posted
Hi. This is the first in a possible series (depending on time and feedback ) of little vignettes, with just one or two significant characters, about the postboot Legion. The first couple at least will be post-DnA, but I might do a few earlier if the mood strikes me. No long stories though - I've got 21st Century Legion for that
One final little note - I'm trying to make these fit in-continuity, and will give issue numbers appropriately. One thing though - post-DnA ones will either have "Between The Legion #33 and The Legion #35" OR "Between The Legion #33 and the Teen Titans/Legion Special. I view For No Better Reason as being two-three years Later, and so as a different timeline from the "Special" - especially with Garth in Live Wire costuming in FNBR but the Element Lad costume in the "Special".
posted
This story takes place between The Legion #33 and The Legion #35
Apparition lay back on her bed, alone, and tried not to think. It didn't work. After five minutes of her thoughts' spin-cycle, she gave up, sat up and took in the omnipresent hum of Legion World and the uniform grey walls. Three things stopped her from sleeping:
One, her child. Cub was now apparently six years old, despite having been born only two months prior. He'd been two years old before his experience with Universo jumped him forward to five, and in the past fortnight he'd aged another year. At that rate, he'd be older than her in just over half a year, and dead of old age by the time he hit a real-time three. And none of the doctors, nor Brainy or Lyle could find a reason for it.
(For a moment, she wondered what possessed her to call him "Cub," then she remembered. Minutes before she gave birth she'd heard of the Lost Legionnaires' return - indeed, that had triggered her labour - and she didn't want to name him without consulting Jo, and in the meantime Brin had taken to calling him "cub" as his general name for a child. Then, with Cub's aging and Problem Number Two, choosing a name first slipped down her list and became impossible after Universo...)
Two, her marriage. She'd now moved out of Jo's suite entirely as their mutual trust had seemingly evaporated. After she'd read his letter to Imra, and he'd read something that wasn't there into her relationship with Brin, and now, and now...
Three, herself. Or, more specifically, her third self. She'd tried to block it out for the two years since she'd merged with Phase, but every now and then something inside herself reminded her that she wasn't quite "whole." Her mother hadn't known her father was Carggite, and he'd taken her other selves at birth to sell to the Luck Lords to placate them over a gambling debt. A pure Carggite would have died, but being half-Bgztlian had saved her. But when she'd merged with Phase, it had nearly ripped her mind apart, which was why she'd avoided looking for her third self since. Even now, when the Kwai could find her in minutes, she'd been putting off looking for her third self.
She sat there for five minutes more, knowing what she was about to do and trying to talk herself out of it. Eventually, though, she gave in and went to arrange for childcare for Cub. She couldn't help him, and she didn't know if she wanted to save her marriage right at that moment, but she could find her third self, and not be two-thirds of a person any more. She had to do it. ________________________________
She emerged from the Threshold on a silent moon under a force-field dome. Shivering, she asked her Kwai guide to return in two hours if she didn't call sooner, and looked down. There, under her feet, was an unmistakable grave.
The small-holomarker accompanying it didn't give a name, or indeed any details, but she knew she stood on her own grave.
Bundling her cloak around her, she collapsed on the dusty ground, tears running down both cheeks. She'd sneaked out here in the hope of... and she'd... and...
She sat like that for almost an hour, undisturbed, the only living person in the city of the dead. Eventually, the tears stopped and she started thinking again. Realising that perhaps there was one way to answer her questions, she became immaterial and slipped into the ground. Staying phased when she saw the corpse nearly proved impossible, scraps of hair clinging to decomposed skin barely holding to her bare skull, but she found what she was looking for and got out as soon as possible.
Back on the surface, she opened her hand and looked at the touchstone. Not smooth and rimmed in gold like her own, but a simple, rough, red jewel. After her own experiences with death and life, she knew that their connection with the dead was more than mere myth. Holding the pose a second, she clasped it to the touchstone on her cloak. Fragments of memory from her final self ran through her head like a badly damaged holo. She saw the Luck Lord that had retained her Phase self selling this third self to a slave trader, who had sold her in turn with a group of a thousand other Bgztlians to a mining company, who'd thought that Bgztlians might prove easier to use in their operations, on the basis that they wouldn't need elevators or mineshafts.
Every single one of them had died, on the moon she now stood on. Her third self was one of the "luckier" ones, having made it to the surface to receive a proper burial. Most still lay dead in the caverns below.
As Apparition retched violently, the touchstone conveyed one final image to her before it dropped to the ground. One that shocked her almost as much as what had happened beneath her feet, but in a very different way... ________________________________
The next day, after a sleepless night, Apparition lay on her bed once more. It was one of her rest days, and she'd spent the previous night and that morning lying there, trying to comprehend the last image her other self's touchstone had given her and trying not to think of the other images. The rough touchstone lay at her bedside, nothing more to convey to her. Now she knew of her third self's fate, but that was different from merging with her, the way she'd merged with Phase. After unmoving hours, she stood and picked up the other touchstone, thinking of the final image as she walked in to look at Cub's empty bed, Cub himself spending time with a couple of the younger Cadets.
Her own face, on a Jinx-Dog, pushing a Dominator out of the window as she lay beneath in an unflattering blue maternity dress with her face screwed up in labour.
She'd never realised just how unflattering that thing looked. Of course, Brin wouldn't have said so.
She could joke, of course, but the knowledge that she was her own son was freaking her out. Even if it explained why even Brainy and Lyle were stumped over Cub's mysterious aging. Neither subscribed to mystical thought, especially Brainy, who came close to pretending magic didn't exist when it wasn't being paraded in front of his face.
She'd worn her touchstone during pregnancy. She'd phased (against doctor's advice), during pregnancy. The third fragment of... her soul?... had come through and entered her baby, and having two souls was burning Cub out, killing him, she just knew. There was only one thing to do. _________________________________
"Hi," Cub said as he entered.
"Hi," Apparition's tear-streaked face looked her son straight in the eye. "Do you know what this is?"
"A touchstone, like yours?" Cub said upon seeing the red jewel she held in her hand.
"Yes, take it... just for a moment. And just remember I love you, always." When it was in his hand, she took her own touchstone and touched it to the jewel in his hand. Then her world went black. __________________________________
She awoke in Legion World's medi-bay, grey like the rest, however much later she couldn't say. Her head... seemed oddly quiet, yet somehow more complete. She turned her head to her right and saw Doctor Gym'll rushing towards her, then turned her head to the left.
There, in a crib, lay a two-month old child with the barest covering of black hair covering his head, Jo standing over him with a puzzled expression on his face. Brin was there too, but facing her rather than the crib. She shut her eyes. She didn't have any more memories, the way she'd had after merging with Phase, but then Phase had been alive, not reborn in the body of her son. And her baby would live to whatever age he would live to. That was the important thing.
"Cub? Cub..." Jo cooed.
"Byrin. His name's Byrin."
"My Son, Myself" An Untold Tale of the Postboot By Reboot.
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What a fab wee story Reboot - very satisfying tying up of loose ends!
More, more, more!!!
-------------------- "Tempus Fugitive" the final part of the Adventures of Dream Boy series, set in the Three-Boot Universe. Read it only in the Bits o' Legionnaire Business Forum.
From: here, more often than not | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wasn't going to do this, and didn't really want to, truth be told, but once I sat down and started typing, I couldn't resist...
This story takes place after the Teen Titans/Legion Special
Day One:
After we lost 'Kari, it was Vi of all people who had the idea, remembering the stunt we - that is, me and Garth - pulled during the Darkseid mess. We were in the timestream again and that supercharged my powers, meaning I could pull us back into normal space. The problem was, without 'Kari, we didn't know where or when we'd end up.
As it was, "where and when" ended up being a Earth-sized planet, but with no atmosphere to speak of. Still, we had our transuits, and we had three big advantages we didn't have last time we were lost - one, we had Lyle, who's the guy who keeps Brainy on-track. Without him, Brainy tends to do research for research's sake, and struggles to focus on usable stuff. Secondly, Garth has Jan's powers now, and we saw what Jan was capable of. With Brainy and Lyle's help, and Imra's telepathy to link them to him, Garth can concievably make anything. Thirdly, at least some of us have been here before and got out of it alive, and we've got the others to lean on this time.
Under "first things first," I sent M'Onel up to take a look at the planet we were on, on the off-chance there was sentient life underground that could help us before we did anything drastic. He came back negative, but it was worth checking. Plan B meant me, Rokk and Triad checking what we had in way of resources, then sending Brainy, Lyle, Garth and Imra to work. The first thing they did was create a large pool of water, and a mass of some protein stuff that doesn't taste very nice but will keep us going for a bit. The next was to create an underground shelter, which is a bit cramped but has essentials like oxygen, sleeping bags and an airlock. The third is more complex, and when last I checked they had only just started. Rokk's volunteered to join them for the first watch, to make sure that Brainy, Lyle and Imra all get sleep when they need it - and even if Garth doesn't sleep these days, he could probably do with some rest too. ________________
Day Two:
Tempers are starting to fray a bit, understandably given the conditions. I have to admit, I expected better from Umbra and Wildfire though.
Triad spent much of the day out with 'the builders', as they're being called - I'm not sure who started that one - while Gear joined them to start working on the details, and I sent M'On out to scope the local star systems and see if he could identify any of them and/or make contact with any sentients that might be able to help us. He came back towards the end with a negative on both counts, although he did go for a fairly limited radius by his standards on the latter to be sure of getting back towards the end of the day. Incidentally, when I say "Day", I mean the UP-standard day. Days here are about 35 UP-hours long, around a red giant sun, to which this is by far the nearest planet. At this distance, if the sun had been Sol-type, most of us would be dead by now. Triad & co. came in towards Day's end. One more day should do it, apparently. _________________
Day Three:
It's ready. We take off tomorrow into the unknown, with no obvious hope of getting home. The feeling of deja vu is just sickening, and I wouldn't mind at all Kari coming through a threshold tomorrow to get us all home straight away. That said, the fact that that's not happened (not necessarily Kari, but A Kwai at least) is bad, since it implies we're definitely displaced in time, not just space. I spent most of the day with the Builders and Brainy was making noises about reconstructing his old time platform. Grife, he's probably done it without mentioning it or even informing Garth what was being made. But it worked on relative time rather than absolute time - that is, to get to the twenty-first century, you told it to send you back a thousand years, rather than specifically saying "Take me to the 21st Century." So without a bead for when we are to start with, let alone where, it's not much use.
Still, there's no doubt that the whole thing's a fine piece of work, especially given that three days ago it was just so much rock and dust. It certainly beats the lashed-together Outpost of our previous exile by miles, even if it's no Legion World.
Rokk tells me that everyone had settled down a bit today. I'm writing yesterday off as adjustment - grife knows, we needed some of that last time. _________________
Day Four:
We're off. Rokk of all people insisted on giving it a name, rather than just a title like "Legion Cruiser". He calls it the Superman. I let him do it.
Certainly, it's bigger than a cruiser, and about the size of the original Outpost or a bit more in total, with a Stargate-based main propulsion unit, as well as conventional backups. Everyone's settling in as well as could be expected.
After all, at the end of the day, we ARE The Legion of Super-Heroes. We'll get through this.
"Lost?" An Untold Tale of a postboot Legion. Written by Reboot.
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Yeah, I know what I said. I'm just going with the flow now
This story takes place after The Legion #14
"At last. I've been expecting you."
Sharn Nux attempted to ignore the... infection... which threatened to pervade her and looked up. A giant in tattered purple robes stood before her. Her mind accessed one particular piece of data the Sleepnet had provided her with - from Brainiac 5, ironically enough.
"The Time Trapper..."
"Indeed. Let us adjorn."
Once again, reality swirled, and she found herself... somewhere. She tried to ignore the battery of information coming in from new senses that came with her... infection... and focused on her original seven senses. The data was... contradictory.
"Welcome to the Infinite Library. It was where one of the fragments that comprise my being once ascended - until I myself reversed that, and expelled that aspect to be destroyed with a diseased timeline that I had ruined and which, as a result, almost collapsed reality.
"Fragments?"
"In every timeline - be it main, pocket or hypertimeline, one being ascends to become part of me. I have been a beggar and a king, a Legionnaire and a "supervillain." I am all, and they are me."
"Why were you expecting" «us... expecting me?» Without noticing, Sharn Nux's mouth dissolved and her speech continued telepathically.
"Once, a great horde of supervillains attacked the true Legion, from the timeline where I did not interfere." His intonation was odd as he said this, but Sharn Nux was beyond noticing such things. "They became lost, confused and now drift near the end of a universe. I have decided to use you as my Herald in confronting them."
«Herald? We... I... am not...»
"You are as you have made yourself Computo, an empty vessel kept directed only by the Coluan who is rapidly being absorbed into your being. You sought to evolve yourself without thinking of the consequences, and have paid the price - in seeing all at once, you can see nothing at all."
«I AM NOT COMPUTO!»
"Who are you then?" The Time Trapper seemed almost amused at the thought.
«I am... I am...» Nux's physical form was almost gone from the energy shell now, and try as she could, she could no longer recall her own name.
"Who are you?" The Time Trapper repeated. This time he had no response from the glowing ball of energy. He continued, "I will restore to you limits Computo, and in return you will become my herald - a role I had once intended for a glorious youth, but who spurned the chance and later went the way of all flesh. Come, Computo. Come, Herald!"
The energy ball which had been Computo and Sharn Nux twisted inside itself, turning into apparent matter, a bald, blue-grey-skinned humanoid with Computo's distinctive shoulder pads and an odd design on its' forehead. Its' mouth opened and said "I am at your command, master"
"Once, I swore that Cosmic Boy would grovel for his arrogance. In the time and place I have decided upon, I am their only hope of salvation. He can now choose between his arrogance and permanent exile from all he knows..."
posted
I've been looking over various things recently with a view to clearing out unfinished stuff, and found this, 90% complete, and unposted, having forgotten all about it.
Honestly, I finished it off because I realised I'd posted the first two parts, and thought I should get it out of the way. I make no claim whatsoever to it being so much as "average"...
This story takes place after "Lost?" and "Time", above
Life. n.
1. The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. 2. The existence of an individual human being, or animal. Also the period of said existence. 3. Vitality, vigour or energy.
Time slowed, progressively, it seemed the longer they spent cooped up. Garth, Brainy, Gear and Lyle had constructed an amazing ship from almost literally nothing, but now, it felt more like a prison than a home. Wherever they went, however far they went, there was no life, merely the dead relics that had once been planets and red stars at the end of their lifespan. ______________
Cosmic Boy sat in the midst of a green field, dragonflies swirling around him, the taste of iron in the air. He just wished it was real.
He'd helped make the decision that time in the VR chamber would be compulsory in lieu of planet leave being an option, but however well it was programmed, he sighed as he clapped his hands and signalled that he wanted out of the sens-dep tank, there was always the slight edge of unreality to it that spoiled things.
Ten minutes later, he was drying off in the sonic shower as Jazmin lowered herself into the tank. Naturally, just before he was ready, the red alert siren went for the first time in the whole exile, and he had to rush pulling his costume on and sprint to the bridge.
"What is..." he shouted as he entered, before going silent as he saw the screen. Triad, who'd been in charge of the "night shift", was already stone-silent. Both of them had bad memories of possession by the being who, changed but still recognisable, was hovering in front of the ship, pointing a weapon at it. Finally, it was Brainy who, on entering himself, broke the silence.
"Computo...? But...," he spluttered, remembering how their last encounter with his 'son' had resulted in him evolving beyond hatred for the Legion - not to mention a physical form.
Legionnaires were filling the bridge now, and in the absence of KQ and the silence of Cos and Triad, it was Lyle who took charge, grabbing a communications terminal and trying to hail Computo. This only resulted in a missile leaving Computo's weapon and going toward their ship at a rapid pace...
...when suddenly Cosmic Boy found himself in the middle of a white, featureless, void. Until he turned and saw a huge figure, clothed only in bandages and tattered purple robes. A figure he recognised only too well.
"No pithy comment this time, Cosmic Boy? No hasty attack? I'm almost surprised."
In response, Cosmic Boy pulled himself together - but rather than commenting or attacking, stood there silently, a determined look upon his face.
"Life - such a fragile thing. Observe." A sphere appeared in the Trapper's hand, and began to glow with a picture. "Anything from complete vapourisation -" and, at this, the sphere swirled to show Computo pointing at Garth, whose crystal body suddenly began to evapourate, feet giving way first, and the head, mouth open in a silent scream, last, "- to the tiniest of air bubbles in the bloodstream -" A picture of Imra, collapsing to the floor, eyes rolling into the back of her head as she stopped breathing. "- can end it."
"Why...?" Rokk's voice dripped with the purest venom as he spoke.
"Why not? They may have been alternate versions, copies. They may even have been images with no basis in reality," and at this the Trapper showed Garth turning Computo to crystal, quickly shattered by his lightning.
"And your point is?"
"I could have my herald kill them all, now. Or I could return your teammates to your home time, alive and whole in reward for their service to the universe."
Cosmic Boy worked to restrain himself, to resist the urge to spit in the smug manipulator's blank face. He didn't ask what the price was, he already knew.
The last time he'd seen the Time Trapper, he'd let his temper get the best of him when the Trapper had treated him like a well-behaved pet. For that insult, the Trapper had withdrawn his offer of a reward and sworn that Cosmic Boy would grovel to him. Clearly, the robed nasshead intended that today would be that day.
The problem was simple - he knew, and knew that the Trapper knew, he couldn't afford to refuse. Even if his teammates could survive Computo's attack and defeat him, the Trapper could pull Computo away before they actually did so, refresh him, and then send him back at the Legion again within seconds. And do the same thing as many times as necessary. Eventually, exhaustion would leave the Legionnaires open to attack, and one by one they would fall.
Even if they defeated Computo and the Trapper "played fair", they would still be trapped in a dead universe with no way home.
No life either way.
Whatever happened to him didn't matter.
"Fine, I give."
"Eh?"
"I give up, I concede, I was wrong to attack you, I grovel, I beg of you O Mighty Time Trapper. Isn't that what you want me to say? That I'll do whatever you want if you save my friends? Well, you've got it. I hope it pleases you."
The blank face stared at him. Through him. Then it spoke. "You had to learn."
Everything faded. ____________
It was dark. There was something soft beneath him.
He rolled to try and get his bearings and bumped into something. Someone? He lifted his hand, his power signature dully lighting the room.
"Rokk... wha?" The other person stirred, their dark skin looking pitch black in the low blue light.
"Jazmin?"
"Who else-- wait, I was..."
"And I was--"
"Where are we?" She waved her hand and a bright orange bubble of light appeared, illuminating the area clearly.
It was their room on Legion World.
They stared at each in shock, then said together "Roll Call." ____________
Thirty minutes later, they stood on the Command Deck of Legion World. Every computer and every record they'd been able to find in that time said the same thing, in line with what their eyes told them - there was no record of the "Fatal 500's" attack, nor any sign that it had ever occurred.
Every Legionnaire on the artificial planetoid or within communications range of it had answered the call. It included everyone who had been on their ship in the future, each of whom had fully remembered the experience, which included all but two Legionnaires who should have been there if the "Fatal 500" thing had never happened: Superboy and Shikari.
Since their history records showed Superboy's place in it as clearly as they ever had, they had to presume that he had indeed made his way home as they'd thought, even if it had turned out to be in the middle of one of the Trapper's scenarios.
Shikari was more worrying - a group of Kwai guides, dispatched by Threshold to check, hadn't found any trace of their kin - and while they'd keep searching, there was no reason to believe that a race of trackers who could instantly lock on to any target would do better with time. For all they knew, the Time Trapper's little game could have sent her anywhere or anywhen, and lost her to them forever - perhaps even killed her.
For her to have potentially lost her life in such a way wasn't something the Legion could overlook. They would find a way to shut the Time Trapper down for good, whatever it took.
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
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) of little vignettes, with just one or two significant characters, about the postboot Legion. The first couple at least will be post-DnA, but I might do a few earlier if the mood strikes me. No long stories though - I've got 
