he was leaning against it. He touched the spot and could feel his hand radiating a tremondous amount of heat, enough to continue moving through the wall.

He stood up and pressed his entire body against the wall, concentrating and feeling himself move through it as the wall melted away. It was extremely thick, and when he reached the other side, he could tell he had been in the reactor!

The first thing he saw was his father crying. Then he saw Regulus stare at him in awe while being held by two security guards. Then the cameras started flashing -- all for him.

Three years later, "Sun Boy," as the glowing child had been called by press at the scene, was on a photoshoot in Moldavia. Bruce Wayne had been extremely generous in making sure Dirk received the best care after his accident. He quickly learned to keep a handle on his powers, and Gigi, a nice woman in Wayne's media relations department, had then spun his them into a lucrative modeling career -- just up Dirk's alley. The cameras were always for him. Dirk was a good boy at heart, but the handsome young teen did enjoy the constant attention.

As the flashbulbs were going off in the Moldavian countryside, Dirk had another flash: "The Eye has awakened and must be fought!" He looked around for the voice but then heard it again in his head.

The photographer stopped shooting. "DId you just hear sometihng?" she asked.

But then Dirk felt the ground rumble. Everyone started looking around, and that's when he saw the ground erupt several hundred yards away, near the road. He saw a car hit a fence post, and something moving.

He started running.

Jenni Ognats was running, this time not for her life, but for the lives of six kids whom she had never met before.

Just a little over an hour earlier, she had been in New York, looking for clues as to why Secretary General Thawne had kidnapped her mother and her uncle all those years ago. She was sure it hadn't been just a grudge or something as petty as that. There had been rumors of genetic experimentation at around that time too. She had been heading for the files in the embassy when she had picked up the phone call about the assassination attempts on the newly-formed Legion.

She couldn't let that happen.

She didn't know who the voice belonged to... She hadn't been listening closely enough to tll, and she doubted she had heard it before, anyway... But now, more than ever, she was sure there was a dangerous plot formulating in the upper levels of the government. And she couldn't let those kids (as well as the only possible allies she might have in her fight) fall now.

It would take her about half an hour more to get to Colombia. She prayed she would get there in time.

Azura Saunders woke up with a splitting headache. She tried to stand, and managed it, barely. She was glad that she could still walk, and she was thankful that she was still alive. The man who had appeared earlier had ruthlessly slammed her into the cave wall with just a flick of his wrist! And she suspected that he was capable of much more than that.

The last thing she remembered was him uttering something about "Emerald Power".

"Now what could that mean? Maybe- Oh my gosh!"

Her mind went back to the events of the past week. She remembered finding Zoe on the floor, surrounded by a glowing,green aura... The rocks around her were being morphed into crude shapes by that same aura. She had bundled Zoe into bed not soon after, and had made her promise not to leave until she could arrange for transport to the nearest hospital. That had been only a few hours ago.

She hoped that Zoe had disobeyed her this time, or else she knew she wouldn't like what she would find back at camp.

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

Zoe dove out of the clouds, hoping that she hadn't lost the plane. After surveying the land below, she almost wished she had.

"OOooH! I knew I shouldn't have flown too high!"

Maybe she could hitch a ride on the plane when it returned to America. She quickly cast her eyes around for it, and soon spotted the landing site, and the brown-haired girl who seemed to be waving to her.

"All right! Now I have someone to show my new outfit off to!" she thought as she headed for the plane.

"Himyname'sJenniOgnats.Quickthey'reinbigtroubleandtheydon'tknowityou'vegot..."

"Slow down, slow down. What?"

"There's a bomb on board and I can't get in, and no one's coming out. Quick - you've got to help me."

Zoe decided to trust the frantic girl and flew over to the plane, opening a hole in it's side. The strong smell of gas that emerged told her that the girl (whose name she hadn't caught in her rapid verbage) was right to be concerned. Putting masks over her's and the girl's faces, they headed in.

As she saw the Legionnaires sprawled around the plane, for once she was glad she'd been dragged around on those digs - she'd been taught basic first aid, and she found pulses on the first three sprawled bodies. Looking into the cabin, she found the pilots, and a red haired boy, all still alive as well.

The dark haired girl ran in - "I'vefoundit." Quickly as she could, Zoe followed the speeding girl to the cargo hold, and, opening another hole in the side of the plane, telekinetically "threw" the bomb as far as she could throw it.... as the man with the monacle laughs at the two heroines' "rescue..."

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

Meanwhile, on a farmstead in Kansas, Eileen "Ella" Raines made plans to follow her twin...

Quentin Docks's shackles seemed to open from their own volition. He didn't have much time to express his surprise, the next second a tiny dark-haired woman in a purple outfit was jumping out of them. "The way out's that way, hurry!". He wouldn't have necessarily obeyed a woman that he didn't know, but then he heard Irma's voice in his head. "It's OK, you can trust her".

The fire alarm in the complex was going off. "ALL PERSONNEL MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY" was the message being broadcast through the loudspeakers. Lyle Norga, invisible, was running in the opposite direction to all the personnel in the facility, towards the vault with the alkaloids and the chemicals to process them. Reed's diversion was working! He arrived at the vault, placed the bomb, and started running towards the exit.

Everything was going well. Reed Daggly had managed to disable the plane's pilot, and had arrived at Luthor Corp's complex shortly after the Legion. While the Legionnaires were fighting the robots, Reed had managed to disable one of the guards and had replaced him. He had then sounded off the alarm, to make sure that all personnel had left the complex before the explosion that was to come.

But he couldn't escape. As he attempted to leave the building, he was intercepted by four armed men in military uniforms. "You are not from here!" one of them said in Spanish. "What were you doing in there?". Reed Daggly had no time to answer, they were too close! And then it happened. The Lexcorp Complex blew up in a great ball of fire. Reed Daggly, his pet chameleon, and Ramiro Puerta, one of the guerrilla fighters behind him, were first showered in a cloud of noxious chemicals, and then received the full blast of the explosion. Nothing was left of Reed, except for an orange puddle. A few meters behind him, Ramiro's body was completely charred over. The other three persons were dead.

Charles Tan was moping in the jungle. He knew his parents wouldn't be happy about him going out there alone, but he had weightier problems on his mind.

While the Philippines was his home, he was now in Colombia because his parents were big-shot ambassadorial types. It had been over a month since he had last seen his classmates from back home... Not that he minded; he was away from home so often that he never had any real friends.

Because of this, he often spent time studying, reading books and writing stories, poetries and essays. Even though English wasn't his native language, he had become quite adept at it, making him trilingual. His parents were quite proud of that fact, as well as all the scholastic awards that he had won. Honor and achievement were important things in Chinese culture.

But all that would soon be for naught, if his secret would be discovered. He But it was all that kooky government scientist's fault; he had offered Charles (or Chuck, as he preferred to be called) a bottle of "soda" which had turned out to be one of the bottles the new plastic formula the scientist had been working on!

As if the horrible taste hadn't been bad enough, Chuck's already rather pudgy body had swollen up, and he had gained the ability to infalte himself and bounce like a large rubber ball!

"At least I was able to figure out how to deflate myself," Chuck sighed, "but this is one horrible power! Why, oh why, couldn't it had been something flashy, exciting, and something which didn't... deform me? And to add insult to injury, that scientist almost caged me so he could experiment me! I'm sure he would have, too, if I had't used dad's position as an ambassador... Oh, drat! What will mom and dad think?"

Chuck buried his face in his hands, and hurried farther away into the jungle.

Lorna was afraid that the two girls floating above her were drug addicts or something. They had both appeared out of nowhere, scrambled into the plane, all the time yelling some unintelligible (at least to her ears) words, and now they were both just hovering there with blank looks on their faces. She wished she could fly, so she could crack their heads together and get them to wake up!

Just then, she spotted a somewhat chubby boy walking along the path with his face buried in his hands. At last, some help! She quickly hurried over to him and introduced herself, explaining the situation.

"...and so, do you think you can help me?"

"Well, it appears they may be suffering some sort of halucination... but maybe we can shock them out of it."

"Oh, yes! That sounds like a great idea! So, how do we go about it? My sisters and I can't exactly reach them from here."

"Um... sisters?"

"Oh, sorry! Here, I'll show you."

Lorna stepped back and triplicated, then quickly reintegrated again. Her two other bodies weren;t fully healed yet... She wobbled over until the boy steadied her.

"You- you're Lorna Durgo, aren't you? The Legionnaire?"

"Yeah... And I could really use those two girls' help. My friends are in danger... Are there any other metahumans around here who could help me?"

"I- Well- There's- Um, well, there's me. Um, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Charles Tan, but please call me Chuck. I- can do this." Chuck quickly inflated, then deflated again, blushing a deep crimson red as he did so.

Lorna's eyes widened. "That is so cool! You should join the Legion!"

Chuck brightened at the thought. "Really? Do you think I'd be accepted?"

"Sure! In that form, it looks like you can't be hurt, and I'm sure anybody would get knocked out if you bounced into them! Why don't you wake those two up from their little daydream, and then we can go find the others? I'm sure all three of you will be inducted after all the help you're going to be on this mission."

"If that's the case..." Chuck quickly inflated again, and, aiming carefully, bounced up and gently knocked Zoe and Jenni out of the sky. Just hard enough to bring them to their senses, of course.

"Huh? What?"
"Whoa, what's going on here?"

Lorna spoke up. "Hi, I'm Lorna and this is Chuck. Listen, I don't know what's been going on, but we need your help..."

On a cold mountain in Norway, Brock Bannen trudged slowly down an icy path. He hoped he wouldn't get lost on the way to the only airport in a five mile radius. Not that he would know if he had; he was the first of his people since the now-legendary Princess Tora to venture out of their hidden mountain kingdom. The chances that he would make it to the airport at all were minimal. But he didn;t really care. He knew his destiny lay in America, with the Legion. Gritting his teeth, he trudged forward through the icy snow.

***********************************************
Back in Colombia, Lorna had explained the situation to Zoe, Jenni and Chuck, and the four of them were now flying (courtesy of Zoe) back to the Lexcorp Building. Lorna strained her eyes, trying to see if she could find any sign of her friends.

Conan Doyle Arlington hated his name, hated it so much he refused to answer to it. He went by the nickname "Condo", which he had proudly given himself. Of course he hated everything about his life, not just his name! He hated where he lived, he hated his school, his teachers, neighbors...you name it! But most of all he hated his parents and the life they had forced on him. It just wasn't fair!

His mother was a former English professor (hence his stupid name!) and his father was a biophysicist in the employ of Luthor Corp. Condo hated that most of all. Mr. Luthor was a creep but his parents thought he was god's gift to the world!

The Creep had sent Dr. Arlington to work in the Luthor Corp facilities in the Putumayo region of Columbia over a year ago to supervise the culmination of some secret project.

It was something big...really big!

Condo's father had been involved in it for about 17 years, first joining the project back in the States when it was in it's preliminary stages. That was a year or two before Condo was born. Arlington spent his entire life in his lab, heading off before sun up and rarely coming home before dark.

Of course, Dr. Arlington never spoke about his work. It was always "the project" never anything else. And it was never, EVER discussed or explained...to anyone! As a youngster, Condo had quickly learned that the fastest way to earn a brutal beating at the hands of his father was to ask too many questions about what he did.

Condo had learned many ways to earn a beating over the years, unfortunately. Coming home too early in the afternoon was another big one. It interfered with his mother's favorite pasttime... "entertaining" a number of the other men at the complex.

Condo had good reason to hate his parents, of that he was sure.

Recently however, he had accidently discovered something that made him happy for once. He had realized that if he concentrated really hard, he could make things happen to all kinds of stuff. After doing some quiet research in the Library he had come to the conclusion that his new ability was due to radiation, or something, to which his father had been exposed years ago. This exposure must have caused a mutation in him, which was now manifesting itself.

Over the past few weeks, Condo had discovered that he could make metal rust over completely or speed up the growth rate of plants. He could even increase his own metabolism to the point where he became much stronger and faster. Unfortunately, that effect didn't last long. His body used up so much energy when he did this that he quickly burned himself out and passed out. He had yet to figure out how to gage it, but he would.

At the moment, he was out at the edge of the rainforest behind his house, practicing with his new skill when he heard the alarms sounding & the loudspeakers blaring over at the laboratory complex. As he began running towards the commotion there was a massive explosion that destroyed his house and knocked him flat on his back...

Zoe was really excited now. This was just like in the movies! Beside her, Chuck coughed nervously into his handkerchief, and gave the girls an apologetic smile. Zoe smiled back, and Chuck blushed a deep crimson red. She flashed a grin at Jenni, who grinned back. Boys could be so silly!

Luornu gave an excited gasp, and quickly motioned for Zoe to land beside a group of teenagers who were standing outside the compound. Once they touched down, Luornu ran and gave a brunette dressed in white a big hug.

"You guys! I'm glad you're all right!"
"Good to see that you are, too!"
"That was some escape, Lorna!"

"Yeah, and I brought some new friends. But it looks like you didn't need reinforcements, after all, huh?
"We already found some of our own," said Irma. "I'd like you to meet Lyle and Sally."

Zoe stepped back in surprise as a boy and a girl appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The boy grinned at their discomfiture.

Ignoring the questions that popped into her head, Lorna quickly introduced Zoe, Jenni and Chuck, then asked the others for a rundown of the situation.

"It seems that Lex Luthor has been up to some illegal experiments over here," Rex said. "Lyle and Sally here have shut down the operation, and..."

"And we were just about to find Luthor and give him a solid ass-kicking!" Garth said.

"Um... I think we should go find our friend Reed first." Sally spoke up. "He really should have been back here by now."

"Agreed. I'd really like to meet one of our saviors, as well as the twelfth member of our little Legion." Imra said. "Assuming, of course, that all five of you want in?"

She didn't even have to use telepathy to guess what their answers would be.

"Great!" said Tina. "Now we just have to find Reed. Imra, have you-"

"Already done. He's alive, but he's definitely not himself right now..."

The pile of orange goo on the floor thought about it's predicament. Which was odd, because piles of goo weren't meant to think, it told itself. They were just meant to sit quietly in a corner and wait to be cleared away. It tried to think of how it came to be in this situation, but to it, it's present situation seemed like how it had always been. Suddenly, it felt itself being moved into a container. That was rude, it thought, and resolved to do something about it. It lifted it's arm up, and before realising that piles of goo weren't meant to have arms, pulled itself from the container...

Interlude:
Here's an update on the characters in the story right now:

Legion roster

• Rex Kline (Cosmic Boy)
• Irma Ardeen (Saturn Girl)
• Garth Raines (Live Wire)
• Lorna Durgo (Triad)
• Tamara "Tina" Wazzo (Apparition)
• Quentin Docks (Brainiac 5)

Also about to be inducted…

• Reed Daggly (Chameleon)- as a pile of orange goo
• Sally Digby (Shrinking Violet)
• Lyle Norga (Invisible Kid)
• Zoe Saunders (Kinetix)
• Jenni Ognats (XS)
• Charles "Chuck" Tan (Bouncing Boy)

Introduced but not thus far part of the Legion

• Eileen Raines (Spark)- apparently still in Kansas, but making plans to follow Garth
• Paul Kline (Magnetic Kid) - apparently still in MN
• Jose Rimbaud (Ultra Boy) - being examined by Navy doctors on a Navy vessel
• Tom Kallor (Star Boy) - somewhere in New South Wales
• Tatiana and Greg Mallor (Umbra and Shadow Kid) - somewhere in England
• Jan Arrah (Element Lad) - looking for RJ Brande
• Nura bint-Mordru bin-Ahmad Al-Nayal (Dream Girl) -en route to New York to join the Legion
• Monius Ellysius (Mon-el) - recently awakened in the Zone of the Phantoms
• Laura Long (Insect Queen) - in STAR labs?
• Brian (Timber Wolf)- in a military base in Texas
• Maizah bint Mordru bin Ahmad Al-Nayal (White Witch) - en route to meeting the Princess in Moldovia
• Princess Jacqueline Projectra - in Moldovia, waiting for Maizah
• a Block (Blok) - emerged from the ground in Moldovia to fight the Eye
• Dirk Morgna (Sun Boy) - near the area where Blok emerged in Moldovia
• Brock Bannen (Polar Boy) - en route to New York to join the Legion
• Conan Doyle Arlington, "Condo" (Chemical King) - headed for the Lexcorp Compound where the Legionnaires are
• Ten Zil Kim - in a military installation outside of Seoul
• plus an "offshoot of the Ute tribe that lived downwind of the U.S. government's Nevada Atomic Test Site, and got more than a normal dose of radiation", who now have wings on their backs. One family in particular has been described as having "psychic powers" - so I guess this means Dawnstar will be making a comeback too.

Other Characters

• Mark Raines (Lightning Lord)- whereabouts unknown
• RJ Brande
• Jeanne Chu
• Sara Romanescu, the "Empress of Venegar" - a servant in the Royal Palace of Moldovia who is waiting for the Eye
• Mordru - Nura and Maizah's father
• The Emerald Eye - apparently looking for Sara
• "Godzilla"
• Universo - imprisoned and sedated, but able to break free for short periods
• Ambassador Winema Wazzo
• Azura Saunders - Zoe's mom, headed to New York to warn the Legion about Mordru
• Ramiro Puerta - a Colombian guerilla who was caught in the same explosion that Reed was caught in, and whose body was "completely charred, deformed, reminiscent of an insect"

End Interlude

In a secret underground chamber, a scientist checked on the Very Important Prisoner being held in maximum security. The prisoner was kept virtually unrestrained, except for a pair of handcuffs. This may seem odd, but then it was the prisoner's mind, not his body, that was considered the most dangerous.

A warning light flashed on the panel above the "coffin". The scientist's eyes widened, and he held his breath, hoping that the light ould go out again. His hands hovered above the control panel, just in case. But he knew it probably wouldn't do him any good.

Eight seconds later, it did.

The scientist heaved a sigh of relief, then quickly went to increase the amount of sedatives being pumped into the prisoner's bloodstream. Thank the lord he didn't wake up completely! As it is, eight seconds would have been enough time for him to have temporarily taken control of a person's mind, and the effect of that control would have left them in a trance state for at least a few minutes after. He was too dangerous to be allowed to go free. He wondered if maybe they should just kill him and be done with it all.

The shrill cry of the phone interrupted his thoughts. He grabbed the receiver.

"Hello? Madame Chu? Yes, yes, the prisoner is secure. No, no, we haven't found a way to control him yet. But we're working on it. What? Two months? I can't promise anything, madame... Yes, yes, I know. We'll keep working on it. We know what the price of failure is... Don't worry, madame, Project Universo won't fail you."

At an army installation outside of Seoul, Ten Zil Kim awoke hungry. He was the child of a Korean army officer and an American nurse. His father worked in a top secret biological warfare lab funded by the Americans. Little did Ten's father know that weaknesses in the safety procedures of the lab had exposed him to a dangerous strain of microbes that was currently destroying his digestive system, and was having an even more unexpected impact on the metabolism and digestive systems of his two teenage sons...

At a group home in Timmins, Ontario; Laurel Gander was watching the younger children play. She resented being orphaned and knowing that couples only wanted younger children. What she resented even more was the man that killed her mom and friend, and their fellow scientists and soldiers.

She hailed from a Canadian/US military outpost called 'Rock Reef Point' in the desolate Canadian shield where there were potential deposits of an ore that could produce an indestructable alloy dubbed 'Interon'. This attracted the attention of Zander Roxxas and his terrorist organization White Triangle, who stormed the compound and stole the samples of Interon. None of the occupants save for Laurel who activated the self-destruct of the base destroying the Interon samples and half of Roxxas' raiding party.

The shock of seeing her parents killed activated Laurel's latent meta-gene that gave her powers comparable to Superman himself. Her only living relative Elton had her placed in the orphanage for her own safety. Since then Laurel has been training in her powers bringing us to today...

She sighed and went back inside where a disgarded newspaper caught her eye. The announcement of the Legion of Super-Heroes by the billionaire R.J. Brande. Tired of staying put in this boring group home. Laurel packed up her belonged and snuck out of the orphanage, to seek out R.J. Brande and the Legion of Superheroes.

Tikhik Miraz waited with ever-increasing patience. The young Russian had been captured months ago, transported to he-didn't-know-where and experimented upon with a large group of others in an attempt to create some sort of corporate super-army. Most had died, but a few, himself included, had manifested powers. Now they were being kept in solitary, power-draining confinement. But, however inhuman he had become, his desire to be free had never wavered, and he had kept his teleportation "gates" had kept well beneath what he could feel he could achieve in their insidious tests. He could feel it now - he was ready. And in tommorrow's test, he knew he could get far beyond their reach. And then he'd arrange for the capitalistic bastards to get what was coming to them...

Suicide Slum, Metropolis

Len Snart couldn't believe it. He'd planned for every contingency: Intergang, the SCU, even those new superheroes that were starting to pop up. There was nothing that could stand up to his Ice Gun. And nothing did. With ease that surprised even him, he made off with two million dollars of Intergang Money. Now all that was left was the getaway. He checked to see if he was being followed, and headed to his apartment.

“Going somewhere?” said a voice behind him. Len turned around and saw that it belonged to some punk kid in a leather jacket, who was accompanied by two identical looking rejects from an Alexandre Dumas novel wearing hoodies. “Hey, is that Intergang money in the bag?” continued the punk.

Len Snart reached for gun in its holster. Those punks didn't stand a chance, he thought. But, before he could shoot, or even fully draw his gun, he was knocked out by the kid in the jacket, who had somehow managed to get behind him in seconds.

The kid kneeled down beside the unconscious Snart. “Well, now, lesee, what you were trying to shoot us with,” he said, as he picked up the fallen man’s ice gun. “Whoa, will you look at this. Doug, Andy, have you ever seen a gun like this?” He exclaimed, as he threw the gun to one of his companions, the one called Doug.

“Hey, Kon, check the money,” Said Andy to the teen in the jacket. “How much does he have in there?”

Kon opened the bag, and saw that it was filled with packets of dollars, mostly twenties and hundreds. “Quite a bit, actually. I’d say half a million, easy. Maybe more.”

“Take $30,000 and leave the rest. We don't want him tracking us down later,” said Doug. He dropped the gun at Len’s feet. “That’s some cool hardware you got there, pal. See you around, and thanks.”

"Did I hear you say you were here to give Luthor an ass kicking?" Condo asked as he made his way over to the group of youngsters he had spotted when he picked himself up off of the ground after the blast. "If so, then I want in. I owe him big time for what he did to me!"

"And just who the hell are you?" Garth asked as Condo joined the group.

Condo quickly introduced himself and told them what he knew (very little) about the secret facility and the project.

"What about your parents?" Lorna asked. "Shouldn't you see if they're okay?"

"No," was Condo's reply. "I'd just as soon not know. Let them think I died in the explosion, they haven't cared about me since the day I was born so it will be a relief for them if I'm no longer around anyway!"

Rex looked a Irma questioningly and she quickly and discreetly scanned Condo's mind. "It's true. Actually it's even worse than he's letting on. It would be best for all of them this way. Why do people have children if they're going to treat them so horribly!"

"Okay, then Condo, welcome to the group!" Rex said, silencing the debate that had been going on among the Legionnaires. "Now lets finish this."

It took Condo a moment to realize that he had just been accepted into the group. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off of the kid who appeared to be able to disappear. "Lyle, I think his name is. Why am I so drawn to him?" Condo couldn't help but notice that Lyle kept glancing at him as well and then looking away hurriedly.

Actually, I wasn't going to use Clark; he's just mentioned as part of Kon's origin, and I wanted to have dibs on him for that purpose. And no, you can't use Kon, at least not yet. There's a story I want to do with him, and then you can use him, 'k? Or you could just PM me your plans and see if we can work something out. And didn't somebody start using Ayla (or whatever her counterpart's name is)already? Or was that you?