Continued from Chapter 2; The Oracle at Delphi.

“I see the destiny that you sold,
Turn into a shining band of gold.”

In a shadowed chamber, a hellish ruddy glow signified the arrival of the Gil’Dishpan space-warper Zymyr. “I am surprised that you can warp into space such as this. It is contrary to our understanding of spatial apertures.” The slug-like alien resembled an internal organ more than an entire organism, and the speaker wondered if she was indeed only seeing part of it’s internal structure, the only part of the whole that could completely manifest in this spatial dimension, and if, indeed, all purported ‘Gil’dishpans’ were actually organs of a singular vast creature, that could only manifest these tiny parts of it’s anatomy in three-dimensional space… Her rumination was interrupted as the creature replied, “I am equally perplexed at your own understanding of sixteen-dimensional topology. I find it *easier* to warp into this place, where space is already tamed and fungible…”

“I have your delivery,” the Gil’Dishpan continued, apparently uninterested in further ‘small talk,’ “the Zazyl Queen was irritating, but complied. Will there be further missions, or has the delivery date arrived?”

“It is indeed time. The Legion will be upon us swiftly, and no trace of your presence will remain to point to the involvement of your people, I assure you,” the cloaked figure said, pulling her hood up to mask her features, even ‘though Zymyr had already seen her many times. Twin golden rings adorned her ring-fingers, one emblazoned with the sigil of a five-pointed star, and the other with a golden L.

The ride back from Delphi Station is a hubbub of quiet conversations. Cosmic Boy has retreated to the pilot’s cabin, joined by Colossal Boy, Ultra Boy, Quislet and Lightning Lass, leaving Brainiac 5 and Chameleon Boy attempting to analyze their mission data in the cramped rear cabin with over two dozen subdued former residents of Delphi, as well as Infectious Lass, Dream Girl and the former ‘Phantom Lad.’

Cosmic Boy’s outburst had been followed shortly thereafter by Ultra Boy leaving for the control room, after Brainiac 5 had informed him that he’d been updated on the other team’s missions, and that Tinya had been injured, but was expected to be fine. The room was tense for a moment, but Jo just nodded and left abruptly, presumably to establish a long-range datalink and check in on her personally. Ayla had rolled her eyes and said, “Someone’s got to watch the controls, might as well be me…” and followed them, with Gim right behind her, making no excuse for just wanting to be away from the close confines of the overcrowded rear compartment of the cruiser. Brainiac 5’s face had quirked slightly in irritation that he would be forced to remain in the rear compartment, but judged that he would be even less able to concentrate in the same room as Rokk or Jo, at this time. His face lit up when Quislet booped his way after them, and exercised Coluan restraint in not visibly sighing in relief at the Teallan’s departure.

Dream Girl had taken to informally interviewing the prisoners, which Brainiac 5 considered a useful after-combat initiative, until he realized that she was primarily pumping them for information about the Naltorian who had given his life to save them all, whose name was apparently Niko Carano. This seemed to Querl a superfluous exercise. The man was dead, after all. Still, it seemed to be taking their ‘passengers’ mind off of the discomfort of the cramped quarters, and the uncertainty of their future…

A haggard looking young man approached Nura as she gathered more information about their fated casualty, clutching his stomach. “Space sick?” she asked, hopefully, but suspecting something much more serious. “I need medical stasis, and a regen tube, if you’ve got room. There was an explosion…” he said, despite showing no real signs of injury, other than the pallor of shock. “You *seem* fine,” she began, getting a hypo to treat him for shock, but he gasped, clearly in pain, “It’s not me. I’m Carggite, and one of me got caught to close to an exploding console. I pulled myself together, but if I split again, he could die…” Quickly confirming his words with a medical scan, Nura pulled open a medical bay, drawing protest from the people forced to move to make room in the already filled to capacity rear compartment. She primed the machine for an imminent medical emergency and nodded to the young man, who gasped and triplicated, causing the wounded duplicate to appear lying down in the medical tube, while a second unwounded copy of him appeared on the other side of the tube. Alerts began to sound immediately, and the tube clicked shut abruptly while spraying the badly burned Carggite with anaesthetizing sedative mist. The other two looked on concernedly, as did others, shuffling forward, and Dreamy snapped, “Get back!”

The crowd attempted to comply, but one grumbled, “There’s no ‘back’, to ‘get’, lady…” She recognized the Imskian who had broken his arm punching Ultra Boy, and bit back a retort, recognizing that even temporarily splinted with a spray-foam insta-cast, these close quarters must be stressful for someone with a broken limb, and the only other medbay tube was already occupied by the unconscious Oracle, who had a host of neural irregularities that warranted keeping him sedated, for now.

Nura opened a channel to Ayla, “We’re packed in like luggage back here...” she began before Ayla cut in, “We’ve got no room up here for overflow. Could you get the Bgtzlns who are capable to phase and maybe wake up some of the Imskians and get them to shrink?” Dream Girl had been about to snap, but thought better of it, “That’s… actually some good ideas. But I’d also like you to gravitize the ceiling, so I can get half of these people on the ceiling, and out from underfoot.” Ayla laughed, “Out from underfoot, but still in your hair? Got it!”

Moments later she could feel the subtle shift and her hair began to rise as her head was above the plane of the gravity shift. ‘Great. Now I’m going to get a headache…’ she thought peevishly, and returned to viewing the med-bed’s monitors. A pale green mist had filled the tube, and the patient seemed to be sleeping comfortably while slender mechanical arms sprayed his scorched garmet with a solution that dissolved it, while not damaging the burned and tender flesh beneath. Satisfied that watching the patient wasn’t going to make him heal faster, Nura turned to the crowded room and began barking out orders. “Half of you, up that ladder to the ceiling, where you can sit, or lie down. I don’t care, just don’t stand up or we’ll be bumping heads. Anyone who can phase or shrink or, I don’t know, make spaces bigger on the inside than the outside, please do so to give us some breathing room.” The tension dissolved somewhat at her joke about making the room bigger, and people began to move, their concerns over their impending circumstances momentarily put on hold as they elbowed and jostled into more comfortable arrangements.

Brainiac 5 shot Dream Girl a glance that somehow conveyed his appreciation, as he and Cham continued their after-action debriefing. Chamelon Boy continued unconcerned about the presence or absence of the Oracle’s many employees milling around them. “His birth name was Alakrael Wuor, but he only went by the name ‘Oracle.’ The machines he stayed connected to kept him in a half-sleeping state, and, in theory, greatly enhanced the frequency and clarity of his visions, allowing him to use lucid dreaming techniques to direct the visions to specific areas and individuals, which, as I understand it from the other Naltorians gossiping, was supposed to be impossible.”

Brainy nodded, “Dream Girl concurs, and remained unconvinced. My own review of his outcasts to his ‘clients’ confirm her suspicions, as the details he provided them are a rambling overview, at best, and often wrong in specific details, while the messages that those clients *received* were eerily precise, and did not match what the Oracle had sent out.”

Cham’s antennae straightened with surprise. He had expected something odd was up, but not this, “So you’re saying that the Oracle and his entire operation was just a patsy, for some third party?”

“Exactly,” Brainy confirmed. “Any other pertinent information from your reconnaissance?”

Chameleon Boy paused, organizing his thoughts and dismissing any details that the Coluan might not find ‘pertinent,’ “Wuor was a post-human supremacist, recruiting humans with abilities, such as Bgtlzns, Imskians, Carggites, Titanians, and his fellow Naltorians, counting on anti-Earth backlash sentiment from the recent events on Earth. Several of his crew had family or friends or homes on Earth, and were kicked off or persecuted during the anti-alien purges. Wuor had no use for non-humanoids, like Jaquans or Durlans, nor for non-Earth humaniforms without posthuman abilities, like most Xanthuans, Winathians, etc.”

“Charming, Neidrigh’s legacy continues to plague us, even after the man himself has passed,” Brainy scowled, suspecting that Coluans would also be on his list of unwanted races, not that any Coluan shouldn’t be able to spot the inconsistencies in the Oracle’s schemes… Out of his peripheral vision, he caught Infectious Lass tilting her head to one side at his use of the word ‘plague,’ and made a mental note to no longer use that term negatively before returning to his conversation with the Espionage Squad’s leader, “But how is this important to us?”

“In the long-term, it means that we have to do a better job of reminding non-Earthers that Earth is once again open to all people, humanoid, non-humanoid, human or post-human, to prevent these sorts of artificial divisions,” Chameleon Boy explained, “Publically transparent missions records of Legionnaries from diverse backgrounds working together can only help with awareness and outreach.”

Brainy waved this aside, “I appreciate that you’re attempting to anticipate and undermine future threats, but social engineering is not my strong suit. Pursue this further with Jacques and Tinya. What was the organizational structure here?”

Cham shifted gears, “Wuor had final say, but spent most of his time dreaming. The Titanian, Soma, aka Keiris Taeon, was effectively in command, and was constantly scanning everyone, which made my job a nightmare. Fortunately he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, and while he scanned every crewperson daily, he didn’t scan the furniture, or keep track of how many chairs there were in the room at any given time. While not as strongly anti-Earth, Soma did not care for non-powered individuals, and didn’t seem to like other Titanians much, which is why he was the only one working here.”

Brainy perked up at this, “It seems very likely, with his abilities, that this Taeon would be our best source for further information as to our mysterious third party.”

“Do you have a current theory?” Cham asks.

“Someone has covertly hacked SP communications, and gone to circuitous lengths to create this false trail, so that no one will think to re-encrypt all Science Police security channels and thus lock them out of their information resource.” Cham looks at his Flight Ring meaningfully, but Brainy nods his head in the negative, and neither speak further of what they have just realized…

Infectious Lass found herself sitting on the ceiling with Phantom Lad and four other Bgtzlns (two of which were incapable of phasing at the current time, and were occupying muich of the same space as their two phase-capable shipmates, giving them an eerie two-headed, four armed aspect) who had worked for the Oracle, and worked rotating shifts keeping the Delphi station out of phase, with the help of a machine much larger than the phase-disrupting machine Brainiac 5 had hastily constructed. Solon was trying to reassure them that rehabilitation wasn’t too bad, and that they didn’t send first-timers to Takron-Galtos, but one of the phased Bgtzlns was having none of it. “*I* did nothing illegal! I was on contract to trigger the machine once per shift, to keep the station out of phase. I’m not responsible for whatever nonsense the Oracle was up to…”

Finding the rationalizations too much to stomach, Drura shifted her awareness to the microbial level and confirmed what she’d already suspected, that most of the station-residents had been eating processed food and living for months in a mostly sterile environment, and therefore had boringly similar microbiota. One point of interest came from the medical bay, and she used her Flight Ring to descend to hover above the tube containing the burned Carggite duplicate. “Create positive pressure, and open tube,” she orders and a rush of warm medicine-scented air (why does regen stimulant have to smell like what Earthers called ‘Cajun-blackened lime jello?’, she wonders) seeps forth as she extends a pale hand to rest on the man’s fire-scorched chest. His duplicate selves cry out in alarm, “Stop her!” “What’s she doing?!”, but Dream Girl just extends a hand to silence them. Ignoring the protests, senses focused on another scale entirely, Drura says softly, “Here little guys, come on, you’d much rather be over here,” knowing that the bacteria she is beckoning can’t actually hear her words. She can feel them depart from the feast of burned tissue and the all-too friendly environment of the fast-healing regenerative sequence, and alight on her hand, to join the colonies of related bacteria already thriving in her system. One last glance to confirm that she’s collected them all, and she orders the tube sealed. She examines her hand, admiring her new friends before a polite cough from Dream Girl brings her attention back to the macro-level, momentarily dizzying her as if she’s just surfaced from the hot crushing depths of Jupiter to the cold tenuous vacuum of space. “Sorry, there were some gut bacterial that had gotten lost and were colonizing his fatty tissues. Outside of their natural habitat, sealed under the newly healed skin, they would have become flesh-eaters…” The other two Carggites blanched at this, and halfheartedly thanked her, still shooting their incapacitated third concerned looks. Years of being the only Somahturan ‘loose’ in the United Planets should have inured her to the discomfort of others, but it still stung, and Drura retreated to sit cross-legged on the inverted gravity of the ceiling, rather than remain ‘too close’ to people who were, on a subconscious level, still terrified of her.

A movement from Dream Girl caught her attention and the beautiful Naltorian mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to her and then blew her a kiss, lifting an eyebrow salaciously in the process, with a quirked lip. Drura smiled, recognizing that it was just Nura’s way to turn everything into a joke, and preferably a scandalous one, at that. In her own way, Dreamy was trying to make her feel a little more welcome, even surrounded by all these uncomfortable strangers, and although Drura contained entire worlds within her, and would never understand the concept of loneliness that so drove these other humanoids, she appreciated the gesture. Her attention was then drawn to complaints from communities within her digestive tract, protesting the new additions, in many cases, and competing for who would get to host them, in the case of closely related species. She settled down to mediate these negotiations before they grew contentious and led to gastric upset…

Off to a flying start here Set.

You've packed so much into these two posts it's left my head spinning!

The opener, with the ongoing mystery about who is really responsible for the Legions recent misadventures was fun: from your ongoing allusions to Gil'Dishpans being alien colons (or thereabouts) through to the hints towards the main villain - flight rings? Is this Lu's 'dead' self come back to cause mischief?

I found the second post to be hard going, not because the subject matter was anything other than fantastic but due to just how much was crammed into one post - you could have made three out of it easily. but then were you showing us just how cramped the conditions were on the cruiser?

Brainy's feelings as he was 'abandoned' in the rear section was fun to read - especially his restraint as Quislet left.

Nura's compassionate nature was neatly shown by her finding out the dead Naltorians name, then looking after the Cragggite. Ayla's idea for space saving was good, but Nura had to go one better and steal the show by gravitising the ceiling - what a great idea! I picture them almost Escher-like in that room.

The section with Brainy and Cham talking was too cramped up making it a bit confusing for me, though what they had to say was very portentous, and their both realising that their flight rings could be compromised was well done.

You;ve put a lot of thought into Drura and it shows. This section was my favourite. Expanding her sensory from purely macro to include the micro is so obvious that I almost face palmed at never having thought of that myself - was it Edward De Bono who said that genius ideas are only obvious in hindsight? Poor Drura, even after saving the burned man she had to retreat with obly halfhearted thanks, but again your Nura's character shone through as she blew her a kiss - so Dreamy!

Well done Set, you're off to a great start. I'm looking forward to more, more and more!

Thanks!



Ooh, not much longer now for this mystery, but it's an original character, not Glorith returning from protoplasm or the not-really-all-that-hotly-demanded return of Charma or something!

It shouldn't be too much of a spoiler to hint that this particular Flight Ring has been seen before in a previous chapter.



I'd love to claim that I so cleverly crammed all that text together to emulate the cramped quarters, but, uh, no, I just kept thinking of more to say and adding it in, and never really found a good place to break it up, so it turned into a wall of text...

Indeed, there was more of that interaction that I had to cut, because it just didn't flow. It would have been twice as long if I didn't exercise some restraint! (And it's also why I had to get Quislet and Gim and Ayla out of the room, to cut down on cross-chatter, which would have just dragged it out even more!)



Very much what I was going for there, including the people on the ceiling having to sit, so that they didn't bump heads with the people standing on the floor (since the room wasn't 12 ft. high!). It also created a different sort of cramped, in that Brainy and Cham might have been going for a private conversation, but there are people sitting overhead, kind of unintentionally eavesdropping, so that, for instance, when Brainy unthinkingly used 'plagued' as a negative comment, Drura overheard it and perked up.



I should go back and break that up into two or three paragraphs, to make it less of an eyesore! (Or just put spaces between lines of dialogue, like a normal person, which I have done for that Brainy/Cham info-dump.)



Thanks! Drura was very much a last minute addition. I wanted more women on the team, and vaguely remembered that she was off-handed referred to as a Legionnaire in her 21st century appearance a few years back, and decided to roll with that, just like Chameleon Girl and Night Girl and Karate Myg have sort of retroactively referred to, or even shown, as Legionnaires, despite us never having actually seen them join.

And yeah, I had a lot of fun with her. I actually had to look to see how many micro-organisms were in a person (I had guessed 10 trillion at work, before I got home and could google it and found out it was closer to 40 trillion!), so that she could taunt to the telepath that she had 40 trillion brains. (A total exaggeration, since each bacteria has far less 'brain' than a single human brain cell, but it sounded cool!)

Promising start, Set! Not that I expected anything less.

Some odds and ends that I liked -

Cham mentally sifting through info before briefing Querl! Makes sense that a shapeshifter would "think" in that way, and tailor his thoughts to his audience and purpose. We humans do it, why not a Durlan?

Drura mentally controlling microorganisms, and using them to "heal" people. You touched on that in Part 2. Great illustration here though.

Ayla's good ideas,and Nura's almost reluctant admission they were good! And people sitting on the ceiling

The injured Carggite!

Brainy being smart enough to recognize Drura's distaste at the word "plague" being used negatively. I love how you acknowledge that smarts include emotional intelligence!

Cos' outburst - did I miss this? I can't quite remember what it was about...

Thanks!



That was indeed a favorite bit. I felt like I hadn't really touched on her enough during the action, so I had to go a little more in-depth in this after-action snippet.

Logically, 31st century medicine would likely be able to handle this sort of thing, but Drura was right there, and more able to intuitively diagnose and deal with the problem than an automated med-bay (which should be no substitute for having an actual doctor present!), or having to deal with the side-effects of medical solutions, or how long they might take to take effect (or how a small percentage of bacteria might adapt to any particular antibiotic solution). It's just cooler to have Drura do it!



I kind of punted on that, having no idea what, in-canon, would happen to a Carggite who re-absorbed when one of them was hurt. Technically, that injured person doesn't exist, when they are combined, but would the injury sort of persist at one-third strength, or the combined Carggite have to endure 1/3rd the pain and shock? I went with something like the latter, it being a constant strain to maintain the merger, since it would be a 'going down with the ship' situation where deliberately melding with someone who has suffered enough of an injury to actually kill them could drag the other two down and kill them with the conjoined shock (not that Carggites tend to do well if one of their trio dies separately...).



That was something that could easily have spun off into an actual conversation/interaction, but I didn't want to drag it out, or complicate the conversation already happening with digressions or tangents. As the story wraps up, I find myself having to resist the urge to pad...



The death of the 'fated' Naltorian on Delphi Station bugged him. Some Naltorians are all cool with accepting their fates (others, not so much...), but Cos was not having it.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's always a treat to have an enthusiastic audience!

The mission team that had captured the Oracle had returned home, to find that Projectra was Legionnaire-of-the-hour, having handled an one-man invasion of Earth by the Daxamite Ol-Vir. She seemed almost shy of the attention, despite the more enthusiastic Legionnaires, led it seemed by Sun Boy and Dream Girl, wanting to broadcast the SP footage of the entire fight for all to see and cheer, but those who knew her well knew that Nura’s heart wasn’t in it, and she retired early, to visit Brainiac 5, in his laboratory, where he was reviewing the data he’d secured from Delphi Station.

“Anything new, boss-man?” Dream Girl asked cheekily as she entered without knocking, as was her usual practice. Being generally aware when people were coming to visit, Naltorians had terrible manners when it came to announcing themselves. She paused for a second to see Tellus present as well, and berated herself for a microsecond for not even noticing that the Hyrkrain Legionnaire hadn’t been present at the showing of Projectra’s fight with Ol-Vir.

The glittering crystal-sand beaches of Naltor might be famous tourist attractions, but Naltorians only allowed such activities on the beaches of the inner landlocked seas, as the voracious creatures of the actual oceans were far too dangerous to warrant a visit to the coasts, and Nura wondered if perhaps her lifelong, and completely sensible, dread of the ocean and it’s creatures didn’t lead to her too often dismissing her aquatic teammate.

Dismissing such thoughts, she regarded another figure in the room, the Oracle’s second-in-command, the Titanian sleep-inducing telepath who called himself Soma. He was unconscious, and at her quirked eyebrow, or perhaps some psychic intuition as to her curiosity, Tellus’ telepathic voice washed over her, <<Attempted psychic interrogation unsuccessful, as this one erased his own memories of his time working for the Oracle rather than surrender useful intelligence.>>

Brainy smoothly cut in, continuing the explanation, “He is currently sedated, under the theory that shutting down his conscious mind would interrupt his attempts to erase the information we sought, but the process was somehow rigged as a subconscious trigger. Tellus did manage to learn that he was well aware that the Oracle’s predictions were unreliable to the point of near-uselessness, and that a third party was intercepting and editing the information with hacked data from the SP secure channels instead.”

“Have you notified the SP that their secure channels have been hacked?” Dreamy asks more or less rhetorically, using the question as a moment to gather her thoughts.

“Element Lad has taken that initiative,” Brainiac 5 replies, a touch too quickly, and Nura suspects that he is on to her stalling tactic.

“Fine,” she says, forging on ahead, “Perhaps you can triangulate the signal travel times of the edited client information…”

“No. Not any more than you can force a vision of us facing this unknown third party and tell us where we are when we face them.” Brainiac 5 says with a half-smile.

Nura rolls her eyes, and says, “Okay, you know better than I what you are capable of, point conceded. What’s your plan?”

“I already know where we are headed next, but we can only take seven Legionnaires, of which Myg and myself will be two non-negiotiable members...” Brainy said cryptically.

Per United Planets treaty, Myg, as a ranking citizen of Lythyl, was allowed exactly six guests, with any additional companions being required to becomes slaves, and earn their right of liberation the old fashioned way. And Timber Wolf was not going to be one of them, having been banned specifically from setting foot on the planet, which suited him just fine…

And so the bulk of the Legionnaires present waited in the accompanying cruisers, willing to risk a diplomatic incident, if necessary, but wishing to abide by the treaty, if possible.

Mon-El, generally agreed to be the team’s ‘biggest gun’ was still recovering from Neutrax canceling out his powers, and slowly recharging under Earth’s yellow sun, with the help of Sun Boy, and so Brainiac 5 had chosen Mon-El’s friend Ultra Boy, and the anti-energy powerhouse, Wildfire, as what even he was diplomatic enough to know not to say out loud, ‘the next best thing.’ Dream Girl had insisted that she would be coming, and that her presence was also ‘non-negiotiable,’ and managed to convince Brainy that Star Boy, just having returned from an extended assignment on Xanthu, was due a rotation. That left one slot, and while Brainy would have preferred Element Lad, protocol dictated that the Legion Leader and Deputy Leader not be on the same mission team. Simply because she synergized well with Ultra Boy, and he performed better when she was present, he selected Phantom Girl for the sixth member of the mission team. He also was aware that both Jo and Tinya would handle her recent injury better if she returned to action immediately, and didn’t have an extended convalescence time for doubts to set in. Had Dream Girl not invited herself and Thom along, he would likely have selected Chameleon Boy, to allow his friend a chance to finish up this mission he’d gone undercover to help unravel, and Tellus, partially because he felt that the team was not adequately integrating newer members, and partially because the Hyrkraian’s combination of telepathy and telekinesis was so versatile, but he’d learned long ago not to argue with the Naltorian, whether she was Legion Leader or he was…

While the other Legionnaires awaited clearance to land, Lythyl’s draconian immigration and customs officials dragging out their certification, the six Legionnaires selected to travel as his ‘guests’ sat patiently, while Myg stood, filled with nervous energy at this, his first homecoming since he’d left, been abducted from, really, the world of his birth. He knew from what information left the planet that he was still considered a citizen, but wondered what sort of status he might have. Surely his abandoned leadership role had fallen to another, but whom?

“Sit down kid, you’re going to be exhausted before we even have to fight…” Wildfire said, in what Myg assumed was meant to be a good-natured tone. He closed his eyes and centered himself, imagining a perfect kick cracking the former trainers faceplate, making his anti-energy dissipate into the cabin, and his suit deflate into a heap at Myg’s feet. He let the breath out and admitted to himself that he probably couldn’t crack that faceplate, and even if he did, it could unleash an anti-energy explosion that would promptly vaporize him. Still, it was a relaxing thought, and he felt a flash of sympathy for Projectra, to have also once had an entire world follow her will, as he had, and now just to be one of many equals in this company of champions and heroes from many worlds. Eschewing the comfort of a chair, he simply folded up into a lotus position right there on the floor, entering a state that might appear meditative to someone unfamiliar with Lythyl, but was more like directed thinking, reviewing moves and counters in his mind, loosening and tightening muscles across his body as he did so.

“Could this delay be to buy time for our target to clear out?” Tinya asks into the oppressive silence.

“Possible. The authorities on my world are certainly corrupt enough, but the delay could also just be standard rude behavior, or a not-so-subtle hint that they would like to be bribed for faster service.” Myg responded.

Brainy followed up, “Even if the Lythyli aren’t actively working for whomever we seek down below, their hacking talents guarantee that they know we are up here, which is why I brought two other cruisers full of Legionnaires, to catch anyone fleeing the planet while we wait up here. Both Gates and Dawnstar are on point, keeping their unique perceptions open for anyone attempting to warp out.”

Tinya’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s pretty thorough, I’m surprised you didn’t share this with us…”

“All communication has been face to face, and while this is hardly our standard operating procedures, the Science Police know nothing of what we are doing, if only because standard secure communications channels have been compromised.” Brainiac said. “I strongly doubt that we are going to surprise this quarry, but they won’t be as well-informed as they have been, and I seek to deprive them of any easy means of escape.”

Myg finally received clearance to land, and at his nod, Thom, at the controls, brought the cruiser in for a landing at speeds that would have been illegal on any UP signatory world, but were considered efficient, if hardly safe, by Lythyl standards. The cruiser was placed on lockdown, after Jo commented that if they didn’t leave the defences on automatic they might come back to find the cruiser ‘up on blocks.’

“Whatever that means,” Wildfire muttered.

“I theorize it means that someone will have stolen the anti-grav modules, and that the cruiser will be left propped up by some sort of physical blocks.” Brainy said good-naturedly.

Jo just shook his head, “Cos would have gotten it…”

A row of slaves to their left were being processed, and Dreamy shook her head softly and leaned into Thom. “Slavery. In the 31st century…”

“Welcome to Lythyl,” Myg said without any pride. “All the social advancements and cultural wonders of the 31st century have passed this place by. Stay within sight of me, and if anyone addresses us, let me speak. For the duration of this visit, we are to pretend that you are my property.”

Wildfire spluttered a bit, but everyone else kept walking, with Jo, Tinya and Brainy taking the cues of those around them, and walking eyes downcast. In a few moments, Nura and Thom took the cue as well, and Wildfire, still grumbling, followed suit.

At the entrance of the drearily utilitarian, but surprisingly clean, spaceport, they passed the first purely ornamental thing they’d seen on the planet, a series of stone statues twice life-size, of five humanoid martial artists standing in an outward facing circle, as if surrounded by foes on all sides. The three men and two women looked as hard as the stone they’d been carved from, but the sculptor had captured a certain grace and dynamism in the rigid stone, making them seem like they were about to spring into violent life. Myg noted the curiosity of his teammates, and provided some history, sounding like an owner educating new slaves to those nearby, “These are the Five, a group of legendary warriors who seized control of this world and beat back all who would overthrow them, and return us to shifting allegiences and chaotic warlords. The Black Dragon, White Crane, Blood Tigress, Golden Phoenix and Jade Tortoise each mastered different fighting techniques, but each was an acknowledged master of their craft. Your Val Armor was the son of the Black Dragon, and heir to his knowledge, and more. Of the Five, only the White Crane still lives, but none here would recognize him, or acknowledge him if they did, because after slaying the Black Dragon, who was once like a brother to him, he renounced his name and title, and is now only known as the Sensei.”

I’ll read the new bit later! just wanted to gush about how we writers here tend to do use a lot of similar elements - like how I also use Drura to heal people by controlling which microorganisms go where. you delved a lot deeper into how she does it though!

and thanks for clarifying re Cos and the doomed Naltorian. sounds like him

and padding - I can relate. often i find myself writing interludes or quiet scenes, while procrastinating on writing the big earth-shaking ones. and sometimes I do action scenes when i’m not in the mood to move the plot along...

In a dark, twisted space, the Khundish cyborg stood silent like a statue, but her impatience was palpable. “I did not like our reliance on your source of information. I like being cut off from it even less.”

“Soon, dear Gladiatrix, soon,” the hooded figure said from her seat before a monitor which showed the Legion cruiser landing at the planet’s sole spaceport. “I had hoped for much more of a spectacle on Earth, but Ol-Vir proved a disappointment, and it is now up to us, as it should be, to make a name that will shake the stars. The destruction of this world will secure my place, surely…”

The warrens that led to the first entrance to the extra-dimensional nexus that lay at Lythyl’s heart was, by design, several kilometers from the spaceport, and flying was out of the question. And so the Legionnaires walked, Brainy and Myg in the lead, garnering suspicious stares and hostile mutterings, but no direct confrontation, as they walked. A team of the ruddy skinned natives, hypermuscular and clad in black leather, approached with the air of authority and banged their chests as they saluted Myg. He inclined his head ever so slightly, more acknowledging that he had seen them than showing them any respect, and they parted to reveal an athletic young woman with bright red skin and a tiger-patterned tawny outfit. The Legionnaires recognized her as a former applicant, Satomi, aka ‘Tiger Girl,’ and she addressed Myg with a casualness that bordered on deliberate insult, “Field trip?”

Brainiac 5 began to speak but a raised hand from Myg stalled the words in his throat, and Myg restrained his first impulse to treat this woman’s brusque manners as a leadership challenge and proceed straight to violence, remembering that he was no longer a leader here, and this young woman’s status was unknown to him…

“Good,” she purred, “You have your slaves well trained, former Third Myg.” Wildfire visibly bristled at this remark, but she winked to him, breaking character, and said just loud enough for Brainy and Myg, in the the forefront of the group, but not her own entourage, to hear, “Obviously they aren’t slaves, and you are here on Legion business. Will this business interfere with Lythyl’s sovereignty, or can the Three safely ignore it and assume that you’ll be on your way when it’s over?” From her tone, it was clear that this former recruit was speaking for the leadership of Lythyl, and from what Myg recalled from his time as one of them, the Three did not trust anyone with tasks such as this. Somehow this young woman had taken his role, in the traditional way, by winning many challenges for leadership…

Recognizing that Lythyl’s business included providing safe haven to extra-legals, and that the truth would be useless here, Myg lied. “A criminal researcher into extra-spatial phenomena has rented space in the nexus. His experiments allow him to transport criminals out of custody, which is of no concern to Lythyl, but he is both transporting people to Lythyl in avoidance of emigration protocols, and, according to the Coluan, weakening spacetime in such a way that the entire nexus could collapse into itself. We intend to apprehend him, and anyone he’s smuggled onto Lythyl, and take them away.”

Satomi’s eyes widened at this dire news, and she stepped back out of the Legion’s path, gesturing for her muscular guard to likewise stand aside. “Inform me when this researcher is apprehended and you are departing, so that I may credit their account for the cancellation of their rental agreement.”

Myg gestured the rest of the team forward, muttering softly to Jo, who was returning a glare to one of Satomi’s entourage, “Don’t look any of them in the eye, it’s considered to be a challenge to fight…”

The rest of the Legion continued forward, with Dream Girl maneuvering around Star Boy in such a way as to minimize the amount of time Tiger Girl’s guard could ogle her figure. “Normally I like it when the boys stare, but those muscleheads are looking at me like I’m dinner…” she muttered.

As they moved out of the public areas, Phantom Girl moved closer to Brainy and Myg, “Quick thinking Myg.”

“I had the entire flight out to think on it, actually. It’s against Lythyl law to turn over someone who has paid for space here for violating UP law, so I knew we’d need a situation in which the local authority would want the person we seek off their planet…” Myg said matter-of-factly.

Tinya nodded, before turning to Brainy, “And I suppose you have a plan to find our nameless quarry? As I understand it, this ‘nexus’ is effectively infinite in size…”

Brainiac 5 replies quietly, “My recent task was to determine how someone could hack the Science Police’s secure comm channels, which were encoded years ago, by me, when our Flight Ring network first connected to their channels and I discovered that their security was a joke, by Coluan standards. Another Coluan, such as that rogue Questor, seemed the obvious first choice, and so I investigated every Coluan who has had contact with non-Coluan security systems, and found seventeen engaged in illicit or unethical behavior. As I had to illegally ‘hack’ them to find this information, it would not be admissible in a United Planets court, but, fortunately, the Coluan system of justice does not care how information is obtained, only that it is accurate, so these individuals are being dealt with by Coluan authorities.”

Tinya interrupted, “But if you illegally hacked them…”

Brainy’s lip twitched into a bit of a half-smirk. “There is no ‘right to privacy’ on Colu. If I acquire information that someone else wanted to keep secret, on Colu, that is regarded as their fault for not keeping it better secured. Also, I am, currently, considerd to be outside of Coluan jurisdiction.”

“In any event,” the Coluan Legionnaire continued, “It turned out to be a false lead.”

Wildfire interrupted testily, “Are we getting to a point anytime soon?”

Brainy glanced back and replied, “I have timed the ‘story’ to conclude when we reach our destination, assuming that I am not interrupted too many more times.”

Wildfire threw a gauntlet up in defeat and muttered, “Oh please, don’t let me interrupt you…”

“Other options that could have cracked SP security included telepathic infiltration, precognitive algorithms, magic, metahuman machine interface, time manipulation and madness or betrayal on my own part,” he continued dispassionately.

“Oh Brainy,” Tinya said, placing a hand uncertainly on his shoulder, before withdrawing it.

He said mildly, “It is not unprecedented, and it would be irresponsible of me not to consider all the options.” Brainy paused for a moment before continuing, “I contacted Mysa and she ‘summoned a demon to investigate the datanet.’”

“What the hell!” exclaimed Ultra Boy, lowering his voice when a passerby looked up curiously.

“Adjusting for the differences between you and me, that was essentially my exact reaction,” Brainiac 5 replied dryly, “The notion of supernatural entities capable of accessing secure communication channels was unsettling to me as well. But according to the ‘demon,’ there had been no mystical penetration of the SP secure comm channels.” Nura looked a bit queasy at the thought of sister summoning demons so casually, but kept her own council, hanging on to Thom’s arm.

Brainy continued, as they passed identical passageways in the featureless stone warrens that surrounded them. “Nura helped me dismiss the possibility of precognition. Danielle Foccart was able to check for direct machine interface, with some technical assistance. And I appear to be as sane as normal, whatever normal would be for a unique intellect such as mine.” As they proceed down the same stone corridor, passing identical metal doors every dozen meters or so, he points to a door ahead, which has data-cables affixed to a small machine outside of the door. “Which left time-manipulation. Our traditional time-manipulating foes would hardly stoop to using their powers merely to crack passwords, not when they can already see possible futures and have no need for information gathered in real time. And how could someone have potentially *decades* worth of processing time to crack superhumanly advanced encryption, despite only seconds passing in the outside universe, lacking superhuman powers of time manipulation? The same way a human could master several decades worth of advanced martial arts styles and still be a teenager. On Lythyl.”

the plot thickens!

Loved the “on blocks” bit. Cos would have gotten it - nice reference to him being a history buff

Loved the reasoning for why Lythyl, and Brainy’s explanation, Wildfire’s impatience and the Legion’s shenanigans pretending to be slaves

Tiger Girl was inspired! Loved her characterization as someone sharp enough and competent enough to take Myg’s former position

you misspelled Danielle’s surname though - Foucalt was what you hsrd

i do think Brainy and Nura, and to an extent Jo, are becoming a bit too panel hoggy here. (I don’t know why Jo as I think he has only had two missions like Ayla or Gim, but maybe I’m biased because he was in the last one...) I do think it makes sense for Brainy and Nura, and you use them well, so it’s just a minor quibble

Yup, glad you caught that!



With her (theoretical) powers, she'd be well-suited to taking a position of power on a world where physical combat is the means to impress people!



Ooh, I'll have to fix that. Go you, with the French! (or Legionverse version thereof)



Brainy's gotten the advantage of being part of the connective thread, even if this is just his second mission. But yeah, Dreamy wasn't even needed on this team, narratively, she just kind of forced her way on to it. More writerly discipline on my part would have given her slot to someone else, but I hadn't used Star Boy yet, and it felt weird to break up the pair (which, granted, makes no sense, since I've written Nura without Thom, Ayla without Vi, Gim without Yera, etc.). I might go back and change that later, but for now, I'll stick the current team.

I planned on some sort of verbal reaction from Dreamy to her sister summoning demons and stuff, but wrote her as subdued instead, which was probably just another indication that I could have used someone I've given less showtime recently. Violet was due an appearance, for instance, since her last appearance was in the not-terribly flattering ambush and post-ambush bits...

This team is so big! I feel guilty for neglecting half of them.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Whatever security measures existed on the door proved no obstacle for a determined Brainiac 5, and it opened obediently.

The interior of the spatial fold within had been filled with vast banks of computers against every ‘wall,’ and yet was lit only by the dull glow coming from this machinery, all connected by thick snaking interface cables that coiled like snakes across the floor to a central dias of white ceramic, reflecting the dim lighting around it.

Three figures stood on the dias, lit unnaturally from below, and the middle one rose slowly into the air. She had a slender build, revealed by a skin-hugging black bodysuit, but enormous shoulder-pads of what looked like bone, carved like ceremonial armor, from which a voluminous black cloak hung like heavy drapes. Her face was obscured by a similarly ornate helmet, with a grinning white skeletal mask, like something that would be worn by an ancient samurai. To her left, a bulky Khundish cyborg was recognizable as the female Challenge Court champion known as the Gladiatrix, although the configuration of her armor and weapons systems was, as usual for her, very different from what she was last seen using. To her right, a lithe figure scuttled forth, suspended on eight metal-reinforced spider-like ‘legs’ tipped in deadly blades that clacked on the surface beneath her. She also was known to the Legionnaires present, although none had ever seen Sussa Pak like this. The former Super-Reject once known as Spider-Girl had dyed her hair black, but that was the least of her dramatic changes. A red bodysuit striped with silvery metallic armored portions connected to a metal struts around which thick locks of her hair were woven like black muscles draped over silvery-steel bone. These struts were now serving like a spider’s legs, four to six at a time carrying her forward, while the remainder waved threateningly in the air before her, gleaming blades flashing in the dim light. A strange sort of neck-brace and headband connected her to the suit, and it was unclear from her pained expression whether she was driving the suit, or the suit was driving her…

The central figure raised her arms to her sides, as if suspended by ropes, “Welcome to the future, Legionnaires. I am the Ringleader. Your worlds will never be safe again!” she said portentously before two identically clad figures appeared at her sides, also suspended in mid air. Gladiatrix and Spider-Girl surged forward off the dias as all three of the ‘Ringleaders’ aimed a fist towards the grouped Legionnaires and unleashed devastating blasts of energy!

Star Boy, Dream Girl, Wildfire and the second Karate Kid scatter to avoid the incoming barrage of energy, with Brainiac 5 trusting to his force field, Ultra Boy his invulnerability, and Phantom Girl her intangibility to escape harm.

“She’s a Carggite?” Tinya says, surprised to see one enemy turn into three, ignoring an energy blast that passes through her harmlessly.

“No,” replies the amplied voice of the central figure, while the two at her sides continuing firing blasts lazily, seeming to be more interested in keeping the Legion scattered than inflicting actual harm. She raised a hand to her mask and flings it aside, to reveal the blocky face of a scowling Khund. “The empire tires of your meddling, and my duty is to humble you.” She flings the mask aside with a flourish, and Tinya gasps to see a Legion Flight Ring on her hand.

And then the world goes crazy, as every Legionnaire finds their Flight Rings activating and hurling them uncontrollably around the room!

Spider-Girl rushes Wildfire, blades a-flashing and he finds his Flight Ring fighting his attempts to fly up and avoid her attack, so that despite his best efforts, one of her bladed ‘legs’ opens a small breach on his abdomen. He ceases resisting the Flight Ring and instead flies in the same direction the Ring is attempting to carry him, straight at Spider-Girl, coming inside the reach of her inflexible strut-supported limbs and sending her tumbling. While she recovers, he concentrates on maintaining his integrity, while slapping a sealant patch over the small breach. With eight extra ‘limbs,’ she has recovered with inhuman swiftness, and is once again charging at him, and he unleashes a cone of anti-energy from his free hand to hurl her back once again, while his malfunctioning Ring slams him into the stony ceiling with what would be bruising force, if he had a body to bruise. Impacting with a thud, he concentrates anti-energy around that fist, hoping to destroy the rogue Flight Ring before it gets him killed!

The Khund cyborg Gladiatrix unleashes a volley of missiles that spread in all directions and then converge on Brainiac 5. As the missiles explode, unleashing a black cloud, Brainy’s Flight Ring activates and says in the Ringleaders voice, “Weaponized dark matter, used by the Zazyl Queens to absorb the energy constructs of their enemies in the Green Lantern Corps.” The cloud of dark particles gravitate to the Coluan’s force field, and begin to devour it, expanding in the process to a dark cocoon with the consistency of ferrocrete, which tips over with a clunk. Brainy quickly shuts off his force field, denying the dark matter a source of energy to consume, just in the nick of time, as if it had kept expanding inward, he would have been crushed! He lies trapped within the dark matter cocoon, pondering his next move…

Phantom Girl is unaffected by the attacks flying around her, and, in some cases, through her, but her Flight Ring, however as intangible as she is, seems to develop a mind of it’s own, and drags her backwards into the wall of the spatial pocket, which feels as solid to her as any regular wall of matter would to a corporeal humanoid. The breath knocked out of her by the initial surprising impact, she finds herself flung at a distant wall and braces for impact with the edges of the spatial pocket…

Ultra Boy has gone invulnerable, to ride out the initial barrage, but his Flight Ring goes haywire and accelerates him first at Dream Girl, who nimbly dodges, then Karate Kid, whose attempt to dodge is nullified by his own malfunctioning Flight Ring. Jo winces at the force of the impact between their bodies, one invulnerable, one very much not, and Myg is slammed back into a wall and recovers enough to tear the Flight Ring from his finger and toss the betraying item away from him with a grimace. Jo attempts to duplicate this action, but his Flight Ring yanks his arm out to it's full extension so that he cannot reach his Flight Ring with his other hand, and then sends him pinwheeling at Dream Girl once again with a frustrated cry!

Star Boy is yanked up to the ceiling by his Flight Ring, and then accelerated into the ground, knocking the breath out of him. He recovers just as the Ring is starting to lift him for another run at the ceiling, and quickly uses his powers to increase his mass, and that of the Ring itself, dozens of times, slowing the movement to a sluggish raising of his arm to point at the ceiling, as the Ring strains to lift his superhumanly heavy mass. He slowly reaches up and peels his Flight Ring off, ready to discard it, when Karate Kid's discarded Ring rises from the ground and accelerates towards him like a bullet!

Dream Girl avoids the first energy blast sent her way with a dancer's grace, and then it's Ultra Boy, out of control, whom she just barely avoids, as her Flight Ring choose that moment to attempt to yank her back into his path. She senses that Wildfire is in imminent danger of a containment breach, and turns to warn him, forgetting for one crucial moment that her Flight Ring is compromised, as it begins ranting the Ringleader's words about 'Weaponized dark matter,' and drowning out her attempted warning. A moment later, the distraction costs her as Ultra Boy's invulnerable body slams into her back!

Spider-Girl = brilliant! It is such a great visual

The Ringleader being an actual leader of rings is also very clever, and I like seeing how some of the Legion are already working on their freedom...looking forward to more!

Thanks! I got a kick out of pitting Spider-Girl against Wildfire! On paper, they are ridiculously mis-matched, but the bladed spider-harness and the betrayal of the Flight Ring (and Drake's susceptibility to having his suit ruptured) kind of evened things out nicely.



It will be at least tomorrow before I get to the next bit. Got stuff to do and work and whatnot. Looking forward to this finale myself!

Kudos for making Spider-Girl such a dangerous foe here! Most of the time, the LSV stories had her be less than impressive... but pitting her against Wildfire, and giving her that neat new exoskeleton and having her carry all those blades... wow!

Love the whole taking-over-the-flight-rings bit too! You certainly upped the drama!

Thanks! I wanted to give her a more 'spider' like visual, so dividing her hair up into eight 'locks' and tying them to a metal exoskeleton (with knives!) seemed the way to go, and also make her both more creepy and more dangerous!



That's been my end-game since the Ringleader arranged for Mai Li and Mekt to steal Garth's ring for her, and I'm glad to finally get to the pay-off!

Thanks again!

In orbit above Lythyl, Jan and Rokk, each leading a force of nearly a dozen Legionnaires, eager for action, even if it results in diplomatic incident, wait with varying degrees of patience for any sign that they need to mobilize. Moments after they receive an update that Brainiac 5’s mission team has entered the nexus-space within the planet, a signal comes through to both of their Rings. In his typical dispassionate tone, Brainy’s voice announces, “The spatial pocket is larget than anticipated, it may take some time to track down our quarry. Stand by.” As he speaks, Thom’s voice can be heard in the background, “It’s like an entire world in here…” The signal cuts out as Brainy stops speaking, and the others continue waiting…

Wildfire’s Flight Ring melts away as Spider-Girl tumbles in an inhuman manner on her eight ‘limbs,’ almost as if in a spherical cage, returning to her feet and launching forward in a spring. Wildfire attempts to jet out of her path, only to continue to scrape along the low ceiling, recognizing almost too late that he doesn’t have room in this chamber to avoid the reach of her bladed locks. Still, the flaring exhaust of his boots is sufficient to keep her from doing more than tagging his leg, as she twists in mid-air, attempting desperately to keep her vulnerable flesh away from his destructive plume of anti-energy. She is only mostly successful, and one of her eight locks of hair is burned-through near an upper segment, not even a half-meter from her scalp. Once again, Wildfire is forced to call upon skill learned from Quislet, and contain himself in humanoid shape, despite the damage to his containment suit, and he slaps another patch on his leg, while spinning through the air in a way that would make a flesh and blood man throw up, avoiding not only her flailing limbs, but a railgun shot from Gladiatrix.

Spider-Girl crouches where she lands, the impact from her landing absorbed harmlessly by her seven remaining ‘limbs,’ and snarls. “You shot my hair!”

“You know? That’s actually a good idea, lady. You could use a trim!” Drake retorts, steadying his hand by gripping his wrist with his off-hand firing a single blast of directed anti-energy from his finger, like a gun. A second lock of hair, and it’s accompanying metal exo-frame and blade, are blasted away, and Spider-Girl howls, as if in pain…

Tinya realizes that impact with the wall will be less painful than her intangible form contacting the edges of the spatial fold once again, and allows herself to, against a lifetime of instincts, become tangible, taking the opportunity to discard her Flight Ring as she does. The impact knocks the breath from her, and leaves her seeing stars, but she slumps to the ground, assured that she at least won’t be sent for another ride by her rogue Ring. A shout to phase from Dreamy causes her to instinctively go intangible once again, before she is even aware of any danger, and the loud *clank* of a Flight Ring, possibly her own, passing throough her head and striking the wall behind her at bullet speeds let’s her know how narrowly she has avoided a potentially fatal blow!

She shakes her head to clear it, and sees the Flight Ring still hovering where it impacted, not yet having been redirected to a new target. Seizing the opportunity, she quickly phases it into the machinery behind it, and then leaves it phased into the solid matter, destroyed. Smiling at her success, she pulls herself to her feet and takes in the situation. A stray energy blast has started a fire next to Myg, who seems unconscious, and so she dashes across the room, running right through the laughing Khund cyborg in the process, to drag Myg away from the fire. Seeing that she is being ignored, for the moment, she reaches to the small of her back, where she keeps a phased medkit and brings it fully out of phase, and administers a stimulant to Myg to wake him up. His grip on her arm is painful and sudden, and she phases once again, reflexively, causing his hand to snap closed onto nothing. “Save it for the bad-guys.” Tinya says without rancor, as he shakes his head and mutters, “I’ll help Wildfire.”

Once again intangible, Tinya takes another second to gauge where she can do the most good, ignoring a railgun shot from Gladiatrix, which passes harmlessly through her to slam into the wall behind her. A tiny gyro-rocket ignites in the back of the inertron slug, causing it to burrow into it the wall and Tinya shudders at the deliberate lethality of the round. To her left, she sees the black cocoon of dark matter where Brainy once stood, and begins to move towards it. While her Bgtzln vision can usually see through solid matter, to a degree, when she’s phased, she can see no sign of Brainy and dives at the cocoon with a cry, afraid her teammate has been crushed…

Ultra Boy allows himself to become vulnerable, shifting his ultra-energy to flight to attempt to cushion the blow, but still strikes Dream Girl with enough force to elicit a cry of pain, and berates himself for shifting too slow. In a split-second, he shifts to ultra-speed and tears the Ring from his finger, then ultra-strength to crush it, and back to invulnerability, all while still tumbling from his collision with Dreamy.

Dream Girl rolls to her feet with a groan, and despite an obvious limp, is still able to avoid simultaneous attacks by both of the silent hovering figures flanking the laughing Ringleader, their energy blasts intersecting on the point where she had just fallen. For no immediately apparent reason, she shouts “Phase!” as she does so, quite possibly saving Phantom Girl’s life as a rogue Flight Ring streaks for her head at nearly the speed of sound.

Thom lies back, aware that any attempt to hold his head or arms up could just lead to injury, and allows the mass of the stars to fill him until he can’t even breathe. Into the Ring in his hand, he imparts even more mass, so that it drops from his hand with a clunk, suddenly weighing thousands of kilos, and no longer able to do more than roll feebly away from him. Karate Kid’s Flight Ring’s impact feels distant, like a small rock striking the hull of a starship, as his mass is greater than steel, and his body feels bloated with all the mass he has drawn into himself. He may have one heck of a bruise tomorrow, but when nine-tenths of his mass is drawn from the stars, nine-tenths of the Ring’s impact is absorbed by that extra mass. He releases the mass enough that he can draw breath, and turns his head to see Karate Kid’s Ring floating, as if confused at it’s failure to cause him significant harm, and he smiles and gifts it with the same immense mass that he used to cripple his own Ring, so that it also falls to the ground, helpless to cause further harm.

From his angle, he can see Jo recovering and destroying his own Flight Ring in the blink of an eye, only to become invulnerable again so quickly that a railgun shot from Gladiatrix pings off of his shoulder, before igniting and burrowing with a fitful red sputter into the nearby wall. The Khund cyborg smoothly pivots, delivering a single railgun shot to each standing Legionnaire, only to see them evaded, or prove ineffective against Jo and Tinya. He can tell by the way she’s tracking that he is next, and doesn’t want to test his increased mass against such a weapon, abandoning the added mass and feeling himself almost faint with the strange looseness and lightness flooding his body. He throws himself into the air with the strength of his arms and legs just as Gladiatrix fires, and the magnetically-accelerated inerton slug thunks into the ground below him, before igniting a magnesium charge and attempting to burrow it’s way deeper into the floor. With a twist, he manages not to land on the slug, but still gets a burn on his side, from the tiny rocket fire rising from the burrowing slug. Aiming past Gladiatrix, he yells to Jo, “Ultra-Strength, now!” and uses his power to massively increase Ultra Boy’s mass. Jo staggers to his knees under the overwhelming increase in mass before he shifts to ultra-strength, and then leaps at Gladiatrix, all seven tons of him!

Brainiac 5 is trapped within the dark matter cocoon. He has already discarded several plans for escape, as most of the gear he has with him, such as a small cutting laser in his bag, would just feed and grow the containment, possibly crushing him. As it is, all it would take is for this Ringleader, or her allies, to direct an energy blast at his trapped form to cause his prison to expand in all directions, again, crushing him like an insect.

Such matters proving fruitless, he instead turns his attention to his Flight Ring, attempting to counter-hack whatever means the Ringleader has used to defeat his security, confident that she may have had subjective years in this pocket of altered spacetime to break his encryption, but he should need far less time to modify it to break her control.

If only he has that time...

While the nature of temporal relativism and galactic drift make the word 'meanwhile' essentially meaningless, still;

'Meanwhile,' back on Earth, Interlocuter Rocytyr, of the Gil’Dishpan Cooperative, is meeting with Ambassador Relnic. His aides Inatyr and Brakyr float behind him, spaced in order of descending status, one before the other. The Ambassador is piqued that the Gil’Dishpan have so swiftly learned of the compromised security channels that the Legion only informed the Science Police of twelve hours ago, but accepts that, particularly given the nature of the security breach, this was not a secret that was going to keep. Still, the Interlocuter’s proposal was intriguing…

<<Warp tunneling technology my people have mastered. Our communications vanish from the point of transmission, only to re-emerge at the point of reception. Chance of interception is zero. Security is absolute.>> the Interlocuter assures in his gravelly telepathic tones, even his telepathic ‘voice’ sounding as mechanically modulated and inflectionless as his machine-translated audio presentation before the United Planets Assembly only a half hour before.

“The Assembly seems impressed,” the Ambassador concedes, “Although the Science Police will have to satisfy their own security concerns before we can make it official. Still, I doubt you’d come all this way if the offer wasn’t likely to meet our demands, and I feel confident that we have a good beginning to negotiations.” Relnic fiddled with some items on his desk, resisting the urge to offer a handshake to these hand-less creatures, in their sealed environment bubbles. He’d spent decades dealing with all sorts of species, and attempting to purge himself of any last trace of xenophobia, but these Gil’Dishpan never felt quite right…

“The concessions regarding resource mining rights to uninhabitated gas giants by the Cooperative seem non-controversial, but United Planets restrictions will remain regarding habitat destruction for non-sapient life, and forbidding the exploitation of sapients, whether local or imported from other non-UP worlds you have settled, such as the world known to it’s residents as ‘Great Mother Ocean.’”

The Gil’Dishpan representative showed no visible sign of irritation at this issue, that the Ambassador had brought up by way of rebuttal more than once, to put a dampener on the Assemby’s rush to accept the Gil’Dishpan offer. <<Accepted terms are. No Hyrkraians will be used for labor. Or other sapients or sentient organics. Only robot laborers.>> The Interlocuter turns, signaling in it’s own abrupt way that the discussion is ended. <<Awaiting final decision in our embassy. If accepted, the Cooperative will abandon resource mining efforts on less productive worlds with troublesome native populations, such as GX9721, shifting resources to newly available worlds.>>

Relnic rocked back on his heels, recognizing that designation as the native world of the Hyrkraians.

The slug-like Interlocuter was indeed ‘sweetening the pot’…

Distracted by her outrage, Sussa fails to notice Karate Kid until he has seized one of her remaining limbs and drawn it taut. She easily retains her balance with the strength of her five spider-like limbs, as well as her own legs, but Wildfire takes advantage of the easy target to quickly burn away two of the ‘limbs’ she is using to brace herself, leaving her with only four locks of hair remaining. She loses balance at a sudden tug from Myg and stumbles in his direction, blades flailing. He jerks to the side and rolls to his feet a few yards away, narrowly missing grievous injury, even though this was no coordinated attack. He is distracted by the sound of her sobbing, “Just four left…”

Trapped between an airborne target and Myg on the ground and flightless, Sussa turns her full attention to the second Karate Kid, eyes red-rimmed and wide with madness. Her blades thunk into the ground where he was standing as he begins a complicated pattern of movements to avoid her strikes. Four blades, each with a reach far greater than his own, and wielded with strength greater than his own, rain down mercilessly, but Myg recognizes that this is a pattern of attacks on her part, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, like clockwork, and as long as he can keep up his motion, and not run out of room, he can anticipate her movements and stay ahead. The briefest of glances at her face reveals that she has grown resigned, as if she has already accepted an imminent defeat, her heart no longer in this fight, if it ever was...

*

Phantom Girl reaches the cocoon of dark matter and sees the Ringleader’s face twist into a scowl. “Too late, wraith!” TInya has no idea how ‘weaponiized dark matter’ might interact with her phased form, but as the Ringleader raises her beringed fist for another attack, realizes that she doesn’t have time to test it, diving straight into the cocoon headfirst.

The darkness is absolute, until she sees a faint light, from the glow of Brainiac 5’s datapad. He looks up expectantly as she allows her hand to come out of phase just long enough to touch him, and then pull him into phase with her. They roll out of the dark matter cocoon as it expands to twice it’s size as the Ringleader’s blast is absorbed, and whatever safe space existed within it is surely gone…

The Ringleader smiles as Brainiac 5 gets to his feet, and gestures dismissively at him, as she had the other Legionnaires when she sent them flying, only to frown as he does not move, but instead holds up his hand, still wearing his own Flight Ring. “Manually disabled,” he says, simply as she raises her other hand instead, the one from which she’s been throwing dangerous blasts of energy from the ring once worn by the villains who called themselves Starfinger.

*

Gladiatrix flies back, but some sort of gyroscopic mechanism within her body causes her to land on her feet, and clamps dig forth from her clunky lower legs to secure her grip on the floor and her fist literally rockets forward, with a half-dozen tiny rockets along her forearm accelerating the force of her punch. It’s Ultra Boy’s turn to fly back, no matter his great density, and he ends up beneath the Ringleader and her two robed duplicates, who are still casually flinging energy bolts at Thom and Nura. Leaving the Gladiatrix anchored to the floor, many yards away, Jo instead leaps straight up towards the Ringleader, who is pushed aside by the figure to her left, so that he instead hits that person with the force of a runaway freighter.

As they slam into the ceiling, her mask falls away, and he pauses as he sees her face, “Starlight?” They fall again to the ground, and he twists so that she absorbs the fall, disappearing in a flash of light and energy, and leaving him on the ground in a tangle of robes, all that remains of the dispersed energy construct created by the Starfinger ring.

*

I always wondered what happened to Starlight & Starbright after they went back into that ring! Also I know it's not really kosher to cheer for the bad guys but my first real introduction to Spider-Girl was the 5YL Legion so whenever she rocks up a part of me hopes she comes out on top for once lol...poor Sussa!

Above and behind Spider-Girl, advancing almost mechanically on Karate Kid, Drake Burroughs wonders what has overcome the one-time applicant. Her moves are childishly predictable, and he aims carefully and sears away more of her animate locks of hair, one, two, three… before a series of explosions from the other side of the room draws his attention. Sussa wails, “No! Finish the job!” before seizing up one of her severed locks with it’s dangling blade and saws her final lock of hair from her head, screaming, “I’m free of you!” shaking the severed lock like a dead snake before hurling them both from her in disgust, “Free at last, you damned parasite!”

.

Tinking sounds can be heard as rogue Flight Rings drop to the ground. Brainiac 5 smiles at the Ringleader, “And now I have disabled the other Flight Rings.” His force field comes online as the Starfinger ring discharges a torrent of energy at him, and the Ringleader scowls and drops to the ground, landing with enough poise to suggest that she had anticipated this development. She rips her stolen Legion Flight Ring from her finger and tosses it contemptuously at the Legion leader. “And so this game is done. Imagine what I could have accomplished with more than a single Khund warrior at my side?”

Dream Girl can finally draw breath, as can Star Boy, no longer having to avoid the attacks of rogue Flight Rings, or the barrage of unfocused fire from the Ringleader or her ring-constructs, Starlight and Starbright. She turns to see Jo leap and disperse Starbright the same way he did Starlight, not afraid to unleash his full strength on this energy-construct, as dispersing her body will cause her no lasting harm. He slams her into the ceiling hard enough that she vanishes in a flash of light instantly with a cry of outrage, and the Ringleader steps to the side, looking at the ground as if for some sort of marking…

Three explosions in quick succession from the direction of Gladiatrix signify the detonation of explosive release bolts in her thick lower legs, anchored to the ground at this point. She hurtles forward towards the Ringleader, propelled by a third explosive rocket exhaust streaming from her back-plate, and landing at her comrade’s feet. A second later, a shimmering cylinder of force rises around the two villains and the Ringleader scowls as she slaps a control on her wrist and the dias beneath her feet begins to glow a vibrant purple.

Brainiac 5 and Dream Girl speak over each other, “Ultra Boy, use the dark matter to destroy that force field!” “She’s opening a wormhole inside this space, it’s going to explode!”

Jo hesitates and Brainy amends his previous order, “Everyone on me! Now! Wildfire, stay outside my force field! Myg, grab Sussa!”

The machinery against the walls begins to warp and buckle as the already distorted spacetime is mutilated further by the Ringleaders wormhole, into which she and the legless Gladiatrix drop soundlessly. Small explosions fill the chamber, along with smoke, and the team rapidly converges on Brainiac 5, except for Wildfire, who remains in place. As they gather, Brainy speaks loudly over the sound of the explosions, “The collapse of this space will cause a chain-reaction, collapsing all of the pockets within Lythyl, and the planet itself will implode immediately thereafter.”

Sussa briefly struggles with Myg before he renders her unconscious with the same nerve strike that earlier failed to work on Titania. Even bloodied and battered, with uniform showing signs of burns and slashes, he smiles grimly in satisfaction as he slings her over his shoulder and staggers to the shelter of Brainy’s force field. Dream Girl looks barely better, bruised and limping from her collision with Ultra Boy, and Star Boy, with his mass returned to normal, can feel cracked ribs from the impact that should have killed him. Even Brainiac 5 is dirtied and scuffed from his time in the tumbling dark matter cocoon, with Phantom Girl being the only Legionnaire with no sign of injury.

As the force field springs around them, Dream Girl looks to Brainiac 5. “Can we stop the collapse?”

Brainiac 5’s face twitches as he replies, “I don’t know. There’s a chance that the spatial collapse could be halted by a large enough outward explosive force, shoring up the pocket…” he stops talking and turns to Tinya, “Go phase Wildfire out of his containment suit, he’ll want it later. Wildfire, detonate, full force. Everyone else, close your eyes…”

Tinya passes through the air to Wildfire and, like a magician yanking a tablecloth out from under a plate setting, phases his containment suit and pulls it quickly away from him, muttering, “Yoinks” as she does.

Jo chuckles at Tinya's inappropriate humor and then the world becomes fire and thunder…

The world around them comes into focus slowly, as if sullen and resentful of the hard use to which it’s been put. Tinya as well comes into focus, becoming the only solid thing remaining outside of the force shielded Legionnaires, all traces of the Ringleaders machinery and equipment having been atomized in the explosion, or perhaps ejected from reality entirely by some spatial hiccough. Even the bloated cocoon of dark matter has been erased from existence. Like a balloon person being deflated in reverse, Wildfire’s energy form returns to his containment suit and looks around at the featureless chamber. Brainiac 5 lowers his force field, and the Legionnaires remain standing on the solitary patch of flooring remaining, having been protected by his field.

“We live!?” Jo says, half-questioningly, giving Tinya a reassuring hug, as she rolls her eyes. “Yes, thank you for that brilliant observation my love.” Recovering quickly, he adds, “Well, I couldn’t be sure, the first thing I saw was an angel…” and she smacks his arm, “Oh, you…”

Around them is the colorful spectrum of folded space, raw and unadorned, and Brainy turns to Myg. “Is there a way out of a Nexus chamber if you’ve atomized the only door?”

Dreamy laughs at the mundanity of this unforeseen consequence.

“I used to have a key,” Myg says resignedly, “but I suppose we’ll just have to wait for the local authorities, who have no doubt scrambled when they detected a spatial instability, to open this chamber from the outside…”

The ‘local authorities’ are displeased to learn of the near-destruction of their world, but Myg, battered, burnt and bloody as he is, offers to beat into submission anyone who challenges the Legion’s story about *saving* Lythyl, and Stegus, his former peer, notorious for his silence and looming a full meter over Myg, just laughs and sends them on their way.

Sussa, the former ‘Spider Girl’ surprises everyone when they reach the cruiser by sawing away the last remains of her hair, declaring herself rid of it, a parasitic alien organism that had grafted itself to her years ago, and led her to bad choice after bad choice, after it manipulated her into attempting to get close to a ‘better host,’ such as Supergirl or Mon-El. Her outburst stuns even Brainiac 5 to silence, and she is left to sob quietly to Tinya about this strange development, while Brainy gathers up what shorn hair remains for later study.

The Cruiser is still entering warmup sequence for departure from Lythyl when the news comes in from the Khund Empire. A member of the ruling War Council had died a month previously, and after the customary mourning period, new petitioners for his seat were to engage in brutal acts of aggression to prove their worth, starting today. The United Planets was on high alert, expecting dozens of raids and attacks, as different contenders sought to show off their suitability for the new Warlord position opening up, but in a shocking upset, supportrers of a Khundish contender who called herself ‘the Ringleader’ had released footage of her ‘humiliating’ a team of Legionnaires on Lythyl, seizing the approval of the Khund people. The holo was brutally edited, focusing on how Brainiac 5 had been effortlessly neutralized, how various Legionnaires had been thrown willy-nilly by out of control Flight Rings, how Karate Kid had been dropped in the first moments of the fight, the gashes in Wildfire’s containment suit shot in such a way to suggest that he was fighting defensively, desperately trying to stay ahead of the damage (and always cleverly omitting how casually he was throwing Sussa around), etc. The Legionnaires watched the video stone-faced, with Dream Girl muttering, “That’s not a flattering look,” as her image, limping and bruised, flashed past. Brainiac 5 concurred, “For any of us. She’s managed to make it look like she was just toying with us, and only left because she was bored…”

Biographical information accompanied the video, portraying Myg as one of the most proficient hand to hand fighters in the United Planets, Nura as the future High Seer of Naltor, Thom as the Planetary Champion of Xanthu and Brainy as a Coluan so notoriously intelligent that his own people regard him as a freak, so as to stress how the Ringleader outwitted and bested such a prodigious team. Tinya was stressed to not only be practically untouchable, but also the daughter of the former President of the United Planets, as footage showed her tumbling out of control, as much a victim of the Ringleaders hacking of the Legion’s Flight Rings as anyone else.

All in all, it was a masterful work of propaganda, and Brainiac 5 seethed momentarily that all of this needless confrontation had been nothing more than a political ploy, to secure the Ringleader a seat on the War Council. Recognizing the bleak defeated expressions on his teammates faces, shuffling off to visit the med-bay for their various minor injuries, he set the cruiser on auto-pilot to Earth and joined them in the rear compartment, slaving the ships comms to relay his words to the other two cruisers. “Until five minutes ago, the United Planets was going to have to hunker down and steel itself for possibly dozens of unrelated acts of aggression. Raids, sabotage, piracy. The flashier and more attention-grabbing, the better, for the various would-be Warlords seeking to make a name for themselves and get noticed. This may be a black eye for us, but, while I doubt she meant to, the Ringleader may have just spared us a month of terror, and who knows how many casualties.”

Dream Girl shakes her head, and almost immediately regrets it as it triggers a fresh spasm of pain from her back, still sore from her collision with Ultra Boy. “We can’t even release a counter-video with a more accurate portrayal of the fight, can we?”

“To what end?” Brainy asks.

“She made us look like chumps!” Jo argues, with Wildfire muttering darkly at his side. As if to pour salt on the wound, the extended video analysis cuts to a scene of Jo flying wildly out of control into Dream Girl.

“Yes, and in so doing, she’s bought us a respite from a dozen unpredictable raids along the border, as various contenders seek to establish a reputation for themselves. With this, she’s managed to upstage them all. She nearly destroyed Lythyl. She’s lured the protectors of Earth away, and unleashed a rogue Daxamite on it. Anything we do to weaken the narrative she’s selling will just encourage her competitors to try something to up the ante, like a direct planetary assault…” Brainy counters.

Wildfire finally concedes, “Fine. We have to take this strategically. We have a black eye, but it’s for the best of the United Planets.”

“So she jerks us around, nearly blows up Lythyl and gets a shiny promotion out of it, and we’re calling it a win?” Jo asks, clearly not thrilled with the direction of the conversation.

“Close enough.” Tinya shrugs. “Any day that ends with nobody badly hurt, and war averted I guess counts as a win.” She then turns to Brainiac 5, “Although a schemer like her on the War Council, the Khunds just got way more dangerous…”

And... that's a wrap!

It's a strange sort of victory, but I wanted to avoid wrapping it all up in a shiny bow, particularly since I had decided to avoid the 'someone must die!' artificial drama so often used in comic events. Instead, it's got a different kind of built-in downer, in that the 'win' is bittersweet (and frustrating for the heroes), because the villain didn't get hauled away in handcuffs (to inevitably break out of jail and return), but eked out a win of her own, despite being 'beaten' and forced to retreat (and not getting to feather her cap with blowing up Lythyl).

Hopefully you've enjoyed the ride, with all it's ups and downs. Thanks for reading!

Whoo! Way to up the ante, Set.

I love how you suddenly reveal the Ringleader's motive. Brainy's cold analysis of the situation, versus his emotional response, is well done. Wow, the Ringleader's propaganda machine sure works fast... and the Khunds really did get way more dangerous...

Poor Sussa. Great going, setting up her reveal and potential redemption.

Loved the battle. Out of control flight rings, and how various Legionnaires intelligently dealt with their situations.

Interesting bit with the Gil'Dishpans as well.

there is more to come, right? because I'm curious to see what happens next!

I am done with this for now, but I did leave it sort of open for future developments, if the muse returns to grace me with her favor once again.

Again, my desire to not have too much explication at the end kind of bit some of those developments. I set up Cosmic Boy and Element Lad for future stories, as well as Spider-Girl, obviously, and even the Ringleader, in her bid to be the first 'Warlady' among the 'Warlords' in a generation (and how sometimes winning a seat in government is the worst punishment one could have asked for, because heavy is the head that wears the crown, or, in this case, annoyed is the strategic super-genius who has to put up with a bunch of hyper-aggressive macho muscleheads, at least half of whom on any given day would like her dead...).

The Gil'Dishpan slithered right in and capitalized on the security breach that the Ringleader had exploited, which was clearly too well coordinated to be mere coincidence, and yeah, the Ringleader herself had already prepared her various speeches for any foreseeable outcome (once again, having had plenty of subjective time to prepare, thanks to Lythyl's unique Nexus chambers), having only to splice together the footage of the battle to suit the pre-written narrative (and cut out any footage of the Legion turning things around and dispersing Starlight and Starbright, for instance). Again, probably something I should have foreshadowed earlier, during one of my brief vignettes of her spying on the Legion through their Flight Rings (which can obviously 'hear' you, even when they aren't 'on,' as they always know to turn on when you voice-activate them, making the perfect spy-cam for anyone who can break Brainy's ridiculously 'impossible' encryption...).

But this feels like a good place to end this particular storyline, for now. As the Legion is a serial property, more or less belonging to all of us, until DC decides to dust it off and tell stories about the Legion again, it wouldn't be right to end it in a place that it couldn't be continued 'next month,' even if 'next month' is many months away, with a different 'creative team' entirely!

Thanks for reading!

This is an unusual take on a Legion villain where she doesn't really have anything against them and was just using them for her own purposes; I like it!

I also would love to see where Spider-Girl goes from here...her hair being a parasite is a great development and calls into question a lot of her past actions....and also leaves the door open for a new Spider-person if one was so inclined

Thanks! I wanted to create some very different motivations for the various villains. Mekt was trying to build himself a family, rather than conscript Ayla into one, or punish Garth for not being one. The Oracle was nucking futs, and wanted to prove that he was omniscient with his precognitive stuff. The League of Super-Assassins were half looking to power up and half looking to get out of the game completely. Questor's LSV wanted a super-weapon on par with the Atomic Axe. The Interplanetary Gang just wanted money. The Ringleader wanted to make a big show and so win the Khundish popular imagination and ride it into a seat on the War Council.

She would have been much happier if Ol-Vir had trashed a lot of Metropolis before being stopped and her video montage could have included pictures of fallen skyscrapers and burning districts, or if Lythyl had been destroyed, so she had to make the best of her brief battle with the Legion, selectively editing out any scenes where the Legion looked good and focusing on the initial part before they started working together as a team, to make it look like she was toying with them, so her ride to the War Council may be a bit bumpier than she would have liked... (And her position on it less secure. I imagine that assassination is not an uncommon political tactic when frustrated would-be Warlords want a seat that they just assumed was going to be there's before her big splashy debute!)

I definitely wanted to use a 'classic' villain like the Khunds, but do so in a way that wasn't traditional. There was Gladiatrix, the bulky cyborg, to represent the traditional Khundish view, but Ringleader was all about long-term strategy, and had set her organization up in layers, so that it would make sense that the Legion would have to peel back a layers before reaching her (or even discovering that she existed!). And I had to come up with a means by which someone without Brainy's intelligence could hack Brainy's security/encryption for the Flight Rings without his notice, and the pockets out of time on Lythyl seemed like a great solution, allowing her decades worth of time to crack the codes with 'brute force' while no time at all passed in the outside world. All she had to do was find a Flight Ring that would have the sorts of access that would only be available to a Legion Leader, or Brainy himself, or a Legion Founder... At that point, Garth became an obvious target, what with a specific nemesis already out for him in Mekt (unlike Rokk, Imra, Brainy, etc. who don't have such laser-targeted nemeses).

I had come up with the idea of the 'Queen Bee' Zazyl Queens of the future using weaponized dark matter to disperse/absorb the energy-constructs of the Green Lanterns months ago, and weaponized dark matter showed up on Star Trek Discovery last week, to my infinite annoyance!



That was kind of a last-minute addition, that her hair was an alien parasite and that as it was burned away, she'd escape it's influence, but I liked the idea that it was like one of the Venom symbiotes in a way.

She's definitely one of the hanging plot threads I've left, along with the business about Element Lad's homeworld, Tellus' homeworld gaining independence, Tiger Girl possibly being the daughter of one of the five previous 'heroes' of Lythyl that included the Sensei and Val Armor's dad, etc.

That other stuff was cool as well actually....I'd be into seeing what happens with Hykraius, and Tiger Girl taking Myg's place was pretty inspired as it gives her a unique position that doesn't rely on a current Legion connection to remain relevant

I agree, love how you left a lot of threads for you to play with possibly in the future!

and i almost missed the flight ring connection with Garth’s being stolen, thanks for reminding me of it. Great long term planning there!

Set, there're so many great moments here that I'm stunned by it all!

Your characters all shone as individuals and within the groups, both the good guys and the bad girls. Brainys thoughts on the team to go t o Lythyl were great too - Jo as the 'next best thing' ha! Also, his knowing better than to argue with Nura - he is a clever man, isn't he?

You write Myg well, he's a character I have real problems I have finding a decent voice for so I'm really impressed when others do it and make it look so easy - his fantasising about smashing Wildfires faceplate to shut him up made me laugh. Brainy planning for potential escape flight by placing two cruisers of Legionnaires nearby was neat, as was him telling Tinya it had to be done face to face - sets the scene nicely and makes us wonder what else he isn't telling.The trip into Lythyl was fun as was the inclusion of Tiger Girl, especially liked how Myg persuaded her to allow the team access to the nexus - nicely done. Coluan laws on data are so cold and practical... in short, Coluan! Brainy figuring out Lythyl to be the source of their problems was superbly done as was the throw away line that KK only knew so many martial arts due to the time bending nexus at its heart. That was a brilliant idea!

Ringleader! Great name!

Hacking the teams flight rings - another top idea!

Spider Girl with blades in her hair - whoah! I've got a soft spot for her and did plan on using her too sometime soon - though might rethink my plans after reading your interpretation as it's so good!

After commenting on your post above where there was so much crammed into one post you've gone the opposite direction with short, fast, action packed posts highlighting each team members situation - and I loved it! It really helped emphasise the chaotic scramble that took place as their flight rings were corrupted and their unknown (for the most part) opponents attacked. I'm definitely going to copy that approach in future.

Thom and Tinya's sections stands out here for me. Poor Thom is never really shown as the sharpest blade but his pragmatism and practical nature are usually a good balance to Nura's more flighty nature. His use of his mass inducing was well done, as was his amping up Jo's mass to fight the Khund.

The cut away to the Gil'Dishpan was interesting - are you setting up a future storyline there Set or just showing the knock on effects of the Ringleaders security breach?

Tinya being able to phase others isn't seen in canon but it is something that always annoyed me as she really shouldn't have any problems with that as she manages to affect her clothes so why not anything else she touches, or so I think, so I loved her rescuing Brainy. Where this a film I probably would give a little cheer at that point.

Sussa wanting freedom from the 'parasite' was another great leftfield curve - totally unexpected and great to read.

Brainy (again!) taking back control of the flight rings was neatly done. And the end of the fight comes to a natural but unsatisfying (for the team, not the reader) conclusion as the bad girls escape. The destruction of the Ringleaders computer banks is a pity, just think what the team could do with them. Jo's line about just seeing an angel... oh Jo, don't give up your day job.

The propaganda for the Khunds was a very nice touch at the end, especially as it highlighted the reputation of each Legionnaire to emphasize how great the Ringleader is clever woman, she'll be trouble in the future!

The bitter sweet conclusion gives plenty of options for a grudge match return bout, which I'm certain I'm not the only one who would love to read it.

Great stuff Set, thoroughly enjoyed reading this and looking forward to more, more, more!

Myg was a treat for me, since he never really got much use, so I could sort of drag him in whatever direction I wanted.

I kind of went in a Mr. Robot direction with Brainy's comment about Coluan hacking laws (in that, there weren't any, if you stole information from someone, then whoever was trying to keep it secret was obviously not doing a good enough job of it!). Kind of a passive-aggressive version of 'information wants to be free,' which kind of made sense for a bunch of hyper-competitive super-geniuses who are more concerned with the latest hot advance than patents or copyrights or 'intellectual property.'



Pretty much my end-game, starting right with the Ringleader helping to spring Mekt just to get her hands on Garth's ring (and explaining why she was willing to give Mai Li so much help 'for free'). I started out with the visual of the Legion just flying around and slamming into walls (and each other) as the villain cackled, having seized control of their Flight Rings, and how I got to that scene changed many times. (Ringleader was a dude. Ringleader was a Coluan. Ringleader was a member of the rarely mentioned super-intelligent race that rebuilt Tharok. I settled on Khund later, after realizing that any race would work, with the one-time-only use of Lythyl to hack the encryption. I say 'one-time-only' because Brainy doesn't seem likely to let that happen again...) Originally the Ringleader had some whacky notion of collecting various rings of power, including the Starfinger ring she already had, a Legion Flight Ring, a Green Lantern Ring, those four rings from the Reboot (IIRC), one of which was worn by Abyss (and another of which created force constructs), but I decided that was a silly Silver Age motivation, and moved past it, keeping only the Starfinger and Legion Flight Rings.



I wanted her to evoke more of a creepy scuttling 'spider' vibe than a madame Medusa riff (even if she predates Marvel's Medusa by a couple years), and splitting her hair into eight 'locks' and using a metal framework (with knives on the end!) as a sort of artificial skeleton (with her hair being the 'muscle') seemed like the way to go.

I had her hair dyed black just because it seems to be her thing. She debuted as a redhead, had blue hair in the reboot, and white hair in the 'Justice League of Earth,' so black seemed a logical next step. (Emerald Empress has a lock on green hair, and Godiva, is a blonde hair-manipulator in the 20th century, so I wanted to make her more distinctive.)



I was both posting daily updates after work, and yet also wanted to demonstrate how the team was, when scattered and working alone, kind of on their heels and being trounced, but once they started working together, things started going more their way, and the posts started flowing together and not being divided up by character.



Thom, for me, is a lot like Gim. Solid and dependable, but, on a team loaded with terribly clever people, not so much. I don't see that as a downside, so much as just that not *everybody* can be super-smart, and there are plenty of more flashy personalities (like Garth and Drake) who also aren't rocket-scientists, but pretty much all of them are experienced and capable with their abilities. I did enjoy getting to find a creative use for his power, and his ability to anchor himself, and several rogue Rings, and then be able to give Jo some temporary 'faux invulnerability' to go along with his ultra-strength, was a more 'team-buffer' sort of moment, but still kind of saved the day.



And that's how Ringleader could afford using Zymyr as her personal transport service in the beginning of the story, and yet also why she couldn't use him to get away at the end, because obvious Gil'Dishpan involvement might mess with their securing a contract to replace the secure communications network that they had helped Ringleader to subvert in the first place!

Exploit and therefore reveal a vulnerability, and then sell a solution! Crafty buggers!



Yeah, that one snuck up on me, too! But once I thought of it, I loved it.



Thanks for reading and commenting!

This particular story has been banging around in my head for ages, and I'm glad to get it written down (and, as always, surprised by some of the places it went). I'm not sure what's next, but it'll be here when it comes!

The new Spider GIrl was incredibly creepy with that exo-skeleton and parasitic hair. What's it do to your morale to know that your parasite is just hanging with you until something better comes along? Since Brainy took samples of the hair, I expect it may return.

I really got the sense that Cham knows how to communicate with Brainiac 5, a helpful skill for the team.

Drura was fantastic here! Masterful use of her powers to heal rather than inflict illness. I love it when she's taken seriously.

Great insights into the different worlds of the Legionverse: Lythyl's slavery and five masters of different martial arts, Naltoran "bad manners" of not knocking on doors and their scary oceans, Coluan justice and notions of data security and privacy.

The flight ring hack was a wonderful idea for disabling Legionnaires. Writing the fight scene from all the different perspectives got me truly absorbed in the battle.

The Ringleader as a power-climbing Khund female was a surprise!

Keep it coming, Set!

Yeah, I love how alien she is, in her own way, compared to some of the others.



These ideas would just sort of come to me, and I definitely wanted to flesh out some of the background, and make it all not 'this is the planet that's all deserts' or whatever.

The thought that there was a 'super-team' of martial artists from Lythyl, that included the Sensei and Karate Kid's dad kind of amused me. It's cool not just exploring the future of the Legion with new recruits and stuff, but also the past of the Legion-verse.



Thanks, that was one of the trickier bits, because I wanted to give everyone a moment to shine.



In the first draft, the Ringleader was a male, and not even a Khund, just some mysteriously super-smart race, but that seemed boring and I wanted another female adversary for the team, and the mysterious 'ring hacker' pitting herself up against Brainiac 5 to be kind of the last race one would expect in that role.

Thanks for the feedback!