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As they stepped out of the anti-grav lift into a surprising large room full of what looked like a graveyard for parts of engineering miracles an alarm started to ring out from the lower levels. The many technicians and engineers who had been focused on their own tasks started to look around, trying to see if the alarms that rang out concerned them.
“Right,” Rol quickly said, ”We need to get out to that port.” He pointed beyond a large construction of metallic pipes, “and we need to be fast!”
The three of them broke into a run, Nemesis Girl taking the lead with graceful loping strides. Ahead of them four engineers approached. All looked serious, holding their tools up as make shift weapons.
“Stop there!”
Nemesis Girl once again dove into the approaching Talokeans and with incredible accuracy she struck at them. Yet as the last one fell a blast of energy scorched a path through the air, barely missing her shoulder. Rol turned towards the direction it had come from and concentrated on the weapon. The probability was minute that such a weapon could misfire but with a bang it burst into flames and the man who had fired the shot yelped in pain. They could hear shouts as more of the workers, and possibly security approached.
Ambassador Contact and Rol rushed towards the platform and the ship they would steal while Nemesis Girl lived up to her name and fought off the Talokeans who were trying to stop them. Rol marveled at her fighting prowess. Each blow was precise and efficient. Each move seem scripted by a cosmic law of deadly elegance. The only other person he had seen with such grace was the Legion’s Karate Kid.
After twenty seconds it seemed there was no-one left to fight and she raced to join them.
“I’m confusing the senses of the remaining few. We have at most a minute to get out of here though as they are waiting for the automated security to arrive.” Ambassador Contact had resumed her form of the slinky xenomorph with sunflowers for eyes and hopped onto the ramp that led up to the underbelly of the ship. Rol looked around and spotted the magnoclamps that held it securely in place. With a little concentration they clicked open, releasing the ship so they could leave. Nemesis Girl raced onto the platform and struck at the door control that led into the room they had just left causing it to iris shut.
They raced up through the craft to reach the control pod. Rol jumped into the Commanders chair and cleared his mind. His Naltorian ability to perceive probabilities allowed him to correctly punch in the control sequence that would allow them to leave.
With a great blast they were airborne and circling down to the skycart they had arrived in and their companions. The screens before Rol allowed him to see Andur and Laser Ape were racing out towards a clear space to join them. Rol had the ship hover above them and punched in the commands for an anti-grav pulse that threw the two up towards the opening airlock door. They had barely crashed inside the stark airlock chamber when Rol punched in the control to leave the planetary gravity well.
And they were off to find a potentially insane former Legionnaire to help them in their fight.
-------------------- "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.
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That's all for today folks. If you've read this please let me know what you think so far.
-------------------- "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.
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Loving it!! I am really excited to see what happens with Projectra, and tying the social stagnation of the threeboot UP into the Green/Red mythos is brilliant, gives the story a really epic feel!
-------------------- Read the alternate adventures of the Legion after Legion of Three Worlds! postlo3w
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On Xanthu it had been four local days since Rol and the three trainees had escaped.
After the announcement had been made by the United Planets Council that they would be implementing the Naltorian High Seers recommendation to arrest and detain those suspected of future acts of terrorism the nascent religion focused on Rol as the Silver Seer had been immediately outlawed. The witch and royal advisor to the House of Afar known as Anagstru, her son Tre and eighteen of their closest friends and family members were arrested in a very public show of strength by the Tribune’s office within two hours of the Naltorian High Seers announcement.
Queen Sheyneyna of the House of Afar and her daughter the Princess Rabecka, alongside nearly all the staff at the Afar palace immediately, and also very publically converted to the Church of the Silver Seer. By pulling a few strings and calling in family favours this brought in news steeps from outside the Xanthi system and the story ran up the ratings until the rise of this obscure cult from a planet on the galactic rim became the second top news story in the United Planets. The top story being the Naltorian High Seers prediction about the fall of the United Planets at the hands of a dozen of her planets people in acts of serious terrorism and how these dozen people had all vanished.
In a matter of 12 hours the membership of the new religious sect had trebled as news of the Xanthu Twenty spread.
In the Amazer’s Spire disention and distrust were rife amongst the ranks. Those who had been close to Rol while he was an active member of the group were placed on ‘gardening’ leave. The Monstress, Lamprey, Dragonmage, Captain Marvel and Jasmin Cullen all quit with immediate effect.
James Cullen, on Weber’s World at the time of the announcement, refused to return home until this “obvious and stupid mistake” was cleared up. He remained on Weber’s World but found that despite his celebrity status he couldn’t get through many doors to see ambassadors or powerful politicians. Instead he appeared on ever talk show, spoke vigorously in every news interview and appeared at every rally he could physically manage in his waking day.
On Earth, the Legion, long a force for social change, took up the cause and publicly refused to aid the United Planets any further until it released those arrested on Xanthu and rescinded the order of arrest for the suspected Naltorian terrorists. The Legion Flight ring, something that after the initial interest had petered out, became a must have accessory for those against the sudden draconian measures introduced by the United Planets. After Raymond Luxury Yacht was seen at the the much anticipated red carpet opening for the action Holo ‘Bad Day on Alderbaran’ sporting replica Legion flight rings on each of his fingers their sale and spread outstripped supply.
It was announced, then within an hour denied, that within the United Planets there was talk of outlawing the Legion and the wearing of their stylized rings.
If ever there was an event that could be described as “pouring fuel onto a fire” it was this story. Even those citizens who had not been paying attention to the news story, perhaps thinking it was another publicity stunt by the Legion, stopped and considered the appalling treatment by the UP towards its own citizens.
On a further twelve planets, including Mars, Trom and Titan, the armed forces were called in to quell the public shows of support for those arrested in the initial raids and the twelve suspected terrorists.
-------------------- "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.
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Currently he was in a small dark room that had a stale metallic smell, being hung by thick metal chains ten feet above a pit full of venomous snakes. It wasn’t how he hoped his first meeting with Projectra in over a year would start. He only hoped his companions weren’t being treated in such a barbaric way. He hated to think of the damage N’Gok or Aneaelle could cause if they were held like this.
Their attempt to approach the citadel Projectra now ruled on the Rim World known as Ingrid 6 had been stopped by a force of armoured guards on the backs of great flying reptiles. Aneaelle was sure they could get past the guards but Rol knew that they needed Projectra on their side and fighting the escort she had presumably sent out to meet them would not endear her to their cause. They were escorted politely but firmly out of the ship they had stolen on Talok viii and taken into the citadel through a huge golden gate in the monumental wall on its east face. Once inside they were separated as they were asked to freshen up before they would be presented to the young queen. Even as they were led into different rooms Rol realised they were not going to get the sonic showers they hoped for, but he went along with it knowing if he fought now their cause would be lost.
“Purtha, you were always a pain in the ass. Why did you bring your freakshow here? Jeckie’s been through too much shit this past year without you bringing the florggin’ UP goons here too.” Brin Londo’s throaty growl brought a slight smile to Rol’s face. He had sparred once with Brin back in the days they were both Legionnaires. Rol actually liked the feral man, he had found him to be honest and upfront with a loyal streak a click wide.
“I missed kicking your hairy backside Londo, now be a good doggie and bring that gracious queen of yours here will you? I want an intelligent conversation.”
A grudging laugh and Rol found himself stood on tiptoes on a marble floor, his arms stretched above his head, looking at the former Legionnaire known as Queen Projectra sat on an incredibly ornate throne. The hall they were in was draped with pendants and a dizzying array of flowers while the walls set with gilded weapons and trophies. Around the edges stood perhaps fifty men and women with their heads bowed. Rol had never experienced Projectra's sensory manipulation before and he was momentarily stunned at how convincing her illusion had been.
“Well little Amazer here I am, now pray shares this intelligent conversation you flew across the galaxy for.”
-------------------- "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.
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Rol stands before the young queen of the Orandese and tells his story. From the start he is sure to include everything he thinks could be of interest. From his father's anarchic political aspirations and time spent in exile before accessing the memories of his previous lives and how that led to being kidnapped and shown the ability to alter the probabilities, to the Amazers battling the forces of the Dark Man. He tells her of the prophecies of the Green and how Imra freed his mind from enforced mental blocks - this is the only time she shows any real emotion, a strange mix of melancholy and anger at the Legionnaires name. He finishes with the desperate flight off Talok viii avoiding the local law enforcement agencies and setting a course to this mauve skied planet on the outside edge of the United Planets reach.
He ends with an impassioned plea for aid. They need to get to Xerox, the hidden world of magic. He needs some way of confronting the dark mage Mordru when he gets there. He needs to know if there are any known ways to survive a confrontation with the man who has sat at the Black heart of the UP for over 300 years and survive. He is desperate for her aid and calls upon her mercy to help them free the peoples of the United Planets from the slow death of their soul.
All the while he is speaking he is addressing his speech solely to Projectra. He doesn't try to involve the dozens of people stood so quietly around the great hall. He doesn't look for Londo in a hope of somehow persuading the former feral legionnaire to his side. Rol doesn't even make eye contact with the three advisors so stand close by Projetra's throne.
When Rol has finished he kneels before his former team mate with his head bowed, silently waiting her decree.
-------------------- "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.
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Queen Projectra leans back in her throne and sighs.
Rol takes the chance to have a surreptitious glance around the hall. The large group of people were speaking quietly amongst themselves conspiratorially, a few glancing towards Rol as they whispered. Their voices were lost in the space of the hall.
"We have come to a decision," their was sudden silence from the rest of the hall as Projectra spoke, "this one is known to us and despite their history with the treacherous Legion has always been honest and trustworthy. The cause of the Green and the Red is also known to the great peoples of Orando. In fact, our own kind father had often expressed his dismay at the lack of potential being cultivated and reaped within the greater United Planets before he was taken from us so cruelly, and our own sages and scholars have spoken about the necessity of change within the current galactic status quo that dries their own people's veins of all passions and starves their mind of expansion."
She paused as she stood up and raised her face to the vaulted ceiling above.
The crowd around Rol had all lowered their heads when the young queen had risen but Rol continued to watch her. The sense of privilege and right of command were evident in the casualness of her effortless charisma. Rol understood, for the first time, that here was a woman who's whole life had been molding her to be in command, to listen to advice and make decisions. Here was a woman who had quite literally been born to lead.
"We must consult with the Orikalls and our own seers to decide how best to proceed."
-------------------- "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.
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quote:Originally posted by razsolo: Loving it!! I am really excited to see what happens with Projectra, and tying the social stagnation of the threeboot UP into the Green/Red mythos is brilliant, gives the story a really epic feel!
Thank you for your kind words again Raz. I had to re-write the meeting with Jeckie so I hope this is okay. When I was originally drafting the Dream Boy stories I knew where I wanted them to take him (Dr Mayavale as his father, becoming a prophet type figure and having a cult grow around him, fighting Mordru to stop social stagnation) and knew I needed some sort of mysticism and was stumped until I read a post here on LW that mentioned the Parliament of Trees - I wish I could remember who posted that so I could thank them as it was the perfect fit for what I had planned. Glad you like the Red and the Green appearing too Raz, hopefully my plans for them will do them justice.
More soon.
-------------------- "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.
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A guard escorted Rol behind the young queen as she swept out of the hall and down a corridor to a stairwell.
“Brave Erward, this one will cause us no more grief, you can return to the hall.” She spoke to the guard with a genuine warmth in her voice.
“Majesty, please, Lord Owan will....”
“He will do nothing Erward, I am the ruler here.” With the Queen Projectra turned to Rol, “Give your word that you will in no way manhandle or take advantage if we allow you to continue down the stairwell towards the Royal Orakills.”
“Your Majesty! You know I could never do that!” Rol is shocked at the situation. He knows that it is a performance for the guard’s sake but still, manhandled? Really!
“Well, we are relieved to hear your assurances. Now Erward, leave us and return to the great hall.” There is none of the warmth in her tone as she issues this decree and the tall guard turns stiffly and walks back down the corridor.
“Those damned lords say they are thinking of my protection but I can discern their true plans.”
Without another word she swept down the stirs towards a bolted wooded door. At the door she produced a set of metal keys from her cloak and unlocked each lock on the bolts. The metal on metal creaking and clanking echoed ominously.
As the door swung open Rol gasped.
They stepped over the threshold into .... space. Or at least an absence of definition of substance. Rol had been inside inter-dimensional storage tesseracts before but this was unlike anything he had encountered before. There were no walls or floor, only the door that they had come through. In this place there seemed to be no signs of distance or dimension. There was a lack of true colour, not black nor white nor gray, but a shifting reversal as if one was looking out from behind closed eyelids. Rol felt slightly nauseated as the space around him pulsated to it’s own internal rhythm.
Suspended upside down in the space before them was an old lady in purple robes. Her eyes were closed and her parchment like skin looked drained of blood as if she had been left here to bleed out like game from a hunt. Around this woman were images, like imprints left behind by the sun on a retina, forms that roughly sketched human forms. Rol felt the hair the back of his neck twitch as the magicks in the atmosphere reached him. There was a concentration of mystical forces here unlike anything he had ever encountered before.
“My grandmothers magicks are a match for any Master from Zerox. She once tried to take our divine rule through force but she cannot lie or deceive us anymore.” The young Queen’s eyes were hard and calculating as she spoke. “Orakills, it is time to wake up Hagga, we need her knowledge.” Projectra’s voice was calm, uninvolved.
-------------------- "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.
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The imprints of shapes around the suspended old woman began to assume a more cohesive form, their physicality becoming coherent: here a shadow, a furl of robe, a toss of the head revealing long hair. It took several seconds for the Orakills to become clear to Rol’s senses. Twelve people in robes with their heads hung low before their queen stood in a circle, their arms held out so they almost touched each others hands.
It was an older man, stooped and bald who spoke though the voice was that of a crone, “What do you want? I should never have blessed you, my own Pharrox would have protected our world...”
“Enough Hagga, you are bound in this space and place by the magicks of our Laws. You will bend your will to search for the truth from amongst the many futures. This man from our far sighted cousins on Naltor has asked for our support. Tell us witch, what is the step to take that will benefit our beleaguered people?”
-------------------- "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.
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The form of the suspended woman started to shake, images of her superimposed over her hanging form. Rol had never seen such strong magicks before and he felt as if he were intruder in this deeply strange place.
The twelve robed Orakills all turned their heads upwards and spoke in unison:
“My Queen, the start of a New Age is upon us and the man before you has a choice to make before the sun sets today as the Red will not stay in him much longer. His very blood and bones are polluted by the silvered sciences of his father. Choose what you will man from Naltor but know that the future of more than this one people depend upon you now. The future has already spoken to you, it has given you the knowledge you need, the turns to take are already known.“
“And what of New Orando?”
“Your role is to assist this man, even when it breaks your heart to do so.”
“Enough! Hagga you will rest again until we have need of your council again. Sleep Grandmother.” Queen Projectra turned to Rol, her eyes looked wide and her face pale.
-------------------- "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.
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Queen Projectra asked Rol to leave the vault.
Rol walked out through the door and was met by a young girl with braided hair and a frilled blue and white uniform. She led him back up the stairwell and along a stone walled corridor to a large wooded door, slighty ajar with daylight streaming through in a line of unexpected brightness. Rol could smell the vegetation beyond as he had a sudden vision. The vision was gone in under three seconds but it told Rol what he needed to do next.
The young servant opened the door and pointed for him to continue into the huge garden courtyard beyond. A riot of flowers and trees appeared at first glance to be planted wildly and a jumble of sizes, shapes, colours and smells mixed and blurred before him as he stepped across the threshold. Rol turned to thank his guide but she had already closed the door behind him. Rol spotted a trail through the meadow flowers at the edge of a copse of tall spear shaped ash trees. Through the bushy plants before him Rol could see a fountain, circular and ornate. A man in a long ermine robe stood looking into splashing waters. Rol knew what was away to happen and felt sorry that another was about to be dragged into this battle.
“Londo, I thought you would be here.”
Brin Londo turned and sat on the edge of the pool. The gentle gurgle of the water behind him was punctuated by occasional sprays of water shooting up ten mets above before dying back down.
“What do you want really Purtha? First Ranzz then you, what do you think she can do? She isn’t a florggin’ hero anymore... heh heh, but nowadays none of us are heroes I guess, eh?”
“I told you already Brin, and if it’s any consolation I’m really sorry to intrude but there was no-one else I could think to ask. We need to get to Zerox soon.”
“You are the one who needs Purtha, not me and not Jeckie. We don’t need to get anywhere. You understand what I’m saying?” The feral formal legionnaire took a threatening step towards Rol as he said it but Rol held his ground. Something had to happen here and the Timber Wolf wouldn’t stop it, no matter how intimidating his anger could be. “If mad Mekt couldn’t get what he wanted what makes you think that a former Legionnaire like you can?”
“Mekt was looking for his magic user wasn’t he? I met her recently, she’s been cursed by someone called Mordru....”
“I heard your stories inside the great hall Purtha....”
“... just as I’ve been cursed to carry the Red within me, though I was never going to be their final host Brin. I’m sorry but I’m not the one who will fight their fight. I’m the one who chooses.”
“What are you.... no....”
Rol could see and hear it happen as if it were a holo drama being projected and played out around him. The beating of hearts, the rush of blood pulsing through veins, the heat and rush of life as it struggled, as it hid, as it hunted and as it fed. The air around him swarmed with the everyday miraculous sensations of life, of warm blood and birth, of the semi-symbiotic relations all life shared with each other. Brin Londo started to cry out but fell to the ground with a grasp as if all the breath had been punched out of him. His eyes streamed and he whimpered as the Soul of the Red rushed into his muscles and sinew, overtook his skin and bone, pushed its way through his veins and took up residence behind the feral Legionnaire’s eye.
“You are right, you are the one who chooses. I am now the vessel of the Red.”
-------------------- "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.
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