Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Postlo3w stories *LATEST UPDATE 13 AUGUST*

Raz, hi there,

This is so good - totally loving the idea of agitated 12 foot tall mobile vegetables on the rampage. That gave me a chuckle.

I really like the idea that Ral and Grava can decide to get married so soon into their relationship as it reads true to the characters you have given them, though totally agree with their friends that it's a bit rushed. Am looking forward to seeing where you take it with them.

Loved Quislet,s reaction - hope we fight vampires again! Classic!

Oh, I am going to unashamedly steal the line 'static on your spectrum' as I think it's possibly the most Grave-esqe phrase I've ever read.

Alek Arcane's necromantic plotting made a great counterpoint to the engagement news stories. So, Glorith, M'Windaji, Dragonmage and Chlorophyll Kid are to be targeted- I can't remember if you have a version of the White Witch in your stories yet, so am I interested to see how you'll resolve this plot.

Sure I don't need to say this but, unsurprisingly, I am really looking forward to more, more, more!

Oh, also, will be sad to see Ral leave especially as it would probably mean Geava goes too.

And, I'm still waiting for you to announce the Ongoing Solo Adventures of Quislet - as it's the only way I'd accept the little rascal leaving your team

Hey Raz,

these have been some good segments.

I''ve made it clear that I have no love loss for Quislet, so I'm happy to see him go. But to move up into being an ambassador? I can only see this ending badly. lol

loved Crystal Kid's application of his powers to get Quislet to work with the snow.

I liked Stone Boy's advice especially about the resentment issues that could arise later. But I wonder if that means we'll see Gravity Kid and Lullaby lad reunite or are Bobb and Tel the new it couple?

Otiaki, wow, that poor woman. She worked so hard and is now so lost and she didn't even have to be a legionnaire to get this effect. Definity feels like there's a story there. Maybe we'll see some more of those effects after the team takes on Alek Arcane; who is very scary. that scene in the graveyard and the two girls gave me some chills. I'm curious as to what his spell will do to those Legionnaires.

loved the Human Zoo. It had some good character moments for everyone. Chlor and Grava getting hitched! love the idea but hate the possibility of them leaving.
Quislet and Grava's last mission was funny. Nightwind's frustration with them was funny, especially once Laurel was joining in the laughter.

Everyone's relations to Grava and Cholr's engagement was well done. I agree it hasn't been long. But they make a great pair and family unit.

Can't wait for more!

Hi all, thanks for reading!

I have been teasing Alek Arcane for a while but I am pretty confident it'll be worth it when y'all see him strike! The past few instalments have been pretty light on fight scenes but I think I'm definitely gonna make up for it in the next couple of posts

To answer your question Harbi; Mysa had to give up all of the magic inside of her when she exorcised Mordru's essence into the Rock of Eternity, so she's neither the Black or White Witch currently...for now, she's floating around somewhere in the plot basket with Harlak. You are welcome to steal any of Grava's lines; I'm not sure about doing a solo Quislet series though, that sounds like an exercise in masochism; some people are just better in small doses hahaha

I'm not done with Otaki yet either, but I think y'all might be surprised when/how she turns up next!

Something to tide y'all over while I am plotting evil plots (read: enjoying 3 weeks leave from work and getting day drunk a lot)!

Alek Arcane!



PS Happy new year, everyone!

best kind of holiday: getting day drunk and doing next to nothing Alek looks creepy!

Happy new year, raz!

DEIMOS
Deimos Memorial Cemetery

ROLL CALL
Blok: magically enhanced strength, invulnerability, speed, flight, stamina, wisdom and courage:
Diamond Damsel aka Iris Jacobs: living diamond
Dream Girl aka Nura Nal: Naltorian precognition
Firecrest aka Staq Mavlen: weredragon
Mon-El aka Lar Gand: Daxamite physiology
Sun Boy aka Dirk Morgna: heat and light generation
Wildfire aka Drake Burroughs: anti-energy being

Deimos being such a small moon, its sole transport terminal had room for only three vessels to land upon the misshapen rock. In order to disrupt the tiny satellite's regular activities as little as possible, the Legion had set their cruiser in a low geosynchronous orbit and used their flight rings to descend the rest of the way.

This chunk of rock's most famous landmark was the Deimos Memorial Cemetery, a multi-level necropolis which joined together those geographic features which had first received names from Terran astronomers; the Swift and Voltaire craters. The Deimos Memorial Cemetery had been built by early explorers from Earth, a way to make use of the otherwise useless moon while leaving the surface of Mars itself open to more prosperous exploitation. Only Martian society's highest rungs still actively maintained plots on Deimos, but the cemetery was a quirky tourist attraction for those who would never be able to afford to reside there upon death. So it was that sentients of many different backgrounds were touring the city of the dead when Dream Girl led six more heroes there from the star-filled sky above.

"I'm not seeing anything down there that needs Legion attention," Wildfire complained. "This better be worth it, Dream Girl."

"I'm with Wildfire," Firecrest added. "I'm missing the wedding of one of my oldest friends to tag along on this wild ghost chase." Staq Mavlen had elected to maintain his normal humanoid form until his powers were needed, as his weredragon form was still relatively new and many people didn't recognise that form as one which belonged to a Legionnaire.

"All of us should know better by now, Legionnaires." Mon-El set foot on the Deimian soil, giving a friendly salute to a gawping young sentient nearby without thinking twice about it. "If Dream Girl has foreseen that we need to be here, then we need to be here."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mon." Nura Nal landed so that the Daxamite hero was by her left hand side; with Blok on her right, she felt completely secure in her position. "And I do apologise, Firecrest - I'd rather be at a wedding than a dusty old graveyard myself. I wouldn't have included any of you on this mission if I weren't totally sure that your presence is going to be necessary."

"Not that I'm questioning you," Diamond Damsel added to the conversation as she stepped close to Blok and gazed around, "But it's a powerful team you've assembled here, Dream Girl. I mean, Blok and Mon-El on their own should be able to handle anything this side of Superboy Prime. Now that we're here, can you give us any idea what to expect?"

"What fun would that be?" Sun Boy smirked. "You know, sometimes I think what Dream Girl most enjoys about being a Legionnaire is only giving us half the story so she can see the surprise on our faces when we find out what she's known was coming the whole time."

Dream Girl shot a biting retort back at Dirk Morgna, and while the more fallible Legionnaires slipped into their familiar pattern of conversational jabs and feints their more mature teammates cast a watchful eye for the slightest sign of danger.

None of them however expected that danger to take the shape of emaciated hands clawing their way out of the Deimian dirt only metres away...

**********

EARTH
Metropolis, Weisinger Plaza

ROLL CALL
Legion of Substitute Heroes:
Antennae Lad aka Khfeurb Chee Bez: can broadcast radio transmissions from different spatiotemporal loci

Legion Academy:
Lightning Lad aka Garth Ranzz: Academy co-head; electricity generation and manipulation:
Chemical Kid aka Hadru Jamik: control of chemical reactions
Dragonwing aka Marya Pai: acid venom, fire breath
Fire Lass aka Arqiia: fire breath
Glorith: sorceress
Kid Quantum aka Jazmin Cullen: quantum field manipulation
Lullabye Lad aka Waiane Wentim: Zwennite physiology, narcoleptic induction
Variable Lad aka Oaa Tseldor: abilities change with each manifestation

As he approached the United Planets Museum of the Superhero, Lightning Lad reflected upon how strange it felt to come to this place as a visitor rather than a resident. This site had been home to the Legion of Superheroes almost the entire time they'd been stationed on Earth, and in fact one of the first enormous golden statues which greeted him upon entering Weisinger Plaza was of himself in younger days.

It had been a good while since Garth Ranzz had considered this planet home though, let alone one building which had been destroyed and recreated often enough that nothing of sentimental value outside of the L-shaped design itself remained; Antennae Lad exiting the building to meet Garth and his students in the plaza only drummed that point home.

"Welcome, past and future Legionnaires!" Antenna Lad offered his hand to Lightning Lad, and offered a broad grin to the students under Lightning Lad's care. "Obviously Lightning Lad and I go way back, but I don't think I've met all of you kids before - I'm Antennae Lad of the Legion of Substitute Heroes!"

Lightning Lad pumped Antennae Lad's hand congenially. In reality, Garth barely knew him; the two had met less than a handful of times, but the Legion founder had no interest in embarassing Antennae Lad on what was now his home turf. "Not all of our students are necessarily going to become Legionnaires in the future," Garth Ranzz returned the greeting, "But we want to give them all the best chance possible, and I'm hoping that a visit to your museum will help towards that goal."

"One thing's for sure, we're more likely to join the Legion than Ears Lad over here," Chemical Kid sniggered to Dragonwing next to him.

"For sure," Marya Pai rolled her eyes. "Imagine starting your career in something called the Legion of Substitute Heroes Auxiliary...I think his real power must be invulnerability to shame."

"For any of you wondering," Antennae Lad announced as though he hadn't heard the students' insults, "I have the power to receive and broadcast radio transmissions from anywhere in time and space." He made eye contact with Chemical Kid and Dragonwing as he continued. "Of course, with ears the size of dinner plates my regular hearing is pretty good too." Chemical Kid cleared his throat and blushed furiously as Dragonwing snorted back laughter.

"Excuse me?" Variable Lad raised one of his three arms. "Teacher, Antennae Lad; will the rest of the current membership of the Legion of Substitute Heroes be joining us today?"

"Well, it's kind of ironic," Antennae Lad replied. "Pete - that is, Porcupine Pete and Rainbow Girl should actually be arriving on the world you just came from round about now. They're going to Chlor's wedding with the Legion of Superheroes...Polecat had some personal business to attend to, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me on my own today. I'll do my best to keep things interesting though, I -- huh, that's weird. Did anybody else feel--"

Before he could complete his query, the ground exploded and a stark white humanoid creature some eight feet tall burst out from beneath the students' feet. Its eye sockets were hauntingly hollow and though its frame was that of a being which had once been a slab of muscle, it was little more than skin and bones right now. Its spinal column became more and more pronounced leading down its back until it grew into a tail almost as long as the rest of the creature.

Antennae Lad, Lightning Lad and all of the students had been rocked off their feet by the creature's abrupt entrance, and though Glorith struggled to erect a forcefield the hissing noseless creature pounced upon her before she could complete her spell. Paralysed with fear, the young sorceress trembled wordlessly while the creature extended its jaw with a chilling creak to rip her head from her body.

Before the creature could strike, Lightning Lad channeled hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity through its colorless frame. The creature's half-decayed lips curled back to reveal rows of razor sharp fangs as it turned on Garth Ranzz, and then it was surrounded in a golden twinkling glow and it simply stopped moving at all.

Kid Quantum kneeled by Glorith, her arms outstretched toward the frozen creature. She was by far the youngest of the Academy students, but her experience with the Uncanny Amazers of Xanthu had given her combat reflexes belying her tender age. "Lightning Lad, I'm sorry to have acted without instruction--" she began to apologise.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Lightning Lad interjected. "That monster just took enough juice to stagger Timber Wolf and it only made him mad. You probably saved our lives, Jazmin."

"Uh guys..?" Lullabye Lad asked, "Was it just me or did that thing totally make a beeline straight for Glorith?"

"It absolutely did," Lightning Lad agreed. His eyes narrowed as he looked the creature up and down. "But why..? Glorith, are you okay?"

"I am...sufficiently well," the time witch answered, still clearly rattled. She stood up and unconsciously moved behind her teacher. "I do not recognise this creature though, Lightning Lad - and though I sense the touch of magic upon its flesh, I do not think the creature itself is inherently linked to mystical forces."

"It doesn't really matter now, does it?" Chemical Kid posited with a smug smile. "This squaj learned what it means to take on the Legion Academy!" Hadru flicked the unknown assailant's cheek with impunity, knowing that it couldn't react while Kid Quantum's power kept it immobile.

Without any warning, some new invisible force suddenly sent both Chemical Kid and Kid Quantum flying across the plaza. With the two would-be heroes unconscious, the golden glow around Glorith's assailant faded and it abruptly chomped down upon where Glorith had been. It got only a mouthful of rubble for its efforts, but it recovered quickly enough to leer at the sorceress while its invisible ally shimmered into view. Soon enough, everyone present was looking at two of the same predatory creatures.

"--artians!" A panicked woman's voice suddenly rang out across Weisinger Plaza. "They're White Martians! They've got all the powers of J'onn but they're a thousand times more savage!" Everyone else present turned to look at the source of the voice, a transmission from the past which was being broadcast through Antennae Lad's ears.

"I thought it might help," Antennae Lad shrugged weakly.

"Oh, it helps..." Lightning Lad muttered as his fists crackled with electrical power.

"...At least now we know who we're going to be murdered by."

**********

SHANGHAI COLONIES
Zhulong Domed City, Yu Wu Dong Archeological Site

ROLL CALL
Dragonmage aka Xao Jin: dragon magic
Neon aka Zoe Saugin: infused with Green Lantern energy

A century before the nations of Earth had broken down their borders to form one united government, China had sent enormous space arks carrying nearly a hundred thousand of its citizens to populate what had then been called the Eunomian Family in their solar system's main asteroid belt. The Eunomian Family consisted of more than five thousand individual chunks of rock and it made up over 1% of the belt's total number of asteroids; China's reach had well and truly exceeded their grasp in this instance, but after nearly two hundred years they'd nonetheless taken a portion of the asteroid family for their own and established what was now known system-wide as the Shanghai Colonies.

Initially, asteroid mining was their sole industry and with the technology at their disposal it had not been an easy industry to maintain. As both technology and society evolved however, the many domed cities of the Shanghai Colonies became a more conventional place for its citizens to thrive with all the conveniences and opportunities that any other Terran colony could provide.

It was in a cavern beneath one of these domed cities where Dragonmage and Neon currently sat atop a portable power generator eating their lunch while small droids worked at a painstaking pace to unearth hand-made items which had lain forgotten here since the first days of colonisation.

"Thanks for coming all the way out here with me," Xao smiled at his old friend. "When the local government representative found out there were esoteric artifacts buried in this cave, I was only too happy to lend whatever occult knowledge I have to assess their findings. I can only imagine how pleased Madame Chu would have been to see me here, but I must admit I enjoy having company other than these archeological droids."

Zoe began speaking, but realised too late the wonton she'd just shoved in her mouth was muffling her words. She held up one finger while quickly chewing and swallowing, then started again. "Are you kidding? Xao, I wouldn't pass this up for the galaxy! The one thing I miss about my pre-superhero life is all Mom's digs I used to tag along to...if I wasn't a Legionnaire I'd totally be the Lar'a Kroff of space! Can't you just see me wearing short shorts and getting into firefights with Khund extremists while I liberate the secrets of their past?" Her power generated old-fashioned ray guns in her hands and she played at shooting unseen enemies, complete with corny sound effects. Xao covered his mouth with one hand to stifle his laughter.

"Honestly though, it's grokkin' that the folks here have that kind of respect for magic," Zoe continued while the guns shimmered into non-existence. "I thought Terrans and their descendants were all very close-minded about that kinda stuff. I'm surprised they actually recognise you as someone who should be called in to help before they go and summon an Apokoliptian god or whatever!"

"My people colonised this area before Earth culture became so homogenised," Dragonmage explained. "There's still a lot of respect for ancient ways in the Shanghai Colonies, I doubt my life would have turned out the way it has if that wasn't the case."

One of the small droids suddenly began reciting a polite but insistent warning about unauthorised visitors. The warning looped in both Interlac and Mandarin, and it seemed contagious as the rest of the droids soon followed suit.

"What are they talking about?" Zoe created an actual green lantern which stood almost as high as the two teens themselves sitting on top of the generator. "There's nobody else here but -- oh." By the light of the lantern, both she and Xao saw two bulky but partially decayed figures approaching from one of the cave's many subterranean offshoots.

"Excuse me, sentients?" Dragonmage wove a spell quickly and a tiny pale blue dragon circled round his head, its nervous system a brilliant white light which shone through its translucent skin. "I am Dragonmage of the Legion of Superheroes and this is my teammate Neon. This site requires a Nephrite level security clearance, could we respectfully ask that you identify yourselves please?" The instant Xao stopped talking, the dragon which was coiled like a halo around him repeated the exact same thing in Mandarin. Though Interlac was the favoured language of the United Planets generally, the Shangai Colonies had held on to the things they'd brought with them from Earth with a fierce passion; there were certain parts of society here who maintained a death grip on the culture their Terran ancestors had lived and who even now refused to assimilate to the UP any more than necessary.

The droids had continued their own warning while Xao spoke, and the interlopers now chose to respond to the droids and Dragonmage both. One of the naked strangers looked upon the droids. His eyes blazed red and twin beams shot forth to vaporise the little robots where they stood. The second stranger accelerated at alarming speed and was almost upon the Legionnaires before Neon used her force of will to swing the green lantern and bat the attacker into the cave wall. As their assailant pulled himself from the rock, Neon transformed the lantern into a simple barrier to keep Xao and herself safe from their newfound foes. "Who are these creeps??" Zoe blurted.

"I don't know," Xao responded. "But we cannot allow them to destroy this site. Zoe, can you enclose them in a sphere and we'll continue this outside?" As he spoke, Dragonmage allowed his translator dragon to dissipate and focused on crafting another dragonform more suitable for combat.

"Easy peasy," Zoe Saugin replied. Keeping her construct simple so she could better maintain its strength, she soon had formed a perfect hollow sphere around the two intruders and began pulling it behind her as she hovered toward the cave's entrance.

"Thank you," Dragonmage nodded gratefully. "Allow me to mitigate damage here and I'll be right along." His dragonform was much larger this time, at least eight feet long. It appeared a more solid blue with white highlights, and it exhaled a frosty blast of air which extinguished the numerous smoldering wrecks that had once been archeological droids.

"No problem!" Zoe began to retort before the tone of her voice changed completely. "Oh, come on!"

As Dragonmage turned to see what had caused Zoe's consternation he was glad he'd decided to maintain his frost dragon. Both of the intruders had passed effortlessly through Neon's sphere...and they were both coming straight for him.

**********

SATURNIAN RINGS
Keeler Gap, Daphnis

ROLL CALL
Element Lad aka Jan Arrah: elemental transmutation
Invisible Kid II aka Jacques Foccart: invisibility
King Canary aka K'rk T'wiiu III: sonic generation
Mwindaji: tracker infused with White Lantern energy
Strut: electrochemical perceptions, insectoid physiology
Timber Wolf aka Brin Londo: super-strength and super-agility

The moonlet Daphnis was only five miles wide and with the notable exception of its equatorial ridge, almost completely featureless. The Terran animal smugglers currently using control lariats and electroprods to herd a bed of Saturnian scorpion beasts into lead-lined cages were plainly visible to half the tiny satellite, but the lack of cover worked in their favour too. If the Legion of Superheroes had approached openly they'd have been spotted in more than enough time for the smugglers to cut and run...so the Legion of Superheroes had needed to be a little more clever than that.

Though King Canary was mostly bright yellow, he was also only a few inches tall; impact craters barely noticeable to most humanoids were large enough to effectively hide the Aerean royal. In addition, he had better eyesight than any other Legionnaire on this rock. Prince K'rk could easily keep an eye on the smugglers from hundreds of metres away even with the lack of light here so far from the sun. When the cargo bay door of the smugglers' ship sealed itself shut and the smugglers gathered in crinkly old transuits outside the ship traded confused glances with one another, King Canary saw the whole thing.

"Invisible Kid's made his move," the gruff little bird reported over the comms channel in his harness, "And those punks ain't figured out what's goin' on yet. I say we hit 'em now before they get their bearings."

Much further back and hidden behind a frozen rocky bluff of his own making, Element Lad raised his flight ring to his lips. "Thanks, King Canary." In the time it took Element Lad to stand up, Timber Wolf's powerful legs had already propelled him halfway across the distance between himself and the smugglers but Jan took a moment to intercept Mwindaji and Strut before they followed suit. "Don't forget, you two; Daphnis' gravity is practically non-existent. Timber Wolf has had years of practice at this but I want you two to rely on your flight rings so you don't go flying into the gap the first time you leap into action."

The gap Element Lad referred to was the Keeler Gap, the space between two of Saturn's famous rings. As he, Mwindaji and Strut darted away to join King Canary and Timber Wolf, the sky above their heads was filled with the rocks both large and small which helped to make up one of those rings.

Only two of the four smugglers had reacted quickly enough to draw guns on Timber Wolf, and their reward was a bone-crunching kick from the acrobatic hero which sent them hurtling up and back. Before Element Lad could chastise him, Brin cut him off. "Yeah yeah, the gravity. Don't pop a blood vessel, I'll pull 'em in now." Brin bounced up off the moon's surface toward the careening men, effortlessly avoiding weapons fire from one of the other crew members at the same time.

With the smugglers no longer herding the scorpion beasts, the animals turned on both them and the Legionnaires. Between 6 to 8 feet long with powerful prehensile tails, Saturnian scorpion beasts had a set of intimidating mandibles capable of tearing up rock, and eight limbs with talons which secreted a bio-acid that could corrode anything weaker than lead. Though the mechanics of their ability to fly in a vacuum was not yet understood, they still flapped immense leathery bat-like wings as they launched off.

King Canary made a beeline for one of the beasts which was skittering after Timber Wolf. There was no atmosphere here to speak of, but by landing at the base of the scorpion beast's spine he could channel his sonic power directly through the creature's hard carapace. Unable to reach King Canary with any of its numerous lethal attack methods, the beast simply shuddered and passed out. King Canary watched it tumble helplessly into space, then flitted away to take out another of the creatures; the little bird thought he'd probably have been able to use his flight harness to push the scorpion beast back down to Daphnis, but this was after all their home turf and if anything they'd probably be better off just floating off toward the rings to recover in private.

As Element Lad created makeshift lead cages to keep the other scorpion beasts under control, Mwindaji and Strut focused their efforts on incapacitating the remaining smugglers. While the two were both more than competent fighters, they were a study in contrasts in every other way. Mwindaji was all business, using an economy of movement to take his target down as quickly and smoothly as possible. Strut on the other hand was a flurry of exaggerated motion, two limbs working to remove any weapons from his foe as his remaining four limbs kept the man off-balance until he ultimately felled him and kept him restrained on the ground. "I must say, I feel almost as though I should be wearing a sensory deprivation helmet to give the poor dear half a chance!" Strut announced to the rest of his team via his flight ring. "And it's just criminal that he can't even hear me in this silly vacuum, my repartee is one of my best qualities!"

Before Element Lad could give the insectoid hero a stern word about taking his duties more seriously, the whole team heard Invisible Kid's voice. "Mes amis, sneaking aboard this vessel and dealing with the pilot posed no problem but the ship's sensors have just kindly advised me that we have two unidentified objects approaching through the outer rings at monumental speed...be alert, they should be here any moment now!"

Jacques Foccart's warning could not be more apt. In a surreally soundless scene, the Legionnaires watched as several rocks in the sky exploded into smaller fragments and space dust. Daphnis orbited some twelve to thirteen miles below the ring which took up the entire sky above it so the heroes didn't immediately see what force was responsible for the trail of destruction, but in an impossibly short time two green figures slammed into the surface of Daphnis only metres from the Legionnaires. With the amount of damage they caused to the moonlet's icy surface, it was a miracle that everybody present wasn't killed simply due to collateral damage. A particularly jagged rock kicked up by the strange attack tore through one of the smugglers' transuits though, and the man was dead before anybody could do a thing to save him. Element Lad's transuit was a field projected by his flight ring and therefore unable to be damaged by most physical attacks. He did however suffer a nasty gash across his forehead thanks to flying debris and bounced insensate off the ground.

Mwindaji rushed to Jan's side, cradling him gently. "Legionnaires, I will need a few moments," he reported. "Element Lad was wounded again when his head met the moon's surface. I must heal him while it is still a possibility!"

"Do your thing, darling!" Strut announced magnanimously. "Something tells me we'd not be very popular back home if we let our superhero mentor bleed out on this dull little rock!"

<No> Mwindaji heard the telepathic voice in his head, but what unnerved him more was the inhuman rage which accompanied that voice. <No heal, only die!> As Jacques had warned, the creatures moved with monumental speed. By the time Mwindaji realised one of them had shot off in a green blur, her hand had tightened around his neck. She extended her free hand back behind her, and then the fingers on that hand melded together and lengthened until her entire forearm had modified into a razor-sharp blade which the youthful tracker thought just might be the last thing he'd ever see...

**********

MARS
Cerberus Palus, Elysium Fields Floating Gardens

ROLL CALL
Chlorophyll Kid aka Ral Benem: hyper-stimulated plant growth
Color Kid aka Ulu Vakk: color manipulation
Colossal Boy aka Gim Allon: growth powers
Comet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generation
Cosmic Boy aka Rokk Krinn: magnetism
Crystal Kid aka Bobb Cohan: crystal construct creation
Elastic Lad aka Jams-Ols 5: super-elongation
Gravity Kid aka Tel Vole: gravity manipulation
Infectious Lass aka Drura Sehpt: disease transmission and immunity
Light Lad aka Darvan Locke: gravity negation
Lightning Lass aka Ayla Ranzz: electricity generation and manipulation
Matter-Eater Lad aka Tenzil Kem: can eat inorganic matter in all its forms
Nightwind aka Berta Skye Haris: deputy leader, wind control
Night Girl aka Lydda Jath Krinn: photosensitive super-strength
Phantom Girl aka Tinya Wazzo: leader; intangibility
Polar Boy aka Brek Bannin: cryokinesis
Stone Boy aka Dag Wentim: ability to transmute to living stone
Supergirl II aka Laurel Kent: invulnerability
Tellus aka Ganglios: telepathy and telekinesis
Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

The dozens of people who'd gathered to celebrate Ral Benem and Grava's wedding were made up of Legionnaires, ex-Legionnaires, friends and family. In one of Elysium Fields' several function areas, this diverse group of sentients enjoyed the lush greenery and sweet smelling perfume of the flowers all around them separated from both gawking tourists as well as some of the more salacious representatives of UP media. Some of the guests had congregated at the transparent dancefloor space where they could view the ancient lava flows over which these gardens were hovering; thanks to a DJ friend of Comet Queen's, this dancefloor would later be pumping with the latest tunes and the surface of Mars below would be lit up with an amazing lightshow but it was still daylight right now and the atmosphere was far more subdued as friends and strangers mingled waiting for Ral and Grava's ceremony to begin.

At a bar on the edge of the dancefloor, Crystal Kid had just ordered his first drink for the day. He'd already lost sight of his ex-Legion Academy friends in the crowd but he noticed that Rainbow Girl and Porcupine Pete had arrived. Though he'd only been their teammate in the Legion of Substitute Heroes for a short time, he figured he might as well do the polite thing and go say hi. At least it would distract him from--

"Hey, fancy bumping into you here!" a familiar voice sounded, trying too hard to sound casual. Bobb stiffened and turned to his left to see Gravity Kid standing next to him at the bar. At first Bobb assumed that Tel must be fetching shots for himself and someone else but as soon as the attractive young hero had swallowed the first one, the second went down just as quickly. "Was that a dumb line?" Gravity Kid rambled. "That was a dumb line, wasn't it?"

"How many of those have you had?" Crystal Kid asked, one eyebrow shooting up.

"Just enough," Tel blushed. "Look, I'm....I'm just terrible at this, okay? I thought I had to not have relationships to be a superhero. I act like I've got everything together but I'm kind of a hot mess. But you were there for me when I needed someone to be there for me, and you didn't freak out about my...you know...and you've got a really cute dimple I just noticed. And I like your laugh. So I dunno, maybe I should have said yes when you asked me on a date instead of being a dumb batjerk about it. And I'm sorry. That I was a batjerk. Do you wanna go on a date, Bobb?"

Bobb's own anxiety dissipated instantly as he realised that the renowned overachiever Tel Vole was just as bad at this as he was. He laughed despite himself, and Tel followed suit. "I'll tell you what," Bobb replied, "We're going to order another round of whatever it was you just had, we can have fun with our friends tonight and if you feel like this when you sober up tomorrow you know where to find me. How's that sound?"

"Deal," Gravity Kid beamed.

**********

"Can you believe Grava invited Urk?" Laurel Kent asked, watching bemused as the little gremlin sat in the centre of their round dining table munching on electrical cords which until a minute ago had been feeding a lamp in the centre of the table.

"Urk!" the oddest Legion Academy graduate blurted happily, peering around the table at the Supergirl, Nightwind, Power Boy and Visi-Lad in turn.

"If it were anyone else, I'd be surprised they even knew how to contact him," Berta Skye Haris leaned on one fist as she watched Urk with open curiosity. "But if today proves anything, it's that Grava's full of surprises!"

"I'm pleased that Comet Queen did reach out to all of her old classmates," Visi-Lad added, "While I find my work with the Science Police to be rewarding, it is wonderful to see you all again! Has anybody heard from any of our other fellow alumni?"

"Shadow Lad's busy with planetary protector stuff, Lamprey's helping some alien kid that she met while Grava and Chlor were visiting her, Westerner couldn't rearrange the schedule on some ad he's filming..." Laurel counted everyone off on her fingers as she mentioned their names. "I don't know about anyone else. I'm shocked 89 even let you out of her sight for two nanos, Jed!" She punched Power Boy in the arm, then made a display of looking around the room for the Oversight Watch's leader. "Is she hiding under a table here somewhere?"

"Oh, uhh...I actually left the Oversight Watch," Jedediah Rikane replied sheepishly. "I guess I'm just not as comfortable with that kind of life as I thought I could make myself be."

"And she just let you leave?" Nightwind asked incredulously.

"I had to undergo some pretty intense psychic redaction," Jed answered. He saw the wide eyes on his friends' faces and quickly raised a hand to prevent any protest. "It's okay, we all knew going into it what the price of leaving the team would be. I only remember the vaguest details of my time with the Watch, I don't even remember the team name or any of my old colleagues until someone else brings them up! Even then, it's like trying to recall inconsequential memories from your childhood; like you probably remember your best friend's name from when you were eight, but it's not like you could describe what his folks made you for dinner when you had a sleepover."

Laurel's stunned expression changed to one of concern. "But what about De--"

Nightwind pinched the indestructible girl's thigh as hard as she could. She knew Laurel was about to bring up Dev-Em, the Kryptonian Oversight Watch teammate who'd been Power Boy's boyfriend while Jed was in the Watch. This wasn't the time or the place to have that discussion, but Berta and Laurel shared a quick look which said they would definitely be having that discussion with their telepathically altered friend once there weren't so many people around.

"What about...developing from here?" Laurel concluded weakly. "Maybe you could come join the Legion!"

"Right now I'm taking some time to myself," Power Boy explained. "Even though I don't remember much about the Watch, I do remember that they showed me the Legion's way isn't the only way to do things. I think I need to find out what way I want to do things though." Jed had the idea that if they continued on this train of thought much longer they might end up in an argument, so he decided to change the subject. "Anyway," he raised a glass of champagne, "It's so good to see you all again!"

Jed grabbed the much smaller Visi-Lad next to him in one muscular purple arm and gave him a friendly hug while he used his free hand to clink glasses with all of his old friends. "Here's to all of us getting what we deserve out of life!"

**********

Rainbow Girl and Porcupine Pete found Chlorophyll Kid playing with Ivy on a couch while Polar Boy, Stone Boy and Color Kid chatted idly beside them.
"Ral, congratulations!" Rainbow Girl gushed. "I'm so happy for you!" She leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Oh my stars, Ivy's gotten so big! Haven't you, little sprout!" She gently tickled the leaf growing out of Ivy's hair and the little girl giggled happily.

"Thanks for coming, guys! Why don't you have a seat?" Ral picked Ivy up and bounced her on his lap to make room for Dori to sit down.

"I'll pass," Pete joked, "I don't know that the next person to come along would appreciate the pincushion I'd leave behind. Polecat had something come up and Antennae Boy's holding down the fort in Metropolis but they both send well wishes. Is Drura about?"

"I'm sure I saw her before," Color Kid scanned the crowd. "Oh yeah, there she is...I think she and Duplicate Damsel are rescuing Bouncing Boy from your soon to be wife, Ral." They all looked across to see Grava in the most ridiculous metallic gold and silver dress any of them had ever seen showering Bouncing Boy with kisses while Infectious Lass and an unimpressed Duplicate Damsel were in conversation with them.

Most of them chuckled at the sight, but Polar Boy and Rainbow Girl both frowned. "Doesn't that bother you?" Brek Bannin asked Ral. "I mean it's your wedding day, for sprock's sake!"

"I'm not threatened by it if that's what you mean," Ral shot back. "Extal society is largely polyamourous, it's why they don't use family names...I know Grava loves Bouncing Boy but it doesn't mean she doesn't love me. And trust me, Grava learned about boundaries very quickly when she left her homeworld to join the Legion Academy. We did actually talk about this stuff when we got together, Brek."

Seeing that Ral seemed genuinely unbothered, Rainbow Girl decided to let it go. "I'd murder my husband if I saw him getting all kissy face with someone else. Different strokes, I guess!"

"Clawy!"

Everyone looked down at baby Ivy, and she clapped her hands at the attention. "Clawy!" she shouted again. "Clawy, Clawy, Clawy!"

"Holy nass!" Ral grinned from ear to ear. "She's saying Chlory! Oh, you clever girl!" He hugged her and stood up, shouting across the room to Comet Queen. "Grava! Ivy just called me Chlory!'

Grava immediately flew over, squealing with excitement. "Oh starshine, that's nova gleaming to the ultimate max!" She and Ral embraced, Ivy between them.

Suddenly, the infant's expression dropped and out of nowhere she began bawling. "Oh, little sprout!" Grava took a step back, her hands at her cheeks. "I didn't mean to make your little tiny star all burnt out, I'm so sorry!"

Chlorophyll Kid rocked Ivy, gently coaxing her to calm down. After a few moments though he could see it wasn't going to work...more worrying, the plants seeded all through these gardens were beginning to shift and sway. They'd prepared for this eventuality though, and they knew exactly what to do. "Grava, can you--"

"I'm on it like rings on Saturn, starshine!" Inside her head, she wailed in as loud a telepathic voice as she could imagine for Tellus. The two had a brief exchange, and almost immediately he was by their side. Saturn Girl had been working on telepathic calming techniques with Ivy, but when Imra realised that she was going to be off-planet with her sons on Chlorophyll Kid and Comet Queen's wedding day, she'd taken the initiative to teach Tellus those same techniques.

The Hykraian reached out to soothe Ivy as Saturn Girl had taught him, but he instantly realised he'd made a terrible mistake. There was some other entity here, the same entity no doubt who'd taken advantage of Otaki at the Legion Tryouts. Tellus cried out in pain, and a searing wave of mental anguish briefly washed over everybody within twenty feet.

"Tellus, what the sprock?!" Polar Boy confronted him, holding his head in both hands.

<I apologise, my friends> Tellus' normally placid telepathic tone sounded dangerously ragged. <Ivy is under psionic assault, and now that I have made contact with her I have become the next victim>

"Just like Otaki!" Comet Queen gasped. "Nooo, you have to break it off Tellus! They'll kill you, my little space fishy!"

All of a sudden, Rainbow Girl let loose a shrill scream as scores of maggots started squirming and writhing out from under the couch. She wasn't the only one; all through the Floating Gardens maggots came out from beneath furniture, black shiny millipedes dropped from plants and the incessant buzzing of thousands of flies could be heard like some unsettling aural static.

<Yes, like Otaki...> Tellus forced a reply as he fought the mental intrusion. His flesh seemed to be drying out, and the shuddering Hykraian hero could barely support his own weight. <But I am not Otaki. I am a Legionnaire and I will...not...fail!> The pods on Tellus's back had been a stark white, but underwent a dramatic shift now to a violent red. He couldn't prevent his righteous anger from emanating out of him, and everyone nearby felt waves of rage.

While this was going on, Polar Boy had created a layer of frost over every inanimate object in their area in an attempt to stop the maggots, but he turned an accusing finger on the weakened Hykraian now. "Damn it Tellus, you need to control yourself! And where the hell are all these bugs coming from!"

"Lay off him, Brek!" Color Kid shoved Polar Boy in the chest. "You think this is his fault? Look at him, you idiot!"

"You both need to lay off," Stone Boy stepped between them and activated his power. "This anger we're all feeling...it's making us sprocking crazy."

Phantom Girl ascended through the floor, momentarily surprising everyone present. "Ral, what's going on with these plants? Do you need me to -- oh my god, what's wrong with Tellus?"

As if in response, Tellus collapsed into an undignified heap at their feet and the pods on his back slowly changed to a listless grey. Everyone felt his touch simply break off in their minds, and Comet Queen screamed his name and dropped to her knees to try and wake him.

"That disgusting creature is no doubt dead, my dear." Everyone looked up to see a dark-skinned man in a very formal suit descending. He wore a cape which billowed out behind him, and behind that cape the sky grew dark with flies. "But don't fret, you'll soon be joining him. I forget my manners though, please forgive me.

Hello, Legionnaires. My name is Alek Arcane and I've come to collect my granddaughter."

...TO BE CONCLUDED!!!

oh heavens, what a way to end with multiple cliffhangers! well done!

Jed leaving the Oversight Watch, interesting. Glad the Watch had a pretty benign (?) exit plan...

Tel is cute. A lot of the best overachievers are so clumsy. Glad that Bobb got to be the smooth one this time.

I appreciate the elements of culture and using Mandarin in the Shanghai colonies. that's my heritage too, so... yeah. I could relate.

Thanks IB!

Aggressively mindwiping someone and making them forget their own boyfriend to protect your secrets probably is pretty benign for 89...teaming up with the Legion must have rubbed off on her after all

I have been dying to do some stuff with the Shanghai Colonies, I hate how they came up with a really interesting power idea and background when Dragonmage was first introduced and then never really did a single thing with any of it before Zero Hour...he has a pretty awesome moment next chapter which touches on that stuff a bit more!

Hey Raz, another fun section.

The team Nura took to Deimos could kick Mordru's backside so I wonder what they are going to face.Fun little tet-a-tet between Dirk and Nura, they are just too alike really, aren't they? Glad to see Diamond Damsel too, I really lke her so looking forward to seeing what happens there. Also, not sure how clever Staq is for not being ready for action, but will wait and see how that pans out for him and the team.

Chemical Kid is always snotty, isn't he? Marya too actually, "invulnerability to shame" - harsh!

You've shown Antennae Lad as a remarkable mature character, which is really nice. I do admire the love you give to the less serious characters. Though aren't Grava and Chlor rushing into geting married? Wow! They only been together a nano or two.And the academy kids are in for a tough time - two white martians? Jeez they are dead. Well, hopefully not actually, but it's not going to be an easy win.

The Shanghai Colonies are interesting - are these fom the reboot or something new? Love it that they stick with tradition. Nice moment between Zoe and Xao, it's reassuring when we get two friends just hanging out. Nice use of a dragon spell to translate Xao's speech. The frost dragon may not be the best of tools to use against two white martians though, hopefully he recognises them in time and changes it to a standard fire breather.

Nice to see a team dealing with animal smuggling - and King Canary is a fave! Gotta love the little guy! Also, loved the visual imagery of being on a mission within Saturn's rings. The scorpion beasts sound fierce! Love Strut's attitude too, and you've captured Jan's stiffness too - he does need to take that pole out doesn't he M'Windaji is in a tight spot - great cliffhanger! especially with the potentially most powerful team member down.

Nice scene between Bbob and Tel - they make an interesting couple - the perennial loser and the over-achiever. And how good is it that Urk in there? That little guy always made me smile when he'd turn up. I wonder of Jed's leaving the Oversight Watch is a double-bluff somehow. And will this mean Dev Em will appear soon? Cute - pete refusing to take a seat! Great reason for Grava's lack of a sur-name, what a smart idea! Ivy's first word is Chlory - or is it a warning of what's coming - claw-y! Poor Tellus, hope he'll be back to full health soon. Alek really doesn't appreciate psychics does he?

That was fun, really enjoyed it Raz, and some great cliffhangers to keep us coming back for more, more, more!

Thanks Harbi!

Chemical Kid and Dragonwing are gonna grow up at some stage, but right now they are awful awful people and fun to write that way

...Chlor and Grava are getting married super quickly, aren't they? Certain people *coff* Polar Boy *coff* might think it's a mistake, but we'll have to wait and see if it is or not....also not gonna lie, I am a bit chuffed that you used 'nano' hahaha - and the Academy kids certainly are gonna be in for it, those martians are scary!

When Dragonmage first joined the SW6 Legion they said he came from the Shanghai Colonies but I don't really recall them going into much more detail than that so I pretty much just made it up from scratch

I love a good "Legion rounds up stray animals" story, I nicked the Saturnian Scorpion Beasts from https://www.writeups.org/legion-super-heroes-animals-aliens-monsters/

I've never read the story they appeared in, but they seem feisty enough!



The thing about Grava's home society being mainly polyamorous was my way of tying together a few different things; her going in all guns blazing for Chuck in the first place when she knew that he was married, her lack of a surname, and from what I recall I don't think the other people in her origin story had a uniform appearance - so I kinda headcanon that the Extal colony is a melting pot of different aliens whose idea of 'family' is less nuclear and more community...but we will see a bit more of that in the wrap-up to this story as well! I also figured it's the 31st century and even though not everyone *coff* Polar Boy *coff* is gonna be down with that kind of relationship model, it makes sense in the Legion's brighter happier universe for people in general to be a bit more respectful of different life choices

Pretty good solution for explaining a lot of things about Grava, raz!

Hi Raz,
these are some interesting posts.

I enjoyed the banter between the team on the Deimos mission and I totally agree with Sun Boy about Dream Girl. She loves the thrill of seeing their faces.
zombie white Martians? Alec Arkin isn't going to make this easy for the team.

in every universe, it seems Hardu is a jerk. But I'm glad Antenna Lad pushed back without being a jerk too.
Garth's reaction to being back on base is really well done. the idea of relating to a place that's home but isn't home at the same time is something I think any of us can relate to when we try to return to a place we used to consider home. I know I felt that way just one year out from college when I went back to visit some friends.

the attack on Glorith i couldn't help but feel like I was watching Aliens and I just wanted to yell "Get away from her you $#@!"

I love that we're exploring more of Dragonmage's world. We never got to know much about him in the comics.
Zoe being an archeologist totally tracks. I think we need a dig mission with her!
Lar'a Koff? Someone's been on an action movie binge lately? Zoe would totally be Laura Croft...I mean Lar'a Koff. lol. ;P

"Honestly though, it's grokkin' that the folks here have that kind of respect for magic," Zoe continued while the guns shimmered into non-existence. "I thought Terrans and their descendants were all very close-minded about that kinda stuff. I'm surprised they actually recognise you as someone who should be called in to help before they go and summon an Apokoliptian god or whatever!" ~ loved this line! its so true to see this played out differently. in most media, they would totally summon a demon before calling in for help. lol

This isn't going to go well. Zoe really thought she had it. I hope Dragonmage can get through this!

I really liked Jan giving the newbies advice about flying in space.
King Canary is going to be great on the Espionage squad someday! That was also a really good move to land on the beast.
Strut continues to entertain. love that he wants to share his quips.
Wow, M'windaji! I hope he survives that attack!!

Grava and Ral's wedding!
Gravity Kid and Crystal Kid was really cute. I love that he still refers to himself as a "batjerk" lol.
Urk seems like a fun character. Any plans to develop?
Jed's not with the Oversite Watch any more? WHOOOA!!!!
Psychic redaction? hmm that's a story idea I've got to think about for a bit. I like the idea a lot!

"Getting what we deserve" I know this isn't supposed to be ominous but something tells me it is...

Ral is so confident in his love. I wish I could be like that and this does explain much about Grava, as she does seem to treat everyone like family in a way.
Brek really is having a hard time with this. I wonder if he feels left out? I mean Lydda is married and now Ral. Could he be feeling left out?
Smart thinking Imrato train Tellus.

alright, so this is just something I'm noticing. But Cos and Lydda's wedding it was a huge affair and no one missed it. But this one it seems like so many have and combine this with Garth's reaction shows the different levels of friendships within the Legion as a whole. But also between The subs and the main team. the academy seems closer to the main team than the Subs. Maybe that's something that needs to change...

Wow Tellus is down! no! I hope he can win and that he'll be ok!
Rage boils over easily.

Ewww maggots? yeah, not good. but that was definitely a huge entrance by Alek Arcane. I hope the team can take him down!

can't wait for more!

Hey guys, thanks for commenting!

hahahaha it really is very Aliens, I didn't notice how much till you said that We'll see if Dragonwing saves the day in a giant exoskeleton forklifty thing

Urk is fun, but I kind of like the idea of him just being a weird little background character that does his own thing so I dunno if I'll ever really do anything significant with him...

Omni, it is funny you bring up the difference between how the Subs and the Academy graduates interact with the rest of the main team because I never really thought of it before but you're right, I do write them that way - I suppose it makes sense as the Academy kids would always have assumed they'd get a shot at joining the Legion whereas the Subs were well...substitutes...for so long that I guess even though everyone respects each other there's probably still a residual bit of "us and them" mentality on everyone's parts

NEXT ISSUE: things get worse!

But also we are gonna touch base with the Heroes of Lallor for what feels like the first time in about 30 years lol

SATURNIAN RINGS
Keeler Gap, Daphnis

ROLL CALL
Element Lad aka Jan Arrah: elemental transmutation
Invisible Kid II aka Jacques Foccart: invisibility
King Canary aka K'rk T'wiiu III: sonic generation
Mwindaji: tracker infused with White Lantern energy
Strut: electrochemical perceptions, insectoid physiology
Timber Wolf aka Brin Londo: super-strength and super-agility

Mwindaji had time only to wonder if there might be some way he could shift his position, ensure that the Martian holding him didn't instantly kill him when the blade she'd formed from her other arm went through his torso. Her grip was so tight that he was blacking out, but if Mwindaji could keep himself conscious and alive he knew he'd be able to heal himself afterwards no matter how badly she injured him. Then there was a flurry of motion, and suddenly the young tracker was tumbling free into the void while Timber Wolf grappled with Mwindaji's would-be murderer.

Mwindaji hit something hard, and realised that Strut had caught him. "That was just wonderful!" Strut gushed. "Did you see the way our little brute just got in there and forced that awful creature to free you, darling? Outstanding!" Two of Strut's limbs clapped appreciatively while Timber Wolf and the female Martian fought one another. Still recovering, Mwindaji simply stared mutely at the vicious battle.

King Canary suddenly flitted straight past Strut and Mwindaji. "Heads up, you two!" the little bird gave gruff warning. "Don't forget Mean & Green came with a pal!"

Finally using his flight ring to orient himself, Mwindaji turned to follow King Canary's golden form. Indeed, the second Martian was now coming straight at him but before the decaying creature could raise an attack Strut intercepted. "Now you leave that boy alone, you meanie!" For the briefest of instants, Strut's six limbs gave him the advantage but the Martian simply grew more arms to compensate, each one immeasurably stronger than Strut could ever hope to become. The Martian simply hurled Strut wailing toward the rocky rings dominating the sky above.

Before the Martian could turn on Mwindaji once more, King Canary tried to repeat the same trick he'd used so effectively on the Saturnian scorpion beasts earlier. He perched himself between the Martian's bony shoulder blades and let his sonic scream be directed straight into the creature's body. The creature did double over in pain, but then in a scene of pure horror the Martian began growing a fang-filled mouth right around the little bird. Mwindaji realised that his feathered teammate was too distracted to have noticed and roared through his flight ring, "Canary! Fly!" Prince K'rk zipped through the elongated razor-sharp teeth just as they snapped closed on where he had been.

"Now what?" King Canary asked, hovering by Mwindaji's cheek. "That was all I got!"

"These creatures, whomever they are, seem to be primarily interested in me," Mwindaji noted. "Go ensure that Strut has not been too badly harmed. I have a plan."

"I ain't just leavin' you with this thing!" King Canary protested.

"I have a plan!" Mwindaji repeated sternly. "Now go!"

Suddenly, the young tracker from Kirinyaga abruptly vanished, leaving King Canary stunned silent. "Wow, I guess he really did have a plan!" Canary muttered to himself. Satisfied, the golden bird zoomed away to find Strut while the undead Martian looked around for his prey.

Both of them completely undetectable to anybody else thanks to Invisible Kid's power, Jacques Foccart led Mwindaji away from the creatures which sought his death. "Out of curiosity, mon ami...what is this plan of which you spoke to King Canary?"

"Honestly?" Mwindaji shrugged. "Try to not let them harm any of you while they did whatever they intend on doing with me."

Invisible Kid tutted. "That is not a plan, mon ami...that is pointless masochism. I propose you use your power to bring Element Lad back to fighting form, then he should be able to end this tout suite. These creatures may possess incredible power, but a block of inertron is a block of inertron."

"I like your plan better." Mwindaji gave a half smile despite himself. "Let's go...and we'd best make it swift." Both men watched as Timber Wolf, who'd fared so competently against one Martian, fell almost instantly before two of them.

Once Mwindaji and Invisible Kid found themselves by the side of the wounded Element Lad, Jacques turned his invisibility off. He still didn't know enough about his expanded power to know if it would interfere with Mwindaji's healing ability, and Element Lad would be fully recovered by the time their foes noticed. As soon as they were visible, King Canary and Strut's voices crowded their comms in an indecipherable chatter.

"Colleagues, one at a time!" Invisible Kid took charge. "Mon dieu!"

"We been callin' you guys since I caught up with Strut!" King Canary protested. "We thought we were the only ones left, we was about to call Phantom Girl!"

Jacques realised that it had been his fault; apparently his upgraded power left him as invisible to communications as it did to anything else. "Apologies," he responded. "What is it that is so important?"

"Darlings!" Strut took over. "These hideous creatures don't just look dead...they are dead! For the brief period of time I grappled with that nasty piece of work, I did not detect one sign of life in the wretched thing! You know what this means, of course?"

"They're zombies!" Strut and King Canary announced simultaneously.

Element Lad stirred thanks to Mwindaji's power. With Jan safely healed, Mwindaji stood to face the two Martians now flying his way. He recalled the effect his power had evinced on Dr Cerberus's hellhounds, and allowed the White Lantern's light to emerge from every cell of his body.

"Well then," Mwindaji spoke, his features hidden in the nimbus of his power. He stretched out both arms.

"...Let them come to me."

**********

EARTH
Metropolis, Weisinger Plaza

ROLL CALL
Legion of Substitute Heroes:
Antennae Lad aka Khfeurb Chee Bez: can broadcast radio transmissions from different spatiotemporal loci

Legion Academy:
Lightning Lad aka Garth Ranzz: Academy co-head; electricity generation and manipulation:
Chemical Kid aka Hadru Jamik: control of chemical reactions
Dragonwing aka Marya Pai: acid venom, fire breath
Fire Lass aka Arqiia: fire breath
Glorith: sorceress
Kid Quantum aka Jazmin Cullen: quantum field manipulation
Lullabye Lad aka Waiane Wentim: Zwennite physiology, narcoleptic induction
Variable Lad aka Oaa Tseldor: abilities change with each manifestation

"You need...to go...to sleep." Lullabye Lad struggled against his fear to keep his voice as calm and melodic as possible.

On the battle-scarred surface of Weisinger Plaza, Waiane Wentim stood before two angry white husks which had once been the scourge of Mars. One of the White Martians had been reduced to dragging himself toward the neophyte hero on his hands and knees, his head bobbing every second or so as he struggled to retain consciousness. The other was still upright, and a deep low growl issued from somewhere deep inside him as he too staggered inch by inch closer to Lullabye Lad.

Behind the pink and gold-garbed teenager, Glorith tended to her recuperating teacher. Lightning Lad groaned as his head lolled from side to side, then he sat up with a start. He first of all saw Glorith crouching next to him, and only then did he notice the unnatural angle of his leg which was clearly shattered in at least two places."It...it doesn't hurt," Garth slurred, uncomprehending. He shook his head violently, then with more clarity looked into Glorith's softly glowing eyes. "Glorith, did you..?"

"I could not restore you," she admitted, "But I could at least soothe your pain. I am sorry to raise you from your healing slumber, Lightning Lad...but we need you."

Feeling more like himself, Garth Ranzz resisted the instinct to try and stand. He remembered now; he'd sent Antennae Lad into the Museum to try and find information which might prove useful against these horrors from a thousand years ago, and he'd instructed the other students to evacuate the plaza while Glorith teleported herself back to Mars and the Legion of Superheroes. Lightning Lad had planned to keep these Martians busy, and then...and then he couldn't remember any more, but it was clear that the White Martians had been more of a threat than one reserve Legionnaire, a Substitute Hero and a bunch of children were ready to face. Chemical Kid, Kid Quantum and Variable Lad's hopefully unconscious forms had been joined by several damaged Science Police droids strewn through the plaza. Antennae Lad lay half-buried beneath what remained of the Museum's front lobby. Garth couldn't even see Dragonwing or Fire Lass, and Lullabye Lad...Lullabye Lad was standing only metres away, his cape in tatters and his knees buckling in terror and exhaustion, but he was doing what nobody else was doing.

He was beating them.

"Glorith!" Lightning Lad ordered urgently. "Forget me! Help Waiane put these things down!"

To her credit, Glorith paused only for half a second before she turned without question. Approaching Lullabye Lad cautiously, her hands wove some spell and mystic energies came to life around her outstretched arms. She whispered something unknowable, and Lullabye Lad felt a surge of power flow through him. His back arched and his muscles grew rigid; they'd trained in combining their powers often enough that he knew this was Glorith's touch but it never stopped feeling unpleasant. Waiane gritted his teeth against the sensation of his bone marrow growing cold from the top of his skull to the tips of his toes. His showers for the next week would be twice as long as usual to try and wash this feeling out of him, but it was working. The Martian closest to him, the one who'd been crawling, finally succumbed to a need to sleep which even death and the remnants of the White Martian's own once mighty psionic powers could no longer combat.

The second Martian saw this, and knew that they were in the end game. He raised his fists, channelled enormous amounts of mass into both of them, and with an unholy roar slammed them into the ground between himself and the teenagers. The White Martian's blow shredded the ground and the force of the impact sent his fellow Martian, Lullabye Lad and Glorith flying in different directions. The impact jolted the sleeping Martian awake, but the young heroes had both been knocked out when they landed. The second Martian stalked Glorith, still groggy from Lullabye Lad's power.

"Get away from her, you squaj!" Lightning Lad bellowed. He fed as much energy as he could into a tremendous bolt of lightning which staggered the Martian, but did not put him down. Garth racked his brain, he knew that these things had a weakness; Supergirl had called it their kryptonite. He sent more power feeding into the Martian, enough to shock the undead creature back to a state of full alertness. The White Martian turned away from Glorith, and his mouth distended into a sickening grin full of stinking decayed teeth as he shambled deliberately toward Garth. The Martian was hurting now, and he was going to kill the meat which had caused that hurt.

Garth felt a stab of pain in his psyche as he saw the other Martian rise; they were confronting him both physically and mentally. Imra had taught him mental defence techniques which were the only thing keeping him conscious right now, but he knew that would only be true for another second or two against power like this.

"Damn it, you idiot!" Lightning Lad cursed himself. "Why didn't you ever listen all those times Rokk was carrying on about ancient history?! What's their sprocking vulnerability...earth? Wind..?"

The Martians were almost on top of Lightning Lad now when a jet of flame tore through a collapsed section of the building nearby and Dragonwing and Fire Lass clambered out from beneath it. They were both bruised and bleeding, and from the way Marya was cradling one arm it might well be broken. The Martians flinched at the sudden burst of flame, and just like that Garth remembered. "Fire!" he shouted, his throat hoarse from the effort. "Girls, these things are vulnerable to fire!"

Dragonwing and Fire Lass gave their teacher a confused stare before turning to one another with wide eyes. Then the White Martians saw a steely resolve settle on Arqiia's face and they saw Marya Pai's pure glee, and for the first time since death these Martians felt the hot burn of fear...

**********

SHANGHAI COLONIES
Zhulong Domed City, Yu Wu Dong Archeological Site

ROLL CALL
Dragonmage aka Xao Jin: dragon magic
Neon aka Zoe Saugin: infused with Green Lantern energy

"How are we tracking?" Neon asked. She sat in the pilot seat of a two-person craft composed entirely of green energy, Dragonmage in a seat right behind her.

Xao gripped his seat and looked back the way they'd flown. "They're gaining, Zoe!" Indeed, their two half-decayed assailants were close enough to the hardlight vehicle now that one of them was preparing to reach out and grab it with a skeletal hand which grew larger and more covered in bony spurs.

"Yeah well, it's hard to manouvre in these subterranean caves but wait till we hit open space and those squajes can eat our tachyons." Zoe hunkered down over the vehicle's stick and executed an almost right angle turn toward a larger tunnel. She whooped with joy, the tiny ship's wings almost shredding one of the walls as they went.

"When did you become a fighter pilot anyway?" Xao asked, trying to keep his lunch down. "I never knew you were so skilled at this!"

"Xao, are you kidding?" Zoe laughed. "It's a construct; this isn't skill, it's just willpower. Anything worth doing is worth doing with flare though! Aaand we're free!" With a final gut-churning thrust the heroes ejected through the thin shimmering forcefield holding atmosphere in the caves, and out of the bottom of the enormous asteroid which housed the Zhulong Domed City half a mile above them.

Xao knew that Zoe's bravada was a way to settle her nerves; in the brief period of time in which they'd engaged in combat with these creatures, their opponents had seemed to shrug off just about anything Neon or Dragonmage could throw at them. Dragonmage was obviously the creatures' prime target though so the two Legionnaires had hoped they could at least use that to lure them out here into open space where the city and the archeological site beneath it would be safe while they continued getting their butts handed to them.

"Now that we're not under tons of rock, I've called for backup!" Dragonmage announced. "We just need to--" Before he could complete what he was saying, two pairs of blazing red eyebeams tore through Neon's construct and the vessel was instantly shredded. Dragonmage and Neon cried out instinctively as they tumbled through the vacuum of space.

"Zoe!" Xao gaped at their enemies. "Back in the caves, I thought it was only your light making them look that way, but...they're both green! And their powers; strength, speed, durability, shapeshifting, flash vision...you don't think they're Martians, do you?"

"Ancient Martians?" Though she innately possessed the power of a Green Lantern, force of habit led Neon to scan the charging monsters with the emerald ring she still wore on one hand. "Oh nass, they are! They really are! Well, Sodam Yat told us all about Martians! I'll have this wrapped up in a nano!" She thought into existence a flamethrower which was comically almost larger than herself, and unleashed streams of green fire upon the two Martians.

To their surprise, one of the Martians rocketed straight through the flames and clocked Zoe on the jaw. The second Martian overtook her before she could steady herself, and with a tremendously powerful piledriver it sent her slamming into the base of the asteroid hard enough the the domed city above trembled slightly.

"Zoe!" Dragonmage raced to where his friend had made a new crater in the asteroid; her forcefield was still intact, but even so she was woozy.

"Guess...guess it has to be real fire, huh..?" She laughed weakly, then winced when that laughter hurt something in her chest.

"Real fire..?" Dragonmage gripped her hand briefly, then stood over his friend protectively as the two Martians zoomed straight for him. There was no time for him to weave a flame dragon big enough for both of the Martians...there was only time for one thing. Xao Jin would have to surrender himself utterly to the celestial creature for whom this city was named; he only hoped he was strong enough physically and spiritually to survive the experience.

"There is something you may not have been aware of when you came to this place," Dragonmage spoke calmly to his approaching foes. "Abominations, this city is named Zhulong. It is a great name...

...for it bears great might." He closed his eyes as he said this, and a silent shroud of darkness slipped over everything in sight. Xao Jin's voice had begun to change before he ceased talking, and at his feet Zoe was just now realising that she wasn't hearing that voice through her flight ring. It was some serpentine proclamation writhing through her mind and soul.

Dragonmage opened his eyes, and Zoe gasped. Twin suns blazed from his eyes, restoring light to the universe again. Like floodlights, they were cast upon the Martians and rendered them little more than abstract shadows in the intense glow. Defying all sense, the undead creatures began to simmer and Zoe could clearly hear their screams. Completely awestruck she looked back at Xao and saw that while he stood there unmoving, deep red fibrous hairs surrounded his face and swept back and away from him. Emerging from the base of his skull, the twisting scarlet body of a dragon whipped behind his own human form. It surrounded the base of the asteroid several times, as though keeping it safe within its own coils.

"This city is named for the Torch Shade," the voice which was not Dragonmage's continued. "It is named for ancient Zhulong. Where ancient Zhulong gazes, there is light...and when ancient Zhulong calls, there is power!" These last words were accompanied by gusts of wind so hot that Zoe could feel it through her forcefield. It made no sense in the vacuum of space but they pushed the Martians back, and in less than a moment they set the smoldering undead fully alight. In as much time as it took Zoe to realise what had happened, the Martians were nothing more than space ash.

With a shudder, Xao was himself again. "My gratitude...great Zhulong..." he breathed out. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and the exhausted young sorceror passed out.

**********


DEIMOS
Deimos Memorial Cemetery

ROLL CALL
Blok: magically enhanced strength, invulnerability, speed, flight, stamina, wisdom and courage:
Diamond Damsel aka Iris Jacobs: living diamond
Dream Girl aka Nura Nal: Naltorian precognition
Firecrest aka Staq Mavlen: weredragon
Mon-El aka Lar Gand: Daxamite physiology
Sun Boy aka Dirk Morgna: heat and light generation
Wildfire aka Drake Burroughs: anti-energy being

Twenty minutes ago, the most activity to be found on the smallest of the twin moons of Mars was tourists jostling for a better shot of the Legionnaires who'd just landed in their midst.

Then the ground had offered up its dead.

Deimos bore a multi-level cemetery containing thousands of corpses over a couple of miles of land. The chaos that ensued when those dead improbably rose was instant and highly unsettling for the Legionnaires. For everyone else here, it was terrifying.

"What are you two doing?" Dream Girl scolded a couple of teenagers hiding up a tree. "These things clawed their way out of solid rock, do you really think they're not going to be able to reach you up there?" She levitated up to meet the youngsters as a skeletal corpse threw itself at her too late and smashed face first into the tree trunk.

"Now come here and be rescued!" Nura continued, "And stop looking down there, look at me! No new graves are being dug here today!" Though they were almost paralysed with fear, the teenagers reached out to Dream Girl with trembling hands. Her flight ring helping with the burden, Dream Girl gathered them close to herself and darted off into the star-filled sky. "I'm coming with a couple other civilians, Blok!" Nura announced via the same flight ring which now propelled her and her passengers away from the cemetery. "Do you still have everything under control?"

"I do," Blok replied confidently. He was at Deimos's atmospheric generator plant, the safest place on this misshapen rock right now. Dozens of innocents crowded inside the plant's high surrounding walls, while outside the facility Blok disposed of the walking dead who'd managed to make it this far. While the living people here obviously needed to be protected, the bigger danger was that the zombies might damage the equipment which was keeping those people alive on this otherwise airless rock in the first place. "The Science Police are approximately 35 standard minutes away," Blok continued. "Apparently Chlorophyll Kid and Comet Queen's wedding has similarly come under attack, but nowhere else on Mars or its two moons seems to be impacted so far."

"Then it's an attack on the Legion," Dream Girl reasoned. "Blok, when you get a moment could you please let Kid Computo know? She was on monitor duty when we left--"

"I have taken the liberty of doing so already," Blok interrupted his colleague. "If we two groups have been assaulted, it stands to reason that the rest of our teammates may similarly be in danger."

Before the transmission ended Dream Girl heard a tremendous crunching sound, which she deduced was Blok's fist hitting someone very hard. She had to admit, Blok was so much more efficient to work with since he'd received a portion of the wisdom of Solomon. With his upgraded strength, speed and durability he was also one of the few Legionnaires she had no qualms trusting to protect an entire complex full of people alone. She spared a glance over her shoulder as her teammates battled on behind her and hoped that everyone would come out of this as easy as Blok would today.

Back at the cemetery, Diamond Damsel had found an elderly couple and was protecting them from the shambling horde while they waited for Dream Girl to come back and pick them up. "I'm actually glad I have no sense of smell anymore," Diamond Damsel remarked to Wildfire nearby as she easily tore through a trio of decayed assailants, their putrified innards gushing everywhere. "I mean can you imagine?"

"You're tellin' me, lady!" Wildfire replied as he took out another dozen of the undead with a wide blast of anti-energy. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad I'm just a sack of energy in this suit! I bet the rest of our guys are gonna be scrubbing themselves clean for a month!"

Diamond Damsel gave a hearty chortle and turned to the next group coming for her. She knew that laughter wasn't at all an appropriate response for what was going on here, but as far as she or Wildfire had come from their humanity there was something comforting about the realisation that they still felt like they needed to joke about this situation to deal with it.

"Careful, everyone!" Mon-El's voice sounded over their flight rings. "I've come across a few of these corpses down in the catacombs wearing the crest of the House of El - they're not as tough as Kal or Kara, but they're not exactly going down without a fight either!"

"Great," Sun Boy deadpanned. "They're probably Laurel's great great grandfolks or something, she's never gonna let us hear the end of it!"

Sun Boy and Firecrest had been doing perimeter sweeps, incinerating as many of the escaping deceased as they could. They could afford to be less cautious with their flames out here on the borders of the cemetery where there was much less chance of collateral damage. They'd been flying in opposite directions around the giant cemetery, only seeing one another face to face as they crossed paths. "You know, guyss...I jusst had a thought," Staq hissed into the comms. "How could thiss be an attack on the Legion? I mean we're only here becausse Dream Girl ssaw that we were going to be needed, how could a villain plan for that?"

"This is a pretty large scale mess," Dirk thought it out, "And we're probably among the best Legionnaires to clean it up but there's nothing that specifically requires the seven of us, I just think Dreamy picked us because we were in her vision. We would have had to send a bunch of Legionnaires here to deal with this anyway though, do you think--"

"--It's a distraction," Mon-El confirmed what Sun Boy was about to ask. "I'm looking down at Mars now. Someone did all of this just to lure away as many Legionnaires as they could from the wedding. They might have been relying on Dream Girl predicting the larger need here or they might have just assumed we'd react as soon as we heard, but either way we need to wrap this up quickly and get back there, people."

There was some grim set to Mon-El's voice that Staq Mavlen had never heard before, and it weighed on him. Suddenly, he was very very concerned about his friends some 14,000 miles away...

**********

MARS
Cerberus Palus, Elysium Fields Floating Gardens

ROLL CALL
Chlorophyll Kid aka Ral Benem: hyper-stimulated plant growth
Color Kid aka Ulu Vakk: color manipulation
Colossal Boy aka Gim Allon: growth powers
Comet Queen aka Grava: flight, gas generation
Cosmic Boy aka Rokk Krinn: magnetism
Crystal Kid aka Bobb Cohan: crystal construct creation
Elastic Lad aka Jams-Ols 5: super-elongation
Gravity Kid aka Tel Vole: gravity manipulation
Infectious Lass aka Drura Sehpt: disease transmission and immunity
Light Lad aka Darvan Locke: gravity negation
Lightning Lass aka Ayla Ranzz: electricity generation and manipulation
Matter-Eater Lad aka Tenzil Kem: can eat inorganic matter in all its forms
Nightwind aka Berta Skye Haris: deputy leader, wind control
Night Girl aka Lydda Jath Krinn: photosensitive super-strength
Phantom Girl aka Tinya Wazzo: leader; intangibility
Polar Boy aka Brek Bannin: cryokinesis
Stone Boy aka Dag Wentim: ability to transmute to living stone
Supergirl II aka Laurel Kent: invulnerability
Tellus aka Ganglios: telepathy and telekinesis
Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

Everyone present stared up at the bold stranger who'd just crashed this event, but Comet Queen was the one drawing all of his attention right now. Kneeling by the side of her collapsed teammate Tellus, Grava wailed accusingly at Alek Arcane floating above. "Fix him! You fix my little space fishy right now!"

Taking advantage of the spectacle to make her move, Phantom Girl quickly ducked inside Tellus on her way up through the platform to join the other heroes now standing around the Hykraian. Tinya stood by Rainbow Girl's side and whispered discreetly into her ear. "Dori, Tellus is still alive but his heart's beating so slowly...I know you're not part of the Legion but could you please--"

"Say no more," Rainbow Girl nodded. "I'll rainbowarp us both to Medicus One now." She crouched down and touched Tellus, and the two of them swirled and imploded into a single point of technicolour light.

"Well, I certainly would have been open to helping that wretched creature depart this mortal coil," Alek addressed Comet Queen, "But it seems your colourful little friend has taken the option from me. I suppose I'll just have to be content with killing everybody else here before I depart with my granddaughter." He made some gesture with his hands, and all of the insects which had swarmed here began moving on the party guests themselves. More, skeletal predators which had once been no more threatening than any other small animal came crawling, fangs and bony jaws snapping with more strength than they should be able to possess.

Chlorophyll Kid had managed to keep Ivy's power under control until now, but Ral yelped in pain when what had once been a Pygmy Maw took a chunk out of his calf. The plants around them went crazy, and in less than a second there was chaos everywhere.

"Gee, Mr Arcane!" Elastic Lad stretched up from the crowd below to meet the descending sorceror face to face. None of Alek Arcane's undead attendants could harm Elastic Lad's rubbery flesh, and Jams-Ols 5 could simply outstretch any vine which attached itself to him. "I hope you don't mind me saying so, but the way you've approached this whole meeting today is really unnecessary! It's great that we finally get to meet an actual honest-to-gosh relative of little Ivy and she's so--" Elastic Lad had wrapped one elongated arm around Arcane as he spoke, and the agonising scream which now replaced the young hero's monologue was a sound that nobody here would ever forget.

Alek Arcane simply hovered smugly while Jams-Ols 5's arm withered and rotted away where it had touched the sorceror. Elastic Lad's forearm was nothing more than bone now, and the rot was swiftly climbing up his arm to claim the rest of him. "It hurts!" Elastic Lad bawled as he tried to stretch faster than the rot could travel. "It hurts!!"

If looks could kill, the glare Phantom Girl focused on Alek Arcane would have murdered him instantly. "Nobody touch him!" she ordered to everyone present over her flight ring. "Range attacks only, people!"

Comet Queen bounded to her feet and began to say something before Phantom Girl gripped her golden arm almost painfully hard. "Get everyone who isn't a Legionnaire out of here, Grava. Back to our base."

Comet Queen reached immediately for Ivy, but Tinya pulled her back. "Are you insane??" Phantom Girl barked. "I'm not transplanting this chaos halfway across Marsopolis, she stays right here! And tell Ultra Boy to help you, you two are our fastest fliers."

"Save your folks, honey." Chlorophyll Kid limped toward Comet Queen, his tone much softer. "And the other guests...they're not equipped to deal with this kind of stuff."

For the first time, Comet Queen remembered that she'd brought her family here today to celebrate her wedding. Grava turned with a panic and fled into the bedlam. "Mama Gya! Mama Kellu! Papa Jibby, everyone, I'm blazing your way now!"

Alek Arcane laughed a deep throaty laugh as he touched down on the platform where Chlorophyll Kid nursed his granddaughter. In an instinctual effort to protect herself against this evil she'd sensed so many times in her young life, Ivy Arcane turned every plant within a couple of metres upon the sorceror and this time Chlorophyll Kid let her do it.

Alek Arcane disappeared beneath lush green foliage and tightly binding creepers, but they too rotted from the inside out and the decayed plants fell away from him harmlessly.

"Well now..." Alek smiled sadistically as he looked Phantom Girl and Chlorophyll Kid up and down. "Who's next?"

**********

Elastic Lad had draped himself over the edge of the Floating Gardens, where he could stretch his rotting arm down toward the surface of Mars. It was all he could think to do through this excruciating pain but he knew even that would only be a temporary measure.

The ambient temperature suddenly dropped drastically, and a delirious Elastic Lad turned to see Polar Boy and Rainbow Girl by his side. A wall of ice separated them from the rest of the violence, giving the heroes a moment of peace. "I think...I think I can help," Polar Boy stammered, "But...but it's not going to be fun, E-Lad."

"I'm gonna...I'm going to die if you don't do it..." Even through his haze of pain, Elastic Lad had deduced what Brek was implying. "What was it like, Polar Boy..? What was it like when you lost your arm..?"

"It - it was over quickly, buddy." Brek's eyes welled with tears as his gloved hands hovered less than an inch from Elastic Lad's bicep. "It was over really quickly." Elastic Lad screamed for a second time today as Polar Boy froze most of his arm solid, then the young redhead finally passed out and the elongated chunk of ice which had once been a part of him cracked and fell under its own weight, shattering on the ancient lava flows below. Polar Boy wiped at his eyes with the back of his gloves and cleared his throat.

"You saved that boy's life, Brek." Rainbow Girl hugged him tightly, then released him and dropped to one knee by Elastic Lad's side. "I'll rainbowarp him somewhere he can get the rest of the help he needs."

Rainbow Girl and Elastic Lad vanished in an implosion of light and seconds later when Stone Boy tumbled through Brek's ice wall grappling some plant, Polar Boy was absurdly grateful for the chance to hurt something that actually deserved to be hurt.

**********

The rest of the battle proceeded as Alek Arcane had expected it would. His undead attendants didn't offer much of a threat to super-powered beings; whether Lightning Lass was frying skeletons to cinder or Nightwind was whisking clouds of biting flies away on the breeze, they were easily enough managed. But the creatures were far far more numerous than the heroes they were assaulting, and this kept the Legion and their friends busy.

His granddaughter if anything was proving the greater threat to those who ironically only wanted to protect her. Colossal Boy grappled with enormous wooden trees which had rooted themselves deep in the ground below, and amongst the branches of those trees his wife took on form after form to evade poisoned spikes and to squirm past crushing leafy tendrils. For every thorned vine which found itself between Matter-Eater Lad's teeth and for every Venusian Man-Trap pinned shut thanks to Porcupine Pete's quills, there were far more poisonous floral creations which could only be dealt with by Crystal Kid transforming their deadly blooms or Light Lad sending them into space. In her panic, Ivy had even damaged the mechanisms which kept these gardens afloat and if Cosmic Boy weren't here they'd all have gone crashing down to join Elastic Lad's arm by now. Alek Arcane was proud of his granddaughter's destructive potential, and he was positively giddy at how close he was to turning her gifts to his side.

"I only want what's best for my granddaughter," Alek approached Chlorophyll Kid. "You can't understand the level of destruction she will bring upon this universe under my tutelage...the new era of darkness I am going to usher forth with that child." Chlor tried to ignore Color Kid behind the sorceror being slowly crushed by vines, Night Girl desperately ripping away at the plants.

"Ral," Phantom Girl spoke gravely. "We need to stop this. We need to stop Ivy and then we can deal with him." She phased almost without thinking as Bouncing Boy ricocheted off the ground where Tinya stood and back into the thick of it all.

"Not yet," Chlorophyll Kid stepped back from the sorceror, his eyes flecked with righteous anger. "He needs to learn what it means to oppose the Avatar of the Green."

"Ral, people are getting hurt!" Tinya protested. "Our friends are getting hurt!" Somewhere behind them, they heard Light Lad cry out his lover's name.

"I assure you, he doesn't care about you or any of them, my dear." Alek Arcane gave Phantom Girl a look that made her skin crawl, and decaying vegetable matter continued to rot away even as it tried to grip the sorceror. "Not as much as you think, at any rate...he's the Protector of the Avatar of the Green, and that title comes with new priorities. Isn't that right, Protector?"

Chlorophyll Kid suddenly saw something at the sorceror's feet which had gone unnoticed by Arcane himself, and he thrust Ivy toward Phantom Girl. "PG, go!" Ral yelled before turning back to the villain. "I am the Avatar's Protector," he said firmly, "But I'm also a Legionnaire and that means we help each other, Arcane."

"Oh, come now. A pretend phantom is no match against my actual death touch." Alek Arcane was utterly confident that his magic would affect Tinya even while she were phased, and he was utterly astounded when he lunged for Tinya and Ivy and both of them vanished entirely. Just like that, all of the plants which had been causing so much trouble stopped moving as though a switch had been flipped. "How...where..?"

"Phantom Girl doesn't just turn intangible," Chlorophyll Kid explained as his wedding suit was covered by interlocking plates of wooden armour. "She enters another dimensional space...and we know from past experience that Ivy can't use her powers here while she's there. I'm actually surprised you don't know that, Alek. After all, I'm certain now that it's you that Ivy's been trying to protect herself from all this time. And all that tells me is...you don't pay attention."

Alek Arcane had been so distracted by the spectacle of Chlorophyll Kid's armour growing and snapping together around him that he'd completely neglected to notice the Winathian Poppies which had sprung up at his feet. With a little assistance from Chlorophyll Kid the poppies had risen to brush against the sorceror's legs, and as soon as they'd made contact the outer part of the flowers had rotted away and spewed their narcotic pollen in a cloud all over both of the men. Inside his armour, Chlorophyll Kid had already activated his transuit; Alek Arcane had no such protection.

Breathing deeply, the sorceror's eyes flickered as he was overcome with the urge to sleep. He made one futile grasp at Chlorophyll Kid, and then fell in a heap.

"I can control plants, but I can't create them," Ral Benem explained as his friends and teammates began to gather about him. "I just had to wait for Ivy to create the right one so I could end this.

...Now let's send this creep so far into the bowels of Takron-Galtos that he'll never bother anyone again, and then I'm going to finish marrying my sprocking wife."

**********

LALLOR
Heroes of Lallor Homebase, Duplicate Boy II's quarters

ROLL CALL
Duplicate Boy II aka Stev Cohn: ability to duplicate any superhuman power in his immediate vicinity

As soon as Stev Cohn entered his spacious bedroom, he mumbled "Homebase, Light Canyons Immersion please," and slumped onto his bed. The windowless room's walls were rounded, and they were now seemingly replaced by a 360 degree view of Lallor's famous Light Canyons. The canyons would have been awe-inspiring on almost any world, miles of gorges and ravines which sunk deep into the crust of the planet. But the thing that made them truly unique were the aurora-like lightshows that transpired within those gorges and ravines. At some point in Lallor's past, nuclear war had altered the magnetic field of the planet here so that there were always some kind of amazing phototechnics to see. The Light Canyons themselves of course were so radioactive as to be lethal to most lifeforms, but they certainly looked pretty. Soft electronic music started in the background, the gentle pulsing beat matching that of Stev's own heart.

"Evolvo Lad, you're a genius..." Duplicate Boy muttered, painstakingly making the effort to remove the outer layer of his costume. "You could sell this immersotainment tech and be richer than Persephone Savage..." Laying on top of his bed in just a pair of green trunks, Duplicate Boy went over the afternoon's events. The Heroes of Lallor had been called to help evacuate a coastal town from an incoming tidal wave that the planet's geosurveillance tech hadn't been able to prevent, and after hours of power swapping and high tension rescues, Stev was ready for nothing more taxing than a shower and sleep. As tired as he was though, he was glad that the new Heroes of Lallor had finally blended with the old Heroes of Lallor. Any awkwardness between the two factions was gone, and he rarely even thought of there being two separate factions anymore.

He flinched, and realised that he must have nodded off. His cheek was sticky with drool, and the sensory immersion had progressed about 12 standard minutes. "Real sexy..." Stev rolled his eyes as he wiped the drool from his face and sat up. "Okay...shower while you still can, champ." He stumbled half-asleep toward the bathroom area but just before he actually reached it he stopped dead in his tracks. "Homebase, pause Light Canyons Immersion."

Instantly more alert, Duplicate Boy scanned the room suspiciously. "There are a couple of things that make me different from the original Duplicate Boy," he announced to the room. "I can only duplicate the powers of anyone in my immediate vicinity...but also, I know when there's someone in my immediate vicinity who has powers to duplicate.

You want to tell me what the sprock you're doing in my quarters, Gas Girl?"

A pinkish-white mist congealed on the far side of the room until the former Hero of Lallor and current member of the Legion of Superheroes sat sheepishly in human form in a memory foam couch. "Umm, I can explain..." Gas Girl blushed a beetroot red.

"Good." Duplicate Boy stood over her, arms folded.

"Now start."

EDITOR'S NOTES
Zhulong is actually a dragon from Chinese mythology, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhulong_(mythology) for more info
For anyone who might need a refresher on what's going on with the Heroes of Lallor - basically the Lalloran government forced Evolvo Lad and Life Lass to take on four new teammates under somewhat shady circumstances. Gas Girl has brought the Espionage Squad to Lallor to investigate the newbies' backgrounds and make sure they're all above board, and well here we are...(when I get more time, I will post some links to the actual stories where it happened)

wow, nice wrap up for the two parter! excellent switching between the scenes, like no need to see Mwindaji or Dragonwing or Fire Lass actually destroying your opponents. Kudos for giving everyone something to do, if even a line or two. The drama, oh the drama...

Elastic Lad and Polar Boy, goodness! Elastic Lad's personality still holds true despite being in great pain

Rainbow Girl rainbow warping!

Good deductive skills from the team at the cemetery

"Now come here and be rescued" bwahahaha

Diamond Damsel and Wildfire bonding over their transformations

Jacques' new power upgrade

Nice use of the wisdom of Solomon with Blok

Tinya phasing herself and Ivy to another dimension...

and Ral biding his time, taking advantage of Alek Arcane not paying attention. plus that speech at the end

all excellent, excellent, excellent! and looking forward to the Heroes of Lallor, this new Dupe Boy is an interesting upgrade on the original!

More fun Raz, your Legion has a lot more action than mine!

I noticed M'Wandji never healed himself, it was kind of implied though. Strut, as always (in like the half a dozen posts he's been in so far anyway) had some of the best lines and funny image of it clapping two of it's hands while dealing with everything else. Kng Canary also proved his worth. For some reason I always read him as speaking in a Ray Winston Cockney accented voice which adds to the pleasure. That sonic attack to the base of the skull would take down most opponents, ouch!

Loved Jacques save, and it's interesting that he's now even invisible to the teams comms, that'll prove to be tricky! M'Windaji's plan was hilarious, pointless masochism indeed, bless him. Nice of Strut to find the information they needed to defeat the beasts, White Martians are super-tough so it would have been virtually impossible without that.

Lullaby Lad's sleep induction is obviously pretty buff if it can force two White martians to succumb. Okay, so they were corpes. but still...

I like your Lightning Lad, he's matured into a decent tactician, though the thoughts about the Martians weaknesses: "What's their sprocking vulnerability...earth? Wind..?" gave me a laugh. Marya and Aquilla to the rescue, well done.

Really enjoyed the Xao and Zoe section, I think it was my favourite. Their friendship shone through. Great line for Zoe - "Anything worth doing is worth doing with flare though! " also good charaterisation that she thought her ring producing flames would be enough. Ah Zoe, 'fraid not this time. Xao contacting the ancient dragon was tremendous, a really unexpected twist to his power set. Hopefully he'll be back to normal soon.

Those two poor kids up the tree, I imagine being scolded by Nura is just as scary as any zombie horde! Your Blok is great, a real pro-active powerhouse. I admit when you first wrote about him gaining the Shazam powers I was wondering how you would take his storylone, but it's been great to read. There's obviously a lot of love for the big stone guy. Nice bonding moment between Iris and Drake. Wuld be good to see them get more screen time together. also, very nice dropping in the decendants of the House of El's corpses causing problems, and Sun Boy's reaction was spot on, haha. Wonder if anyone did tell Laurel?

Also, very clever for Alek to manipulate Nura into taking the toughest legionnaires way from the one place they really needed to be. I wonder if there'll be repecussions?

I adoe your Grava, and in fact it was your obvious love for her that made me re-evaluate my use of her. "Fix him! You fix my little space fishy right now!" She's all heart isn't she?

Rainbow Girl to the rescue with her amazing ability to... ummm...? I need to introduce her in my fan fic as it is always fun when she appears.

Elastic Lad is aways a joy so I hope you fix him up real fast and get him back into action. How does he manage to fit so much speech into each scene He steals everyone he's in. Now, if him, Grava, Strut and King Canary were to work together I'd be a very happy camper!

Your Tinya is great btw, business when it's needed and thinking of the bigger picture. Your Brek is really decent too, as much as I've never been fond of him really, I do like your take on him.

Ral's gambit that Ivy would create something he could use was desperate! Nice way to take out Alek Arcane, though I really do hope that's not the end of him as he's been so delightfully machiovellan in the background it's been fun watching out for the next move he'd make.

And, we get to Lallor and find out what's been going on there. Duplicate Boy ii doesn't seem quite as dumb as the first DP, so perhaps he'll help the Legion... if not things will get real interesting real quick.

Totally enjoyed this section, loads and lads of action, excitement, upsets and character moments. Looking forward to more, more, more!

Hey y'all, sorry...I could have sworn I replied to these earlier!

I am glad you liked crabby Dream Girl rescuing the teenagers, I gave myself a giggle writing that scene...Diamond Damsel and Wildfire bonding kinda happened by accident, I am kicking myself that I never really had them interact before though as it works well...I might have to explore this a bit more moving forward!

There were definitely a few specific scenes I really enjoyed writing and I think y'all nailed them so I'm glad they worked!

Next up: Sad times on Lallor!

MARS
Husband Hill, Legion of Superheroes Headquarters

ROLL CALL
Phantom Girl aka Tinya Wazzo: leader; intangibility
Ultra Boy aka Jo Nah: ultra-energy which can be directed into any one of strength, speed, flight, invulnerability, flash vision, penetra-vision at a time

While these quarters were ostensibly Ultra Boy's, Phantom Girl spent so much time here that they both considered it to be their shared space. Right now, Tinya Wazzo was wearing an oversized old t-shirt bearing Ultra Boy's iconic logo and not much else as she leaned on his balcony railing watching a small air vehicle fly off into the dim sunset. Inside the distant craft Chlorophyll Kid, Comet Queen and Ivy Arcane were on their way to a three week combined honeymoon and family vacation.

"If that's a new costume you're wearing, it's got my vote." Jo sidled up behind Tinya and wrapped his strong arms around her waist as he nuzzled into her neck.

Tinya laughed and phased through his embrace, taking with her the singlet Jo had been wearing and leaving him in only his underwear. "I'll change my costume if you change yours," she teased.

"I wouldn't want our team leader getting all distracted in combat," Jo shot back at her, pulling a couple of bodybuilder poses to accentuate his point.

"Ugh, there we go." The mood broken, Tinya groaned and walked back into the bedroom where she collapsed on Jo's bed. "I think I went a whole half hour that time without being reminded of the million responsibilities I've got now. I need to talk to Garth and Imra about choosing a new student intern, I need to check how the Espionage Squad are going on Lallor, I have to decide if Chlorophyll Kid needs replacing now that he's stepped down from active membership--"

"Just Chlorophyll Kid?" Ultra Boy's eyebrow shot up as he followed his lover back into the room. "Ouch!"

"...Jo." Phantom Girl raised herself up on her elbows, her tone sardonic. "Do you really think any force this side of Darkseid could make Comet Queen quit the Legion of Superheroes? Ral's the only one leaving, she's going back on the active roster as soon as they get home from their honeymoon."

"Ha! I should have known," Jo guffawed, joining Tinya on the bed. He kissed her neck again but backed off when he realised how tense she was. "You know babe, if you're really that stressed about all this stuff I can help. Just put me to work on something."

"Hmm?" Tinya finally relaxed, allowing herself to snuggle up closer to him. "I'm sorry, Jo...it's not that, it's just...you know when we first found Ivy on Chlorophyll Kid's homeworld? Whatever those plants did to increase Ral's power, they did something else too. I mean he immediately lost his stutter, he's way more confident now than he used to be...and I never really questioned it. It's not like we're really close, and they're certainly positive changes. But I don't know, there was a moment when he and I were facing down Alek Arcane at Ral and Grava's wedding, and he just...unsettled me? I don't know, does that make sense?" She shifted position so she could look him in the eye.

"Nope!" He gave her a quick peck on the lips. "But I wasn't there with you so I'll take your word for it, babe. That old creep Arcane's on his way to Takron-Galtos as we speak though, and Chlorophyll Kid has a long boring life ahead of him making dad jokes so none of this is your problem anymore!"

"Yeah...yeah, I suppose you're right, wise man of mine." She yanked at his arm and pulled him across so he was lying on top of her.

"Whoa, what's this all about?" Jo asked, playing dumb.

"I'm taking your advice," Tinya gave him a devilish grin.

"...and putting you to work."

**********

LALLOR
Heroes of Lallor Homebase

ROLL CALL
Heroes of Lallor
Amp aka Ming Sul: amplification of any power or characteristic
Brittle aka Bo Marcu: ability to segregate into smaller independent bodies upon physical impact
Duplicate Boy II aka Stev Cohn: ability to duplicate any superhuman power in his immediate vicinity
Evolvo Lad aka Sev Tcheru: hyperevolution/devolution
Key Kid aka Miqui Ver: ability to bypass any man-made lock
Life Lass aka Somi Gan: matter animation
Rain Girl aka Jes Teev: rain generation

Legion of Superheroes
Chameleon Boy aka Reep Daggle: Durlan shapeshifter
Dawnstar: translightspeed flight, interstellar tracking
Gas Girl aka Tal Nahii: can transform into any gas
Shrinking Violet aka Salu Digby: shrinking

The Heroes of Lallor's meeting room was much larger than one might expect for a team which had generally had a small roster. The reason behind this was that it made it easier for them to accommodate visiting law enforcement personnel, government agents and members of the media as necessary. Right now, four members of the Legion of Superheroes sat on one side of the room's large circular table while immediately opposite them were the five newest recruits to the Heroes of Lallor. Somewhere awkwardly between the two sides were Life Lass and, in his hyper-evolved form, Evolvo Lad.

"Okay," Duplicate Boy broke the uncomfortable silence. "Now that we're all together, do you want to tell us what the sprock you've all been up to behind my team's backs?"

"Stev, the Heroes of Lallor are still one united team," Life Lass tried to reassure him.

"Are we?" Brittle shot back venomously. "Something tells me nobody's been spying on you or our illustrious leader here!" Blushing furiously, Life Lass lowered her gaze.

"Cham..?" Gas Girl gave Chameleon Boy a pleading expression.

"I'll take responsibility for this," Chameleon Boy stood up. "I led the Legion of Superheroes here to investigate Gas Girl's concerns."

"Concerns?" Rain Girl parroted. "Concerns about what...What more do we have to do to prove ourselves here?!"

People on all sides of the table began talking over one another trying to respond to the last thing they'd heard, and Cham could see this wasn't getting them anywhere. "Enough!" He turned his hand into a mallet and pounded it on the table. "I'll explain everything, but you need to give me the opportunity...which means I'm going to need you all to be quiet and listen to me for a few minutes. Are we agreed?"

"Agreed," Duplicate Boy muttered darkly. Brittle began to complain again, but Duplicate Boy cast him a glare before he could get more than a word out. "I said agreed, Bo."

"Thank you," Chameleon Boy acknowledged the gesture. "I appreciate it. Gas Girl asked the Legion to help her out because she had doubts about the story provided when you five first made your way to Homebase. She grew up here with the other original Heroes of Lallor knowing that they were unique in their world's history as meta-powered mutants. The Legion have known the Heroes of Lallor for a long time, and we've come to know Gas Girl even better after she joined our own team. There was no reason for us to suspect that the original Heroes of Lallor would ever have had any part in suppressing the existence of other mutants, and I don't think we were ever really expected to. It was just a convenient way to introduce the five of you to this team."

"Oh, come on!" Brittle stood up now and waved an arm over the rest of his fellow recruits. "We don't have to just sit here and put up with this, you know!"

Rain Girl joined him. "Bo's right, who the sprock are the Legion of Superheroes to judge us anyway?"

Shrinking Violet rolled her eyes and she released an exasperated grunt. "Grife, would you two shut up and let Cham finish? Everybody here knows that the five of you are above board, but there are some things surrounding your presence here that don't add up!"

"Respectfully," Duplicate Boy replied, his tone polite but distinctly unhappy, "You could have led with that, Legionnaires. Think about this from our point of view. We were raised in isolation from everyone else on this planet, we thought the Heroes of Lallor were at the very least actively involved in that, and long after we all thought this had been resolved we find out you've been spying on us all along."

"Yeah," Amp added, sitting back in her seat with her arms folded. "You can see how it might trigger some nass for us."

"Perhaps you're right," Chameleon Boy acquiesced. "You have to understand, when we began our investigation we didn't know anything about you all. We had to be sure you were actually trustworthy before we came forward...for what it's worth, we'd already decided that whatever Gas Girl found out tonight was going to make that decision for us."

"Well that's sprockin' convenient," Brittle muttered, "I guess we'll never know if that's true or not given Duplicate Boy blew her cover first, huh?" He did sit down to hear Cham out though, and Rain Girl followed suit; neither of them looked at all impressed.

"It took a lot of searching," Chameleon Boy continued, "But between us all, we found all of your individual family records. All of you were reported missing during infancy, and as per Lalloran custom you were all declared dead a year after that. Two of your parents died within the following decade. The rest of your parents died within the exact week before you revealed your presence here at Homebase."

"We know that!" Amp protested. "Don't you think the first thing any of us did when we escaped that sprocking bunker was to try and find our families?"

"No doubt you did," Chameleon Boy answered. "Did you know that Duplicate Boy and Key Kid both lost literally every one of their extended family including even distant relatives during that week before you joined the Heroes of Lallor as well? Amp, Brittle and Rain Girl had no surviving relatives by then either."

"I...that still doesn't mean anything though, does it?" Key Kid gazed wide-eyed at Duplicate Boy. "It's just...it's just weird timing, right?"

This whole time, Evolvo Lad had been sitting serenely, watching the ebb and flow of conversation around him. He turned to his new teammates now and spoke. "We have already spoken privately of your almost complete lack of memory of your captivity aside from the most vague recollections. Perhaps not wanting to examine this any more closely due to personal discomfort, we accepted that the trauma of your shared experience was responsible for this collective amnesia. Now we discover that not a single living family member exists for any of you who could fill in any further details on your backgrounds. We must face the very real possibility that there is a darker truth at work here, my friends. Amp is younger than most of you and Key Kid is substantially younger than all of you. Does it make sense that you all would have grown up in captivity together without Duplicate Boy, Brittle or Rain Girl ever being able to recall a time before Amp or Key Kid's presence? Does it make sense that the original Heroes of Lallor could ever have been mistaken to be responsible for your captivity when we were all children ourselves at the time you were imprisoned? Does it make sense that Lallorgov just happened to find evidence exonerating Life Lass and myself of that alleged crime immediately after they sent you to confront us about it? Or that we've never seen any sign of the evidence that led you to accuse us initially nor the evidence which cleared our names? Lallorgov razed the bunker from which you escaped almost immediately after you joined our team so we've never been able to search for answers there. We've clearly all been manipulated this whole time...the question now is, what purpose has that manipulation served?"

A very tense silence filled the room as everyone mulled over Evolvo Lad's words. Brittle, ever predictable in his cynicism, was the first to break that silence. "Fine, I'll admit it's weird!" he blurted out. "But the only people who know anything about any of us before we joined the Heroes of Lallor are those Lallorgov suits who sent us here in the first place...and government here's not like the rest of your shiny UP, Legionnaires; we don't know anything about them except that they're the ones in power. How are we supposed to find anyone to get answers from now?"

Until now, Dawnstar had felt almost like an outsider in this conversation. She'd barely had anything to do with the Heroes of Lallor old or new before now and the kind of work the Espionage Squad did was very much outside of her wheelhouse. Now however she sat up straight in her seat, her hands clasped professionally before her. "My talents are not so suited for covert work as my teammates," she spoke with a soft but firm confidence, "But finding someone who has made themselves unfindable..?

...That is precisely where my skills lie."

**********

Miles above Lallor in a small cloaked bioship, a not particularly memorable brown-haired man turned away from a screen and waited for the beep which told him his transmission with his contacts down on the surface of Lallor had ended. Once he was certain he had the ship to himself once more, the man's appearance shimmered and shifted to reveal the yellow-skinned Dominator who'd been hidden beneath that visage the whole time. A large red disk drew attention on his oversized cranium.

"You've got good instincts, Violet."

The Dominator spun hissing at the sudden voice, his hand instantly at the handgun he carried by his side. Before him stood Chameleon Boy, the Durlan's arms folded across his chest. "I do not know how you came to be aboarrd this vessel," the Dominator rasped, "But you should not have come alone, Legion scum." He levelled his gun at Cham and pulled the trigger, looking down at the weapon in confusion when nothing happened.

Shrinking Violet darted forth from the barrel of the gun, growing to her full height again now that her sabotage was complete. At the same time, Chameleon Boy pounced forward and delivered a satisfying punch to the Dominator's jaw which left him sprawled on the ground with several fractured teeth. As both Legionnaires stood over the reeling Dominator, Vi spoke up. "Thanks, Cham. I knew I recognized something about this creep's voice when he appeared at Homebase and told Evolvo Lad and Life Lass they had to take on the others as new recruits. You're the same diskhead we found promoting xenophobia on Earth with the Judgement League, aren't you?"

"How did you get on boarrd this vessel?!" the Dominator spat.

"Dominator bio-technology may stretch the limits of what can be considered an artificial barrier for the purpose of Key Kid's powers," a new voice joined the conversation, "But he can still bypass it." Duplicate Boy stepped forward along with all of the remaining heroes who'd followed Dawnstar's tracking power here aside from Gas Girl.

"My tracking power is not at its optimum level in a densely populated area," Dawnstar explained coolly, "So I suppose I should thank you for isolating yourself from the masses of people below so efficiently, Dominator. Considering that all I had to use as a reference for tracking you were holographic recordings of your presence at Homebase, this could have been a far more difficult task than it turned out to be."

The Dominator hissed something in his own language, but Evolvo Lad calmly interrupted. "He is instructing his vessel to flood the interior with a specific nerve gas to which he has been immunized," the hyper-evolved man's voice delicately explained. "Between my own telepathic influence and Gas Girl's counter-measures however, I can assure our safety."

Gas Girl emerged from a vent now, her form congealing into a green-tinged cloud which bore her features. "He better tell us what he's been doing on our planet or I can't assure his!" she threatened.

"You speak as though it werre a mysterry," the Dominator retorted. "I know you pale sacks of meat arre not the intellectual equivalent of the Dominion, but you destrroyed my homeworrld. Surrely even such pathetic specimens as yourrselves can underrstand rrevenge as a motivating forrce!"

"You brought that upon yourself!" Gas Girl fully solidified now and pointed an accusing finger at the Dominator. "If you hadn't abducted us for your stupid experiments, your world would still be intact today!"

"The Dominion don't do anything unless they get something tangible out of it," Chameleon Boy deduced. "This isn't just about revenge, is it?"

"And how are we involved in any of this?" Duplicate Boy joined in. "Evolvo Lad, Legion; I swear to you, we had no idea this guy was a Dominator! The first time any of us ever saw him was when we got out of that bunker!"

"Therre was no bunkerr, fool!" the Dominator spat. "Not in the sense that we prrogrrammed you all to believe! It was a genetics facility! You five had the most suitable genetic templates forr my experriments that I could locate with such limited rresourrces, so I used my contacts in your goverrnment to concoct this ludicrrous fantasy that you've all been fed! This rridiculous planet has had no shorrtage of missing sentients over the past decades we could have claimed to be any one of you!"

"Then...then Lallorgov was in on this?" Life Lass ventured meekly.

"He tells the truth," Evolvo Lad confirmed sadly. "I suppose I should have expected something like this long ago...it must rankle sections of our government to have such a small number of meta-powered operatives at their disposal. It only makes sense that they'd want to expand those numbers."

"Verry cleverr," the Dominator made some wheezing hissing sound that the others realised was laughter. "Not that the knowledge will save you, evolved meat. If I had access to more advanced faculties, I could have ensurred that this whole batch werre as powerrful as theirr most successful subject. I have confidence howeverr that he alone will suffice to destrroy the rrest of you." The Dominator slowly climbed to his feet, aware that everyone's eyes were trained on him the whole time. He spoke something in his own language, and Duplicate Boy suddenly roared in pain and collapsed to his knees. Clutching his head, the Lalloran hero rocked back and forth in wordless agony.

"Stev!" Amp and Life Lass both joined him on the ground, the rest of their team standing around him protectively.

"What did you do to Duplicate Boy?" Evolvo Lad's eyes glowed as he asked. Without physically moving, his telekinesis pinned the Dominator to the wall and his evolved mind's telepathic power invaded his captive's vile mind.

The Dominator laughed his unnerving wheezy laugh as he saw realization dawn on Evolvo Lad's face. Meanwhile, Duplicate Boy had stopped dead still. Mimicking Amp's power, he boosted his own strength to shove both Amp and Life Lass into the rest of their team, and without a word he took a step toward Evolvo Lad.

"Duplicate Boy, step down!" Chameleon Boy grabbed Stev's arm, and felt an icy chill when Duplicate Boy turned toward him with an expression of pure murderous intent.

"Duplicate Boy?" the Dominator mocked Cham. "I must corrrect you, Durrlan...

...The Dominion prreferr the assignation B.I.O.N."

TO BE CONCLUDED!!

The curse of the formatting strikes again, sorry y'all:(

EDIT: fixed!

Splendid couple of posts here Raz.

I do love the Phantom Girl/Ultra Boy dynamic, they are perhaps my favourite couple in canon, and you''ve caught that feeling very nicely. Tinya's suspicion of Ral's recent upgrade is understandable and it's so obvious I almost face palmed as I hadn't thought of it myself Nice set up for future storylines. Also, glad Grava will remain on the team, you do write her so well that it would be sad to see her leave for good.

The second part with the espionage squad on Lallor was great! The suspicion between the two groups was intense, and the casualness of the new Lalorian mutants to the deaths of their families was really suspicious, Nice to see Dawny get something to do as well, she's surprisingly tough to write effectively, i found, butyou seem to manage really well. Of course, I should have guessed that the Dominion was behind it all along, after their homeworld was destroyed by DB1 they would want some sort of revenge! And that cliff-hanger! Superb!

Looking forward to seeing how you get them all out of this alive (hopefully!) and always waiting for more, more, more!

Beautiful scene with Tinya and Jo. I love Jo's honesty, his listening to Tinya WHILE offering help BUT not immediately solving all her problems. And the stress of being leader, yeah.

I love this nice nifty application of Tinya's powers, phasing things like clothing.

And Jo playing dumb, rather than BEING dumb, is great

bet Ral will show up a lot still, and Tinya's "problems" with him aren't over...


Grava not quitting makes a ton of sense!

Love this bit with the Heroes of Lallor and Espionage Squad! The confrontation between the 2, 3 if you count Life Lass and Evolvo Lad separately, groups was extremely well done and natural. Cham's even-handedness in explaining the subterfuge, with Violet's direct (and not quite polite, but needed) reassurance to the other new Heroes, loved those. And Evolvo Lad's cool synthesis of the facts in a way that highlighted the strangeness to the other Heroes...

eager to get to the bottom of this. so apparently missing kids, but these aren't the real missing ones...

uh oh, poor Dupe Boy is really BION...

love you making Dawnstar and Key Kid play such key roles in this. Dawny, go Dawny, when she made her little speeches I was awestruck.

looking forward to seeing the next installment!

... and thinking about it again, Key Kid and Brittle are super fitting for Dominator-created experiments - both have powers that would be especially excellent in espionage situations! (not to diss Amp or Rain Girl, both are great too, but Key Kid and Brittle especially shine in espionage!)

Thanks for commenting, y'all! Glad you are enjoying it...it is difficult sometimes to write scenes with couples where their individual personalities and dynamic still come through, so I'm glad Jo and Tinya worked

re the bit that Harbinger mentioned about the Heroes of Lallor being all casual about their families' deaths....I probably could have worded that whole bit slightly better, it was more that (as far as they know) those 5 were taken from their families when they were all babies so there's not really much of an emotional connection there....those 5 are really way more of a family with one another than their blood relatives and a couple of things will come through in the conclusion to this story that should highlight that more.

I have been wanting to throw in a line for ages about Comet Queen not leaving the team but it never really fit anywhere, I have been dying to tell you guys she is coming back after the honeymoon hahahaha

Hey Raz, I read that part as you reinforcing how manipulated the Lallorians had been that they would casually ignore the fact that all of their living relatives were dead. So, it made perfect creepy sense to me.