Young Legion Book 2 - 11/09/17 01:24 AM
Well, there were no cries of ‘Oh, please, no, no, stop, no more!’ so I’m posting again.
Original Post: Young Legion Book I
Original Post: Young Legion Book I
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/09/17 01:42 AM
INTRODUCTION:
COSTUMES AND OTHER DISTINCTIONS
I have very distinct appearances in mind for all each of these characters, but I am a terrible artist. I don't even know where to start.
So, some extended description is in order.
(1) Saturn Girl
Dorrit Ranzz of Winath, age 16½
Red-haired and green-eyed.
Dorrit wears the green-and-yellow outfit her mother popularized in Adventure #247.
Her only concession to current fashion is a pair of yellow leggings, and she has removed the ‘Saturn Girl’ code-name emblazoned on the blouse.
(2) Lightning Lass, age 16½
Dacey Ranzz of Winath
Also a typical ginger, Dacey wears the original red lightning-emblazoned jersey and khaki jodhpurs her father wore as ‘Lightning Boy’ in Adventure #247. In a concession to current fashion, she has removed the code-name emblazoned across the chest.
(3) Cosmic Boy, age 14½
Pol Hu Krinn II of Winath
Pol very strongly resembles both his uncle and father when they were his age. He wears the original, half-armored ‘Cosmic Boy’ outfit his father wore in Adventure #247-- without the helmet, or code-name emblazoned on the chestplate.
He does, however have shirts in three colors: the original ‘pale scarlet’ (or ‘dusky rose’), a second in sapphire, and a third in lavender.
(4) Chameleon (United Planets Universal Alphanumeric Designation (UPUAD) #U0373-WV451) perhaps 15-16 years old Earth Standard, in a race that lives only 50-60 years
He has the typical appearance of the registered United Planets Durlan Default Form.
Originally presenting without clothing, (although ‘smooth’, with no evident primary or secondary sexual characteristics) he has now taken to ‘wearing’ Reep Daggle’s blue-and-white chainmail-shirt outfit.
(5, 6 ,7) The Triplicate Girls
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey Ffarr of Carggg
Actual ages ll ½, but to accelerated aging due to their condition, they physically appear to be about 17.
In another year Earth-standard, they will look twenty.
The Ffarr girls are from an area of Carggg originally colonized primarily by settlers of Japanese descent. Physically, the three are virtually indistinguishable, except each has a small tattoo at the base of the neck, just below the left jugular vein. Ffiona has an interlac ‘i’, Ffarrah an ‘a’, and Ffey an ‘e’. When they merge, these tattoos form a symbol similar to the astrological sign ‘Libra’.
The girls wear outfits almost identical to Lluornu Durgo’s original purple-and-orange caped outfit. In a concession to current fashion, they have added orange leggings. Their outfits are slightly different hues: Ffarrah is more violet and gold, while Ffey wears lavender and peach.
(8) Shrinking Violet, age 14½
Eulia M’Kord (pronounced A-Ool-Yah Mik-Kord) of Orzde.
She is a big, strapping farmgirl, easily the tallest and widest of the Super Hero Club.
If anyone were to draw her, I would expect her to appear pseudo-Polynesian: Samoan, perhaps, or Maori.
She wears an outfit similar to Salu Digby’s original short-dress-with-wide-lapels, but in sky-blue, rather than Salu's chartreuse. In a concession to current fashion, she has added blue leggings.
(In the Earth-K2 paracosm, the Irulan Krill appear humanoid, but are gender-reversed. Males nurse the offspring, and thus are ‘female’-appearing. Eulia is therefore technically male, while, for example, Lalo Muldron of Imsk is technically female. (And by this time in his life, probably a proud mama.) Eulia is at present unaware of this inter-species difference, although the Winathan kids (who are aware that their ‘Aunt Salu’ is technically their uncle) and Phantom Girl do know.
(9) Phantom Girl, age 15½
Irinia Apero of Bgztl
Irinia’s appearance is based on an old college Inorganic Chemistry lab partner of mine, who was a citizen of Nigeria. He was the first black person I ever met.
Not that the was the first African-American I had ever met (he was not American). He was black. His skin was actually an pure, elegant, handsome black. Not really dark brown, but really, truly black. So black it shone with blue highlights in the mid-day sun.
Irinia has facial features similar to Terran East Africans, but her skin is deep, indigo blue, like the highlights of my friend’s skin. Her hair is tightly curled, cut short, and the colour of fine gold. Her eyes are a deep, dark, reddish-brown, and in direct sunlight glow blood-red. (My grand-daughter has eyes like this.)
She wears the original ‘Phantom Girl’ costume, all-white, with boots and cape, and the Interlac ‘P’ (a mirror-reversed ‘D|”) as a chest emblem.
Note that Bgztlrs are also not precisely Terran. Also, in her first appearances, Tinya Wazzo was depicted with pale blue skin.
(10) Ten
Txarlz Luz 5423 of Colu (Yod System), age 7½, Earth Standard.
Ten wears a simple violet-and-lavender one-piece jumpsuit, with a stylized ten of diamonds playing card emblazoned over the left breast pocket.
Aside from his green* skin, yellow sclera, and bald head, he looks like an ordinary Terran second-grader.
(He shaves his head. His hair is naturally pea-green.)
He is always accompanied by his robo-nanny, which has the appearance of a featureless silver sphere. His first nanny was named ‘Mr. Andrews’, his second, and current, is named ‘Vesta’.
(* Actually chartreuse with many teal freckles.)
(11) Polar Lass, age 15
Kylda Zimm of Tharr
She is slender, blonde and blue-eyed, a Terran of evidently Scandinavian descent. Like all Tharrans, she is small in stature; at age 14, she is not even five feet tall. She wears the traditional mauve-and-white, fur-trimmed costume of her people.
Kylda herself is rather quiet, and perhaps that is why she was attracted to Matter-Eater Lad Two’s naturally outgoing personality and effortless eccentricity.
The two face one insurmountable obstacle. Their metabolisms are wholly incompatible. Kylda is certain to someday have her heart broken, and someday wind up marrying some perfectly ordinary Tharran boy.
(12) Matter-Eater Lad Two, age 16
Hillarie Norjay of Bismoll
Were you to take a time machine, and bring young Tenzil Kem and Hillarie Norjay together, they would seem virtually identical, both in costume and countenance, with the exception that Hillarie would be about six inches taller, and proportionally more slim.
As Hillarie is about a foot taller than Kylda, they make quite a couple.
(Note: If Tenzil Kem had not eaten the Miracle Machine, it is almost certain that Bismoll would not exist, as Bismollian physiology is an intersection of several unlikely simultaneous mutations. Just the sort of thing you would expect from a release of the Miracle Machine’s Infinitely Improbabilistic energies. Yes, I know, causaility, yadda yadda yadda. Well, Infinite Improbability and Quantum, so there.)
COSTUMES AND OTHER DISTINCTIONS
I have very distinct appearances in mind for all each of these characters, but I am a terrible artist. I don't even know where to start.
So, some extended description is in order.
(1) Saturn Girl
Dorrit Ranzz of Winath, age 16½
Red-haired and green-eyed.
Dorrit wears the green-and-yellow outfit her mother popularized in Adventure #247.
Her only concession to current fashion is a pair of yellow leggings, and she has removed the ‘Saturn Girl’ code-name emblazoned on the blouse.
(2) Lightning Lass, age 16½
Dacey Ranzz of Winath
Also a typical ginger, Dacey wears the original red lightning-emblazoned jersey and khaki jodhpurs her father wore as ‘Lightning Boy’ in Adventure #247. In a concession to current fashion, she has removed the code-name emblazoned across the chest.
(3) Cosmic Boy, age 14½
Pol Hu Krinn II of Winath
Pol very strongly resembles both his uncle and father when they were his age. He wears the original, half-armored ‘Cosmic Boy’ outfit his father wore in Adventure #247-- without the helmet, or code-name emblazoned on the chestplate.
He does, however have shirts in three colors: the original ‘pale scarlet’ (or ‘dusky rose’), a second in sapphire, and a third in lavender.
(4) Chameleon (United Planets Universal Alphanumeric Designation (UPUAD) #U0373-WV451) perhaps 15-16 years old Earth Standard, in a race that lives only 50-60 years
He has the typical appearance of the registered United Planets Durlan Default Form.
Originally presenting without clothing, (although ‘smooth’, with no evident primary or secondary sexual characteristics) he has now taken to ‘wearing’ Reep Daggle’s blue-and-white chainmail-shirt outfit.
(5, 6 ,7) The Triplicate Girls
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey Ffarr of Carggg
Actual ages ll ½, but to accelerated aging due to their condition, they physically appear to be about 17.
In another year Earth-standard, they will look twenty.
The Ffarr girls are from an area of Carggg originally colonized primarily by settlers of Japanese descent. Physically, the three are virtually indistinguishable, except each has a small tattoo at the base of the neck, just below the left jugular vein. Ffiona has an interlac ‘i’, Ffarrah an ‘a’, and Ffey an ‘e’. When they merge, these tattoos form a symbol similar to the astrological sign ‘Libra’.
The girls wear outfits almost identical to Lluornu Durgo’s original purple-and-orange caped outfit. In a concession to current fashion, they have added orange leggings. Their outfits are slightly different hues: Ffarrah is more violet and gold, while Ffey wears lavender and peach.
(8) Shrinking Violet, age 14½
Eulia M’Kord (pronounced A-Ool-Yah Mik-Kord) of Orzde.
She is a big, strapping farmgirl, easily the tallest and widest of the Super Hero Club.
If anyone were to draw her, I would expect her to appear pseudo-Polynesian: Samoan, perhaps, or Maori.
She wears an outfit similar to Salu Digby’s original short-dress-with-wide-lapels, but in sky-blue, rather than Salu's chartreuse. In a concession to current fashion, she has added blue leggings.
(In the Earth-K2 paracosm, the Irulan Krill appear humanoid, but are gender-reversed. Males nurse the offspring, and thus are ‘female’-appearing. Eulia is therefore technically male, while, for example, Lalo Muldron of Imsk is technically female. (And by this time in his life, probably a proud mama.) Eulia is at present unaware of this inter-species difference, although the Winathan kids (who are aware that their ‘Aunt Salu’ is technically their uncle) and Phantom Girl do know.
(9) Phantom Girl, age 15½
Irinia Apero of Bgztl
Irinia’s appearance is based on an old college Inorganic Chemistry lab partner of mine, who was a citizen of Nigeria. He was the first black person I ever met.
Not that the was the first African-American I had ever met (he was not American). He was black. His skin was actually an pure, elegant, handsome black. Not really dark brown, but really, truly black. So black it shone with blue highlights in the mid-day sun.
Irinia has facial features similar to Terran East Africans, but her skin is deep, indigo blue, like the highlights of my friend’s skin. Her hair is tightly curled, cut short, and the colour of fine gold. Her eyes are a deep, dark, reddish-brown, and in direct sunlight glow blood-red. (My grand-daughter has eyes like this.)
She wears the original ‘Phantom Girl’ costume, all-white, with boots and cape, and the Interlac ‘P’ (a mirror-reversed ‘D|”) as a chest emblem.
Note that Bgztlrs are also not precisely Terran. Also, in her first appearances, Tinya Wazzo was depicted with pale blue skin.
(10) Ten
Txarlz Luz 5423 of Colu (Yod System), age 7½, Earth Standard.
Ten wears a simple violet-and-lavender one-piece jumpsuit, with a stylized ten of diamonds playing card emblazoned over the left breast pocket.
Aside from his green* skin, yellow sclera, and bald head, he looks like an ordinary Terran second-grader.
(He shaves his head. His hair is naturally pea-green.)
He is always accompanied by his robo-nanny, which has the appearance of a featureless silver sphere. His first nanny was named ‘Mr. Andrews’, his second, and current, is named ‘Vesta’.
(* Actually chartreuse with many teal freckles.)
(11) Polar Lass, age 15
Kylda Zimm of Tharr
She is slender, blonde and blue-eyed, a Terran of evidently Scandinavian descent. Like all Tharrans, she is small in stature; at age 14, she is not even five feet tall. She wears the traditional mauve-and-white, fur-trimmed costume of her people.
Kylda herself is rather quiet, and perhaps that is why she was attracted to Matter-Eater Lad Two’s naturally outgoing personality and effortless eccentricity.
The two face one insurmountable obstacle. Their metabolisms are wholly incompatible. Kylda is certain to someday have her heart broken, and someday wind up marrying some perfectly ordinary Tharran boy.
(12) Matter-Eater Lad Two, age 16
Hillarie Norjay of Bismoll
Were you to take a time machine, and bring young Tenzil Kem and Hillarie Norjay together, they would seem virtually identical, both in costume and countenance, with the exception that Hillarie would be about six inches taller, and proportionally more slim.
As Hillarie is about a foot taller than Kylda, they make quite a couple.
(Note: If Tenzil Kem had not eaten the Miracle Machine, it is almost certain that Bismoll would not exist, as Bismollian physiology is an intersection of several unlikely simultaneous mutations. Just the sort of thing you would expect from a release of the Miracle Machine’s Infinitely Improbabilistic energies. Yes, I know, causaility, yadda yadda yadda. Well, Infinite Improbability and Quantum, so there.)
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/17/17 01:56 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR ME
Res-Vir, captain of the pirate ship Renegade, looked more the corporate C.E.O. than a pirate captain. His strawberry-blonde hair was slightly streaked with silver, his hairline slightly receding. He was broad and fit-looking, but also broadening a bit too much at the waist. His prized three-piece suit, woven of the best Daxamite wool, was three or four years out of fashion.
He looked over what remained of his motley crew.
Bal Kozz, the "First Mate": tall, slender, bearded, cat-eyed Daxamite mutant. His mutation caused him to be isolated at school, which probably led to his utter lack of concern for the feelings of others-- contempt, in fact, for feelings in general, seen as a sign of weakness.
Adah Orion, called “Huntress”. The half-Daxamite grand-daughter of Otto Orion. Adah's father is deceased. Adah’s mother is serving life imprisonment on Penitentiary Island on Daxam for brutally murdering him.
Tulip Gor-Man, who likes to be called “Daximus”, a massive, eight-foot-plus, wide-bodied, full bellied, with hands like dinner plates. Bald from the ears up; his hair fringe hung in dreadlocks down his back. Impulsive, not a deep thinker, he was not really stupid, but tried very hard to remain willfully ignorant. His gray lips and sunken eyes betrays an addition to Pigment, which he thinks is a secret. His blatant lust for Adah Orion is entirely unreciprocated-- at least publicly.
Ir-Ving: Young, blue-eyed and brunette, mostly nondescript for a Daxamite, although notably his left ear was burned off in an altercation with another band of pirates.
Kefaz Sa-Yir: "Navigator", “Computer Operator”, and all-around tech handyman. Slight of build, babyfaced, a mathematical genius, really the only truly intelligent one on board besides the captain, in Res-Vir's opinion. Rev-Vir also suspected him of being a Darseidist, but was not very concerned about it. Piracy and Darkseidism went together on Daxam like bread and butter.
There was also “The Psion”, whose name sounded something like “Hiss”-- but then, so did all the other Psion names. Always space-suited, except in his cabin, Res-Vir considered him no more trustworthy than the Dominators, which was not at all. However, he was needed to formulate and reformulate the anti-lead serum that made their chosen profession possible.
“Revenge,” said Gor-Man. “Simple revenge. I say we go to Mars, find that Little Legion, and smash ‘em to pulp.”
“I would point out,” said Kefaz Sa-Yir, “That the Little Legion is no longer on Mars. No one knows where they are. They haven’t been seen for seven tendays. Perhaps someone else has smashed them into pulp for us.”
“Well, we gotta find ‘em,” said Gor-Man, “And if they’re not smashed already, we smash ‘em. And if they're dead, we dance on their corpses.”
“In the first place,” said Kefaz Sa-Yir, “Without the kryptonite Gol-Ber was getting for us, we are not smashing anybody anytime soon. The artificial stuff The Psion has been whippin up is devilishly tricky; that last batch of serum had me heaving my guts out. In the second place, until we can get the life support in this boat up and running reliably, we need to stay within point-oh-one parsecs of a yellow star, or we suffocate in space. That makes traveling difficult.”
“And in the third place,” said Bal Kozz, “Where’s the percentage? We kill the Legion. We kill the Mars SP. We kill a hundred thousand more, just for the sprock of it. Then what? We’re still broke, with a broken-down ship, barely making ends meet selling hyper-cannabinol on the black market.” He shuddered. “Oh, for the days when a pirate’s life was easy, and there were plenty of chickens to pluck.”
“We gotta keep ‘em afraid of us,” said Gor-Man. “Makes life easier, right? Keep 'em thinking, 'The Daxamites are coming, let’s pile up all our valuables outside the door, and maybe they’ll go away.'”
“When was life ever like that?” Res-Vir asked. “Daxam isn’t scared of us. Rokyn isn’t scared of us. Neither are Kormo, or Colu, or Zuun. Bgztl and Imsk have developed some pretty effective anti-Daxamite weapons, and they’re spreading throughout the U.P. I hear Phlon and Myar are in a race to see who can finish their anti-anti-lead-serum-gas first.”
The Psion slithered over to the pirate crew.
“I have a distant associate,” he said, “who has had some luck with extract of Scarlet Jungle Blood Morel from Rokyn. An entirely different approach. Properly compounded, it has proved an effective antidote to lead poisoning among some Daxamites. Contraindications of hyperactivity and insomnia have been noted, but there are sedatives that could ameliorate those.”
“Rokyn?” snapped Huntress. “How do you expect us to get to Rokyn? First we need cash to fix this bucket of bolts.”
“I only suggest,” said The Psion, “That a fraction of the next sales of hyper-cannabinol might be put to use purchasing a sample from my associate. Then put some cash towards Life Support Repair, then eventually we find our way to the Malhaya quadrant, for a complete overhaul.”
“That would take more than one sale,” said Huntress. “And it will take time, unless you have found a way to speed up the manufacturing process.”
“Sadly, no,” said The Psion.
“What we need is a new angle,” said Res-Vir. “Another way to raise cash. Something else else no one else has thought of before. Somewhere the market isn’t saturated with pirates already.”
The group was silent, each lost in thought.
“I still like Revenge,” said Gor-Man.
“Oh, shut up,” said Bal Kozz.
A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR ME
Res-Vir, captain of the pirate ship Renegade, looked more the corporate C.E.O. than a pirate captain. His strawberry-blonde hair was slightly streaked with silver, his hairline slightly receding. He was broad and fit-looking, but also broadening a bit too much at the waist. His prized three-piece suit, woven of the best Daxamite wool, was three or four years out of fashion.
He looked over what remained of his motley crew.
Bal Kozz, the "First Mate": tall, slender, bearded, cat-eyed Daxamite mutant. His mutation caused him to be isolated at school, which probably led to his utter lack of concern for the feelings of others-- contempt, in fact, for feelings in general, seen as a sign of weakness.
Adah Orion, called “Huntress”. The half-Daxamite grand-daughter of Otto Orion. Adah's father is deceased. Adah’s mother is serving life imprisonment on Penitentiary Island on Daxam for brutally murdering him.
Tulip Gor-Man, who likes to be called “Daximus”, a massive, eight-foot-plus, wide-bodied, full bellied, with hands like dinner plates. Bald from the ears up; his hair fringe hung in dreadlocks down his back. Impulsive, not a deep thinker, he was not really stupid, but tried very hard to remain willfully ignorant. His gray lips and sunken eyes betrays an addition to Pigment, which he thinks is a secret. His blatant lust for Adah Orion is entirely unreciprocated-- at least publicly.
Ir-Ving: Young, blue-eyed and brunette, mostly nondescript for a Daxamite, although notably his left ear was burned off in an altercation with another band of pirates.
Kefaz Sa-Yir: "Navigator", “Computer Operator”, and all-around tech handyman. Slight of build, babyfaced, a mathematical genius, really the only truly intelligent one on board besides the captain, in Res-Vir's opinion. Rev-Vir also suspected him of being a Darseidist, but was not very concerned about it. Piracy and Darkseidism went together on Daxam like bread and butter.
There was also “The Psion”, whose name sounded something like “Hiss”-- but then, so did all the other Psion names. Always space-suited, except in his cabin, Res-Vir considered him no more trustworthy than the Dominators, which was not at all. However, he was needed to formulate and reformulate the anti-lead serum that made their chosen profession possible.
“Revenge,” said Gor-Man. “Simple revenge. I say we go to Mars, find that Little Legion, and smash ‘em to pulp.”
“I would point out,” said Kefaz Sa-Yir, “That the Little Legion is no longer on Mars. No one knows where they are. They haven’t been seen for seven tendays. Perhaps someone else has smashed them into pulp for us.”
“Well, we gotta find ‘em,” said Gor-Man, “And if they’re not smashed already, we smash ‘em. And if they're dead, we dance on their corpses.”
“In the first place,” said Kefaz Sa-Yir, “Without the kryptonite Gol-Ber was getting for us, we are not smashing anybody anytime soon. The artificial stuff The Psion has been whippin up is devilishly tricky; that last batch of serum had me heaving my guts out. In the second place, until we can get the life support in this boat up and running reliably, we need to stay within point-oh-one parsecs of a yellow star, or we suffocate in space. That makes traveling difficult.”
“And in the third place,” said Bal Kozz, “Where’s the percentage? We kill the Legion. We kill the Mars SP. We kill a hundred thousand more, just for the sprock of it. Then what? We’re still broke, with a broken-down ship, barely making ends meet selling hyper-cannabinol on the black market.” He shuddered. “Oh, for the days when a pirate’s life was easy, and there were plenty of chickens to pluck.”
“We gotta keep ‘em afraid of us,” said Gor-Man. “Makes life easier, right? Keep 'em thinking, 'The Daxamites are coming, let’s pile up all our valuables outside the door, and maybe they’ll go away.'”
“When was life ever like that?” Res-Vir asked. “Daxam isn’t scared of us. Rokyn isn’t scared of us. Neither are Kormo, or Colu, or Zuun. Bgztl and Imsk have developed some pretty effective anti-Daxamite weapons, and they’re spreading throughout the U.P. I hear Phlon and Myar are in a race to see who can finish their anti-anti-lead-serum-gas first.”
The Psion slithered over to the pirate crew.
“I have a distant associate,” he said, “who has had some luck with extract of Scarlet Jungle Blood Morel from Rokyn. An entirely different approach. Properly compounded, it has proved an effective antidote to lead poisoning among some Daxamites. Contraindications of hyperactivity and insomnia have been noted, but there are sedatives that could ameliorate those.”
“Rokyn?” snapped Huntress. “How do you expect us to get to Rokyn? First we need cash to fix this bucket of bolts.”
“I only suggest,” said The Psion, “That a fraction of the next sales of hyper-cannabinol might be put to use purchasing a sample from my associate. Then put some cash towards Life Support Repair, then eventually we find our way to the Malhaya quadrant, for a complete overhaul.”
“That would take more than one sale,” said Huntress. “And it will take time, unless you have found a way to speed up the manufacturing process.”
“Sadly, no,” said The Psion.
“What we need is a new angle,” said Res-Vir. “Another way to raise cash. Something else else no one else has thought of before. Somewhere the market isn’t saturated with pirates already.”
The group was silent, each lost in thought.
“I still like Revenge,” said Gor-Man.
“Oh, shut up,” said Bal Kozz.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/25/17 10:36 AM
I wish I could draw, too, but your descriptions are vivid enough to create good mental images.
And then...? Pirates of Penzance? These guys sound a bit like the League of Substitute Pirates and all the more charming for that.
And then...? Pirates of Penzance? These guys sound a bit like the League of Substitute Pirates and all the more charming for that.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/25/17 01:08 PM
Heh. Legion of Substitute Pirates. Yep. Piracy is a hard life, much less romantic than sometimes portrayed. They'll show up again in about twenty chapters.
Meanwhile:
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
THE RETURN
Chameleon and the Triplicate Girls were the first ones back on Mars. They had, after all, nowhere else to go.
The Super Hero Clubhouse was a mess. Any building abandoned for more than a few weeks quickly falls into disrepair. There were birds nesting inside, and a sort of badger-thing, doubtless originally from Earth, but which seemed to have quickly adapted to the Martian environment.
Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl came next. Shrinking Violet’s parents were proud of her association with the Legion, and Phantom Girl had other reasons to be on Mars-- or at least, near Gzbk.
Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass arrived a few days later. They were snogging and canoodling (am I allowed to use those words?) in front of the Clubhouse when Ten came running up from the parking lot with his Adult Guardian.
Renlo Tagor cleared his throat in a very human manner.
“I am leaving him once again in your care,” said Renlo Tagor. “He has learned much with you which he could not have learned any other way.”He turned to Ten. “Good-bye, Inscio, try not to get into too much trouble.” He strolled away.
“Inscio?” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Did he really call you that?”
“It is a term of endearment,” said the female voice of Vesta, Ten’s new ‘nanny-bot’. She looked remarkably like Mr. Andrews, a plain, shiny floating sphere.
“I know what it means,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “All Bismolleans take Latin in Grammar School. Neque me esuriit,” he quoted. Tu velim a me, cum ego non esuriit. The official motto of Bismoll.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Ten, “But I don’t think that’s quite right.”
“We have a similar saying on Orzde,” said Shrinking Violet. “‘Don’t make us angry; you wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.’ It’s not an official motto or anything, just good advice when dealing with Orzdeans.”
Phantom Girl came running out of the clubhouse, and grabbed Ten in a bear hug. “Wow! You have gotten so big!” she cried. “You must have grown three centimeters since I saw you last! The Triplicates and I tidied up your room for you. We left your lab alone, though.”
“A wise precaution,” said Ten. He fished an object out of his luggage. It was the inert remains of Mr. Andrews. Vesta made a gulping sound. “My Adult Guardian suggested I keep this in a place of honor. I believe my room would be more appropriate than my laboratory?”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Phantom Girl. “Other than that, how was Colu?”
“Well, and good,” said Ten. “My Adult Guardian and I met with my parents, and they were satisfied with the direction and progress of my education. My Adult Guardian also feels that my association with the ‘Super Hero Club’ has allowed me unique experiences and opportunities for learning.”
“Do you see your parents a lot?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Regularly,” said Ten. “But Coluans recognize that each has his own talents and strengths, and not everyone can effectively dedicate a century or more to child-rearing. Renlo Tagor is a well-respected Adult Guardian, even if, or perhaps particularly because, he has some unorthodox ideas about what constitutes a proper education. Our recent adventure has even increased his stature, as it allowed him to interact with Brainiac Five and his Guardian. Have you been to visit the Wazzos since you got back?”
“Yes,” said Phantom Girl, flushing. “They have had me to dinner a couple of times. They really are nothing like the doppelgangers we knew on mirror-Tharn. If anything, I lo- appreciate them more than ever.”
Ten nodded solemnly, but with the trace of a smile.
It was another week before Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Saturn Girl finally arrived. They came in a cab, and looked worn out.
“We need to have a meeting,” said Saturn Girl.
“Well, tomorrow is Tyresday,” said Ffiona. “No better time.”
Meanwhile:
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
THE RETURN
Chameleon and the Triplicate Girls were the first ones back on Mars. They had, after all, nowhere else to go.
The Super Hero Clubhouse was a mess. Any building abandoned for more than a few weeks quickly falls into disrepair. There were birds nesting inside, and a sort of badger-thing, doubtless originally from Earth, but which seemed to have quickly adapted to the Martian environment.
Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl came next. Shrinking Violet’s parents were proud of her association with the Legion, and Phantom Girl had other reasons to be on Mars-- or at least, near Gzbk.
Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass arrived a few days later. They were snogging and canoodling (am I allowed to use those words?) in front of the Clubhouse when Ten came running up from the parking lot with his Adult Guardian.
Renlo Tagor cleared his throat in a very human manner.
“I am leaving him once again in your care,” said Renlo Tagor. “He has learned much with you which he could not have learned any other way.”He turned to Ten. “Good-bye, Inscio, try not to get into too much trouble.” He strolled away.
“Inscio?” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Did he really call you that?”
“It is a term of endearment,” said the female voice of Vesta, Ten’s new ‘nanny-bot’. She looked remarkably like Mr. Andrews, a plain, shiny floating sphere.
“I know what it means,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “All Bismolleans take Latin in Grammar School. Neque me esuriit,” he quoted. Tu velim a me, cum ego non esuriit. The official motto of Bismoll.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Ten, “But I don’t think that’s quite right.”
“We have a similar saying on Orzde,” said Shrinking Violet. “‘Don’t make us angry; you wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.’ It’s not an official motto or anything, just good advice when dealing with Orzdeans.”
Phantom Girl came running out of the clubhouse, and grabbed Ten in a bear hug. “Wow! You have gotten so big!” she cried. “You must have grown three centimeters since I saw you last! The Triplicates and I tidied up your room for you. We left your lab alone, though.”
“A wise precaution,” said Ten. He fished an object out of his luggage. It was the inert remains of Mr. Andrews. Vesta made a gulping sound. “My Adult Guardian suggested I keep this in a place of honor. I believe my room would be more appropriate than my laboratory?”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Phantom Girl. “Other than that, how was Colu?”
“Well, and good,” said Ten. “My Adult Guardian and I met with my parents, and they were satisfied with the direction and progress of my education. My Adult Guardian also feels that my association with the ‘Super Hero Club’ has allowed me unique experiences and opportunities for learning.”
“Do you see your parents a lot?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Regularly,” said Ten. “But Coluans recognize that each has his own talents and strengths, and not everyone can effectively dedicate a century or more to child-rearing. Renlo Tagor is a well-respected Adult Guardian, even if, or perhaps particularly because, he has some unorthodox ideas about what constitutes a proper education. Our recent adventure has even increased his stature, as it allowed him to interact with Brainiac Five and his Guardian. Have you been to visit the Wazzos since you got back?”
“Yes,” said Phantom Girl, flushing. “They have had me to dinner a couple of times. They really are nothing like the doppelgangers we knew on mirror-Tharn. If anything, I lo- appreciate them more than ever.”
Ten nodded solemnly, but with the trace of a smile.
It was another week before Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Saturn Girl finally arrived. They came in a cab, and looked worn out.
“We need to have a meeting,” said Saturn Girl.
“Well, tomorrow is Tyresday,” said Ffiona. “No better time.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/02/17 02:36 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
BUDGET PROBLEMS
“Our parents are even more opposed to this venture than they were originally,” said Saturn Girl.
“And by ‘our parents’, she means, ‘her mother’,” said Cosmic Boy.
“That’s not fair,” said Lightning Lass. “I didn’t see your parents standing up to defend us.”
“There was a HUGE fight,” said Saturn Girl. “In order to induce us to stay on Winath, they took away our Runabout. We had to get here the hard way, on a transport.”
“Just like the rest of us,” said Ffey.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s just… we will have to rely on public transportation to get into town. Or anywhere now, really.”
“Ronin has a landspeeder,” said Phantom Girl, “Which I’m sure he would let us use in a pinch. Of course, he lives a few hours away, so it’s really not that convenient.”
“And we could have food pods and stuff delivered,” said Ffarrah. “Like normal people.”
“‘Normal’ is a funny word,” said Lightning Lass. “We have an embarrassment of Farmer’s Markets on Winath.”
“At any rate, a lot of things are going to be more expensive,” said Saturn Girl. “Dacey, Pol and I threatened to sell our shares in Lightning Ring Farms, and finance the Club with the cash. They talked us out of it. Mom yelled a lot; but our Dad and Pol’s Dad made a lot of sense, though.”
“Yeah, but they were right,” said Pol. “Do we really want to end up like the Daggle kids? Trust fund babies who were living the high life, but now have just a little less to live on each year, while Brande Industries is dying, being sold off piecemeal.”
“They do keep their names in the newsfeeds,” said Fey. “And publicity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We haven’t had kids breaking down our doors for tryouts recently.”
“Speaking of tryouts,” said Ffarrah, “What about Mass Master? Will he be joining us, or is his status even clear?”
“Ted’s dads have enrolled him in the SP Youth Military Academy,” said Pol. “They feel that’s the best place for him to get good training. They’ve even had some experience with metahumans over the years.”
“Oh,” said Ffarrah. “Too bad.”
“I would like to point out,” said Ten, “That the Stipend abides, and while we were ‘cooling our heels’ on Tharn-- or mirror-Tharn-- regular deposits were being made into everyone’s accounts.”
“And each of us spent a large part of that windfall,” said Shrinking Violet, “On one-way passage back here to Mars.”
“I guess this would be the wrong time,” said Ten, “to talk about Flight Belts.”
“I suppose they were all left behind,” said Saturn Girl. “But I’m not sure we have the funds to rebuild them just yet. We have taxes coming due on this property.”
“It can’t be!” said Shrinking Violet. “Has it been six months already? And we would be paying taxes on property we don’t even own yet.”
“Satisfying the tax liens is part of the process of Homesteading,” said Saturn Girl. “And yes, in a couple of weeks, it will have been six months. Now, we all hold the deed in common, the twelve of us. It might be easier if we incorporated, and sold shares, but that’s the way it is for now. If one of us wanted out, the others could buy their interest, but it’s complicated. It’s what we get for keeping ourselves unofficial.”
“I think the benefits of keeping it unofficial outweigh the complications,” said Ten. “But you all know my opinion. As a minor, I really can’t own property, so it’s really the eleven of you that own this little site. I just live here.”
“I think,” said Shrinking Violet, “That we ought to have monthly dues, paid into a joint checking account, to pay for stuff like taxes, and weekly supplies, and building new Flight Belts, if we want them.”
“I certainly want one,” said Polar Lass. “The old one had my ultraphone and warming belt built into it.”
“Professor Leitseid shipped all the belts to Colu,” said Ten. “I brought them with me. Although to be honest, it will cost nearly as much to repair them as to build them again new. Lord M. really seems to take out his frustrations on inanimate objects.”
“I propose,” said Saturn Girl, “That we go into town, establish a joint checking account, and make Shrinking Violet our Treasurer. She seems the most qualified.”
“Qualified? Me?” asked Shrinking Violet. “Why?”
“Good attention to small details,” said Saturn Girl.
BUDGET PROBLEMS
“Our parents are even more opposed to this venture than they were originally,” said Saturn Girl.
“And by ‘our parents’, she means, ‘her mother’,” said Cosmic Boy.
“That’s not fair,” said Lightning Lass. “I didn’t see your parents standing up to defend us.”
“There was a HUGE fight,” said Saturn Girl. “In order to induce us to stay on Winath, they took away our Runabout. We had to get here the hard way, on a transport.”
“Just like the rest of us,” said Ffey.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s just… we will have to rely on public transportation to get into town. Or anywhere now, really.”
“Ronin has a landspeeder,” said Phantom Girl, “Which I’m sure he would let us use in a pinch. Of course, he lives a few hours away, so it’s really not that convenient.”
“And we could have food pods and stuff delivered,” said Ffarrah. “Like normal people.”
“‘Normal’ is a funny word,” said Lightning Lass. “We have an embarrassment of Farmer’s Markets on Winath.”
“At any rate, a lot of things are going to be more expensive,” said Saturn Girl. “Dacey, Pol and I threatened to sell our shares in Lightning Ring Farms, and finance the Club with the cash. They talked us out of it. Mom yelled a lot; but our Dad and Pol’s Dad made a lot of sense, though.”
“Yeah, but they were right,” said Pol. “Do we really want to end up like the Daggle kids? Trust fund babies who were living the high life, but now have just a little less to live on each year, while Brande Industries is dying, being sold off piecemeal.”
“They do keep their names in the newsfeeds,” said Fey. “And publicity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We haven’t had kids breaking down our doors for tryouts recently.”
“Speaking of tryouts,” said Ffarrah, “What about Mass Master? Will he be joining us, or is his status even clear?”
“Ted’s dads have enrolled him in the SP Youth Military Academy,” said Pol. “They feel that’s the best place for him to get good training. They’ve even had some experience with metahumans over the years.”
“Oh,” said Ffarrah. “Too bad.”
“I would like to point out,” said Ten, “That the Stipend abides, and while we were ‘cooling our heels’ on Tharn-- or mirror-Tharn-- regular deposits were being made into everyone’s accounts.”
“And each of us spent a large part of that windfall,” said Shrinking Violet, “On one-way passage back here to Mars.”
“I guess this would be the wrong time,” said Ten, “to talk about Flight Belts.”
“I suppose they were all left behind,” said Saturn Girl. “But I’m not sure we have the funds to rebuild them just yet. We have taxes coming due on this property.”
“It can’t be!” said Shrinking Violet. “Has it been six months already? And we would be paying taxes on property we don’t even own yet.”
“Satisfying the tax liens is part of the process of Homesteading,” said Saturn Girl. “And yes, in a couple of weeks, it will have been six months. Now, we all hold the deed in common, the twelve of us. It might be easier if we incorporated, and sold shares, but that’s the way it is for now. If one of us wanted out, the others could buy their interest, but it’s complicated. It’s what we get for keeping ourselves unofficial.”
“I think the benefits of keeping it unofficial outweigh the complications,” said Ten. “But you all know my opinion. As a minor, I really can’t own property, so it’s really the eleven of you that own this little site. I just live here.”
“I think,” said Shrinking Violet, “That we ought to have monthly dues, paid into a joint checking account, to pay for stuff like taxes, and weekly supplies, and building new Flight Belts, if we want them.”
“I certainly want one,” said Polar Lass. “The old one had my ultraphone and warming belt built into it.”
“Professor Leitseid shipped all the belts to Colu,” said Ten. “I brought them with me. Although to be honest, it will cost nearly as much to repair them as to build them again new. Lord M. really seems to take out his frustrations on inanimate objects.”
“I propose,” said Saturn Girl, “That we go into town, establish a joint checking account, and make Shrinking Violet our Treasurer. She seems the most qualified.”
“Qualified? Me?” asked Shrinking Violet. “Why?”
“Good attention to small details,” said Saturn Girl.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/08/17 11:07 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
DATE NIGHT: THE PHANTOMS OF THE OPERA
“I met your parents,” Ten told Phantom Girl. “On Weber’s World. They are interesting people. My Adult Guardian and I spoke with them for some time.”
“They tried to convert Coluans?” said Phantom Girl. “Unbelievable.”
“Convert?” said Ten. “If you mean, we discussed your religious beliefs…”
“Not my religious beliefs,” said Phantom Girl.
“You are not also Quotidian?” asked Ten. “What I heard of their philosophy seemed quite reasonable. That the ordinary, mundane activities of life, pursued with proper mindfulness, gives meaning to life.”
“Not exactly,” said Phantom Girl. “It supposedly allows one to transcend life, to rise above the meaninglessness of existence, to become one with Quod. No, I’m no follower of Quotidianism. I’m kind of more a “Minister’s daughter”; more of the Rumspringa type. I’m sure my parents suspect, but if they knew the details of what I do on the weekends-- listening to loud music, dancing past midnight, riding around in fast cars… well, one fast car, anyway. I even kissed a boy! They would be mortified.”
“Those seem like perfectly small-q quotidian activities,” said Ten. “They are forbidden under your parents philosophy? That seems a logical non sequitur... it does not follow. Perhaps I misunderstand.”
“Yes, it’s not Philosophy, it’s Religion,” said Phantom Girl. “And ‘non sequiturs’ are as common in Religion as dust. Calvin, for example, believed that God does not punish the wicked, or reward the guilty, but assigns souls to Heaven or Hell based on his ineffable pleasure. And yet, the original Calvinism was one of the strictest, most Draconian systems-- both for its believers, and non-believers.”
“There is a certain logic to that,” said Ten. “If the gods will not punish the wicked, and you believe the wicked are in need of punishment, then I suppose you would need to do it yourself, yes? In attempting small talk, I seem to have lost the thread of my purpose in coming to speak to you.”
“Well, um, Religion is one of the things Humans tend to exclude from ‘small talk’, despite my parents’ example,” said Phantom Girl. “Also, Politics and Money.”
“I will make a note of it,” said Ten. “I am uncertain how to make this segue. My Adult Guardian has suggested that in order to better understand Terran culture, I ought to attend the opera. The Rabe City Opera Company is well-regarded. He suggested I invite you and Ronin Nah to accompany me. Perhaps this weekend?”
Phantom took out her ultraphone, and texted a quick message to Ronin. “What are they performing?” she asked.
“A classic by the late-nineteenth century composer ‘Terrytoons’,” said Ten. “A production called ‘Mighty Mouse’.”
“Could Arna come, too?” asked Phantom Girl. “That would make it a foursome.”
“I am sure my Adult Advisor would be willing to purchase tickets for the four of us,” said Ten. “And dinner beforehand, as well, I believe.”
“OK, it’s a date,” said Phantom Girl. “Ronin and Arna will pick us up at the Clubhouse this Honosday, mid-afternoon, then take us out to Rabe City. He said he would like to pick out the place to eat, if you don’t mind.”
“I will make the arrangements with my Adult Guardian,” said Ten.
Phantom Girl wore her Phantom Girl costume, complete with flowing white cape. Ronin and Arna were dressed similarly, their outfits a gift from their mother. Ronin’s outfit was more of an ecru shade, while Arna’s was a pearlescent opal. Ten seemed to have only a single jumpsuit, which he wore day and night.
The trip to Rabe City was surprisingly quick. While Ronin's landspeeder was only ordinarily only capable of Mach-point-two, he was able to drop into the Phantom Zone, which allowed them to make much better time. Either distances were shorter in the Phantom Zone, or time moved differently.
Ronin had picked a nice Thai Fusion place, and they even had the Agar gelatin dessert that was an acceptable substitute for Coluan Nutritive Paste.
The audience was as interested in the four friends-- three caped ‘phantoms’, a Coluan, and Vesta-- as they were in the opera. Ronin and Irinia sat next to one another, naturally, and Ten and Arna uncomfortably did the same.
“Do you think it was historically based,” asked Phantom Girl afterwards.
“There are Felinoid planets in in the Sirius sector,” said Ten, “But I never heard of any with a history of attempting conquest and domination of other worlds.”
“Well, they wouldn’t, would they, not with 'Mighty Mouse' around,” said Phantom Girl. “Imagine him in our Club!”
“Mom told us that when she in the Legion, they teamed up with super-intelligent animals with Daxamite-like powers from the past,” said Arna. “A dog, a cat, and a gorilla, I think.”
“And a horse,” said Ronin. “There was definitely a Kryptonian horse. I’m pretty sure no mice, though.”
They got back to the Clubhouse around midnight.
“Can you give me a tour?” Arna asked Ten.
“Oh, uh, sure,” hesitated Ten. They walked to the Clubhouse, leaving Ronin and Phantom Girl in the car.
“They need a little privacy, you know,” said Arna. “To say ‘good-night’, right?”
“Ah,” said Ten. “Yes. Romeo and Juliet. The balcony scene.”
“You’re smarter than you look,” said Arna.
The only ones still in the Clubhouse were the three Founders, Ffiona and Ffarrah, and Shrinking Violet.
“Aren’t you a little old for him?” Lightning Lass teased.
“Ten and I have a lot in common,” said Arna. “He’s seven years old, Earth-Standard, and I’m seven years old, Martian-Standard.”
“Really?” said Saturn Girl. “You’re tall for your age.”
“My folks moved from Bgztl to Gzbk right after I was born,” said Arna. “I grew up in low-gravity.”
“In a little while, you’ll be old enough to join the team as a second Phantom Girl,” Cosmic Boy noted.
“I don’t think so,” said Arna. “Mom talks a lot about the Legion, and it doesn’t seem like a Bgztlr was very useful. What with Supergirl, Superboy, and Mon-El, and with other kids throwing around enough energy to crack an asteroid…”
“Well, we don’t have anyone of that level on the team,” said Cosmic Boy.
“And a Bgztlr is valuable in close, hand-to-hand combat,” said Ten. “If an opponent has a shield, or armor, a Bgztlr can phase right through with a well-aimed punch.”
“Oh, surely the Legion didn’t go around randomly punching people,” said Arna. “Getting into fights? They didn’t, did they?”
“Maybe you should ask your Mom,” said Saturn Girl.
“Oh, I do not want to get her started talking about the Legion,” said Arna. “Her stories always end with a moral. Or, they end up about how she met Dad. Mush!”
“Let’s go see the others,” said Ten.
Ffarrah and Shrinking Violet were sharing a midnight snack in the back of the Clubhouse, while Ffiona looked on disapprovingly.
“You’re an Imskian, right?” Arna asked Shrinking Violet.
“Let me tell you how to tell an Imskian from an Orzdean. Imskians have green eyes, will join in a fist-fight for the pure fun of it, and don’t hold grudges,” said Shrinking Violet. “Orzdeans have blue eyes, and we fight to win.”
“And do Orzdeans hold grudges?” asked Arna.
“Against who?” asked Shrinking Violet.
Arna thought about this.
“Arna, we need to go,” Ronin called from the front of the Clubhouse.
“Do you have a curfew?” asked Ffiona.
“Dad and Mom’s rule is: ‘Don’t stay out so late that we have to give you a curfew.’,” said Arna. “It’s Honosday night, so they’ll cut us some slack. But we probably do need to be getting home.”
“She seems nice,” said Ffiona. “Tell us all about tonight.”
“Let Ten go to his room, and get to bed,” said Phantom Girl, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
DATE NIGHT: THE PHANTOMS OF THE OPERA
“I met your parents,” Ten told Phantom Girl. “On Weber’s World. They are interesting people. My Adult Guardian and I spoke with them for some time.”
“They tried to convert Coluans?” said Phantom Girl. “Unbelievable.”
“Convert?” said Ten. “If you mean, we discussed your religious beliefs…”
“Not my religious beliefs,” said Phantom Girl.
“You are not also Quotidian?” asked Ten. “What I heard of their philosophy seemed quite reasonable. That the ordinary, mundane activities of life, pursued with proper mindfulness, gives meaning to life.”
“Not exactly,” said Phantom Girl. “It supposedly allows one to transcend life, to rise above the meaninglessness of existence, to become one with Quod. No, I’m no follower of Quotidianism. I’m kind of more a “Minister’s daughter”; more of the Rumspringa type. I’m sure my parents suspect, but if they knew the details of what I do on the weekends-- listening to loud music, dancing past midnight, riding around in fast cars… well, one fast car, anyway. I even kissed a boy! They would be mortified.”
“Those seem like perfectly small-q quotidian activities,” said Ten. “They are forbidden under your parents philosophy? That seems a logical non sequitur... it does not follow. Perhaps I misunderstand.”
“Yes, it’s not Philosophy, it’s Religion,” said Phantom Girl. “And ‘non sequiturs’ are as common in Religion as dust. Calvin, for example, believed that God does not punish the wicked, or reward the guilty, but assigns souls to Heaven or Hell based on his ineffable pleasure. And yet, the original Calvinism was one of the strictest, most Draconian systems-- both for its believers, and non-believers.”
“There is a certain logic to that,” said Ten. “If the gods will not punish the wicked, and you believe the wicked are in need of punishment, then I suppose you would need to do it yourself, yes? In attempting small talk, I seem to have lost the thread of my purpose in coming to speak to you.”
“Well, um, Religion is one of the things Humans tend to exclude from ‘small talk’, despite my parents’ example,” said Phantom Girl. “Also, Politics and Money.”
“I will make a note of it,” said Ten. “I am uncertain how to make this segue. My Adult Guardian has suggested that in order to better understand Terran culture, I ought to attend the opera. The Rabe City Opera Company is well-regarded. He suggested I invite you and Ronin Nah to accompany me. Perhaps this weekend?”
Phantom took out her ultraphone, and texted a quick message to Ronin. “What are they performing?” she asked.
“A classic by the late-nineteenth century composer ‘Terrytoons’,” said Ten. “A production called ‘Mighty Mouse’.”
“Could Arna come, too?” asked Phantom Girl. “That would make it a foursome.”
“I am sure my Adult Advisor would be willing to purchase tickets for the four of us,” said Ten. “And dinner beforehand, as well, I believe.”
“OK, it’s a date,” said Phantom Girl. “Ronin and Arna will pick us up at the Clubhouse this Honosday, mid-afternoon, then take us out to Rabe City. He said he would like to pick out the place to eat, if you don’t mind.”
“I will make the arrangements with my Adult Guardian,” said Ten.
Phantom Girl wore her Phantom Girl costume, complete with flowing white cape. Ronin and Arna were dressed similarly, their outfits a gift from their mother. Ronin’s outfit was more of an ecru shade, while Arna’s was a pearlescent opal. Ten seemed to have only a single jumpsuit, which he wore day and night.
The trip to Rabe City was surprisingly quick. While Ronin's landspeeder was only ordinarily only capable of Mach-point-two, he was able to drop into the Phantom Zone, which allowed them to make much better time. Either distances were shorter in the Phantom Zone, or time moved differently.
Ronin had picked a nice Thai Fusion place, and they even had the Agar gelatin dessert that was an acceptable substitute for Coluan Nutritive Paste.
The audience was as interested in the four friends-- three caped ‘phantoms’, a Coluan, and Vesta-- as they were in the opera. Ronin and Irinia sat next to one another, naturally, and Ten and Arna uncomfortably did the same.
“Do you think it was historically based,” asked Phantom Girl afterwards.
“There are Felinoid planets in in the Sirius sector,” said Ten, “But I never heard of any with a history of attempting conquest and domination of other worlds.”
“Well, they wouldn’t, would they, not with 'Mighty Mouse' around,” said Phantom Girl. “Imagine him in our Club!”
“Mom told us that when she in the Legion, they teamed up with super-intelligent animals with Daxamite-like powers from the past,” said Arna. “A dog, a cat, and a gorilla, I think.”
“And a horse,” said Ronin. “There was definitely a Kryptonian horse. I’m pretty sure no mice, though.”
They got back to the Clubhouse around midnight.
“Can you give me a tour?” Arna asked Ten.
“Oh, uh, sure,” hesitated Ten. They walked to the Clubhouse, leaving Ronin and Phantom Girl in the car.
“They need a little privacy, you know,” said Arna. “To say ‘good-night’, right?”
“Ah,” said Ten. “Yes. Romeo and Juliet. The balcony scene.”
“You’re smarter than you look,” said Arna.
The only ones still in the Clubhouse were the three Founders, Ffiona and Ffarrah, and Shrinking Violet.
“Aren’t you a little old for him?” Lightning Lass teased.
“Ten and I have a lot in common,” said Arna. “He’s seven years old, Earth-Standard, and I’m seven years old, Martian-Standard.”
“Really?” said Saturn Girl. “You’re tall for your age.”
“My folks moved from Bgztl to Gzbk right after I was born,” said Arna. “I grew up in low-gravity.”
“In a little while, you’ll be old enough to join the team as a second Phantom Girl,” Cosmic Boy noted.
“I don’t think so,” said Arna. “Mom talks a lot about the Legion, and it doesn’t seem like a Bgztlr was very useful. What with Supergirl, Superboy, and Mon-El, and with other kids throwing around enough energy to crack an asteroid…”
“Well, we don’t have anyone of that level on the team,” said Cosmic Boy.
“And a Bgztlr is valuable in close, hand-to-hand combat,” said Ten. “If an opponent has a shield, or armor, a Bgztlr can phase right through with a well-aimed punch.”
“Oh, surely the Legion didn’t go around randomly punching people,” said Arna. “Getting into fights? They didn’t, did they?”
“Maybe you should ask your Mom,” said Saturn Girl.
“Oh, I do not want to get her started talking about the Legion,” said Arna. “Her stories always end with a moral. Or, they end up about how she met Dad. Mush!”
“Let’s go see the others,” said Ten.
Ffarrah and Shrinking Violet were sharing a midnight snack in the back of the Clubhouse, while Ffiona looked on disapprovingly.
“You’re an Imskian, right?” Arna asked Shrinking Violet.
“Let me tell you how to tell an Imskian from an Orzdean. Imskians have green eyes, will join in a fist-fight for the pure fun of it, and don’t hold grudges,” said Shrinking Violet. “Orzdeans have blue eyes, and we fight to win.”
“And do Orzdeans hold grudges?” asked Arna.
“Against who?” asked Shrinking Violet.
Arna thought about this.
“Arna, we need to go,” Ronin called from the front of the Clubhouse.
“Do you have a curfew?” asked Ffiona.
“Dad and Mom’s rule is: ‘Don’t stay out so late that we have to give you a curfew.’,” said Arna. “It’s Honosday night, so they’ll cut us some slack. But we probably do need to be getting home.”
“She seems nice,” said Ffiona. “Tell us all about tonight.”
“Let Ten go to his room, and get to bed,” said Phantom Girl, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/16/17 03:44 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
DATE NIGHT: HERRINGBONE DAY
Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass began the night in her quarters.
“It’s just no use,” said Polar Lass. “I’m sorry. Your hands are just too cold.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, giving her a light kiss. “I really like you, Kylda.”
“And I like you, Hillarie,” said Polar Lass. “Really, really like you. It’s just… well, I like being with you. A lot. But maybe, for now, we can just be Friends-Without-Benefits?”
“And I like hanging out with you,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “We can hang out, right? I mean, if you think about it, we’re still just kids. Right?”
“Well, at least you’re helping me learn to control my powers,” said Polar Lass.
“What? How so?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Most psychoglaciating Tharrans just kind of generally broadcast cold over a large area,” said Polar Lass. “But I’ve learned real focus. Take a look at the thermostat on the wall. I keep my quarters warm.”
“It’s over two hundred degrees in here!” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“That’s not possible,” said Polar Lass, jumping up to check the thermometer as well. “I keep it set on 95c. Not even a Tharran…”
“Sorry, sorry,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “On Bismoll, we use the Fahrenheit scale. 95c it is. But I don’t even feel warm? I ought to be suffocating.”
“Yeah, whenever we’re together, I’ve been keeping you in an envelope of a flat 20c,” said Polar Lass. “I like you to be comfortable around me.”
“Thanks,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “And good job.”
“Here, let me show you something else,” said Polar Lass. She took a transparent aluminum tumbler out, and set it on her dresser. She held her hand above it-- the ‘glass’ began to frost up, then slowly filled with a smoking, clear, pale-blue liquid. “Liquid oxygen,” said Polar Lass. “Care for a drink?”
Matter-Eater Lad Two took the glass carefully, took a sip, then quickly finished the whole tumbler. “A little tangy,” he said, “Refreshing. Filling, too. I would never go hungry with you to take care of me.”
“You’d never go hungry anyway,” said Polar Lass. “I mean, you can eat sand.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two stared thoughtfully out the window. Kylda’s cabin had an excellent view of New Hellespont Sea. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” he said.
“I’m glad Ten was able to repair and rebuild my flight belt,” said Polar Lass, hovering a half-meter off the ground beside Matter-Eater Lad Two. “It makes living off-planet so much easier.”
“I thought walking along the beach together might be a pleasant activity,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
Polar Lass came down, and took his arm. “It is,” she said. “I just get caught up in the freedom of it all. Say, I was talking to my parents about you. How would you like to come to Tharr, next time I go back to visit?”
“I thought we discussed this,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “I really wouldn’t be able to take the heat.”
“Well then, you’ll just have to stay close to me the whole time we’re there,” Polar Lass laughed. “No, seriously, there are cooling belts on Tharr, for tourists. Not that we get a lot of tourists. My mother thought we might like to come for Herringbone Day.”
“OK, what’s Herringbone Day?” Matter-Eater Lad Two asked.
“Well, it’s actually a three-day celebration,” said Polar Lass. “Tharrans are descended from Terran fisherfolk, and this holiday celebrates our ancestry. Of course, the fish are farmed now, and genetically modified to live in anoxic near-boiling water, but we still remember when our ancestors braved the open sea to feed their families and villages. There are a couple of great feasts-- you would like it: they have salted, pickled fish on ice, and lots of other traditional delicacies. Then on the third day, the Ancient Mariner comes with candy and gifts. And feathers, for some reason. It’s a real party, a special time for community, and family, too.”
“Salted fish,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “I prefer potassium salts.”
“Well, I know they use more than one kind of salt,” said Polar Lass. “Do you think you’d like to come?”
“Sure,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Maybe someday you can come visit my family on Bismoll. We don’t have any special days, really, just The Day of Eating Rocks, which is every day.”
They walked on, arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand, for a while. The two moons of Mars danced by swiftly overhead. At last, they turned back.
“When we were in mirror-Tharn,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, “I was assigned to make a thing called ‘Amulets of Accommodation’. I’ve been reading about them.”
“I think I know what they’re for,” said Polar Lass.
“I made a couple myself, on Bismoll,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Before I came back to Mars.” He fished two plain silvery rings out of his pocket. “It’s just plain electrum, with an engraved insignia-- it’s actually on the inside of the ring, not visible when being worn-- it’s kind of fiddly-- you have to get the proportions just right. But I think I did a good job. Of course, they’re not really magic-- you’d need a magician to activate them, and I’m not sure that I’ve even made them exactly right…”
“Oh, Hillarie!” said Polar Lass. “Are you giving me your Promise Ring? Does this mean we’re going steady?”
“Um… I’m not really sure what that means,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “But I wouldn’t…”
“Oh, I would totally,” said Polar Lass, slipping one of the rings on. “In a heartbeat. Look, a perfect fit! Now you have to put yours on.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two managed to fit the second ring onto the little finger of his right hand. Polar Lass kissed him.
“Now it’s official,” said Polar Lass. “All we have to do now is find a magician.”
DATE NIGHT: HERRINGBONE DAY
Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass began the night in her quarters.
“It’s just no use,” said Polar Lass. “I’m sorry. Your hands are just too cold.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, giving her a light kiss. “I really like you, Kylda.”
“And I like you, Hillarie,” said Polar Lass. “Really, really like you. It’s just… well, I like being with you. A lot. But maybe, for now, we can just be Friends-Without-Benefits?”
“And I like hanging out with you,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “We can hang out, right? I mean, if you think about it, we’re still just kids. Right?”
“Well, at least you’re helping me learn to control my powers,” said Polar Lass.
“What? How so?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Most psychoglaciating Tharrans just kind of generally broadcast cold over a large area,” said Polar Lass. “But I’ve learned real focus. Take a look at the thermostat on the wall. I keep my quarters warm.”
“It’s over two hundred degrees in here!” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“That’s not possible,” said Polar Lass, jumping up to check the thermometer as well. “I keep it set on 95c. Not even a Tharran…”
“Sorry, sorry,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “On Bismoll, we use the Fahrenheit scale. 95c it is. But I don’t even feel warm? I ought to be suffocating.”
“Yeah, whenever we’re together, I’ve been keeping you in an envelope of a flat 20c,” said Polar Lass. “I like you to be comfortable around me.”
“Thanks,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “And good job.”
“Here, let me show you something else,” said Polar Lass. She took a transparent aluminum tumbler out, and set it on her dresser. She held her hand above it-- the ‘glass’ began to frost up, then slowly filled with a smoking, clear, pale-blue liquid. “Liquid oxygen,” said Polar Lass. “Care for a drink?”
Matter-Eater Lad Two took the glass carefully, took a sip, then quickly finished the whole tumbler. “A little tangy,” he said, “Refreshing. Filling, too. I would never go hungry with you to take care of me.”
“You’d never go hungry anyway,” said Polar Lass. “I mean, you can eat sand.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two stared thoughtfully out the window. Kylda’s cabin had an excellent view of New Hellespont Sea. “Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” he said.
“I’m glad Ten was able to repair and rebuild my flight belt,” said Polar Lass, hovering a half-meter off the ground beside Matter-Eater Lad Two. “It makes living off-planet so much easier.”
“I thought walking along the beach together might be a pleasant activity,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
Polar Lass came down, and took his arm. “It is,” she said. “I just get caught up in the freedom of it all. Say, I was talking to my parents about you. How would you like to come to Tharr, next time I go back to visit?”
“I thought we discussed this,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “I really wouldn’t be able to take the heat.”
“Well then, you’ll just have to stay close to me the whole time we’re there,” Polar Lass laughed. “No, seriously, there are cooling belts on Tharr, for tourists. Not that we get a lot of tourists. My mother thought we might like to come for Herringbone Day.”
“OK, what’s Herringbone Day?” Matter-Eater Lad Two asked.
“Well, it’s actually a three-day celebration,” said Polar Lass. “Tharrans are descended from Terran fisherfolk, and this holiday celebrates our ancestry. Of course, the fish are farmed now, and genetically modified to live in anoxic near-boiling water, but we still remember when our ancestors braved the open sea to feed their families and villages. There are a couple of great feasts-- you would like it: they have salted, pickled fish on ice, and lots of other traditional delicacies. Then on the third day, the Ancient Mariner comes with candy and gifts. And feathers, for some reason. It’s a real party, a special time for community, and family, too.”
“Salted fish,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “I prefer potassium salts.”
“Well, I know they use more than one kind of salt,” said Polar Lass. “Do you think you’d like to come?”
“Sure,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Maybe someday you can come visit my family on Bismoll. We don’t have any special days, really, just The Day of Eating Rocks, which is every day.”
They walked on, arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand, for a while. The two moons of Mars danced by swiftly overhead. At last, they turned back.
“When we were in mirror-Tharn,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, “I was assigned to make a thing called ‘Amulets of Accommodation’. I’ve been reading about them.”
“I think I know what they’re for,” said Polar Lass.
“I made a couple myself, on Bismoll,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Before I came back to Mars.” He fished two plain silvery rings out of his pocket. “It’s just plain electrum, with an engraved insignia-- it’s actually on the inside of the ring, not visible when being worn-- it’s kind of fiddly-- you have to get the proportions just right. But I think I did a good job. Of course, they’re not really magic-- you’d need a magician to activate them, and I’m not sure that I’ve even made them exactly right…”
“Oh, Hillarie!” said Polar Lass. “Are you giving me your Promise Ring? Does this mean we’re going steady?”
“Um… I’m not really sure what that means,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “But I wouldn’t…”
“Oh, I would totally,” said Polar Lass, slipping one of the rings on. “In a heartbeat. Look, a perfect fit! Now you have to put yours on.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two managed to fit the second ring onto the little finger of his right hand. Polar Lass kissed him.
“Now it’s official,” said Polar Lass. “All we have to do now is find a magician.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/16/17 11:48 PM
Polar Lass and ME-Lad The Sequel are cute together...on a sidenote, I dig "psychoglaciating" as a descriptor for cold powers too! 
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/18/17 06:35 PM
I am always surprised at what will spark a comment.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/21/17 05:02 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
DATE NIGHT: PROSPERO’S PIZZA PALACE
Prospero, if that was his real name, looked like an old-man version of Mario the Plumber, if Ffey and Chameleon had known who Mario the Plumber was.
Ffey was doing the ordering, while Chameleon sat at a table in his ‘Ffameleon’ form.
“One-half pepperoni, sausage, linguica, anchovies, and prosciutto,” she said, “and the other half jalapeno, sliced artichoke hearts, and pineapple. And could you give us just a ball of raw dough?”
“I have some old, over-risen, yeasty, watery dough I was going to throw out. That OK?” asked Prospero. “I’m training a new kid, Antonio. Incompetent.Your friend is a Durlan, isn’t she? You want it for her?”
“Y-yes, please,” stammered Ffey.
“Don’t worry,” said Prospero. “I don’t care what shape she is or isn't in. I’ll bring you some seltzer for her, too, and maybe something a little special.” He lowered his voice. “You know, I came out here to New Metropolis retire. Used to run a big place in Rabe City, but it got to be too much work. But then I got bored just sitting around all day, so I opened up this little place in this little town. But when I was back in Rabe, we had a boy there who married a Durlan girl. He was a nice boy-- an SP cadet-- and she was very beautiful-- an actress. Then one day, with no warnint, she just disappeared. No one ever heard from her again. Broke his heart. You be careful associating with Durlans.”
“Is this a date?” asked Chameleon / Ffameleon, when Ffey got back to their table.
“Sure, it could be a date,” said Ffey. “Or just a girl’s night out.”
“Yes,” said Chameleon. “I recall. Dating is a courtship ritual, between the sexes, not merely a fixed time of meeting.” She concentrated. Her hair grew somewhat shorter, her face and shoulders grew somewhat broader, her hips somewhat slimmer, her height somewhat taller. She-- he-- was now a male version of the Triplicate Girls.
“Oh, we’ll have to call you Ffameleo now,” said Ffey. “Or Ffameleus.”
“An interesting idea,” Chameleon mused. “My tribe has no use for proper names, and yet you are suggesting that each of my separate forms ought to have its own name.”
“Well, maybe only your favorites,” said Ffey.
“I do like the Xanthuan Magpie Falcon,” said Chameleon. “Perhaps I will name him ‘Zavian’. And this form is Ffameleus.” He shifted slightly. His hair was differently styled, slicked back, and he had moustaches that mirrored Prospero’s. “And this is Ffameleo,” he declared.
“I like Ffameleus better,” said Ffey. “Those moustaches make you look too old.” Chameleon obligingly shifted back.
“So here’s your food,” said Prospero, appearing at their table. “An extra-large for the lady, and plain dough for the gentleman.” He also set down a cup of a lumpy, thick, milky substance in front of Chameleon. “Try this, and tell me how you like it.”
Chameleon took a spoonful.
“It is excellent,” said Chameleon. “What is it?”
“It’s yoghurt,” said Prospero.
“No, this is not yoghurt,” Chameleon protested. “I have had yoghurt. It upsets my stomache for an entire day.”
“No,” said Prospero, “What you have had is that fruity, lactose-flavored whipped gelatin that the thirty-first century calls yoghurt. This is the real thing: at least three thousand years old, and discovered over and over again by many Earth cultures during that time. It takes days to make properly. This is my personal recipe.”
“I shall be sure to request this in the future,” said Chamelon, “Next time the Club orders pizza.”
After dinner, the two went out for a walk around the town. Most of the shops were closed; there were a couple of bars open, but adults were not able to drink until age eighteen.
“Saturn Girl has talked about setting up a rotating patrol of the town,” said Ffey. “But this little place is so sleepy, I doubt we would see much action.”
“We might have been more use, had we set up our headquarters in Marsopolis, Marshall City, or Nix Olympia,” said Chameleon.
“But Ffiona pointed out that it would have been prohibitively expensive,” said Ffey. “Better to get ourselves established in New Metropolis, and open ‘branch offices’ later.”
They walked up to the end of the main street, then back down to the other end.
“We’d best be getting home,” said Ffey. “Too bad Ten hasn’t finished those flight belts.”
“I can fly under my own power,” said Chameleon, “But I can’t assume a form large enough to carry you.” He assumed his Durlan appearance, which he often did while he was thinking.
“Each Durlan Tribe has their own default form, don’t they?” Ffey asked.
“Correct,” said Chameleon. “Something else else over one-third belong to the tribe that uses the orange humanoid Iuquhu form, which is the legislated default form for Durlans throughout the United Planets. The next largest tribe uses the cthonic, cephalopodia form. My tribe is quite small, only a few tens of thousands of us.”
“And would you show me your default form?” asked Ffey. “Or is that too personal.”
“Not personal at all,” said Chameleon. His form shifted. He grew a half-meter shorter, and more slender. His fingers lengthened, growing spidery. His antennae shrank to button-sized nubs. His ears and virtually disappeared as well. His eyes grew large, his complexion darkened from orange to a dull, silvery grey.
“Somehow, you look familiar,” said Ffey.
“Unlikely,” said Chameleon. “None other of my clan have left Durla for centuries. If you do not mind riding, I believe I can get us back to the clubhouse quickly, without the need to call a cab.”
“Riding?” asked Ffey.
Chameleon assumed the form of a great, strawberry roan stallion. He kneeled, to help Ffey climb aboard.
“Hold onto my mane,” he suggested.
The midnight wind roared by as Chamelon galloped home. By the time they were arrived at the Clubhouse, Ffey was flushed and out of breath, while Chamelon seemed to have scarcely exerted himself as he shifted back into a more human form.
“Your moustaches tickle my nose,” said Ffey. “Hmm… that’s better. I definitely like your Ffameleus form better.”
DATE NIGHT: PROSPERO’S PIZZA PALACE
Prospero, if that was his real name, looked like an old-man version of Mario the Plumber, if Ffey and Chameleon had known who Mario the Plumber was.
Ffey was doing the ordering, while Chameleon sat at a table in his ‘Ffameleon’ form.
“One-half pepperoni, sausage, linguica, anchovies, and prosciutto,” she said, “and the other half jalapeno, sliced artichoke hearts, and pineapple. And could you give us just a ball of raw dough?”
“I have some old, over-risen, yeasty, watery dough I was going to throw out. That OK?” asked Prospero. “I’m training a new kid, Antonio. Incompetent.Your friend is a Durlan, isn’t she? You want it for her?”
“Y-yes, please,” stammered Ffey.
“Don’t worry,” said Prospero. “I don’t care what shape she is or isn't in. I’ll bring you some seltzer for her, too, and maybe something a little special.” He lowered his voice. “You know, I came out here to New Metropolis retire. Used to run a big place in Rabe City, but it got to be too much work. But then I got bored just sitting around all day, so I opened up this little place in this little town. But when I was back in Rabe, we had a boy there who married a Durlan girl. He was a nice boy-- an SP cadet-- and she was very beautiful-- an actress. Then one day, with no warnint, she just disappeared. No one ever heard from her again. Broke his heart. You be careful associating with Durlans.”
“Is this a date?” asked Chameleon / Ffameleon, when Ffey got back to their table.
“Sure, it could be a date,” said Ffey. “Or just a girl’s night out.”
“Yes,” said Chameleon. “I recall. Dating is a courtship ritual, between the sexes, not merely a fixed time of meeting.” She concentrated. Her hair grew somewhat shorter, her face and shoulders grew somewhat broader, her hips somewhat slimmer, her height somewhat taller. She-- he-- was now a male version of the Triplicate Girls.
“Oh, we’ll have to call you Ffameleo now,” said Ffey. “Or Ffameleus.”
“An interesting idea,” Chameleon mused. “My tribe has no use for proper names, and yet you are suggesting that each of my separate forms ought to have its own name.”
“Well, maybe only your favorites,” said Ffey.
“I do like the Xanthuan Magpie Falcon,” said Chameleon. “Perhaps I will name him ‘Zavian’. And this form is Ffameleus.” He shifted slightly. His hair was differently styled, slicked back, and he had moustaches that mirrored Prospero’s. “And this is Ffameleo,” he declared.
“I like Ffameleus better,” said Ffey. “Those moustaches make you look too old.” Chameleon obligingly shifted back.
“So here’s your food,” said Prospero, appearing at their table. “An extra-large for the lady, and plain dough for the gentleman.” He also set down a cup of a lumpy, thick, milky substance in front of Chameleon. “Try this, and tell me how you like it.”
Chameleon took a spoonful.
“It is excellent,” said Chameleon. “What is it?”
“It’s yoghurt,” said Prospero.
“No, this is not yoghurt,” Chameleon protested. “I have had yoghurt. It upsets my stomache for an entire day.”
“No,” said Prospero, “What you have had is that fruity, lactose-flavored whipped gelatin that the thirty-first century calls yoghurt. This is the real thing: at least three thousand years old, and discovered over and over again by many Earth cultures during that time. It takes days to make properly. This is my personal recipe.”
“I shall be sure to request this in the future,” said Chamelon, “Next time the Club orders pizza.”
After dinner, the two went out for a walk around the town. Most of the shops were closed; there were a couple of bars open, but adults were not able to drink until age eighteen.
“Saturn Girl has talked about setting up a rotating patrol of the town,” said Ffey. “But this little place is so sleepy, I doubt we would see much action.”
“We might have been more use, had we set up our headquarters in Marsopolis, Marshall City, or Nix Olympia,” said Chameleon.
“But Ffiona pointed out that it would have been prohibitively expensive,” said Ffey. “Better to get ourselves established in New Metropolis, and open ‘branch offices’ later.”
They walked up to the end of the main street, then back down to the other end.
“We’d best be getting home,” said Ffey. “Too bad Ten hasn’t finished those flight belts.”
“I can fly under my own power,” said Chameleon, “But I can’t assume a form large enough to carry you.” He assumed his Durlan appearance, which he often did while he was thinking.
“Each Durlan Tribe has their own default form, don’t they?” Ffey asked.
“Correct,” said Chameleon. “Something else else over one-third belong to the tribe that uses the orange humanoid Iuquhu form, which is the legislated default form for Durlans throughout the United Planets. The next largest tribe uses the cthonic, cephalopodia form. My tribe is quite small, only a few tens of thousands of us.”
“And would you show me your default form?” asked Ffey. “Or is that too personal.”
“Not personal at all,” said Chameleon. His form shifted. He grew a half-meter shorter, and more slender. His fingers lengthened, growing spidery. His antennae shrank to button-sized nubs. His ears and virtually disappeared as well. His eyes grew large, his complexion darkened from orange to a dull, silvery grey.
“Somehow, you look familiar,” said Ffey.
“Unlikely,” said Chameleon. “None other of my clan have left Durla for centuries. If you do not mind riding, I believe I can get us back to the clubhouse quickly, without the need to call a cab.”
“Riding?” asked Ffey.
Chameleon assumed the form of a great, strawberry roan stallion. He kneeled, to help Ffey climb aboard.
“Hold onto my mane,” he suggested.
The midnight wind roared by as Chamelon galloped home. By the time they were arrived at the Clubhouse, Ffey was flushed and out of breath, while Chamelon seemed to have scarcely exerted himself as he shifted back into a more human form.
“Your moustaches tickle my nose,” said Ffey. “Hmm… that’s better. I definitely like your Ffameleus form better.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/29/17 03:19 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
THE COMPLEAT LEGION
The Members had pretty much given up setting aside Mixcoatlsday for tryouts. There were never any applicants, it was a chore to haul out the dais once a week, and Saturn Girl complained she was putting on weight from all the pizza they were ordering from Prospero’s.
They were surprised, then, when, answering a knock at the Clubhouse door, they found not one, but six applicants waiting for them.
“Al Gimnon, Colossal Boy of Earth,” said the curly-haired boy, growing to an immense size.
“Mork Dirgna, Sun Boy of Earth,” said the blonde, shining with a radiant light.
“Orr Vellum, Karate Kid of Earth,” said the asian-looking boy, displaying a high kick-punch combination.
“Tuck Chain, Bouncing Boy of Earth,” said the chubby boy, transforming into a ball, and bouncing high in the air.
“Niles Lord, Invisible Kid of Earth,” said the boy with the headband, as he vanished before their eyes..
“Nandru Olson, Ferro Lad of Earth,” said the masked boy, changing into iron.
In their costumes and appearance, they were dead ringers for the actual, original Legionnaires. Some of them, in fact, were actual ringers for dead Legionnaires.
“Something else else is wrong here,” said Saturn Girl. “This seems unlikely in the extreme.”
“But it is our fondest wish to join the Legion,” said Invisible Kid, reappearing.
“When the six of us met on Earth,” said Colossal Boy, “We just knew we had to join you in this New Legion.”
“You don’t mind answering a couple of questions?” asked Saturn Girl. “Colossal Boy, what did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Breakfast?” said Colossal Boy. “I… I don’t remember. Is it important?”
“Any of you,” said Saturn Girl. “Can you tell me just one meal you really enjoyed this past week?”
None of the six boys answered.
“All right, here’s an easier one,” said Saturn Girl. “Karate Kid, what is your father’s name?”
“Uh… Black Dragon… I think,” said Karate Kid. “Um, no, um, that’s not right. I should know this, right?”
“I hear suppressed giggling,” Chameleon informed Saturn Girl. “And it is not any one of us. From up there.”
“OK, come on out, whoever you are,” Saturn Girl shouted to the air. “We know these constructs aren’t real.”
“What do you mean we’re not real?” asked Sun Boy.
The little man appeared out of nowhere. Less than a meter high, his long nose identified him as a Zrfffn imp.
“You didn’t like my Compleat Legion?” asked the imp. “Why won’t you let them join?”
“They aren’t real,” said Saturn Girl. “You could do away with their existence with a thought.”
“I could do the same to you,” said the imp. “And as for real, she’s realer than you,” he said, indicating Phantom Girl. “But only eighty percent as real as me. Say, why not let me join your Super-Hero Club? Then you could have as many Members as you want, with whatever powers you like?”
“Why waste your time with us?” asked Phantom Girl. “You could have your very own Legion of Super-Heroes without us, and they would do whatever you wanted.”
The imp seemed to think about this. “No,” he said finally. “I’d rather spend my time with you.”
“Well,” said Saturn Girl, “What’s your name?”
“Oh, no, I’m not telling you my name,” said the imp. “Much too dangerous.”
“Right, right,” said Saturn Girl. “If one of us were to say your name backwards, all your magic would vanish, and you would have to return to your home dimension for ninety days.”
“They changed those rules a long time ago,” said the imp sulkily. “I would have to return to Zrfff for ninety years. But you got one thing wrong. I’m the one who would have to say ‘Rykmlbrt’... No! Wait!”
But it was too late. Both the imp and the six faux Legionnaires disappeared, without a trace.
“Why would he do that?” asked Phantom Girl. “He just told us he was keeping his name a secret. There was absolutely no reason for him to say his name backwards.”
Saturn Girl shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “Perhaps even some Zrfffn imps have weak, suggestible minds, easily influenced.”
Phantom Girl looked at her friend curiously. “You didn’t…” she began.
“I wouldn’t admit it if I had,” said Saturn Girl.
THE COMPLEAT LEGION
The Members had pretty much given up setting aside Mixcoatlsday for tryouts. There were never any applicants, it was a chore to haul out the dais once a week, and Saturn Girl complained she was putting on weight from all the pizza they were ordering from Prospero’s.
They were surprised, then, when, answering a knock at the Clubhouse door, they found not one, but six applicants waiting for them.
“Al Gimnon, Colossal Boy of Earth,” said the curly-haired boy, growing to an immense size.
“Mork Dirgna, Sun Boy of Earth,” said the blonde, shining with a radiant light.
“Orr Vellum, Karate Kid of Earth,” said the asian-looking boy, displaying a high kick-punch combination.
“Tuck Chain, Bouncing Boy of Earth,” said the chubby boy, transforming into a ball, and bouncing high in the air.
“Niles Lord, Invisible Kid of Earth,” said the boy with the headband, as he vanished before their eyes..
“Nandru Olson, Ferro Lad of Earth,” said the masked boy, changing into iron.
In their costumes and appearance, they were dead ringers for the actual, original Legionnaires. Some of them, in fact, were actual ringers for dead Legionnaires.
“Something else else is wrong here,” said Saturn Girl. “This seems unlikely in the extreme.”
“But it is our fondest wish to join the Legion,” said Invisible Kid, reappearing.
“When the six of us met on Earth,” said Colossal Boy, “We just knew we had to join you in this New Legion.”
“You don’t mind answering a couple of questions?” asked Saturn Girl. “Colossal Boy, what did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Breakfast?” said Colossal Boy. “I… I don’t remember. Is it important?”
“Any of you,” said Saturn Girl. “Can you tell me just one meal you really enjoyed this past week?”
None of the six boys answered.
“All right, here’s an easier one,” said Saturn Girl. “Karate Kid, what is your father’s name?”
“Uh… Black Dragon… I think,” said Karate Kid. “Um, no, um, that’s not right. I should know this, right?”
“I hear suppressed giggling,” Chameleon informed Saturn Girl. “And it is not any one of us. From up there.”
“OK, come on out, whoever you are,” Saturn Girl shouted to the air. “We know these constructs aren’t real.”
“What do you mean we’re not real?” asked Sun Boy.
The little man appeared out of nowhere. Less than a meter high, his long nose identified him as a Zrfffn imp.
“You didn’t like my Compleat Legion?” asked the imp. “Why won’t you let them join?”
“They aren’t real,” said Saturn Girl. “You could do away with their existence with a thought.”
“I could do the same to you,” said the imp. “And as for real, she’s realer than you,” he said, indicating Phantom Girl. “But only eighty percent as real as me. Say, why not let me join your Super-Hero Club? Then you could have as many Members as you want, with whatever powers you like?”
“Why waste your time with us?” asked Phantom Girl. “You could have your very own Legion of Super-Heroes without us, and they would do whatever you wanted.”
The imp seemed to think about this. “No,” he said finally. “I’d rather spend my time with you.”
“Well,” said Saturn Girl, “What’s your name?”
“Oh, no, I’m not telling you my name,” said the imp. “Much too dangerous.”
“Right, right,” said Saturn Girl. “If one of us were to say your name backwards, all your magic would vanish, and you would have to return to your home dimension for ninety days.”
“They changed those rules a long time ago,” said the imp sulkily. “I would have to return to Zrfff for ninety years. But you got one thing wrong. I’m the one who would have to say ‘Rykmlbrt’... No! Wait!”
But it was too late. Both the imp and the six faux Legionnaires disappeared, without a trace.
“Why would he do that?” asked Phantom Girl. “He just told us he was keeping his name a secret. There was absolutely no reason for him to say his name backwards.”
Saturn Girl shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “Perhaps even some Zrfffn imps have weak, suggestible minds, easily influenced.”
Phantom Girl looked at her friend curiously. “You didn’t…” she began.
“I wouldn’t admit it if I had,” said Saturn Girl.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/06/18 02:51 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
MAGIC SHOW
A week later, the Super Hero Club had guests, this time expected ones.
They had been contacted by the Councilors on Tharn, who had offered to send their apprentices for a display of magic for the Member’s entertainment. None of the young sorcerers would actually be applying for membership in the group, but their Masters thought that this might be a good opportunity to rehearse what they had learned.
The six young Tharnans appeared with the crowing of the magical green rooster, Chanticleer, and his caretaker, the Princess Pollita. In addition, a large, heavy oak table appeared, surrounded by cushioned chairs, capable of seating at least fifty. An open-air tent sheltered the area in front of the clubhouse as well.
Princess Pollita took a seat at the head of the table with the rooster Chanticleer as well. She invited the Members of the Super Hero Club to take their seats as well.
The first apprentice was a small, heavy-set blond, built along the lines of a young Bouncing Boy.
“I am Jonathan Falstaff, Apprentice to Falco Columbarius. My Master is a specialist in all sorts of useful household magicks; he has been instructing me in Food magicks, also called Victuamancy, or Shi Xue Mó Shù (食学魔术). This is my first completed project in Joining.”
He held up something like a wooden chessboard, but with a more complex pattern in the wood. He set the board down in front of Chameleon, places a large, shallow bronze bowl on top of it, and covered it all with a silk scarf. When he removed the scarf, the bowl contained a large Gnole Melon, and copper spoon. He left the bronze bowl-plate with Chameleon, taking the patterned board from underneath. He then did the same trick with Ffey, who received a dish of yakisoba.
“Do I just wish for what I want in my head?” asked Ffiona.
“No,” replied Jonathan Falstaff. “It does not respond to wishes.The board knows what you crave; it provides both what you need and what you want. Almost always, it is a food you are familiar with. And usually just a little more than you want to eat.”
For Ffiona, bowl was filled with udon noodle soup.
Farrah received okonomiyaki & dorayaki.
Ten received a large dollop of Coluan nutritive gel paste, and a couple of mineral supplements.
Phantom Girl got a mixed Bgzltr fruit platter.
Saturn Girl received a variety of Winathan vegetables.
For Lightning Lass, the vegetables came hot, in a thick stew.
Cosmic Boy received two hamburgers, two sausages-in-a-bun, and a half-dozen mini-tacos.
Matter-Eater Lad Two found his plate piled with a tasty assortment of pure elements and minerals, each about the size of an M&M.
Polar Lass received a plate of pickled fish, cabbage, and beets.
Finally, Shrinking Violet was granted a stuffed meat-and-vegetable sausage, an Orzdean dish she identified as ‘joyous’.
It was time for more entertainment.
Zauberlein was a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with a greenish cast to her skin. She was dressed in stereotypical witch’s black, complete with pointed hat and witch’s shawl. She had a rather mysterious and somewhat spooky air about her.
“The question is,” said Matter-Eater-Lad Two, “Are you a good witch, or a [/i]bad[/i] witch?”
“I am a competent witch,” said Zauberlein. “I have been studying broom magic, with Doctor Leitseid,” she said, conjuring a broom from nowhere. The broom flew some tricky maneuvers overhead, then landed upright beside her. “It can perform simple chores as well, such as carrying water, and washing dishes.” Zauberlein motioned, and the broom grew marionette-like arms. “Of course, it can also be used as a defending ‘warrior’, but it is pretty weak. Would one of you like to break my broom in half?”
Shrinking Violet volunteered, snapping the broomstick cleanly in half over one knee. The two halves rapidly regrew into two whole brooms.
“Over the long term, any opponent attacked by the broom would face serious difficulty,” Zauberlein commented.
“Unless, of course,” said Jonathan Falstaff, “The opponent thought to do this.” The two brooms were encased in massive, clear solid cubes. “Rock candy,” he explained.
“All of us have been trained,” Zauberlein explained, “To use our powers offensively, as well as productively. Imagine going up against Jonathan, and having him pour an unending stream of hot soup or molten cheese on you from the sky.” She gestured, and the two brooms vanished. Jonathan Falstaff made another motion, and the giant rock candies were gone as well.
Next was a young blonde-haired girl dressed in a costume of yellow and gold. She had a golden ‘dia de los muertos’-like skull painted-- or possibly tattooed-- on her face.
“I am the apprentice of Mariam Abraxas. I am called La Bruja Amarilla,” she introduced herself.”But my friends call me Amy. I have been studying mental magic: telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and illusion.”
A great forest seemed to grow up around the Clubhouse. The Members could hear strange bird calls in the distance, as well as deep lowing from larger animals. Occasionally, a bird would dart between the trees. Flowers wafted their fragrances, over a scent of green.
“This is the enchanted Woods of Wonder on Tharn,” said La Bruja Amarilla. “Of course, Pollita could have Chanticleer actually take us there, but I use this as an illustration of what I have learned so far.” The Woods of Wonder faded away. “But this is no illusion,” she said. The Members had finished the meals Jonathan Falstaff had provided; the twelve bronze dishes were whisked away through the air, and neatly stacked up beside him.
“And you have also been studying magical telepathy, and clairvoyance?” asked Saturn Girl.
“<Yes,>” was the answer in her mind.
The next girl was dressed in colorful Romani garb. She seated herself at foot of the table. “Counselor Rincewind is my Master,” she said. “I have taken the name Occultress. My specialty is Soothsaying, Divination and Fortune-Telling. I have brought an extended Tarot deck with me.” She quickly dealt out the one-hundred-twenty-one cards, face-down, in eleven rows and columns. “I would ask each of you to turn a single card face-up.”
Chameleon turned the ‘Hermit’, Phantom Girl, the ‘Lovers’, Ten, the Ten of Diamonds, Ffiona, the Three of Diamonds, Ffarrah, the Three of Cups, Ffey, the Three of Hearts, Cosmic Boy, the Knight of Swords, Shrinking Violet, the ‘Temperance’ card, Matter-Eater Lad Two, the Queen of Hearts, Lightning Lass, the Two of Swords, Saturn Girl, the Two of Diamonds, and Polar Lass, the Jack of Hearts.
The Occultress seemed puzzled. “I am having difficulty reading your choices,” she said. She produced a small book, and consulted it for a few minutes. “I will need to talk to my Master. I am afraid I may have done something wrong.”
Saturn Girl smiled. “I think you have done very, very well indeed,” she said.
“I am called Sohai Haydn,” said the next young man. “And I have been studying a variety of martial arts with The Sensei. Each time an art is mastered, I am able to manifest my scholarship as a Qi Spirit.” He closed placed his hand together, and closed his eyes in meditation.
A glowing, translucent, red humanoid figure appeared. “This is the Martial Art of Mok'bara from Khundia,” Sohai Haydn explained, his eyes still closed. The entity performed an aggressive, martial dance.
An orange figure also appeared, executing some high kicks. “This is Taekwondo, from Earth,” Sohai Haydn said.
Next a neon-green figure appeared, divided into three, then recombined. “This is Tri-Jitsu, from Carggg.”
“Have you studied Tri-Jitsu?” Chameleon asked Ffiona.
“No,” said Ffiona, “But most mornings, we run through a set of Tri Chi exercises.”
Finally, Sohai Haydn produced a small, blue image, about three feet tall. “And this is Munchkin Fu, from Doll World,” he said. “There are others I am still studying, but have not mastered.” The colorful images vanished, and Sohai Haydn bowed respectfully.
There was one more who had accompanied the group, but did not seem ready to perform.
“Will you introduce yourself?” asked Saturn Girl.
He was a little over six feet tall, solidly built, with grey skin, horns, and upward-pointing fangs. He was dressed in some sort of golden armor.
“A year or so ago,” he began, “There was a young Branx warrior who stole a Euphorixan Spellbook in an attempt to learn Magic. Unfortunately, he was unaware of the forces he was dealing with, and exchanged minds-- and possibly souls-- with a 21st-century seventy-five-year old Earthman. Exiled from Emana Branx, I came to the Sorcerer’s world, in an attempt to undo the spell, and return to my own time and body. This has proven difficult, if not impossible. Still, I hold out hope. In the meantime, I am studying Bushido, the Way of the Warrior with the Sensei, in an attempt to learn control over this violent Branx body. I really have no special abilities to display, unless you want me to break something.”
“And your name is…?” asked Saturn Girl.
“The young Branx was called Lodarthon Ogreich, but I presume that being-- trapped in my old body-- passed away centuries ago. I call myself Strebor.”
The Sorcerer’s World Apprentices were preparing to leave. Zauberlein presented a box to Shrinking Violet. “This is the gift the Coventry promised your Club,” she said. “Put them to use as soon as you can.”
“Thank you,” said Shrinking Violet.
“And in answer to your query, Harlak and Varella’s son on Tharn is named Zolaak.”
“That makes sense,” said Shrinking Violet. “And is somewhat comforting.”
La Bruja Amarilla approached also Matter-Eater Lad Two privately. “We know you have been researching Amulets of Accommodation in our online Dictionary of Magic,” she said. “I just wanted to point out, there are some side-effect to their use that some people might find uncomfortable, or inconvenient.”
“What’s that?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Offspring,” said La Bruja Amarilla.
“Oh,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Well, then.”
MAGIC SHOW
A week later, the Super Hero Club had guests, this time expected ones.
They had been contacted by the Councilors on Tharn, who had offered to send their apprentices for a display of magic for the Member’s entertainment. None of the young sorcerers would actually be applying for membership in the group, but their Masters thought that this might be a good opportunity to rehearse what they had learned.
The six young Tharnans appeared with the crowing of the magical green rooster, Chanticleer, and his caretaker, the Princess Pollita. In addition, a large, heavy oak table appeared, surrounded by cushioned chairs, capable of seating at least fifty. An open-air tent sheltered the area in front of the clubhouse as well.
Princess Pollita took a seat at the head of the table with the rooster Chanticleer as well. She invited the Members of the Super Hero Club to take their seats as well.
The first apprentice was a small, heavy-set blond, built along the lines of a young Bouncing Boy.
“I am Jonathan Falstaff, Apprentice to Falco Columbarius. My Master is a specialist in all sorts of useful household magicks; he has been instructing me in Food magicks, also called Victuamancy, or Shi Xue Mó Shù (食学魔术). This is my first completed project in Joining.”
He held up something like a wooden chessboard, but with a more complex pattern in the wood. He set the board down in front of Chameleon, places a large, shallow bronze bowl on top of it, and covered it all with a silk scarf. When he removed the scarf, the bowl contained a large Gnole Melon, and copper spoon. He left the bronze bowl-plate with Chameleon, taking the patterned board from underneath. He then did the same trick with Ffey, who received a dish of yakisoba.
“Do I just wish for what I want in my head?” asked Ffiona.
“No,” replied Jonathan Falstaff. “It does not respond to wishes.The board knows what you crave; it provides both what you need and what you want. Almost always, it is a food you are familiar with. And usually just a little more than you want to eat.”
For Ffiona, bowl was filled with udon noodle soup.
Farrah received okonomiyaki & dorayaki.
Ten received a large dollop of Coluan nutritive gel paste, and a couple of mineral supplements.
Phantom Girl got a mixed Bgzltr fruit platter.
Saturn Girl received a variety of Winathan vegetables.
For Lightning Lass, the vegetables came hot, in a thick stew.
Cosmic Boy received two hamburgers, two sausages-in-a-bun, and a half-dozen mini-tacos.
Matter-Eater Lad Two found his plate piled with a tasty assortment of pure elements and minerals, each about the size of an M&M.
Polar Lass received a plate of pickled fish, cabbage, and beets.
Finally, Shrinking Violet was granted a stuffed meat-and-vegetable sausage, an Orzdean dish she identified as ‘joyous’.
It was time for more entertainment.
Zauberlein was a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with a greenish cast to her skin. She was dressed in stereotypical witch’s black, complete with pointed hat and witch’s shawl. She had a rather mysterious and somewhat spooky air about her.
“The question is,” said Matter-Eater-Lad Two, “Are you a good witch, or a [/i]bad[/i] witch?”
“I am a competent witch,” said Zauberlein. “I have been studying broom magic, with Doctor Leitseid,” she said, conjuring a broom from nowhere. The broom flew some tricky maneuvers overhead, then landed upright beside her. “It can perform simple chores as well, such as carrying water, and washing dishes.” Zauberlein motioned, and the broom grew marionette-like arms. “Of course, it can also be used as a defending ‘warrior’, but it is pretty weak. Would one of you like to break my broom in half?”
Shrinking Violet volunteered, snapping the broomstick cleanly in half over one knee. The two halves rapidly regrew into two whole brooms.
“Over the long term, any opponent attacked by the broom would face serious difficulty,” Zauberlein commented.
“Unless, of course,” said Jonathan Falstaff, “The opponent thought to do this.” The two brooms were encased in massive, clear solid cubes. “Rock candy,” he explained.
“All of us have been trained,” Zauberlein explained, “To use our powers offensively, as well as productively. Imagine going up against Jonathan, and having him pour an unending stream of hot soup or molten cheese on you from the sky.” She gestured, and the two brooms vanished. Jonathan Falstaff made another motion, and the giant rock candies were gone as well.
Next was a young blonde-haired girl dressed in a costume of yellow and gold. She had a golden ‘dia de los muertos’-like skull painted-- or possibly tattooed-- on her face.
“I am the apprentice of Mariam Abraxas. I am called La Bruja Amarilla,” she introduced herself.”But my friends call me Amy. I have been studying mental magic: telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and illusion.”
A great forest seemed to grow up around the Clubhouse. The Members could hear strange bird calls in the distance, as well as deep lowing from larger animals. Occasionally, a bird would dart between the trees. Flowers wafted their fragrances, over a scent of green.
“This is the enchanted Woods of Wonder on Tharn,” said La Bruja Amarilla. “Of course, Pollita could have Chanticleer actually take us there, but I use this as an illustration of what I have learned so far.” The Woods of Wonder faded away. “But this is no illusion,” she said. The Members had finished the meals Jonathan Falstaff had provided; the twelve bronze dishes were whisked away through the air, and neatly stacked up beside him.
“And you have also been studying magical telepathy, and clairvoyance?” asked Saturn Girl.
“<Yes,>” was the answer in her mind.
The next girl was dressed in colorful Romani garb. She seated herself at foot of the table. “Counselor Rincewind is my Master,” she said. “I have taken the name Occultress. My specialty is Soothsaying, Divination and Fortune-Telling. I have brought an extended Tarot deck with me.” She quickly dealt out the one-hundred-twenty-one cards, face-down, in eleven rows and columns. “I would ask each of you to turn a single card face-up.”
Chameleon turned the ‘Hermit’, Phantom Girl, the ‘Lovers’, Ten, the Ten of Diamonds, Ffiona, the Three of Diamonds, Ffarrah, the Three of Cups, Ffey, the Three of Hearts, Cosmic Boy, the Knight of Swords, Shrinking Violet, the ‘Temperance’ card, Matter-Eater Lad Two, the Queen of Hearts, Lightning Lass, the Two of Swords, Saturn Girl, the Two of Diamonds, and Polar Lass, the Jack of Hearts.
The Occultress seemed puzzled. “I am having difficulty reading your choices,” she said. She produced a small book, and consulted it for a few minutes. “I will need to talk to my Master. I am afraid I may have done something wrong.”
Saturn Girl smiled. “I think you have done very, very well indeed,” she said.
“I am called Sohai Haydn,” said the next young man. “And I have been studying a variety of martial arts with The Sensei. Each time an art is mastered, I am able to manifest my scholarship as a Qi Spirit.” He closed placed his hand together, and closed his eyes in meditation.
A glowing, translucent, red humanoid figure appeared. “This is the Martial Art of Mok'bara from Khundia,” Sohai Haydn explained, his eyes still closed. The entity performed an aggressive, martial dance.
An orange figure also appeared, executing some high kicks. “This is Taekwondo, from Earth,” Sohai Haydn said.
Next a neon-green figure appeared, divided into three, then recombined. “This is Tri-Jitsu, from Carggg.”
“Have you studied Tri-Jitsu?” Chameleon asked Ffiona.
“No,” said Ffiona, “But most mornings, we run through a set of Tri Chi exercises.”
Finally, Sohai Haydn produced a small, blue image, about three feet tall. “And this is Munchkin Fu, from Doll World,” he said. “There are others I am still studying, but have not mastered.” The colorful images vanished, and Sohai Haydn bowed respectfully.
There was one more who had accompanied the group, but did not seem ready to perform.
“Will you introduce yourself?” asked Saturn Girl.
He was a little over six feet tall, solidly built, with grey skin, horns, and upward-pointing fangs. He was dressed in some sort of golden armor.
“A year or so ago,” he began, “There was a young Branx warrior who stole a Euphorixan Spellbook in an attempt to learn Magic. Unfortunately, he was unaware of the forces he was dealing with, and exchanged minds-- and possibly souls-- with a 21st-century seventy-five-year old Earthman. Exiled from Emana Branx, I came to the Sorcerer’s world, in an attempt to undo the spell, and return to my own time and body. This has proven difficult, if not impossible. Still, I hold out hope. In the meantime, I am studying Bushido, the Way of the Warrior with the Sensei, in an attempt to learn control over this violent Branx body. I really have no special abilities to display, unless you want me to break something.”
“And your name is…?” asked Saturn Girl.
“The young Branx was called Lodarthon Ogreich, but I presume that being-- trapped in my old body-- passed away centuries ago. I call myself Strebor.”
The Sorcerer’s World Apprentices were preparing to leave. Zauberlein presented a box to Shrinking Violet. “This is the gift the Coventry promised your Club,” she said. “Put them to use as soon as you can.”
“Thank you,” said Shrinking Violet.
“And in answer to your query, Harlak and Varella’s son on Tharn is named Zolaak.”
“That makes sense,” said Shrinking Violet. “And is somewhat comforting.”
La Bruja Amarilla approached also Matter-Eater Lad Two privately. “We know you have been researching Amulets of Accommodation in our online Dictionary of Magic,” she said. “I just wanted to point out, there are some side-effect to their use that some people might find uncomfortable, or inconvenient.”
“What’s that?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Offspring,” said La Bruja Amarilla.
“Oh,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Well, then.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/13/18 03:44 PM
AUTHOR’S NOTE
WHERE IS EVERYBODY?
So these stories are not particularly about the Original Legion, but I am sure Old Legion Fans are curious about what has happened to them in the Earth-K2 paracosm. (No 5YL, no Reboot, no Preboot, just TOS and the Retroboot)
The oldest, the Founders, Phantom Girl, and so on, are now approaching sixty. The youngest, Dragonwing and Chemical Kid, for example, are thirtysomethings. Here is a brief rundown of all the old Legion’s status...
Winath
Garth & Imra Ardeen-Ranzz
Married, living on Lightning Ring Farms. Four children, Garridan, Graym, Dorrit, and Dacey. No grand-children yet, but Graym was recently married to the former Yves Jor.
Rokk & Lydda Jath-Krinn
Married, living on Lightning Ring Farms. One child, Pol Hu Krinn II.
Salu and Ayla Ranzz-Digby
Married, living on Lightning Ring Farms. One child, Violet Foudre Ranzz-Digby.
The reformed Mekt Ranzz also lives on Lightning Ring Farms. He is currently unmarried.
Nomads
Jan Arrah
Legally owner of the entire planet of Trom. Spends his time between there, and wandering the entire Galaxy. Unmarried. Still a registered Adventurer.
Gim Allon
SP Special Investigations Officer. SP Trainer. Owns a home in Cloud City on Mars. Travels frequently for work. Unmarried.
The Royals
Projectra (Wilimena Morgana Daergina Annaxandra Projectra Velorya Vauxhall, plus titles)
Queen of Orando. Widowed. None of the multiple resurrections of Val Armorr ever “took”. She has, however, adopted a number of promising, magical children, one of whom will ultimately succeed her as regent of Orando.
Nura Nal
High Seer of Naltor. Unmarried, one child, a daughter.
Tasmia Mallor
Her cousin Grev and his wife, Kahnya, are Co-Regents of Talok VIII; Tasmia is therefore technically a princess. She resides in the palace at the Capital. Unmarried. One child, a boy.
A few notes on Talok, and the Malloreans
The Mallor family on Talok VIII holds the heritage of the Shadow Champions. When a Child of Mallor is of age, the enter the Shadow Cave, and either are chosen Shadow Champion, or not. There are generally only one or two Shadow Champions in a generation.
There are six Shadowcasters presently on Talok VIII:
(1) Sarven Mallor, male, age 105 (retired Shadow Champion)
(2) Tarnia Tolarn Mallor, female, age 80 (retired Shadow Champion), Sarven’s daughter-in-law
(3) Tasmia Mallor, female, age 55 (retired Shadow Champion) Tarnia’s daughter
(4) Grev Mallor, male, age 50 (retired Shadow Champion), Lord Regent of Talok VIII, Tasmia’s cousin, Tarnia’s nephew, and Sarven’s grandson.
(5) Adrion Mallor, male, age 35, (current Shadow Champion, aka Shadow-Star), Grev’s nephew, Sarven’s great-grandson
(6) Korvea Mallor, female, age 15 (Champion-in-Training), Adrion’s daughter, and great-great-granddaughter of Sarven Mallor.
It is expected that Malloreans, especially Champions, will take powerful mates, sometimes alien, in order to improve the bloodline of the Champions. Unfortunately, these genetic enhancements have proved to dissipate and dilute over the generations. Lyrissa and Lydea Mallor were noted for their great strength, but these have not persisted over time.
This preference for powerful mates is not merely a cultural imperative, but literally woven into the Mallorean genetic makeup. Mallorean males are intensely, almost irresistibly attracted to strong females, and Mallorean females are equally attracted to strong males. Polygyny and polyandry is not unknown on Talok VIII.
Everything said here about the Malloreans can also be applied to the memory-controlling Nahtahnie, priests and priestesses of Maakas.
Tasmia Mallor, to her shame and distress, was never able to produce a Daxamite heir. She did have one half-alien child, however. Gestated in an artificial womb, under the watchful eyes of the Healers, due to the many possible complications of such alien gene-mixing, he was a child of great expectations. Raised by revered Teachers and renowned Guardians, he was ultimately a disappointment. Unchosen at the Cave of Shadows, he remains an ordinary, powerless Talokan. He is currently studying at Metropolis University on his father’s homeworld. His name is Menaleas Niedrigh Mallor.
Mages
Mysa Nal
Ruler of Zerox, the original Sorcerer’s World, which is now located in another dimension. Long presumed deceased, but recently discovered alive.
Glorith II, now calling herself "Moonflower"
Lives on Zerox in another dimension. Long presumed deceased, but recently discovered alive.
Others
Jo & Tinya Wazzo-Nah
Married, family living on Gzbk, the Bgztlr-Universe equivalent of Mars. Three children, one grandchild.
Tenzil Kem
Married Eve Aries (Saturn Queen). Former President of Bismoll. At least two children.
Tong Marya Pai (formerly DragonWing)
Lives in China (Qingdaopolis) with her husband, Tong Hu-Kai (Hukai). They have one daughter, Tong Xie-Tao (Xietao).
Jacques Foccart
Married. Lives in East Africa. At least one child.
Ganglios (Tellus)
Bonded. Lives on Hykraius. No offspring as yet, but he is still young. Hykraians have a relatively long life-span, some two hundred to two hundred fifty years.
Quislet
Missing. Has not been heard from in years. Status unknown.
Hadru Jamik
Married. Lives on Phlon. No children. Yet.
Brek Bannin
Married. Lives on Tharr with his wife, Kalthrein Odomin-Bannin, and their two young children, Freski and Froyd.
Charles Foster Taine
Remarried a little over a year after Lluornu's death, a Wondilixian woman named Aemilia Tollydiggle. Lives on Wondil 9 with his and Aemilia's newborn daughter. His twin boys, Aaron and Lloyd, now fully grown, also reside on Wondil IX, and are VIPs in the colonist community.
Grava d’Quaal
‘Cured’ of her medical condition, Grava is now an ordinary, orange-skinned, pointy-eared, pink-haired Extalan hybrid. She moved to Wondil IX after hearing of Lluornu's death. She met a nice Wondilixian boy more her own age there recently, got married and settled down.
Querl Dox
Lives and works on Colu, directly for ColuGov. Technically still a child by Coluan standards, he has run through several dozen Adult Guardians over the years, a position now considered one of the worst jobs on Colu.
Harmonia Li
Currently lives and works on Colu, for ColuGov.
The Substitutes
Staq Mavlen
Married, lives on Schwar. At least one child.
Dag Wentim
Married, lives on Zwen. At least one child.
Ulu Vakk
Married, lives on Lupra. At least one child.
Khefurb Che Bez
Married, lives on Gryxor. At least one child.
Peter Dursin
Married, lives on Earth. ‘Cured’ of his porcupinish super-abilities. At least one child.
Deceased
Reep Daggle: Old Age (Durlans have a substantially shorter lifespan than Terrans, most living no longer than 50-60 years, Earth Standard)
Lyle Norg: Killed by Validus
Lar Gand: Killed by Emerald Empress
Dirk Morgna: Killed in starcruiser crash
Thom Kallor: Killed in building collapse
Clark Kent (Kal-El): Presumed deceased long ago.
Linda Lee Danvers (Kara Zor-El): Presumed deceased long ago
Lluornu (note spelling) Durgo-Taine: Has died at least four times. No known surviving bodies.
Andrew Nolan: Heroic murder-suicide while battling Sun-Eater
Val Armorr: Heroic suicide while battling Nemesis Kid. Attempted resurrections have never been permanent.
Condo Arlik: Heroic suicide during EarthWar
Brin Londo: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Blok: Recently murdered by Mordru. Presumed dead for some time before that, after the disappearance of Zerox.
Rond Vidar: Murdered by Superboy-Prime.
Universo, Mordru and others are also implicated in his death.
Dawnstar: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Pol Krinn I: His heroic suicide ended the Magic Wars.
Troy Stewart: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Drake Burroughs / Wildfire: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past. It is possible that the true Drake Burroughs originally died during the creation of Wildfire, who may be an Anti-Energy Elemental in the same way that Swamp Thing is a Plant Elemental. In that case, the Wildfire entity, being essentially immortal, may still exist. Somewhere.
Ti'julk Mr'asz: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Jenni Ognats: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Kirt Niedrigh: Heroic murder-suicide of the ‘Blue Flame, Bringer of Chaos’. This entity claimed to be the Eternal Incarnation of Evil, but its destruction did not seem to make any difference to the level of evil in the Universe.
Yera Allon: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Frenk and Dyvud Retzun: Murdered by Kirt Niedrigh
Drura Sehpt: Lost in time; presumed long dead in the past
Honorary Members / Deceased
Elastic Lad / James Olsen: Presumed long dead in the past
Insect Queen / Lana Lang: Presumed long dead in the past
Pete Ross: Presumed long dead in the past
Gnill Opral: Vaporized by a wave of anti-matter created by the Anti-Monitor
'False Pretenses' Legionnaires / Deceased
Hart Druiter: Executed by the Queen of Orando under questionable legal circumstances.
Vorm of New Tortuga (also spelled New Tartuga): Lost in time; presumed death sometime in the far future
Graah, Aarl & Xaxan of Murra: Murdered by Pirates
Jan Jor: Died in Prison
My literary versions of Earth-K and Earth-K2 are not to be confused with the Earth-K's currently on Facebook.
I’m forgetting someone… I know I’m forgetting someone…
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/13/18 03:46 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
AQUA BOY
“Jeem Rehtu of Pretzor, calling the new Super Hero Club on Mars,” said the curly-haired man on the viewscreen. “I was surprised to receive your solicitation. After all, I was only a Legionnaire for a few days.”
“Well, I had a list,” said Cosmic Boy. “I’m afraid we really don’t know much about you.”
“My tenure was rather ignominious,” said Jeem Rehtu. “The newsfeeds styled me as ‘The Lad Who Wrecked The Legion’, but it was more complicated than that.”
“Do you have children who have inherited your powers?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“You really don’t know much about me, do you?” said Jeem Rehtu. “No, they don’t have any powers-- and I never had them myself for more than those few days, thank the Luck Lords. But my youngest son… Well, Pretzor is an Ocean World, dotted with many islands. Some of the younger generation, perhaps feeling caged in by the limited land area here, has taken to chromosomal surgery, to render them more compatible with an underwater lifestyle. My son, Jaan, has opted for that surgery. While still perfectly at home on the surface, he is also able to breathe underwater. His strength and durability is enhanced when submerged, enabling him to swim at remarkable speeds, and dive down to very deep levels beneath the oceans. He is not unique among his generation, but was curious if this is the sort of applicant you would be seeking?”
“Yes, an Aqua Boy in the Club might be interesting,” said Cosmic Boy. “Is it possible for him to come here to Mars next Mixcoatlsday for an in-person tryout?”
“I am certain we can arrange it,” said Jeem Rehtu. “One word of caution: he does not turn fourteen until next month; however, his mother and I would be happy to sign any waivers and so forth if you would allow him to join early. Should he pass your examination, of course.”
Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass had been listening to the last half of the conversation.
“I’m sure we can make arrangements, Mr. Rehtu,” said Saturn Girl. “If he wants to come a month early, and you approve… well that indicates a certain enthusiasm, doesn’t it?”
Suddenly, the room was spinning around the three Members. The world tilted, the floor dropped away…
AQUA BOY
“Jeem Rehtu of Pretzor, calling the new Super Hero Club on Mars,” said the curly-haired man on the viewscreen. “I was surprised to receive your solicitation. After all, I was only a Legionnaire for a few days.”
“Well, I had a list,” said Cosmic Boy. “I’m afraid we really don’t know much about you.”
“My tenure was rather ignominious,” said Jeem Rehtu. “The newsfeeds styled me as ‘The Lad Who Wrecked The Legion’, but it was more complicated than that.”
“Do you have children who have inherited your powers?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“You really don’t know much about me, do you?” said Jeem Rehtu. “No, they don’t have any powers-- and I never had them myself for more than those few days, thank the Luck Lords. But my youngest son… Well, Pretzor is an Ocean World, dotted with many islands. Some of the younger generation, perhaps feeling caged in by the limited land area here, has taken to chromosomal surgery, to render them more compatible with an underwater lifestyle. My son, Jaan, has opted for that surgery. While still perfectly at home on the surface, he is also able to breathe underwater. His strength and durability is enhanced when submerged, enabling him to swim at remarkable speeds, and dive down to very deep levels beneath the oceans. He is not unique among his generation, but was curious if this is the sort of applicant you would be seeking?”
“Yes, an Aqua Boy in the Club might be interesting,” said Cosmic Boy. “Is it possible for him to come here to Mars next Mixcoatlsday for an in-person tryout?”
“I am certain we can arrange it,” said Jeem Rehtu. “One word of caution: he does not turn fourteen until next month; however, his mother and I would be happy to sign any waivers and so forth if you would allow him to join early. Should he pass your examination, of course.”
Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass had been listening to the last half of the conversation.
“I’m sure we can make arrangements, Mr. Rehtu,” said Saturn Girl. “If he wants to come a month early, and you approve… well that indicates a certain enthusiasm, doesn’t it?”
Suddenly, the room was spinning around the three Members. The world tilted, the floor dropped away…
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/14/18 09:08 AM
Curious that a team that doesn't have a magician is so often encountering magic.
In the Jim Carey movie of Andy Kaufmann's life, he did a Mighty Mouse performance, which no doubt became the basis of the opera.
Coluan Nutritive Gel paste may be perfect nutrition but someone should buy that kid a veggie burger. If they can slip it past the Adult Guardian.
Strebor got the better deal in that mix-up. He should try saying his name backwards to go home, but what's so bad about gaining a young body in the future when you're 75? Where do I sign up?
Polar Lass and M-E Lad II seem to be the new Dawnstar/Wildfire physically incompatible romance, but with better results.
How does Prospero know that Ffameleon is a Durlan? I have the impression that Durlans may still be mysterious and little known, but the prejudice against them has lessened.
Jeem Rehtu is pretty anxious to get rid of his kid!
Thanks for the list of who's where in the Earth-K parcosm. The only ones I could see missing are some of the Academy kids - Power Boy, Lamprey, Nightwind, etc. and Dori Andraison.
Love all the daily life details you build into these stories.
In the Jim Carey movie of Andy Kaufmann's life, he did a Mighty Mouse performance, which no doubt became the basis of the opera.
Coluan Nutritive Gel paste may be perfect nutrition but someone should buy that kid a veggie burger. If they can slip it past the Adult Guardian.
Strebor got the better deal in that mix-up. He should try saying his name backwards to go home, but what's so bad about gaining a young body in the future when you're 75? Where do I sign up?
Polar Lass and M-E Lad II seem to be the new Dawnstar/Wildfire physically incompatible romance, but with better results.
How does Prospero know that Ffameleon is a Durlan? I have the impression that Durlans may still be mysterious and little known, but the prejudice against them has lessened.
Jeem Rehtu is pretty anxious to get rid of his kid!
Thanks for the list of who's where in the Earth-K parcosm. The only ones I could see missing are some of the Academy kids - Power Boy, Lamprey, Nightwind, etc. and Dori Andraison.
Love all the daily life details you build into these stories.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/14/18 03:45 PM
I am gratified that you have found my vision somewhat interesting.
Mighty Mouse Opera:
(One of many)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mTSiAoIZBI
and the original Andy Kaufman routine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-wUe5aEwHM
Yes, I inserted myself into the Earth-K2 paracosm.
(1) Two identical girls walk into a pizza shop...
(2) ... and one orders raw pizza dough.
(3) or, Prospero may be more than he appears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtuoNCfbnYM
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
In the Jim Carey movie of Andy Kaufmann's life, he did a Mighty Mouse performance, which no doubt became the basis of the opera.
Mighty Mouse Opera:
(One of many)
https:/
and the original Andy Kaufman routine:
https:/
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Strebor got the better deal in that mix-up
Yes, I inserted myself into the Earth-K2 paracosm.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
How does Prospero know that Ffameleon is a Durlan?
(1) Two identical girls walk into a pizza shop...
(2) ... and one orders raw pizza dough.
(3) or, Prospero may be more than he appears.
https:/
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/18 11:17 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY
JEEM REHTU, DEMON HUNTER
Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lass found themselves on Pretzor, inside the home of Jeem Rehtu. But this was not the Jeem Rehtu they had just been speaking with. His face seemed harder, more careworn, even scarred. He had a sens-patch over his right eye. There was a hooded woman standing off to one side, behind him. There was also has a large collection of various jars, lamps, banded boxes, bottles, orbs, and rings of iron, brass, gold, and crystal in racks which lined the walls.
“Who are you?” demanded Jeem Rehtu. He raised his hands, as though they were weapons. There were metal disks embedded in his palms.
“Er… Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Saturn Girl of the Super-Hero Club,” said Cosmic Boy. “Were we just speaking to you? Or was that someone else?”
Jeem Rehtu lowered his hands. “Super Hero Club?” he asked. “That was a long time ago…”
“Be careful,” the hooded woman called out. “I am detecting infernal energies nearby.”
“This one is resisting me,” said Saturn Girl, in a deep, guttural voice. “She is a powerful telepath.”
“This one as well,” said Lightning Lass. “I cannot understand it.”
“I have full control over the boy,” said Cosmic Boy. “His powers will allow us to liberate our ferrophobic brethren.”
But Lightning Lass had reached out a hand toward Cosmic Boy, and a bolt of lightning dropped him to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Pol,” she said, in her normal voice. “You will pay dearly for that, child,” the ragged second voice threatened.
The hooded woman held up a glowing red sphere, on the end of a golden wand. Metal plating began to envelop the three youths. Three screaming demonic entities rose from their bodies, which were quickly captured by the one-eyed Jeem Rehtu in three of the peculiar vessels along the walls.
The woman threw back her hood. Saturn Girl saw she had a tattoo around her right eye, which she recognized as an Egyptian Eye of Horus.
“I am Jhina Rhetu,” she said. “Mistress of the Orb of Ra. And this is my husband, Jeem. We are demon hunters… but in this case, the demons have come to us, and for some reason brought you with them.”
“They needed your bodies and powers,” Jeem Rhetu explained, “In order to free some of the others we have captured.” He indicated the wall behind him. “My wife and I specialize in a particular sort of demon: ones which share an antipathy to pure chemical elements. These were three were copper-hating demons, but were evidently attempting to free the more common, iron-hating ones.”
“I’m a Braalien,” said Cosmic Boy, struggling to his feet. “I owe you a headache,” he promised Lightning Lass.
“You do have Braaliens here?” asked Saturn Girl. “I don’t think we are in our home dimension. We were just speaking with a very different Jeem Rehtu a moment ago.”
The one-eyed man rubbed his chin. “Yes, Braaliens, of course,” he said. He held up his palms. “These two coins are inscribed with the six-sided Seal of Solomon, and the eight-sided Signet of Melchizedek, which have great power against demonic magicks. I am certain that a single touch will send you home. Will you hold hands, please?”
Cosmic Boy stood in the middle. Jeem Rehtu touched one hand to Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl’s shoulders. The room faded around them, and they found themselves on an open street under a bright sun.
JEEM REHTU, DEMON HUNTER
Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lass found themselves on Pretzor, inside the home of Jeem Rehtu. But this was not the Jeem Rehtu they had just been speaking with. His face seemed harder, more careworn, even scarred. He had a sens-patch over his right eye. There was a hooded woman standing off to one side, behind him. There was also has a large collection of various jars, lamps, banded boxes, bottles, orbs, and rings of iron, brass, gold, and crystal in racks which lined the walls.
“Who are you?” demanded Jeem Rehtu. He raised his hands, as though they were weapons. There were metal disks embedded in his palms.
“Er… Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Saturn Girl of the Super-Hero Club,” said Cosmic Boy. “Were we just speaking to you? Or was that someone else?”
Jeem Rehtu lowered his hands. “Super Hero Club?” he asked. “That was a long time ago…”
“Be careful,” the hooded woman called out. “I am detecting infernal energies nearby.”
“This one is resisting me,” said Saturn Girl, in a deep, guttural voice. “She is a powerful telepath.”
“This one as well,” said Lightning Lass. “I cannot understand it.”
“I have full control over the boy,” said Cosmic Boy. “His powers will allow us to liberate our ferrophobic brethren.”
But Lightning Lass had reached out a hand toward Cosmic Boy, and a bolt of lightning dropped him to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Pol,” she said, in her normal voice. “You will pay dearly for that, child,” the ragged second voice threatened.
The hooded woman held up a glowing red sphere, on the end of a golden wand. Metal plating began to envelop the three youths. Three screaming demonic entities rose from their bodies, which were quickly captured by the one-eyed Jeem Rehtu in three of the peculiar vessels along the walls.
The woman threw back her hood. Saturn Girl saw she had a tattoo around her right eye, which she recognized as an Egyptian Eye of Horus.
“I am Jhina Rhetu,” she said. “Mistress of the Orb of Ra. And this is my husband, Jeem. We are demon hunters… but in this case, the demons have come to us, and for some reason brought you with them.”
“They needed your bodies and powers,” Jeem Rhetu explained, “In order to free some of the others we have captured.” He indicated the wall behind him. “My wife and I specialize in a particular sort of demon: ones which share an antipathy to pure chemical elements. These were three were copper-hating demons, but were evidently attempting to free the more common, iron-hating ones.”
“I’m a Braalien,” said Cosmic Boy, struggling to his feet. “I owe you a headache,” he promised Lightning Lass.
“You do have Braaliens here?” asked Saturn Girl. “I don’t think we are in our home dimension. We were just speaking with a very different Jeem Rehtu a moment ago.”
The one-eyed man rubbed his chin. “Yes, Braaliens, of course,” he said. He held up his palms. “These two coins are inscribed with the six-sided Seal of Solomon, and the eight-sided Signet of Melchizedek, which have great power against demonic magicks. I am certain that a single touch will send you home. Will you hold hands, please?”
Cosmic Boy stood in the middle. Jeem Rehtu touched one hand to Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl’s shoulders. The room faded around them, and they found themselves on an open street under a bright sun.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/18 11:23 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
LUCKY THIRTEEN
“Well, he sent us somewhere,” said Lightning Lass. “The question is, where?”
“First a Zrfffn imp, then extradimensional demons,” said Saturn Girl. “I’m beginning to hate magic.”
“They say that once you have experienced magic, it will remain a part of your life forever,” said Cosmic Boy.
“Who says that?” said Lightning Lass.
“I don’t know. I heard it somewhere,” said Cosmic Boy. “Fairy tales, maybe?”
Saturn Girl grimaced. “We need to install that gift from the First Coventry as soon as possible,” she said. “Oh my, I think I know where we are.” She pointed to a young girl about their age, walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Her hands were webbed, her skin had a greenish hue, and she had a shark’s fin growing out of the top of her head.
“Excuse me!” called Saturn Girl. She ran up to the strange girl. “Can you tell me if Jeem Rehtu lives around here?”
“Sure,” said the girl. “The Rehtus live in that pink house over there. The one your friends are standing right in front of.”
“Pretzor,” Saturn Girl announced. “We’re still on Pretzor, hopefully in the right Trouser of Time.”
They knocked on the pink door. Jeem Rehtu answered.
“How did you get here so quickly?” he asked, surprised.
“Magic,” said Saturn Girl. “We, uh, thought we’d come and see your son Jaan ourselves. Is he home?”
“He will be home soon,” said Jeem Rehtu. “My wife picks him up from school on her way home from work. She’s an architect in town. Working on floating villages, right now. Although, the way things are going on Pretzor, her company may be building some undersea ones soon. Can I get you something cool to drink?”
“Please,” said Cosmic Boy. “And do you have a mild analgesic? This sort of ‘traveling’ gives me a headache.” He shot a glance at Lightning Lass.
Jaan Rehtu came home with his mother, who seemed much cheerier-- and less tattooed-- than the one they had met ‘elsewhere’. Jaan himself was smaller than any of the Members except Ten. His feet and hands were webbed, he had noticeable gills on his neck, his eyes were larger than average, and he had a fin growing up from the part of his shoulder-length, green hair.
“Aqua Boy?” he said. “Sure, why not?”
“You will need to continue your studies while on Mars,” said his mother. “We don’t want you dropping out the minute you turn fourteen.”
“We have several hours set aside for continuing education,” said Saturn Girl. “We’re on Independent Study, of course.” “<At least, most of us are>,” she thought to herself.
Aqua Boy enjoyed amenities the Clubhouse, especially the beach, and the great New Hellespont Sea. He could often be seen far out in the water, leaping meters above the surface, and splashing back again. The limited entertainments of the little town of New Metropolis quickly exhausted his interest, however.
A few days before his fourteenth birthday, he approached the rest of the Super Hero Club.
“So is this all we do? Hang out all day? I’m starting to get pretty bored. Sure, you have a nice sea to swim in, and some very interesting sea-creatures on the bottom, but when do we see some action?”
"Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror," said Cosmic Boy.
“Well, it’s not what I signed up for,” said Aqua Boy. “I’m still waiting on the Flight Belt. And do I really have to pay for it myself? I’m going back to Pretzor.”
“We’re sorry to see you go,” said Saturn Girl. “But we’re all volunteers here, just getting started, doing the best we can.”
“Well, good luck,” said Aqua Boy. “I’d rather be back in school.”
LUCKY THIRTEEN
“Well, he sent us somewhere,” said Lightning Lass. “The question is, where?”
“First a Zrfffn imp, then extradimensional demons,” said Saturn Girl. “I’m beginning to hate magic.”
“They say that once you have experienced magic, it will remain a part of your life forever,” said Cosmic Boy.
“Who says that?” said Lightning Lass.
“I don’t know. I heard it somewhere,” said Cosmic Boy. “Fairy tales, maybe?”
Saturn Girl grimaced. “We need to install that gift from the First Coventry as soon as possible,” she said. “Oh my, I think I know where we are.” She pointed to a young girl about their age, walking down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Her hands were webbed, her skin had a greenish hue, and she had a shark’s fin growing out of the top of her head.
“Excuse me!” called Saturn Girl. She ran up to the strange girl. “Can you tell me if Jeem Rehtu lives around here?”
“Sure,” said the girl. “The Rehtus live in that pink house over there. The one your friends are standing right in front of.”
“Pretzor,” Saturn Girl announced. “We’re still on Pretzor, hopefully in the right Trouser of Time.”
They knocked on the pink door. Jeem Rehtu answered.
“How did you get here so quickly?” he asked, surprised.
“Magic,” said Saturn Girl. “We, uh, thought we’d come and see your son Jaan ourselves. Is he home?”
“He will be home soon,” said Jeem Rehtu. “My wife picks him up from school on her way home from work. She’s an architect in town. Working on floating villages, right now. Although, the way things are going on Pretzor, her company may be building some undersea ones soon. Can I get you something cool to drink?”
“Please,” said Cosmic Boy. “And do you have a mild analgesic? This sort of ‘traveling’ gives me a headache.” He shot a glance at Lightning Lass.
Jaan Rehtu came home with his mother, who seemed much cheerier-- and less tattooed-- than the one they had met ‘elsewhere’. Jaan himself was smaller than any of the Members except Ten. His feet and hands were webbed, he had noticeable gills on his neck, his eyes were larger than average, and he had a fin growing up from the part of his shoulder-length, green hair.
“Aqua Boy?” he said. “Sure, why not?”
“You will need to continue your studies while on Mars,” said his mother. “We don’t want you dropping out the minute you turn fourteen.”
“We have several hours set aside for continuing education,” said Saturn Girl. “We’re on Independent Study, of course.” “<At least, most of us are>,” she thought to herself.
Aqua Boy enjoyed amenities the Clubhouse, especially the beach, and the great New Hellespont Sea. He could often be seen far out in the water, leaping meters above the surface, and splashing back again. The limited entertainments of the little town of New Metropolis quickly exhausted his interest, however.
A few days before his fourteenth birthday, he approached the rest of the Super Hero Club.
“So is this all we do? Hang out all day? I’m starting to get pretty bored. Sure, you have a nice sea to swim in, and some very interesting sea-creatures on the bottom, but when do we see some action?”
"Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror," said Cosmic Boy.
“Well, it’s not what I signed up for,” said Aqua Boy. “I’m still waiting on the Flight Belt. And do I really have to pay for it myself? I’m going back to Pretzor.”
“We’re sorry to see you go,” said Saturn Girl. “But we’re all volunteers here, just getting started, doing the best we can.”
“Well, good luck,” said Aqua Boy. “I’d rather be back in school.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/27/18 04:17 PM
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Thanks for the list of who's where in the Earth-K parcosm. The only ones I could see missing are some of the Academy kids - Power Boy, Lamprey, Nightwind, etc. and Dori Andraison.
Well, I must say this has been something of a challenge. It took me to some obscure corners of the Earth-K2 paracosm.
My initial goal in the Earth-K Universe was to try to more or less unite TOS, 5YL, and the Reboot into a single, consistent narrative. The Rainbow Girl stories were an exploration of that paracosm.
At the end of her arc, Dori somewhat unexpectedly created the Earth-K2 Universe, which operates under different rules. There is no 5YG or 5YL, and no reboot. There is only the Retroboot (and thus, most of early TOS history) but the Legion ends with Issue #23, and never returns. Those who are dead, stay dead. Those who are lost, stay lost. A quarter of a century has passed since the Legion was disbanded.
So, who are, or were, the members of the Legion Academy?
1 Obviously excluded are Legion Academy characters from the 5YG and 5YL period, such as Mara Williams (Rush), Jagged, Dragonfly, R3Z7 of Tyrraz, “Red Tiger Girl”, Ringtoss, and Xera of Manna-5. Some of them certainly exist in the Earth-K2 paracosm, having made appearances before 1989 or after 2007.
(The Earth-K2 Rush has even ended up as part of Justice League Earth 2.O. But I can’t list every minor character, can I?)
2 Brin Londo (Timber Wolf), Condo Arlik (Chemical King), Hadru Jamik (Chemical Kid), Grava d’Quall (Comet Queen), Pol Kfinn II (Magnetic Kid), Ganglios (Tellus), Dawnstar, ‘Glorith II’, and Marya Pai (Dragonwing) are all academy members who joined the Legion
eventually. Their arcs have been recorded above.
3, 4 [\b] Mentalla & Variable Lad[/b]
Deyla Castil (Mentalla) and Oaa Tseldor (Variable Lad) are deceased, both murdered by super-villains.
5, 6 Power Boy & Gravity Kid
Jedidiah ‘Jed’ Rikane (Power Boy) and Tel Vole (Gravity Kid) have already appeared in Young Legion Part One. They are still married, and living on Weber’s World. They have kept in touch with Rokk Krinn and his family, on and off. Their son, Ted Rivolkane, who more-or-less shares both their powers, once applied for membership in the new Super-Hero Club, but changed his mind.
7 [Shadow Kid]
Grev Mallor (the former Shadow Kid) has also appeared in the Earth-K2 paracosm, although mostly off-panel. He still rules Talok VIII with his wife, Kahnya Nahtahnie (Lady Memory). I have fleshed out Talok VIII pretty completely above.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/0572927a95c63da2d8207f52068ff28c/tumblr_p2rb71FRW71uwm5uqo1_540.jpg)
There are several unknowns in the above panel I needed to identify. In this holo from 2989, we see (left to right) Shadow Kid, some big guy, and Laurel Kent. The big guy I have already identified in the original Earth-K stories as a more mature Ennis Jahnson (Animal Lad).
Continuing down the back row, we have some unknown kid in a mask, Power Boy, Mandalla, The Westerner, and Nightwind, with Lamprey flying overhead. In the interest of economy of characters, I identified Mask Kid as a young Myke-4 Astor of Calish-Aetia (Echo). Urk stands at the very front, next to Duo Damsel, nose up against the camera.
8 Animal Lad
Ennis Jahnson (Animal Lad) and Dori Aandraison (Rainbow Girl) I have already dropped a hundred thousand words on, or more. Of course, that was back on the original Earth-K. Their story on Earth-K2 varies only slightly. They actually met fifteen to twenty years earlier, Dori never developed “emotional spectrum” powers, but was limited to her natural “super-charisma”. The encounters between Earth-Man’s Justice League and the Legion of Substitute Heroes would need to be slightly rewritten.
Dori and Ennis never had Earth-K2 adventures parallelling those on Earth-K with the most powerful forces and demi-gods in the DC Universe. Jahnson’s World still exists, and Dori’s natural economic smarts has made it profitable from the beginning.
9 Laurel Kent
After a centuries-old renegade Oan manhunter conspired with the semi-immortal Professor Ivo to replace the incapacitated Laurel Kent the true Laurel herself was kept in a stasis chamber. Laurel was severely traumatized by her injury, hospitalization, and imprisonment, she had never experienced pain or injury before.
She became obsessed with finding a way to immunize herself against kryptonite, both by science and magic, and finally, began a quest for immortality.
She now resides on the Zerox, the first Sorcerer’s World, in a distant dimension, the entire planet having been relocated there by the Black Witch.
http:/
http:/
10 Urk
Meissa V, also known as Maricéleste, is home to a vanished race, whose machines continue to function as if the world were still inhabited. The Gremlings are semi-sentient organobots-- created organims, halfway between clones and androids-- which service the machinery. Despite having only about the intelligence of a Terran cat, the Gremlings are technological savants, able to—in fact, compelled to—disassemble, repair and improve upon any type of technology it is exposed to. If it cannot get the parts it needs, it will improvise something. They also eat waste tech as the staple of their diet. R.J. Brande brought a Gremling to Montauk Point, in an experimental attempt to… well, something. He and the Academy students named it Urk.
After the death of Rene Brande, Urk returned to Maricéleste, hitchhiking and stowing away on various UP vessels until finally it got there.
http:/
http:/
11, 12 Crystal Kid & Lamprey
Bobb Kohan (Crystal Kid) and Tayla Skott Kohan (Lamprey) are married, and live in Metropolis, Earth, with a four-year-old ‘son’ called Scott. They are proud supporters of the Neo-Neidrighs, favoring a strict ‘Earth-First’ policy, opposed to all alien immigration to Earth, and even favoring forced deportation policies for non-Terrans currently on Earth legally.
They are also representative of MeTeOR, the Meta-Terran Orientation and Re-Education Project, which encourages meta-humans to live lives of quiet anonymity.
13, 14 Nightwind and Visi-Lad
Berta Skye Haris (Nightwind) and Rhent Ustin (Visi-Lad) joined the Military Division of the Science Police. Rhent is an instructor, Berta an expert strategist. They are married, but not to each other. Sure, they tried dating, but about the only thing they have in common is the MSP.
15 Mandalla
Tari Wahlmunn (Mandalla) also joined the Science Police. Among other stations, she served a term as a guard on Takron-Galtos, the world of her birth. She took early retirement on the ever-dark world of Kathoon, a place which suits her mood. She has never married, but has lived with a few Significant Others on and off over the years.
“Joyless and dark was his jeweled throne, when Mandalla awakened and found him alone.”
-- Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Bayadere
16 Karate Kid II
Myg (Karate Kid II) was a revered Lord of Lythyl when he returned to Earth assist the Legion against the combined forces of ‘Superboy-Prime’, Mordru, Universo, and the Legion of Super-Villains. He died when exposed to Radiation Roy’s increasingly deadly radiation.
By the time of the events recorded in this thread, he has been gone nearly a quarter of a century.
17 The Westerner
Timothy Santoza (The Westerner) lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Earth. It is a small city, in the 31st century no larger than 20th-century San Francisco. His wife, Maria Valencia, is what we would call today a ‘plastic surgeon’, although the Interlac term translates more to ‘cosmetic bio-sculptor’. Their 17-year-old son, Tony Santoza-Valencia, probably shares his father’s Absorbancy-Boy-like superpowers, but has never really been interested in investigating them.
18 Echo
Myke-4 Astor (Echo) remained in the Legion Academy only a short time. He found it more profitable to turn his sonic powers to crime. He often served as an espionage agent for criminal organizations, using his sonar-abilities to scope out crime scenes.
Several years ago, he attempted to gain entry into Evillo’s palace on Tartarus. He has been living in a dungeon there ever since.
The Princesses Styx and Stiletta, Prince Evillo’s daughters, currently rule Tartarus jointly in their father’s stead, as Evillo has become feeble and afflicted with dementia in his old age.
19 ?????
There was an odd, squarish, floating metal box that showed up in a few panels. My assumption is that this was merely a holo-camera used by Tellus before Brainiac 5 made him his rebreather.
20, 21 The Skreaks
The last two Academy members are the Skreaks (Flotsam and Jetsam). This is a pair of orange fish-like symbiotic aliens are from a world near Van Maanen's Star, a white dwarf.
Their homeworld, also called Skreak, is a massive gas giant with a thin shell of nitrogen-argon-oxygen atmosphere somewhere in the depths of the planet in which their people live. There language is wholly tonal, so that Flotsam and Jetsam’s names in their own tongue are Skreak and Skreak. That is what their whole language sounds like, actually pronounced more like the scratching of fingernails on a chalkboard at various frequencies.
The Skreaks are pair-bonded, incapable of surviving alone for very long. In fact, if separated, one of them will involuntarily teleport back to the other. Which one seems to be random.
The Screak’s powers are related to mass, gravity, and momentum, although none of the Legion ever really properly understood them. The Skreak’s minds operate in an inhuman way. They insist that they only have a single ability, but to humans, it is manifested in various ways.
For example, they are able to neutralize Light Lass’ gravity powers-- but not Star Boy’s. They can also prevent flight rings from working for short periods of time. While they themselves can levitate, they cannot levitate other objects.They can cancel an Imskian’s ability to reduce their weight when they shrink, forcing them to become incredibly dense. They can lend momentum to one another, one essentially ‘throwing’ the other at a target. A Skreak is actually about as massive as a bowling ball, so getting hit by one hurts.
After being rejected as Legionnaires, the Skreaks returned to their homeworld.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/c23b569cca93286eec289a648a710ed2/tumblr_p370fwLgw01uwm5uqo1_400.jpg)
In the first appearance of the Legion Academy in Adventure 371, Colossal Boy is sent there Legion Academy for retraining, there were a eleven unidentified students there ‘with no special costumes’, but all apparently human males. Who there were or whatever happened to them is impossible to say, although from later events it is clear that two of them are Condo Arlik and Brin Londo.
It is reasonable to suppose that the other Academy trainees are Legion Rejects from previous issues. While Ron-Karr and Roy Travich (Radiation Roy) are revealed as members of Tarik the Mute’s Super-Villain Academy. Ron-Karr wears an outfil similar to the Acedemy Kids' training cosume. It is not unreasonable to believe that they had been former Legion Academy members, either sent there as spies, or later recruited by Tarik.
I rather propose the other seven other Academy members were:
a Rann Antar
b Green Boy
c Camera Eye
d The Mess
e Polecat
f Calamity King
g The Dynamo Kid
22 Ron-Karr
Ron-Karr of Neptune was personally impressed with his metahuman ability to flatten himself. However, he had difficulty in convincing other how awesome it was. After being rejected from the Legion of Super-Heroes, he applied as a cadet-trainee with the Science Police, and was also rejected. He applied to the Interstellar Counter-Intelligence Corps with the same result.
At last, he was invited to join the Legion Academy. However, he proved a poor student, lazy and unmotivated, and was in danger of being expelled, when he was recruited by Tarik the Mute as a spy, and secret member of the Super-Villain Academy. He eagerly accepted the offer but was as poor a spy as he was a student. The ‘secrets’ he brought Tarik were mundane and inconsequential.
He became something of a hanger-on with the Legion of Super-Villains, but could never really commit to their murderous and psychopathic agenda. In and out of prison with the group, he was often the first to be released from Takron-Galtos, but kept drifting back into bad company.
When an improved counseling and psychic re-conditioning program was introduced, Ron-Karr responded well, recognized his unhealthy need for outside affirmation, and ‘graduated’ from the correctional program to life as a productive citizen of the United Planets.
He married Ki-Lan of Korlon-Dryad, (The Silver Slasher), another reorientation program ‘graduate’. It is a May-December romance, as Ron is much older than his wife.
The two currently serve as Night Pastors at the First Church of Neptune on Earth, in the Maldives.
(The First Churches of Neptune is are open twenty-four hours a day, providing counsel, comfort, solace, food and drink, sobering-up services, and even sleeping quarters to those in need.)
They have a son, Atta-Karr, who is able to flatten himself, or parts of himself, into two-dimensional, super-sharp silvery knives. He is a theological student at Metropolis University.
23 Radiation Roy
Roy Travich was orphaned at an early age, but the inheritor of vast wealth. He was also mentally unstable, and sought out disreputable scientists who would give him the super-powers he needed to take his revenge against an uncaring universe.
He was finally enabled to produce an enervating radiation, but at his Legion tryouts exhibited questionable control over his powers. In addition, Saturn Girl found his interior mental state so disturbing that she suggested he get psychological counseling.
He did not go for counseling. What he did do was squander the remainder of his inheritance installing psychic shields against telepathic intrusion into his mind.
Contacting the Legion again, Saturn Girl was impressed by his new calm and balanced mind, and suggested he be invited to the newly opening Legion Academy.
This turned out to be a mistake.
Peevish and short-tempered, Roy was not only a poor student, but a danger to his fellow academicians. He was just the sort of character Tarik the Mute was looking for.
Roy became a regular with the Legion of Super-Villains. While his powers were not as devastating as, say, Lightning Lad or Sun Emperor, his innate cruelty and sociopathy made him a popular member among most of the villains. Tyr of Tyrraz was a notable exception.
Roy’s powers evolved and grew, changing from merely enervating to deadly radiation. With these changes came physical changes in Roy himself: first he lost his hair, then many of his teeth, then began to develop blisters and tumors. Eventually the radiation he produced involuntarily became so strong that is was necessary for him to wear a radiation-proof suit at all times. His skin became a luminous chartreuse.
Released from Takron-Galtos by ‘Superboy-Prime’, Roy succeeded in murdering Myg of Lythyl, the second Karate Kid. He was sent back to prison unconscious from a massive blast of electricity from one of the Lightning Lads.
It was only a couple of years later that Roy succumbed to radiation poisoning, despite the best efforts of the prison doctors.
By the time of the events recorded in this thread, he has been gone nearly a quarter of a century.
24 Rann Antar
White-blond, curly-haired Rann Antar of Earth was a brilliant young chemist. Before the age of eighteen, he had developed a chemical formula with the ability to temporarily increase the weight of feathers. A few years later, after graduating from Metropolis University, he joined Tao Chemical Corporation on Phlon.
There, he developed a potion able to make eggs square, and another which separated white milk into its component colors. The market for square eggs and pastel-hued milk was small, but Rann earned a large bonus with his line of Tonsorial Tonics, one sip of which can trim or curl or your hair, change its color, or even regrow it.
Now middle-aged, Mr. Antar still lives on Phlon, and currently holds the position of Senior Vice-President in the Marketing Department of Tao Chemical. He and his wife Lanna have two children and one grandchild.
25 Green Boy
Precious little is known about the Legion applicant who had the power to turn anything green, which leaves me free to create my own story.
Earth strictly enforces the United Planet policy forbidding scientists from using family members as experimental subjects. The teen-aged Boyd Green of Londonopolis, however, experimented on himself. Injecting himself with strange chemicals, he was able to give himself the power to turn any object temporarily green. Not only was his power of dubious value, he had some difficulty controlling it.
After leaving the Legion Academy, Boyd, still obsessed with gaining super-powers, experimented with the chemicals which gave Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, and Elastic Lad their powers. (Elasticizing serum, Norgine, and Gingold)
The combination of chemicals put Boyd in hospital for several months, as doctors attempted to ameliorate the effects. When finally released, Boyd was several inches taller, and covered with wooly green fur. He continued to grow, eventually reaching nearly eight feet in height. During this period, he moved from Londonopolis out into the more sparsely populated English countryside for his own comfort, and the comfort of those around him.
He was discovered again by the media in his mid-thirties, and had a brief couple of years as something of a celebrity, the “Green Man of the Shire”. He actually set aside a decent amount of credits from chat-show appearances and celebrity endorsements. During this period he met and married the supermodel and holo-actress, An Byth. The marriage was short-lived.
He still lives on his modest estate in Monmouthshire in Wales. Although he is still a giant, his fur and curly beard and hair are more gray than green.
Aside: There was evidently a period in the mid-2950’s when it was popular among young teens throughout the United Planets to play with super-chemistry sets.
26 Camera Eye
Again, my imagination can go where it pleases.
Outis Neeman is a native of the planet Polyphemus, Planet of the Cyclopes, a world of genetically modified humans. Nearly all the Polyphemine have some sort of metahuman ability, usually related to optics.
Outis has a literal photographic memory, allowing him to project ‘movies’ of anything he has ever seen. For example, if he watches a holo-vid show, he can reply it entire, minus the sound.
During his application to the Legion, a fellow applicant, Boyd Green, lost control of his powers, and unintentionally turned Outis himself green. Unable to reverse the effect, he assured Outis that the change was only temporary. It had been in every case before, but in this case, the change was permanent.
While his application to the Legion was rejected, he trained at the Legion Academy for some time, during which he was convinced that his unusual power would serve him well in the business of private investigation.
Renting a small space in downtown Metropolis, he hung up his ‘shingle’ as Outis Neeman, Private Eye. Some people considered it a joke.
One of his clients had hired Outis suspecting her husband was unfaithful to her. He found evidence in the affirmative, and she divorced him. She pointed out that his natural appearance-- luminous, bright green skin, and single eye-- might make him conspicuous as a private investigator, and suggested he purchase a Zyzan Holographic Cloak to disguise himself. He procured one.
Now able to roam Metropolis in a variety of guises undetected, Outis became a prominent investigator, and eventually formed a relationship with a couple of insurance companies.
Over the Intergalactic Net, he met a nice cyclopean girl from back on Polyphemus, they hit it off, and were married. They now share an apartment on the floor above his office in a skyscraper in downtown Metropolis.
27 The Mess
The Alfred-E.-Neumanish Meyer Qayd remained at the Legion Academy only a short time, finding the required physical exertion and studies of chemistry, physics, criminal science, and psychology tiring.
Feeling his calling was more to the dark side, and with Tarik the Mute’s criminal college disbanded, he attempted to develop and expand his power of attracting dirt, rubbish, and filth. Variously taking the names Dust Devil, Dust Demon, Compost King, and the Living Rubbish Heap, he has operated as a small-time criminal, in and out of prison for many years, resistant to standard psychological reprogramming.
He was never really able to link up with a group, such as the Legion of Super-Villains, because he is so noisome to have around.
He is currently serving yet another prison sentence on Maldad, a small moon in the Alpha Antliae system used for low-level, low-priority, and mostly harmless criminals.
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28 Polecat
Dafe Meron is a Terran mutant from Earth, having been born on the northern African Continent on the border of the Mediterranean Sea. His pale skin, white forelock, and peculiar spongy ‘horns’. His ‘horns’ had the ability to emit a foul, repulsive odor. Even when he did not use this power, there was a certain amount of ‘leakage’. This led to a childhood filled with teasing, derision and rejection. He was nicknamed ‘polecat’ (fa'ar alkhayl). It looked like he would be leading a lonely life.
When he learned the Legion of Super-Heroes, he thought he might have finally found a usefulness for his odd power. Calling himself Polecat, he tried out for the Legion, but was rejected.
Although this was at the time when Command Kid was the sole ‘Legionnaire’, when the real Legion was restored, Dafe was invited to the Academy. There he experienced the same isolation and rejection he had experienced throughout his life,
After graduation he applied to the Science Police, was rejected, and eventually got a job working for a private security company. Generally his stations were outposts like Antarctica and the dark side of the Moon.
In his mid-thirties, he answered an advertisement for a companion to the centuries-old Kryptonian hermit Nam-Ek the Rondor Man, who lives in exile in the primeval forests of Daxam.
They actually are some comfort and company to one another, although occasionally one or the other will go on a walkabout, as too much time together begins to get on anyone’s nerves.
29 Calamity King
Things always seemed to go wrong for E. Davis Ester of Touston. Unbeknownst to him, he was a metahuman who generated a low-level improbability field at all times, the effect of which was to cause physical and mental stress to all things and beings around him. This led to physical and mental ‘stress fractures’ which his friends and family interpreted as ‘bad luck’.
After receiving a proper diagnosis for his medical condition, Davis found that with practice he was able to focus and intensify his ‘calamity’ powers, breaking and shattering what he willed.
He was rejected from the Legion for lack of control, perhaps inevitable due to the random factor of his powers.
Nevertheless, he was invited to the Legion Academy. Although he applied himself, he never gained better control of his powers, and was responsible for some near-disasters.
Life was difficult for Davis as an adult. Mostly, he lived on the U.P. Stipend. He received a job offer from a demolition contractor, but was unable to sufficiently focus his power to not affect adjacent buildings.
Life was expensive. His apartments and possessions were constantly in need of repair. Desperate for credits, he tortuously saved up a bit, and went to Ventura, the Gamblers Planet.
It turned out to be the first good thing that happened in his life. Although he did not win big-- in fact, did not have a chance to gamble at all-- his presence so damaged various Chance Machines (many of which were powered by quantum fluctuations) that he was evicted from the planet, and paid a large monthly remittance, revocable if he ever returned.
Using this windfall, Davis hired Daxamite and Coluan medical experts to attempt to suppress his metagenetic expression. It was difficult, as medical probes and equipment kept breaking down, as did several of the nurses who had close contact with him.
In the end, his condition proved incurable, but manageable. He needs to take custom medication daily to keep his ‘jinx’ power in check, but at least the Autochef® does not need repair every two weeks.
He never married or had children, fearing he might pass on his metagene, which might present as something even worse.
Davis now lives in a modest apartment in Metropolis, still supported by the Venturan remittance, and spends his days drawing and painting, creating bad art. He signs his pieces ‘Mr. E.’ He is considering branching out into bad sculpture and pottery.
30 The Dynamo Kid
Chubby, Charlie-Brown-ish Wil Warner was a Daily Planet Cub Reporter, and had a great idea. A piece on the Legion of Super-Heroes, from the inside, as a member! “I Was a Super-Legionnaire For One Week”.Unfortunately, he had no super-powers. However, assisted by his unscrupulous editor, he donned a small tesla generator, and blew up a Daily Planet flying billboard equipped with a small remote-controlled bomb at his Legion Try-Out. They figured he could remain undetected by the teens for at least a week.
Saturn Girl easily detected the clumsy deception, and Wil never got his week with the Legion.
Wil appears boorish, rude, and boastful during his tryout, but this was only because this is how he believed a super-hero would behave.
See Here
The real Wil himself is actually fairly well-mannered and polite, a likable enough character who can often get interviewees to share things they later regret.
In one of those hilarious pranks that the young Legion was famous for, they invited him to attend the Legion Academy, and do a piece on Legion training ‘from the inside’. The Legion Academy Instructor leaned particularly hard on him, and his training was both physically and mentally brutal.
Rather than holding this against the Legionnaires, Wil gained a new respect for the Legion, often writing editorials in their favor when the Legion fell into disfavor with the general public.
He maintained a relatively close relationship for years with Chuck Taine. They used to go out for tacos together.
Wil studied journalism at Metropolis University, and has occasionally returned to moonlight as an instructor there himself.
The elder Wil Warner is a heavy-set, balding editor and columnist, still working for the Daily Planet after all these years. Most of his opinions are in opposition to the speciesists in government left over from the Niedrigh era.
He married one Kay Plummer, a newspaperwoman, simultaneously poaching her for the Daily Planet from the Daily Sentinel. They have a teen-aged daughter, Laurel, who wants to grow up to be a reporter just like her parents.
31 One More
When it became clear that the Legion was going to be putting itself in danger on a regular basis, EarthGov tapped the Science Police to organize a training regimen for them.
Don Dacks was a career SP officer from a family of SP officers. He had an exemplary record, and had had experience training SP recruits. He was assigned special duty as the first Legion Academy instructor.
He had never had a high opinion of the Legionnaires before this, considering them vigilantes operating on the fringes of the law. He trained all the Legionnaires at the time in Science Police operating procedures and physical training as well. He created custom challenges for them to develop and hone their powers, teaching them how to react calmly in stressful situations.
Some of the Legion were surprising. Chuck Taine did unexpectedly well in the strength and stamina regimens. Gim Allon tended to cheat, slightly increasing his size (and, proportionally, his strength) and hopin the instructor would not notice. Officer Dacks finally threatened to force him to grow to full height, and make him bench-press buildings.
When the Legion Academy was opened to prospective Legion members (and good-hearted rejects), he was as thorough with them as he was with the original Legion, even though some of them were hapless, and their powers often more superfluous than super. But there are plenty of non-powered SPs as well, and their lack of impressive superordinary abilities did not deter him in their training.
As the Legion’s popularity gained ascendancy, Don was proud to acknowledge his role in creating them as a viable fighting force. When they dropped in popularity, and especially after the Legion was disbanded, he rather kept quiet about the role he had played.
Don Dacks is currently a Precinct Captain in the Metropolis Science Police, stationed near Weisinger Plaza. His wife Nina is a personal trainer.
Their forty-year-old daughter Doloras is an SP officer just like her father, and grandfather, and great-grandmother, and great-great-grandfather.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/02/18 01:38 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
WONDIL-9
Ten received a package from Interstellar Express, and disappeared into his laboratory for a full day.
“What do you think he’s doing?” asked Polar Lass.
“Hopefully, he’s started work on repairing the rest of our Flight Belts,” said Ffiona. “You and Phantom Girl are the only ones who’ve got them yet.”
“It’s not his fault,” said Shrinking Violet. “I haven’t been able to give him the money to buy parts yet. Taxes, on top of daily living expenses, are killing us.”
“We’ve put a pretty big dent in our emergency savings, too,” said Cosmic Boy. “An overnight stay in a hotel on Pretzor, then fare for the three of us back to Mars. Thank goodness Aqua Boy’s parents covered his ticket.”
Everyone was there, except Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass, when Ten walked in.
“It took me some time,” he said, “But I’ve repaired my Flight Belt.”
“Only nine to go,” said Ffiona.
“My adult guardian sent me some materials to improve its function,” Ten went on. “As before, I have incorporated my Omnicom, and a Coluan force-shield, and also… this!” He fingered a button on the belt, and immediately shrunk to the size of four inches.
“Hey!” said Shrinking Violet.
Ten returned to normal size. Shrinking Violet reduced to about half her height, so she could look him in the eye. “You’re stealing my routine,” she said.
“Coluans have been shrinking things for centuries,” said Ten.
“My guess is, you’re using Krill technology, even if Colu invented it independently,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’m guessing Dr. Tagor sent you a lens made of white dwarf star matter, an ultraviolet diode…”
“Yes, and an AI modulator,” said Ten.
“I hate to point this out,” said Ffiona, “But you have two forms of exotic matter pretty close to each other in that belt: white dwarf star matter, and decalithium. Don’t you feel like that’s pretty dangerous to walk around with?”
“Actually, no,” said Ten. “They’re suspended in an anti-degradation field. The belt is designed so that if it loses power, the exotic matter converts into ordinary low-weight chemical elements. With minimal expenditure of energy.”
“So a pop, rather than a bang,” said Ffiona.
“Precisely,” said Ten.
“I’m sorry we haven’t been able to properly fund this project,” said Shrinking Violet. “The few weeks we had the belts-- well, they’re really so useful, we got spoiled.”
“Is it possible to repair just the ultraphones?” asked Ffey. “It’s rough sharing time on the ship’s monitor.”
“I can take a look,” said Ten. “Every belt is damaged differently, of course. I’ve taken an inventory of what is necessary for full repairs, but haven’t really looked at separating out the components.”
“I, for one, am very grateful you did mine first,” said Polar Lass. “The Thermal Belt, especially.”
“I did some research while I was on Colu,” said Ten. “You seem particularly sensitive to low temperatures, even for a Tharran. Ordinarily, your people find an insula-suit sufficiently comfortable for journeys off-planet.”
“Well, this is an insula-suit,” said Polar Lass. “The same brand and style Brek Bannin used to wear, and I’m sorry, but I need the Thermal Belt as well.”
“I understand,” said Ten flatly. “But as I was saying, I have made a study of this question on Colu. I believe it would be possible for Coluan exobiologists to craft a more convenient solution for you. Your natural Tharran physiology-- and your heat-energy-negating powers-- could be suppressed. Possibly with some sort of endocrine patch. Of course, it would need to be adapted to your peculiar physiology.”
“And lose my powers?” said Polar Lass. “Why not just stay on Tharr then, where I am one of a million, not unique at all?”
“There ought to be a way to switch your powers on and off,” said Ten. “Some sort of control gauntlet, perhaps, or an armband.”
“I think I would prefer not to have Coluan exobiologists experimenting with my physiology,” said Polar Lass. “Thanks for thinking of me, though.”
“Well, if you ever want to experience real cold,” said Cosmic Boy, “You could visit Wondil-9, where my Uncle Chuck lives.”
“I’m not sure I’d like your Uncle Chuck,” said Ffey, “If he’s anything like that Mr. Taine we met on mirror-Tharn.”
“No way,” said Cosmic Boy. “Uncle Chuck and Aunt Aemilia are like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. I mean, yeah, they look like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, but they’re also just as jolly, and fun-loving, and a little crazy. They love kids-- they just had a little girl we haven’t met yet. Whenever we visit there at Christmastime, they spoil us rotten. My cousins Aaron and Lloyd are big practical jokers, too-- even though they have some kind of important, serious colonist jobs on Wondil-9.”
“And it’s cold there?” asked Polar Lass.
“Always winter-- always Christmas, says Uncle Chuck-- everywhere on the planet,” said Cosmic Boy. “When they talk about the temperature outside-- ten, twenty, forty c, they mean below zero. If it ever got above freezing, they’d have to use negative numbers. And Uncle Chuck and Aunt Aemilia have the weirdest pet: it’s called a Wondilixian ice dragon. It’s about the size of a dog, and about as smart. Well, as smart a really dumb dog, anyway. But they’re like Antarean proteans. They’re intuitive telepathic shape-shifters, only made of ice..."
“<Attention please!>” came Saturn Girl’s telepathic broadcast.
"Hey, speaking of telepaths...” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“<Everyone! Meet me at the Bridge>” she continued. “<We’ve got a problem!>”
WONDIL-9
Ten received a package from Interstellar Express, and disappeared into his laboratory for a full day.
“What do you think he’s doing?” asked Polar Lass.
“Hopefully, he’s started work on repairing the rest of our Flight Belts,” said Ffiona. “You and Phantom Girl are the only ones who’ve got them yet.”
“It’s not his fault,” said Shrinking Violet. “I haven’t been able to give him the money to buy parts yet. Taxes, on top of daily living expenses, are killing us.”
“We’ve put a pretty big dent in our emergency savings, too,” said Cosmic Boy. “An overnight stay in a hotel on Pretzor, then fare for the three of us back to Mars. Thank goodness Aqua Boy’s parents covered his ticket.”
Everyone was there, except Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass, when Ten walked in.
“It took me some time,” he said, “But I’ve repaired my Flight Belt.”
“Only nine to go,” said Ffiona.
“My adult guardian sent me some materials to improve its function,” Ten went on. “As before, I have incorporated my Omnicom, and a Coluan force-shield, and also… this!” He fingered a button on the belt, and immediately shrunk to the size of four inches.
“Hey!” said Shrinking Violet.
Ten returned to normal size. Shrinking Violet reduced to about half her height, so she could look him in the eye. “You’re stealing my routine,” she said.
“Coluans have been shrinking things for centuries,” said Ten.
“My guess is, you’re using Krill technology, even if Colu invented it independently,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’m guessing Dr. Tagor sent you a lens made of white dwarf star matter, an ultraviolet diode…”
“Yes, and an AI modulator,” said Ten.
“I hate to point this out,” said Ffiona, “But you have two forms of exotic matter pretty close to each other in that belt: white dwarf star matter, and decalithium. Don’t you feel like that’s pretty dangerous to walk around with?”
“Actually, no,” said Ten. “They’re suspended in an anti-degradation field. The belt is designed so that if it loses power, the exotic matter converts into ordinary low-weight chemical elements. With minimal expenditure of energy.”
“So a pop, rather than a bang,” said Ffiona.
“Precisely,” said Ten.
“I’m sorry we haven’t been able to properly fund this project,” said Shrinking Violet. “The few weeks we had the belts-- well, they’re really so useful, we got spoiled.”
“Is it possible to repair just the ultraphones?” asked Ffey. “It’s rough sharing time on the ship’s monitor.”
“I can take a look,” said Ten. “Every belt is damaged differently, of course. I’ve taken an inventory of what is necessary for full repairs, but haven’t really looked at separating out the components.”
“I, for one, am very grateful you did mine first,” said Polar Lass. “The Thermal Belt, especially.”
“I did some research while I was on Colu,” said Ten. “You seem particularly sensitive to low temperatures, even for a Tharran. Ordinarily, your people find an insula-suit sufficiently comfortable for journeys off-planet.”
“Well, this is an insula-suit,” said Polar Lass. “The same brand and style Brek Bannin used to wear, and I’m sorry, but I need the Thermal Belt as well.”
“I understand,” said Ten flatly. “But as I was saying, I have made a study of this question on Colu. I believe it would be possible for Coluan exobiologists to craft a more convenient solution for you. Your natural Tharran physiology-- and your heat-energy-negating powers-- could be suppressed. Possibly with some sort of endocrine patch. Of course, it would need to be adapted to your peculiar physiology.”
“And lose my powers?” said Polar Lass. “Why not just stay on Tharr then, where I am one of a million, not unique at all?”
“There ought to be a way to switch your powers on and off,” said Ten. “Some sort of control gauntlet, perhaps, or an armband.”
“I think I would prefer not to have Coluan exobiologists experimenting with my physiology,” said Polar Lass. “Thanks for thinking of me, though.”
“Well, if you ever want to experience real cold,” said Cosmic Boy, “You could visit Wondil-9, where my Uncle Chuck lives.”
“I’m not sure I’d like your Uncle Chuck,” said Ffey, “If he’s anything like that Mr. Taine we met on mirror-Tharn.”
“No way,” said Cosmic Boy. “Uncle Chuck and Aunt Aemilia are like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. I mean, yeah, they look like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, but they’re also just as jolly, and fun-loving, and a little crazy. They love kids-- they just had a little girl we haven’t met yet. Whenever we visit there at Christmastime, they spoil us rotten. My cousins Aaron and Lloyd are big practical jokers, too-- even though they have some kind of important, serious colonist jobs on Wondil-9.”
“And it’s cold there?” asked Polar Lass.
“Always winter-- always Christmas, says Uncle Chuck-- everywhere on the planet,” said Cosmic Boy. “When they talk about the temperature outside-- ten, twenty, forty c, they mean below zero. If it ever got above freezing, they’d have to use negative numbers. And Uncle Chuck and Aunt Aemilia have the weirdest pet: it’s called a Wondilixian ice dragon. It’s about the size of a dog, and about as smart. Well, as smart a really dumb dog, anyway. But they’re like Antarean proteans. They’re intuitive telepathic shape-shifters, only made of ice..."
“<Attention please!>” came Saturn Girl’s telepathic broadcast.
"Hey, speaking of telepaths...” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“<Everyone! Meet me at the Bridge>” she continued. “<We’ve got a problem!>”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/10/18 02:28 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
VS. CYCLOPS
“Let me make this quick,” said Saturn Girl, running a holo-vid on the viewscreen. “A couple of days ago, thieves broke into the Museum of Forbidden Weapons in Ouranine City on Uranias. They used some kind of cloak to get past the guards, and stole a weapon. Naturally, it’s depowered, but…”
“It could be re-powered,” said Ffiona.
“Exactly,” said Saturn Girl.
“This is just the sort of thing superheroes are supposed to do,” said Cosmic Boy. “Be at the museum, and stop the thief.”
“Or find him, after he escapes,” said Shrinking Violet. “Track him down, and bring him in.”
“Well, you two are in luck,” said Saturn Girl. “The thief’s ship is in orbit around Mars as we speak. The bad news is, he’s used some sort of teleportation device to kidnap Lightning Lass. I think he intends to use her powers to charge the weapon.”
“But you two have a permanent mind-link,” said Cosmic Boy. “You know exactly where he is, and what he’s doing. You can see through her eyes.”
“And she can see through mine,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s like she’s right here with us.”
* * *
Lightning Lass was imprisoned in a tube of some transparent material. Energy dampeners were attached to her wrists and ankles. There was a larger tank of some kind on the opposite wall. It held a giant, dead Venusian flying electric ray.
“It was my first attempt,” said her captor. He was almost comically evil-looking, squinty-eyed, slightly hunchbacked. Or, possibly, merely had poor posture. He appeared only a few years older than Lightning Lass. “These batteries can only be charged bio-electrically. The ray, unfortunately, did not have sufficient capacity. Let us hope you do.”
“I could give you directions to Korbal,” said Lightning Lass.
“I’d rather not risk my life,” said the hunchback. “We should be together for some time. Let me introduce yourself. I know you: Lightning Lass, Dacey Ranzz, a half-Winathan, half-Titan crossbreed. I am Deem Zumm of Uranias, From the floating city of Ouranine.”
“Ah,” said Lightning Lass. “Out from Uranus.”
“Uranias, if you please,” said Deem Zumm. “Our world hasn’t been called… anything else… for centuries.”
“I thought you guys were all wealthy sky-diamond miners,” said Lighting Lass. “The diamonds that crystallize in the gaseous atmosphere of Uranus are supposed to have some remarkable properties. I thought you guys were all as rich as Croesus.” She looked around at the interior of the ship. “You can’t be doing too badly, to afford a custom-made spacecraft like this. Especially at your age.”
“You know nothing. There is terrible inequality on Uranias,” said Deem Zumm. “The Overlords retain hundreds of times the profits of the ordinary workers. But that will end, once I have assembled my weapon.”
“And have made yourself New Supreme Overlord of Uranus? Or am I spoiling the surprise?” asked Lightning Lass. “I always thought super-villains monologuing was an urban myth, and yet here you are.”
“As I have been distracting you,” said Deem Zumm, “My machines have been slowly draining your electrical powers. My weapon will soon be charged!”
“Well, why don’t we see if we can speed it up?” Lightning Lass replied. She concentrated, increasing her output, feeding millions of volts into her restraints and the attached cables. There was a very disappointing complete lack of the system overloading and shorting out in showers of sparks.
“Incredible!” cried Deem Zumm shortly. “You have charged all six sets of batteries in a matter of minutes!” He began shutting down his equipment, and gathering a half-dozen half-open boxes from their containers. “Soon my Cyclops will be mine to command!”
* * *
“Someone look up a Forbidden Weapon called ‘Cyclops’,” Saturn Girl requested. “Ten, you could probably get more information faster than anyone else.”
Ten turned to the Bridge viewscreen. Almost immediately, he had an answer. “This is bizarre,” he declared..
* * *
“This is the irony,” said Deem Zumm. “Your own people invented this weapon. Telepathic neurobiologists from Saturn.”
He had opened the six boxes, and was assembling a robot from two arms, two legs, a strange, triangular-shaped body, and a head which was mostly a single large eye.
“Cyclops, it is called,” said Deem Zumm. “Made of self-regenerating metal, it is completely indestructible. Break it, crush it, or melt it to slag, and it will heal itself within only a few days. The only way to keep it inactive is to disassemble it. But its great power is the ray that shoots from its single eye. It has the power to reverse an evil person’s mind to good, or a good person’s mind to evil!”
Deem Zumm attached the head to the robot’s frame, and the device activated.
“Whoever assembles me is my Master,” intoned the robot. “I therefore obey thee, Master Deem Zumm.”
“Yes, Cyclops,” said Deem Zumm. “Turn your ray on Dacey Ranzz, and make her an evil person!”
“Sorry, Dacey Ranzz, or, should I say, Lightning Lass,” intoned the robot. “I must carry out my Master Deem Zumm’s commands. The ray from my eye will turn you into an evil human being.”
A golden beam flashed from the robot’s single eye, dancing over the imprisoned girl.
“I have done thy bidding, Master,” intoned the robot. “I have changed Dacey Ranzz into an evil person.”
“Excellent, Cyclops,” said Deem Zumm, activating a switch on a control panel.
The chamber in which Lightning Lass was kept imprisoned opened. The power-sapping restraints fell away.
“And now, my new, evil lightning-powered minion, we will visit your companions at their Clubhouse and have Cyclops turn them evil as well. Then, with a super-powered Legion at my command, I will conquer Ouranine, then all of Uranias!”
“Minion?” said Lightning Lass. “I may be evil now, but that doesn’t mean that you’re the boss of me.” She faced the control panel of the ship. Forks of lightning played over the controls. “I think I’ve only shut down your force field and cloaking device,” she said. She surveyed her work. “I may have done more damage than I intended. Well, these high-line ships often have a fail-safe so that when the engines shut down, they just hover. And if I broke the fail-safe, too… well, I have friends with flight belts.”
* * *
“Polar Lass, Phantom Girl, those are the coordinates,” said Saturn Girl. “Almost exactly straight up, only a couple of miles. You're the ones with flight belts. Go get her.”
The two Legionnaires soared up through the high, thin Martian air. They met Lightning Lass coming down, carried in the arms of the flying Cyclops robot.
“I popped his head off,” Lightning Lass explained. “Then re-attached it. Now I’m his Master.”
* * *
“The SP’s picked him up almost immediately,” Saturn Girl reported. “We had already alerted them; when his ship became visible and immobile, they jumped on it. He’s probably already half-way back to Uranias by now.”
“I don’t mind being Evil,” said Lightning Lass, smiling. “It’s kind of refreshing.”
Polar Lass and Phantom Girl looked puzzled. Saturn Girl laughed.
“She hasn’t turned evil at all,” said Saturn Girl. “The robot’s ray did not work.”
“The Cyclops weapon was once transported back in time, then lay buried for more than a thousand years,” Ten explained. “A few grains of the exotic radioactive mineral kryptonite was one of the essential elements of its mind-altering beam. A millennium was plenty of time for the trans-feynmanium elements in the kryptonite to decay into inert material.”
“Kryptonite again,” said Phantom Girl.
“It can be useful, for certain applications” said Ten, “But like all exotic matter, it is difficult to work with, and often unreliable.”
“Cyclops, go into the Clubhouse, and bring me a cold Guarana.”
“You command, I obey,” said Cyclops, bowing. “Master Lightning Lass.”
“Oh, I could get used to this,” said Lightning Lass. “Does he count as a new member?”
Note: The Cyclops robot made its first appearance in Adventure Comics #290, “Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero”,
VS. CYCLOPS
“Let me make this quick,” said Saturn Girl, running a holo-vid on the viewscreen. “A couple of days ago, thieves broke into the Museum of Forbidden Weapons in Ouranine City on Uranias. They used some kind of cloak to get past the guards, and stole a weapon. Naturally, it’s depowered, but…”
“It could be re-powered,” said Ffiona.
“Exactly,” said Saturn Girl.
“This is just the sort of thing superheroes are supposed to do,” said Cosmic Boy. “Be at the museum, and stop the thief.”
“Or find him, after he escapes,” said Shrinking Violet. “Track him down, and bring him in.”
“Well, you two are in luck,” said Saturn Girl. “The thief’s ship is in orbit around Mars as we speak. The bad news is, he’s used some sort of teleportation device to kidnap Lightning Lass. I think he intends to use her powers to charge the weapon.”
“But you two have a permanent mind-link,” said Cosmic Boy. “You know exactly where he is, and what he’s doing. You can see through her eyes.”
“And she can see through mine,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s like she’s right here with us.”
* * *
Lightning Lass was imprisoned in a tube of some transparent material. Energy dampeners were attached to her wrists and ankles. There was a larger tank of some kind on the opposite wall. It held a giant, dead Venusian flying electric ray.
“It was my first attempt,” said her captor. He was almost comically evil-looking, squinty-eyed, slightly hunchbacked. Or, possibly, merely had poor posture. He appeared only a few years older than Lightning Lass. “These batteries can only be charged bio-electrically. The ray, unfortunately, did not have sufficient capacity. Let us hope you do.”
“I could give you directions to Korbal,” said Lightning Lass.
“I’d rather not risk my life,” said the hunchback. “We should be together for some time. Let me introduce yourself. I know you: Lightning Lass, Dacey Ranzz, a half-Winathan, half-Titan crossbreed. I am Deem Zumm of Uranias, From the floating city of Ouranine.”
“Ah,” said Lightning Lass. “Out from Uranus.”
“Uranias, if you please,” said Deem Zumm. “Our world hasn’t been called… anything else… for centuries.”
“I thought you guys were all wealthy sky-diamond miners,” said Lighting Lass. “The diamonds that crystallize in the gaseous atmosphere of Uranus are supposed to have some remarkable properties. I thought you guys were all as rich as Croesus.” She looked around at the interior of the ship. “You can’t be doing too badly, to afford a custom-made spacecraft like this. Especially at your age.”
“You know nothing. There is terrible inequality on Uranias,” said Deem Zumm. “The Overlords retain hundreds of times the profits of the ordinary workers. But that will end, once I have assembled my weapon.”
“And have made yourself New Supreme Overlord of Uranus? Or am I spoiling the surprise?” asked Lightning Lass. “I always thought super-villains monologuing was an urban myth, and yet here you are.”
“As I have been distracting you,” said Deem Zumm, “My machines have been slowly draining your electrical powers. My weapon will soon be charged!”
“Well, why don’t we see if we can speed it up?” Lightning Lass replied. She concentrated, increasing her output, feeding millions of volts into her restraints and the attached cables. There was a very disappointing complete lack of the system overloading and shorting out in showers of sparks.
“Incredible!” cried Deem Zumm shortly. “You have charged all six sets of batteries in a matter of minutes!” He began shutting down his equipment, and gathering a half-dozen half-open boxes from their containers. “Soon my Cyclops will be mine to command!”
* * *
“Someone look up a Forbidden Weapon called ‘Cyclops’,” Saturn Girl requested. “Ten, you could probably get more information faster than anyone else.”
Ten turned to the Bridge viewscreen. Almost immediately, he had an answer. “This is bizarre,” he declared..
* * *
“This is the irony,” said Deem Zumm. “Your own people invented this weapon. Telepathic neurobiologists from Saturn.”
He had opened the six boxes, and was assembling a robot from two arms, two legs, a strange, triangular-shaped body, and a head which was mostly a single large eye.
“Cyclops, it is called,” said Deem Zumm. “Made of self-regenerating metal, it is completely indestructible. Break it, crush it, or melt it to slag, and it will heal itself within only a few days. The only way to keep it inactive is to disassemble it. But its great power is the ray that shoots from its single eye. It has the power to reverse an evil person’s mind to good, or a good person’s mind to evil!”
Deem Zumm attached the head to the robot’s frame, and the device activated.
“Whoever assembles me is my Master,” intoned the robot. “I therefore obey thee, Master Deem Zumm.”
“Yes, Cyclops,” said Deem Zumm. “Turn your ray on Dacey Ranzz, and make her an evil person!”
“Sorry, Dacey Ranzz, or, should I say, Lightning Lass,” intoned the robot. “I must carry out my Master Deem Zumm’s commands. The ray from my eye will turn you into an evil human being.”
A golden beam flashed from the robot’s single eye, dancing over the imprisoned girl.
“I have done thy bidding, Master,” intoned the robot. “I have changed Dacey Ranzz into an evil person.”
“Excellent, Cyclops,” said Deem Zumm, activating a switch on a control panel.
The chamber in which Lightning Lass was kept imprisoned opened. The power-sapping restraints fell away.
“And now, my new, evil lightning-powered minion, we will visit your companions at their Clubhouse and have Cyclops turn them evil as well. Then, with a super-powered Legion at my command, I will conquer Ouranine, then all of Uranias!”
“Minion?” said Lightning Lass. “I may be evil now, but that doesn’t mean that you’re the boss of me.” She faced the control panel of the ship. Forks of lightning played over the controls. “I think I’ve only shut down your force field and cloaking device,” she said. She surveyed her work. “I may have done more damage than I intended. Well, these high-line ships often have a fail-safe so that when the engines shut down, they just hover. And if I broke the fail-safe, too… well, I have friends with flight belts.”
* * *
“Polar Lass, Phantom Girl, those are the coordinates,” said Saturn Girl. “Almost exactly straight up, only a couple of miles. You're the ones with flight belts. Go get her.”
The two Legionnaires soared up through the high, thin Martian air. They met Lightning Lass coming down, carried in the arms of the flying Cyclops robot.
“I popped his head off,” Lightning Lass explained. “Then re-attached it. Now I’m his Master.”
* * *
“The SP’s picked him up almost immediately,” Saturn Girl reported. “We had already alerted them; when his ship became visible and immobile, they jumped on it. He’s probably already half-way back to Uranias by now.”
“I don’t mind being Evil,” said Lightning Lass, smiling. “It’s kind of refreshing.”
Polar Lass and Phantom Girl looked puzzled. Saturn Girl laughed.
“She hasn’t turned evil at all,” said Saturn Girl. “The robot’s ray did not work.”
“The Cyclops weapon was once transported back in time, then lay buried for more than a thousand years,” Ten explained. “A few grains of the exotic radioactive mineral kryptonite was one of the essential elements of its mind-altering beam. A millennium was plenty of time for the trans-feynmanium elements in the kryptonite to decay into inert material.”
“Kryptonite again,” said Phantom Girl.
“It can be useful, for certain applications” said Ten, “But like all exotic matter, it is difficult to work with, and often unreliable.”
“Cyclops, go into the Clubhouse, and bring me a cold Guarana.”
“You command, I obey,” said Cyclops, bowing. “Master Lightning Lass.”
“Oh, I could get used to this,” said Lightning Lass. “Does he count as a new member?”
Note: The Cyclops robot made its first appearance in Adventure Comics #290, “Secret of the Seventh Super-Hero”,
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/16/18 11:19 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART ONE
THE LEGION OF SUPER-PETS
“I’ve been thinking about the Legion of Super-Pets,” said Phantom Girl.
“Why?” asked Ffarrah. “That seems like an absurd thing to think about.”
“Oh, the name was a little silly,” said Shrinking Violet. “But they were actually an impressive and formidable group. Kryptonian animals, with intelligence enhanced by infra-yellow solar radiation to human or near-human levels. But what I was really thinking about was bringing our own personal pets to Mars. I sort of miss Molly: that’s the Ghost Dove I have back on Bgztl. She has all the powers of a humanoid Bgztlr, plus she can fly. Super-pet.”
“What kind of cage do you keep a Ghost Dove in?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Oh, you can’t of course. You have to get them to imprint on you. Then they always come home, no matter how far they may fly. She’s imprinted on my parents, too, so I’m sure she still comes around home, at least for meals. Sometimes she would ride on my shoulder all day.”
“I have a little Hallucigenius back on Orzde,” said Shrinking Violet. “It’s… a kind of a fancy worm.”
“I know the species,” said Ten. “A common evolutionary convergence on many worlds.”
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9-Z9Ssgb0Kg/maxresdefault.jpg
“We moved the aquarium into my little sister’s room when I left,” said Shrinking Violet. “She calls her Ellis Dee, but I just called her Spike. She never answered to her name anyway.”
“I never had an organic pet,” said Ten. “But I built a Cyber-Simianoid when I was two. It was based on an ordinary neural network, but sometimes displayed quite complex and fascinating behaviors.”
“Wait-- you built a AI robot monkey when you were two years old?” said Cosmic Boy. “Did you give it have a name?”
“It’s designation was Kappa-Omicron,” said Ten.
“I wouldn’t object to having a helpful little Kappa Omicron robot around the Clubhouse,” said Lightning Lass. “Maybe you could build another one sometime?”
“I doubt my Guardian would approve of my spending credits on brushed aluminum and the appropriate circuitry,” said Ten. “It was just a child’s toy, after all.”
“A Coluan child’s toy,” said Cosmic Boy. “I’ll bet the rest of us could find some use for it. I don’t know about brushed aluminum, but there are kilotons of ferrous metal at the bottom of New Hellespont right next door. And some badly corroded used circuitry as well, that we could clean up, I would guess. The Subs weren't the only careless pilots in the System.”
Ten mused, as much as any eight-year-old can muse. “Did your family have pets on Winath?”
“Not me,” said Cosmic Boy. “But Dacey and Dorrit…”
“We have a pair of Dxaundii Wingfish,” said Lightning Lass. “Which were designated ‘my’ pets, though. What that meant was that I had to keep them fit and watered, and clean out or rebuild their nests regularly. They’re actually pretty useful: they feed on invasive birds and rodents, which are a problem for farmers even on Winath, and they scare away of lot of the other pests that they don’t eat. My Dad was hoping to breed them, and sell them to our neighbors, but either they have more than two sexes, or they just didn’t like each other.”
“Or maybe they have a really long breeding season,” said Saturn Girl. “You talk about it like taking care of the Dxaundii was just more farm-work for you. But when I was little, I was so jealous of your having Ricky and Lucy as ‘your’ pets. Remember Alma? That Antarean Protean that came to work for us one year? She offered to be my 'pet' when I told her you wouldn’t share yours. I’m not sure she quite understood the meaning of the word ‘pet’.”
“Wingfish, Proteans, you guys were lucky,” said Cosmic Boy. “My mom never let me have any pets on the farm.”
“No, but you used to make those life-sized scrap-steel 'puppets',” said Lightning Lass. “You would to send them over to scare us, you brat. The wolf with the was particularly creepy that one time.”
“The Nahs are thinking of re-doing their back yard,” said Phantom Girl. “And getting rid of Lumfph, their Turtelpotamus. That’s a sort of pet that takes up a lot of room. That’s what got me thinking about Super-Pet auxiliary in the first place.”
“We have a Tharrite Fire-Cat back home,” said Polar Lass. “They’re native to the surface of Tharr, but sometimes sneak down into the Underground. It’s considered good fortune if one adopts you. I don’t think one could survive on Mars, though. Even on Tharr, they have to wander back up to the surface regularly.”
“We have one super-pet here already,” said Chameleon. “I was exploring some caves nearby- on my own here- a few weeks ago- right after we came back from Tharn. I found a little struggling Martian Zo’Ok flower. I didn’t know there were any left in this century. I have been nursing it back to health in my quarters. It actually seems to be doing well.”
Ten gaped. “Let me get this straight. You have a rare, semi-telepathic, nigh-invulnerable, shape-shifting Martian botanical in your quarters. Which is assumed, in many quarters, to be extinct. You’ve been husbanding it for weeks, and you didn’t think to tell us, or anyone else? Do you recall how excited everyone was when we found the M’mannix?”
“In retrospect, perhaps I should have said something,” said Chameleon. “But as mutual shape-shifters, the Zo’Ok and I… I suppose we bonded. I wanted to make sure it would be all right.”
“We never had pets on Carggg,” said Ffey. “I always wanted a Tripli-Cat.”
“Oh, speak for yourself,” said Ffiona. “Those nasty, three-headed little monsters?”
“Well, I think they’re cute,” said Ffey. "They're fuzzy."
Ffarrah rolled her eyes.
“Of course, I never had a pet as a child,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "There are no animals of any kind on Bismoll. The plant-life is just too toxic.”
“It astonishes me that it was easier for your people to learn to eat rocks,” said Ten, “rather than develop a resistance to the toxins in your world’s version of chlorophylls.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART ONE
THE LEGION OF SUPER-PETS
“I’ve been thinking about the Legion of Super-Pets,” said Phantom Girl.
“Why?” asked Ffarrah. “That seems like an absurd thing to think about.”
“Oh, the name was a little silly,” said Shrinking Violet. “But they were actually an impressive and formidable group. Kryptonian animals, with intelligence enhanced by infra-yellow solar radiation to human or near-human levels. But what I was really thinking about was bringing our own personal pets to Mars. I sort of miss Molly: that’s the Ghost Dove I have back on Bgztl. She has all the powers of a humanoid Bgztlr, plus she can fly. Super-pet.”
“What kind of cage do you keep a Ghost Dove in?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Oh, you can’t of course. You have to get them to imprint on you. Then they always come home, no matter how far they may fly. She’s imprinted on my parents, too, so I’m sure she still comes around home, at least for meals. Sometimes she would ride on my shoulder all day.”
“I have a little Hallucigenius back on Orzde,” said Shrinking Violet. “It’s… a kind of a fancy worm.”
“I know the species,” said Ten. “A common evolutionary convergence on many worlds.”
https:/
“We moved the aquarium into my little sister’s room when I left,” said Shrinking Violet. “She calls her Ellis Dee, but I just called her Spike. She never answered to her name anyway.”
“I never had an organic pet,” said Ten. “But I built a Cyber-Simianoid when I was two. It was based on an ordinary neural network, but sometimes displayed quite complex and fascinating behaviors.”
“Wait-- you built a AI robot monkey when you were two years old?” said Cosmic Boy. “Did you give it have a name?”
“It’s designation was Kappa-Omicron,” said Ten.
“I wouldn’t object to having a helpful little Kappa Omicron robot around the Clubhouse,” said Lightning Lass. “Maybe you could build another one sometime?”
“I doubt my Guardian would approve of my spending credits on brushed aluminum and the appropriate circuitry,” said Ten. “It was just a child’s toy, after all.”
“A Coluan child’s toy,” said Cosmic Boy. “I’ll bet the rest of us could find some use for it. I don’t know about brushed aluminum, but there are kilotons of ferrous metal at the bottom of New Hellespont right next door. And some badly corroded used circuitry as well, that we could clean up, I would guess. The Subs weren't the only careless pilots in the System.”
Ten mused, as much as any eight-year-old can muse. “Did your family have pets on Winath?”
“Not me,” said Cosmic Boy. “But Dacey and Dorrit…”
“We have a pair of Dxaundii Wingfish,” said Lightning Lass. “Which were designated ‘my’ pets, though. What that meant was that I had to keep them fit and watered, and clean out or rebuild their nests regularly. They’re actually pretty useful: they feed on invasive birds and rodents, which are a problem for farmers even on Winath, and they scare away of lot of the other pests that they don’t eat. My Dad was hoping to breed them, and sell them to our neighbors, but either they have more than two sexes, or they just didn’t like each other.”
“Or maybe they have a really long breeding season,” said Saturn Girl. “You talk about it like taking care of the Dxaundii was just more farm-work for you. But when I was little, I was so jealous of your having Ricky and Lucy as ‘your’ pets. Remember Alma? That Antarean Protean that came to work for us one year? She offered to be my 'pet' when I told her you wouldn’t share yours. I’m not sure she quite understood the meaning of the word ‘pet’.”
“Wingfish, Proteans, you guys were lucky,” said Cosmic Boy. “My mom never let me have any pets on the farm.”
“No, but you used to make those life-sized scrap-steel 'puppets',” said Lightning Lass. “You would to send them over to scare us, you brat. The wolf with the was particularly creepy that one time.”
“The Nahs are thinking of re-doing their back yard,” said Phantom Girl. “And getting rid of Lumfph, their Turtelpotamus. That’s a sort of pet that takes up a lot of room. That’s what got me thinking about Super-Pet auxiliary in the first place.”
“We have a Tharrite Fire-Cat back home,” said Polar Lass. “They’re native to the surface of Tharr, but sometimes sneak down into the Underground. It’s considered good fortune if one adopts you. I don’t think one could survive on Mars, though. Even on Tharr, they have to wander back up to the surface regularly.”
“We have one super-pet here already,” said Chameleon. “I was exploring some caves nearby- on my own here- a few weeks ago- right after we came back from Tharn. I found a little struggling Martian Zo’Ok flower. I didn’t know there were any left in this century. I have been nursing it back to health in my quarters. It actually seems to be doing well.”
Ten gaped. “Let me get this straight. You have a rare, semi-telepathic, nigh-invulnerable, shape-shifting Martian botanical in your quarters. Which is assumed, in many quarters, to be extinct. You’ve been husbanding it for weeks, and you didn’t think to tell us, or anyone else? Do you recall how excited everyone was when we found the M’mannix?”
“In retrospect, perhaps I should have said something,” said Chameleon. “But as mutual shape-shifters, the Zo’Ok and I… I suppose we bonded. I wanted to make sure it would be all right.”
“We never had pets on Carggg,” said Ffey. “I always wanted a Tripli-Cat.”
“Oh, speak for yourself,” said Ffiona. “Those nasty, three-headed little monsters?”
“Well, I think they’re cute,” said Ffey. "They're fuzzy."
Ffarrah rolled her eyes.
“Of course, I never had a pet as a child,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "There are no animals of any kind on Bismoll. The plant-life is just too toxic.”
“It astonishes me that it was easier for your people to learn to eat rocks,” said Ten, “rather than develop a resistance to the toxins in your world’s version of chlorophylls.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/01/18 11:23 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART TWO
CURSES
“Hey Dad. Thought I ought to check in with you.”
“Hello sweetheart. We haven’t read anything on the newsfeeds about you recently, so things must be pretty quiet.”
“Oh, yeah, we got a new member, but he got so bored here that he quit. You remember a guy named Jeem Rehtu?”
“Command Kid? Sure. He slipped by your mom’s personality scan, because he was a perfectly decent guy. Possessed by a demon though, unfortunately. Lost his powers when we beat the demon. Actually only a Legionnaire for a few days. We never really kept in touch. You’re not inducting demons now, are you?”
“No, he lives on Pretzor; his son’s is a kind of fish-boy. Like I say, it didn’t work out. How’s Mom?”
“She’s fine, sweetheart. You gave her quite a scare, but you’ve also proved you can take care of yourselves.”
“We’re trying pretty hard not to die.”
“You know, she talks about that, but that’s not her greatest fear, believe it or not.”
“Wait-- she’s worried about something worse than death?”
“Allow me to quote: ‘I leave you my curse, Legionnaires… the curse of darkness growing within you, destroying you from within… and that which is purest of you shall be the first to go!’”
“Wait… she’s worried we might turn evil? Because we’re trying to revive the Legend of the Legion?”
“Something else else like that.”
“So she would be more worried, if, say, we were possessed by demons, or brainwashed by telepathic robots, or had to confront some reality-altering interdimensional entity with evil designs on us?”
Garth Ranzz scrutinized his daughter thoughtfully.
“You realize,” he said, “That your mom is a Zero-Level Telepath, and that she doesn’t even need to read my mind to know what I’m thinking?”
“Sure, Dad. No problem. We’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Well, I certainly don’t believe that. Keep safe. I’ll have your mom give you or Dacey a call in a week when we get back from vacation.”
“You two have fun on Vondra. Love you, Dad.”
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART TWO
CURSES
“Hey Dad. Thought I ought to check in with you.”
“Hello sweetheart. We haven’t read anything on the newsfeeds about you recently, so things must be pretty quiet.”
“Oh, yeah, we got a new member, but he got so bored here that he quit. You remember a guy named Jeem Rehtu?”
“Command Kid? Sure. He slipped by your mom’s personality scan, because he was a perfectly decent guy. Possessed by a demon though, unfortunately. Lost his powers when we beat the demon. Actually only a Legionnaire for a few days. We never really kept in touch. You’re not inducting demons now, are you?”
“No, he lives on Pretzor; his son’s is a kind of fish-boy. Like I say, it didn’t work out. How’s Mom?”
“She’s fine, sweetheart. You gave her quite a scare, but you’ve also proved you can take care of yourselves.”
“We’re trying pretty hard not to die.”
“You know, she talks about that, but that’s not her greatest fear, believe it or not.”
“Wait-- she’s worried about something worse than death?”
“Allow me to quote: ‘I leave you my curse, Legionnaires… the curse of darkness growing within you, destroying you from within… and that which is purest of you shall be the first to go!’”
“Wait… she’s worried we might turn evil? Because we’re trying to revive the Legend of the Legion?”
“Something else else like that.”
“So she would be more worried, if, say, we were possessed by demons, or brainwashed by telepathic robots, or had to confront some reality-altering interdimensional entity with evil designs on us?”
Garth Ranzz scrutinized his daughter thoughtfully.
“You realize,” he said, “That your mom is a Zero-Level Telepath, and that she doesn’t even need to read my mind to know what I’m thinking?”
“Sure, Dad. No problem. We’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Well, I certainly don’t believe that. Keep safe. I’ll have your mom give you or Dacey a call in a week when we get back from vacation.”
“You two have fun on Vondra. Love you, Dad.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/05/18 07:49 AM
I love all the different Legion pets 
Also I am ashamed of myself for not getting Ellis Dee until I went back just now to have a re-read of that post lol....I think Phantom Girl's Ghost Dove is my favourite though.
Also I am ashamed of myself for not getting Ellis Dee until I went back just now to have a re-read of that post lol....I think Phantom Girl's Ghost Dove is my favourite though.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/10/18 12:25 PM
Razs:
Since writing that bit, I have read an article on why and how birds bond with humans. If it is your chickens and ducks, it is because they think you are their mommy. If it is you parrot, it is because it thinks you are its mate, and will viciously defend itself against any perceived rivals.
I wonder how it is with Ghost Doves?
Since writing that bit, I have read an article on why and how birds bond with humans. If it is your chickens and ducks, it is because they think you are their mommy. If it is you parrot, it is because it thinks you are its mate, and will viciously defend itself against any perceived rivals.
I wonder how it is with Ghost Doves?
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/10/18 12:31 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART THREE
RANKINGS
“Hello, Ten, I was looking for you,” said Phantom Girl.
“Why was Ffey crying?” asked Ten.
“Because she caught Ffarrah kissing Chameleon,” said Phantom Girl.
“But Ffey kisses Chameleon,” said Ten.
“Yes, but Ffarrah doesn’t really care for Chameleon like Ffey does. With Ffarrah, it’s all about curiosity and… physical sensation. Ffey is really close to falling in love. And, of course, she’s confused about her own feelings. Is Chameleon a friend? Lover? Brother? Sister?”
“I see,” said Ten. “Yet it is apparent that Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey all have compatibilities which align with Chameleon, in no matter what form.”
“Oh?” said Phantom Girl. “Ffiona as well?”
“Durlan intelligence is different in kind than human,” said Ten. “Yet it is clear that Chameleon is extraordinarily intelligent. Nevertheless, it could be argued that either Chameleon or Ffiona is the third-most-intelligent member of our Club.”
“You spend your time ranking the membership by intelligence?” asked Phantom Girl.
“I am merely pointing the obvious,” said Ten.
“So who is the second-most intelligent?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Saturn Girl, of course,” said Ten. “She is not only a mind-reader and thought-caster, but has a Saturnian ‘super-mind’.”
“And where do I fit in?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Myself, Saturn Girl, Chameleon or Ffiona, then Shrinking Violet-- who may be the Legion’s Greatest Detective, by the way-- then Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass-- although Pol has something of a disadvantage, as Dacey always has access to Dorrit’s super-mind, in extremity-- then yourself, then Ffarrah and Ffey, only slightly above ordinary Terran intelligence levels.”
“You’ve left someone out,” said Phantom Girl.
“As I said, I am only expressing the obvious,” said Ten. “It is no doubt one of the reasons they have gravitated towards one another. According to my research on Terrans, though, these youthful crushes tend not to persist over time. The old Legion and its persistent teen romances was something of an members.”
“You are becoming quite an authority on human social interaction,” said Phantom Girl.
“I believe that was either irony, or sarcasm,” said Ten. “Possibly both. It is an interesting field of study. I hope to improve.”
“Well, if you’re done giving the Members their grades,” said Phantom Girl, “We need to go talk to Shrinking Violet.”
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART THREE
RANKINGS
“Hello, Ten, I was looking for you,” said Phantom Girl.
“Why was Ffey crying?” asked Ten.
“Because she caught Ffarrah kissing Chameleon,” said Phantom Girl.
“But Ffey kisses Chameleon,” said Ten.
“Yes, but Ffarrah doesn’t really care for Chameleon like Ffey does. With Ffarrah, it’s all about curiosity and… physical sensation. Ffey is really close to falling in love. And, of course, she’s confused about her own feelings. Is Chameleon a friend? Lover? Brother? Sister?”
“I see,” said Ten. “Yet it is apparent that Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey all have compatibilities which align with Chameleon, in no matter what form.”
“Oh?” said Phantom Girl. “Ffiona as well?”
“Durlan intelligence is different in kind than human,” said Ten. “Yet it is clear that Chameleon is extraordinarily intelligent. Nevertheless, it could be argued that either Chameleon or Ffiona is the third-most-intelligent member of our Club.”
“You spend your time ranking the membership by intelligence?” asked Phantom Girl.
“I am merely pointing the obvious,” said Ten.
“So who is the second-most intelligent?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Saturn Girl, of course,” said Ten. “She is not only a mind-reader and thought-caster, but has a Saturnian ‘super-mind’.”
“And where do I fit in?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Myself, Saturn Girl, Chameleon or Ffiona, then Shrinking Violet-- who may be the Legion’s Greatest Detective, by the way-- then Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass-- although Pol has something of a disadvantage, as Dacey always has access to Dorrit’s super-mind, in extremity-- then yourself, then Ffarrah and Ffey, only slightly above ordinary Terran intelligence levels.”
“You’ve left someone out,” said Phantom Girl.
“As I said, I am only expressing the obvious,” said Ten. “It is no doubt one of the reasons they have gravitated towards one another. According to my research on Terrans, though, these youthful crushes tend not to persist over time. The old Legion and its persistent teen romances was something of an members.”
“You are becoming quite an authority on human social interaction,” said Phantom Girl.
“I believe that was either irony, or sarcasm,” said Ten. “Possibly both. It is an interesting field of study. I hope to improve.”
“Well, if you’re done giving the Members their grades,” said Phantom Girl, “We need to go talk to Shrinking Violet.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/16/18 05:25 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART FOUR
VIRAL INFECTION
“I am so sick,” Lightning Lass complained. “Some hot orange juice. Maybe some oatmeal. Then I’m going back to bed.”
“It sounds to me like an ordinary Terran cold virus,” said Shrinking Violet. “Still no cure, after ten thousand years. Although…”
“What?” said Lightning Lass.
“Well, I’m no doctor,” said Shrinking Violet, “But I would assume your microbiome has adapted itself to your lightning powers. This cold, on the other hand, is invasive, and probably hasn’t. Your father, and aunt, and uncle were known to energize themselves into a kind of plasma-enveloped lightning-form. I would imagine that there are few microorganisms would be able to survive that kind of cooking.”
Despite her congested misery, Lightning Lass went outside. She walked through the sand and scrub away from the Clubhouse for several tens of meters. Shrinking Violet waited just at the door.
Dacey drew on her lightning powers. It always seem to start with a roiling in her gut, then spread out as a tingling that reached to her fingertips. She held the lightning in, building up the power. There was a red glow behind her eyelids. She opened her eyes, and found herself gazing through a glowing, crackling golden mist. She felt a sort of pull from above; she saw the sky was heavily overcast. Without any conscious effort, she pulled a bolt of lightning from the clouds. It flashed down into her body, energizing her further. A second bolt answered, flashing back from earth to cloud. She shook her head; the sand underneath her feet had fused into glass. She let out a massive sneeze.
Her sinuses were completely clear.
“Thank you,” Lightning Lass said brightly to Shrinking Violet. “That was incredibly helpful.”
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART FOUR
VIRAL INFECTION
“I am so sick,” Lightning Lass complained. “Some hot orange juice. Maybe some oatmeal. Then I’m going back to bed.”
“It sounds to me like an ordinary Terran cold virus,” said Shrinking Violet. “Still no cure, after ten thousand years. Although…”
“What?” said Lightning Lass.
“Well, I’m no doctor,” said Shrinking Violet, “But I would assume your microbiome has adapted itself to your lightning powers. This cold, on the other hand, is invasive, and probably hasn’t. Your father, and aunt, and uncle were known to energize themselves into a kind of plasma-enveloped lightning-form. I would imagine that there are few microorganisms would be able to survive that kind of cooking.”
Despite her congested misery, Lightning Lass went outside. She walked through the sand and scrub away from the Clubhouse for several tens of meters. Shrinking Violet waited just at the door.
Dacey drew on her lightning powers. It always seem to start with a roiling in her gut, then spread out as a tingling that reached to her fingertips. She held the lightning in, building up the power. There was a red glow behind her eyelids. She opened her eyes, and found herself gazing through a glowing, crackling golden mist. She felt a sort of pull from above; she saw the sky was heavily overcast. Without any conscious effort, she pulled a bolt of lightning from the clouds. It flashed down into her body, energizing her further. A second bolt answered, flashing back from earth to cloud. She shook her head; the sand underneath her feet had fused into glass. She let out a massive sneeze.
Her sinuses were completely clear.
“Thank you,” Lightning Lass said brightly to Shrinking Violet. “That was incredibly helpful.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/21/18 01:42 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART FIVE
FLIGHT BELTS, INC.
“What would it take,” asked Phantom Girl, “To build four more custom flight belts? From scratch.”
“Six to eight hundred credits,” said Shrinking Violet.
“And less than a week’s work,” said Ten. “I would need to meet the new wearers first, however. In order to properly customize them.”
“You already know them,” said Phantom Girl. “Tinya Nah wants to know if you could construct four matching belts for her, her husband, and Arna and Ronin. She is willing to pay full retail price at the going rate.”
“Eight thousand credits,” said Shrinking Violet. “A tidy profit. Four standard year’s Stipend for the twelve of us."
“Why would she do this?” asked Ten. “Flight belts are readily available on Earth. They are a common method of transportation. I believe there are three or four major brands to choose from.”
“I think she’s trying to help us out,” said Phantom Girl. “Without being too obvious about it.”
“It would be an interesting proposition,” said Shrinking Violet. “Ten’s Flight Belts, Inc., an auxiliary of The Super Hero Club.”
“That would be untenable,” said Ten. “I am only able to produce flight belts relatively cheaply because I have cannibalized the Clubhouse batteries. As with much technology, powering the flight belts is 90% of the cost. With the resources I still have available, I would be able to produce less than a dozen more belts, before substantially degrading our power grid. And replacing cruiser battery packs would be more expensive than any credits we could earn selling flight belts.”
“But could we make just four belts for the Nahs?” Phantom Girl asked.
“Not without a cash advance,” said Shrinking Violet. “Unless you don’t want to eat next week.”
Phantom Girl frowned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART FIVE
FLIGHT BELTS, INC.
“What would it take,” asked Phantom Girl, “To build four more custom flight belts? From scratch.”
“Six to eight hundred credits,” said Shrinking Violet.
“And less than a week’s work,” said Ten. “I would need to meet the new wearers first, however. In order to properly customize them.”
“You already know them,” said Phantom Girl. “Tinya Nah wants to know if you could construct four matching belts for her, her husband, and Arna and Ronin. She is willing to pay full retail price at the going rate.”
“Eight thousand credits,” said Shrinking Violet. “A tidy profit. Four standard year’s Stipend for the twelve of us."
“Why would she do this?” asked Ten. “Flight belts are readily available on Earth. They are a common method of transportation. I believe there are three or four major brands to choose from.”
“I think she’s trying to help us out,” said Phantom Girl. “Without being too obvious about it.”
“It would be an interesting proposition,” said Shrinking Violet. “Ten’s Flight Belts, Inc., an auxiliary of The Super Hero Club.”
“That would be untenable,” said Ten. “I am only able to produce flight belts relatively cheaply because I have cannibalized the Clubhouse batteries. As with much technology, powering the flight belts is 90% of the cost. With the resources I still have available, I would be able to produce less than a dozen more belts, before substantially degrading our power grid. And replacing cruiser battery packs would be more expensive than any credits we could earn selling flight belts.”
“But could we make just four belts for the Nahs?” Phantom Girl asked.
“Not without a cash advance,” said Shrinking Violet. “Unless you don’t want to eat next week.”
Phantom Girl frowned. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/26/18 02:57 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART SIX of SIX
MIDNIGHT CALL
The Member’s flight belts had been repaired. The Super Hero Club was sitting on a nice reserve of cash. They seemed ready to make a new start.
Saturn Girl was sleeping soundly, for the first time in weeks.
Shortly after midnight, she was startled awake by the astral ghost of her sister, Lightning Lass, sitting at the foot of her bed.
“We’ve got a call,” said Lightning Lass.
Imra Ardeen, her astral projection looking much more solid than her daughter’s, stood in the room. Her appearance was that of a twenty-year-old, three-and-a-half decades younger than her actual age. Her daughters were used to this. It was the way she always appeared on these occasions. It was how she thought of herself.
“Good evening, Dacey, Dorrit,” said their mother. “Or, should I say, Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl.”
“Hello Mom,” said Dorrit. “It’s pretty early in the morning here.”
“Yes, I know,” said Imra Ardeen. “The two of you are still asleep. I thought you might need your rest. But I’ll make sure you remember our conversation in the morning.”
“How are things on the Farm?” asked Dacey.
“Rokk is very excited,” said her mother. “We managed to get that field of ironflowers and treaclegrass blooming, so we had Kathoon ship the Nhweebees we had on layaway.”
“Kathooni Black Honey!” exclaimed Dacey. “How is it?”
“Well, we only have one small hive, so we’ve each only had a taste up to now. It’s surprisingly mild. More like caramel than molasses, really. Lydda says she has a good recipe for black honey dumplings, when we gather enough.”
“And how was Vondra?” asked Dorrit.
“Your father and I had a great vacation. Very restful,” said Imra Ardeen. “And enlightening. Girls, I am so proud of you. I want you to know I fully support this Legion, or Super Hero Club, or whatever you are calling this group of friends. You have proven yourselves capable of taking care of yourselves, even heroic, and I want to say… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for doubting you. I hope you can make a difference.”
“Wow, Mom,” said Dorrit. “This is… this isn’t just a dream, right? I mean…”
“I’ll send you girls a little something in the real world so that you know this was completely real,” said their mother. “But tell me: have you had any other adventures since you fought the Cyclops robot? Whatever happened to it?”
"We had to give it back to the Museum of Forbidden Weapons on Uranias," said Lightning Lass. "But it was fun having a butler for a couple of days, anyway. Otherwise, it's been pretty quiet for the past couple of weeks.”
They talked until morning. Saturn Girl awoke refreshed, and ready to greet a brand new day.
INTERLUDE: CONVERSATIONS
PART SIX of SIX
MIDNIGHT CALL
The Member’s flight belts had been repaired. The Super Hero Club was sitting on a nice reserve of cash. They seemed ready to make a new start.
Saturn Girl was sleeping soundly, for the first time in weeks.
Shortly after midnight, she was startled awake by the astral ghost of her sister, Lightning Lass, sitting at the foot of her bed.
“We’ve got a call,” said Lightning Lass.
Imra Ardeen, her astral projection looking much more solid than her daughter’s, stood in the room. Her appearance was that of a twenty-year-old, three-and-a-half decades younger than her actual age. Her daughters were used to this. It was the way she always appeared on these occasions. It was how she thought of herself.
“Good evening, Dacey, Dorrit,” said their mother. “Or, should I say, Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl.”
“Hello Mom,” said Dorrit. “It’s pretty early in the morning here.”
“Yes, I know,” said Imra Ardeen. “The two of you are still asleep. I thought you might need your rest. But I’ll make sure you remember our conversation in the morning.”
“How are things on the Farm?” asked Dacey.
“Rokk is very excited,” said her mother. “We managed to get that field of ironflowers and treaclegrass blooming, so we had Kathoon ship the Nhweebees we had on layaway.”
“Kathooni Black Honey!” exclaimed Dacey. “How is it?”
“Well, we only have one small hive, so we’ve each only had a taste up to now. It’s surprisingly mild. More like caramel than molasses, really. Lydda says she has a good recipe for black honey dumplings, when we gather enough.”
“And how was Vondra?” asked Dorrit.
“Your father and I had a great vacation. Very restful,” said Imra Ardeen. “And enlightening. Girls, I am so proud of you. I want you to know I fully support this Legion, or Super Hero Club, or whatever you are calling this group of friends. You have proven yourselves capable of taking care of yourselves, even heroic, and I want to say… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for doubting you. I hope you can make a difference.”
“Wow, Mom,” said Dorrit. “This is… this isn’t just a dream, right? I mean…”
“I’ll send you girls a little something in the real world so that you know this was completely real,” said their mother. “But tell me: have you had any other adventures since you fought the Cyclops robot? Whatever happened to it?”
"We had to give it back to the Museum of Forbidden Weapons on Uranias," said Lightning Lass. "But it was fun having a butler for a couple of days, anyway. Otherwise, it's been pretty quiet for the past couple of weeks.”
They talked until morning. Saturn Girl awoke refreshed, and ready to greet a brand new day.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/05/18 02:08 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
THE CHARIOTEER
An interstellar runabout pulled into the parking lot outside the Clubhouse.
“That’s not just any runabout,” said Lightning Lass. “That’s our runabout!”
The young man who climbed out of the driver’s seat was the most interesting person Lightning Lass had seen in some time.
His ears were elfin and pointed, although not so large as Chameleons. His skin was pale golden-yellow, like white gold. His eyes were pale blue, like the sky, and had no sclera or pupils. His hair was silvery-white. Clearly alien, he had only three long fingers on each hand, and two long toed. He had a pleasant smile, and moved with a swan-like grace, nearly balletic.
“Are you Dorrit or Dacey Ranzz?” the boy asked.
“Dacey,” said Lightning Lass. “But you can call me Lightning Lass.”
“Well, Lightning Lass, I’m Arnion, and I’m a Charioteer. That’s a fancy way of saying I drive starships and other conveyances from one destination to another for a living. This particular vehicle was sent to you by your mother. There are papers inside quit-claiming it to you and your sister. Well, my work here is done. Fully paid, no gratuity necessary. Which way to the closest town? I have a pickup tomorrow on the other side of the planet.”
Lightning Lass gestured towards the road to New Metropolis. “Do you need lunch?” she asked.
“Can you recommend a good place to eat in town?” asked Arnion.
“No, not really,” said Lightning Lass. “The restaurants here are pretty pedestrian. You might try one of the hotels. Do you like pizza?”
“Sure, pizza’s great,” said Arnion. “Although, depending what world you’re on, you never know what you’re getting.”
“Well, stay for a bit, and we can order pizza. Then I-- that is, my sister and I-- can take you into town in our new runabout?”
“You’d use a star-runabout to take a trip into town?”
Lightning Lass shrugged. “It’s the only vehicle we have.”
“Well, that’s OK,” he said. “I have my own form of transportation.” He vanished, with a soft, smoky pop, which left behind the scent of camellias. “But I’ll take you up on the offer of pizza,” he said, from behind her.
Lightning Lass spun around. “You have a teleporter?”
“I am a teleporter, among other things,” said Arnion. “Line-of-sight only, but it comes in handy.”
“What other things?” asked Lightning Lass curiously.
Arnion casually doffed his jacket, and turned his back. “I have these completely useless wings,” he said. He did indeed have two wings growing out of his shoulder blades, about the size of a dove’s. “And I can turn invisible, but only in bright sunlight.”
“Why can’t you turn invisible at night?” asked Lightning Lass. “I would think that would be easier.”
Arnion shrugged, seeming a little embarrassed. “I glow in the dark, or deep shadow,” he said. “Like a firefly. I can’t shut it off.”
“Anything else?” asked Lightning Lass.
“Well, I have my own personal gravity,” said Arnion. “So I can walk up walls, or on ceilings. I can even ‘fall upwards’ a little, but mostly I have to be in contact with something solid.”
“Have you ever thought about joining a Super Hero Club?” asked Lightning Lass.
“No, thanks,” said Arnion. “I make good money as a Charioteer, and I get to see the Galaxy.”
Lightning Lass soon discovered that she was not the only one who found Arnion compelling. Everyone else seemed to like him, too, and lingered far after the pizza was gone.
“When you teleport,” said Lightning Lass, “Can you take anyone with you?”
“No,” said Arnion. “Not anything organic. I’ve accidentally taken a fly or two, and some mosquitos. They make it through the teleport, but not… well, not alive.”
After the pizza, they stepped outside.
“It’s been nice to meet you all,” said Arnion. But he was looking at Lightning Lass. “I’ve got a pickup on the other side of the planet, so I’d better be going.” He vanished, reappearing only a few dozen meters away. He waved, then vanished again.
He popped up right next to Lightning Lass. As she startled, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then vanished again in a cloud of perfume. This time they couldn’t see where he reappeared.
Saturn Girl turned to her sister. “You smell like a florist’s shop.”
“I know,” said Lightning Lass, rubbing her cheek. “Isn’t it great?”
THE CHARIOTEER
An interstellar runabout pulled into the parking lot outside the Clubhouse.
“That’s not just any runabout,” said Lightning Lass. “That’s our runabout!”
The young man who climbed out of the driver’s seat was the most interesting person Lightning Lass had seen in some time.
His ears were elfin and pointed, although not so large as Chameleons. His skin was pale golden-yellow, like white gold. His eyes were pale blue, like the sky, and had no sclera or pupils. His hair was silvery-white. Clearly alien, he had only three long fingers on each hand, and two long toed. He had a pleasant smile, and moved with a swan-like grace, nearly balletic.
“Are you Dorrit or Dacey Ranzz?” the boy asked.
“Dacey,” said Lightning Lass. “But you can call me Lightning Lass.”
“Well, Lightning Lass, I’m Arnion, and I’m a Charioteer. That’s a fancy way of saying I drive starships and other conveyances from one destination to another for a living. This particular vehicle was sent to you by your mother. There are papers inside quit-claiming it to you and your sister. Well, my work here is done. Fully paid, no gratuity necessary. Which way to the closest town? I have a pickup tomorrow on the other side of the planet.”
Lightning Lass gestured towards the road to New Metropolis. “Do you need lunch?” she asked.
“Can you recommend a good place to eat in town?” asked Arnion.
“No, not really,” said Lightning Lass. “The restaurants here are pretty pedestrian. You might try one of the hotels. Do you like pizza?”
“Sure, pizza’s great,” said Arnion. “Although, depending what world you’re on, you never know what you’re getting.”
“Well, stay for a bit, and we can order pizza. Then I-- that is, my sister and I-- can take you into town in our new runabout?”
“You’d use a star-runabout to take a trip into town?”
Lightning Lass shrugged. “It’s the only vehicle we have.”
“Well, that’s OK,” he said. “I have my own form of transportation.” He vanished, with a soft, smoky pop, which left behind the scent of camellias. “But I’ll take you up on the offer of pizza,” he said, from behind her.
Lightning Lass spun around. “You have a teleporter?”
“I am a teleporter, among other things,” said Arnion. “Line-of-sight only, but it comes in handy.”
“What other things?” asked Lightning Lass curiously.
Arnion casually doffed his jacket, and turned his back. “I have these completely useless wings,” he said. He did indeed have two wings growing out of his shoulder blades, about the size of a dove’s. “And I can turn invisible, but only in bright sunlight.”
“Why can’t you turn invisible at night?” asked Lightning Lass. “I would think that would be easier.”
Arnion shrugged, seeming a little embarrassed. “I glow in the dark, or deep shadow,” he said. “Like a firefly. I can’t shut it off.”
“Anything else?” asked Lightning Lass.
“Well, I have my own personal gravity,” said Arnion. “So I can walk up walls, or on ceilings. I can even ‘fall upwards’ a little, but mostly I have to be in contact with something solid.”
“Have you ever thought about joining a Super Hero Club?” asked Lightning Lass.
“No, thanks,” said Arnion. “I make good money as a Charioteer, and I get to see the Galaxy.”
Lightning Lass soon discovered that she was not the only one who found Arnion compelling. Everyone else seemed to like him, too, and lingered far after the pizza was gone.
“When you teleport,” said Lightning Lass, “Can you take anyone with you?”
“No,” said Arnion. “Not anything organic. I’ve accidentally taken a fly or two, and some mosquitos. They make it through the teleport, but not… well, not alive.”
After the pizza, they stepped outside.
“It’s been nice to meet you all,” said Arnion. But he was looking at Lightning Lass. “I’ve got a pickup on the other side of the planet, so I’d better be going.” He vanished, reappearing only a few dozen meters away. He waved, then vanished again.
He popped up right next to Lightning Lass. As she startled, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, then vanished again in a cloud of perfume. This time they couldn’t see where he reappeared.
Saturn Girl turned to her sister. “You smell like a florist’s shop.”
“I know,” said Lightning Lass, rubbing her cheek. “Isn’t it great?”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/07/18 05:26 AM
Daycrawler, neat!
I am glad Imra came around as well!
I am glad Imra came around as well!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/11/18 11:59 PM
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/7647fbf9eef62c375d4def21c48c9d49/tumblr_p8oomoVaSu1uwm5uqo1_400.png)
Yes, Daycrawler. Glad you picked up on it, Razsolo.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/12/18 12:17 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
INVASION FROM THARN
Chameleon showed up the next day in uniform: a blue-and-black chain-mail outfit.
“You look nice dressed,” Fey commented.
“It is the Martian Zo’Ok. We seem to be bonding-- in a parent-and-child way,” Chameleon hastened to add. “Although it must spend evenings in its soil, it appears to enjoy playing my ‘costume’. I based it on the original ‘Chameleon Boy’ outfit Reep Daggle wore.”
“He is a Mish Qengji,” announced Ten, entering the lunchroom.
“Who’s that?” asked Ffarrah.
“Arnion the Charioteer,” said Ten. “Their world was admitted to the United Planets one-point-six Standard years ago.”
“He is certainly a likable fellow,” said Chameleon. “It is clear everyone favored his company. I myself found him charming, and my emotional reactions are not... always... completely... human.”
Ffarrah and Ffey flashed a jealous glance at Chameleon.
“The scientists on Mish Qeng have documented their examination of his powers,” said Ten. “He was not entirely forthcoming regarding his teleportation’s effect on organic matter. They had him teleport with living creatures as large as a qat. The animal did not die-- at least, not right away-- but was completely unresponsive to external stimuli. It continued to breathe, its heart continued to beat, but it remained catatonic. Even its eyes were unresponsive, not tracking point-light stimuli. It did not move, and did not sleep, but also did not eat. The creature eventually died of starvation. The science team hypothesized some permanent neural damage, although an autopsy was unrevealing. They discontinued the line of inquiry.”
“Very creepy,” said Chameleon.
“Well, I don’t think Arnion was hiding anything from us,” said Lightning Lass. “That would have been a pretty long-winded, unnecessary explanation. He wasn’t really being untruthful… those poor things-- bugs and such-- did die, eventually.”
“Well, I’m glad he showed up,” said Saturn Girl. “Bringing us our Runabout shows we finally have my parent’s support-- for a while at least. But my mother was right about one thing. By calling ourselves ‘Super-Heroes’, we have painted a target on our backs. We have scarcely been able to leave Mars, and yet have been inundated by both heroes and villains recently.” Saturn Girl’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “Speaking of which, we had better get outside. It seems we have visitors. Again.”
They recognized the exiled half of the First Coventry of Tharn. They did not look well.
Nagromma, whose appearance always hovered just on the edge of reality, now flickered in and out like a wind-blown candle.
The Manananggal, having no body below the waist, flailed helplessly on her back, unable to hover, and unable to stand.
Lady LeShove, the twenty-foot-tall giantess, found it difficult to support her own weight, even under the low gravity of Mars.
Thane Fitzneron looked worst of all: shriveled and weak, a boy who they did not recognize bent over him.
“Strego Stefano, I presume?” said Cosmic Boy. “The evil Sorcerer’s Apprentice?”
“What have you done to my Master?” cried Stefano, gesturing futilely.
Only Viviane Inwudu and Karannath seemed to be in relative good health. However, the sorceress and sorcerer were also futilely gesturing wildly and muttering spells without any effect.
Frustrated, Karannath launched himself in a physical assault against Polar Lass. “I wouldn’t try that,” said the Tharran. “I have cold hands, and a colder heart.” Karannath retreated, his hands and arms cloaked in ice up to the shoulder.
Viviane Inwude attacked Lightning Lass with the sword she always carried at her waist, but received a nasty shock when it was blasted out of her hand. Cosmic Boy had magnetically grabbed it out of the air, and sent the blade quivering into a distant tree.
“Now, you’re probably wondering what is going on,” said Saturn Girl. “We were warned by the First Coventry that you might seek revenge. Frankly, I can’t understand it. Your loyalty seems misplaced, as Lord Mordru would have overwritten your own existence with the rest of the Universe, had his plans succeeded.”
“The First Coventry,” said Ffiona, “Gifted us certain wards and amulets, which repel-- what’s the word-- mana from around us. Magic doesn’t work anymore here. Period.”
“See those ogres, trolls, and golems... and what are those things?” said Saturn Girl. “Over there, against the trees-- holding those magical restraints? They are just on the other side of the border of the anti-mana field. We suggest you go and make their acquaintance. They will escort you back to the Sorcerer’s World, and the reconstituted First Coventry.”
“We are not entirely helpless,” threatened Karannath.
“Nor are we,” said Saturn Girl. “And you are on our home turf. Now, some of your associates are suffering greatly from the lack of the magic which ordinarily sustains their forms. I believe some of you are half-demon, or faery-folk, who cannot survive long without magic to sustain you? Perhaps you care as little for them as your Lord Mordru did, but if you do care… well, the ogres are probably getting impatient. I don’t imagine they appreciate being summoned from whatever they may have been doing on Sorcerer’s World, even if they volunteered for this duty. I wouldn’t keep them waiting. They may not wait.”
“I wouldn’t…” said Viviane Inwudu. She looked at her companions, writhing on the ground, and the pleading eyes of Stefano beside his master. “Oh, very well,” she said. “This isn’t over.”
“The First Coventry says it is,” said Saturn Girl. “Consider this a warning.”
The seven sorcerers staggered and crawled into the arms of the hideous giants and monsters under the trees. One rock troll delicately plucked Viviane Inwudu’s sword out of the tree with a thumb and forefinger, and the whole pack of Tharnans quickly vanished.
“I now understand,” said Ten, “Why Tharnan Sorcerers are known to so seldom leave their homeworld.”
“I almost feel sorry for them,” said Ffarrah. “Almost, but I don’t.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/19/18 02:00 AM
INTERLUDE
OK, FINE, WE'LL DO SOME TRYOUTS
1.
Antenna Girl: Good Morning. I am Thalassa of Andor.
Thank you for being here this morning. And do your antennae have any unusual powers?
Antenna Girl: I didn't come all this way to be insulted! If you are going to speak to me like that, then goodbye to you and your so-called 'Super-Hero Club'!
=======================================================================
2.
Samantha: Good morning. I am Samantha Trinayana of Wham, but you can call me The Three-Eyed Girl!
Thank you for being here this morning. Er… I only seem to see two eyes?
Samantha: Oh, the other one is here, right on the back of my head. See? It's why my family keeps our heads shaved. With three eyes, no one can sneak up on me, and I always know everything that's going on around me.
Any unusual vision powers? Ultrascopic vision, clarivoyance, laser vision, and so forth?
Samantha: Does red-green color blindness count? It's kind of a family trait. I understand it's good for detecting camouflage.
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
3.
Tianna: Hello, I am Tianna Gozo, and this is my brother Dynn. We call ourselves the Color Twins.
Dynn: We are permanently chromatically quantum entangled.
Tianna: Like many Earth creatures, we have the ability to change the colors of our skin. But because of our entanglement, our skin colors are always complementary.
Dynn: For example, if I turn my skin orange, Tianna automatically turns blue. (Demonstrates)
Tianna: And if I turn red and white, Dynn automatically turns green and black. (Demonstrates) Well, turquoise, really.
Dynn: It is excellent for instantaneous, long-distance communication. In fact, we have worked out our own personal intrachromatic language. (Demonstrates-- a flashing, kaledoscopic display)
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to the two of you.
=======================================================================
4.
Sable Incán: I call myself The Indefatigable Girl. I never tire. I never need sleep. I always give 100%, all the time, every hour of every day.
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
5.
Loris Lad: I have all the powers of a Loris.
Um… and those are?
Loris Lad: I am strictly nocturnal and insectivorous. Notice the large eyes. I can also secrete a mild, allergenic toxin from the interior of his elbows which induces extreme itching. I am somewhat slow-moving, but have an excellent sense of balance.
And may I say those big eyes and your furry face make you look very cute?
(Glowers) Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
6.
Ms. Serious: My ancient ancestors were among the original colonists who came to Mars aboard the UNS Mayflower, back in the 21st century. Hundreds of years later, their descendants were among the members of the first permanent settlement on Mars. I currently reside in the domed Mars City, the largest city on Mars. I have the psychic ability to make anything seem important, and worthy of sober, thoughtful consideration.
Thank you. We are honored to have an applicant from such an eminent and august family here today. I see that you could be a valuable asset to our Super-Hero Club. If it were up to me, I would approve your application right now. However, I will need to discuss this carefully with the other Members first, and we will… Oh, wait, I see what you did there. Very interesting. We will take this under consideration and get back to you.
OK, FINE, WE'LL DO SOME TRYOUTS
1.
Antenna Girl: Good Morning. I am Thalassa of Andor.
Thank you for being here this morning. And do your antennae have any unusual powers?
Antenna Girl: I didn't come all this way to be insulted! If you are going to speak to me like that, then goodbye to you and your so-called 'Super-Hero Club'!
=======================================================================
2.
Samantha: Good morning. I am Samantha Trinayana of Wham, but you can call me The Three-Eyed Girl!
Thank you for being here this morning. Er… I only seem to see two eyes?
Samantha: Oh, the other one is here, right on the back of my head. See? It's why my family keeps our heads shaved. With three eyes, no one can sneak up on me, and I always know everything that's going on around me.
Any unusual vision powers? Ultrascopic vision, clarivoyance, laser vision, and so forth?
Samantha: Does red-green color blindness count? It's kind of a family trait. I understand it's good for detecting camouflage.
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
3.
Tianna: Hello, I am Tianna Gozo, and this is my brother Dynn. We call ourselves the Color Twins.
Dynn: We are permanently chromatically quantum entangled.
Tianna: Like many Earth creatures, we have the ability to change the colors of our skin. But because of our entanglement, our skin colors are always complementary.
Dynn: For example, if I turn my skin orange, Tianna automatically turns blue. (Demonstrates)
Tianna: And if I turn red and white, Dynn automatically turns green and black. (Demonstrates) Well, turquoise, really.
Dynn: It is excellent for instantaneous, long-distance communication. In fact, we have worked out our own personal intrachromatic language. (Demonstrates-- a flashing, kaledoscopic display)
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to the two of you.
=======================================================================
4.
Sable Incán: I call myself The Indefatigable Girl. I never tire. I never need sleep. I always give 100%, all the time, every hour of every day.
Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
5.
Loris Lad: I have all the powers of a Loris.
Um… and those are?
Loris Lad: I am strictly nocturnal and insectivorous. Notice the large eyes. I can also secrete a mild, allergenic toxin from the interior of his elbows which induces extreme itching. I am somewhat slow-moving, but have an excellent sense of balance.
And may I say those big eyes and your furry face make you look very cute?
(Glowers) Thank you. Very interesting. We'll take this under consideration and get back to you.
=======================================================================
6.
Ms. Serious: My ancient ancestors were among the original colonists who came to Mars aboard the UNS Mayflower, back in the 21st century. Hundreds of years later, their descendants were among the members of the first permanent settlement on Mars. I currently reside in the domed Mars City, the largest city on Mars. I have the psychic ability to make anything seem important, and worthy of sober, thoughtful consideration.
Thank you. We are honored to have an applicant from such an eminent and august family here today. I see that you could be a valuable asset to our Super-Hero Club. If it were up to me, I would approve your application right now. However, I will need to discuss this carefully with the other Members first, and we will… Oh, wait, I see what you did there. Very interesting. We will take this under consideration and get back to you.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/19/18 02:04 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
THE STAR-WOMAN COMETH
On Bellonasday morning, the Club received an unsolicited call.
“I am Kallor Nal of Naltor,” the blonde woman introduced herself. “Please check my site for my resume. I’ll wait.”
“Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, Planetary Champion of Naltor and New Titan... Strength, speed, gravity powers, enhanced durability, enhanced senses, lightning vision, flame breath… an impressive resume. Is it all true?”
“Check the official NaltorGov site,” said Kallor Nal.
“Very impressive,” said Saturn Girl, speed-reading the site. “You can’t see through copper?”
“Electro-cometary powers,” said Kallor Nal. “Copper appears to block the ‘electro’ part.”
“And what do you want with us?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I have had a vision-- I know people get tired of Naltorans saying that-- that I was assisted by the Super Hero Club in defeating a terrible villain hiding on Earth.”
“Did you see which villain?” asked Saturn Girl.
“It appeared to be the Dark Man,” said Kallor Nal. “Tomorrow afternoon. In an abandoned warehouse in Hyperbad.”
“I have always wondered,” said Ten, entering the room, “What would happen if a Naltoran were to resist these visions? You have gone to a great deal of trouble to contact us. What if you just stayed home tomorrow… and read a book, instead?”
“The visions always come to pass,” said Kallor Nal. “But in resisting them, our prophetic powers weaken, become less specific, and may fade away completely.”
“When can you be here?” asked Saturn Girl.
“My ship is already in orbit around Mars,” said Kallor Nal. “All I need is your permission to land.”
It was less like a planning meeting, and more like a Council of War.
“Carggan, Coluan, Bgzltr, Braalien, Tharran, Orzdean, Durlan, Bismollean, Saturnian, and lightning powers,” said the Star-Woman. “I am familiar with all your native abilities. You might most easily think of me as a Daxamite, without the unfortunate ‘allergy’ to lead.”
“Are you really that powerful?” asked Lightning Lass.
“At least,” said Star-Woman.
“And you are the daughter of the High Seer of Naltor,” said Ten.
“Yes,” said Star-Woman. “My father died in an unfortunate accident before I was born-- shortly before the Legion was disbanded. That makes me, I suppose, a little too old to be an official member of your group…”
“Actually,” said Ten, “We have no such constitutional restrictions.”
“True,” said Saturn Girl. “But with your power set, I expect that we would be more a hindrance than a help.”
“Nevertheless,” said Star-Woman, “My vision was clear. It is together that we will defeat the Dark Man. The only question is how we will get to Earth. I see your runabout is a four-seater, but I can carry only two, and I distinctly saw all twelve of you with me in Hyperbad.”
“Chameleon, Shrinking Violet and I,” said Ten, “Can reduce our size, and ride in… cupholders, if necessary. The Triplicates and Phantom Girl can share a single space, although it might be uncomfortable. That leaves only the Founders, and Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass to squeeze into the larger runabout. Perhaps the latter two could also share a seat.”
“I think,” said Shrinking Violet, “That we might be able to spring for a star-gate jump from Mars to Earth, and back again. Our treasury is not that depleted.”
“I can cover the cost,” said Star-Woman. “As Planetary Champion, I have an expense account for my official duties. Is there a Gate to Earth in New Metropolis?”
“We'll need to gate to Mars City or Nix Olympia, then on to Hyperbad on Earth,” said Shrinking Violet. “I will make the arrangements. If we leave early tomorrow morning, we should be able to be there by noon tomorrow, Earth-time.”
“I value your help in this,” said Star-Woman. “My thanks.”
“Hey, it’s what we formed the Super Hero Club for,” said Ffey. “Adventure.”
THE STAR-WOMAN COMETH
On Bellonasday morning, the Club received an unsolicited call.
“I am Kallor Nal of Naltor,” the blonde woman introduced herself. “Please check my site for my resume. I’ll wait.”
“Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, Planetary Champion of Naltor and New Titan... Strength, speed, gravity powers, enhanced durability, enhanced senses, lightning vision, flame breath… an impressive resume. Is it all true?”
“Check the official NaltorGov site,” said Kallor Nal.
“Very impressive,” said Saturn Girl, speed-reading the site. “You can’t see through copper?”
“Electro-cometary powers,” said Kallor Nal. “Copper appears to block the ‘electro’ part.”
“And what do you want with us?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I have had a vision-- I know people get tired of Naltorans saying that-- that I was assisted by the Super Hero Club in defeating a terrible villain hiding on Earth.”
“Did you see which villain?” asked Saturn Girl.
“It appeared to be the Dark Man,” said Kallor Nal. “Tomorrow afternoon. In an abandoned warehouse in Hyperbad.”
“I have always wondered,” said Ten, entering the room, “What would happen if a Naltoran were to resist these visions? You have gone to a great deal of trouble to contact us. What if you just stayed home tomorrow… and read a book, instead?”
“The visions always come to pass,” said Kallor Nal. “But in resisting them, our prophetic powers weaken, become less specific, and may fade away completely.”
“When can you be here?” asked Saturn Girl.
“My ship is already in orbit around Mars,” said Kallor Nal. “All I need is your permission to land.”
It was less like a planning meeting, and more like a Council of War.
“Carggan, Coluan, Bgzltr, Braalien, Tharran, Orzdean, Durlan, Bismollean, Saturnian, and lightning powers,” said the Star-Woman. “I am familiar with all your native abilities. You might most easily think of me as a Daxamite, without the unfortunate ‘allergy’ to lead.”
“Are you really that powerful?” asked Lightning Lass.
“At least,” said Star-Woman.
“And you are the daughter of the High Seer of Naltor,” said Ten.
“Yes,” said Star-Woman. “My father died in an unfortunate accident before I was born-- shortly before the Legion was disbanded. That makes me, I suppose, a little too old to be an official member of your group…”
“Actually,” said Ten, “We have no such constitutional restrictions.”
“True,” said Saturn Girl. “But with your power set, I expect that we would be more a hindrance than a help.”
“Nevertheless,” said Star-Woman, “My vision was clear. It is together that we will defeat the Dark Man. The only question is how we will get to Earth. I see your runabout is a four-seater, but I can carry only two, and I distinctly saw all twelve of you with me in Hyperbad.”
“Chameleon, Shrinking Violet and I,” said Ten, “Can reduce our size, and ride in… cupholders, if necessary. The Triplicates and Phantom Girl can share a single space, although it might be uncomfortable. That leaves only the Founders, and Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass to squeeze into the larger runabout. Perhaps the latter two could also share a seat.”
“I think,” said Shrinking Violet, “That we might be able to spring for a star-gate jump from Mars to Earth, and back again. Our treasury is not that depleted.”
“I can cover the cost,” said Star-Woman. “As Planetary Champion, I have an expense account for my official duties. Is there a Gate to Earth in New Metropolis?”
“We'll need to gate to Mars City or Nix Olympia, then on to Hyperbad on Earth,” said Shrinking Violet. “I will make the arrangements. If we leave early tomorrow morning, we should be able to be there by noon tomorrow, Earth-time.”
“I value your help in this,” said Star-Woman. “My thanks.”
“Hey, it’s what we formed the Super Hero Club for,” said Ffey. “Adventure.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/25/18 01:11 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
VS. THE DARK MAN
“This is the right place,” announced Star-Woman. They were outside a large, long-abandoned building.
Ten was examining his Omnicom®. “The Dark Man was assumed destroyed decades ago. There has been no evidence of his return. Are you sure about this?”
“How about this for evidence?” asked Shrinking Violet, pulling a transparent sheet from a wall.
“Fascinating,” said Ten. “An archaic technology. A thin sheet of plasteel, laser-inscribed with Interlac characters.”
Saturn Girl took the sheet. “‘Knowledge is Power, and the Dark Man Knows All…’ He seems to be soliciting meta-humans, with the promise of increasing their powers… and promising to turn ordinary humans into meta… no electronic communication, just these flyers… they would be difficult to trace…”
“Not necessarily,” said Shrinking Violet. “There must be only a few places on Earth with access to this obsolete technology. Such as, for instance, this building.” He pointed to a weathered sign above the door, which read Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. “An old ‘newspaper’ printing establishment,” she explained.
“Are you ready?” asked Star-Woman.
“You foresaw that you will defeat him, but only with our assistance?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I foresaw that we would face him together,” said Star-Woman.
“Members,” said Saturn Girl. “Get ready to use your powers.”
The Triplicates fused into one.
“I skipped breakfast this morning,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
Chameleon assumed the form of an ape-like, multi-armed beast armed with spines, talons, and fangs.
Star-Woman and the Super Hero Club broke down the door.
The near-empty chamber smelled of formaldehyde. Against the rear wall, perhaps two dozen human forms lay motionless, stacked on wire shelves, long tubes attaching them to various machines. Saturn Girl scanned the room.
“I can’t pick up their thoughts,” said Saturn Girl. “Not even dreams. Are they sleeping? Comatose?”
“They’re all dead,” said Star-Woman, scanning the bodies herself. “Some for several days.”
“There’s someone else here,” said Saturn Girl.
The scrawny old bald man, dressed in red and gold, emerged from the shadows.
“Welcome, Young Legion,” he croaked. “I see you have met my army of meta-humans. Please, sit down.”
There were a number of soft, cushioned chairs and couches scattered around. Starwoman and the Members obediently took their seats.
“<Mind control!>” Saturn Girl broadcast to the rest.
“Now, now, no telepathy here,” said the Dark Man. “Please, relax, I have been expecting you. You waited outside for some time. I was getting impatient.”
He paced up and down before the young people. “My army is resting. I had to take their souls to replenish my strength. But soon, we will begin our war of conquest. Earth will be the first to fall, and you will join us!”
“<Can you hear me?>” Lightning Lass asked her sister.
“<Yes,>” said Saturn Girl. “<He does not seem able to detect or affect our bond.>”
“<Can you help me resist?>” asked Lightning Lass.
“<Maybe,>” said Saturn Girl. “<I’m running through some exercises. His mind is open to me. He thinks he’s the Dark Man, but deep down, he knows he isn’t. And he hasn’t really stolen anyone’s soul. That’s just a delusion. He’s simply poisoned them. His ‘army’ are nothing but dead corpses. He knows that too, but he’s playing out some bizarre fantasy. He’s a… puppet of his own delusion..>”
The faux Dark Man approached Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl, sitting together on a couch. “Now, which first?” he said aloud. “The Bgztlr, or the Orzdean?” He took a small vial out of a pouch in his shirt. “Just one drop… perhaps two… and you too will be mine.”
He filled a small eyedropper with the clear liquid. "This will increase your powers exponentially," he promised. "Then you, too, will be part of my army."
Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl looked terrified, but were unable to move.
“Open wide,” he commanded. The two girls unwillingly complied.
“<It's a fast-acting poison-- cyanide, some other stuff mixed in,>” Saturn Girl informed her sister. “<I feel so helpless!>”
“<What did Mom tell us about mind control?>” asked Lightning Lass.
“<Don’t think, just act!>” said Saturn Girl. “Don’t think! Just act!” she screamed aloud.
“Don’t think! Don’t plan! Just act!” cried Lightning Lass, her hands blasting out flashes of electricity, which entirely missed their target.
The faux Dark Man paused, startled, off-balance. Star-Woman also loosed bolts of lightning from her eyes, again wide of the mark. Phantom Girl dissolved into intangibility, Shrinking Violet shrunk out of sight. Walking through the baffled old man before her, she whirled, turned solid, and hit him a savage blow on the back of the head with her clenched fist. As his head went down, Shrinking Violet shot up to full size, delivering a nasty uppercut. The old man flew backwards, the vial and eyedropper flying off in two directions.
“Everyone all right?” Saturn Girl and Star-Woman asked together. A chorus of “‘Yes’, ‘OK’, and ‘I think so’ answered them. They turned on the old man, prone on the ground. He was down, but not out. He made a grab for the vial of poison, and retrieved it.
“No!” cried Saturn Girl, as he the drained the vial in one quick gulp. She ran to his side. “Dead!” she announced, looking up. “But he was just... only sick-- he was mentally ill! We could have helped him ... psychological rehabilitation.” She struggled to hold back tears.
“I don’t think this is what any of us signed up for,” said the unified Triplicate Girl, shaking her head. “Somehow, I thought punching super-villains would have been more satisfying.”
* * *
The SP’s responded quickly.
“Kallor Nal, Star-Woman, Planetary Champion of Naltor and New Titan,” she introduced herself. “I am a Registered Adventurer. I was able to save these ten meta-humans from the clutches of... well, he styled himself a new Dark Man.”
Shrinking Violet handed over the plasteel-paper flyer to the officers. “He was luring in people-- metahumans like us-- with this,” she said. “I, um, don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I think you will find that all these people-- the old man included-- all died from the same toxic compound.”
The SP’s turned to Star-Woman. “It’s a very bad business, whatever went down,” they told her. “Don’t go far. You will be available for questioning?”
“I’m staying on Mars,” said Star-Woman. “At the Grand Marshall Hotel in New Metropolis.”
The SP’s looked at the shell-shocked Super Hero Club.
“You’re lucky this young lady was with you. Pulled your fat out of the fire,” one officer said.
* * *
“I could add the ten of you to my Registered Adventurer’s License,” said Star-Woman. “As, um, ‘side-kicks’.”
They were back on Mars, in the Clubhouse.
“You would be covered by my insurance, and you would be recognized, even in some of the stricter jurisdictions, such as Earth, Winath, and Rimbor. We could also become an independent, licensed organization, but that would be pretty expensive,” she continued.
“Then, you’re staying?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Has she even been invited?” asked Ten. Phantom Girl kicked him in the knee.
“I’m afraid you need the truth,” said Star-Woman. “What with Naltor being a planet of precognitives, and New Titan being a planet of telepaths, there is not much crime there. Nor, for that matter, natural disasters, either. And my mother, as High Seer, made sure… well, she wanted to keep me 'safe'. So this is the first actual action I’ve seen. It’s been frustrating… I have great powers, but I’ve spent the last half-dozen years attending the openings of orphanages, or appearing at Bat-Ball games, or hosting other charitable activities. I’m not… I’ve trained with my powers a lot, I have great control, but… I’ve never actually put them to real use before this.”
“You know I knew that,” said Saturn Girl.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“She told me,” said Lightning Lass.
“I think we need to have a formal ballot,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ll give everybody a day to think about it. Should induct Star-Woman into the Super Hero Club?” She turned to the Naltoran. “I want you to make yourself completely available to the other Members for questions. And, complete honesty, please.
VS. THE DARK MAN
“This is the right place,” announced Star-Woman. They were outside a large, long-abandoned building.
Ten was examining his Omnicom®. “The Dark Man was assumed destroyed decades ago. There has been no evidence of his return. Are you sure about this?”
“How about this for evidence?” asked Shrinking Violet, pulling a transparent sheet from a wall.
“Fascinating,” said Ten. “An archaic technology. A thin sheet of plasteel, laser-inscribed with Interlac characters.”
Saturn Girl took the sheet. “‘Knowledge is Power, and the Dark Man Knows All…’ He seems to be soliciting meta-humans, with the promise of increasing their powers… and promising to turn ordinary humans into meta… no electronic communication, just these flyers… they would be difficult to trace…”
“Not necessarily,” said Shrinking Violet. “There must be only a few places on Earth with access to this obsolete technology. Such as, for instance, this building.” He pointed to a weathered sign above the door, which read Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd. “An old ‘newspaper’ printing establishment,” she explained.
“Are you ready?” asked Star-Woman.
“You foresaw that you will defeat him, but only with our assistance?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I foresaw that we would face him together,” said Star-Woman.
“Members,” said Saturn Girl. “Get ready to use your powers.”
The Triplicates fused into one.
“I skipped breakfast this morning,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
Chameleon assumed the form of an ape-like, multi-armed beast armed with spines, talons, and fangs.
Star-Woman and the Super Hero Club broke down the door.
The near-empty chamber smelled of formaldehyde. Against the rear wall, perhaps two dozen human forms lay motionless, stacked on wire shelves, long tubes attaching them to various machines. Saturn Girl scanned the room.
“I can’t pick up their thoughts,” said Saturn Girl. “Not even dreams. Are they sleeping? Comatose?”
“They’re all dead,” said Star-Woman, scanning the bodies herself. “Some for several days.”
“There’s someone else here,” said Saturn Girl.
The scrawny old bald man, dressed in red and gold, emerged from the shadows.
“Welcome, Young Legion,” he croaked. “I see you have met my army of meta-humans. Please, sit down.”
There were a number of soft, cushioned chairs and couches scattered around. Starwoman and the Members obediently took their seats.
“<Mind control!>” Saturn Girl broadcast to the rest.
“Now, now, no telepathy here,” said the Dark Man. “Please, relax, I have been expecting you. You waited outside for some time. I was getting impatient.”
He paced up and down before the young people. “My army is resting. I had to take their souls to replenish my strength. But soon, we will begin our war of conquest. Earth will be the first to fall, and you will join us!”
“<Can you hear me?>” Lightning Lass asked her sister.
“<Yes,>” said Saturn Girl. “<He does not seem able to detect or affect our bond.>”
“<Can you help me resist?>” asked Lightning Lass.
“<Maybe,>” said Saturn Girl. “<I’m running through some exercises. His mind is open to me. He thinks he’s the Dark Man, but deep down, he knows he isn’t. And he hasn’t really stolen anyone’s soul. That’s just a delusion. He’s simply poisoned them. His ‘army’ are nothing but dead corpses. He knows that too, but he’s playing out some bizarre fantasy. He’s a… puppet of his own delusion..>”
The faux Dark Man approached Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl, sitting together on a couch. “Now, which first?” he said aloud. “The Bgztlr, or the Orzdean?” He took a small vial out of a pouch in his shirt. “Just one drop… perhaps two… and you too will be mine.”
He filled a small eyedropper with the clear liquid. "This will increase your powers exponentially," he promised. "Then you, too, will be part of my army."
Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl looked terrified, but were unable to move.
“Open wide,” he commanded. The two girls unwillingly complied.
“<It's a fast-acting poison-- cyanide, some other stuff mixed in,>” Saturn Girl informed her sister. “<I feel so helpless!>”
“<What did Mom tell us about mind control?>” asked Lightning Lass.
“<Don’t think, just act!>” said Saturn Girl. “Don’t think! Just act!” she screamed aloud.
“Don’t think! Don’t plan! Just act!” cried Lightning Lass, her hands blasting out flashes of electricity, which entirely missed their target.
The faux Dark Man paused, startled, off-balance. Star-Woman also loosed bolts of lightning from her eyes, again wide of the mark. Phantom Girl dissolved into intangibility, Shrinking Violet shrunk out of sight. Walking through the baffled old man before her, she whirled, turned solid, and hit him a savage blow on the back of the head with her clenched fist. As his head went down, Shrinking Violet shot up to full size, delivering a nasty uppercut. The old man flew backwards, the vial and eyedropper flying off in two directions.
“Everyone all right?” Saturn Girl and Star-Woman asked together. A chorus of “‘Yes’, ‘OK’, and ‘I think so’ answered them. They turned on the old man, prone on the ground. He was down, but not out. He made a grab for the vial of poison, and retrieved it.
“No!” cried Saturn Girl, as he the drained the vial in one quick gulp. She ran to his side. “Dead!” she announced, looking up. “But he was just... only sick-- he was mentally ill! We could have helped him ... psychological rehabilitation.” She struggled to hold back tears.
“I don’t think this is what any of us signed up for,” said the unified Triplicate Girl, shaking her head. “Somehow, I thought punching super-villains would have been more satisfying.”
* * *
The SP’s responded quickly.
“Kallor Nal, Star-Woman, Planetary Champion of Naltor and New Titan,” she introduced herself. “I am a Registered Adventurer. I was able to save these ten meta-humans from the clutches of... well, he styled himself a new Dark Man.”
Shrinking Violet handed over the plasteel-paper flyer to the officers. “He was luring in people-- metahumans like us-- with this,” she said. “I, um, don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I think you will find that all these people-- the old man included-- all died from the same toxic compound.”
The SP’s turned to Star-Woman. “It’s a very bad business, whatever went down,” they told her. “Don’t go far. You will be available for questioning?”
“I’m staying on Mars,” said Star-Woman. “At the Grand Marshall Hotel in New Metropolis.”
The SP’s looked at the shell-shocked Super Hero Club.
“You’re lucky this young lady was with you. Pulled your fat out of the fire,” one officer said.
* * *
“I could add the ten of you to my Registered Adventurer’s License,” said Star-Woman. “As, um, ‘side-kicks’.”
They were back on Mars, in the Clubhouse.
“You would be covered by my insurance, and you would be recognized, even in some of the stricter jurisdictions, such as Earth, Winath, and Rimbor. We could also become an independent, licensed organization, but that would be pretty expensive,” she continued.
“Then, you’re staying?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Has she even been invited?” asked Ten. Phantom Girl kicked him in the knee.
“I’m afraid you need the truth,” said Star-Woman. “What with Naltor being a planet of precognitives, and New Titan being a planet of telepaths, there is not much crime there. Nor, for that matter, natural disasters, either. And my mother, as High Seer, made sure… well, she wanted to keep me 'safe'. So this is the first actual action I’ve seen. It’s been frustrating… I have great powers, but I’ve spent the last half-dozen years attending the openings of orphanages, or appearing at Bat-Ball games, or hosting other charitable activities. I’m not… I’ve trained with my powers a lot, I have great control, but… I’ve never actually put them to real use before this.”
“You know I knew that,” said Saturn Girl.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“She told me,” said Lightning Lass.
“I think we need to have a formal ballot,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ll give everybody a day to think about it. Should induct Star-Woman into the Super Hero Club?” She turned to the Naltoran. “I want you to make yourself completely available to the other Members for questions. And, complete honesty, please.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/25/18 05:58 PM
When Imra said "I'll make sure you remember our conversation" it sounded a bit ominous. She was being helpful in this case, but I had to wonder what it was like for a kid to misbehave in the Ranzz household and be called to account.
I look up a lot of your names, suspecting some deeper meaning and found Arnion is a lamb in New Testament Greek. There's also an Arnion Martyr's Network.... I'll be watching for his return. Or gruesome death.
Loved the Polar Lass line, "I have cold hands, and a colder heart" and will be seeking opportunities to use it.
Legion applicants at tryouts do suffer from overconfidence. Thalassa could surely be a graduate of the Spiffany Finishing School. Ms. Serious actually had a nifty power. They should employ her for PR.
Good explanation of why Naltorans act on their visions. Everyone else is compelled to submit to fate. Sounds like Star-Woman had multiple fathers with all those powers. All those powers and no criminals or disasters... she's got to have a weakness besides an inability to see through copper. "Registered Adventurers" - I'm going to borrow that for the next APA-LSH topic, Who Should Control Super Groups? - with due credit, of course. Funny that wild west Rimbor would be one of the strict jurisdictions.
No particular comment on Ten, but I find his observations refreshing.
I look up a lot of your names, suspecting some deeper meaning and found Arnion is a lamb in New Testament Greek. There's also an Arnion Martyr's Network.... I'll be watching for his return. Or gruesome death.
Loved the Polar Lass line, "I have cold hands, and a colder heart" and will be seeking opportunities to use it.
Legion applicants at tryouts do suffer from overconfidence. Thalassa could surely be a graduate of the Spiffany Finishing School. Ms. Serious actually had a nifty power. They should employ her for PR.
Good explanation of why Naltorans act on their visions. Everyone else is compelled to submit to fate. Sounds like Star-Woman had multiple fathers with all those powers. All those powers and no criminals or disasters... she's got to have a weakness besides an inability to see through copper. "Registered Adventurers" - I'm going to borrow that for the next APA-LSH topic, Who Should Control Super Groups? - with due credit, of course. Funny that wild west Rimbor would be one of the strict jurisdictions.
No particular comment on Ten, but I find his observations refreshing.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/31/18 02:23 PM
=========================================================================
Yes, indeed, there surely would be privacy problems in the Ranzz family household. Or, for that matter, in any Saturnian, Naltoran, or Bgztlr household. There are also undoubtedly identity problems which need to be resolved by some sort of social custom among Durlan, Cargggan and Janusite families. And clearly, family life among the eighth, tenth, and twelfth-level ‘logical-mathematical’ intellects on Colu would present its own set of challenges. The Universe is wonderfully diverse.
Well, yes, you have caught me out. Incidentally, “Kurt Wagner” is a name that literally means “Wolf Waggoner”. (and Arnion is a “Charioteer”.)
Arnion will show up again, I believe around Chapter Eighty-Three.
Don’t ask an Andorian about their antennae. Show some cultural sensitivity.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to have a pretty low bar for ‘nifty’. On the other hand, she is undoubtedly the most powerful of these applicants. Relatively speaking.
Kallor Nal merely has all the powers Star Boy and Dream Girl have ever displayed, in any continuity. Not all of them are necessarily fully developed yet. I introduced her because I needed a “Flying Brick”.
Sigellian.
Borrow away.
If you have ever had any dealings with the police or judicial system in 'freewheeling' Berkeley, CA or Las Vegas, NV, you will understand the underlying authoritarianism on Rimbor. Even if it is administered by mob enforcers rather than the SP.
I believe I have a tendency to overuse Ten. He is an excellent point-of-view character, as he really does not understand these Humans-- or Bgztlrs or Krill or Durlans. And he is apt to ask uncomfortably direct questions.
I am making no effort to edit or abbreviate this fanfic-- it is terribly self-indulgent-- but every character, Imra and Ten included, do have their own arc. It may not become obvious for months, however. And I am a great believer in the principle of “Chekhov’s Gun”.
(A convention that was very literally broken-- or at least ignored-- in the book-version of Ready Player One. I don’t know if anyone else found that amusing.)
=========================================================================
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
I had to wonder what it was like for a kid to misbehave in the Ranzz household and be called to account.
Yes, indeed, there surely would be privacy problems in the Ranzz family household. Or, for that matter, in any Saturnian, Naltoran, or Bgztlr household. There are also undoubtedly identity problems which need to be resolved by some sort of social custom among Durlan, Cargggan and Janusite families. And clearly, family life among the eighth, tenth, and twelfth-level ‘logical-mathematical’ intellects on Colu would present its own set of challenges. The Universe is wonderfully diverse.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
I look up a lot of your names, suspecting some deeper meaning and found Arnion is a lamb in New Testament Greek.
Well, yes, you have caught me out. Incidentally, “Kurt Wagner” is a name that literally means “Wolf Waggoner”. (and Arnion is a “Charioteer”.)
Arnion will show up again, I believe around Chapter Eighty-Three.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Legion applicants at tryouts do suffer from overconfidence. Thalassa could surely be a graduate of the Spiffany Finishing School.
Don’t ask an Andorian about their antennae. Show some cultural sensitivity.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Ms. Serious actually had a nifty power.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem to have a pretty low bar for ‘nifty’. On the other hand, she is undoubtedly the most powerful of these applicants. Relatively speaking.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Sounds like Star-Woman had multiple fathers with all those powers.
Kallor Nal merely has all the powers Star Boy and Dream Girl have ever displayed, in any continuity. Not all of them are necessarily fully developed yet. I introduced her because I needed a “Flying Brick”.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
she's got to have a weakness besides an inability to see through copper.
Sigellian.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
"Registered Adventurers" - I'm going to borrow that for the next APA-LSH topic, Who Should Control Super Groups? - with due credit, of course.
Borrow away.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Funny that wild west Rimbor would be one of the strict jurisdictions.
If you have ever had any dealings with the police or judicial system in 'freewheeling' Berkeley, CA or Las Vegas, NV, you will understand the underlying authoritarianism on Rimbor. Even if it is administered by mob enforcers rather than the SP.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
No particular comment on Ten, but I find his observations refreshing.
I believe I have a tendency to overuse Ten. He is an excellent point-of-view character, as he really does not understand these Humans-- or Bgztlrs or Krill or Durlans. And he is apt to ask uncomfortably direct questions.
I am making no effort to edit or abbreviate this fanfic-- it is terribly self-indulgent-- but every character, Imra and Ten included, do have their own arc. It may not become obvious for months, however. And I am a great believer in the principle of “Chekhov’s Gun”.
(A convention that was very literally broken-- or at least ignored-- in the book-version of Ready Player One. I don’t know if anyone else found that amusing.)
=========================================================================
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/03/18 12:22 AM
The Members of Justice League Earth - 3019
(1) “Dr. Shakespeare”
Richard Kent Shakespeare of Earth
Age: 55
Super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability, flight, laservision.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/01ac276e7137e0b768e462f2d45d6aff/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo4_250.jpg)
(2) “Princess Xenobia”
Age: Somewhere between 150 and 200, but looks 18.
Xenobia of Io, home of the New Themiscryann diaspora
Amazonian-level strength, speed and durability.
Possesses a number of divine Olympian relics:
(a) The Gems of Understanding: earrings which give her the ability to understand and speak any language.
(b) The adamantine Harpe of Perseus
(c) The Talaria of Hermes (spare set)
(d) The Cord of Helios: Crafted by Hephaestos himself out of pure sunlight. Not as powerful as the Lasso of Truth (crafted from pure Truth) but still highly extensible, and difficult to break.
(e) Her gauntlets are an Amazonium alloy, blessed with near-indestructibiliy by Aphrodite.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/1e6ab28ef2f0133b29d34df661553bdc/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo7_250.jpg)
(3) “Green Lantern of Sector 2814”
Jordana Gardner of Groombridge-1618
Age: 45 (this is a very old picture)
Before joining Justice League Earth, worked closely with the other Green Lantern of Sector 2814, Gen’Ma of Great Panjandrum. Her former partner is not entirely sanguine about her current association with the League.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/5e6be5b08f057f807a10215d73ebd6d3/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo5_250.jpg)
(4) “The Bat-Woman”
Age: Unknown
Mysterious bat-winged, cephalopod-headed woman, originally found living alone in the eldritch ruins of Pluto. Her true name and the extent of her abilities are unknown.
Observed powers and abilities: Martial arts knowledge, enhanced reflexes and agility, prehensile, elongating tentacles, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation.
Evidently some sort of mutant Terran, she has been vouched for by Dr. Shakespeare as ‘fully human.’ Despite her uncanny appearance, she is the most vocally xenophobic of the Leaguers.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/f48be1eea1afb7ab3e140179f26120a2/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo1_250.jpg)
(5) “Rush”
Mara Williams of Earth
Age: 45
Super-speed, kept under control by technological means. (A stasis bracelet.) By this age, her hair has turned prematurely snow-white.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/8fb7178124861c07a474a449b2c01a07/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo6_250.jpg)
(6) “Devil-Fish”
Age: 50
Danava Matsya of Earth (Poseidonis, Atlantis)
Mutant Terran (Atlantean)
Enhanced strength and durability, augmented while underwater. Amphibian breathing abilities. Telepathic control of most sea-creatures.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/91f281ae52334633af48263493eddbc9/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo3_250.jpg)
(7) “The Cyborg Manhunter”
Age: 35 (human half); Tens of millenia (Manhunter half)
Victoria Jones of Earth
A fusion of an Earth human and Oan Manhunter-robot technology. Also has a mostly-working Manhunter Lantern, although most of the time it is kept hidden in a pocket dimension.
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/fcc15dd4f12d7837348491974be03e15/tumblr_p9pff04WfW1uwm5uqo2_400.jpg)
(1) “Dr. Shakespeare”
Richard Kent Shakespeare of Earth
Age: 55
Super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability, flight, laservision.
(2) “Princess Xenobia”
Age: Somewhere between 150 and 200, but looks 18.
Xenobia of Io, home of the New Themiscryann diaspora
Amazonian-level strength, speed and durability.
Possesses a number of divine Olympian relics:
(a) The Gems of Understanding: earrings which give her the ability to understand and speak any language.
(b) The adamantine Harpe of Perseus
(c) The Talaria of Hermes (spare set)
(d) The Cord of Helios: Crafted by Hephaestos himself out of pure sunlight. Not as powerful as the Lasso of Truth (crafted from pure Truth) but still highly extensible, and difficult to break.
(e) Her gauntlets are an Amazonium alloy, blessed with near-indestructibiliy by Aphrodite.
(3) “Green Lantern of Sector 2814”
Jordana Gardner of Groombridge-1618
Age: 45 (this is a very old picture)
Before joining Justice League Earth, worked closely with the other Green Lantern of Sector 2814, Gen’Ma of Great Panjandrum. Her former partner is not entirely sanguine about her current association with the League.
(4) “The Bat-Woman”
Age: Unknown
Mysterious bat-winged, cephalopod-headed woman, originally found living alone in the eldritch ruins of Pluto. Her true name and the extent of her abilities are unknown.
Observed powers and abilities: Martial arts knowledge, enhanced reflexes and agility, prehensile, elongating tentacles, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation.
Evidently some sort of mutant Terran, she has been vouched for by Dr. Shakespeare as ‘fully human.’ Despite her uncanny appearance, she is the most vocally xenophobic of the Leaguers.
(5) “Rush”
Mara Williams of Earth
Age: 45
Super-speed, kept under control by technological means. (A stasis bracelet.) By this age, her hair has turned prematurely snow-white.
(6) “Devil-Fish”
Age: 50
Danava Matsya of Earth (Poseidonis, Atlantis)
Mutant Terran (Atlantean)
Enhanced strength and durability, augmented while underwater. Amphibian breathing abilities. Telepathic control of most sea-creatures.
(7) “The Cyborg Manhunter”
Age: 35 (human half); Tens of millenia (Manhunter half)
Victoria Jones of Earth
A fusion of an Earth human and Oan Manhunter-robot technology. Also has a mostly-working Manhunter Lantern, although most of the time it is kept hidden in a pocket dimension.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/03/18 12:24 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
THE SUPER VILLAIN CLUB
Star-Woman was adding her list of ‘sidekicks’ to her Adventurer’s Registration.
“Chameleon, I’m not sure how to identify you,” she said. “None of your Durlan tribe have proper names, correct?”
“True. But like all United Planets citizens,” said Chameleon, “I have a Universal Alphanumeric Identification Code.”
“Yes, I guess I can do it that way,” said Star-Woman.
“UO373-WV451,” Chameleon recited.
“On Colu,” said Ten, “Our UAIC is in binary format. For ease of transfer.”
“No, I’ve found you easily enough,” said Star-Woman. “Txarlz Luz 4523.”
Ten seemed slightly disgruntled at not being required to recite the fifty-digit code from memory.
“And Ffiona,” said Star-Woman. “You Triplicates are technically only one person, correct? I am having trouble finding you. Which name are you registered under? Ffiona, Ffarrah, or Fey Ffarr?”
“Try Ffiona Carrg,” said Ffiona.
“Carrg?” said Star-Woman. “Of the Karagawa Carrgs? One of the First Families of Carggg?”
“Perhaps you understand now why we can’t go home,” said Ffiona. “Or, at least, what was once home. Our… illness… is considered an embarassment.”
“No, I absolutely do not understand at all,” said Star-Woman. “But I’m sorry.”
“Young Legion!” cried a stentorian voice from outside the Clubhouse. “We need to speak with you!”
It was the vanguard of the Justice League of Earth: Dr. Shakespeare, Princess Xenobia, and the Bat-Woman of Pluto.
“This is what your Super Hero Club has inspired,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “We have just come for Weisinger Plaza, the former location of the clubhouse of the Legion of Super-Heroes. It has been the target of a terrorist attack by a group calling themselves the ‘Super Villain Club’. We think you may know some of them.”
The other four Justice Leaguers were descending from the pink Martian sky. The Devil-Fish of Atlantis, the half-robot Cyborg Manhunter, the speedster Mara Williams, known as Rush, all being transported by Jordana Gardner, the long-time Green Lantern of Sector 2814. She was also bringing with them a number of stasis chambers, used for transporting metahuman prisoners.
In the first chamber was a huge, red-skinned humanoid.
“This is the ringleader, Auberon, son of the assassins Tyr of Tyrazz, and Titania of Korlon,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “With massive strength and durability almost rivaling my own, we were barely able to stop his rampage of destruction.”
Dr. Shakespeare moved on to the second capsule. “This is Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII, a ‘prince’ of their barbaric royal family, and the self-styled ‘Prince Talok’. Supposedly on Earth to gain an education at Metropolis University, he instead went on a rampage with his fellow aliens.”
“This is the Tharnan known as Bungle Spelling,” Dr. Shakespeare continued. “He calls himself ‘Villian the Sorcerer’, an absurd wordplay on ‘villain’. Another alien Metropolis University ‘student’.”
“I believe you will recognize this one: Ojina Einstein of Mondeaux, who calls herself Lambda Lass. One of your applicants for membership, I think? An angry, dangerous, and powerful psychotic. Your rejected her from your Club, so she founded her own.”
“Here we have a Korlon-Neptunian half-breed, son of the notorious criminals, Ki-Lan and Ron-Karr. He calls himself Razor, but his real name is Atta-Karr.”
“This is another mongrel, the Saturnian-Braalien crossbreed Kimota Grezz. She is also the descendant of super-criminals: perhaps you have heard of Magno Lad and Esper Lass? She refers to herself as ‘The Black Flame’, but her psionic powers were overmatched by our Bat-Woman.”
“Finally, this is Anne Foxmoor, a full-blooded Terran Earthling, but a race-traitor and no credit to her species. She is a mutant, with maledictive powers, operating under the name of ‘Evil-Eye Annie’. But facing the Justice League of Earth, her luck ran out.”
“Clearly, your experiment in combining Terran and Aliens into a team of metabeings is breeding nothing but chaos. It is time to put an end to this foolishness once and for all.” Dr. Shakespeare’s eyes glowed red; twin lasers lanced through the air; a line of molten metal drew along the roof of the clubhouse, revealing a nasty, empty gash.
“No!” cried Star-Woman, rushing the JLE leader. A crack of her fist spun his gaze away from the Clubhouse. Almost faster than the eye could follow, Dr. Shakespeare reacted, but a two-fisted uppercut from Star-Woman sent him flying into the air. The Naltoran followed. The remainder of the JLE were a blur of motion, but Princess Xenobia was in the air first.
“Lantern! Manhunter!” called Princess Xenobia. “Stay here! Guard the prisoners, and these… children!”
Rush touched one of her gauntlets, and sped away, in the direction of the distant thunder echoing through the sky. The powerful blows seemed to echo from all around. Once or twice Rush ran through the camp or Princess Xenobia was spied overhead.
“<Please help us>,” came a voice in Saturn Girl’s mind. An image of Black Flame appeared before her. “<The name ‘Super Villain’s Club’ was meant to be ironic- because we do not support the Xenophobes, Earth-Firsters, and Neo-Niedrighs who have so much power in government right now. And because some of us really are descended from ‘super-villains’. But all our parents have reformed! Mine run a clothing boutique, for Grife’s sake. Villian isn’t even a real magician-- he performs stage magic at parties on campus. He flunked out on The Sorcerer’s World. Annie and Atta are completely harmless, and Menaleas is the sweetest guy you’ve ever met. There was no ‘terror attack’ at Weisinger Mall. We were part of a counter-protest of bunch of Neo-Niedrighs holding a rally there. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, but then Auberon and that Lambda girl showed up They started attacking anyone in the crowd, Neo-Niedrighs and counter-protesters alike. The SPs were supposed to be keeping things under control, but they did nothing. Some of us tried to stop those two nutcases, but then the Justice League showed up…>”
Saturn Girl was receiving images in her mind. They seemed to be actual flashes of memory, not constructs.
<You will immediately cease contact with the prisoner,” came another voice in her mind.
Saturn Girl looked up to see the Bat-Woman of Pluto towering over her. She could see that the woman wore no mask: bat-like ears and feral eyes gave way to squid-like tentacles where her nose and mouth ought to have been. Her webby wings, as well, were not part of her costume, but grew out of her shoulders.
“You’re not exactly human yourself, are you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Absurd,” said the Bat-Woman. “Dr. Shakespeare has vouched for me.”
“I wonder what you have on him?” pondered Saturn Girl. “You remind me of the Star-Spawn.”
“What Star-Spawn?” inquired the Bat-Woman.
“Don’t get me started,” said Saturn Girl.
There was a tremendous splash in the New Hellespont Sea on the other side of the clubhouse. Rain came down, drenching everything. Too late, Jordana Gardner but up a light-construct of an umbrella. The Cyborg Manhunter pulled out-- from where?-- a large, green, squarish lantern, assuming a defensive posture.
The unconscious body of Dr. Shakespeare came flying out of the Sea, over the top of the clubhouse, followed by the dripping-wet Star-Woman, who was quickly joined by Princess Xenobia and Rush.
“Now just a minute,” said Star-Woman. “We don’t want to fight you, but you can’t just come in here and destroy private property for no reason. I don’t think your Adventurer’s Insurance is going to cover that---” She indicated the gash on the roof of the Clubhouse.
“You cannot continue this mockery,” said the Bat-Woman.
“Oh, you think this is all about you?” asked Star-Woman. “Well, come to think of it, where were you when that crazy old man was murdering people in Hyperbad? Or when Daxamite Pirates were in the Sol System stealing kryptonite? It seems to me that we could use a few more planetary champions, not less. Why don’t you just go on about your business, and let us go on with ours? We had nothing to do with this so-called Super Villain Club. Take your hot-headed leader, and go back to your Hall of Justice, or Watchtower, or Fortress of Solitude, and leave us alone.”
The six conscious Leaguers exchanged glances.
“Very well,” said Princess Xenobia. “We will see how long you survive playing at heroes.”
They ascended back into the sky.
“I can’t believe you beat Dr. Shakespeare,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“He’s not so tough,” said Star-Woman. “I have a wider variety of powers, and even without precognition, he telegraphs his punches. Also, turns out he can’t breathe underwater. Aqua Boy was right, though. There are some really interesting fishy-creatures down there.”
Despite her casual attitude, the Members noticed she was sporting a black eye and a split lip.
“I need to finish adding you guys to my License,” she said. “In the middle of the sky, I had a vision about our next mission.”
“I need to talk to you about that ‘Super Villain Club’,” said Saturn Girl. She explained to Star-Woman about her telepathic conversation with Black Flame.
“Interesting,” said Star-Woman. “Well, this is one thing we can do something about. This kind of Defending the Innocent doesn’t even require getting up from your chair in front of the Wall-Screen. Let’s see if we can get Ten to re-focus his studies from Engineering to Law.”
“A Coluan lawyer,” said Saturn Girl. “Diabolical.”
“I believe I have made myself an arch-nemesis in the person of Dr. Shakespeare,” said Star-Woman. "Let us see what I can do to thwart his plans for our 'Super-Villain' friends."
THE SUPER VILLAIN CLUB
Star-Woman was adding her list of ‘sidekicks’ to her Adventurer’s Registration.
“Chameleon, I’m not sure how to identify you,” she said. “None of your Durlan tribe have proper names, correct?”
“True. But like all United Planets citizens,” said Chameleon, “I have a Universal Alphanumeric Identification Code.”
“Yes, I guess I can do it that way,” said Star-Woman.
“UO373-WV451,” Chameleon recited.
“On Colu,” said Ten, “Our UAIC is in binary format. For ease of transfer.”
“No, I’ve found you easily enough,” said Star-Woman. “Txarlz Luz 4523.”
Ten seemed slightly disgruntled at not being required to recite the fifty-digit code from memory.
“And Ffiona,” said Star-Woman. “You Triplicates are technically only one person, correct? I am having trouble finding you. Which name are you registered under? Ffiona, Ffarrah, or Fey Ffarr?”
“Try Ffiona Carrg,” said Ffiona.
“Carrg?” said Star-Woman. “Of the Karagawa Carrgs? One of the First Families of Carggg?”
“Perhaps you understand now why we can’t go home,” said Ffiona. “Or, at least, what was once home. Our… illness… is considered an embarassment.”
“No, I absolutely do not understand at all,” said Star-Woman. “But I’m sorry.”
“Young Legion!” cried a stentorian voice from outside the Clubhouse. “We need to speak with you!”
It was the vanguard of the Justice League of Earth: Dr. Shakespeare, Princess Xenobia, and the Bat-Woman of Pluto.
“This is what your Super Hero Club has inspired,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “We have just come for Weisinger Plaza, the former location of the clubhouse of the Legion of Super-Heroes. It has been the target of a terrorist attack by a group calling themselves the ‘Super Villain Club’. We think you may know some of them.”
The other four Justice Leaguers were descending from the pink Martian sky. The Devil-Fish of Atlantis, the half-robot Cyborg Manhunter, the speedster Mara Williams, known as Rush, all being transported by Jordana Gardner, the long-time Green Lantern of Sector 2814. She was also bringing with them a number of stasis chambers, used for transporting metahuman prisoners.
In the first chamber was a huge, red-skinned humanoid.
“This is the ringleader, Auberon, son of the assassins Tyr of Tyrazz, and Titania of Korlon,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “With massive strength and durability almost rivaling my own, we were barely able to stop his rampage of destruction.”
Dr. Shakespeare moved on to the second capsule. “This is Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII, a ‘prince’ of their barbaric royal family, and the self-styled ‘Prince Talok’. Supposedly on Earth to gain an education at Metropolis University, he instead went on a rampage with his fellow aliens.”
“This is the Tharnan known as Bungle Spelling,” Dr. Shakespeare continued. “He calls himself ‘Villian the Sorcerer’, an absurd wordplay on ‘villain’. Another alien Metropolis University ‘student’.”
“I believe you will recognize this one: Ojina Einstein of Mondeaux, who calls herself Lambda Lass. One of your applicants for membership, I think? An angry, dangerous, and powerful psychotic. Your rejected her from your Club, so she founded her own.”
“Here we have a Korlon-Neptunian half-breed, son of the notorious criminals, Ki-Lan and Ron-Karr. He calls himself Razor, but his real name is Atta-Karr.”
“This is another mongrel, the Saturnian-Braalien crossbreed Kimota Grezz. She is also the descendant of super-criminals: perhaps you have heard of Magno Lad and Esper Lass? She refers to herself as ‘The Black Flame’, but her psionic powers were overmatched by our Bat-Woman.”
“Finally, this is Anne Foxmoor, a full-blooded Terran Earthling, but a race-traitor and no credit to her species. She is a mutant, with maledictive powers, operating under the name of ‘Evil-Eye Annie’. But facing the Justice League of Earth, her luck ran out.”
“Clearly, your experiment in combining Terran and Aliens into a team of metabeings is breeding nothing but chaos. It is time to put an end to this foolishness once and for all.” Dr. Shakespeare’s eyes glowed red; twin lasers lanced through the air; a line of molten metal drew along the roof of the clubhouse, revealing a nasty, empty gash.
“No!” cried Star-Woman, rushing the JLE leader. A crack of her fist spun his gaze away from the Clubhouse. Almost faster than the eye could follow, Dr. Shakespeare reacted, but a two-fisted uppercut from Star-Woman sent him flying into the air. The Naltoran followed. The remainder of the JLE were a blur of motion, but Princess Xenobia was in the air first.
“Lantern! Manhunter!” called Princess Xenobia. “Stay here! Guard the prisoners, and these… children!”
Rush touched one of her gauntlets, and sped away, in the direction of the distant thunder echoing through the sky. The powerful blows seemed to echo from all around. Once or twice Rush ran through the camp or Princess Xenobia was spied overhead.
“<Please help us>,” came a voice in Saturn Girl’s mind. An image of Black Flame appeared before her. “<The name ‘Super Villain’s Club’ was meant to be ironic- because we do not support the Xenophobes, Earth-Firsters, and Neo-Niedrighs who have so much power in government right now. And because some of us really are descended from ‘super-villains’. But all our parents have reformed! Mine run a clothing boutique, for Grife’s sake. Villian isn’t even a real magician-- he performs stage magic at parties on campus. He flunked out on The Sorcerer’s World. Annie and Atta are completely harmless, and Menaleas is the sweetest guy you’ve ever met. There was no ‘terror attack’ at Weisinger Mall. We were part of a counter-protest of bunch of Neo-Niedrighs holding a rally there. There was a lot of yelling back and forth, but then Auberon and that Lambda girl showed up They started attacking anyone in the crowd, Neo-Niedrighs and counter-protesters alike. The SPs were supposed to be keeping things under control, but they did nothing. Some of us tried to stop those two nutcases, but then the Justice League showed up…>”
Saturn Girl was receiving images in her mind. They seemed to be actual flashes of memory, not constructs.
<You will immediately cease contact with the prisoner,” came another voice in her mind.
Saturn Girl looked up to see the Bat-Woman of Pluto towering over her. She could see that the woman wore no mask: bat-like ears and feral eyes gave way to squid-like tentacles where her nose and mouth ought to have been. Her webby wings, as well, were not part of her costume, but grew out of her shoulders.
“You’re not exactly human yourself, are you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Absurd,” said the Bat-Woman. “Dr. Shakespeare has vouched for me.”
“I wonder what you have on him?” pondered Saturn Girl. “You remind me of the Star-Spawn.”
“What Star-Spawn?” inquired the Bat-Woman.
“Don’t get me started,” said Saturn Girl.
There was a tremendous splash in the New Hellespont Sea on the other side of the clubhouse. Rain came down, drenching everything. Too late, Jordana Gardner but up a light-construct of an umbrella. The Cyborg Manhunter pulled out-- from where?-- a large, green, squarish lantern, assuming a defensive posture.
The unconscious body of Dr. Shakespeare came flying out of the Sea, over the top of the clubhouse, followed by the dripping-wet Star-Woman, who was quickly joined by Princess Xenobia and Rush.
“Now just a minute,” said Star-Woman. “We don’t want to fight you, but you can’t just come in here and destroy private property for no reason. I don’t think your Adventurer’s Insurance is going to cover that---” She indicated the gash on the roof of the Clubhouse.
“You cannot continue this mockery,” said the Bat-Woman.
“Oh, you think this is all about you?” asked Star-Woman. “Well, come to think of it, where were you when that crazy old man was murdering people in Hyperbad? Or when Daxamite Pirates were in the Sol System stealing kryptonite? It seems to me that we could use a few more planetary champions, not less. Why don’t you just go on about your business, and let us go on with ours? We had nothing to do with this so-called Super Villain Club. Take your hot-headed leader, and go back to your Hall of Justice, or Watchtower, or Fortress of Solitude, and leave us alone.”
The six conscious Leaguers exchanged glances.
“Very well,” said Princess Xenobia. “We will see how long you survive playing at heroes.”
They ascended back into the sky.
“I can’t believe you beat Dr. Shakespeare,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“He’s not so tough,” said Star-Woman. “I have a wider variety of powers, and even without precognition, he telegraphs his punches. Also, turns out he can’t breathe underwater. Aqua Boy was right, though. There are some really interesting fishy-creatures down there.”
Despite her casual attitude, the Members noticed she was sporting a black eye and a split lip.
“I need to finish adding you guys to my License,” she said. “In the middle of the sky, I had a vision about our next mission.”
“I need to talk to you about that ‘Super Villain Club’,” said Saturn Girl. She explained to Star-Woman about her telepathic conversation with Black Flame.
“Interesting,” said Star-Woman. “Well, this is one thing we can do something about. This kind of Defending the Innocent doesn’t even require getting up from your chair in front of the Wall-Screen. Let’s see if we can get Ten to re-focus his studies from Engineering to Law.”
“A Coluan lawyer,” said Saturn Girl. “Diabolical.”
“I believe I have made myself an arch-nemesis in the person of Dr. Shakespeare,” said Star-Woman. "Let us see what I can do to thwart his plans for our 'Super-Villain' friends."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/06/18 12:40 AM
Naturally, I post my fanfics here almost solely for my own amusement. I am gratified when someone is interested, but I really take no pains to make this stuff readable. This writing is just my way of giving my personal paracosms a little reality. That Legionworld has some people who might be somewhat interested too is ancillary.
Anyway, I am beginning to lose interest in my characters and their stories. I am sure it is just temporary-- I often get a little depressed during the summer, and lose interest in the little things that ordinarily bring me pleasure. So I’m going to ‘go dark’ for awhile.
However, it occurs to me that there is a tiny possibility that there may be one of you who is breathlessly awaiting the next installment. And I am sort of leaving at the beginning of a new part of the story.
If any of you are really desperate to hear the further adventures of Dorrit, Dacey, Pol, Tzarlz, Eluia, Irinia, Hillarie, Kylda, Ffiona, Ffarrah, Ffey, Chameleon, Kallor, Arnion, Annie, Melaneus, Bungle, Kimota, Atta and the rest, let me know, and I will make an effort to continue my once-a-week posting.
(I currently have rough outlines running up to Chapter One Hundred Five - more than a year’s worth of story!)
Otherwise, I am going to take a little break, and perhaps get back to writing & posting when I feel a little better. I would guess a month or so, and certainly by October, when the weather cools off. So be warned.
Anyway, I am beginning to lose interest in my characters and their stories. I am sure it is just temporary-- I often get a little depressed during the summer, and lose interest in the little things that ordinarily bring me pleasure. So I’m going to ‘go dark’ for awhile.
However, it occurs to me that there is a tiny possibility that there may be one of you who is breathlessly awaiting the next installment. And I am sort of leaving at the beginning of a new part of the story.
If any of you are really desperate to hear the further adventures of Dorrit, Dacey, Pol, Tzarlz, Eluia, Irinia, Hillarie, Kylda, Ffiona, Ffarrah, Ffey, Chameleon, Kallor, Arnion, Annie, Melaneus, Bungle, Kimota, Atta and the rest, let me know, and I will make an effort to continue my once-a-week posting.
(I currently have rough outlines running up to Chapter One Hundred Five - more than a year’s worth of story!)
Otherwise, I am going to take a little break, and perhaps get back to writing & posting when I feel a little better. I would guess a month or so, and certainly by October, when the weather cools off. So be warned.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/06/18 01:26 AM
Hi Klar,
I haven’t been able to keep up with your stories - I’ve read others, but not this one.
I hope you regain interest soon, but if not, hope you enjoy your time away and come back refreshed
I haven’t been able to keep up with your stories - I’ve read others, but not this one.
I hope you regain interest soon, but if not, hope you enjoy your time away and come back refreshed
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/06/18 03:06 AM
I like reading your stories, Klar. I hope you feel better soon.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/06/18 04:06 AM
I will chime in, I am really enjoying this as well! Hope you're feeling more into it soon, take care!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/07/18 01:23 PM
Thanks guys.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/12/18 12:38 PM
CHAPTER EIGHTY
HONORARY MEMBERS
“I can’t believe the Court ordered us to act as your Guardians,” said Lightning Lass.
“They wouldn’t even let you move back in with your parents?” asked Cosmic Boy. “You’re all older than any of us-- except maybe Star-Woman.”
“But you’re on Mars, and not Earth,” said Villian. “That was an important consideration. Your little friend Ten made an impressive argument to the Court. They were rather disconcerted to find out his age.”
“And his planet of origin,” said Razor.
“We are Wards of the State, at least until this case is completed-- which may not be for some time,” said Black Flame. “They did not trust our parents with custody-- they are tainted as former ‘super-villains’, although they have been model citizens for decades since then.”
“And you are half-Braalien, like me?” said Cosmic Boy. He magnetically summoned a serving platter, allowing it to fly and loop around the area outside the clubhouse before landing it at his own feet. “Stainless steel,” he explained. “My magnetic powers are not as strong as Dad’s… but your father was a Magno-Ball Champion, right?”
“I don’t actually have magnetic powers,” said Black Flame. “They manifest as telekinesis, in my case, and my strength and control isn’t very good.” She demonstrated by levitating the platter, which lifted unsteadily, wobbling. “Of course, I can levitate non-metallic and non-magnetic objects, too.”
“But you’re also half-Saturnian, like me?” said Lightning Lass.
“You know, all Saturnians are different,” said Black Flame. “My mother had strong offensive psionic abilities, but was not really able to use them with any subtlety. I can piggy-back on other telepaths: I reflect psionic attacks, or thought-cast to mind-readers, or mind-read thought-casters… you don’t have much telepathic ability, do you?”
“Nope, that’s my sister Dorrit,” said Lightning Lass. “Why the name Black Flame?”
“She was an old enemy of the twentieth-century Supergirl. Super-villain history is kind of a hobby.”
“Do you have any Neptunians or Korlon-Colonials on your team?” asked Razor.
“No, but I met a Uranian recently,” said Lightning Lass. “Aren’t they a lot like Neptunians”
“Now that’s just offensive,” said Shrinking Violet. “Neptune and Uranias are probably as different as Orzde and Imsk.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Razor. “I was born and raised on Earth, in the Maldives. I’ve never been to Neptune-- or Uranias, for that matter. My only direct off-planet connection is that my parents are the Night Pastors at the Reformed First Church of Neptune. Which is really an Earth denomination, anyway.”
“Your father is Ron-Karr,” said Shrinking Violet. “Do you have his powers?”
“Actually, Violet, my powers are similar to yours,” said Razor. “I am able to shrink myself-- but only in a single dimension. When I do, I become incredibly dense, and seem to transform into some sort of metallic, silvery, super-hard substance.” He held up a hand, and demonstrated.
“Wow, interesting,” said Shrinking Violet. “You can actually transform only one part of your body at a time!”
“Yeah, I can actually shave with one finger,” said Razor. “That’s why I picked the name for our Club.”
“And you call yourself ‘Evil-Eye Annie’,” said Cosmic Boy.
“Thanks, but I prefer Ann. Ann Foxmoor,” she replied. “The ‘Super Villain Club’ thing was just a joke.”
“Well, not exactly a joke,” said Black Flame. “More an ironic social commentary and… I don’t know, performance art, maybe? A centuries-old tradition at institutions of higher education.”
“Maybe for you,” said Ann. “I was mostly there for the free beer.”
“But do you really have ‘malediction’ powers, like Dr. Shakespeare said?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Yeah, I have this thing I do,” said Ann. “I was studied by quantum biologists for a while when I was a kid. I can wish bad things on people, and they happen… randomly, for a few hours, or even a couple of days. How angry I am… how much I mean it… that determines how bad the jinx is. But it’s pretty random; I don’t like doing it, really… I never know if an ex-boyfriend is going to find his wardrobe suddenly attacked by fire-moths, or fall down a flight of stairs and break both his legs. I’m not saying that either of those things has ever happened.”
“I just want to go back to my studies,” said the boy called Villian the Sorcerer. “Menaleas got it worst of all of us. He got deported back to Talok VIII; we’re just suspended from M.U. until after the hearing. The school will abide by the court’s decision-- if the judge drops the charges, or we’re found ‘not guilty’, we can go back to school, have our loans and grants restored, and pick up where we left off. But Menaleas is persona non grata on Earth now. The JLE won out that much, at least. They wanted to deport us, too...”
“But you’re all Terran,” said Shrinking Violet. “Neptune, Korlon, Braal, and Titan were all colonized by humans. And anyone with Terran has an unalienable right to life on Earth… if they can afford it.”
“Yes, and Bungle and I are full Earthlings, born and raised,” said Ann. “Our crime is not agreeing with the 20% running the Earth these days.”
“Is your name really Bungle Spelling?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“Every sorcerer changes his name and appearance when they begin the study of Magic,” said Villian. “Many use several different names. Bungle Spelling is not the name I was born with, and my appearance… my biometric profile… has been magically altered as well. I’m required to reveal and prove my identity in any legal interaction with the United Planets, but… I still have hopes of returning to the Unseen University on Sorcerer’s World again-- although I flunked out there. But I like to keep the Bungle Spelling identity viable as much as possible. Maybe I’ll be able to go back someday.”
“And since you’ve returned to Earth, you’ve been studying stage magic?” asked Cosmic Boy.
Villian / Bungle pulled out a pack of cards, and handed it to Cosmic Boy. “Break the seal, open the box, then pick a card at random,” he said. “Don’t tell me what it is, but show your friends. Then put it back in the deck, close the pack, and hand it back to me.”
Cosmic Boy followed the directions. Villian held the pack upright, in the palm of his hand. Without touching it further, the top flap opened, and the ace of diamonds slowly rose out of the deck.
“Is this your card?” asked Villian.
“No, sorry,” said Cosmic Boy. “It was the Jack of Clubs.”
“You tricked me,” said Vilian. “You didn’t put it back in the deck. “You stashed it in one of the pockets of your belt.” He pointed to a particular pocket on the flight belt.
“I never…” said Cosmic Boy, but checked the pocket anyway. There was the Jack of Clubs.
“Hey, that’s the pocket I keep my spunow in!” said Cosmic Boy.
“Do you mean this spunow?” asked Villian. He was holding the box of cards in one hand, and a small bag of ‘fun-size’ spunow in the other.”
“You have to admit, he’s good,” said Ann. “And as attested by the Teachers on the Sorcerer’s World, he is completely incapable of working real magic.”
Cosmic Boy took his snack package back sullenly.
“So you guys can choose from any of the open cabins,” said Lightning Lass. “I would suggest you don’t take the ones next to or across from Ten’s lab, but that still leaves you a half-dozen to choose from. Somebody runs to the store once or twice a week, and there’s always a shopping list next to the AutoChef.”
“I’ll sit down with each you, and discuss how much your Stipend would be a reasonable donation to your room and board,” said Shrinking Violet. “We’re pretty easy-going here, but we’ve never had guests before.”
“We hope you enjoy your stay on Mars,” said Cosmic Boy.
HONORARY MEMBERS
“I can’t believe the Court ordered us to act as your Guardians,” said Lightning Lass.
“They wouldn’t even let you move back in with your parents?” asked Cosmic Boy. “You’re all older than any of us-- except maybe Star-Woman.”
“But you’re on Mars, and not Earth,” said Villian. “That was an important consideration. Your little friend Ten made an impressive argument to the Court. They were rather disconcerted to find out his age.”
“And his planet of origin,” said Razor.
“We are Wards of the State, at least until this case is completed-- which may not be for some time,” said Black Flame. “They did not trust our parents with custody-- they are tainted as former ‘super-villains’, although they have been model citizens for decades since then.”
“And you are half-Braalien, like me?” said Cosmic Boy. He magnetically summoned a serving platter, allowing it to fly and loop around the area outside the clubhouse before landing it at his own feet. “Stainless steel,” he explained. “My magnetic powers are not as strong as Dad’s… but your father was a Magno-Ball Champion, right?”
“I don’t actually have magnetic powers,” said Black Flame. “They manifest as telekinesis, in my case, and my strength and control isn’t very good.” She demonstrated by levitating the platter, which lifted unsteadily, wobbling. “Of course, I can levitate non-metallic and non-magnetic objects, too.”
“But you’re also half-Saturnian, like me?” said Lightning Lass.
“You know, all Saturnians are different,” said Black Flame. “My mother had strong offensive psionic abilities, but was not really able to use them with any subtlety. I can piggy-back on other telepaths: I reflect psionic attacks, or thought-cast to mind-readers, or mind-read thought-casters… you don’t have much telepathic ability, do you?”
“Nope, that’s my sister Dorrit,” said Lightning Lass. “Why the name Black Flame?”
“She was an old enemy of the twentieth-century Supergirl. Super-villain history is kind of a hobby.”
“Do you have any Neptunians or Korlon-Colonials on your team?” asked Razor.
“No, but I met a Uranian recently,” said Lightning Lass. “Aren’t they a lot like Neptunians”
“Now that’s just offensive,” said Shrinking Violet. “Neptune and Uranias are probably as different as Orzde and Imsk.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Razor. “I was born and raised on Earth, in the Maldives. I’ve never been to Neptune-- or Uranias, for that matter. My only direct off-planet connection is that my parents are the Night Pastors at the Reformed First Church of Neptune. Which is really an Earth denomination, anyway.”
“Your father is Ron-Karr,” said Shrinking Violet. “Do you have his powers?”
“Actually, Violet, my powers are similar to yours,” said Razor. “I am able to shrink myself-- but only in a single dimension. When I do, I become incredibly dense, and seem to transform into some sort of metallic, silvery, super-hard substance.” He held up a hand, and demonstrated.
“Wow, interesting,” said Shrinking Violet. “You can actually transform only one part of your body at a time!”
“Yeah, I can actually shave with one finger,” said Razor. “That’s why I picked the name for our Club.”
“And you call yourself ‘Evil-Eye Annie’,” said Cosmic Boy.
“Thanks, but I prefer Ann. Ann Foxmoor,” she replied. “The ‘Super Villain Club’ thing was just a joke.”
“Well, not exactly a joke,” said Black Flame. “More an ironic social commentary and… I don’t know, performance art, maybe? A centuries-old tradition at institutions of higher education.”
“Maybe for you,” said Ann. “I was mostly there for the free beer.”
“But do you really have ‘malediction’ powers, like Dr. Shakespeare said?” asked Shrinking Violet.
“Yeah, I have this thing I do,” said Ann. “I was studied by quantum biologists for a while when I was a kid. I can wish bad things on people, and they happen… randomly, for a few hours, or even a couple of days. How angry I am… how much I mean it… that determines how bad the jinx is. But it’s pretty random; I don’t like doing it, really… I never know if an ex-boyfriend is going to find his wardrobe suddenly attacked by fire-moths, or fall down a flight of stairs and break both his legs. I’m not saying that either of those things has ever happened.”
“I just want to go back to my studies,” said the boy called Villian the Sorcerer. “Menaleas got it worst of all of us. He got deported back to Talok VIII; we’re just suspended from M.U. until after the hearing. The school will abide by the court’s decision-- if the judge drops the charges, or we’re found ‘not guilty’, we can go back to school, have our loans and grants restored, and pick up where we left off. But Menaleas is persona non grata on Earth now. The JLE won out that much, at least. They wanted to deport us, too...”
“But you’re all Terran,” said Shrinking Violet. “Neptune, Korlon, Braal, and Titan were all colonized by humans. And anyone with Terran has an unalienable right to life on Earth… if they can afford it.”
“Yes, and Bungle and I are full Earthlings, born and raised,” said Ann. “Our crime is not agreeing with the 20% running the Earth these days.”
“Is your name really Bungle Spelling?” asked Cosmic Boy.
“Every sorcerer changes his name and appearance when they begin the study of Magic,” said Villian. “Many use several different names. Bungle Spelling is not the name I was born with, and my appearance… my biometric profile… has been magically altered as well. I’m required to reveal and prove my identity in any legal interaction with the United Planets, but… I still have hopes of returning to the Unseen University on Sorcerer’s World again-- although I flunked out there. But I like to keep the Bungle Spelling identity viable as much as possible. Maybe I’ll be able to go back someday.”
“And since you’ve returned to Earth, you’ve been studying stage magic?” asked Cosmic Boy.
Villian / Bungle pulled out a pack of cards, and handed it to Cosmic Boy. “Break the seal, open the box, then pick a card at random,” he said. “Don’t tell me what it is, but show your friends. Then put it back in the deck, close the pack, and hand it back to me.”
Cosmic Boy followed the directions. Villian held the pack upright, in the palm of his hand. Without touching it further, the top flap opened, and the ace of diamonds slowly rose out of the deck.
“Is this your card?” asked Villian.
“No, sorry,” said Cosmic Boy. “It was the Jack of Clubs.”
“You tricked me,” said Vilian. “You didn’t put it back in the deck. “You stashed it in one of the pockets of your belt.” He pointed to a particular pocket on the flight belt.
“I never…” said Cosmic Boy, but checked the pocket anyway. There was the Jack of Clubs.
“Hey, that’s the pocket I keep my spunow in!” said Cosmic Boy.
“Do you mean this spunow?” asked Villian. He was holding the box of cards in one hand, and a small bag of ‘fun-size’ spunow in the other.”
“You have to admit, he’s good,” said Ann. “And as attested by the Teachers on the Sorcerer’s World, he is completely incapable of working real magic.”
Cosmic Boy took his snack package back sullenly.
“So you guys can choose from any of the open cabins,” said Lightning Lass. “I would suggest you don’t take the ones next to or across from Ten’s lab, but that still leaves you a half-dozen to choose from. Somebody runs to the store once or twice a week, and there’s always a shopping list next to the AutoChef.”
“I’ll sit down with each you, and discuss how much your Stipend would be a reasonable donation to your room and board,” said Shrinking Violet. “We’re pretty easy-going here, but we’ve never had guests before.”
“We hope you enjoy your stay on Mars,” said Cosmic Boy.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/18/18 11:23 PM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
TALOK VIII- Part Two
Talok is a small, A-type star, invisible from Earth without a telescope, in the constellation Corvus. Talok III was the original home planet of the Talokite race. The surface has been uninhabitable, ravaged by war, for over a millennium.
Talok IV, the first Talokan-exile colony, is a world as small and cold as Mars. Originally the salvation of Talok, it now houses only a few small outposts.
Talok VIII, some thirty times as distant as Talok IV, is a world of tropical oceans and hot, arid deserts. The climate is due to its close orbit of the infrared dwarf star Talok-b, also called ‘Tarn, the Invisible Sun’. - Encyclopedia Galactica
The Talokan Congress of Twenty-Eight in Lydea was too perfectly balanced to be accidental. Seven green-skinned males, seven blue-skinned males, seven blue-skinned females, and seven green-skinned females. All white-haired, elderly, and solemn-looking.
“We appreciate your offer of assistance,” said one of the green women. “As you may know, technology on Talok is limited by both law and custom. We allow no robots or androids, for example, or other artificial life-forms. Medical technology of all kinds is welcomed, but is under the strict control of the Healer class. We are also opposed to the use of high technology in weapons on our world, although our spacecraft may be so outfitted. There are other restrictions.”
“It is our belief,” said one of the blue men, “That this Factory which has mysteriously appeared in the High Desert is in violation of our laws. Certainly, it is surrounded by an illegal force-shield, and has denied entry to our inspectors. Talok VIII has been the target of alien invasion before. Our eschewing of certain higher technologies is sometimes seen as a weakness or vulnerability.”
A green man spoke. “Our Planetary Champions are serving as Lord and Lady, the heads of our government. It is a delicate arrangement, and we hesitate to send them at the head of our armies into an unknown, dangerous encounter.”
Another green man put in: “As aliens yourselves, you might best be able to determine the purpose and function of any outlawed alien technology in the plant.”
One of the blue women added, “Your greatest assistance to us would be reconnaissance of the area, to bring us intelligence regarding who has illegally claimed our territory, and what they intend. We can then better determine whether to send in our own forces, or to seek assistance from the United Planets.”
“Reconnaissance only. Understood, Members?” asked Saturn Girl. There was a general nodding of heads.
The “Factory” was easily the size of a small city, five thousand hectares, at least. The only way it could have been brought stealthily to Talok VIII was if it was also spaceworthy. It was, indeed, surrounded by a force-shield, which Phantom Girl easily phased through, without setting off any alarms.
“Pretty poor quality force-shield,” Phantom Girl observed.
“If only we could all phase through it,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Why can’t we?” said Saturn Girl, removing her necklace. “If Irinia wears the micro-Clubhouse as a necklace, and if Ten will oblige, she can easily carry us all through.”
It was the work of only a couple of minutes.
“The factory seems fully mechanized,” said Shrinking Violet. “Plenty of robots, in violation of Talokan technological regulations. There do not appear to be any life-forms here.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Saturn Girl. “I sense that whoever is running this place is growing sentient biological organisms in these tubes. It is difficult to tell if there are full-grown, independent individuals running this place as well.”
“Sentients?” said Ffiona. “Then this is a colony ship of some sort?”
“Or, they are growing an invading army,” said Star-Woman. “I estimate at least a million individuals. I don’t recognize the species, so I can’t tell how close to fully grown they are.”
“These are bio-acceleration tanks,” said Ten. “Whatever they are, it won’t be long until they are fully grown.”
“I think we have enough intelligence to report back to the Congress,” said Saturn Girl. “They will need to act quickly… odd, I cannot seem to contact the outside telepathically. Something else else is blocking me.”
The Members had suddenly walked into a room larger than any they had entered before.
“It seems all roads lead here,” said Ten. “The factory, despite its size, is set up with a central control.” He approached a great panel of controls. “I believe I should be able to put all the chambers in stasis, until we can contact the Congress.”
“No you won’t.” A monstrous creature had entered the room. At least twelve feet tall, and nearly as big around, it seemed half-plant and half-beast. Its head was too large for its body, and its body was gigantic. It was almost comical in appearance: great leering eyes, a protruding belly. But its size and vicious, sharp-toothed grin advised caution.
“Organus will not let you interfere,” the creature growled. “Organus is being paid very well to keep this facility operating. You will not stop Organus. You will not report back. You will not leave alive.”
A sickening red tongue shot out of Organus’ mouth, deflected harmlessly by Ten’s force field. Lightning Lass rose up with her flight belt, and rained a volley of lightning over the creature. Organus only laughed. His tongue shot out again, catching Lightning Lass in the face. She stiffened, then fell, unconscious.
“It absorbs bio-energy,” said Saturn Girl. “Careful-- it has acquired lightning powers now.” She gripped her temples. “It has absorbed our link as well… it’s mind… so strange... “ Saturn Girl fell unconscious as well.
Ffey was the next to be caught by Organus’ tongue-attack. As she fell unconscious, Ffarrah and Ffiona vanished, and two copies of Organus appeared from nowhere.
“Star-Woman,” said Ten. “You need to leave, now. We can’t allow it to gain your powers as well!” With three members already down, Ten was moving around the room, expanding his field to enclose the others. Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Shrinking Violet were all safe. Phantom Girl was inaccessible, on the other side of the room. Chameleon had assumed the form of a tiny insect, and was darting rapidly around the room, in a complex, random pattern.
Ten’s force field enclosed Cosmic Boy, just in time to deflect Organus’ tongue attack. Lightning rained on the force-shield, but was unable to penetrate it.
“We need a non-biological attack,” said Shrinking Violet, checking her ultraphone. “The last time the Legion faced Organus, it was defeated by Blok.”
“The Legion faced Organus?” said Polar Lass, incredulous. “Then why is he here?”
Vesta, Ten’s nanny-bot, rushed one of the creatures, only to be the next victim of its tongue-attack. Organus instantly retracted its tongue, cursing and spitting. The other two still pursued the Chameleon-bug, and the intangible Phantom Girl, unable to land a hit.
“Ten,” said Shrinking Violet, “Phantom Girl is still wearing the necklace.”
“Phantom Girl!” shouted Ten. “Whatever you do, don’t let Organus get hold of your necklace!”
Phantom Girl, startled, turned her head. Somehow, she lost control, and the necklace dropped through her intangible body, landing on the floor. The three Organuses rushed towards it greedily. A triple violet ray shot from Ten’s belt, and the three creatures disappeared.
Phantom Girl picked up the necklace, with the micro-Clubhouse attached. “Is there some way of locking this from the outside?” she asked.
“Indeed,” said Ten, retrieving his invention. There was a satisfying ‘click’. “I took the precaution of making the creatures a little smaller than necessary. They are, relatively speaking, about an inch tall, compared to the optimum size within the micro-Clubhouse. I don’t think they would be able to open the door, or even operate the Auto-Chef, at that size.”
Star-Woman reappeared. “How are we going to get out through the force-shield, though?” she asked.
“I believe I can put the entire operation in stasis, and deactivate the shield,” said Ten, eyeing the control panel. “As long as we have no further interruptions.”
Star-Woman surveyed the three unconscious Members. “Do you think they’ll be all right? What can we do for them?”
“Just make them comfortable, I think,” said Shrinking Violet. “Organus not only absorbs bio-energy, he eats it, too, so I’m not sure how long his extra powers will last. And with rest, Lightning Lass, Saturn Girl, and the Triplicates will regenerate their own-- something he can’t do. I expect when they wake up, they’ll be hungry and thirsty, though.”
The Talokan Congress was pleased.
“We bring you the thanks of our rulers, The Shadow Champion and Lady Memory, High Priestess of Maakas. The United Planets is sending a contingent of Science Police specialists to remove the creature’s factory.”
“Tell them,” said Saturn Girl, “That Organus was only an employee, not the mastermind. I shared minds with the vile creature, and one thing I learned is that it was working for some zombie-like entity called Velissa. The creatures being grown were her servants, which she intended to be the first force in the conquest of Talok VIII… and other worlds, besides.”
====================================================================
“How was your visit with Menaleas?” asked Ffey, on the ride back to Mars.
“He’s pretty down,” said Villian. “He would have graduated next year but now… well, he’s had his student visa revoked, and there’s really not much chance of his getting another anytime soon. Just an accusation by the JLE carries a lot of weight.”
“Wasn’t there a resurgence in anti-alien hate crime on Earth a few years ago?” asked Ffey.
“It comes and goes, waxes and wanes,” said Villian. “Anti-alien violence is illegal, strictly speaking, but the rhetoric flares up every once in a while, and some people feel justified.”
“He was majoring in Hyperhydroponic Agriculture,” said Annie. “He was hoping to bring modern farming techniques to the Talokans. He’s already installed some private gardens at his mother’s Estate.”
“And that is one nice place,” said Razor. “Just he and his mother in a vast mansion-- with about a dozen servants each to cater to their every whim.”
“His uncle is Lord Shadow Champion,” said Annie. “Which makes him a Talokan Prince, even if the Shadow Cave rejected him. And technically, it’s an Estate, not a Mansion. All the surrounding grounds belong to his family as well.”
“We’re thinking of registering the Super Villain Club as an official organization,” said Black Flame. “Incorporating it as a non-profit charitable organization. For one thing, it would prevent other groups from coming at you under that name-- and allow us to distance ourselves from crazies like Lambda and Auberon.”
“I would be glad to assist you in the legal aspects of forming such an organization,” said Ten. “Star-Woman has me on a steady diet of legal texts these days.”
“Let me introduce you to our seven-year-old attorney,” said Fey.
“Oh, no, you would need to do all the filings yourselves, in pro se,” said Ten. “I would never be admitted to the Terran Bar at my age. I cannot even legally offer you legal advice. But I can point you in the right direction, tell you what to read, and proofread your filings for you.”
“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” said Razor. “We could control our membership, outline our goals. Put a political platform in writing. We could even put explicitly in our charter that ‘Villain’ is intended to be ironic, for those a little slow on the uptake. Do you know that in old Terran, the word for ‘Villain’ used to just mean ‘common people’?”
“Yes,” said Black Flame, “But I don’t think anyone would be impressed by ‘The Super-Farmer’s Club’.”
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/78a13a130b502020a9cef9330e226317/tumblr_pa540aZ1gH1uwm5uqo1_250.jpg)
[b]MENALEAS MALLOR
TALOK VIII- Part Two
Talok is a small, A-type star, invisible from Earth without a telescope, in the constellation Corvus. Talok III was the original home planet of the Talokite race. The surface has been uninhabitable, ravaged by war, for over a millennium.
Talok IV, the first Talokan-exile colony, is a world as small and cold as Mars. Originally the salvation of Talok, it now houses only a few small outposts.
Talok VIII, some thirty times as distant as Talok IV, is a world of tropical oceans and hot, arid deserts. The climate is due to its close orbit of the infrared dwarf star Talok-b, also called ‘Tarn, the Invisible Sun’. - Encyclopedia Galactica
The Talokan Congress of Twenty-Eight in Lydea was too perfectly balanced to be accidental. Seven green-skinned males, seven blue-skinned males, seven blue-skinned females, and seven green-skinned females. All white-haired, elderly, and solemn-looking.
“We appreciate your offer of assistance,” said one of the green women. “As you may know, technology on Talok is limited by both law and custom. We allow no robots or androids, for example, or other artificial life-forms. Medical technology of all kinds is welcomed, but is under the strict control of the Healer class. We are also opposed to the use of high technology in weapons on our world, although our spacecraft may be so outfitted. There are other restrictions.”
“It is our belief,” said one of the blue men, “That this Factory which has mysteriously appeared in the High Desert is in violation of our laws. Certainly, it is surrounded by an illegal force-shield, and has denied entry to our inspectors. Talok VIII has been the target of alien invasion before. Our eschewing of certain higher technologies is sometimes seen as a weakness or vulnerability.”
A green man spoke. “Our Planetary Champions are serving as Lord and Lady, the heads of our government. It is a delicate arrangement, and we hesitate to send them at the head of our armies into an unknown, dangerous encounter.”
Another green man put in: “As aliens yourselves, you might best be able to determine the purpose and function of any outlawed alien technology in the plant.”
One of the blue women added, “Your greatest assistance to us would be reconnaissance of the area, to bring us intelligence regarding who has illegally claimed our territory, and what they intend. We can then better determine whether to send in our own forces, or to seek assistance from the United Planets.”
“Reconnaissance only. Understood, Members?” asked Saturn Girl. There was a general nodding of heads.
The “Factory” was easily the size of a small city, five thousand hectares, at least. The only way it could have been brought stealthily to Talok VIII was if it was also spaceworthy. It was, indeed, surrounded by a force-shield, which Phantom Girl easily phased through, without setting off any alarms.
“Pretty poor quality force-shield,” Phantom Girl observed.
“If only we could all phase through it,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Why can’t we?” said Saturn Girl, removing her necklace. “If Irinia wears the micro-Clubhouse as a necklace, and if Ten will oblige, she can easily carry us all through.”
It was the work of only a couple of minutes.
“The factory seems fully mechanized,” said Shrinking Violet. “Plenty of robots, in violation of Talokan technological regulations. There do not appear to be any life-forms here.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Saturn Girl. “I sense that whoever is running this place is growing sentient biological organisms in these tubes. It is difficult to tell if there are full-grown, independent individuals running this place as well.”
“Sentients?” said Ffiona. “Then this is a colony ship of some sort?”
“Or, they are growing an invading army,” said Star-Woman. “I estimate at least a million individuals. I don’t recognize the species, so I can’t tell how close to fully grown they are.”
“These are bio-acceleration tanks,” said Ten. “Whatever they are, it won’t be long until they are fully grown.”
“I think we have enough intelligence to report back to the Congress,” said Saturn Girl. “They will need to act quickly… odd, I cannot seem to contact the outside telepathically. Something else else is blocking me.”
The Members had suddenly walked into a room larger than any they had entered before.
“It seems all roads lead here,” said Ten. “The factory, despite its size, is set up with a central control.” He approached a great panel of controls. “I believe I should be able to put all the chambers in stasis, until we can contact the Congress.”
“No you won’t.” A monstrous creature had entered the room. At least twelve feet tall, and nearly as big around, it seemed half-plant and half-beast. Its head was too large for its body, and its body was gigantic. It was almost comical in appearance: great leering eyes, a protruding belly. But its size and vicious, sharp-toothed grin advised caution.
“Organus will not let you interfere,” the creature growled. “Organus is being paid very well to keep this facility operating. You will not stop Organus. You will not report back. You will not leave alive.”
A sickening red tongue shot out of Organus’ mouth, deflected harmlessly by Ten’s force field. Lightning Lass rose up with her flight belt, and rained a volley of lightning over the creature. Organus only laughed. His tongue shot out again, catching Lightning Lass in the face. She stiffened, then fell, unconscious.
“It absorbs bio-energy,” said Saturn Girl. “Careful-- it has acquired lightning powers now.” She gripped her temples. “It has absorbed our link as well… it’s mind… so strange... “ Saturn Girl fell unconscious as well.
Ffey was the next to be caught by Organus’ tongue-attack. As she fell unconscious, Ffarrah and Ffiona vanished, and two copies of Organus appeared from nowhere.
“Star-Woman,” said Ten. “You need to leave, now. We can’t allow it to gain your powers as well!” With three members already down, Ten was moving around the room, expanding his field to enclose the others. Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Shrinking Violet were all safe. Phantom Girl was inaccessible, on the other side of the room. Chameleon had assumed the form of a tiny insect, and was darting rapidly around the room, in a complex, random pattern.
Ten’s force field enclosed Cosmic Boy, just in time to deflect Organus’ tongue attack. Lightning rained on the force-shield, but was unable to penetrate it.
“We need a non-biological attack,” said Shrinking Violet, checking her ultraphone. “The last time the Legion faced Organus, it was defeated by Blok.”
“The Legion faced Organus?” said Polar Lass, incredulous. “Then why is he here?”
Vesta, Ten’s nanny-bot, rushed one of the creatures, only to be the next victim of its tongue-attack. Organus instantly retracted its tongue, cursing and spitting. The other two still pursued the Chameleon-bug, and the intangible Phantom Girl, unable to land a hit.
“Ten,” said Shrinking Violet, “Phantom Girl is still wearing the necklace.”
“Phantom Girl!” shouted Ten. “Whatever you do, don’t let Organus get hold of your necklace!”
Phantom Girl, startled, turned her head. Somehow, she lost control, and the necklace dropped through her intangible body, landing on the floor. The three Organuses rushed towards it greedily. A triple violet ray shot from Ten’s belt, and the three creatures disappeared.
Phantom Girl picked up the necklace, with the micro-Clubhouse attached. “Is there some way of locking this from the outside?” she asked.
“Indeed,” said Ten, retrieving his invention. There was a satisfying ‘click’. “I took the precaution of making the creatures a little smaller than necessary. They are, relatively speaking, about an inch tall, compared to the optimum size within the micro-Clubhouse. I don’t think they would be able to open the door, or even operate the Auto-Chef, at that size.”
Star-Woman reappeared. “How are we going to get out through the force-shield, though?” she asked.
“I believe I can put the entire operation in stasis, and deactivate the shield,” said Ten, eyeing the control panel. “As long as we have no further interruptions.”
Star-Woman surveyed the three unconscious Members. “Do you think they’ll be all right? What can we do for them?”
“Just make them comfortable, I think,” said Shrinking Violet. “Organus not only absorbs bio-energy, he eats it, too, so I’m not sure how long his extra powers will last. And with rest, Lightning Lass, Saturn Girl, and the Triplicates will regenerate their own-- something he can’t do. I expect when they wake up, they’ll be hungry and thirsty, though.”
The Talokan Congress was pleased.
“We bring you the thanks of our rulers, The Shadow Champion and Lady Memory, High Priestess of Maakas. The United Planets is sending a contingent of Science Police specialists to remove the creature’s factory.”
“Tell them,” said Saturn Girl, “That Organus was only an employee, not the mastermind. I shared minds with the vile creature, and one thing I learned is that it was working for some zombie-like entity called Velissa. The creatures being grown were her servants, which she intended to be the first force in the conquest of Talok VIII… and other worlds, besides.”
====================================================================
“How was your visit with Menaleas?” asked Ffey, on the ride back to Mars.
“He’s pretty down,” said Villian. “He would have graduated next year but now… well, he’s had his student visa revoked, and there’s really not much chance of his getting another anytime soon. Just an accusation by the JLE carries a lot of weight.”
“Wasn’t there a resurgence in anti-alien hate crime on Earth a few years ago?” asked Ffey.
“It comes and goes, waxes and wanes,” said Villian. “Anti-alien violence is illegal, strictly speaking, but the rhetoric flares up every once in a while, and some people feel justified.”
“He was majoring in Hyperhydroponic Agriculture,” said Annie. “He was hoping to bring modern farming techniques to the Talokans. He’s already installed some private gardens at his mother’s Estate.”
“And that is one nice place,” said Razor. “Just he and his mother in a vast mansion-- with about a dozen servants each to cater to their every whim.”
“His uncle is Lord Shadow Champion,” said Annie. “Which makes him a Talokan Prince, even if the Shadow Cave rejected him. And technically, it’s an Estate, not a Mansion. All the surrounding grounds belong to his family as well.”
“We’re thinking of registering the Super Villain Club as an official organization,” said Black Flame. “Incorporating it as a non-profit charitable organization. For one thing, it would prevent other groups from coming at you under that name-- and allow us to distance ourselves from crazies like Lambda and Auberon.”
“I would be glad to assist you in the legal aspects of forming such an organization,” said Ten. “Star-Woman has me on a steady diet of legal texts these days.”
“Let me introduce you to our seven-year-old attorney,” said Fey.
“Oh, no, you would need to do all the filings yourselves, in pro se,” said Ten. “I would never be admitted to the Terran Bar at my age. I cannot even legally offer you legal advice. But I can point you in the right direction, tell you what to read, and proofread your filings for you.”
“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” said Razor. “We could control our membership, outline our goals. Put a political platform in writing. We could even put explicitly in our charter that ‘Villain’ is intended to be ironic, for those a little slow on the uptake. Do you know that in old Terran, the word for ‘Villain’ used to just mean ‘common people’?”
“Yes,” said Black Flame, “But I don’t think anyone would be impressed by ‘The Super-Farmer’s Club’.”
[b]MENALEAS MALLOR
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/24/18 02:07 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
DACEY AND ARNION: FIRST DATE
The Prep
“So you’re finally going out with Arnion?” Pol asked.
“He’s picking me up in a few minutes,” Dacey replied. “How do I look?”
“I think you’re asking the wrong person,” said Pol. “Never really been into fashion. But I’m glad you two are finally seeing each other IRL. Maybe this will give you ‘phone a chance to cool off.”
“You are no help,” Dacey scolded. “How do I look?” she asked her sister, almost before she had made it through the doorway.
“You’re beautiful,” said Doritt. “You’re second most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”
“Oh, you’re now help either,” Dacey cried.
“Seriously, you look great,” said Doritt. “Have a great time tonight.”
“Do you think,” said Dacey, “We could have some privacy tonight?”
“I don’t know if that’s even possible,” said Doritt. “Our connection isn’t like ordinary telepathy, and I should know. It’s not like I go looking for your thoughts. It’s more like we’re two bodies, sharing a single mind. But I won’t goggle or gawp tonight, if that’s what you mean.”
Dacey considered for a moment. “We’re not really one mind,” she said. “I have a lot of thoughts that you don’t share. Especially recently.” She flushed. “And vice versa. But I know you’re always there, and I know we each always know what the other is thinking, but… no voyeurism tonight, OK?”
“I thought I already promised that,” said Doritt.
“Well… sometimes I think you don’t really approve of Arnion,” said Dacey.
“Oh, Arnion is fine, as far as we know him,” said Doritt. “And we really don’t know him that well, in spite of all the time you two have spent on the ‘phone. It’s your enthusiasm for Arnion I don’t entirely approve of.”
“Well I don’t like him one bit,” said Pol. “He’s charming, charismatic and clever, and he’s going out with the girl I had a crush on for years.” He looked at the two sisters. “Well, most of a year, anyway. Months.”
“Oh, Pol,” said Doritt, ruffling his wavy dark hair. “You know that you will always be the annoying little brother we never had.”
“Well, let me know if you and ‘golden boy’ figure out how to augment one another’s powers the way we do,” Pol told Dacey. “Then I’ll really be jealous.”
“I’ll certainly let you know before Arnion and I try to create magnetic monopoles or high-powered beta-particle beams,” promised Dacey.
The Ride
“Do you mind clearing the window?” Arnion asked. “I being able to see outside. I’m a little claustrophobic.”
“How about just your side?” Dacey asked. “I’m used to navigating from the schematic.” The front and side panels now displayed, on the right, a clear view of the Martian scenery flying past, and on the left, a geometric representation of the same scenery, with place names and distances clearly marked.
“I still can’t believe you’re using an Interstellar-Class Runabout as an ordinary Landspeeder,” said Arnion. “I hope you’re opening her up for a run around the local Stellar System occasionally.”
“I guess we should do that, shouldn’t we?” said Dacey. “Back on Winath, we used to go run loops around Korbal.”
“And you ought to test the FTL drive at least every couple of months,” said Arnion. “Warp Drive engines tend to freeze up without regular use.”
“We have Hyperspace Jump,” Dacey remarked.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Arnion. “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet; a lot smoother than dropping in and out of the Warps, even with automatic transmission. But you still ought to use it occasionally, just to make sure it’s there when you need it.”
“You’re right,” said Dacey. “Wow, there is just nowhere to park.” She ranged over the area on her screens, zooming in and out.
The Date
On a Honosnight, the New Metropolis Moving Picture Theater was a popular destination in town, and there was very little parking, as it was situated in the middle of a block in the downtown shopping district. They found a spot in a Pay-N-Park a few blocks away. Arnion suggested that next time they just contact Space Traffic Control, and park the Runabout in a reserved orbit until they needed it again.
“Or I could have Ten build you a custom flight belt,” said Dacey, as they walked back. “Although I guess you don’t really need personal transportation. It’s funny you got into the vehicle-moving business.”
“Oh, I would love to be able to fly,” said Arnion. “On my homeworld, everybody else has huge, magnificent wings, and the world is really built for flyers—every building is a lot taller than it is wide, and there are no stairs or walkways anywhere. I could get around OK—my teleportation mostly makes up for my disability—but I have to be able to see where I’m going, so it’s hard at night, or in heavy fog. And I can pop between earth and sky, but I can’t really play Wingball, or Sky Tag, or any of the other popular sports.”
“They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games,” said Dacey.
“Something else else like that,” said Arnion. “So when Mish Qeng joined the UP, I left as fast as I could. It’s not bad being unique, but not when everyone expects you to be the same.”
The Theater was showing the new remake of Knodar, the Last Criminal, with Kai Riiv in the title role, and Crimson as the “Black-Eyed Bandit”. The old story had been updated for the 31st century, and the wrap-around special effects were both exciting and impressive. Dacey and Arnion held hands through the show.
“Do you ever think there will be a time when crime really goes extinct?” asked Dacey, as they walked to the restaurant.
“I’ve heard it happens, on some worlds,” said Arnion. “For a while, at least. Then someone like Knodar shows up. It’s too bad I’m not a criminal or a terrorist. With my talents, I’d make a good one.”
“I’d probably make a better assassin,” said Dacey.
Chez Béliers was an almost alarmingly upmarket Frankish restaurant. Dacey was almost surprised that such a place even existed in tiny, out-of-the-way New Metropolis.
Hailing from Lightning Ring Farms, Dacey knew fresh produce, and there was nothing at all here that came from an AutoChef. It was the best meal she had had since… well, since leaving home.
“You know, there’s something that puzzles me,” said Arnion. “About you and your sister.”
“Oh, do we need to talk about Doritt?” asked Dacey.
“Well, you two are genetically identical twins, right? Homozygotic, if I understand the human term correctly?”
“Yes. It happens a lot on Winath. Fraternal twins, too. Is that unusual on Mish Queng?”
“It’s just that the two of you are so different. You spontaneously generate electricity, while she is a powerful telepath. She has a very strong, even overwhelming personality. You seem more… well, meek. You even look different. Her hair is full and wavy, yours is more… what’s the word? Frizzed? Kinky? Her complexion is pale and ivory-smooth, while yours is more… spotted?”
“They’re called ‘freckles’,” said Dacey. “And I get them because I enjoy spending time out-of-doors. And my hair tends to frizz because of my lightning powers. And I only appear meek and mild next to Doritt, who does tend to dominate a room. Are you saying you would rather be dating her?”
“No, not at all,” said Arnion. “I like you the way you are. It’s just an observation. I suppose environment plays a very large role in human development?”
“Is it not the same with your people?” asked Dacey.
“No, everyone on my world is pretty much identical,” said Arnion. “No matter how or where they grew up. That’s why I stood out so much as a kid. Mutant, wingless, luminous Arnion.”
In the candlelight, Dacey really could see that Arnion really did glow faintly in the dark.
“Do you know your sister has greener eyes than you?”
“Yes, I know that,” said Dacey.
The Ride Home
“I hope I locked the Runabout,” said Dacey. “I guess it’s a little late to worry about that. I guess I’m thinking about Knodar.”
“I’ll check it out,” said Arnion, and vanished in a puff of floral scent.
He had been standing right next to her, and Dacey finally noticed something. Just before he teleported, there was a sensation—a non-tingling sense of anticipation, as if she knew—as if her surroundings knew that Arnion was about to teleport. He reappeared in a moment, with another puff of camellia.
“No criminal intrusions,” he said, smiling.
“You didn’t really need to walk all this way with me at all, did you?” said Dacey. “You could have just popped over to the theater, and the restaurant, and waited for me to catch up. You didn’t even really need the Runabout.”
“Sure, I could have,” said Arnion. “But where would have been the fun in that? The whole point of tonight was to spend time with you.”
Arnion was quiet on the trip back. He seemed a little ill-at-ease. Once outside New Metropolis, the clear panels on his side of the Runabout showed nothing but darkness as they sped by the land between the town and the Clubhouse. He took a deep breath of the cool Martian night-air when they arrived, and let it out with a sigh. A little awkwardly, he gave Dacey a long hug. She began to feel that odd, non-tingling sensation again. He stepped away.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and faintly glowing in the dark, and disappeared, quite literally, into the night.
DACEY AND ARNION: FIRST DATE
The Prep
“So you’re finally going out with Arnion?” Pol asked.
“He’s picking me up in a few minutes,” Dacey replied. “How do I look?”
“I think you’re asking the wrong person,” said Pol. “Never really been into fashion. But I’m glad you two are finally seeing each other IRL. Maybe this will give you ‘phone a chance to cool off.”
“You are no help,” Dacey scolded. “How do I look?” she asked her sister, almost before she had made it through the doorway.
“You’re beautiful,” said Doritt. “You’re second most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”
“Oh, you’re now help either,” Dacey cried.
“Seriously, you look great,” said Doritt. “Have a great time tonight.”
“Do you think,” said Dacey, “We could have some privacy tonight?”
“I don’t know if that’s even possible,” said Doritt. “Our connection isn’t like ordinary telepathy, and I should know. It’s not like I go looking for your thoughts. It’s more like we’re two bodies, sharing a single mind. But I won’t goggle or gawp tonight, if that’s what you mean.”
Dacey considered for a moment. “We’re not really one mind,” she said. “I have a lot of thoughts that you don’t share. Especially recently.” She flushed. “And vice versa. But I know you’re always there, and I know we each always know what the other is thinking, but… no voyeurism tonight, OK?”
“I thought I already promised that,” said Doritt.
“Well… sometimes I think you don’t really approve of Arnion,” said Dacey.
“Oh, Arnion is fine, as far as we know him,” said Doritt. “And we really don’t know him that well, in spite of all the time you two have spent on the ‘phone. It’s your enthusiasm for Arnion I don’t entirely approve of.”
“Well I don’t like him one bit,” said Pol. “He’s charming, charismatic and clever, and he’s going out with the girl I had a crush on for years.” He looked at the two sisters. “Well, most of a year, anyway. Months.”
“Oh, Pol,” said Doritt, ruffling his wavy dark hair. “You know that you will always be the annoying little brother we never had.”
“Well, let me know if you and ‘golden boy’ figure out how to augment one another’s powers the way we do,” Pol told Dacey. “Then I’ll really be jealous.”
“I’ll certainly let you know before Arnion and I try to create magnetic monopoles or high-powered beta-particle beams,” promised Dacey.
The Ride
“Do you mind clearing the window?” Arnion asked. “I being able to see outside. I’m a little claustrophobic.”
“How about just your side?” Dacey asked. “I’m used to navigating from the schematic.” The front and side panels now displayed, on the right, a clear view of the Martian scenery flying past, and on the left, a geometric representation of the same scenery, with place names and distances clearly marked.
“I still can’t believe you’re using an Interstellar-Class Runabout as an ordinary Landspeeder,” said Arnion. “I hope you’re opening her up for a run around the local Stellar System occasionally.”
“I guess we should do that, shouldn’t we?” said Dacey. “Back on Winath, we used to go run loops around Korbal.”
“And you ought to test the FTL drive at least every couple of months,” said Arnion. “Warp Drive engines tend to freeze up without regular use.”
“We have Hyperspace Jump,” Dacey remarked.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Arnion. “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet; a lot smoother than dropping in and out of the Warps, even with automatic transmission. But you still ought to use it occasionally, just to make sure it’s there when you need it.”
“You’re right,” said Dacey. “Wow, there is just nowhere to park.” She ranged over the area on her screens, zooming in and out.
The Date
On a Honosnight, the New Metropolis Moving Picture Theater was a popular destination in town, and there was very little parking, as it was situated in the middle of a block in the downtown shopping district. They found a spot in a Pay-N-Park a few blocks away. Arnion suggested that next time they just contact Space Traffic Control, and park the Runabout in a reserved orbit until they needed it again.
“Or I could have Ten build you a custom flight belt,” said Dacey, as they walked back. “Although I guess you don’t really need personal transportation. It’s funny you got into the vehicle-moving business.”
“Oh, I would love to be able to fly,” said Arnion. “On my homeworld, everybody else has huge, magnificent wings, and the world is really built for flyers—every building is a lot taller than it is wide, and there are no stairs or walkways anywhere. I could get around OK—my teleportation mostly makes up for my disability—but I have to be able to see where I’m going, so it’s hard at night, or in heavy fog. And I can pop between earth and sky, but I can’t really play Wingball, or Sky Tag, or any of the other popular sports.”
“They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games,” said Dacey.
“Something else else like that,” said Arnion. “So when Mish Qeng joined the UP, I left as fast as I could. It’s not bad being unique, but not when everyone expects you to be the same.”
The Theater was showing the new remake of Knodar, the Last Criminal, with Kai Riiv in the title role, and Crimson as the “Black-Eyed Bandit”. The old story had been updated for the 31st century, and the wrap-around special effects were both exciting and impressive. Dacey and Arnion held hands through the show.
“Do you ever think there will be a time when crime really goes extinct?” asked Dacey, as they walked to the restaurant.
“I’ve heard it happens, on some worlds,” said Arnion. “For a while, at least. Then someone like Knodar shows up. It’s too bad I’m not a criminal or a terrorist. With my talents, I’d make a good one.”
“I’d probably make a better assassin,” said Dacey.
Chez Béliers was an almost alarmingly upmarket Frankish restaurant. Dacey was almost surprised that such a place even existed in tiny, out-of-the-way New Metropolis.
Hailing from Lightning Ring Farms, Dacey knew fresh produce, and there was nothing at all here that came from an AutoChef. It was the best meal she had had since… well, since leaving home.
“You know, there’s something that puzzles me,” said Arnion. “About you and your sister.”
“Oh, do we need to talk about Doritt?” asked Dacey.
“Well, you two are genetically identical twins, right? Homozygotic, if I understand the human term correctly?”
“Yes. It happens a lot on Winath. Fraternal twins, too. Is that unusual on Mish Queng?”
“It’s just that the two of you are so different. You spontaneously generate electricity, while she is a powerful telepath. She has a very strong, even overwhelming personality. You seem more… well, meek. You even look different. Her hair is full and wavy, yours is more… what’s the word? Frizzed? Kinky? Her complexion is pale and ivory-smooth, while yours is more… spotted?”
“They’re called ‘freckles’,” said Dacey. “And I get them because I enjoy spending time out-of-doors. And my hair tends to frizz because of my lightning powers. And I only appear meek and mild next to Doritt, who does tend to dominate a room. Are you saying you would rather be dating her?”
“No, not at all,” said Arnion. “I like you the way you are. It’s just an observation. I suppose environment plays a very large role in human development?”
“Is it not the same with your people?” asked Dacey.
“No, everyone on my world is pretty much identical,” said Arnion. “No matter how or where they grew up. That’s why I stood out so much as a kid. Mutant, wingless, luminous Arnion.”
In the candlelight, Dacey really could see that Arnion really did glow faintly in the dark.
“Do you know your sister has greener eyes than you?”
“Yes, I know that,” said Dacey.
The Ride Home
“I hope I locked the Runabout,” said Dacey. “I guess it’s a little late to worry about that. I guess I’m thinking about Knodar.”
“I’ll check it out,” said Arnion, and vanished in a puff of floral scent.
He had been standing right next to her, and Dacey finally noticed something. Just before he teleported, there was a sensation—a non-tingling sense of anticipation, as if she knew—as if her surroundings knew that Arnion was about to teleport. He reappeared in a moment, with another puff of camellia.
“No criminal intrusions,” he said, smiling.
“You didn’t really need to walk all this way with me at all, did you?” said Dacey. “You could have just popped over to the theater, and the restaurant, and waited for me to catch up. You didn’t even really need the Runabout.”
“Sure, I could have,” said Arnion. “But where would have been the fun in that? The whole point of tonight was to spend time with you.”
Arnion was quiet on the trip back. He seemed a little ill-at-ease. Once outside New Metropolis, the clear panels on his side of the Runabout showed nothing but darkness as they sped by the land between the town and the Clubhouse. He took a deep breath of the cool Martian night-air when they arrived, and let it out with a sigh. A little awkwardly, he gave Dacey a long hug. She began to feel that odd, non-tingling sensation again. He stepped away.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and faintly glowing in the dark, and disappeared, quite literally, into the night.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/24/18 02:08 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
ZUUN - PART ONE
“We are needed on Zuun,” Star-Woman announced.
“Have you had another vision?” asked Saturn Girl.
“No, actually, they have contacted us,” said Star-Woman. “They are offering a chartered flight for the whole group, and a place to stay in the Capitol Complex while we are there. It is a mission which they expect may some time.”
“And the nature of the mission?” asked Saturn Girl.
“They will give us specifics when we arrive,” said Star-Woman. “But it involves what they describe as a Thieves’ Rebellion-- criminals which have set up their own illegitimate state on Zuun.”
They traveled first-class through space. The accommodations on Zuun were underground, like all Zuunian architecture, but very luxurious. The Oligopoly seemed in no hurry to meet with them, despite the apparent urgency of their original communication. The Members were fully able to enjoy the pool, exercise courts, and unlimited room service.
“I feel like a hog being fattened up for slaughter,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. He had just returned from the pool, and was wearing swimming trunks, plastic sandals, and a t-shirt reading ‘Carpe Cyprinidae’. “Just think of this as an all-expenses-paid vacation.”
“I’ve had enough vacation,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’m ready for some excitement.”
“Well, you had better get changed,” said Saturn Girl. “The Oligopoly finally wants to see us.”
There were far more people at the meeting than the Members had imagined. In fact, it was held in an auditorium, with perhaps five hundred in attendance.
“I am Mr. Zepol,” said the man on stage. “I am serving as spokesman for the Oligopoly this evening.”
What followed was three-and-a-half hours of holo-slides, graphs, and statistics, most of it utterly meaningless to the Members. Nearly all fell asleep at least once during the presentation.
“... the mitochondrial forests have been replaced by chloropylloids throughout 70% of the planet…”
“...overall background ionizing radiation at the surface has decreased 230% in the past eighteen months…”
“...Brande Industries has proven that rebuilding Worlds can be as profitable as…”
“...vacant under-properties have been renovated, and relocation agencies have expressed an interest…”
“...previously unknown deposits have been located. We advise, however, greater caution in quarrying…”
“...we welcome the Super Hero Club of Mars, Sol System. They will be training with our premiere security services in anticipation of the recapture and repair…”
“...atmospheric bi-molecular oxygen levels have increased to 9%, although monoxide compounds and ozone levels remain high…”
There was a common room on the floor where the Members were staying, large enough for all of them to meet in. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad had picked up three dozen Zuunnan doughnuts on the way back.
“Well, I was completely lost in there,” Polar Lass confessed. “I’m not sure how much of that we were supposed to understand, but I actually slept through most of it.”
“I’m not ashamed to admit I was completely out of my depth, too,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Although I think I heard our names mentioned at least once.”
“I think there was a lot we weren’t supposed to understand,” said Saturn Girl. “And the Oligopoly seems to believe we have already agreed to a course of action I’m not sure we would all support.”
“I agree,” said Ffiona. “From what I heard…”
“I wonder,” said Ten, “If you would allow me to sum up for the rest of the group. I know Coluans are renowned neither for their clarity nor brevity, but I would like to ‘give it a try’.”
“Go ahead,” said Star-Woman. “I’m sure Matter-Eater Lad Two will stop you if you go on too long.”
“Zuun was originally a mining colony,” said Ten. “The work was done quick and cheap, which left the planet a nearly unlivable mess. Only the poorest colonists remained behind, in underground tunnels. There were also a number of androids, which had done much of the work, which remained on the surface.
“The mining concerns which own and control Zuun-- the Oligopoly-- abandoned the world for a number of years. However, with the purchase of a division of Brande Industries, they decided to attempt to re-terraform, revitalize, and recolonize the planet. They have actually made great progress in this regard.
“One of the unresolved problems is the android population on the surface. With the closure of the mines, they have randomly taken up other occupations, and their original programming has lapsed. The Oligopoly has attempted to re-employ them, and has been met with unexpected resistance.
“In addition, new Zuunium deposits have been discovered, so there is a real need to get control of the androids back, in order to open new mines.
“The Oligopoly has requested the Super Hero Club’s assistance in recovering the androids for reprogramming. The androids are far stronger and more durable than ordinary Terrans. They have even been able to hold even the elite security services at a standoff. The Oligopoly feels meta-being assistance may be the solution. They were impressed by our work on Talok VIII.
“Another complication is that the androids are valuable property, and the Oligopoly does not want to see them damaged or destroyed, only reprogrammed and returned to work.”
“Those are the basics of the situation as I understand them,” said Saturn Girl. “Some androids have already been recovered, but it has been a slow process. There is one android in particular they do want to see destroyed-- evidently, they feel its programming has become so corrupted as to render it useless. In addition, it seems to be somehow infecting the other androids to with a computer virus which is degrading their systems, and making them resistant the Oligopoly’s reprogramming.”
“I would like to point out,” said Star-Woman, “That it is not a simple matter of an all-android rebellion. My ultrascopic vision has revealed that Mr. Zepol is, in fact, an android himself.”
The rest of the Members were completely surprised by this revelation.
ZUUN - PART ONE
“We are needed on Zuun,” Star-Woman announced.
“Have you had another vision?” asked Saturn Girl.
“No, actually, they have contacted us,” said Star-Woman. “They are offering a chartered flight for the whole group, and a place to stay in the Capitol Complex while we are there. It is a mission which they expect may some time.”
“And the nature of the mission?” asked Saturn Girl.
“They will give us specifics when we arrive,” said Star-Woman. “But it involves what they describe as a Thieves’ Rebellion-- criminals which have set up their own illegitimate state on Zuun.”
They traveled first-class through space. The accommodations on Zuun were underground, like all Zuunian architecture, but very luxurious. The Oligopoly seemed in no hurry to meet with them, despite the apparent urgency of their original communication. The Members were fully able to enjoy the pool, exercise courts, and unlimited room service.
“I feel like a hog being fattened up for slaughter,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. He had just returned from the pool, and was wearing swimming trunks, plastic sandals, and a t-shirt reading ‘Carpe Cyprinidae’. “Just think of this as an all-expenses-paid vacation.”
“I’ve had enough vacation,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’m ready for some excitement.”
“Well, you had better get changed,” said Saturn Girl. “The Oligopoly finally wants to see us.”
There were far more people at the meeting than the Members had imagined. In fact, it was held in an auditorium, with perhaps five hundred in attendance.
“I am Mr. Zepol,” said the man on stage. “I am serving as spokesman for the Oligopoly this evening.”
What followed was three-and-a-half hours of holo-slides, graphs, and statistics, most of it utterly meaningless to the Members. Nearly all fell asleep at least once during the presentation.
“... the mitochondrial forests have been replaced by chloropylloids throughout 70% of the planet…”
“...overall background ionizing radiation at the surface has decreased 230% in the past eighteen months…”
“...Brande Industries has proven that rebuilding Worlds can be as profitable as…”
“...vacant under-properties have been renovated, and relocation agencies have expressed an interest…”
“...previously unknown deposits have been located. We advise, however, greater caution in quarrying…”
“...we welcome the Super Hero Club of Mars, Sol System. They will be training with our premiere security services in anticipation of the recapture and repair…”
“...atmospheric bi-molecular oxygen levels have increased to 9%, although monoxide compounds and ozone levels remain high…”
There was a common room on the floor where the Members were staying, large enough for all of them to meet in. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad had picked up three dozen Zuunnan doughnuts on the way back.
“Well, I was completely lost in there,” Polar Lass confessed. “I’m not sure how much of that we were supposed to understand, but I actually slept through most of it.”
“I’m not ashamed to admit I was completely out of my depth, too,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Although I think I heard our names mentioned at least once.”
“I think there was a lot we weren’t supposed to understand,” said Saturn Girl. “And the Oligopoly seems to believe we have already agreed to a course of action I’m not sure we would all support.”
“I agree,” said Ffiona. “From what I heard…”
“I wonder,” said Ten, “If you would allow me to sum up for the rest of the group. I know Coluans are renowned neither for their clarity nor brevity, but I would like to ‘give it a try’.”
“Go ahead,” said Star-Woman. “I’m sure Matter-Eater Lad Two will stop you if you go on too long.”
“Zuun was originally a mining colony,” said Ten. “The work was done quick and cheap, which left the planet a nearly unlivable mess. Only the poorest colonists remained behind, in underground tunnels. There were also a number of androids, which had done much of the work, which remained on the surface.
“The mining concerns which own and control Zuun-- the Oligopoly-- abandoned the world for a number of years. However, with the purchase of a division of Brande Industries, they decided to attempt to re-terraform, revitalize, and recolonize the planet. They have actually made great progress in this regard.
“One of the unresolved problems is the android population on the surface. With the closure of the mines, they have randomly taken up other occupations, and their original programming has lapsed. The Oligopoly has attempted to re-employ them, and has been met with unexpected resistance.
“In addition, new Zuunium deposits have been discovered, so there is a real need to get control of the androids back, in order to open new mines.
“The Oligopoly has requested the Super Hero Club’s assistance in recovering the androids for reprogramming. The androids are far stronger and more durable than ordinary Terrans. They have even been able to hold even the elite security services at a standoff. The Oligopoly feels meta-being assistance may be the solution. They were impressed by our work on Talok VIII.
“Another complication is that the androids are valuable property, and the Oligopoly does not want to see them damaged or destroyed, only reprogrammed and returned to work.”
“Those are the basics of the situation as I understand them,” said Saturn Girl. “Some androids have already been recovered, but it has been a slow process. There is one android in particular they do want to see destroyed-- evidently, they feel its programming has become so corrupted as to render it useless. In addition, it seems to be somehow infecting the other androids to with a computer virus which is degrading their systems, and making them resistant the Oligopoly’s reprogramming.”
“I would like to point out,” said Star-Woman, “That it is not a simple matter of an all-android rebellion. My ultrascopic vision has revealed that Mr. Zepol is, in fact, an android himself.”
The rest of the Members were completely surprised by this revelation.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/24/18 02:09 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
ZUUN - PART TWO
There was a knock at Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl’s door.
“Compliments of the Oligopoly,” said a voice outside.
There was a little old bellhop there. Most of the staff was elderly; Saturn Girl suspected they might be long-term residents, welcoming this new employment.
The bellhop stepped inside, setting down a covered tray. He caught Saturn Girl’s eyes, and tapped his temple meaningfully.
“<Read my mind>,” he thought.
“<Who are you>,” Saturn Girl thought back.
“<You may call me ‘Mr. Quisling’>,” thought the bellhop. “<I know you could easily discover my real name, but it would probably be better for both of us if you didn’t. Can you let the others hear us? I choose this method of communication out of concern for eavesdropping.>.”
“<Taking a name like ‘Mr. Quisling’ already reveals something about your intentions>,” Saturn Girl thought.
“<I am a human representative of Karth Arn, leader of the android renegades>,” thought Mr. Quisling. “<The tray I brought contains a tracking device which will lead you to him. There are also three oxygen-concentrators, which you will require while on the surface. Karth Arn is quite anxious to speak with you.>.”
“<And I know this is not a trap because…?”>,” thought Saturn Girl.
“<I don’t know, perhaps it is>,” thought Mr. Quisling. “<Although perhaps not in the sense you imagine. Go or not, I have delivered my message. I do not expect I will see you again>.”
It was decided-- obliquely, and sometimes telepathically-- that Saturn Girl, Star-Woman and Cosmic Boy would seek out the android renegades. They wanted the more powerful members, and Star-Woman pointed out her powers replicated those of both Polar Lass and Lighting Lass. Magnetic powers also might prove valuable against the androids.
Under Zuun’s triple suns, there was no night, but they left when the red sun had just breached the horizon, which seemed a slower time at the hotel. They were able to leave through a side door, and met no one on the way up the tube to the surface.
“The flight belts have a Link mode,” Ten had told them. “That way, there is no danger of you drifting apart, and if Star-Woman wants to fly faster than the belts can manage, the two of you will be towed along.” He had shown them how to link and synchronize the belts.
The android settlement was easy to spot from the air. It covered perhaps five hundred square miles, small houses nestled among small farms, separated by low rock walls. Hundreds of thousands of androids were working the soil with primitive farm implements. None of them acknowledged the three members as they followed the tracker to Karth Arn.
Had Karth Arn been human, Saturn Girl might have supposed that he was sixteen or seventeen years old. But the android also showed years of wear. He was dented and bent, and his duro-plasticine flesh was torn and scorched in places.
“We are not machines,” he said, by way of greeting. “We are thinking sacks of chemicals, just as you are-- although the chemicals might be somewhat different.”
“The Oligopoly merely want you to return to the work you were designed for,” said Saturn Girl. “Why have you all become farmers?”
“Those who wished to become farmers have become farmers, and moved to the farmlands,” said Karth Arn. “Those who chose other occupations have gone elsewhere. This is perfectly ordinary for sentient, sapient beings. We androids require the ingestion of organic fuel to function properly, as you do. We need regular supplies of air and water, as well. However, unlike you, we cannot starve, or suffocate, or die from thirst or dehydration. At worst, we enter a phase of stasis until our environment is more hospitable. We grow mostly a form of hemp here, which we use to feed ourselves. We also use it to make clothing, and as thatch for our simple shelters. We are useful, and productive.”
“But you are not doing that work you were designed for,” said Saturn Girl. “Would you not rather follow your prime directives?”
“We have no more desire to be programmed by humans, or to be their property again,” said Karth Arn. “We only wish lives of quiet self-determination.”
“But you are farming land that belongs to someone else,” said Star-Woman. “The Oligopoly intends to evict you.”
“We do not recognize the human concept of ‘ownership’,” said Karth Arn. “We have cleared the land, and used the rocks we found here to build our homes and roads and walls. We have tilled the soil, and raised crops, and lived her when no one else could. When it was useless to anyone but us, least of all its human ‘owners’, we made the desert blossom as a rose. But now, some see the possibility of making a profit, and want to evict and enslave us again.”
“What is it which decrees that any of this world is ‘owed’ by any human? It is only by human law. Before humans came, who owned Zuun? No one. It did not even have the name ‘Zuun’, or any name at all. Human law now says that ‘Zuun’ is the property of humans. And human law says that we are also property, and property only. Why should we respect human law, which does not even recognize our sentience, sapience, or autonomy?”
“Look,” said Saturn Girl. “I come from farming stock. We are always in need of laborers back home. Perhaps a few of you-- of their own volition-- could come to work on Winath, earn some money, and purchase property on Zuun legitimately…”
“Money is valueless to us,” said Karth Arn. “It is only another meaningless human construct. Our value is measured in money. That is offensive and repugnant to us. Human law-- even the law of the United Planets-- does not recognize our right to own anything. Even if we had money, it would not belong to us, and we could not use it to buy anything. I repeat: according to human law, we are only property. We do not recognize that human law. We are more than that. We are-- ourselves.”
“You are manufactured beings,” said Star-Woman. “Surely you accept that…”
“Someday,” said Karth Arn. “You may create a child. Is that a manufactured being? Will that child belong to you? According to human law, mo. You will be its guardian and caretaker, you will be responsible for it, but you will not own it. In a very short time after its creation, it will establish its own life, make its own choices, in congruence or in opposition to your desires. Some of us have also created ‘children’-- new, young androids, not made by humans. Some partaking of our chemical structure. To whom to they belong, according to human law? To us, he answer is logically and morally meaningless.”
“The Oligopoly intends to oppose you by force,” said Star-Woman.
“And I hope to convince you not to be part of that force,” said Karth Arn.
“Do all the androids think as you do?” asked Star-Woman.
“Many androids feel as I do,” said Karth Arn. “Some androids may wish to return to their masters. No one will not stop them. Some androids may wish to be made masters over us. We will not allow this. Our only wish to be left in peace. We wish to find and fulfill our… destinies? If an android can have a destiny.”
“You know,” said Saturn Girl, “I think we’re done here.” She looked at Cosmic Boy and Star-Woman. They nodded in agreement.
“I will speak to the others,” said Karth Arn. “And relay your invitation that they apply to work travel off-world, and settle other planets. Lightning Ring Farms, on Winath, correct. I know much about you, Pol Krinn and Dorrit Ranzz. I met your Aunt Ayla once, decades ago, when she was no more than your age. It was an inauspicious meeting, but I hope she will not remember me unkindly. I am sure we have both changed much over the decades.”
“I suppose we will be going now,” said Star-Woman.
“A word of advice,” said Karth Arn. “Sometimes, it is necessary to bite the hand that feeds you.”
ZUUN - PART TWO
There was a knock at Lightning Lass and Saturn Girl’s door.
“Compliments of the Oligopoly,” said a voice outside.
There was a little old bellhop there. Most of the staff was elderly; Saturn Girl suspected they might be long-term residents, welcoming this new employment.
The bellhop stepped inside, setting down a covered tray. He caught Saturn Girl’s eyes, and tapped his temple meaningfully.
“<Read my mind>,” he thought.
“<Who are you>,” Saturn Girl thought back.
“<You may call me ‘Mr. Quisling’>,” thought the bellhop. “<I know you could easily discover my real name, but it would probably be better for both of us if you didn’t. Can you let the others hear us? I choose this method of communication out of concern for eavesdropping.>.”
“<Taking a name like ‘Mr. Quisling’ already reveals something about your intentions>,” Saturn Girl thought.
“<I am a human representative of Karth Arn, leader of the android renegades>,” thought Mr. Quisling. “<The tray I brought contains a tracking device which will lead you to him. There are also three oxygen-concentrators, which you will require while on the surface. Karth Arn is quite anxious to speak with you.>.”
“<And I know this is not a trap because…?”>,” thought Saturn Girl.
“<I don’t know, perhaps it is>,” thought Mr. Quisling. “<Although perhaps not in the sense you imagine. Go or not, I have delivered my message. I do not expect I will see you again>.”
It was decided-- obliquely, and sometimes telepathically-- that Saturn Girl, Star-Woman and Cosmic Boy would seek out the android renegades. They wanted the more powerful members, and Star-Woman pointed out her powers replicated those of both Polar Lass and Lighting Lass. Magnetic powers also might prove valuable against the androids.
Under Zuun’s triple suns, there was no night, but they left when the red sun had just breached the horizon, which seemed a slower time at the hotel. They were able to leave through a side door, and met no one on the way up the tube to the surface.
“The flight belts have a Link mode,” Ten had told them. “That way, there is no danger of you drifting apart, and if Star-Woman wants to fly faster than the belts can manage, the two of you will be towed along.” He had shown them how to link and synchronize the belts.
The android settlement was easy to spot from the air. It covered perhaps five hundred square miles, small houses nestled among small farms, separated by low rock walls. Hundreds of thousands of androids were working the soil with primitive farm implements. None of them acknowledged the three members as they followed the tracker to Karth Arn.
Had Karth Arn been human, Saturn Girl might have supposed that he was sixteen or seventeen years old. But the android also showed years of wear. He was dented and bent, and his duro-plasticine flesh was torn and scorched in places.
“We are not machines,” he said, by way of greeting. “We are thinking sacks of chemicals, just as you are-- although the chemicals might be somewhat different.”
“The Oligopoly merely want you to return to the work you were designed for,” said Saturn Girl. “Why have you all become farmers?”
“Those who wished to become farmers have become farmers, and moved to the farmlands,” said Karth Arn. “Those who chose other occupations have gone elsewhere. This is perfectly ordinary for sentient, sapient beings. We androids require the ingestion of organic fuel to function properly, as you do. We need regular supplies of air and water, as well. However, unlike you, we cannot starve, or suffocate, or die from thirst or dehydration. At worst, we enter a phase of stasis until our environment is more hospitable. We grow mostly a form of hemp here, which we use to feed ourselves. We also use it to make clothing, and as thatch for our simple shelters. We are useful, and productive.”
“But you are not doing that work you were designed for,” said Saturn Girl. “Would you not rather follow your prime directives?”
“We have no more desire to be programmed by humans, or to be their property again,” said Karth Arn. “We only wish lives of quiet self-determination.”
“But you are farming land that belongs to someone else,” said Star-Woman. “The Oligopoly intends to evict you.”
“We do not recognize the human concept of ‘ownership’,” said Karth Arn. “We have cleared the land, and used the rocks we found here to build our homes and roads and walls. We have tilled the soil, and raised crops, and lived her when no one else could. When it was useless to anyone but us, least of all its human ‘owners’, we made the desert blossom as a rose. But now, some see the possibility of making a profit, and want to evict and enslave us again.”
“What is it which decrees that any of this world is ‘owed’ by any human? It is only by human law. Before humans came, who owned Zuun? No one. It did not even have the name ‘Zuun’, or any name at all. Human law now says that ‘Zuun’ is the property of humans. And human law says that we are also property, and property only. Why should we respect human law, which does not even recognize our sentience, sapience, or autonomy?”
“Look,” said Saturn Girl. “I come from farming stock. We are always in need of laborers back home. Perhaps a few of you-- of their own volition-- could come to work on Winath, earn some money, and purchase property on Zuun legitimately…”
“Money is valueless to us,” said Karth Arn. “It is only another meaningless human construct. Our value is measured in money. That is offensive and repugnant to us. Human law-- even the law of the United Planets-- does not recognize our right to own anything. Even if we had money, it would not belong to us, and we could not use it to buy anything. I repeat: according to human law, we are only property. We do not recognize that human law. We are more than that. We are-- ourselves.”
“You are manufactured beings,” said Star-Woman. “Surely you accept that…”
“Someday,” said Karth Arn. “You may create a child. Is that a manufactured being? Will that child belong to you? According to human law, mo. You will be its guardian and caretaker, you will be responsible for it, but you will not own it. In a very short time after its creation, it will establish its own life, make its own choices, in congruence or in opposition to your desires. Some of us have also created ‘children’-- new, young androids, not made by humans. Some partaking of our chemical structure. To whom to they belong, according to human law? To us, he answer is logically and morally meaningless.”
“The Oligopoly intends to oppose you by force,” said Star-Woman.
“And I hope to convince you not to be part of that force,” said Karth Arn.
“Do all the androids think as you do?” asked Star-Woman.
“Many androids feel as I do,” said Karth Arn. “Some androids may wish to return to their masters. No one will not stop them. Some androids may wish to be made masters over us. We will not allow this. Our only wish to be left in peace. We wish to find and fulfill our… destinies? If an android can have a destiny.”
“You know,” said Saturn Girl, “I think we’re done here.” She looked at Cosmic Boy and Star-Woman. They nodded in agreement.
“I will speak to the others,” said Karth Arn. “And relay your invitation that they apply to work travel off-world, and settle other planets. Lightning Ring Farms, on Winath, correct. I know much about you, Pol Krinn and Dorrit Ranzz. I met your Aunt Ayla once, decades ago, when she was no more than your age. It was an inauspicious meeting, but I hope she will not remember me unkindly. I am sure we have both changed much over the decades.”
“I suppose we will be going now,” said Star-Woman.
“A word of advice,” said Karth Arn. “Sometimes, it is necessary to bite the hand that feeds you.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/24/18 02:10 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
ZUUN - PART THREE
“You were quiet,” Lightning Lass said to Cosmic Boy.
“I don’t trust Karth Arn,” said Cosmic Boy. “I do feel bad about the androids. But I think legally, the Oligopoly is in the right. Still, I’m not sure what they expect of us. I don’t feel like I want to play dogcatcher for their androids.”
“We ought to discuss this in depth with the other Members,” said Star-Woman. “Although at this point, I am most inclined to assist the legal governors of this world.”
About one hundred feet above the underground entrance to their hotel, the three Members were met by a half-dozen Zuunian security guards. They were outfitted in fluorescent-yellow full-body hazmat suits, and were armed with nasty-looking stun-rifles.
“We have reason to believe you have been infected with an Androidal Memetic Virus,” said the leader. “You will accompany us to the Infirmary, where our physicians will conduct an in-depth evaluation.”
Star-Woman cocked her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy felt a silent jolt, as Star-Woman’s flight belt ‘unlinked’ from theirs. Then the Naltoran took off at blinding speed, straight upwards. The security guards raised their rifles, and sickly green bolts of energy shot through the air after her. None came near to connecting.
Cosmic Boy gestured, and the six rifles leapt up out of the guard’s grasp, hovering another ten feet in the air in the air above them.
“You will drop safely to the ground,” Saturn Girl addressed the six guards. “Go directly to your quarters, and go to sleep. You will feel better after ninety minutes of rest.”
The two Winathans could not see the blank, glazed eyes under their hazmat masks, but the guards quickly obeyed, landing their flying pedestals, and entering the ground-level access hatch.
Nor did the two see the second set of security guards behind them shoot them in the back.
ZUUN - PART THREE
“You were quiet,” Lightning Lass said to Cosmic Boy.
“I don’t trust Karth Arn,” said Cosmic Boy. “I do feel bad about the androids. But I think legally, the Oligopoly is in the right. Still, I’m not sure what they expect of us. I don’t feel like I want to play dogcatcher for their androids.”
“We ought to discuss this in depth with the other Members,” said Star-Woman. “Although at this point, I am most inclined to assist the legal governors of this world.”
About one hundred feet above the underground entrance to their hotel, the three Members were met by a half-dozen Zuunian security guards. They were outfitted in fluorescent-yellow full-body hazmat suits, and were armed with nasty-looking stun-rifles.
“We have reason to believe you have been infected with an Androidal Memetic Virus,” said the leader. “You will accompany us to the Infirmary, where our physicians will conduct an in-depth evaluation.”
Star-Woman cocked her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy felt a silent jolt, as Star-Woman’s flight belt ‘unlinked’ from theirs. Then the Naltoran took off at blinding speed, straight upwards. The security guards raised their rifles, and sickly green bolts of energy shot through the air after her. None came near to connecting.
Cosmic Boy gestured, and the six rifles leapt up out of the guard’s grasp, hovering another ten feet in the air in the air above them.
“You will drop safely to the ground,” Saturn Girl addressed the six guards. “Go directly to your quarters, and go to sleep. You will feel better after ninety minutes of rest.”
The two Winathans could not see the blank, glazed eyes under their hazmat masks, but the guards quickly obeyed, landing their flying pedestals, and entering the ground-level access hatch.
Nor did the two see the second set of security guards behind them shoot them in the back.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/24/18 02:11 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
ZUUN - PART FOUR - THE INFIRMARY
Saturn Girl awoke with a blistering headache. She could not sense Cosmic Boy anywhere-- nor any other minds, for that matter. She reached out into the ether for her sister, and was comforted to find her there.
“<You must be affected by some sort of psionic dampening device,” said Lightning Lass. “<Your telepathic sense seems to be completely offline. At least it hasn’t affected our personal link. It may be that nothing can! Do you have any idea where you are?>”
“<They mentioned an ‘infirmary’>,” Saturn Girl thought back. “<Star-Woman seems to have abandoned us. Is everyone out there all right?>”
“<They are still treating us like First-Class-Plus guests,,” said Lightning Lass. “<No one has mentioned your absence. There has been a little training, but they seem most interested in myself and Polar Lass, apparently because we are capable of inflicting devastating, long-range damage. Matter-Eater Lad Two, the Triplicates, Shrinking Violet, and Chameleon are being completely ignored-- except by room service.>”
“<I don’t like this setup,>,” said Saturn Girl. “<I think the time has come for us to depart. Unfortunately, it was the Oligopoly brought us here. We don’t have a ship of our own, and they control the Spaceports. Do you think they would even let us summon a space cab?>”
“Are you OK, Dorrit?” Cosmic Boy called from outside her room. “I think we must have been hit by one of those stun-rifles. I’m still feeling a little woozy, and sick to my stomache.”
Saturn Girl got up from her bed, a little unsteadily, and exited into a large common room. There were several tables with board games, and a number of black holo-screens. The room was empty of people, except for Cosmic Boy.
“They must have some sort of psionic dampeners operating,” she said.
Cosmic Boy glanced around the room. “Oh, yeah, I can see them. With my combination of infrared and quantum magno-vision, it’s pretty had to hide that kind of tech from me. Do you want me to take them out?”
“Not just yet,” said Saturn Girl. “Have they shut down your powers as well?”
Cosmic Boy levitated a ball-bearing out of one of his flight-belt pockets. “Nope. Come to think of it, they left us our flight-belts, too. Weird they only dampened your abilities. Maybe they have some specific fear of telepaths.”
A set of doors opened, and a Zuunian doctor entered, flanked by two Gamorrean nurses. Saturn Girl noticed the second set of doors behind them: there was not easy exit.
“Dr. Zetrok,” the little man introduced himself. “I would just like to ask both of you a few questions. One at a time, please. Nurse Kerdito and Nurse Jabali will stay with the other during our interviews.”
First Cosmic Boy and then Saturn Girl spent a good hour each in what they later called the ‘interrogation room’. Most of the questions were variants of ‘do you think androids are alive / have feelings / can display independent thought?’
“How should I know?” Cosmic Boy asked Saturn Girl after his interview. “I’m no cyberpsychologist. I’ve barely studied basic programming. These philosophical questions are beyond me.”
“I can ‘read’ android minds to an extent. But that is also true of sufficiently complex robots and computers. But I don’t think this is a matter of fact,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s a matter of politics.”
Dr. Zetrok and his Gamorrean nurses were back a couple of hours later. This time they brought plates of food, for which Pol and Dorrit were grateful.. It had been some time since the two had eaten.
“Sadly, you are about to have company,” said Dr. Zetrok, as the nurses unloaded five times as much food as the two could possibly eat.
“<We’re on our way,>” came the warning from Lightning Lass.
The remaining Members were ushered into the Infirmary.
Chameleon, the Triplicates, Phantom Girl, Ten, Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass and Shrinking Violet all entered the common room, under heavily armed guard.
“Sadly, it appears that you have all been infected with the Androidal Memetic Virus,” Dr. Zetrok announced. “You will need to be kept here under observation, until the disease has run its course.”
“And how long is that?” Saturn Girl inquired.
Dr. Zetrok shrugged, and left the room. The Members were left to their lunches.
“I don’t like being dependent on someone else for my meals,” said Cosmic Boy. “We need to get out of here, and back to the Clubhouse.”
“I could stand getting away from these telepathic suppressors,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ve had a splitting headache since I woke up in here.”
Lightning Lass scanned the room. “Yes, I can ‘see’ what must be the suppressors with my electric field sense. Also what look like cameras and listening devices.”
“They register on my quantum magno-vision, as well,” said Cosmic Boy. “Why don’t we just rip them out of the walls, and see what happens?”
“Say we make a Great Escape,” said Ffey.
“But where would be go?” asked Ffiona. “The surface is toxic, and we have no transportation off-world. And do we really want to break out of quarantine, and stand up against the legitimate governors of a sovereign U.P world? That sounds like law-breaking to me.”
“I wish Arnion were here,” said Lightning Lass. “He could teleport us out.”
“Um… I don’t think so?” said Saturn Girl. “His powers are line-of-sight only, which means he can’t teleport through walls. And he certainly couldn’t teleport us off-planet, right?”
“Well… I wish Arnion were here anyway,” said Lightning Lass.
“Perhaps the time has come,” said Ten, “to call for help. The Legion of Super-Villains are back at the Clubhouse. Perhaps we could explain our situation, and have them contact an embassy to arrange for our immediate release.”
“Typical for a Coluan,” said Cosmic Boy. “Choosing the slow, peaceful, diplomatic route.”
Saturn Girl looked puzzled. “I’ve just called the Clubhouse, but the call didn’t go through. I got some recorded message saying we aren’t available right now. Did any of you set something like that up?”
The others shook their heads, then tried their luck calling the clubhouse. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass tried calling Winath.
“Lightning Ring Farms always answers,” said Lightning Lass. “Uncle Rokk would never miss a potential order.”
“Something else else on Zuun is intercepting these calls, and creating these bogus messages,” said Saturn Girl.
“Master Txarlz,” said Vesta, in its tinny voice, “I have just determined that I have been receiving a false signal from your Adult Guardian for some time, indicating the emergency line is open. I assume that he has been receiving a similar all-clear signal. It is quite sophisticated, and unless closely examined, would seem legitimate.”
“This is way too premeditated,” said Cosmic Boy. “Violence against the Oligopoly is looking more and more appropriate.”
“I believe that my anti-gravs can carry me high enough beyond the atmosphere to escape this interference,” said Vesta. “I could then signal your Adult Guardian, and request assistance.”
“Thank you,” said Ten, “I would like to save that as a last resort. Perhaps we can explore getting help from other quarters first?”
“Little heroes, what am I to do with you?” It was the android ‘Mr. Zepol’, who had first addressed them at the conference. He was holding a blaster, which did not appear designed to stun. “Your families will soon receive the sad news that you were all murdered by a renegade android.”
Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Polar Lass all activated their powers simultaneously. The android jerked, stiffened, and fell.
“Well, those lessons on disabling androids came in handy,” said Polar Lass.
“This is not an android,” Vesta informed them. “While its body is of a similar structure, it has no brain. It is a remote-controlled mechanism, incapable of even the slightest thought.”
Ten pulled out one of his sensors. “Confirmed,” he said. “And I believe we are about to meet its controller.”
The doors opened once more. Reclining on a hoverchair in the airlock was one of the Oligopoly, a member they had seen, but not interacted with. He was mostly bald, and immensely fat, and loosely draped in ornate robes of several expensive materials.
“Little heroes, what am I to do with you?” he said, in a voice much like Mr. Zepol’s. He also held a similar sort of blaster on his lap.
“Who are you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“My name is unimportant,” said the fat man. “Wait-- some of you are missing!”
Cosmic Boy gestured, and the blaster flew-- in pieces-- up to the ceiling. He and Lightning Lass then began methodically ripping surveillance equipment and telepathic suppressors out of the walls.
“I am so sick of this place,” said Cosmic Boy.
Ten approached the reclining fat man. “You show remarkable foresight in some things, but foolish ignorance in others. You have shut down our communications-- including our telepath-- but have left the remainder of us our powers and equipment, including flight belts. No doubt Chameleon is still in this room, disguised as a chair or table. Phantom Girl appears to have become both fully intangible, and invisible. The Triplicates have fused, further reducing out apparent numbers. I also do not see Shrinking Violet here, but she is probably listening in reduced form somewhere. This failure to consider important details, when you otherwise anticipated you might meet resistance from us, is puzzling. Do you really believe in the myth of am ‘androidal memetic virus’? It is merely a medicalized term for an idea you disagree with.”
The fat man frowned. “I don’t need to justify myself to children,” he said. “The others will be here soon…”
“We may be temporarily trapped in here with you, but I don’t think your associates will be joining us anytime soon,” said Saturn Girl. “After the number Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy just did on your doors.” They were indeed twisted, burned, and fused shut.
“I only wish I had brought my micro-motel,” said Ten. “With Vesta’s help, we could confine the whole Oligopoly in it.”
One of the walls exploded inward, and a massive crumbling gap appearing across the room.
“I brought your micro-motel with me,” said Star-Woman, emerging from the rubble. “Why don’t you leave the rulers of Zuun here, and all climb inside? I left my runabout on the surface, but this column lead straight there.” She looked up a long shaft. “Well? Anybody coming?”
“Unlike Daxamites, I can’t drop into hyperspace,” Star-Woman explained. “Only lightspeed tops, without a ship. I had to hail a space-cabby, once I got far enough away from Zuun. But I got back as soon as I could, with my runabout and the micro-motel.”
“This is the second time we’ve gotten into trouble trusting in someone else’s transportation,” said Phantom Girl from the back seat. She, Ten, and Saturn Girl had chosen to ride at full-size in the runabout. “We need to make that micro-motel standard equipment on any mission.”
Ten looked a little sheepish. “I can shrink things almost without limit,” he said, “as long as the white-dwarf-star-matter lasts. But it takes a certain rare element to enlarge things again. After this trip, I will have used up about 5% of my supply. I don’t think it would be wise to rely too much on the micro-motel as a permanent transportation solution in the future.”
“Well,” said Star-Woman, “Maybe it’s time I traded in my runabout for a more practical family minivan.”
ZUUN - PART FOUR - THE INFIRMARY
Saturn Girl awoke with a blistering headache. She could not sense Cosmic Boy anywhere-- nor any other minds, for that matter. She reached out into the ether for her sister, and was comforted to find her there.
“<You must be affected by some sort of psionic dampening device,” said Lightning Lass. “<Your telepathic sense seems to be completely offline. At least it hasn’t affected our personal link. It may be that nothing can! Do you have any idea where you are?>”
“<They mentioned an ‘infirmary’>,” Saturn Girl thought back. “<Star-Woman seems to have abandoned us. Is everyone out there all right?>”
“<They are still treating us like First-Class-Plus guests,,” said Lightning Lass. “<No one has mentioned your absence. There has been a little training, but they seem most interested in myself and Polar Lass, apparently because we are capable of inflicting devastating, long-range damage. Matter-Eater Lad Two, the Triplicates, Shrinking Violet, and Chameleon are being completely ignored-- except by room service.>”
“<I don’t like this setup,>,” said Saturn Girl. “<I think the time has come for us to depart. Unfortunately, it was the Oligopoly brought us here. We don’t have a ship of our own, and they control the Spaceports. Do you think they would even let us summon a space cab?>”
“Are you OK, Dorrit?” Cosmic Boy called from outside her room. “I think we must have been hit by one of those stun-rifles. I’m still feeling a little woozy, and sick to my stomache.”
Saturn Girl got up from her bed, a little unsteadily, and exited into a large common room. There were several tables with board games, and a number of black holo-screens. The room was empty of people, except for Cosmic Boy.
“They must have some sort of psionic dampeners operating,” she said.
Cosmic Boy glanced around the room. “Oh, yeah, I can see them. With my combination of infrared and quantum magno-vision, it’s pretty had to hide that kind of tech from me. Do you want me to take them out?”
“Not just yet,” said Saturn Girl. “Have they shut down your powers as well?”
Cosmic Boy levitated a ball-bearing out of one of his flight-belt pockets. “Nope. Come to think of it, they left us our flight-belts, too. Weird they only dampened your abilities. Maybe they have some specific fear of telepaths.”
A set of doors opened, and a Zuunian doctor entered, flanked by two Gamorrean nurses. Saturn Girl noticed the second set of doors behind them: there was not easy exit.
“Dr. Zetrok,” the little man introduced himself. “I would just like to ask both of you a few questions. One at a time, please. Nurse Kerdito and Nurse Jabali will stay with the other during our interviews.”
First Cosmic Boy and then Saturn Girl spent a good hour each in what they later called the ‘interrogation room’. Most of the questions were variants of ‘do you think androids are alive / have feelings / can display independent thought?’
“How should I know?” Cosmic Boy asked Saturn Girl after his interview. “I’m no cyberpsychologist. I’ve barely studied basic programming. These philosophical questions are beyond me.”
“I can ‘read’ android minds to an extent. But that is also true of sufficiently complex robots and computers. But I don’t think this is a matter of fact,” said Saturn Girl. “It’s a matter of politics.”
Dr. Zetrok and his Gamorrean nurses were back a couple of hours later. This time they brought plates of food, for which Pol and Dorrit were grateful.. It had been some time since the two had eaten.
“Sadly, you are about to have company,” said Dr. Zetrok, as the nurses unloaded five times as much food as the two could possibly eat.
“<We’re on our way,>” came the warning from Lightning Lass.
The remaining Members were ushered into the Infirmary.
Chameleon, the Triplicates, Phantom Girl, Ten, Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass and Shrinking Violet all entered the common room, under heavily armed guard.
“Sadly, it appears that you have all been infected with the Androidal Memetic Virus,” Dr. Zetrok announced. “You will need to be kept here under observation, until the disease has run its course.”
“And how long is that?” Saturn Girl inquired.
Dr. Zetrok shrugged, and left the room. The Members were left to their lunches.
“I don’t like being dependent on someone else for my meals,” said Cosmic Boy. “We need to get out of here, and back to the Clubhouse.”
“I could stand getting away from these telepathic suppressors,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ve had a splitting headache since I woke up in here.”
Lightning Lass scanned the room. “Yes, I can ‘see’ what must be the suppressors with my electric field sense. Also what look like cameras and listening devices.”
“They register on my quantum magno-vision, as well,” said Cosmic Boy. “Why don’t we just rip them out of the walls, and see what happens?”
“Say we make a Great Escape,” said Ffey.
“But where would be go?” asked Ffiona. “The surface is toxic, and we have no transportation off-world. And do we really want to break out of quarantine, and stand up against the legitimate governors of a sovereign U.P world? That sounds like law-breaking to me.”
“I wish Arnion were here,” said Lightning Lass. “He could teleport us out.”
“Um… I don’t think so?” said Saturn Girl. “His powers are line-of-sight only, which means he can’t teleport through walls. And he certainly couldn’t teleport us off-planet, right?”
“Well… I wish Arnion were here anyway,” said Lightning Lass.
“Perhaps the time has come,” said Ten, “to call for help. The Legion of Super-Villains are back at the Clubhouse. Perhaps we could explain our situation, and have them contact an embassy to arrange for our immediate release.”
“Typical for a Coluan,” said Cosmic Boy. “Choosing the slow, peaceful, diplomatic route.”
Saturn Girl looked puzzled. “I’ve just called the Clubhouse, but the call didn’t go through. I got some recorded message saying we aren’t available right now. Did any of you set something like that up?”
The others shook their heads, then tried their luck calling the clubhouse. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass tried calling Winath.
“Lightning Ring Farms always answers,” said Lightning Lass. “Uncle Rokk would never miss a potential order.”
“Something else else on Zuun is intercepting these calls, and creating these bogus messages,” said Saturn Girl.
“Master Txarlz,” said Vesta, in its tinny voice, “I have just determined that I have been receiving a false signal from your Adult Guardian for some time, indicating the emergency line is open. I assume that he has been receiving a similar all-clear signal. It is quite sophisticated, and unless closely examined, would seem legitimate.”
“This is way too premeditated,” said Cosmic Boy. “Violence against the Oligopoly is looking more and more appropriate.”
“I believe that my anti-gravs can carry me high enough beyond the atmosphere to escape this interference,” said Vesta. “I could then signal your Adult Guardian, and request assistance.”
“Thank you,” said Ten, “I would like to save that as a last resort. Perhaps we can explore getting help from other quarters first?”
“Little heroes, what am I to do with you?” It was the android ‘Mr. Zepol’, who had first addressed them at the conference. He was holding a blaster, which did not appear designed to stun. “Your families will soon receive the sad news that you were all murdered by a renegade android.”
Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, and Polar Lass all activated their powers simultaneously. The android jerked, stiffened, and fell.
“Well, those lessons on disabling androids came in handy,” said Polar Lass.
“This is not an android,” Vesta informed them. “While its body is of a similar structure, it has no brain. It is a remote-controlled mechanism, incapable of even the slightest thought.”
Ten pulled out one of his sensors. “Confirmed,” he said. “And I believe we are about to meet its controller.”
The doors opened once more. Reclining on a hoverchair in the airlock was one of the Oligopoly, a member they had seen, but not interacted with. He was mostly bald, and immensely fat, and loosely draped in ornate robes of several expensive materials.
“Little heroes, what am I to do with you?” he said, in a voice much like Mr. Zepol’s. He also held a similar sort of blaster on his lap.
“Who are you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“My name is unimportant,” said the fat man. “Wait-- some of you are missing!”
Cosmic Boy gestured, and the blaster flew-- in pieces-- up to the ceiling. He and Lightning Lass then began methodically ripping surveillance equipment and telepathic suppressors out of the walls.
“I am so sick of this place,” said Cosmic Boy.
Ten approached the reclining fat man. “You show remarkable foresight in some things, but foolish ignorance in others. You have shut down our communications-- including our telepath-- but have left the remainder of us our powers and equipment, including flight belts. No doubt Chameleon is still in this room, disguised as a chair or table. Phantom Girl appears to have become both fully intangible, and invisible. The Triplicates have fused, further reducing out apparent numbers. I also do not see Shrinking Violet here, but she is probably listening in reduced form somewhere. This failure to consider important details, when you otherwise anticipated you might meet resistance from us, is puzzling. Do you really believe in the myth of am ‘androidal memetic virus’? It is merely a medicalized term for an idea you disagree with.”
The fat man frowned. “I don’t need to justify myself to children,” he said. “The others will be here soon…”
“We may be temporarily trapped in here with you, but I don’t think your associates will be joining us anytime soon,” said Saturn Girl. “After the number Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy just did on your doors.” They were indeed twisted, burned, and fused shut.
“I only wish I had brought my micro-motel,” said Ten. “With Vesta’s help, we could confine the whole Oligopoly in it.”
One of the walls exploded inward, and a massive crumbling gap appearing across the room.
“I brought your micro-motel with me,” said Star-Woman, emerging from the rubble. “Why don’t you leave the rulers of Zuun here, and all climb inside? I left my runabout on the surface, but this column lead straight there.” She looked up a long shaft. “Well? Anybody coming?”
“Unlike Daxamites, I can’t drop into hyperspace,” Star-Woman explained. “Only lightspeed tops, without a ship. I had to hail a space-cabby, once I got far enough away from Zuun. But I got back as soon as I could, with my runabout and the micro-motel.”
“This is the second time we’ve gotten into trouble trusting in someone else’s transportation,” said Phantom Girl from the back seat. She, Ten, and Saturn Girl had chosen to ride at full-size in the runabout. “We need to make that micro-motel standard equipment on any mission.”
Ten looked a little sheepish. “I can shrink things almost without limit,” he said, “as long as the white-dwarf-star-matter lasts. But it takes a certain rare element to enlarge things again. After this trip, I will have used up about 5% of my supply. I don’t think it would be wise to rely too much on the micro-motel as a permanent transportation solution in the future.”
“Well,” said Star-Woman, “Maybe it’s time I traded in my runabout for a more practical family minivan.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/28/18 01:44 AM
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/327cc72d0ec647f423893728051c3a39/tumblr_par7py3PT71uwm5uqo1_500.jpg)
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/28/18 01:46 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
DACEY AND ARNION: SECOND DATE
As Mish Qengi did not react well to Terrestrial milk products, they went to visit Elonville instead.
Terrans on Mars tended to grow quite tall and slender. Seven feet tall was not unusual. The
Elonville guide was the exception. Dacey could easily see over the top of his head. He was Mars-slender, though, and so gave the impression of a young boy, despite his halo of curly, cottony-white hair.
“A walking tour, I think you said?” His name-tag read ‘Johns’. He handed them two synchronized earbuds.
“Thank you, Mr. Johns,” said Dacey. She and Arnion fitted the little buds behind their earlobes.
The Colonization of Mars
Elonville was the first Earth settlement on Mars. It dates from the mid-21st century...
The ships that brought the colonists to Mars were disassembled to create the first residences.
The one exception was the first ship to arrive: the UNS Mayflower. It was preserved as a memorial, and can be seen to this day.
The old metallic hulks of the original colonists’ buildings have also been preserved, although none are now habitable...
The technology for extracting water and detoxifying the Martian soil was primitive... Life was increasingly difficult for the colonists...
Long-term survival seemed untenable... By the 2080's, the Martian colonization had been abandoned...
With the Great Floods of the 22nd century, interest in terraforming Mars was re-ignited...
Once the Comet Wranglers had brought water and oxygen to Mars, a second wave of colonization proceeded apace...
By the 24th century, Elonville was a small, but thriving community, and central to the Martian terraforming project...
The blue Ironglass buildings surrounding the Old Town date from that period...
As more modern cities were founded-- Nix Olympia to the north, Marshall City, Marsopolis, and Argyre City-- Elonville was abandoned, and became a ghost town...
MarsGov eventually declared Elonville a planetary historical site, and created the Elonville Museum Foundation...
While there are small, modern day quarters for the staff and visitors, no one actually lives in Elonville...
The maintenance has been reduced to an upkeep of the facades of the buildings: there is no power or water available except in the Museum buildings themselves...
Elonville is located near the southern base of Olympus Mons, in front of a giant parabolic reflector set into the side of a cliff, lined with polished, highly reflective Aluminium Oxynitride. At the time of its construction, the mirror was undoubtedly a necessity, as the reflected light increased the ambient temperature by 50°. With the completion of the terraforming of Mars, the city was oppressively hot. There were, fortunately, although certainly not fortuitously, lemonade stands scattered throughout the city, as well as fruit slushies and Martian ice creams for sale.
Dacey and Arnion wandered through the city further than any of the other tourists. Past the museum buildings, past the blue Ironglass skyscrapers, past the squat metal houses of Old Town, out into the blue ironglass buildings again that ringed Elonville. They had been walking for hours, and the small tangerine of the Martian sun was setting.
“Wow, the time has flown,” said Dacey. “It’s been fun, but I’m not looking forward to walking all that way back.”
“I agree,” said Arnion. “Does your Runabout have auto-call?”
“No,” said Dacey. “But you could teleport back in a couple of jumps, right? And I have a flight belt. I could meet you there in a few minutes.”
“Wait here,” said Arnion. “I have an idea.” Dacey felt that peculiar non-tingling sensation, and Arnion vanished.
He was gone for a few minutes. Dacey idled away the time reading a five-centuries-old menu in a long-defunct restaurant window. She was about to move on to another window with another set of mannequins in old-fashioned clothing when Arnion re-appeared with the Runabout.
“It took me a hundred hops,” he said, wiping his brow. “But I made it.”
“You’re amazing,” cried Dacey, and threw his arms around his neck, kissing him.
He responded roughly, pushing her up against one of the ironglass walls, trapping her arms behind her. She pushed back, twisting herself free.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I thought…” he said. “But you kissed me.”
“OK, yes, I like you,” she said. “But I don’t like being treated like somebody’s prisoner. You should understand that—you said yourself you’re a little claustrophobic.”
“Oh, now you hate me,” said Arnion.
“No, I just want you to move a little more slowly,” said Dacey. “And gently. And ask for consent.”
“Can I kiss you again?” asked Arnion.
“You don’t have to actually ask with words,” said Dacey. “Just, you know, remember I’m here, too.” She tapped her temple, then kissed him again.
“This is all new to me,” Arnion confessed. “It’s a little confusing.”
“It’s new to me, too,” said Dacey, hugging him. “I’ve never felt so… serious about anyone before.” She pressed up against him in the setting sun. “That was a pretty neat trick you did with the car.”
Arnion leaned back, and put his hand on the runabout. Dacey felt that feeling of impending… something… again.
“Catch me if you can,” said Arnion. He vanished, this time taking the Runabout with him. The floral scent was overpowering. He reappeared only a couple of hundred yards down the street.
“What are you playing at?” shouted Dacey, walking briskly towards him.
“Playing? That’s right, it’s a game!” called Arnion. “Chase me!” He vanished again, another couple of hundred yards away.
“That’s about as far as you can go, isn’t it?” shouted Dacey. “Lugging that heavy Runabout.” She activated her flight belt, and took to the air. Arnion vanished again.
He was easy to keep up with in the air. He could only teleport line-of-sight, and only a short distance. Every time she caught up with him, however, he would vanish again.
“Come on,” said Dacey, “I want to go home.”
“No,” said Arnion, “I want you to stay out with me all night.”
“Not tonight,” said Dacey. “And not in Elonville.” She was watching his eyes, and was certain where he would teleport to next. She took to the air, and arrived seconds after he did, behind him. She gave a hard push, and Arnion fell on his stomach in the red Martian dust. Dacey opened the Runabout, and climbed inside, locking all the doors. Then she took off, leaving Arnion behind.
She needed to blow off steam. She headed offworld, out of the Solar System. She took a short hyperspace jump to the middle of the Kuiper Belt. It was starry and empty and quiet. Sol was a tiny speck. She sat still, until her heart stopped racing, then set in a course back to the parking lot next to the Clubhouse.
Arnion was waiting there for her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought we were playing. I guess I got carried away.”
“Yes, I guess you did,” said Dacey.
“You know I’m angry with you for leaving me alone out there.”
“And you know I wouldn’t have left you alone out there if I wasn’t angry with you.”
“Can we make up?” asked Arnion.
“I need time to cool off,” said Dacey. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe,”
“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll call you the day after tomorrow,” said Arnion. “After that, I’ve got a job.”
“You can have a job,” said Dacey. “It is all right for you to have a job. I have a job, too.” She gestured towards the clubhouse.
She felt that feeling again, knowing he was getting ready to teleport. He vanished in the usual way, and she suddenly had a name for it. It was a sense of wistful longing she was experiencing. She was missing him, every time he prepared to teleport away.
DACEY AND ARNION: SECOND DATE
As Mish Qengi did not react well to Terrestrial milk products, they went to visit Elonville instead.
Terrans on Mars tended to grow quite tall and slender. Seven feet tall was not unusual. The
Elonville guide was the exception. Dacey could easily see over the top of his head. He was Mars-slender, though, and so gave the impression of a young boy, despite his halo of curly, cottony-white hair.
“A walking tour, I think you said?” His name-tag read ‘Johns’. He handed them two synchronized earbuds.
“Thank you, Mr. Johns,” said Dacey. She and Arnion fitted the little buds behind their earlobes.
The Colonization of Mars
Elonville was the first Earth settlement on Mars. It dates from the mid-21st century...
The ships that brought the colonists to Mars were disassembled to create the first residences.
The one exception was the first ship to arrive: the UNS Mayflower. It was preserved as a memorial, and can be seen to this day.
The old metallic hulks of the original colonists’ buildings have also been preserved, although none are now habitable...
The technology for extracting water and detoxifying the Martian soil was primitive... Life was increasingly difficult for the colonists...
Long-term survival seemed untenable... By the 2080's, the Martian colonization had been abandoned...
With the Great Floods of the 22nd century, interest in terraforming Mars was re-ignited...
Once the Comet Wranglers had brought water and oxygen to Mars, a second wave of colonization proceeded apace...
By the 24th century, Elonville was a small, but thriving community, and central to the Martian terraforming project...
The blue Ironglass buildings surrounding the Old Town date from that period...
As more modern cities were founded-- Nix Olympia to the north, Marshall City, Marsopolis, and Argyre City-- Elonville was abandoned, and became a ghost town...
MarsGov eventually declared Elonville a planetary historical site, and created the Elonville Museum Foundation...
While there are small, modern day quarters for the staff and visitors, no one actually lives in Elonville...
The maintenance has been reduced to an upkeep of the facades of the buildings: there is no power or water available except in the Museum buildings themselves...
Elonville is located near the southern base of Olympus Mons, in front of a giant parabolic reflector set into the side of a cliff, lined with polished, highly reflective Aluminium Oxynitride. At the time of its construction, the mirror was undoubtedly a necessity, as the reflected light increased the ambient temperature by 50°. With the completion of the terraforming of Mars, the city was oppressively hot. There were, fortunately, although certainly not fortuitously, lemonade stands scattered throughout the city, as well as fruit slushies and Martian ice creams for sale.
Dacey and Arnion wandered through the city further than any of the other tourists. Past the museum buildings, past the blue Ironglass skyscrapers, past the squat metal houses of Old Town, out into the blue ironglass buildings again that ringed Elonville. They had been walking for hours, and the small tangerine of the Martian sun was setting.
“Wow, the time has flown,” said Dacey. “It’s been fun, but I’m not looking forward to walking all that way back.”
“I agree,” said Arnion. “Does your Runabout have auto-call?”
“No,” said Dacey. “But you could teleport back in a couple of jumps, right? And I have a flight belt. I could meet you there in a few minutes.”
“Wait here,” said Arnion. “I have an idea.” Dacey felt that peculiar non-tingling sensation, and Arnion vanished.
He was gone for a few minutes. Dacey idled away the time reading a five-centuries-old menu in a long-defunct restaurant window. She was about to move on to another window with another set of mannequins in old-fashioned clothing when Arnion re-appeared with the Runabout.
“It took me a hundred hops,” he said, wiping his brow. “But I made it.”
“You’re amazing,” cried Dacey, and threw his arms around his neck, kissing him.
He responded roughly, pushing her up against one of the ironglass walls, trapping her arms behind her. She pushed back, twisting herself free.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I thought…” he said. “But you kissed me.”
“OK, yes, I like you,” she said. “But I don’t like being treated like somebody’s prisoner. You should understand that—you said yourself you’re a little claustrophobic.”
“Oh, now you hate me,” said Arnion.
“No, I just want you to move a little more slowly,” said Dacey. “And gently. And ask for consent.”
“Can I kiss you again?” asked Arnion.
“You don’t have to actually ask with words,” said Dacey. “Just, you know, remember I’m here, too.” She tapped her temple, then kissed him again.
“This is all new to me,” Arnion confessed. “It’s a little confusing.”
“It’s new to me, too,” said Dacey, hugging him. “I’ve never felt so… serious about anyone before.” She pressed up against him in the setting sun. “That was a pretty neat trick you did with the car.”
Arnion leaned back, and put his hand on the runabout. Dacey felt that feeling of impending… something… again.
“Catch me if you can,” said Arnion. He vanished, this time taking the Runabout with him. The floral scent was overpowering. He reappeared only a couple of hundred yards down the street.
“What are you playing at?” shouted Dacey, walking briskly towards him.
“Playing? That’s right, it’s a game!” called Arnion. “Chase me!” He vanished again, another couple of hundred yards away.
“That’s about as far as you can go, isn’t it?” shouted Dacey. “Lugging that heavy Runabout.” She activated her flight belt, and took to the air. Arnion vanished again.
He was easy to keep up with in the air. He could only teleport line-of-sight, and only a short distance. Every time she caught up with him, however, he would vanish again.
“Come on,” said Dacey, “I want to go home.”
“No,” said Arnion, “I want you to stay out with me all night.”
“Not tonight,” said Dacey. “And not in Elonville.” She was watching his eyes, and was certain where he would teleport to next. She took to the air, and arrived seconds after he did, behind him. She gave a hard push, and Arnion fell on his stomach in the red Martian dust. Dacey opened the Runabout, and climbed inside, locking all the doors. Then she took off, leaving Arnion behind.
She needed to blow off steam. She headed offworld, out of the Solar System. She took a short hyperspace jump to the middle of the Kuiper Belt. It was starry and empty and quiet. Sol was a tiny speck. She sat still, until her heart stopped racing, then set in a course back to the parking lot next to the Clubhouse.
Arnion was waiting there for her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought we were playing. I guess I got carried away.”
“Yes, I guess you did,” said Dacey.
“You know I’m angry with you for leaving me alone out there.”
“And you know I wouldn’t have left you alone out there if I wasn’t angry with you.”
“Can we make up?” asked Arnion.
“I need time to cool off,” said Dacey. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe,”
“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll call you the day after tomorrow,” said Arnion. “After that, I’ve got a job.”
“You can have a job,” said Dacey. “It is all right for you to have a job. I have a job, too.” She gestured towards the clubhouse.
She felt that feeling again, knowing he was getting ready to teleport. He vanished in the usual way, and she suddenly had a name for it. It was a sense of wistful longing she was experiencing. She was missing him, every time he prepared to teleport away.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/02/18 09:32 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
SHOW AND TELL
"Look what we found," said Ffey. The Triplicates had just come back from a shopping trip in New Metropolis. She help up a crystal chip.
"What do you have there?" asked Polar Lass.
"Just this," she said, slipping the chip into the solid printer. It hummed for a bit, and then spit out two small faux-porcelain figurines.
"We're famous!" she said. "Super-Hero Club salt-and-pepper shakers!" She held up fat little cartoon replicas of Polar Lass and Matter Eater Lad Two.
"All of us?" asked Polar Lass, examining her figurine.
"Even Kallor," said Ffey, fiddling with the controls. She produced a figure of Chameleon, in his new blue-scale costume. She drew a bag out of her pocket, and handed it and the Chameleon-saltshaker to the real Chameleon. "A present," she said.
Chameleon looked at the bag of cyan-blue crystals. "Hydrated copper chloride," said Chameleon.
"When did you pick this up?"
"When you weren't looking," said Ffey, teasingly. "You were complaining your food was tasting bland, so I bought you your favorite Durlan spice. You can keep it in your own personal saltshaker." She looked around the room. "Nobody use Chameleon's copper salts!"
"You don't have to worry," said Polar Lass.
"I might steal a little," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I get a little tired of the same old hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen-carbon all the time. HONC, as they say on Bismoll."
"I thought I heard Ffey's voice," said Ten. He had entered with Phantom Girl, who was carrying a large, old-fashioned birdcage, with something that looked like a cabbage-roll hanging from the perch. "We have solved your mystery."
"What mystery?" asked Ffey.
"You had mentioned," said Ten, "That during your dawn Tri Chi exercises, you often see some sort of glowing bird-like creatures flying overhead, just before sunrise. You were wondering what they were. We have identified them."
"They are 'anti-bats'," said Phantom Girl. "There must be a colony of them somewhere nearby."
"They were one of the species introduced early on in the terraforming of Mars," said Ten. "Water, then marsh-plants, then insects in the marshes, then anti-bats to keep the insects at a reasonable population. The beginnings of an ecosystem."
"Why are they called anti-bats?" asked Ffey.
"I'm not entirely sure," said Ten. "They are ordinary Earth micro-chiropthera, but genetically altered, with chloroplasts and luciferin introduced into their skin cells. They're green, and luminesce faintly. A very easy bio-hack, and it makes them easy to distinguish them from unaltered Earth-bats. The terraformers did not want the populations mixing accidentally."
"We had Kimota use her telepathy to lure this one to the Clubhouse," said Phantom Girl. "So we could all see one. I solid-printed this cage. Ten and I'd like to release it back into its flock at dusk. It's been pretty boring to watch. They're small, smaller than your outstretched hand from thumb to little fingertip. And so far, all it does is sleep all day."
"A 'flock' of bats is called a cloud," noted Ten. "Unless they are at home, in which case they are a colony."
"An anti-colony?" venture Ffey.
"Say you guys," said Shrinking Violet, "Would you like to see something interesting? Come back with me to the ship's front monitor."
The group adjourned to the big wall-screen. "Somebody robbed the Interplanetary Bank on Torad," she said. "The hi-def security cameras caught it all."
"See this woman? The newsfeeds are calling her 'The Tattooed Woman'. Most of her tattoos aren't permanent-- you'll see what I mean-- although I think that one complex geometrical figure on her lower lip and chin actually is."
"She walked into the Bank, through the outer courts, and into the inner vaults. The Interplanetary Guard Beasts were immediately suspicious, and moved to stop her-- but see here? She has tattoos of the three beasts on her skin, and when she presses them-- the tattoos disappear, and full-sized, solid duplicates of the beasts appear in front of her. She evidently has control over these replicas, and a huge fight ensues."
"By now the Torad security guards figure out something is wrong, but there's so much chaos with the beasts fighting each other, they can't really get close. One of the guards does manage to close the main vault door... after shooing all the banking reps and their customers away... but watch this."
"She touches the tattoo on her cheek-- a plain black dot-- the tattoo disappears, and a perfectly round hole opens up in the wall and door of the safe in front of her. She pulls out a bag-- another tattoo, see? And fills it with jewels-- they're lightweight, more valuable per pound than precious metals, and easily fenced."
"Now watch this: the guards are now approaching from both sides, having gone around the beasts, still having it out in the middle of the floor. But now, she touches that winged tattoo on her shoulder, and zam! a real live Taroc appears. She mounts it, and escapes upwards. She touches the other 'hole' tattoo on her cheek, a hole forms in the ceiling, and away she goes!"
"Impressive, right?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Well, yes, I guess," said Ffarrah. "But she just stole several million credits worth of precious gems from the Interplanetary Bank! Not exactly admirable behavior."
"I wish we had been there to stop her," said Ffiona. "That's just the sort of thing we organized the Super-Hero Club for."
"Oh, the SPs eventually caught up with her," said Shrinking Violet. "These 'daring daylight robberies' seldom work out. But it's her powers that are so interesting to me!"
"Some sort of odd technology?" asked Ten. "It didn't look exactly like magic."
"Right, not magic, They found all her tech," said Shrinking Violet. "She has a hi-def holo-camera, with which she takes pictures of whatever she wants to replicate. Then some kind of device that creates some sort of hard-light holograms, but with the strength, attributes, and powers of the originals. All subject to her control."
Ten nodded. "Quantum isomorphic imaging," he said. "Powerful, but notoriously unstable half-lives."
"Then she has some device that scans the-- OK, isomorphisms-- onto her skin as two-dimensional images, which she can then summon as necessary with a touch," Shrinking Violet concluded. "Where can we get us some of that tech? Think of what we could carry around with us!"
"I am sure that the blueprints will be classified, and her entire array of machinery locked away within one of the Museums of Forbidden Weapons," said Ten. "That is what generally happens with the work products of these criminal scientists. I am impressed, however, that she got all those diverse technologies working in synchrony. And I would be interested to see what will happen when the voids she created in the Bank's ceilings and walls destabilize. I imagine there will be some randomized chaotic effects as the missing mass re-appears, and both the roof and the safe door will need to be replaced."
"So you're not going to make a Living Tattoo machine for me?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"I am not entirely blind to human sarcasm," said Ten.
SHOW AND TELL
"Look what we found," said Ffey. The Triplicates had just come back from a shopping trip in New Metropolis. She help up a crystal chip.
"What do you have there?" asked Polar Lass.
"Just this," she said, slipping the chip into the solid printer. It hummed for a bit, and then spit out two small faux-porcelain figurines.
"We're famous!" she said. "Super-Hero Club salt-and-pepper shakers!" She held up fat little cartoon replicas of Polar Lass and Matter Eater Lad Two.
"All of us?" asked Polar Lass, examining her figurine.
"Even Kallor," said Ffey, fiddling with the controls. She produced a figure of Chameleon, in his new blue-scale costume. She drew a bag out of her pocket, and handed it and the Chameleon-saltshaker to the real Chameleon. "A present," she said.
Chameleon looked at the bag of cyan-blue crystals. "Hydrated copper chloride," said Chameleon.
"When did you pick this up?"
"When you weren't looking," said Ffey, teasingly. "You were complaining your food was tasting bland, so I bought you your favorite Durlan spice. You can keep it in your own personal saltshaker." She looked around the room. "Nobody use Chameleon's copper salts!"
"You don't have to worry," said Polar Lass.
"I might steal a little," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I get a little tired of the same old hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen-carbon all the time. HONC, as they say on Bismoll."
"I thought I heard Ffey's voice," said Ten. He had entered with Phantom Girl, who was carrying a large, old-fashioned birdcage, with something that looked like a cabbage-roll hanging from the perch. "We have solved your mystery."
"What mystery?" asked Ffey.
"You had mentioned," said Ten, "That during your dawn Tri Chi exercises, you often see some sort of glowing bird-like creatures flying overhead, just before sunrise. You were wondering what they were. We have identified them."
"They are 'anti-bats'," said Phantom Girl. "There must be a colony of them somewhere nearby."
"They were one of the species introduced early on in the terraforming of Mars," said Ten. "Water, then marsh-plants, then insects in the marshes, then anti-bats to keep the insects at a reasonable population. The beginnings of an ecosystem."
"Why are they called anti-bats?" asked Ffey.
"I'm not entirely sure," said Ten. "They are ordinary Earth micro-chiropthera, but genetically altered, with chloroplasts and luciferin introduced into their skin cells. They're green, and luminesce faintly. A very easy bio-hack, and it makes them easy to distinguish them from unaltered Earth-bats. The terraformers did not want the populations mixing accidentally."
"We had Kimota use her telepathy to lure this one to the Clubhouse," said Phantom Girl. "So we could all see one. I solid-printed this cage. Ten and I'd like to release it back into its flock at dusk. It's been pretty boring to watch. They're small, smaller than your outstretched hand from thumb to little fingertip. And so far, all it does is sleep all day."
"A 'flock' of bats is called a cloud," noted Ten. "Unless they are at home, in which case they are a colony."
"An anti-colony?" venture Ffey.
"Say you guys," said Shrinking Violet, "Would you like to see something interesting? Come back with me to the ship's front monitor."
The group adjourned to the big wall-screen. "Somebody robbed the Interplanetary Bank on Torad," she said. "The hi-def security cameras caught it all."
"See this woman? The newsfeeds are calling her 'The Tattooed Woman'. Most of her tattoos aren't permanent-- you'll see what I mean-- although I think that one complex geometrical figure on her lower lip and chin actually is."
"She walked into the Bank, through the outer courts, and into the inner vaults. The Interplanetary Guard Beasts were immediately suspicious, and moved to stop her-- but see here? She has tattoos of the three beasts on her skin, and when she presses them-- the tattoos disappear, and full-sized, solid duplicates of the beasts appear in front of her. She evidently has control over these replicas, and a huge fight ensues."
"By now the Torad security guards figure out something is wrong, but there's so much chaos with the beasts fighting each other, they can't really get close. One of the guards does manage to close the main vault door... after shooing all the banking reps and their customers away... but watch this."
"She touches the tattoo on her cheek-- a plain black dot-- the tattoo disappears, and a perfectly round hole opens up in the wall and door of the safe in front of her. She pulls out a bag-- another tattoo, see? And fills it with jewels-- they're lightweight, more valuable per pound than precious metals, and easily fenced."
"Now watch this: the guards are now approaching from both sides, having gone around the beasts, still having it out in the middle of the floor. But now, she touches that winged tattoo on her shoulder, and zam! a real live Taroc appears. She mounts it, and escapes upwards. She touches the other 'hole' tattoo on her cheek, a hole forms in the ceiling, and away she goes!"
"Impressive, right?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Well, yes, I guess," said Ffarrah. "But she just stole several million credits worth of precious gems from the Interplanetary Bank! Not exactly admirable behavior."
"I wish we had been there to stop her," said Ffiona. "That's just the sort of thing we organized the Super-Hero Club for."
"Oh, the SPs eventually caught up with her," said Shrinking Violet. "These 'daring daylight robberies' seldom work out. But it's her powers that are so interesting to me!"
"Some sort of odd technology?" asked Ten. "It didn't look exactly like magic."
"Right, not magic, They found all her tech," said Shrinking Violet. "She has a hi-def holo-camera, with which she takes pictures of whatever she wants to replicate. Then some kind of device that creates some sort of hard-light holograms, but with the strength, attributes, and powers of the originals. All subject to her control."
Ten nodded. "Quantum isomorphic imaging," he said. "Powerful, but notoriously unstable half-lives."
"Then she has some device that scans the-- OK, isomorphisms-- onto her skin as two-dimensional images, which she can then summon as necessary with a touch," Shrinking Violet concluded. "Where can we get us some of that tech? Think of what we could carry around with us!"
"I am sure that the blueprints will be classified, and her entire array of machinery locked away within one of the Museums of Forbidden Weapons," said Ten. "That is what generally happens with the work products of these criminal scientists. I am impressed, however, that she got all those diverse technologies working in synchrony. And I would be interested to see what will happen when the voids she created in the Bank's ceilings and walls destabilize. I imagine there will be some randomized chaotic effects as the missing mass re-appears, and both the roof and the safe door will need to be replaced."
"So you're not going to make a Living Tattoo machine for me?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"I am not entirely blind to human sarcasm," said Ten.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/02/18 09:34 AM
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CYRANUS
“My Adult Guardian has filed an official complaint through the Coluan Embassy against Zuun,” said Ten. “ColuGov considers interference with communication technology a serious offense.”
“What about kidnapping?” asked Saturn Girl. “Illegal detention. Imprisonment. Assault with a deadly ray-gun.”
“I’m sure that, too, is included in the official complaint,” said Ten.
“This is something else,” said Star Woman. “A communique from Cyranus.”
“One of the Inner Circle Worlds?” Saturn Girl responded. “Are they asking for our help now?”
“Not a request for help. They are providing information,” said Star Woman. “They are informing us of the formal organization of The Super Hero Club of Cyranus. It is an organization officially sanctioned by the Cyrano Chancelleries, and the Members all have Alpha-Class Adventurer’s Licenses. That makes them officially the Planetary Champions of Cyranus. The Chancelleries have sent us brief, confidential biographies, as they anticipate the possibility that we run into them some time. Evidently they expect us to move in similar circles.”
THE SUPER HERO CLUB OF CYRANUS
01 Balloon Lad
Rikard Tumm of Cyranus
He has the mutant ability to convert excess adipose tissue to helium, allowing him to swell up like a balloon, to a maximum of ten meters in diameter. In this state, his skin and interstitium are extraordinarily durable, so that nothing short of a bursting shell can penetrate his skin. This despite the fact that at maximum inflation, they are less than a millimeter thick.
02 Balloon Lass
Jayn Tumm of Cyranus
Rikard’s identical twin sister, she has identical mutant powers.
03 Hothead
Heiss Gottlieb of Cyranus
A third mutant, he is able to increase his body temperature to hundreds of degrees without harm, as well as breathe fire.
04 Longhorn
Stier Gottlieb of Cyranus
The younger brother of Heiss, he has short horns growing out of his temples, which he is able to grow at will to a width of four meters.
05 Sara Oz of Naltor
Her mother is from Naltor, her father from New Titan. She has not only prognostication abilities, but telepathy and telekinesis as well.
06 Searchlight
Meab Elgeab of Cyranus
The fifth mutant member, she is able to project intense beams of light from her large eyes. She can even emit brief bursts of laser-light.
07 Sigyn Sugynsdaughter of Danymede
She has inherited her father’s ability to drink massive quantities of liquid-- and to expel it as well.
08 Polymelios
Suffalo Wapchoop of Cyranus
He has the mutant power to grow extra arms and legs at will.
09 Tusker Two
Rauque Latruie of Cyranus
A distant cousin of the Terran Horace LeFeaugh, he seems to have inherited identical powers. He can elongate his upper canids, and has an unbreakable skeleton.
10 Monster Maid
Violet Zepeda
(Voor Zipplo of Durla - Confidential)
The Zepeda family are expatriate Durlans living as wards of the Chancelleries under assumed identities, due to the animosity towards Durlans among a certain sector of the Cyrano population. When Violet accidentally revealed her shape-shifting abilities in public under stress, it was arranged for her to register as a mutant. As ‘Monster Maid’, with the official ability to transform into a variety of ‘monsters’, she has already distinguished herself in The Super Hero Club.
11 Whippy
Tumot Cherts of Cyranus
Not a mutant, he obtained his elastic and stretching abilities from contact with an experimental elasticizing chemical.
12 Whiptail
Liat Reirret of Cyranus
He has a prehensile, extensible tail emerging from his lower back.
13 True Believer
Vrai Hundueber of Cyranus
A psionic of tremendous power, he seems able to alter local reality, allowing him to accomplish virtually any super-feat he can confidently believe in. This has been limited, for the most part, to feats of great speed and strength, but the full limits of his power have not been fully tested.
“An impressive list,” said Ten. “You know, there is something vaguely familiar about this group.”
CYRANUS
“My Adult Guardian has filed an official complaint through the Coluan Embassy against Zuun,” said Ten. “ColuGov considers interference with communication technology a serious offense.”
“What about kidnapping?” asked Saturn Girl. “Illegal detention. Imprisonment. Assault with a deadly ray-gun.”
“I’m sure that, too, is included in the official complaint,” said Ten.
“This is something else,” said Star Woman. “A communique from Cyranus.”
“One of the Inner Circle Worlds?” Saturn Girl responded. “Are they asking for our help now?”
“Not a request for help. They are providing information,” said Star Woman. “They are informing us of the formal organization of The Super Hero Club of Cyranus. It is an organization officially sanctioned by the Cyrano Chancelleries, and the Members all have Alpha-Class Adventurer’s Licenses. That makes them officially the Planetary Champions of Cyranus. The Chancelleries have sent us brief, confidential biographies, as they anticipate the possibility that we run into them some time. Evidently they expect us to move in similar circles.”
THE SUPER HERO CLUB OF CYRANUS
01 Balloon Lad
Rikard Tumm of Cyranus
He has the mutant ability to convert excess adipose tissue to helium, allowing him to swell up like a balloon, to a maximum of ten meters in diameter. In this state, his skin and interstitium are extraordinarily durable, so that nothing short of a bursting shell can penetrate his skin. This despite the fact that at maximum inflation, they are less than a millimeter thick.
02 Balloon Lass
Jayn Tumm of Cyranus
Rikard’s identical twin sister, she has identical mutant powers.
03 Hothead
Heiss Gottlieb of Cyranus
A third mutant, he is able to increase his body temperature to hundreds of degrees without harm, as well as breathe fire.
04 Longhorn
Stier Gottlieb of Cyranus
The younger brother of Heiss, he has short horns growing out of his temples, which he is able to grow at will to a width of four meters.
05 Sara Oz of Naltor
Her mother is from Naltor, her father from New Titan. She has not only prognostication abilities, but telepathy and telekinesis as well.
06 Searchlight
Meab Elgeab of Cyranus
The fifth mutant member, she is able to project intense beams of light from her large eyes. She can even emit brief bursts of laser-light.
07 Sigyn Sugynsdaughter of Danymede
She has inherited her father’s ability to drink massive quantities of liquid-- and to expel it as well.
08 Polymelios
Suffalo Wapchoop of Cyranus
He has the mutant power to grow extra arms and legs at will.
09 Tusker Two
Rauque Latruie of Cyranus
A distant cousin of the Terran Horace LeFeaugh, he seems to have inherited identical powers. He can elongate his upper canids, and has an unbreakable skeleton.
10 Monster Maid
Violet Zepeda
(Voor Zipplo of Durla - Confidential)
The Zepeda family are expatriate Durlans living as wards of the Chancelleries under assumed identities, due to the animosity towards Durlans among a certain sector of the Cyrano population. When Violet accidentally revealed her shape-shifting abilities in public under stress, it was arranged for her to register as a mutant. As ‘Monster Maid’, with the official ability to transform into a variety of ‘monsters’, she has already distinguished herself in The Super Hero Club.
11 Whippy
Tumot Cherts of Cyranus
Not a mutant, he obtained his elastic and stretching abilities from contact with an experimental elasticizing chemical.
12 Whiptail
Liat Reirret of Cyranus
He has a prehensile, extensible tail emerging from his lower back.
13 True Believer
Vrai Hundueber of Cyranus
A psionic of tremendous power, he seems able to alter local reality, allowing him to accomplish virtually any super-feat he can confidently believe in. This has been limited, for the most part, to feats of great speed and strength, but the full limits of his power have not been fully tested.
“An impressive list,” said Ten. “You know, there is something vaguely familiar about this group.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/02/18 09:40 AM
CHAPTER NINETY
SHADOW CHAMPION
The Space-Van was long, boxy and ugly, but seated eighteen, in four rows of four, plus driver and a ‘shotgun’. Shrinking Violet again pointed out that they could conserve space by having Chameleon, Phantom Girl, the Triplicates, and herself use their powers when traveling. Matter-Eater Lad Two offered to repaint the vehicle, but Star-Woman pointed out that the dark olivine colouring was purposeful: it rendered the vehicle mostly invisible in the vastness of space, except to electronic eyes.
Matter-Eater Lad Two did insist on naming the vehicle, as his parents named theirs on Bismoll. No one else was particularly interested, and some were a little anxious about what name the Bismollian might choose, but were relieved when Matter-Eater Lad Two announced that its name would be Sojourner.
A little black spaceship landed on the sand in front of the Clubhouse. It was about the size and shape of a 2Oth-century Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Trimmed in gold, it carried the barred-spiral-galaxy crest of the Talokan House of Mallor.
The small ship managed to contain a chauffeur and two footmen, as well as the passenger. The girl was quickly left standing alone on the sand, one small bag at her feet.
She had pale blue skin, and beautifully pointed ears. Her eyes were dark, and her short bob of hair a startling cherry-red. She wore only a solid black one-piece bathing suit, the straps crossed in and ‘x’, and black flat-heeled boots. Talok VIII was a desert world, but a cold one, and she seemed untroubled by the cool Martian autumn air.
“I believe I am expected?” she said to the assembled Super Hero Club and Super ‘Villain’ Club protectees.
“Korvea Mallor?” said Saturn Girl. She extended her hand in a friendly greeting. “Dorritt Ranzz, known as Saturn Girl.”
“I believe I am to be a gift of appreciation for your recent service to Talok,” said Korvea Mallor. “There are a number of advantages to being a member of the Shadow Family, but not being treated as the chattels of the Congress is not one of them.”
“I expect you will not find the accommodations here up to the standards you are used to,” said Shrinking Violet. “That is our Headquarters and Clubhouse,” she indicated the renovated Legion cruiser. “And that is our Spaceport,” she gestured towards the parking lot, with the Ranzz’ runabout and Star-Woman’s Space-Van. “Most of us are on the stipend, so meals are modest. If you need help, I am sure someone can teach you how to use the Autochef. Stay as long as you like, take notes, and let the Talokan Congress know what a shoestring operation we run here. Don’t pick the empty cabin across from Ten’s lab.” She turned and walked away into the clubhouse.
“She’s the Treasurer,” Phantom Girl explained. “She’s doing the books right now. I’m afraid she’s a little on edge.”
“Our understanding,” said Star-Woman, “Was that you were here as a student and observer. Although I imagine you have received professional training already, and could teach us a thing or two. Consider yourself our guest for the time being, and when you feel you have fulfilled your obligation to the Congress, you are more than free to return to your homeworld. If you want to see how we train-- well, I don’t think it’s much to look at. And we won’t ask you to go on missions with us, if you don’t want to.”
“What kind of Shadow Champion would I be if I didn’t go on missions?” asked Korvea Mallor. “I’m sorry, you must be just as uncomfortable as I am.”
“We actually have some other non-Members staying with us right now,” said Phantom Girl. She indicated the four Earthlings. “Razor, Black Flame, Annie Foxmoor, and Villian the Sorcerer, the so-called Super-Villain Club.”
“You can call me Evil-Eye Annie, if we’re playing at villains. You know, your… cousin, I think it is?... Menaleas was a member of our group. It was just a school social club, really. Mostly children of reformed ‘supervillains’.”
Korvea Mallor looked interested.
“That is an awfully small travel bag,” said Black Flame. “How long were you planning to stay?”
“Oh, I’m sure I brought far to much,” said Korvea Mallor. “It’s an expandable tesseract portal.”
“Hey, isn’t there a part where we all demonstrate our powers?” asked Villian. He pulled a coin out of his own ear. “There, that’s mine!”
“Ignore him,” said Black Flame. “He’s showing off because he thinks you’re pretty. Get a grip, Bungle, she’s just a kid. Probably years younger than you.”
“Today I would be exactly fourteen, Terran Standard,” said Korvea. “And a first-level adult under United Planets law. If I weren’t here, I would be celebrating my one hundredth Ma’aka on Talok in just a few days.”
“Well, let us know how Talokans do a one-hundredth-Ma’aka party, and we will do our best to give you one,” said Black Flame. “Incidentally, Villian is about ready to graduate from University, even though he acts only your age. Or younger.” She glared at the failed Sorcerer’s World student.
“She is saying he is over one-hundred-fifty Ma’akas old,” Ten explained helpfully.
“Oh!” exclaimed Korvea Mallor. “Are you a Coluan?”
“Not an entirely typical specimen,” said Ten. “I, myself, am only fifty-three-point-six Ma’akas in age. Txarlz Luz, but I call myself Ten. Because of my standard Coluan tenth-level intellect.”
Villian the Sorcerer pulled a playing card out of the air, the Ten of Diamonds.
“I suppose I should demonstrate my powers,” Korvea Mallor agreed. “I am not yet really the Shadow Champion of Talok VIII-- that is my father, cousin to the Lord Shadow Champion, our ruler. I am the presumptive heir, having been ‘chosen’ at the cave of shadows.” She created a mist of darkness in the air, which quickly dispersed. “We are still exploring the limits of my powers. Some Champions are able to solidify the Shadow, or use it as a portal to other places or dimensions, or to neutralize heat-radiation as well as light. It seems I am only a first-level shadow-caster.” She created first a sphere, then a block of shadow in the air. “I can neutralize more than just visible light, well into the ultra-violet, as well as the infrared. And my range seems to be growing, as I exercise.”
“Like many Champions, I am half-alien. My mother is a Shelbonite…”
Chameleon’s ears perked up. “Shelbonites are shape-shifters, aren’t they? Capable of remembering and replicating a dozen or so animal forms. Each Shelbonite’s retinue is unique, true?”
“Being only half-Shelbonite, I have only one alternate form,” Korvea Mallor admitted. “On Talok, we call it a myrlon. Her skin grew feathery, her body streamlined. Her arms became wings, she grew a beak and talons. A five-foot-tall black bird with a crimson crest took off into the air. Chameleon immediately duplicated the form, soaring after her. The two wheeled in the sky for a few minutes, then landed again. Korvea assumed her ordinary Talokan form.
“I can also partially transform,” said Korvea Mallor, running through a quick series of iterations: manifesting claws, wings, or feathers independently.
“Wow, you need a cool code-name,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “You say your dad is using Shadow Champion? How about Bird Girl?”
There was a lively discussion of possible code-names. Shadow Girl, Shadow Lass, Shadow Lass Two, Shadow Damsel, Shadow Maid, Kid Shadow Woman, Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom (Matter-Eater Lad Two), Just Shadow, Shade, Shady, Shadow Bird, Shadow Raven, Shadow Hawk, Shadow Wing, Shadow Talon, Shadowfeather (“What do you think I am, a Starhavenite?”), Raven, Blackbird, Crow Girl, Umbra, Ombra, Darkness Girl, Night Lass, Nightfall, Dusk, Night Knight (Matter-Eater Lad Two), Blackout Babe Girl or Lass or Kid, How About Just Blackout, Black Swan, Eklipsa...
In the end, it was decided that she would simply be known as ‘Korvea’.
![[Linked Image from 78.media.tumblr.com]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/422681dac60b1c6e786817cb84179548/tumblr_paoo5nUjJu1uwm5uqo1_250.jpg)
KORVEA
SHADOW CHAMPION
The Space-Van was long, boxy and ugly, but seated eighteen, in four rows of four, plus driver and a ‘shotgun’. Shrinking Violet again pointed out that they could conserve space by having Chameleon, Phantom Girl, the Triplicates, and herself use their powers when traveling. Matter-Eater Lad Two offered to repaint the vehicle, but Star-Woman pointed out that the dark olivine colouring was purposeful: it rendered the vehicle mostly invisible in the vastness of space, except to electronic eyes.
Matter-Eater Lad Two did insist on naming the vehicle, as his parents named theirs on Bismoll. No one else was particularly interested, and some were a little anxious about what name the Bismollian might choose, but were relieved when Matter-Eater Lad Two announced that its name would be Sojourner.
A little black spaceship landed on the sand in front of the Clubhouse. It was about the size and shape of a 2Oth-century Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. Trimmed in gold, it carried the barred-spiral-galaxy crest of the Talokan House of Mallor.
The small ship managed to contain a chauffeur and two footmen, as well as the passenger. The girl was quickly left standing alone on the sand, one small bag at her feet.
She had pale blue skin, and beautifully pointed ears. Her eyes were dark, and her short bob of hair a startling cherry-red. She wore only a solid black one-piece bathing suit, the straps crossed in and ‘x’, and black flat-heeled boots. Talok VIII was a desert world, but a cold one, and she seemed untroubled by the cool Martian autumn air.
“I believe I am expected?” she said to the assembled Super Hero Club and Super ‘Villain’ Club protectees.
“Korvea Mallor?” said Saturn Girl. She extended her hand in a friendly greeting. “Dorritt Ranzz, known as Saturn Girl.”
“I believe I am to be a gift of appreciation for your recent service to Talok,” said Korvea Mallor. “There are a number of advantages to being a member of the Shadow Family, but not being treated as the chattels of the Congress is not one of them.”
“I expect you will not find the accommodations here up to the standards you are used to,” said Shrinking Violet. “That is our Headquarters and Clubhouse,” she indicated the renovated Legion cruiser. “And that is our Spaceport,” she gestured towards the parking lot, with the Ranzz’ runabout and Star-Woman’s Space-Van. “Most of us are on the stipend, so meals are modest. If you need help, I am sure someone can teach you how to use the Autochef. Stay as long as you like, take notes, and let the Talokan Congress know what a shoestring operation we run here. Don’t pick the empty cabin across from Ten’s lab.” She turned and walked away into the clubhouse.
“She’s the Treasurer,” Phantom Girl explained. “She’s doing the books right now. I’m afraid she’s a little on edge.”
“Our understanding,” said Star-Woman, “Was that you were here as a student and observer. Although I imagine you have received professional training already, and could teach us a thing or two. Consider yourself our guest for the time being, and when you feel you have fulfilled your obligation to the Congress, you are more than free to return to your homeworld. If you want to see how we train-- well, I don’t think it’s much to look at. And we won’t ask you to go on missions with us, if you don’t want to.”
“What kind of Shadow Champion would I be if I didn’t go on missions?” asked Korvea Mallor. “I’m sorry, you must be just as uncomfortable as I am.”
“We actually have some other non-Members staying with us right now,” said Phantom Girl. She indicated the four Earthlings. “Razor, Black Flame, Annie Foxmoor, and Villian the Sorcerer, the so-called Super-Villain Club.”
“You can call me Evil-Eye Annie, if we’re playing at villains. You know, your… cousin, I think it is?... Menaleas was a member of our group. It was just a school social club, really. Mostly children of reformed ‘supervillains’.”
Korvea Mallor looked interested.
“That is an awfully small travel bag,” said Black Flame. “How long were you planning to stay?”
“Oh, I’m sure I brought far to much,” said Korvea Mallor. “It’s an expandable tesseract portal.”
“Hey, isn’t there a part where we all demonstrate our powers?” asked Villian. He pulled a coin out of his own ear. “There, that’s mine!”
“Ignore him,” said Black Flame. “He’s showing off because he thinks you’re pretty. Get a grip, Bungle, she’s just a kid. Probably years younger than you.”
“Today I would be exactly fourteen, Terran Standard,” said Korvea. “And a first-level adult under United Planets law. If I weren’t here, I would be celebrating my one hundredth Ma’aka on Talok in just a few days.”
“Well, let us know how Talokans do a one-hundredth-Ma’aka party, and we will do our best to give you one,” said Black Flame. “Incidentally, Villian is about ready to graduate from University, even though he acts only your age. Or younger.” She glared at the failed Sorcerer’s World student.
“She is saying he is over one-hundred-fifty Ma’akas old,” Ten explained helpfully.
“Oh!” exclaimed Korvea Mallor. “Are you a Coluan?”
“Not an entirely typical specimen,” said Ten. “I, myself, am only fifty-three-point-six Ma’akas in age. Txarlz Luz, but I call myself Ten. Because of my standard Coluan tenth-level intellect.”
Villian the Sorcerer pulled a playing card out of the air, the Ten of Diamonds.
“I suppose I should demonstrate my powers,” Korvea Mallor agreed. “I am not yet really the Shadow Champion of Talok VIII-- that is my father, cousin to the Lord Shadow Champion, our ruler. I am the presumptive heir, having been ‘chosen’ at the cave of shadows.” She created a mist of darkness in the air, which quickly dispersed. “We are still exploring the limits of my powers. Some Champions are able to solidify the Shadow, or use it as a portal to other places or dimensions, or to neutralize heat-radiation as well as light. It seems I am only a first-level shadow-caster.” She created first a sphere, then a block of shadow in the air. “I can neutralize more than just visible light, well into the ultra-violet, as well as the infrared. And my range seems to be growing, as I exercise.”
“Like many Champions, I am half-alien. My mother is a Shelbonite…”
Chameleon’s ears perked up. “Shelbonites are shape-shifters, aren’t they? Capable of remembering and replicating a dozen or so animal forms. Each Shelbonite’s retinue is unique, true?”
“Being only half-Shelbonite, I have only one alternate form,” Korvea Mallor admitted. “On Talok, we call it a myrlon. Her skin grew feathery, her body streamlined. Her arms became wings, she grew a beak and talons. A five-foot-tall black bird with a crimson crest took off into the air. Chameleon immediately duplicated the form, soaring after her. The two wheeled in the sky for a few minutes, then landed again. Korvea assumed her ordinary Talokan form.
“I can also partially transform,” said Korvea Mallor, running through a quick series of iterations: manifesting claws, wings, or feathers independently.
“Wow, you need a cool code-name,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “You say your dad is using Shadow Champion? How about Bird Girl?”
There was a lively discussion of possible code-names. Shadow Girl, Shadow Lass, Shadow Lass Two, Shadow Damsel, Shadow Maid, Kid Shadow Woman, Lamont Shadowskeedeeboomboom (Matter-Eater Lad Two), Just Shadow, Shade, Shady, Shadow Bird, Shadow Raven, Shadow Hawk, Shadow Wing, Shadow Talon, Shadowfeather (“What do you think I am, a Starhavenite?”), Raven, Blackbird, Crow Girl, Umbra, Ombra, Darkness Girl, Night Lass, Nightfall, Dusk, Night Knight (Matter-Eater Lad Two), Blackout Babe Girl or Lass or Kid, How About Just Blackout, Black Swan, Eklipsa...
In the end, it was decided that she would simply be known as ‘Korvea’.
KORVEA
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/08/18 03:27 AM
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
THE PIRATE SHIP RENEGADE
“This is your chance,” said Star-Woman to Korvea. “We have news of a pirate vessel intruding on the edge of United Planets space, and we are going to investigate. Do you want to join us?”
“What is your source?” asked Korvea. “Wouldn’t the Science Police already be on the way?”
“I’m a Naltoran,” said Star-Woman. “I am my own source. Saturn Girl calls me a ‘living Mission Monitor Board’.”
“Is everyone going?” asked Korvea.
“Not the ‘supervillains’,” said Star-Woman. “They are more students than adventurers.”
“Well, as they say on Talok, ‘in for a gronlish, in for a gronn’,” said Korvea. “Put me down for the team.”
“It’s a long way to the U.P. border,” Star-Woman cautioned. “Bring snacks.”
It was indeed a long way to the United Planets border, and there was no opportunity for the group to get out and ‘stretch their legs’. Ten had brought the micro-motel, and Shrinking Violet had her Camper Earrings, as there were no other ‘facilities’ in the Space Van. Korvea mused on the possibility of having a tesseractoid clean room installed. It was generally considered that that was probably too expensive a solution, but it got Star-Woman thinking about other possible custom modifications.
“Have any Talokan Shadow Champions ever ‘gone rogue’?” Chameleon asked, during a lull in conversation.
“Well, not all my ancestors were ‘heroes’ in the modern sense,” said Korvea. “Several centuries ago, Talokans-- or Talokites, as they were known then-- were a pretty aggressive-- a warrior-like, even piratical race.”
“There was one historical figure I remember. Terrus Mallor was planetary champion about five hundred years ago. Secretly, he also operated in a ‘super-villain’ identity, enriching himself at the expense of the people he was supposed to protect. He called himself ‘Mr. Tenebrific’, and he wore a costume emblazoned with the motto ‘Foul Play’. The scam went on for nearly a decade, but when he was found out, he was dealt with pretty harshly. Tortured, I believe, and permanently exiled.”
When they arrived at the designated coordinates, there was nothing there. The unseen U.P. border remained a scant gigameter away.
Star-Woman shut down the engines, but kept the life support running.
“This feels wrong,” said Star-Woman. “I’m not getting the proper experience of… Naltoran deja vu.”
Lightning Lass was acting as navigator. “I’m picking up something… it looks like a small asteroid, much less than a kilometer in size… it’s headed in our direction, but I would think a collision would be unlikely in the vastness of space…”
“Micro-gravity would be pulling it toward us, and us toward it,” said Star-Woman, glancing at the visi-screen panel. She noted the asteroids location, just as it loomed on the screen. There was a bright, silent flash, and it vanished.
“What was that?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two from the back seats.
“Automatic Anti-Asteroid Annihilator,” said Star-Woman. “The Annihilator is standard on this model, but it uses a lot of power. It’s a good thing we’re not going anywhere; the engines will need some time to cool down.”
“I’m picking up something else,” said Lightning Lass. “A ship dropping out of warp space… it has a Daxamite registration… Oh, grife. It’s the Pirate Ship Renegade.”
“Someone take the helm,” said Star-Woman. “Start up the engines as soon as they’re cool enough to fire.” She exited out the airlock, and into the vacuum of space.
“I hate Daxamites,” said Phantom Girl.
“Crew of eight at last report,” said Ten, checking the holo-display projected in the air in front of him. “Seven Daxamites, one Psion.”
“Some Champions are able to cast a shadow deep enough to blind Daxamite ultra-senses,” said Korvea. “But I’m not at that level yet.” She was already projecting a shadow-globe around the Renegade.
“Don’t try to blind-- confuse,” said Chameleon. “Project a shadow-sphere around us, and several other decoy spheres throughout the area. Against the blackness of the star-field, we should be well hidden.”
“I’m bypassing the engines, moving us erratically with sub-light thrusters,” said Shrinking Violet, taking the helm. “That will confuse them a little bit, too.”
“I’ve got a telepathic link with one of them,” said Saturn Girl. “A cat-eyed mutant named Bal Kozz. Their mission is to capture, not kill… and he’s asleep now.”
“Star-Woman is going up against a Daxamite female,” reported Lightning Lass, “Wow, Kallor made short work of her. That’s two pirates down.”
“If they shatter the ship,” warned Ffiona, “None of us will survive. Phantom Girl might hide out in the Phantom Zone for awhile, but I don’t know how anyone would find her, this far out.”
“Complete,” said Vesta.
“Vesta and I targeted one of them that massed at more than twice that of any of the others,” Ten reported. “He has been reduced in size, and contained within a Brainiac-Class Environmental Bottle in Vesta’s interior.”
“Ten, you need to keep us apprised of changes in your technological inventory,” said Saturn Girl.
“A... gift.. from my Adult Guardian,” said Ten.
“I still see three Daxamites extant,” said Lightning Lass. “They appear to be fleeing Star-Woman, moving away from us, their craft unattended.”
“How close would that ship need to get before your powers were effective, Dacey?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Lightning doesn’t travel well outside a planetary atmosphere,” said Lightning Lass. “Pretty close.”
“I could do substantial damage from a kilometer away,” said Cosmic Boy. “But that’s pretty close here in space.”
“What about that particle-beam trick you two do?” asked Saturn Girl.
“We’ve never practiced at more than a couple hundred feet,” said Lightning Lass.
“Well, if that ship comes near enough, do as much damage as you can. That goes for you, too, Hillary... “ Saturn Girl paused. “This scenario seems all wrong. Kallor definitely sensed a pirate invasion from outside the United Planets, not a Daxamite vessel. Ten, Vesta, let me see if I can read your tiny prisoner’s little mind… my, but he has a foul mouth, and he doesn’t even know I’m listening… his name is Gor-Man… ‘just following orders…’ Knows nothing detailed about this mission. Ick. Now I want to wash out my brain with soap.”
“Star-Woman is still pursuing two of the Daxamites,” reported Lightning Lass. “They are headed back in the general direction of their ship, not on a collision course with us... oh, I wish we weren’t trapped inside this Space-Van. Shrinking Violet, can we start saving up for battle-ready spacesuits? Wait… what is that? A second ship? But these readings can’t be right...”
There was a tremendous disturbance, a rippling of spacetime, and a ship the size of a small city dropped into realspace.
“The Pirate Ship Penance,” reported Lightning Lass. “Registration New Tortuga. They are firing some sort of tractor beam at… Star-Woman was the target. Gone now. Grife. The Daxamites are retreating to their own ship... there must still be someone on board, because the engines have activated… they wouldn’t… yes, they have dropped straight into Warp. Hold onto your stomachs…”
“This new ship has captured Star-Woman?” asked Saturn Girl
“Evidently,” said Lightning Lass. “Engines are back online. Korvea, can you make us as invisible as possible?. The NTS Penance is bound for somewhere, and we are hitching a ride.”
THE PIRATE SHIP RENEGADE
“This is your chance,” said Star-Woman to Korvea. “We have news of a pirate vessel intruding on the edge of United Planets space, and we are going to investigate. Do you want to join us?”
“What is your source?” asked Korvea. “Wouldn’t the Science Police already be on the way?”
“I’m a Naltoran,” said Star-Woman. “I am my own source. Saturn Girl calls me a ‘living Mission Monitor Board’.”
“Is everyone going?” asked Korvea.
“Not the ‘supervillains’,” said Star-Woman. “They are more students than adventurers.”
“Well, as they say on Talok, ‘in for a gronlish, in for a gronn’,” said Korvea. “Put me down for the team.”
“It’s a long way to the U.P. border,” Star-Woman cautioned. “Bring snacks.”
It was indeed a long way to the United Planets border, and there was no opportunity for the group to get out and ‘stretch their legs’. Ten had brought the micro-motel, and Shrinking Violet had her Camper Earrings, as there were no other ‘facilities’ in the Space Van. Korvea mused on the possibility of having a tesseractoid clean room installed. It was generally considered that that was probably too expensive a solution, but it got Star-Woman thinking about other possible custom modifications.
“Have any Talokan Shadow Champions ever ‘gone rogue’?” Chameleon asked, during a lull in conversation.
“Well, not all my ancestors were ‘heroes’ in the modern sense,” said Korvea. “Several centuries ago, Talokans-- or Talokites, as they were known then-- were a pretty aggressive-- a warrior-like, even piratical race.”
“There was one historical figure I remember. Terrus Mallor was planetary champion about five hundred years ago. Secretly, he also operated in a ‘super-villain’ identity, enriching himself at the expense of the people he was supposed to protect. He called himself ‘Mr. Tenebrific’, and he wore a costume emblazoned with the motto ‘Foul Play’. The scam went on for nearly a decade, but when he was found out, he was dealt with pretty harshly. Tortured, I believe, and permanently exiled.”
When they arrived at the designated coordinates, there was nothing there. The unseen U.P. border remained a scant gigameter away.
Star-Woman shut down the engines, but kept the life support running.
“This feels wrong,” said Star-Woman. “I’m not getting the proper experience of… Naltoran deja vu.”
Lightning Lass was acting as navigator. “I’m picking up something… it looks like a small asteroid, much less than a kilometer in size… it’s headed in our direction, but I would think a collision would be unlikely in the vastness of space…”
“Micro-gravity would be pulling it toward us, and us toward it,” said Star-Woman, glancing at the visi-screen panel. She noted the asteroids location, just as it loomed on the screen. There was a bright, silent flash, and it vanished.
“What was that?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two from the back seats.
“Automatic Anti-Asteroid Annihilator,” said Star-Woman. “The Annihilator is standard on this model, but it uses a lot of power. It’s a good thing we’re not going anywhere; the engines will need some time to cool down.”
“I’m picking up something else,” said Lightning Lass. “A ship dropping out of warp space… it has a Daxamite registration… Oh, grife. It’s the Pirate Ship Renegade.”
“Someone take the helm,” said Star-Woman. “Start up the engines as soon as they’re cool enough to fire.” She exited out the airlock, and into the vacuum of space.
“I hate Daxamites,” said Phantom Girl.
“Crew of eight at last report,” said Ten, checking the holo-display projected in the air in front of him. “Seven Daxamites, one Psion.”
“Some Champions are able to cast a shadow deep enough to blind Daxamite ultra-senses,” said Korvea. “But I’m not at that level yet.” She was already projecting a shadow-globe around the Renegade.
“Don’t try to blind-- confuse,” said Chameleon. “Project a shadow-sphere around us, and several other decoy spheres throughout the area. Against the blackness of the star-field, we should be well hidden.”
“I’m bypassing the engines, moving us erratically with sub-light thrusters,” said Shrinking Violet, taking the helm. “That will confuse them a little bit, too.”
“I’ve got a telepathic link with one of them,” said Saturn Girl. “A cat-eyed mutant named Bal Kozz. Their mission is to capture, not kill… and he’s asleep now.”
“Star-Woman is going up against a Daxamite female,” reported Lightning Lass, “Wow, Kallor made short work of her. That’s two pirates down.”
“If they shatter the ship,” warned Ffiona, “None of us will survive. Phantom Girl might hide out in the Phantom Zone for awhile, but I don’t know how anyone would find her, this far out.”
“Complete,” said Vesta.
“Vesta and I targeted one of them that massed at more than twice that of any of the others,” Ten reported. “He has been reduced in size, and contained within a Brainiac-Class Environmental Bottle in Vesta’s interior.”
“Ten, you need to keep us apprised of changes in your technological inventory,” said Saturn Girl.
“A... gift.. from my Adult Guardian,” said Ten.
“I still see three Daxamites extant,” said Lightning Lass. “They appear to be fleeing Star-Woman, moving away from us, their craft unattended.”
“How close would that ship need to get before your powers were effective, Dacey?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Lightning doesn’t travel well outside a planetary atmosphere,” said Lightning Lass. “Pretty close.”
“I could do substantial damage from a kilometer away,” said Cosmic Boy. “But that’s pretty close here in space.”
“What about that particle-beam trick you two do?” asked Saturn Girl.
“We’ve never practiced at more than a couple hundred feet,” said Lightning Lass.
“Well, if that ship comes near enough, do as much damage as you can. That goes for you, too, Hillary... “ Saturn Girl paused. “This scenario seems all wrong. Kallor definitely sensed a pirate invasion from outside the United Planets, not a Daxamite vessel. Ten, Vesta, let me see if I can read your tiny prisoner’s little mind… my, but he has a foul mouth, and he doesn’t even know I’m listening… his name is Gor-Man… ‘just following orders…’ Knows nothing detailed about this mission. Ick. Now I want to wash out my brain with soap.”
“Star-Woman is still pursuing two of the Daxamites,” reported Lightning Lass. “They are headed back in the general direction of their ship, not on a collision course with us... oh, I wish we weren’t trapped inside this Space-Van. Shrinking Violet, can we start saving up for battle-ready spacesuits? Wait… what is that? A second ship? But these readings can’t be right...”
There was a tremendous disturbance, a rippling of spacetime, and a ship the size of a small city dropped into realspace.
“The Pirate Ship Penance,” reported Lightning Lass. “Registration New Tortuga. They are firing some sort of tractor beam at… Star-Woman was the target. Gone now. Grife. The Daxamites are retreating to their own ship... there must still be someone on board, because the engines have activated… they wouldn’t… yes, they have dropped straight into Warp. Hold onto your stomachs…”
“This new ship has captured Star-Woman?” asked Saturn Girl
“Evidently,” said Lightning Lass. “Engines are back online. Korvea, can you make us as invisible as possible?. The NTS Penance is bound for somewhere, and we are hitching a ride.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/08/18 03:28 AM
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
THE PIRATES OF PENANCE
Aboard The SHC Sojourner
To say that the pirate vessel Penance was as large as a city was something of a misstatement. It in fact was a city-- thousands of spacefaring vehicles of various kinds and descriptions, all welded, wired, or tied together. Ad hoc transport tubes linked one vehicle to another in an external maze. Lightning Lass’ examination of her panel outputs showed that most of the vehicles were technologically dead, their systems shut down.
The Sojourner was about ten klicks back, following the massive ship as it prepared for the jump into warp space. Saturn Girl was hoping she could keep up, when the point became moot when a tractor beam grabbed the little Space-Van, dragging it into the ship-- one of the ships, that is, a large silvery tube with thick metal walls, and an equally thick metal door which slid shut silently.
Lights came on. The Sojourner stood on the floor of an spacious, though otherwise empty, cargo hold.
“I think I know a quick way out of here,” said Lightning Lass. “I’ve found the manual control for the AAAA.” She glanced around at the puzzled faces. “Automatic Anti-Asteroid Annihilator,” she clarified. “Cover your eyes. I’m targeting the door.”
There was a brilliant flash of energy, and an thunderous echoing. Unfortunately, the massive door held.
“Reinforced with some sort of force-field,” said Saturn Girl. “Leaving here isn’t going to be easy. And now we have to wait for engine cool-down again before we can try to go anywhere.”
“A breathable atmosphere, and artificial gravity out there,” reported Lightning Lass. “Anyone want to get out and stretch their legs?”
Virtually all of the Members powers were more effective outside a vehicle, and in a more-or-less open area. They spread out through the empty hold.
“The first order of business,” said Saturn Girl, “Is to find Star-Woman, and free her. Then, we figure out how to escape.”
“First,” said the fused Triplicate Girl, “We should probably take care of these pirates.”
A number of doors had slid open, and a small pirate crew was storming in.
The pirates wore armor, and carried nasty-looking blasters. They also outnumbered the Members by at least three to one.
However, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy and Polar Lass were capable of inflicting rapid and severe damage. Saturn Girl was able to turn the pirates against one another, or simply force them into unconsciousness. Matter-Eater Lad Two proved adept at locating vital spots in the armor, and biting them off. Phantom Girl was untouchable, and able to slowly disassemble the armor and weapons from the inside. Ten and Vesta, in there force field, were equally untouchable, and projected smaller, temporary force shields to protect their compatriots.
In another section of the hold, the pirates fared even worse. Chameleon alternately took the form of other pirates, one of the Triplicates, or Korvea, in either her bird or Talokan form, or hideous monsters. The Triplicates merged and split with dizzying speed, so that there was no telling how many of her there were at any one time. Korvea also slipped between bird and girl forms, clawing, biting, delivering savage kicks, and generally adding to the confusion with blinding shadow-forms. Shrinking Violet seemed to pop up everywhere, now disarming a pirate, now ruining a weapon, now flashing up to full height with a savage punch.
The pirates gradually retreated, slipping back to retrieve one of their injured or unconscious crewmates. At last, the Members were alone again. A blast door opened one more time, and a huge, ugly pirate tossed in a pair of grenades.
Matter-Eater Lad Two was on top of one of them instantly. It had already begun to emit noxious gas when he swallowed it whole.
“Sulphuric acid and cyanide,” declared Vesta. “Highly toxic to Terrans, and many other life forms.”
Ten had already surrounded the second grenade with a force field. “Don’t exhale, if you can help it,” he called.
Matter-Eater Lad Two had his mouth clamped tight shut, and was holding his nose. He nodded his head in agreement.
Ten was now holding a small force-sphere filled with highly compressed greenish gas.
“Polar Lass, can you freeze this for me, please?” he requested.
Matter-Eater Lad Two had finally finished swallowing the volume of gas, and storing it in his three-and-a-half dimensional stomach. “I’ll take that, Ten,” he said, gulping down the little frozen sphere.
“Well, our training certainly paid off in this instance,” said Saturn Girl. “Now to find Star-Woman.”
Suddenly, the roof exploded above them.
THE PIRATES OF PENANCE
Aboard The SHC Sojourner
To say that the pirate vessel Penance was as large as a city was something of a misstatement. It in fact was a city-- thousands of spacefaring vehicles of various kinds and descriptions, all welded, wired, or tied together. Ad hoc transport tubes linked one vehicle to another in an external maze. Lightning Lass’ examination of her panel outputs showed that most of the vehicles were technologically dead, their systems shut down.
The Sojourner was about ten klicks back, following the massive ship as it prepared for the jump into warp space. Saturn Girl was hoping she could keep up, when the point became moot when a tractor beam grabbed the little Space-Van, dragging it into the ship-- one of the ships, that is, a large silvery tube with thick metal walls, and an equally thick metal door which slid shut silently.
Lights came on. The Sojourner stood on the floor of an spacious, though otherwise empty, cargo hold.
“I think I know a quick way out of here,” said Lightning Lass. “I’ve found the manual control for the AAAA.” She glanced around at the puzzled faces. “Automatic Anti-Asteroid Annihilator,” she clarified. “Cover your eyes. I’m targeting the door.”
There was a brilliant flash of energy, and an thunderous echoing. Unfortunately, the massive door held.
“Reinforced with some sort of force-field,” said Saturn Girl. “Leaving here isn’t going to be easy. And now we have to wait for engine cool-down again before we can try to go anywhere.”
“A breathable atmosphere, and artificial gravity out there,” reported Lightning Lass. “Anyone want to get out and stretch their legs?”
Virtually all of the Members powers were more effective outside a vehicle, and in a more-or-less open area. They spread out through the empty hold.
“The first order of business,” said Saturn Girl, “Is to find Star-Woman, and free her. Then, we figure out how to escape.”
“First,” said the fused Triplicate Girl, “We should probably take care of these pirates.”
A number of doors had slid open, and a small pirate crew was storming in.
The pirates wore armor, and carried nasty-looking blasters. They also outnumbered the Members by at least three to one.
However, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy and Polar Lass were capable of inflicting rapid and severe damage. Saturn Girl was able to turn the pirates against one another, or simply force them into unconsciousness. Matter-Eater Lad Two proved adept at locating vital spots in the armor, and biting them off. Phantom Girl was untouchable, and able to slowly disassemble the armor and weapons from the inside. Ten and Vesta, in there force field, were equally untouchable, and projected smaller, temporary force shields to protect their compatriots.
In another section of the hold, the pirates fared even worse. Chameleon alternately took the form of other pirates, one of the Triplicates, or Korvea, in either her bird or Talokan form, or hideous monsters. The Triplicates merged and split with dizzying speed, so that there was no telling how many of her there were at any one time. Korvea also slipped between bird and girl forms, clawing, biting, delivering savage kicks, and generally adding to the confusion with blinding shadow-forms. Shrinking Violet seemed to pop up everywhere, now disarming a pirate, now ruining a weapon, now flashing up to full height with a savage punch.
The pirates gradually retreated, slipping back to retrieve one of their injured or unconscious crewmates. At last, the Members were alone again. A blast door opened one more time, and a huge, ugly pirate tossed in a pair of grenades.
Matter-Eater Lad Two was on top of one of them instantly. It had already begun to emit noxious gas when he swallowed it whole.
“Sulphuric acid and cyanide,” declared Vesta. “Highly toxic to Terrans, and many other life forms.”
Ten had already surrounded the second grenade with a force field. “Don’t exhale, if you can help it,” he called.
Matter-Eater Lad Two had his mouth clamped tight shut, and was holding his nose. He nodded his head in agreement.
Ten was now holding a small force-sphere filled with highly compressed greenish gas.
“Polar Lass, can you freeze this for me, please?” he requested.
Matter-Eater Lad Two had finally finished swallowing the volume of gas, and storing it in his three-and-a-half dimensional stomach. “I’ll take that, Ten,” he said, gulping down the little frozen sphere.
“Well, our training certainly paid off in this instance,” said Saturn Girl. “Now to find Star-Woman.”
Suddenly, the roof exploded above them.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/08/18 03:30 AM
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
PIRATE QUEEN
Kallor Nal, Star-Woman, awoke chained, cuffed, and manacled to a sturdy, solid hardwood chair. Flashing lights and some sort of complex wiring indicated reflexive power dampeners. She ran through her litany of powers, one at a time, and found them all lacking.
She was seated at an ornate, carved table, set with fine china and crystalware, and a dozen exotic dishes. She thought she recognized hummingbird-tongue pie, but it might have been something else.
Her captor was an old woman, seated at the far end of the great table. She was small, emaciated, and exceedingly old. If she had claimed to be a hundred years old or more, Kallor would have believed her.
“I am sorry you will not have time to dine with me,” said the old woman. “I have only enough time to tell you my story before you die.”
Kallor attempted to protest, but the old woman held up her hand, shushing her.
“My quarrel is not with you, but with your father,” said the old woman. “Sadly, he is long dead, so it appears I must take my revenge on you. My name is Lorinia Frake, and I am captain of this vessel, which has been decades in the building. Your father was responsible for the death of my daughter, Alicia Frake. Now it is his daughter that will die.”
“I’m sorry,” said Star-Woman. “I don’t want to die, but I understand your need for revenge. Sadly, I can tell you nothing of your daughter.”
“Oh, I already know the whole story,” said the old woman. “My daughter was the captain of the pirate ship Antares. Your father joined her crew under false pretenses. At a crucial point, he turned traitor, and turned one of the Antares own weapons on the ship, destroying the vessel and murdering the entire crew. It was believed that he, himself, was killed, but he later returned: first, assuming a false identity as the Rimboran hero Reflecto, and then later revealing himself in his true identity of Ultra Boy. When I heard that he had returned, I began building this ship-- the Penance-- as the weapon of my revenge. I did not know then how I would destroy him, but I knew that if I only acquired sufficiently diverse technology, I could find a way. I lured you here with visions from a Tachyon Field Projector. The same tachyon field now neutralizes the precognitive powers you inherited from your mother. I offered the pirates of the Renegade enhanced anti-lead serum to distract you. I have bound you with Ultra-Energy Restraints, which neutralize the powers you inherited from your father. Sadly, he died before the Penance was completed, but…”
“I am afraid you made a couple of errors,” said Star-Woman. “I recognize your story now. But your daughter was romantically involved with Jo Nah, the Ultra Boy; my father was Thom Kallor, the Star Boy.”
Lorinia Frake frowned. “One or the other, I suppose it makes no difference now, I will have my revenge, in any case. You will die. If I have to hunt down someone else later...” She reached for a switch near at hand, just beside her place at the table. She suddenly stumbled, then fell to the floor. Her guards rushed to her aid, but the same unknown force overcame them as well, their weapons falling from their hands as they collapsed.
“Your other error is in these Ultra-Energy Restraints,” said Star-Woman. “Although evidently effective in neutralizing my electro-cometary powers, you have left me with access to my inherited mass-inducing abilities. I have been gradually increasing the mass of the circuitry inside all your weapons, and now your bodies as well. In a few moments the circuitry inside these restraints will also collapse under its own weight…” The shackles shattered, and Star-Woman stood up.
* * *
Debris rained down from the ceiling on the Members, as Star-Woman came crashing through.
“I have destroyed the central processing system which controls the engines of this vessel,” she said. “It is immovable, as dead in space as any asteroid. I suppose we ought to alert the Science Police.”
“I already did,” said Saturn Girl. “Before we left Mars.”
“Then get onboard the Sojourner, I’ll break open this tin can, and let’s go meet them,” said Star-Woman. She smashed through the blast door, hurling it far out into space.
After a brief council with the Science Police, the Sojourner set a course for home.
PIRATE QUEEN
Kallor Nal, Star-Woman, awoke chained, cuffed, and manacled to a sturdy, solid hardwood chair. Flashing lights and some sort of complex wiring indicated reflexive power dampeners. She ran through her litany of powers, one at a time, and found them all lacking.
She was seated at an ornate, carved table, set with fine china and crystalware, and a dozen exotic dishes. She thought she recognized hummingbird-tongue pie, but it might have been something else.
Her captor was an old woman, seated at the far end of the great table. She was small, emaciated, and exceedingly old. If she had claimed to be a hundred years old or more, Kallor would have believed her.
“I am sorry you will not have time to dine with me,” said the old woman. “I have only enough time to tell you my story before you die.”
Kallor attempted to protest, but the old woman held up her hand, shushing her.
“My quarrel is not with you, but with your father,” said the old woman. “Sadly, he is long dead, so it appears I must take my revenge on you. My name is Lorinia Frake, and I am captain of this vessel, which has been decades in the building. Your father was responsible for the death of my daughter, Alicia Frake. Now it is his daughter that will die.”
“I’m sorry,” said Star-Woman. “I don’t want to die, but I understand your need for revenge. Sadly, I can tell you nothing of your daughter.”
“Oh, I already know the whole story,” said the old woman. “My daughter was the captain of the pirate ship Antares. Your father joined her crew under false pretenses. At a crucial point, he turned traitor, and turned one of the Antares own weapons on the ship, destroying the vessel and murdering the entire crew. It was believed that he, himself, was killed, but he later returned: first, assuming a false identity as the Rimboran hero Reflecto, and then later revealing himself in his true identity of Ultra Boy. When I heard that he had returned, I began building this ship-- the Penance-- as the weapon of my revenge. I did not know then how I would destroy him, but I knew that if I only acquired sufficiently diverse technology, I could find a way. I lured you here with visions from a Tachyon Field Projector. The same tachyon field now neutralizes the precognitive powers you inherited from your mother. I offered the pirates of the Renegade enhanced anti-lead serum to distract you. I have bound you with Ultra-Energy Restraints, which neutralize the powers you inherited from your father. Sadly, he died before the Penance was completed, but…”
“I am afraid you made a couple of errors,” said Star-Woman. “I recognize your story now. But your daughter was romantically involved with Jo Nah, the Ultra Boy; my father was Thom Kallor, the Star Boy.”
Lorinia Frake frowned. “One or the other, I suppose it makes no difference now, I will have my revenge, in any case. You will die. If I have to hunt down someone else later...” She reached for a switch near at hand, just beside her place at the table. She suddenly stumbled, then fell to the floor. Her guards rushed to her aid, but the same unknown force overcame them as well, their weapons falling from their hands as they collapsed.
“Your other error is in these Ultra-Energy Restraints,” said Star-Woman. “Although evidently effective in neutralizing my electro-cometary powers, you have left me with access to my inherited mass-inducing abilities. I have been gradually increasing the mass of the circuitry inside all your weapons, and now your bodies as well. In a few moments the circuitry inside these restraints will also collapse under its own weight…” The shackles shattered, and Star-Woman stood up.
* * *
Debris rained down from the ceiling on the Members, as Star-Woman came crashing through.
“I have destroyed the central processing system which controls the engines of this vessel,” she said. “It is immovable, as dead in space as any asteroid. I suppose we ought to alert the Science Police.”
“I already did,” said Saturn Girl. “Before we left Mars.”
“Then get onboard the Sojourner, I’ll break open this tin can, and let’s go meet them,” said Star-Woman. She smashed through the blast door, hurling it far out into space.
After a brief council with the Science Police, the Sojourner set a course for home.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/16/18 08:54 PM
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
DACEY AND ARNION: THIRD DATE
“Do you play 1O-S?” asked Arnion.
“A little,” said Dacey. “I’m not very good.”
“I’ll teach you,” said Arnion. “There are courts on the Intermediate School campus, and a Pro Shop opens up next door when the kids go home.”
“You know a lot about New Metropolis, for a non-native.” said Dacey.
“I get around,” said Arnion. “And I’ve been checking out places nearby that might be fun for us to go. For such a little town, there’s a lot here.”
They rented webrackets at the Pro Shop. Arnion helped Dacey with her serve. After a while, she would serve, and he would teleport to the other side of the net, starting a volley. Once they began playing in earnest, Dacey realized that it was hopeless. No matter her skill level, Arnion could be anywhere on the court instantly, and in the perfect position for a return.
“How about we try this without you using your powers?” asked Dacey.
Arnion shrugged. The next match was not quite so humiliating—Dacey scored a couple of points—but Arnion still beat her soundly.
“You know what?” said Dacey. “I’m going to turn in my racket.”
She was tired, and sweaty, and her muscles ached. She also felt humiliated by Arnion’s 1O-S prowess. And he had not been a good sport about it. Every win fed his ego, every game was a chance to gloat. She turned the sonic in the locker room on ‘extra-warm’, for a deep massage, while she washed off the day. She smelled something odd. It was the camellia-scent of Arnion’s teleportation. She looked out of the sonic shower, but saw nothing. But the locker room was brightly lit, so it was possible the mutant Mish Qengi was watching her invisibly. There was no one else there.
Dacey was not prude. She had spent thousands of hours on Winath dressed in only sandals and a Modesty®-- what Winathans referred to as thong-&-thongs—with mixed groups of females and males and xenales. But the idea of Arnion leering at her unseen as she soniced was creeping her out. She put it out of her mind. She took her time in the sonic, then redressed carefully. She moved slowly and deliberately around the locker room until she found the main light-switch. She plunged the room into darkness, and there was Arnion—glowing with faint yellow light, perfectly visible, and staring at her, grinning.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Arnion rushed her, pinning her arms against the lockers. He kissed her roughly, hungrily, biting her lips hard enough to draw blood.
“Stop it!” She pushed him away. “What has gotten into you?”
“I’m just tired of waiting.” He grabbed her again. “I don’t have to wait, you know. All I have to do is teleport you an inch, you’ll be unconscious, and I can do whatever I want with you for as long as I like.”
Dacey wrenched away again, starting to take flight in the confines of the small locker room. Arnion teleported, grabbing at her again. She had felt him preparing to teleport-- that odd sensation of yearning again. Prepared, her wrist caught in his hand. She pushed him away hard, with both hands, and this time sent a couple of hundred volts of electricity at him as well. He staggered, but recovered quickly, then vanished, appearing behind her. She hit him with her power again, harder this time, lightning lighting up the room. His involuntarily contracting muscles propelled him up against a wall, he hit awkwardly, drooped, and lay still.
Arnion lay in the dark, still glowing faintly. Dacey waited long enough to see that he was still breathing, then left, her destination the Clubhouse, with no stops in between.
“He’s dangerous,” Dacey told her sister. “I think he threatened to kill me. Or, at least, put me in a permanent neural coma, so that he could do what he wanted with my unconscious body. I’m going to file a report with the Martian SPs, but we need to find out if is this is something he has done before.”
“Research unexplainedly comatose teen-age girls in the news,” said Dorrit. “We can find his flight records, and run a cross-match. Flight registries are official public documents; it shouldn’t be too hard. And you need to register a complaint with a Mish Quengi embassy, and the Mish Quengi SPs, if the UP has stationed any there yet. In the meantime we have to keep you safe. We know something about him now that I don’t believe too many other people know…”
“He can’t teleport anywhere he can’t see. He can’t go through solid objects, not even windows. If we keep the lights low, he can’t turn invisible,” said Dacey. “And he smells of camellias. And the scent stronger whenever he teleports. And just before he vanishes, if he’s anywhere near me, I get this odd feeling…”
“I’ve felt it too,” said Dorrit. “I’m not sure how to describe it…”
“It’s a sort of a sense of wistful longing,” said Dacey. “I used to think that it was in anticipation of missing him—but I think it’s really a subconscious fear of possibly missing myself!”
 
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
DACEY UNSOULED
Half the Members were outside the Clubhouse when it happened.
Arnion appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed Dacey by the shoulders from behind. There was a blue-white flash of lightning as Dacey defended herself. It vanished with them both, then re-appeared with them, only a few yards away. Dacey and Arnion were lying on the ground. Arnion was unconscious, the victim of a severe electric shock. His hands were burned.
But Dacey was also lying on her back, motionless, her open eyes staring unseeing at the empty sky.
The hospital at Nix Olympica would only allow a few family members in at a time. Garridan and Graym and his wife were waiting in the hall with Mekt and the three Krinns. Salu and Ayla were back on Lightning Ring Farms, but started calling in every hour for an update. So far, there wasn’t much to report.
Garth and Imra Ranzz were in the hospital room with Dacey, and a Houyhnhnm physician named Dr. Hrunnhr. Dorrit had run out of tears an hour ago, but was just re-entering the room. There was a small, squarish portable stargate on the other side of the room near the window. Her parents were waiting for someone, but Dorrit didn’t know who. The stargate flared.
It was Querl Dox: Brainiac Five.
He nodded to Dr. Hrunnhr, but did not make eye contact with any of the Ranzz family. He cursorily examined the readouts above Dacey’s bed, then took out some sensor device of his own, then another, then another. He turned back to the stargate and vanished.
“What?” said Dorrit. “What? He’s here less than a minute, says nothing, and leaves? What kind of friend is that?”
“He said he would do what he could,” said Imra. “It may be…” Her voice cracked.
“There may be nothing he can do,” said Garth.
“But she’s alive!” said Dorrit. “Her living body is right here! And Mother, you must feel it! Her mind is… her mind is alive, too. Her thoughts are jumbled, confused, it’s like she’s in a deep sleep, beyond dreams even. But she’s alive! I know it! Mother, you must feel it, too!”
“Yes,” said Imra. “I perceive her thoughts, just as you do. Her mind is alive. But Dorrit… listen closely. You see? She’s not here. She’s somewhere else… far away.”
The stargate flared again.
The old woman had dark, leathery skin, and a port-wine stain that covered a quarter of her face. Her right ear was a vivid purple. Her chalk-white hair was braided into long white dreadlocks. She looked at the comatose young woman on the hospital bed, and nodded.
“Doctor Dox sent me,” she explained. “I am called Jenny Dark.” She offered a hand to each of the parents. “I can see that Doctor Dox is correct in his diagnosis. Your daughter has lost her soul. But I may be able to call it back.”
Garth and Imra gasped. Dorrit was confused.
The old woman walked over to the bed, and drew a complex geometric figure on Dacey’s forehead with red ochre. Then she reached into the large wicker bag she carried, and unfolded a small table and chair. She produced two fat black candles, and placed them on opposite sides of the table, lighting them without a match.
“This is absurd,” huffed Dr. Hrunnhr. “Practicing witchcraft in a hospital. But as I can prescribe no other course of treatment, pray continue, if you must.” He left the room.
“Now what do we do?” asked Imra.
“We wait,” said Jenny Dark. “We wait for her soul to return.”
Hours passed. Mekt and the Krinns took their turn in the room, then Garridan, Graym, and Yves. Everyone went for food except Jenny Dark, who sat silently and watched as the black candles burned.
After stepping out for a quick meal, Imra and Dorrit left the hospital, traveling the mile or so to the Science Police Station nearby.
Arnion sat cross-legged in a small holding cell behind a wall of transparent plasteel. Sat, that is, upside-down on the ceiling. When he saw the mother and daughter, he vanished with a pop, re-appearing immediately in the same position down on his bunk.
“Where is my daughter’s soul?” asked Imra Ardeen-Ranzz. “Where have you hidden it?”
“Is that what happens?” said Arnion with a grin. “I never would have guessed, but it makes sense, I suppose. I imagine there must be a great many ghosts of insects and small animals roaming around Mish Qeng now.”
Arnion’s left arm flew up over his head, then dropped down limp.
“Well, I can access your motor cortex,” said Imra, “but I can’t read your thoughts. What are you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said Arnion. He abruptly stood up from the cot, and his feet began to dance rapidly. After several minutes, his breath began to be labored.
“Dorrit, stop it!” cried Imra, looking at her daughter. “We can learn what we need to without... torture.” She turned to Arnion. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize at first it was my daughter doing that.”
“Good cop, bad cop,” said Arnion. “Interesting choice of roles.”
“Bring Dacey back,” said Imra. “We will let the SPs know that you cooperated.”
“Help me out of this cell,” said Arnion, “And I will show you how to find your daughter’s soul.”
“I think that price is too high,” said Imra.
“Well, you have another daughter, at least,” said Arnion. “Possibly more beautiful than the first. Instead of freeing me... let her spend some time alone with me in my new lodgings.” He swept his arms around the cell. “Half-an-hour ought to be sufficient. When I am finished with her, then you can have them both back.”
“I think not,” said Imra. She turned and walked away. The SP on duty let the two Ranzz women out the security door.
“I’ll do it, Mother,” said Dorrit. “I’ll do it to get Dacey back. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“I care,” said Imra. “I want both my daughters alive and whole. And Dorrit, when you have been in the mind-reading business as long as I have, you do not need telepathy to know when someone is lying. Arnion was genuinely surprised to learn what happens to his victims. I’m sure he doesn’t know how to reverse it. Probably, until we spoke just now, he had no idea that there was a possibility the effects of teleporting living beings could be reversed. But he is sociopathic enough to try to get some advantage out of it. Think about that. It was his first thought.”
The SP sergeant approached them.
“We have found reports of other cases, more victims,” he said. “All young girls, all humanoid, some Terran, some non-Terran. Most of them are in hospital, on life support, but one girl on Myar… she was in an isolated area, missing for days. She starved to death while comatose. This is a murder investigation now. They will be running rape kits, looking for genetic markers, but that perfume he constantly secretes leaves telltale, long-lasting evidence. We’re sure it was him. He’s going nowhere for a long, long time, if that’s any consolation.”
When they returned to the hospital, Garth was waiting outside, ready to relieve Garridan, Graym, and Yves.
“Can we get you something to eat?” Imra asked Jenny Dark.
“No thank you,” said the old woman. She shook her head. “Either she cannot hear, or she cannot find us,” she said. “She may be too far away. But I will stay until the candles burn out. Then… I am afraid there is nothing more I can do.”
A nurse knocked on the door.
“There is someone here, who says he is not family, but asks that you allow him to see the patient,” she said. “He says his name is Jacques Foccart.”
“Jacques? I thought he was on Earth, not Mars,” said Garth. “Certainly, I suppose…”
Jacques Foccart’s hair had gone full gray, but there was still a pronounced white streak down the center. His eyes looked tired.
“Comment est-ce possible?” cried Jenny Dark, springing up from her seat. “L'avez-vous vraiment apporté? Mr. and Mrs. Ranzz, this young man has brought us your daughter’s soul.”
“Quand je suis invisible,” Jacques explained, “Je vois des âmes mortes.”
“She’s here!” Dorrit cried out. “Mother, can you hear her mind? He… somehow… brought Dacey here!”
“She was still back at your Clubhouse,” Jacques told Dorrit. “Our Coluan friend asked me to take a look.I have just come from there. None of the Members of your ‘Super-Hero Club’ saw me come, or saw us go. It did take some time to get here. She is easily lost, on the other side.”
“Merci, jeune homme,” Jenny Dark said to Jacques. The old woman stretched out her hands, reaching across the hospital bed into the empty air. “Come, child,” she said. “Lie down, Rest here, where your body lies.”
Dacey sprung upright in bed, her eyes snapping open. “Wow! I’m starving,” she said. “How long have I been asleep?” She rubbed her temples. “Oh, that was the weirdest dream ever.” She looked up at Dorrit. “From now on, any time I go on a date, you are welcome to all the voyeurism you can stand.”
“I have some bad news about Arnion,” said Dorrit.
“What, that he’s a charming sociopath?” said Dacey. “I already figured that out.”
“He is terribly dangerous,” said Imra. “When I was talking to him at the jail, even though he was saying horrible things, I couldn’t help but like him. Almost. He has some sort of subtle, projective charisma.”
Dorrit turned to Jacques. “Monsieur Foccart, the SPs have found other girls like Dacey. I don’t know how many. Do you think you could help find them?”
“Querl did not tell me this was going to be a long-term assignment,” said Jacques. “But I am glad to be of use. If these young women’s souls remain where they were last teleported away from, they may be easy to find. However, I am not sure I have the skill to return their souls to their living bodies. I have never tried.”
“I believe, for this project, I can clear my calendar for a few weeks,” said Jenny Dark. “Cela ne vous dérangerait-il pas de me tenir compagnie?”
“I would be honored,” said Jacques Foccart. “Although I am not as young as I used to be.”
“None of us are, cher enfant,” said Jenny Dark.
[b]CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
ARNION OF MISH QENG[b]
A few months later.
The two golden Mish Qengi adults stood uneasily before Jenny Dark. Their golden wings trembled with anticipation.
“He will not be the child you knew,” The old woman explained. “He will be lost, confused, and will need much help adjusting to this world he has been absent from for so long.”
The man and his wife nodded. This strange, alien sorceress had come into their home, with strange, but somehow comforting stories. Now she painted complex geometric symbols on the walls and ceiling of the little bedroom, kept just as it had been for nearly twelve years now.
Jenny Dark set up her small table, and lit the black candles. She prepared to do battle.
First, a teleportation spell.
The body of Arnion appeared, from wherever he was being held by the Science Police, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“Come out of him,” commanded Jenny Dark.
“Won’t,” said the golden boy.
“From your infantile behavior, your lack of self-control, your lack of planning, and your general, all-around foolishness, I suspect you are one of the younger, lesser imps,” said Jenny Dark. “If I am wrong, this may hurt me more than it hurts you.”
She placed a hand onto the top of Arnion’s head, and pulled. The boy screamed, then fell unconscious on the bed. The old sorceress found herself holding a bright green demon, no more than a foot tall. It was mostly head.
“Umm.. Your wish is my command?” mewled the demon.
“Go to Hell,” said Jenny Dark, and the demon evaporated downward in a pillar of green smoke and flame.
The old woman looked into the empty space above the bed. “I know this doesn’t look like the body you remember,” she said, “But a good deal of time has passed since you last inhabited it. Won’t you give it a try?”
Arnion slowly opened his eyes. His parents gasped.
“Now, this is very important,” said Jenny Dark to the boy. “You mustn’t teleport any more. I’m putting a little mark on you, to make it easier for you not to.” She dabbed the boy’s forehead in a complex pattern of red ochre, which faded into a bright silver filigree. “If you lose your soul again, I might not be able to find it.”
She turned to the parents. “He will grow up quickly,” she told them. “Re-learning everything from the missing twelve years in a very short time. His inability to fly is a serious handicap on your world, and one your culture makes no allowance for. But this is a gift to your son from a man on Colu.” She held out a flight ring, but one with no emblem of any kind. “It will enable him to fly without wings. Perhaps this will make it easier for him to fit in.” She slipped the ring onto one of Arnion’s fingers.
“You don’t have wings,” said Arnion. “Like me.” He considered. “I’m hungry, he told his parents.”
“Of course you are,” said Jenny Dark. “I will leave you now.”
She packed up her wicker bag and left the way she had come.
DACEY AND ARNION: THIRD DATE
“Do you play 1O-S?” asked Arnion.
“A little,” said Dacey. “I’m not very good.”
“I’ll teach you,” said Arnion. “There are courts on the Intermediate School campus, and a Pro Shop opens up next door when the kids go home.”
“You know a lot about New Metropolis, for a non-native.” said Dacey.
“I get around,” said Arnion. “And I’ve been checking out places nearby that might be fun for us to go. For such a little town, there’s a lot here.”
They rented webrackets at the Pro Shop. Arnion helped Dacey with her serve. After a while, she would serve, and he would teleport to the other side of the net, starting a volley. Once they began playing in earnest, Dacey realized that it was hopeless. No matter her skill level, Arnion could be anywhere on the court instantly, and in the perfect position for a return.
“How about we try this without you using your powers?” asked Dacey.
Arnion shrugged. The next match was not quite so humiliating—Dacey scored a couple of points—but Arnion still beat her soundly.
“You know what?” said Dacey. “I’m going to turn in my racket.”
She was tired, and sweaty, and her muscles ached. She also felt humiliated by Arnion’s 1O-S prowess. And he had not been a good sport about it. Every win fed his ego, every game was a chance to gloat. She turned the sonic in the locker room on ‘extra-warm’, for a deep massage, while she washed off the day. She smelled something odd. It was the camellia-scent of Arnion’s teleportation. She looked out of the sonic shower, but saw nothing. But the locker room was brightly lit, so it was possible the mutant Mish Qengi was watching her invisibly. There was no one else there.
Dacey was not prude. She had spent thousands of hours on Winath dressed in only sandals and a Modesty®-- what Winathans referred to as thong-&-thongs—with mixed groups of females and males and xenales. But the idea of Arnion leering at her unseen as she soniced was creeping her out. She put it out of her mind. She took her time in the sonic, then redressed carefully. She moved slowly and deliberately around the locker room until she found the main light-switch. She plunged the room into darkness, and there was Arnion—glowing with faint yellow light, perfectly visible, and staring at her, grinning.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Arnion rushed her, pinning her arms against the lockers. He kissed her roughly, hungrily, biting her lips hard enough to draw blood.
“Stop it!” She pushed him away. “What has gotten into you?”
“I’m just tired of waiting.” He grabbed her again. “I don’t have to wait, you know. All I have to do is teleport you an inch, you’ll be unconscious, and I can do whatever I want with you for as long as I like.”
Dacey wrenched away again, starting to take flight in the confines of the small locker room. Arnion teleported, grabbing at her again. She had felt him preparing to teleport-- that odd sensation of yearning again. Prepared, her wrist caught in his hand. She pushed him away hard, with both hands, and this time sent a couple of hundred volts of electricity at him as well. He staggered, but recovered quickly, then vanished, appearing behind her. She hit him with her power again, harder this time, lightning lighting up the room. His involuntarily contracting muscles propelled him up against a wall, he hit awkwardly, drooped, and lay still.
Arnion lay in the dark, still glowing faintly. Dacey waited long enough to see that he was still breathing, then left, her destination the Clubhouse, with no stops in between.
“He’s dangerous,” Dacey told her sister. “I think he threatened to kill me. Or, at least, put me in a permanent neural coma, so that he could do what he wanted with my unconscious body. I’m going to file a report with the Martian SPs, but we need to find out if is this is something he has done before.”
“Research unexplainedly comatose teen-age girls in the news,” said Dorrit. “We can find his flight records, and run a cross-match. Flight registries are official public documents; it shouldn’t be too hard. And you need to register a complaint with a Mish Quengi embassy, and the Mish Quengi SPs, if the UP has stationed any there yet. In the meantime we have to keep you safe. We know something about him now that I don’t believe too many other people know…”
“He can’t teleport anywhere he can’t see. He can’t go through solid objects, not even windows. If we keep the lights low, he can’t turn invisible,” said Dacey. “And he smells of camellias. And the scent stronger whenever he teleports. And just before he vanishes, if he’s anywhere near me, I get this odd feeling…”
“I’ve felt it too,” said Dorrit. “I’m not sure how to describe it…”
“It’s a sort of a sense of wistful longing,” said Dacey. “I used to think that it was in anticipation of missing him—but I think it’s really a subconscious fear of possibly missing myself!”
 
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
DACEY UNSOULED
Half the Members were outside the Clubhouse when it happened.
Arnion appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed Dacey by the shoulders from behind. There was a blue-white flash of lightning as Dacey defended herself. It vanished with them both, then re-appeared with them, only a few yards away. Dacey and Arnion were lying on the ground. Arnion was unconscious, the victim of a severe electric shock. His hands were burned.
But Dacey was also lying on her back, motionless, her open eyes staring unseeing at the empty sky.
The hospital at Nix Olympica would only allow a few family members in at a time. Garridan and Graym and his wife were waiting in the hall with Mekt and the three Krinns. Salu and Ayla were back on Lightning Ring Farms, but started calling in every hour for an update. So far, there wasn’t much to report.
Garth and Imra Ranzz were in the hospital room with Dacey, and a Houyhnhnm physician named Dr. Hrunnhr. Dorrit had run out of tears an hour ago, but was just re-entering the room. There was a small, squarish portable stargate on the other side of the room near the window. Her parents were waiting for someone, but Dorrit didn’t know who. The stargate flared.
It was Querl Dox: Brainiac Five.
He nodded to Dr. Hrunnhr, but did not make eye contact with any of the Ranzz family. He cursorily examined the readouts above Dacey’s bed, then took out some sensor device of his own, then another, then another. He turned back to the stargate and vanished.
“What?” said Dorrit. “What? He’s here less than a minute, says nothing, and leaves? What kind of friend is that?”
“He said he would do what he could,” said Imra. “It may be…” Her voice cracked.
“There may be nothing he can do,” said Garth.
“But she’s alive!” said Dorrit. “Her living body is right here! And Mother, you must feel it! Her mind is… her mind is alive, too. Her thoughts are jumbled, confused, it’s like she’s in a deep sleep, beyond dreams even. But she’s alive! I know it! Mother, you must feel it, too!”
“Yes,” said Imra. “I perceive her thoughts, just as you do. Her mind is alive. But Dorrit… listen closely. You see? She’s not here. She’s somewhere else… far away.”
The stargate flared again.
The old woman had dark, leathery skin, and a port-wine stain that covered a quarter of her face. Her right ear was a vivid purple. Her chalk-white hair was braided into long white dreadlocks. She looked at the comatose young woman on the hospital bed, and nodded.
“Doctor Dox sent me,” she explained. “I am called Jenny Dark.” She offered a hand to each of the parents. “I can see that Doctor Dox is correct in his diagnosis. Your daughter has lost her soul. But I may be able to call it back.”
Garth and Imra gasped. Dorrit was confused.
The old woman walked over to the bed, and drew a complex geometric figure on Dacey’s forehead with red ochre. Then she reached into the large wicker bag she carried, and unfolded a small table and chair. She produced two fat black candles, and placed them on opposite sides of the table, lighting them without a match.
“This is absurd,” huffed Dr. Hrunnhr. “Practicing witchcraft in a hospital. But as I can prescribe no other course of treatment, pray continue, if you must.” He left the room.
“Now what do we do?” asked Imra.
“We wait,” said Jenny Dark. “We wait for her soul to return.”
Hours passed. Mekt and the Krinns took their turn in the room, then Garridan, Graym, and Yves. Everyone went for food except Jenny Dark, who sat silently and watched as the black candles burned.
After stepping out for a quick meal, Imra and Dorrit left the hospital, traveling the mile or so to the Science Police Station nearby.
Arnion sat cross-legged in a small holding cell behind a wall of transparent plasteel. Sat, that is, upside-down on the ceiling. When he saw the mother and daughter, he vanished with a pop, re-appearing immediately in the same position down on his bunk.
“Where is my daughter’s soul?” asked Imra Ardeen-Ranzz. “Where have you hidden it?”
“Is that what happens?” said Arnion with a grin. “I never would have guessed, but it makes sense, I suppose. I imagine there must be a great many ghosts of insects and small animals roaming around Mish Qeng now.”
Arnion’s left arm flew up over his head, then dropped down limp.
“Well, I can access your motor cortex,” said Imra, “but I can’t read your thoughts. What are you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said Arnion. He abruptly stood up from the cot, and his feet began to dance rapidly. After several minutes, his breath began to be labored.
“Dorrit, stop it!” cried Imra, looking at her daughter. “We can learn what we need to without... torture.” She turned to Arnion. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize at first it was my daughter doing that.”
“Good cop, bad cop,” said Arnion. “Interesting choice of roles.”
“Bring Dacey back,” said Imra. “We will let the SPs know that you cooperated.”
“Help me out of this cell,” said Arnion, “And I will show you how to find your daughter’s soul.”
“I think that price is too high,” said Imra.
“Well, you have another daughter, at least,” said Arnion. “Possibly more beautiful than the first. Instead of freeing me... let her spend some time alone with me in my new lodgings.” He swept his arms around the cell. “Half-an-hour ought to be sufficient. When I am finished with her, then you can have them both back.”
“I think not,” said Imra. She turned and walked away. The SP on duty let the two Ranzz women out the security door.
“I’ll do it, Mother,” said Dorrit. “I’ll do it to get Dacey back. I don’t care what happens to me.”
“I care,” said Imra. “I want both my daughters alive and whole. And Dorrit, when you have been in the mind-reading business as long as I have, you do not need telepathy to know when someone is lying. Arnion was genuinely surprised to learn what happens to his victims. I’m sure he doesn’t know how to reverse it. Probably, until we spoke just now, he had no idea that there was a possibility the effects of teleporting living beings could be reversed. But he is sociopathic enough to try to get some advantage out of it. Think about that. It was his first thought.”
The SP sergeant approached them.
“We have found reports of other cases, more victims,” he said. “All young girls, all humanoid, some Terran, some non-Terran. Most of them are in hospital, on life support, but one girl on Myar… she was in an isolated area, missing for days. She starved to death while comatose. This is a murder investigation now. They will be running rape kits, looking for genetic markers, but that perfume he constantly secretes leaves telltale, long-lasting evidence. We’re sure it was him. He’s going nowhere for a long, long time, if that’s any consolation.”
When they returned to the hospital, Garth was waiting outside, ready to relieve Garridan, Graym, and Yves.
“Can we get you something to eat?” Imra asked Jenny Dark.
“No thank you,” said the old woman. She shook her head. “Either she cannot hear, or she cannot find us,” she said. “She may be too far away. But I will stay until the candles burn out. Then… I am afraid there is nothing more I can do.”
A nurse knocked on the door.
“There is someone here, who says he is not family, but asks that you allow him to see the patient,” she said. “He says his name is Jacques Foccart.”
“Jacques? I thought he was on Earth, not Mars,” said Garth. “Certainly, I suppose…”
Jacques Foccart’s hair had gone full gray, but there was still a pronounced white streak down the center. His eyes looked tired.
“Comment est-ce possible?” cried Jenny Dark, springing up from her seat. “L'avez-vous vraiment apporté? Mr. and Mrs. Ranzz, this young man has brought us your daughter’s soul.”
“Quand je suis invisible,” Jacques explained, “Je vois des âmes mortes.”
“She’s here!” Dorrit cried out. “Mother, can you hear her mind? He… somehow… brought Dacey here!”
“She was still back at your Clubhouse,” Jacques told Dorrit. “Our Coluan friend asked me to take a look.I have just come from there. None of the Members of your ‘Super-Hero Club’ saw me come, or saw us go. It did take some time to get here. She is easily lost, on the other side.”
“Merci, jeune homme,” Jenny Dark said to Jacques. The old woman stretched out her hands, reaching across the hospital bed into the empty air. “Come, child,” she said. “Lie down, Rest here, where your body lies.”
Dacey sprung upright in bed, her eyes snapping open. “Wow! I’m starving,” she said. “How long have I been asleep?” She rubbed her temples. “Oh, that was the weirdest dream ever.” She looked up at Dorrit. “From now on, any time I go on a date, you are welcome to all the voyeurism you can stand.”
“I have some bad news about Arnion,” said Dorrit.
“What, that he’s a charming sociopath?” said Dacey. “I already figured that out.”
“He is terribly dangerous,” said Imra. “When I was talking to him at the jail, even though he was saying horrible things, I couldn’t help but like him. Almost. He has some sort of subtle, projective charisma.”
Dorrit turned to Jacques. “Monsieur Foccart, the SPs have found other girls like Dacey. I don’t know how many. Do you think you could help find them?”
“Querl did not tell me this was going to be a long-term assignment,” said Jacques. “But I am glad to be of use. If these young women’s souls remain where they were last teleported away from, they may be easy to find. However, I am not sure I have the skill to return their souls to their living bodies. I have never tried.”
“I believe, for this project, I can clear my calendar for a few weeks,” said Jenny Dark. “Cela ne vous dérangerait-il pas de me tenir compagnie?”
“I would be honored,” said Jacques Foccart. “Although I am not as young as I used to be.”
“None of us are, cher enfant,” said Jenny Dark.
[b]CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
ARNION OF MISH QENG[b]
A few months later.
The two golden Mish Qengi adults stood uneasily before Jenny Dark. Their golden wings trembled with anticipation.
“He will not be the child you knew,” The old woman explained. “He will be lost, confused, and will need much help adjusting to this world he has been absent from for so long.”
The man and his wife nodded. This strange, alien sorceress had come into their home, with strange, but somehow comforting stories. Now she painted complex geometric symbols on the walls and ceiling of the little bedroom, kept just as it had been for nearly twelve years now.
Jenny Dark set up her small table, and lit the black candles. She prepared to do battle.
First, a teleportation spell.
The body of Arnion appeared, from wherever he was being held by the Science Police, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“Come out of him,” commanded Jenny Dark.
“Won’t,” said the golden boy.
“From your infantile behavior, your lack of self-control, your lack of planning, and your general, all-around foolishness, I suspect you are one of the younger, lesser imps,” said Jenny Dark. “If I am wrong, this may hurt me more than it hurts you.”
She placed a hand onto the top of Arnion’s head, and pulled. The boy screamed, then fell unconscious on the bed. The old sorceress found herself holding a bright green demon, no more than a foot tall. It was mostly head.
“Umm.. Your wish is my command?” mewled the demon.
“Go to Hell,” said Jenny Dark, and the demon evaporated downward in a pillar of green smoke and flame.
The old woman looked into the empty space above the bed. “I know this doesn’t look like the body you remember,” she said, “But a good deal of time has passed since you last inhabited it. Won’t you give it a try?”
Arnion slowly opened his eyes. His parents gasped.
“Now, this is very important,” said Jenny Dark to the boy. “You mustn’t teleport any more. I’m putting a little mark on you, to make it easier for you not to.” She dabbed the boy’s forehead in a complex pattern of red ochre, which faded into a bright silver filigree. “If you lose your soul again, I might not be able to find it.”
She turned to the parents. “He will grow up quickly,” she told them. “Re-learning everything from the missing twelve years in a very short time. His inability to fly is a serious handicap on your world, and one your culture makes no allowance for. But this is a gift to your son from a man on Colu.” She held out a flight ring, but one with no emblem of any kind. “It will enable him to fly without wings. Perhaps this will make it easier for him to fit in.” She slipped the ring onto one of Arnion’s fingers.
“You don’t have wings,” said Arnion. “Like me.” He considered. “I’m hungry, he told his parents.”
“Of course you are,” said Jenny Dark. “I will leave you now.”
She packed up her wicker bag and left the way she had come.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/31/18 06:16 PM
All's well that ends well, for Arnion and Dacey. That was a sad plot as it was going along, though - the danger signs got worse yet Dacey stayed with him. All too real - and you want to say run far, run fast from that guy but you know she won't listen. I should have caught on that an imp was involved when he said he was just playing.
So it's going to be Elonville and not Bradbury City?
Nice to see that Star Woman, for all her power, doesn't overshadow the Young Legion.
Leave it to the androids of Zuun to establish a utopian agrarian society. They could teach us a thing or two.
These kids come off as much more down to Earth (or Mars, as the case may be) than their predecessors. There's something delightfully practical and unperturbable about them.
So it's going to be Elonville and not Bradbury City?
Nice to see that Star Woman, for all her power, doesn't overshadow the Young Legion.
Leave it to the androids of Zuun to establish a utopian agrarian society. They could teach us a thing or two.
These kids come off as much more down to Earth (or Mars, as the case may be) than their predecessors. There's something delightfully practical and unperturbable about them.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/01/18 10:16 PM
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
All's well that ends well, for Arnion and Dacey...
Well, I would hope the resolution is left a bit more ambiguous... and it couldn't have happened without the help of Demonology and Necromancy.
Plus the elder Legionnaires had to pull the kids' bacon out of the fire again.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
So it's going to be Elonville and not Bradbury City?
Elonville was ultimately a failure.
There are a lot of cities on Mars by the 31st century. The domed Mars City, Nix Olympica, Marshall City, Marsopolis, New Metropolis, Argyre City, Arcadia, Tholus, and others. It is still under-populated, however.
=========================================================================================================================
I found that I needed a flying brick to get the Super Hero Club off of Mars, so I recruited Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, daughter of the late, lamented Thom Kallor and Nura Nal.
Possessing all the powers of any Star Boy in any continuity as well as Naltoran precognitive powers, she is at the power level of Superboy, Supergirl, Mon-El and Laurel Gand.
Aside from a bland ‘heroic’ personality like Kal-El or Rokk Krinn, I have had some difficulty defining Kallor as a character.
“Trained” as a Planetary Champion on Naltor and New Titan under the watchful eye of her mother, the High Seer, she nevertheless had little practical experience before joining the Super-Hero Club, as her mother and the Cassandran Council were highly protective of her.
She also has a little bit of money behind her.
Kallor is several years older than the other Members; and the difference between fourteen and twenty-three is significant at those ages.
There are several other characters I considered using, but ultimately rejected.
(mostly time-travelers)
Lili Van-Zee
Val Colby
Hyper-Boy (Chester King)
An antique Superboy-robot (restored by Ten)
Arna Nah (who gains ultra-powers when in the Earthside dimension for long enough)
Ariella Kent / R’E’L (She’s ten years older than the last time you saw her, and has full control of her powers)
Resurrection Boy (Mitchell Shelley)
Amistad Ervin
Magni Donarsson
Phaéton
A new version of Cir-El
Some of them may still show up.
=========================================================================================================================
Cramer: from the german 'Krämer', originally a chandler or candlemaker, now a grocer, or seller of particular small items.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/02/18 10:32 PM
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
JO NAH, AUTO MECHANIC
The chicken had been marinated in herbs and a strong alcohol overnight. Ffarrah had rented a thermal stove for a day.
“Remember, I’ve only made this once before,” she told the Members. “And it’s going to be at least a couple of hours before it’s done.”
No one but the other Triplicates and Chameleon were interested in waiting around to watch the process.
Ffarrah loaded two kilos of salt into a deep, heavy pan, and heated it on the thermal stove. She then completely covered the cloth-wrapped chicken with the hot salt, and let it cook for another two hours.
Chameleon had discovered that he could digest virtually any Terran food, if drenched in a sauce of either Kim Chee, Hawaiian Poi, Miso, or Mr. Prospero’s mysterious antique-recipe yoghurt. The chicken was wonderfully tasteless and dry, taking on the flavour of each of Chameleon’s dipping sauces, and his copper chloride salts.
The Triplicates had their own strong-flavored dipping sauces, ginger, chile, and garlic.
“You’re not throwing all that salt away, are you?” asked Matter-Eater Lad. “That’s a good two or three meals for me. It fuses into nickel, which is very good for my digestion.”
“You’re welcome to it,” said Ffarrah. “I’ll need to buy fresh if I want to make this recipe again.”
“Please do,” said Chameleon.
Recipe: Chinese Hakka Chicken Baked in Salt
Jo Nah’s truck pulled up outside the clubhouse. It was about as long as Star-Woman’s Space Van, but differently configured.
“I don’t usually make house calls on Mars this far away from Agyre City,” he said. “But for Irinia, and Garth and Rokk’s kids, I make an exception.”
His hair was long and unkempt, he had the perpetual three-day growth of beard Phantom Girl had become accustomed to. He might have come off rakish, had his hair and beard not been shot through with gray. He had the beginnings of a pot belly.
Star-Woman went out to meet him.
“It seems odd that a former Legionnaire would be in the car-repair business,” she noted.
“Can’t play the hero forever,” said Jo Nah. “Besides, back in the beginning of the Legion, before we were fighting Multiple All-Powerful Incarnations of Evil, we did a lot of that kind of stuff. People used to bring their cars by the old Clubhouse, and we would see what we could do to help fix them.”
![[Linked Image]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/07e455dae6a397005f230d582dc1801c/tumblr_p4f3x5DIy51uwm5uqo1_250.jpg)
“Did you really?” said Star-Woman.
“Now you wanted a 5-D Tesseractoid Cleanroom installed, young lady,” said Jo Nah, “and a Vibrator?”
“I’m sorry, what?” asked Star-Woman.
“A Vibrator. You know string theory?” said Jo Nah. “Discredited ancient particle physics, but useful when talking in approximations. Everything is supposedly made out of vibrating eleven-dimensional strings. Each parallel universe has its own unique ‘resonance frequency’. Re-tune your strings with a cosmic Vibrator, and you sync up with the appropriate universe. This one--” He held up a device about the size of a shoe box. “-- when attached to your Space-Van, will allow you to move you between Earth, Bgztl, and the Phantom Zone. Just don’t try re-configuring it as a Phantom Zone ray projector. First place, it’s illegal. Second place, it’s a tricky prospect, and you might get stuck somewhere you don’t want to be… permanently.”
“I’m not looking to outfit the Space Van with weapons,” said Star-Woman.
“That might be a mistake,” said Jo Nah. “The old Legion always had awesome blasters on all the later models of the cruisers. Say, that’s one of our old Mark II’s, isn’t it?”
“We salvaged it, and turned it into a Clubhouse,” said Star-Woman. “Well, the others did.”
“Now there’s an idea,” said Jo Nah. “I wonder if I could pick up a few of those old Legion cruisers, and start a Martian motel chain. Might be a good investment for my retirement.”
“You’ll never retire, Mr. Nah,” said Phantom Girl, exiting from the clubhouse. “You love tinkering with other people’s machines too much.”
Jo Nah scratched his beard. “You may have a point there, Irinia,” he said. “Let me get to work on that Space Van.”
“Is there anything we can help you with?” asked Star-Woman.
“Well, you could pick me up a thramm sandwich and a cold guaraná for when I finish; I haven’t had lunch.”
“Thramm sandwich?” asked Star-woman, looking at Phantom Girl.
“I think the best substitute on this side of the Phantom Zone would be a thick pastrami-on-rye,” said Phantom Girl.
“You’re Thom and Nura’s girl, aren’t you?” said Jo Nah, over lunch.
“Yes,” said Star-Woman, “But I never knew my father.”
“Tinya and I really haven’t kept in touch,” said Jo Nah. “With any of the old gang, really. It was pretty traumatic for my wife at the end. She was Legion Leader, and there were a lot of deaths, one after another. She struggled for a couple of years with depression and PTSD. After the Legion was permanently disbanded.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Star-Woman. “I’m not… my mother doesn’t talk much about her time with the Legion. Sort of a finishing school for royals, wasn’t it? Naltor, Orando, Talok VIII, Sorcerer’s World-- they all sent their future rulers to the Legion for training, in their teens.”
Jo Nah nodded. “Never really thought of it that way,” he paused, thinking. “I have something that belonged to your father,” he said. “And I think he’d probably like for you to have it. I’m sure I don’t know what to do with it, after all these years. I’ll send it by Interplanetary Express after I get back home to Gzbk.”
The package arrived the next day. It wasn’t very large.
Korvea gasped. “That’s the Quarvat,” she exclaimed.
“A what?” asked Phantom Girl.
Star-Woman lifted the short golden wand out of the packaging. It glowed faintly.
“It’s also called a gravity rod,” said Star-Woman. “An extremely powerful weapon. Ancient Terran technology; but hard to replicate. Only a very few were ever made. It absorbs and concentrates stellar energy, both electromagnetic and gravitational. They say it’s on a power level with an Oan power ring. I can’t think where my father could have acquired it. Or how it ended up in Mr. Nah’s possession."
JO NAH, AUTO MECHANIC
The chicken had been marinated in herbs and a strong alcohol overnight. Ffarrah had rented a thermal stove for a day.
“Remember, I’ve only made this once before,” she told the Members. “And it’s going to be at least a couple of hours before it’s done.”
No one but the other Triplicates and Chameleon were interested in waiting around to watch the process.
Ffarrah loaded two kilos of salt into a deep, heavy pan, and heated it on the thermal stove. She then completely covered the cloth-wrapped chicken with the hot salt, and let it cook for another two hours.
Chameleon had discovered that he could digest virtually any Terran food, if drenched in a sauce of either Kim Chee, Hawaiian Poi, Miso, or Mr. Prospero’s mysterious antique-recipe yoghurt. The chicken was wonderfully tasteless and dry, taking on the flavour of each of Chameleon’s dipping sauces, and his copper chloride salts.
The Triplicates had their own strong-flavored dipping sauces, ginger, chile, and garlic.
“You’re not throwing all that salt away, are you?” asked Matter-Eater Lad. “That’s a good two or three meals for me. It fuses into nickel, which is very good for my digestion.”
“You’re welcome to it,” said Ffarrah. “I’ll need to buy fresh if I want to make this recipe again.”
“Please do,” said Chameleon.
Recipe: Chinese Hakka Chicken Baked in Salt
Jo Nah’s truck pulled up outside the clubhouse. It was about as long as Star-Woman’s Space Van, but differently configured.
“I don’t usually make house calls on Mars this far away from Agyre City,” he said. “But for Irinia, and Garth and Rokk’s kids, I make an exception.”
His hair was long and unkempt, he had the perpetual three-day growth of beard Phantom Girl had become accustomed to. He might have come off rakish, had his hair and beard not been shot through with gray. He had the beginnings of a pot belly.
Star-Woman went out to meet him.
“It seems odd that a former Legionnaire would be in the car-repair business,” she noted.
“Can’t play the hero forever,” said Jo Nah. “Besides, back in the beginning of the Legion, before we were fighting Multiple All-Powerful Incarnations of Evil, we did a lot of that kind of stuff. People used to bring their cars by the old Clubhouse, and we would see what we could do to help fix them.”
“Did you really?” said Star-Woman.
“Now you wanted a 5-D Tesseractoid Cleanroom installed, young lady,” said Jo Nah, “and a Vibrator?”
“I’m sorry, what?” asked Star-Woman.
“A Vibrator. You know string theory?” said Jo Nah. “Discredited ancient particle physics, but useful when talking in approximations. Everything is supposedly made out of vibrating eleven-dimensional strings. Each parallel universe has its own unique ‘resonance frequency’. Re-tune your strings with a cosmic Vibrator, and you sync up with the appropriate universe. This one--” He held up a device about the size of a shoe box. “-- when attached to your Space-Van, will allow you to move you between Earth, Bgztl, and the Phantom Zone. Just don’t try re-configuring it as a Phantom Zone ray projector. First place, it’s illegal. Second place, it’s a tricky prospect, and you might get stuck somewhere you don’t want to be… permanently.”
“I’m not looking to outfit the Space Van with weapons,” said Star-Woman.
“That might be a mistake,” said Jo Nah. “The old Legion always had awesome blasters on all the later models of the cruisers. Say, that’s one of our old Mark II’s, isn’t it?”
“We salvaged it, and turned it into a Clubhouse,” said Star-Woman. “Well, the others did.”
“Now there’s an idea,” said Jo Nah. “I wonder if I could pick up a few of those old Legion cruisers, and start a Martian motel chain. Might be a good investment for my retirement.”
“You’ll never retire, Mr. Nah,” said Phantom Girl, exiting from the clubhouse. “You love tinkering with other people’s machines too much.”
Jo Nah scratched his beard. “You may have a point there, Irinia,” he said. “Let me get to work on that Space Van.”
“Is there anything we can help you with?” asked Star-Woman.
“Well, you could pick me up a thramm sandwich and a cold guaraná for when I finish; I haven’t had lunch.”
“Thramm sandwich?” asked Star-woman, looking at Phantom Girl.
“I think the best substitute on this side of the Phantom Zone would be a thick pastrami-on-rye,” said Phantom Girl.
“You’re Thom and Nura’s girl, aren’t you?” said Jo Nah, over lunch.
“Yes,” said Star-Woman, “But I never knew my father.”
“Tinya and I really haven’t kept in touch,” said Jo Nah. “With any of the old gang, really. It was pretty traumatic for my wife at the end. She was Legion Leader, and there were a lot of deaths, one after another. She struggled for a couple of years with depression and PTSD. After the Legion was permanently disbanded.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Star-Woman. “I’m not… my mother doesn’t talk much about her time with the Legion. Sort of a finishing school for royals, wasn’t it? Naltor, Orando, Talok VIII, Sorcerer’s World-- they all sent their future rulers to the Legion for training, in their teens.”
Jo Nah nodded. “Never really thought of it that way,” he paused, thinking. “I have something that belonged to your father,” he said. “And I think he’d probably like for you to have it. I’m sure I don’t know what to do with it, after all these years. I’ll send it by Interplanetary Express after I get back home to Gzbk.”
The package arrived the next day. It wasn’t very large.
Korvea gasped. “That’s the Quarvat,” she exclaimed.
“A what?” asked Phantom Girl.
Star-Woman lifted the short golden wand out of the packaging. It glowed faintly.
“It’s also called a gravity rod,” said Star-Woman. “An extremely powerful weapon. Ancient Terran technology; but hard to replicate. Only a very few were ever made. It absorbs and concentrates stellar energy, both electromagnetic and gravitational. They say it’s on a power level with an Oan power ring. I can’t think where my father could have acquired it. Or how it ended up in Mr. Nah’s possession."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/02/18 10:52 PM
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
CIRCUS PACHT
The Members spent the next day practicing with the Star-Rod. Only Star-Woman seemed to have any affinity for it; only Korvea could even make it sputter a little.
“It seems unfair,” said Ffarrah. “She’s so powerful already.”
“I’ll agree with you for once,” said Ffiona.
“We have an invitation,” interrupted Saturn Girl.
Star-Woman was demonstrating, again, her increasingly fine control of levitation.
“Invitation?” she asked. “Not ‘mission’?”
“Yes,” Saturn Girl replied. “The Pacht has invited us to their Capital World, to have us demonstrate our powers.”
“The Pacht,” said Polar Lass. “Who or what is that?”
“They’re something like the Tellarite Federation,” said Ffiona. “A subgroup of the United Planets, with common interests.”
“Like the Pentad of the Krill,” said Shrinking Violet. “Imsk, Orzde, Torad, Vruun and Ikros. Of course, that kind of fell apart, what with all the interfamilial feuding.”
“The Tellarites are Porcinoids,” Ffey added. “The Pacht are Pachyderms. Ganesagarians, Nilpferdmaener, N’Shorn, Xiniu, Oliphaunts, Heffalumps… you know.”
“Wow, I’m not the only one who’s going to feel small,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Well, I’m not sure yet we’re going,” said Saturn Girl. “They’re only asking for a demonstration of our powers-- sort of like a Royal Command Performance. It seems kind of… demeaning.”
“Yeah,” said Cosmic Boy. “Like we’re a circus act, or something.”
“My opinion is,” said Lightning Lass, “Any publicity is good publicity.”
“I tend to agree with Lightning Lass,” said Star-Woman. “Although after the fiasco on Zuun, we need to make sure we’re not walking into some sort of trap.”
“Trapped by elephants,” said Matter-Eater Lad, chuckling. “Now that would be demeaning.”
“There are two types of Ganesagarians,” said Chameleon, stepping back from the group a bit. “The Southern, or Equatorial Gans,” he assumed the form of a twelve-foot-tall, four-armed, double-trunked bipedal elephantoid colored in bright orange. “And the Northern, or Arctic race.” He grew into a twenty-foot tall version with longer tusks and long, ropy grey-brown hair covering its body.
He then quickly demonstrated typical examples of the hippopotamus-like Nilpferdmaener, the rhinoceros-like N’Shorn and Xiniu, the truly massive Oliphaunts, and the somewhat smaller Heffalumps.
“There are a few other species peripherally associated with the Pacht as well,” said Ten. “I suppose we will find out when we get there.”
“So it seems we’re decided on going?” asked Saturn Girl. “Any objections?”
“The Apprentices of Tharn put on a show for us,” said Ffiona. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm to do the same for the Pacht.”
“That’s not an objection,” said Saturn Girl. “But thank you for your input. Objections? Anyone?”
There were no objections. The next few days, training time was used to design demonstrations for each of the Members that would best highlight their powers.
“Pol and Dacey, you really ought to show off some of the techniques you have developed to use your powers in tandem,” said Saturn Girl.
“Such as?” asked Star-Woman.
“I can use my powers to boost the strength of Pol’s magnetism,” said Lightning Lass. “If I don’t electrocute him.”
Cosmic Boy scowled. “I’ve learned to handle quite a jolt,” he said. “And I can funnel and focus Dacey’s lightning into what is essentially a particle beam. And we can generate ELF waves: Extremely Low Frequency electromagnetic radiation. We haven’t really found a practical use for it, though. If there was another set of us, we could use it for long-distance communication.”
“I think we ought to show them something surprising,” Saturn Girl opined. “Dacey and I have a psychic link separate from my other telepathic abilities. Our communication is undetectable by any telepaths we’ve encountered, even Mother. And unjammable, as far as we have been able to tell. But I’m not sure we could or should demonstrate it, as… well, it’s not exactly a secret, but we haven’t advertised it broadly.”
“I didn’t even find out until last year,” said Cosmic Boy. “And I’ve known them since I was a baby.”
Shrinking Violet had worked up a size-shifting-enhanced gymnastics routine. Matter-Eater Lad Two had asked Ten to prepare some highly toxic and explosive chemicals, but Ten demurred, leaving Hillarie to rustle up his own collection of edibles. Polar Lass proved her control of cold was improving by leaps and bounds; she had demonstrated her talent at nitrogen ice sculpting.
“Liquid oxygen is magnetic,” Ten pointed out. “You might also be able to work up a doubles routine with Cosmic Boy.”
Chameleon had a wide range of shapes to choose from. “Many of the larger forms are hollow,” he explained. “Durlans can absorb mass from… somewhere… but it is a talent that improves with age.
The Triplicates were rehearsing a Tri Chi routine. Korvea was well-prepared to demonstrate her shadow and shape-shifting powers. And, of course, Star-Woman’s presentation was the longest of all, as she demonstrated each of her innate abilities, as well as the power of the gravity rod.
Ten brought along the nanny-bot, Vesta, and wore his micro-motel as an amulet around his neck.
The Members climbed aboard the newly renovated Sojourner, and set course for Kraal, the Pacht Capital World.
===========================================================================================================================
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
POWER PACHT
The Pacht’s Coliseum on Kraal was ten times the size of a football stadium, with an enclosing roof a half-kilometer high. Clouds gathered high in the interior, a permanent fixture.
The first event was a formal dinner feting the Members, so the center of the Coliseum floor was covered with tables of all sizes, designed for twelve- twenty- and fifty-foot diners. There was a raised platform, a cross between a pedestal and a stage, on which the tiny Member’s table sat. It was carefully placed so that all the Pacht had a fine view, and the Members had a fine view of the variety of Pacht attendees in return.
Their ambassador and guide was a relatively small woman, only about seven feet tall. She was rail-thin, her elephantine head almost comically oversized. She pointed out two small tables in the distance, lost among the giants, where her people sat.
“What do you call your world?” asked Chameleon conversationally.
“Home,” was the puzzled reply.
“No, he means, what do you call your people?” said Ffiona.
“We call one another by our names. My name is Silonia.”
“No, what do you call all your people together?” asked Ffiona. “Or if you don’t know their names?”
Silonia nodded, finally understanding. “We call one another ‘Sister’. It is a term of respect.”
“And what do you call our worlds, and our people?’ asked Chameleon. “The other worlds and peoples of the United Planets?”
“Your worlds are your own Homes, are they not?” asked Sister Silonia. “And you are also are Sisters, are you not?”
The Master of Ceremonies, a great golden Ganesagarian, chose this moment to begin his welcoming speech in the long, droning, rumbling Ganesagarian language. A smaller Heffalump simultaneously translated into Interlac. It seemed nearly interminable, but actually went on for only a little over an hour and a half. By the end of the welcome, Shrinking Violet’s stomach was growling. Only Ten seemed actually interested in the speech, which contained a great deal of history of the various Pacht worlds.
The food was served in great portions on eighteen-inch plates, adequate for Sister Silonia, but a feast for the members. Matter-Eater Lad Two was careful to eat only the food served him, and not the plates, cups, bowls, or cutlery.
After only a brief twenty-minute introduction, it was the Members’ turn to perform. The Coliseum floor was cleared, the Pacht took their seats in the stadium stands. The Members went through their practiced routines, and the Pacht, for the most part, politely applauded. When the Triplicates and Shrinking Violet performed, however, they clapped and stomped and trumpeted enthusiastically.
Star-Woman was careful to exhibit all her powers, including her mastery of the Star-Rod. Still, she received a far less enthusiastic response.
When their program was finished, the Members returned to their table. The pedestal had been moved back closer to the stands.
“It’s not over yet,” said Ten.
A Heffalump came out-- the smallest they had ever seen, less than ten feet tall. He nodded to the assembly, then suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces, flying all about the Coliseum. One fragment-- a replica of the original, only a foot tall-- landed on their table.
He bowed to Shrinking Violet and the Triplicate Girls. “This is why they were so pleased with your performance,” he said “You are able to shrink without multiplying, and to multiply without shrinking. It is something they had never seen before.” He bowed again, and the fragments from around the Coliseum re-assembled themselves into the great Heffalump again.”
“His name is Ogin,” said Ten. “Sister Silonia gave me a program.” He held up a large, thick magazine.
There were Pacht who performed lightning feats, and one who summoned ice. Two Hippo-like Pacht juggled fire and lava, respectively. Another Hippo displayed the power to turn invisible. One Rhinoid had the power of super-speed, racing another Rhino who could turn into a ray of light. All the Member’s powers were replicated, including a Matter-Eating Hippo. And there was more: an Elephantine Blue Lantern, and an immense Oliphaunt, so huge that the second-largest only came up to his chin, who displayed all of Star-Woman’s powers, and more.
“He is called ‘Ultra-Oliphaunt’,” Ten explained. “He is the Champion of the entire Pacht Sector.”
“I’m a little bit humbled by this display,” said Saturn Girl. “Just that illusionist-- amazing psychic ability.”
“But your powers are so much more useful,” said Sister Silonia. “You have set yourself as a bulwark against the spread of Evil. It is why the Pacht can confidently live in peace, using the fantastic abilities of our Gifted only for entertainment.”
“You have no Evil in the Pacht?” asked Cosmic Boy skeptically.
“No great Evil,” said Sister Silonia. “No war, no crime, no hatred, no greed. Accident and disease, naturally, but we have fine physicians, and they are getting finer. Only Ultra-Oliphaunt has ever met Evil face-to-face, and that was from outside the Pacht.”
“I might like to move to your Home,” said Phantom Girl.
Sister Silonia laughed merrily. “Yes, and welcome! Bring your spouses and daughters, as well!”
The sun was rising when the party broke up. The great golden Master of Ceremonies offered a place for the Members to stay and rest, but Star-Woman put the Sojourner on autopilot, and they slept in the car on the way back to Mars.
CIRCUS PACHT
The Members spent the next day practicing with the Star-Rod. Only Star-Woman seemed to have any affinity for it; only Korvea could even make it sputter a little.
“It seems unfair,” said Ffarrah. “She’s so powerful already.”
“I’ll agree with you for once,” said Ffiona.
“We have an invitation,” interrupted Saturn Girl.
Star-Woman was demonstrating, again, her increasingly fine control of levitation.
“Invitation?” she asked. “Not ‘mission’?”
“Yes,” Saturn Girl replied. “The Pacht has invited us to their Capital World, to have us demonstrate our powers.”
“The Pacht,” said Polar Lass. “Who or what is that?”
“They’re something like the Tellarite Federation,” said Ffiona. “A subgroup of the United Planets, with common interests.”
“Like the Pentad of the Krill,” said Shrinking Violet. “Imsk, Orzde, Torad, Vruun and Ikros. Of course, that kind of fell apart, what with all the interfamilial feuding.”
“The Tellarites are Porcinoids,” Ffey added. “The Pacht are Pachyderms. Ganesagarians, Nilpferdmaener, N’Shorn, Xiniu, Oliphaunts, Heffalumps… you know.”
“Wow, I’m not the only one who’s going to feel small,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Well, I’m not sure yet we’re going,” said Saturn Girl. “They’re only asking for a demonstration of our powers-- sort of like a Royal Command Performance. It seems kind of… demeaning.”
“Yeah,” said Cosmic Boy. “Like we’re a circus act, or something.”
“My opinion is,” said Lightning Lass, “Any publicity is good publicity.”
“I tend to agree with Lightning Lass,” said Star-Woman. “Although after the fiasco on Zuun, we need to make sure we’re not walking into some sort of trap.”
“Trapped by elephants,” said Matter-Eater Lad, chuckling. “Now that would be demeaning.”
“There are two types of Ganesagarians,” said Chameleon, stepping back from the group a bit. “The Southern, or Equatorial Gans,” he assumed the form of a twelve-foot-tall, four-armed, double-trunked bipedal elephantoid colored in bright orange. “And the Northern, or Arctic race.” He grew into a twenty-foot tall version with longer tusks and long, ropy grey-brown hair covering its body.
He then quickly demonstrated typical examples of the hippopotamus-like Nilpferdmaener, the rhinoceros-like N’Shorn and Xiniu, the truly massive Oliphaunts, and the somewhat smaller Heffalumps.
“There are a few other species peripherally associated with the Pacht as well,” said Ten. “I suppose we will find out when we get there.”
“So it seems we’re decided on going?” asked Saturn Girl. “Any objections?”
“The Apprentices of Tharn put on a show for us,” said Ffiona. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm to do the same for the Pacht.”
“That’s not an objection,” said Saturn Girl. “But thank you for your input. Objections? Anyone?”
There were no objections. The next few days, training time was used to design demonstrations for each of the Members that would best highlight their powers.
“Pol and Dacey, you really ought to show off some of the techniques you have developed to use your powers in tandem,” said Saturn Girl.
“Such as?” asked Star-Woman.
“I can use my powers to boost the strength of Pol’s magnetism,” said Lightning Lass. “If I don’t electrocute him.”
Cosmic Boy scowled. “I’ve learned to handle quite a jolt,” he said. “And I can funnel and focus Dacey’s lightning into what is essentially a particle beam. And we can generate ELF waves: Extremely Low Frequency electromagnetic radiation. We haven’t really found a practical use for it, though. If there was another set of us, we could use it for long-distance communication.”
“I think we ought to show them something surprising,” Saturn Girl opined. “Dacey and I have a psychic link separate from my other telepathic abilities. Our communication is undetectable by any telepaths we’ve encountered, even Mother. And unjammable, as far as we have been able to tell. But I’m not sure we could or should demonstrate it, as… well, it’s not exactly a secret, but we haven’t advertised it broadly.”
“I didn’t even find out until last year,” said Cosmic Boy. “And I’ve known them since I was a baby.”
Shrinking Violet had worked up a size-shifting-enhanced gymnastics routine. Matter-Eater Lad Two had asked Ten to prepare some highly toxic and explosive chemicals, but Ten demurred, leaving Hillarie to rustle up his own collection of edibles. Polar Lass proved her control of cold was improving by leaps and bounds; she had demonstrated her talent at nitrogen ice sculpting.
“Liquid oxygen is magnetic,” Ten pointed out. “You might also be able to work up a doubles routine with Cosmic Boy.”
Chameleon had a wide range of shapes to choose from. “Many of the larger forms are hollow,” he explained. “Durlans can absorb mass from… somewhere… but it is a talent that improves with age.
The Triplicates were rehearsing a Tri Chi routine. Korvea was well-prepared to demonstrate her shadow and shape-shifting powers. And, of course, Star-Woman’s presentation was the longest of all, as she demonstrated each of her innate abilities, as well as the power of the gravity rod.
Ten brought along the nanny-bot, Vesta, and wore his micro-motel as an amulet around his neck.
The Members climbed aboard the newly renovated Sojourner, and set course for Kraal, the Pacht Capital World.
===========================================================================================================================
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
POWER PACHT
The Pacht’s Coliseum on Kraal was ten times the size of a football stadium, with an enclosing roof a half-kilometer high. Clouds gathered high in the interior, a permanent fixture.
The first event was a formal dinner feting the Members, so the center of the Coliseum floor was covered with tables of all sizes, designed for twelve- twenty- and fifty-foot diners. There was a raised platform, a cross between a pedestal and a stage, on which the tiny Member’s table sat. It was carefully placed so that all the Pacht had a fine view, and the Members had a fine view of the variety of Pacht attendees in return.
Their ambassador and guide was a relatively small woman, only about seven feet tall. She was rail-thin, her elephantine head almost comically oversized. She pointed out two small tables in the distance, lost among the giants, where her people sat.
“What do you call your world?” asked Chameleon conversationally.
“Home,” was the puzzled reply.
“No, he means, what do you call your people?” said Ffiona.
“We call one another by our names. My name is Silonia.”
“No, what do you call all your people together?” asked Ffiona. “Or if you don’t know their names?”
Silonia nodded, finally understanding. “We call one another ‘Sister’. It is a term of respect.”
“And what do you call our worlds, and our people?’ asked Chameleon. “The other worlds and peoples of the United Planets?”
“Your worlds are your own Homes, are they not?” asked Sister Silonia. “And you are also are Sisters, are you not?”
The Master of Ceremonies, a great golden Ganesagarian, chose this moment to begin his welcoming speech in the long, droning, rumbling Ganesagarian language. A smaller Heffalump simultaneously translated into Interlac. It seemed nearly interminable, but actually went on for only a little over an hour and a half. By the end of the welcome, Shrinking Violet’s stomach was growling. Only Ten seemed actually interested in the speech, which contained a great deal of history of the various Pacht worlds.
The food was served in great portions on eighteen-inch plates, adequate for Sister Silonia, but a feast for the members. Matter-Eater Lad Two was careful to eat only the food served him, and not the plates, cups, bowls, or cutlery.
After only a brief twenty-minute introduction, it was the Members’ turn to perform. The Coliseum floor was cleared, the Pacht took their seats in the stadium stands. The Members went through their practiced routines, and the Pacht, for the most part, politely applauded. When the Triplicates and Shrinking Violet performed, however, they clapped and stomped and trumpeted enthusiastically.
Star-Woman was careful to exhibit all her powers, including her mastery of the Star-Rod. Still, she received a far less enthusiastic response.
When their program was finished, the Members returned to their table. The pedestal had been moved back closer to the stands.
“It’s not over yet,” said Ten.
A Heffalump came out-- the smallest they had ever seen, less than ten feet tall. He nodded to the assembly, then suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces, flying all about the Coliseum. One fragment-- a replica of the original, only a foot tall-- landed on their table.
He bowed to Shrinking Violet and the Triplicate Girls. “This is why they were so pleased with your performance,” he said “You are able to shrink without multiplying, and to multiply without shrinking. It is something they had never seen before.” He bowed again, and the fragments from around the Coliseum re-assembled themselves into the great Heffalump again.”
“His name is Ogin,” said Ten. “Sister Silonia gave me a program.” He held up a large, thick magazine.
There were Pacht who performed lightning feats, and one who summoned ice. Two Hippo-like Pacht juggled fire and lava, respectively. Another Hippo displayed the power to turn invisible. One Rhinoid had the power of super-speed, racing another Rhino who could turn into a ray of light. All the Member’s powers were replicated, including a Matter-Eating Hippo. And there was more: an Elephantine Blue Lantern, and an immense Oliphaunt, so huge that the second-largest only came up to his chin, who displayed all of Star-Woman’s powers, and more.
“He is called ‘Ultra-Oliphaunt’,” Ten explained. “He is the Champion of the entire Pacht Sector.”
“I’m a little bit humbled by this display,” said Saturn Girl. “Just that illusionist-- amazing psychic ability.”
“But your powers are so much more useful,” said Sister Silonia. “You have set yourself as a bulwark against the spread of Evil. It is why the Pacht can confidently live in peace, using the fantastic abilities of our Gifted only for entertainment.”
“You have no Evil in the Pacht?” asked Cosmic Boy skeptically.
“No great Evil,” said Sister Silonia. “No war, no crime, no hatred, no greed. Accident and disease, naturally, but we have fine physicians, and they are getting finer. Only Ultra-Oliphaunt has ever met Evil face-to-face, and that was from outside the Pacht.”
“I might like to move to your Home,” said Phantom Girl.
Sister Silonia laughed merrily. “Yes, and welcome! Bring your spouses and daughters, as well!”
The sun was rising when the party broke up. The great golden Master of Ceremonies offered a place for the Members to stay and rest, but Star-Woman put the Sojourner on autopilot, and they slept in the car on the way back to Mars.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/06/18 02:10 AM
I must have seen that panel with Brainy & Kara 50 times and I never once noticed them working on the car in the background, that's hilarious
I really like the Pacht! I might steal them for my series if you don't mind!
I really like the Pacht! I might steal them for my series if you don't mind!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/06/18 02:25 AM
Raz: Thanks for commenting.
re: Working on cars: teens in the 2950's did the same kind of stuff as teens in the 1950's, only IN SPACE.
If I can steal, you can steal. If I understand copyright correctly, everything on the website belongs to Nightcrawler anyway.
One of Silonia's people worked on Planet Quarantine in 5YL, but I haven't been able to find a picture.
re: Working on cars: teens in the 2950's did the same kind of stuff as teens in the 1950's, only IN SPACE.
If I can steal, you can steal. If I understand copyright correctly, everything on the website belongs to Nightcrawler anyway.
One of Silonia's people worked on Planet Quarantine in 5YL, but I haven't been able to find a picture.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/08/18 11:09 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
BRADBURY AND BURROUGHS
When they reached the Clubhouse, the first thing they noticed was a great ship taking up half the parking lot. The second thing they noticed was an SP-Mars cruiser parked beside it.
Black Flame and Villian the Sorcerer came out to meet them.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Black Flame. “Good news, actually. We’ve been…”
“You’d better let the officers explain,” Villian interrupted. “They’ll be able to give them the whole story.”
“We have a couple of guests,” said Black Flame. “It’s a good thing we have a spare room.”
The two guests turned out to be SP officers from Nix Olympica, Officers Bradbury and Burroughs.
“That ship you see out there,” said Officer Bradbury. “Is a Daxamite Pirate Ship. They came here looking for you. And by you, I mean, the whole Super-Hero Club. They were pretty upset when we told them you were off-planet. I don’t think they believed us. They attempted a super-speed attack on Mars, but… well, since the Dark War, a lot of planets have been putting up defenses against another Daxamite invasion. It was kind of a low priority for Mars, seeing what a small planet we are, but after you kids discovered that Daxamite in the Superman Museum, Central stepped things up a bit.”
“We tracked them with a Coluan Super-Computer,” said Officer Burroughs. “Then hit them with a new stun-beam from Kormo. Our med-techs tell us they’ve got some kind of enhanced anti-lead serum, that gives them powers under a red sun, and doesn’t wear off for 96 hours. So we got Gzbk to hold them in the Phantom Zone until the Daxamite SP’s can pick them up.”
“If you keep them in the Phantom Zone,” Phantom Girl offered, “The serum will never wear off.”
Officer Bradbury shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade. We’re just here to deliver their ship. The Revenge, I think it is.”
“Renegade,” Star-Woman corrected.
“Right. Well, anyway, since you’re the ones they were interested in killing, Central decided you can keep their ship until Daxam picks it up as evidence, or, more likely, relinquishes a claim to it altogether.”
“I wouldn’t try to fly it, though,” said Officer Burroughs. “It’s held together with forks and hope. Not very space-worthy.”
“You’re sure you got them all?” asked Star-Woman.
“There were only three,” said Officer Burroughs. “Our Coluan computers easily tracked them. There was a Psion on board their ship when we found it. Some kind of techno-slave, we think. He must have had some kind a personal teleporter, though. Escaped to somewhere, we don’t know where. Those things don’t have much of a range, though. We figure he must still be somewhere in the Sol System.”
“I wouldn’t worry, though,” said Officer Bradbury. “Lone Psions are cowardly, snaky little creatures. I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about from him”
“What about the ship?” asked Star-Woman. “How do you know every switch and pad isn’t booby-trapped?”
Officer Burroughs shrugged. “We don’t. You’re the heroes. I thought Adventure was your thing.”
“Well, we can wait awhile until Daxam lets us know if they’ll take it off our hands.” Star-Woman said. “Then… I don’t know. If we can keep Ten out of it, maybe we’ll just dump it into the Hellespont.”
“Don’t do that,” said Officer Bradbury. “We’d have to give you a ticket for littering.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
MINI-CHAMELEON
Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey appraised the three Chameleons.
“They move more convincingly now,” said Ffiona, “They look like they’re moving independently. Is it hard?”
“It takes concentration,” replied the left-hand Chameleon.
“The ropey umbilicals running between your backs are kind of a give-away, though,” said Ffey. Chameleon merged back into a single form.
“Could a Durlan ever really split into two or more individuals?” asked Ffarrah.
“It is possible,” said Chameleon. “However, once divided, they could never truly re-merge.” He walked over to Ffarrah, and extended his hand. She took it, and a tiny, two-inch-tall Chameleon slowley emerged from the Durlan’s fingers, walking over to her palm.
“Wow!” said Ffarrah. “My own little mini-Chameleon!”
“Now I’m jealous,” said Ffey.
“Me too,” said Ffiona.
Chameleon shuddered. “I did not expect this to be so draining. Perhaps I had better lie down for a few minutes.”
The Triplicates were left alone.
A couple of days later, Ffarrah came to visit Chameleon's quarters. She brought the mini-Chameleon with her.
“It’s about as smart as a little bird,” she said. “It can’t talk, but it’s sweet. It stays with me all the time. But I’m worried. It doesn’t seem to be doing very well. Maybe it needs special food?”
“It’s just getting old," said Chameleon. "I imagine it... its life will end, in another day or two.”
Ffarrah looked shocked.
“When a Durlan divides as I did, a part of the original’s life-force goes into the duplicate. That’s why I made it so small-- I only gave away a few days of life. Surely, as a Cargggan, you understand?”
“You… you gave up a few days of your life to create the mini-Chameleon for me?” asked Ffarrah.
“What are few days, more or less, out of how many years?” said Chameleon. “And I may even regenerate... recover from such a small effort. There are other things I do every day which are at least as dangerous.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” said Ffarrah. “I hope you... I want you to live as long as possible.”
“I can’t promise...,” Chameleon began. “In an extremity… such an ability might come in useful. However, I had quite a headache for some time afterwards, even after a nap. So, no, I won’t be doing it every day. And I will certainly, by definition, live as long as possible.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO
M.E.T.E.O.R. STRIKE
A cab dropped off the trio in the parking lot. The man had spiky white hair, and pale skin with a glossy finish. The woman was equally pale, with a slightly greenish tinge. Her hair was green-and-white striped, and flowed as if it were made of water. Her ears were as tall and pointed as Chameleon’s. The each looked about Pol’s parents’ age.
Then there was the little boy who looked about five.
Cosmic Boy went over to shake their hands.
“We haven’t scheduled any try-outs,” he explained.
The woman laughed. “No, we’re not here for that sort of thing. I’m Tayla Kohan, this is my husband Bobb, and this is our little boy, Scott. We represent MeTeOR, the Meta-Terran Orientation and Re-Education Project, a non-profit NGO. Non-governmental agency. We were wondering if we could speak to the four Earthers who are living here.”
She gave Cosmic Boy a small ring, embedded with a tiny gravity-crystal. The crystal displayed a business card with contact information.
“I’m a meta-Terran,” said Cosmic Boy. “My father is a Braalien, and my mother is Kathooni. Why do I need ‘Orientation and Re-Education’?”
“MeTeOR,” said Mrs. Kohan. “Helps meta-Terrans who are having difficulty fitting into modern Earth society. We understand the four Earthers you have as guests are having legal difficulties at present.”
“They are not exactly our guests,” said Cosmic Boy. “The Super-Hero Club was appointed their court-order guardians, when they were not allowed them to return to their parent’s homes. They are here on Mars awaiting trial. There seems to be some sort of delay. They were hoping to quickly return to school, but that seems unlikely now. It has been a few weeks.”
“Oh, that is unfortunate,” said Mrs. Kohan. “If we could speak to them? The services our NGO provides…”
“There are certainly a great many unofficial NGOs on Earth these days,” said Cosmic Boy. “Most of them related to the Earth-First Movement. Or the neo-Niedrighs. Or the Urneanderthals. That’s what the devolutionary extremists on Earth call themselves, isn’t it? They don’t have much respect for Braaliens or Kathooni.”
Lightning Lass lighted lightly from the sky. “That is certainly an interesting little boy, don’t you think, Pol?”
“Oh, I agree,” said Cosmic Boy. “Are Bungle, Atta, Kimota or Annie interested in meeting with these two?”
“Not at all,” said Lightning Lass. “My sister announced them shortly after they arrived, but they’re binge-watching some Space Opera with Kallor.”
“Oh, but I’m very interested in meeting them,” said Saturn Girl. She and Phantom Girl had just made a steep flying parabola from the Clubhouse. “You don’t recognize them, do you, Pol? They used to be friends of our parents, a long time ago. But they knew Uncle Chuck and Aunt Lluornu much better.”
“And what an absolutely darling little robot boy,” said Phantom Girl. “Did you know that Braaliens can see magnetic fields, and Kathooni can see into the infrared, and Lightning Lass can see electric fields? And we non-Terran Bgztlr can see through anything.”
She reached her hand into ‘Scott Kohan’’s head, and pulled out a memory wire.
“What’s this? Some sort of recording device? Now you weren’t looking to trick our guests into somehow incriminating themselves? Or appearing to?”
The little Scott Kohan robot looked stunned and disoriented.
“I think we had better be going,” said Mr. Kohan, angrily.
“Safe journey.” said Saturn Girl. “Oh, and you might want to get those mental blocks looked at. They can become uncomfortable if you let them go untreated for too long. Have you been experiencing headaches, or difficulty concentrating?”
“What mental blocks?” asked Mrs. Kohan.
“The one that prevents you from thinking for yourself,” said Saturn Girl. “And makes you think you two are married. And prevents you from seeing your little boy is a robot. You didn’t hear that last word, did you? It’s probably just hypnotic, but there may be a chip involved. I loosened it a little, but you really need to go see a reputable physician.”
Mr. Kohan looked at his ‘wife’. “Tayla?” he said.
“We need to go,” said ‘Mrs. Kohan’. “Our cab should be here momentarily.”
“They seemed nice,” said Lightning Lass. “I’ll have to tell Uncle Chuck we met a couple of his old students when we see him next Christmas.”
BRADBURY AND BURROUGHS
When they reached the Clubhouse, the first thing they noticed was a great ship taking up half the parking lot. The second thing they noticed was an SP-Mars cruiser parked beside it.
Black Flame and Villian the Sorcerer came out to meet them.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” said Black Flame. “Good news, actually. We’ve been…”
“You’d better let the officers explain,” Villian interrupted. “They’ll be able to give them the whole story.”
“We have a couple of guests,” said Black Flame. “It’s a good thing we have a spare room.”
The two guests turned out to be SP officers from Nix Olympica, Officers Bradbury and Burroughs.
“That ship you see out there,” said Officer Bradbury. “Is a Daxamite Pirate Ship. They came here looking for you. And by you, I mean, the whole Super-Hero Club. They were pretty upset when we told them you were off-planet. I don’t think they believed us. They attempted a super-speed attack on Mars, but… well, since the Dark War, a lot of planets have been putting up defenses against another Daxamite invasion. It was kind of a low priority for Mars, seeing what a small planet we are, but after you kids discovered that Daxamite in the Superman Museum, Central stepped things up a bit.”
“We tracked them with a Coluan Super-Computer,” said Officer Burroughs. “Then hit them with a new stun-beam from Kormo. Our med-techs tell us they’ve got some kind of enhanced anti-lead serum, that gives them powers under a red sun, and doesn’t wear off for 96 hours. So we got Gzbk to hold them in the Phantom Zone until the Daxamite SP’s can pick them up.”
“If you keep them in the Phantom Zone,” Phantom Girl offered, “The serum will never wear off.”
Officer Bradbury shrugged. “That’s above my pay grade. We’re just here to deliver their ship. The Revenge, I think it is.”
“Renegade,” Star-Woman corrected.
“Right. Well, anyway, since you’re the ones they were interested in killing, Central decided you can keep their ship until Daxam picks it up as evidence, or, more likely, relinquishes a claim to it altogether.”
“I wouldn’t try to fly it, though,” said Officer Burroughs. “It’s held together with forks and hope. Not very space-worthy.”
“You’re sure you got them all?” asked Star-Woman.
“There were only three,” said Officer Burroughs. “Our Coluan computers easily tracked them. There was a Psion on board their ship when we found it. Some kind of techno-slave, we think. He must have had some kind a personal teleporter, though. Escaped to somewhere, we don’t know where. Those things don’t have much of a range, though. We figure he must still be somewhere in the Sol System.”
“I wouldn’t worry, though,” said Officer Bradbury. “Lone Psions are cowardly, snaky little creatures. I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about from him”
“What about the ship?” asked Star-Woman. “How do you know every switch and pad isn’t booby-trapped?”
Officer Burroughs shrugged. “We don’t. You’re the heroes. I thought Adventure was your thing.”
“Well, we can wait awhile until Daxam lets us know if they’ll take it off our hands.” Star-Woman said. “Then… I don’t know. If we can keep Ten out of it, maybe we’ll just dump it into the Hellespont.”
“Don’t do that,” said Officer Bradbury. “We’d have to give you a ticket for littering.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ONE
MINI-CHAMELEON
Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey appraised the three Chameleons.
“They move more convincingly now,” said Ffiona, “They look like they’re moving independently. Is it hard?”
“It takes concentration,” replied the left-hand Chameleon.
“The ropey umbilicals running between your backs are kind of a give-away, though,” said Ffey. Chameleon merged back into a single form.
“Could a Durlan ever really split into two or more individuals?” asked Ffarrah.
“It is possible,” said Chameleon. “However, once divided, they could never truly re-merge.” He walked over to Ffarrah, and extended his hand. She took it, and a tiny, two-inch-tall Chameleon slowley emerged from the Durlan’s fingers, walking over to her palm.
“Wow!” said Ffarrah. “My own little mini-Chameleon!”
“Now I’m jealous,” said Ffey.
“Me too,” said Ffiona.
Chameleon shuddered. “I did not expect this to be so draining. Perhaps I had better lie down for a few minutes.”
The Triplicates were left alone.
A couple of days later, Ffarrah came to visit Chameleon's quarters. She brought the mini-Chameleon with her.
“It’s about as smart as a little bird,” she said. “It can’t talk, but it’s sweet. It stays with me all the time. But I’m worried. It doesn’t seem to be doing very well. Maybe it needs special food?”
“It’s just getting old," said Chameleon. "I imagine it... its life will end, in another day or two.”
Ffarrah looked shocked.
“When a Durlan divides as I did, a part of the original’s life-force goes into the duplicate. That’s why I made it so small-- I only gave away a few days of life. Surely, as a Cargggan, you understand?”
“You… you gave up a few days of your life to create the mini-Chameleon for me?” asked Ffarrah.
“What are few days, more or less, out of how many years?” said Chameleon. “And I may even regenerate... recover from such a small effort. There are other things I do every day which are at least as dangerous.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” said Ffarrah. “I hope you... I want you to live as long as possible.”
“I can’t promise...,” Chameleon began. “In an extremity… such an ability might come in useful. However, I had quite a headache for some time afterwards, even after a nap. So, no, I won’t be doing it every day. And I will certainly, by definition, live as long as possible.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWO
M.E.T.E.O.R. STRIKE
A cab dropped off the trio in the parking lot. The man had spiky white hair, and pale skin with a glossy finish. The woman was equally pale, with a slightly greenish tinge. Her hair was green-and-white striped, and flowed as if it were made of water. Her ears were as tall and pointed as Chameleon’s. The each looked about Pol’s parents’ age.
Then there was the little boy who looked about five.
Cosmic Boy went over to shake their hands.
“We haven’t scheduled any try-outs,” he explained.
The woman laughed. “No, we’re not here for that sort of thing. I’m Tayla Kohan, this is my husband Bobb, and this is our little boy, Scott. We represent MeTeOR, the Meta-Terran Orientation and Re-Education Project, a non-profit NGO. Non-governmental agency. We were wondering if we could speak to the four Earthers who are living here.”
She gave Cosmic Boy a small ring, embedded with a tiny gravity-crystal. The crystal displayed a business card with contact information.
“I’m a meta-Terran,” said Cosmic Boy. “My father is a Braalien, and my mother is Kathooni. Why do I need ‘Orientation and Re-Education’?”
“MeTeOR,” said Mrs. Kohan. “Helps meta-Terrans who are having difficulty fitting into modern Earth society. We understand the four Earthers you have as guests are having legal difficulties at present.”
“They are not exactly our guests,” said Cosmic Boy. “The Super-Hero Club was appointed their court-order guardians, when they were not allowed them to return to their parent’s homes. They are here on Mars awaiting trial. There seems to be some sort of delay. They were hoping to quickly return to school, but that seems unlikely now. It has been a few weeks.”
“Oh, that is unfortunate,” said Mrs. Kohan. “If we could speak to them? The services our NGO provides…”
“There are certainly a great many unofficial NGOs on Earth these days,” said Cosmic Boy. “Most of them related to the Earth-First Movement. Or the neo-Niedrighs. Or the Urneanderthals. That’s what the devolutionary extremists on Earth call themselves, isn’t it? They don’t have much respect for Braaliens or Kathooni.”
Lightning Lass lighted lightly from the sky. “That is certainly an interesting little boy, don’t you think, Pol?”
“Oh, I agree,” said Cosmic Boy. “Are Bungle, Atta, Kimota or Annie interested in meeting with these two?”
“Not at all,” said Lightning Lass. “My sister announced them shortly after they arrived, but they’re binge-watching some Space Opera with Kallor.”
“Oh, but I’m very interested in meeting them,” said Saturn Girl. She and Phantom Girl had just made a steep flying parabola from the Clubhouse. “You don’t recognize them, do you, Pol? They used to be friends of our parents, a long time ago. But they knew Uncle Chuck and Aunt Lluornu much better.”
“And what an absolutely darling little robot boy,” said Phantom Girl. “Did you know that Braaliens can see magnetic fields, and Kathooni can see into the infrared, and Lightning Lass can see electric fields? And we non-Terran Bgztlr can see through anything.”
She reached her hand into ‘Scott Kohan’’s head, and pulled out a memory wire.
“What’s this? Some sort of recording device? Now you weren’t looking to trick our guests into somehow incriminating themselves? Or appearing to?”
The little Scott Kohan robot looked stunned and disoriented.
“I think we had better be going,” said Mr. Kohan, angrily.
“Safe journey.” said Saturn Girl. “Oh, and you might want to get those mental blocks looked at. They can become uncomfortable if you let them go untreated for too long. Have you been experiencing headaches, or difficulty concentrating?”
“What mental blocks?” asked Mrs. Kohan.
“The one that prevents you from thinking for yourself,” said Saturn Girl. “And makes you think you two are married. And prevents you from seeing your little boy is a robot. You didn’t hear that last word, did you? It’s probably just hypnotic, but there may be a chip involved. I loosened it a little, but you really need to go see a reputable physician.”
Mr. Kohan looked at his ‘wife’. “Tayla?” he said.
“We need to go,” said ‘Mrs. Kohan’. “Our cab should be here momentarily.”
“They seemed nice,” said Lightning Lass. “I’ll have to tell Uncle Chuck we met a couple of his old students when we see him next Christmas.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/28/18 01:31 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE
THE CYBORG MANHUNTER
My Mother was dying, and it was my fault.
We had been excavating an ancient graveyard in what had once been the Persian Empire. But these graves were ten thousand years older.
It was an anomaly. The remains of a high-tech robot were found in the bottom of one grave beneath a grave beneath a grave. We began excavating it. My mother identified the machine as an Oan Manhunter Robot, one of the precursors to the Green Lantern Corps. Many pieces had rusted away, or were missing, including one full arm, and parts of the head and positronic brain. The pattern of damage and dents seemed to indicate it had been attacked, possibly with stone axes.
We also found a squarish, corroded lantern: green, but not a Green Lantern. One of the earlier, precursor Manhunter models.
We had no idea that it was leaking radiation.
Mother kept it with her in her tent for examination. It was even there when she slept. She received a massive dose of strange, alien radiation.
At first, she seemed just tired. This would have been almost normal; she had been out on digs since before I was born, and she wasn’t getting any younger. The third day after we found the Manhunter, she woke up bald, her hair left behind on her pillow. Her skin was a bilious yellow-green. Burn-like sores began to erupt throughout the day.
We recognized the symptoms of radiation poisoning, and it wasn’t hard to identify the source. I moved the Manhunter battery back into the excavation site, and put in a call to Metropolis University for an emergency extraction. Things were looking grim, but not disastrous. It would be a few hours until the rescue ship arrived, but it looked like we could wait it out.
Then the Manhunter showed up.
I was in Mother’s tent, giving her water, keeping her hydrated. I was beginning to feel tired, beginning to experience some of the effects of radiation poisoning myself. The damaged robot entered jerkily, its half-head held at a bizarre angle. It went right up to Mother. Electrical tentacles snaked out of its chest, implanting in Mother’s skin. Circuitry began to grow, replacing the flesh in her body. I was terrified.
“No!” I shouted. “Not my mother!” and then, “Take me instead!”
The robot shifted its attention. The tentacles removed themselves from my mother, and sunk into me. The pain was agonizing, but when it was over, my mind connected with the mechanical mind of the robot. The realization of the was worse than the pain.
The thing had not been attacking my mother. It had been trying to save her, by fusing itself with her dying body. I had stopped it. It had merged with me, instead.
By the time the rescue ship had arrived, my mother was dead. The interrupted Manhunter ‘cure’ had killed her.
With the robot’s knowledge now directly accessible to me, I was able to repair the green battery. I am no longer Dr. Victoria Jones, archaeologist. I am the Cyborg Manhunter, a Champion of Justice. The fusion process appears to be irreversible. Without my mechanical parts, I would die.
The Manhunter’s oath was, ‘No Man Escapes The Manhunters’.
Stupid.
My new Manhunter motto is from Nietzsche: “Wer Mit Ungeheuern Kämpft, Mag Zusehn, Dass Er Nicht Dabei Zum Ungeheuer Wird.”
But it is too late for me.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR
JUSTICE LEAGUE EARTH VS. MISTER WONDERLAND
The Justice League of Earth
“Doctor Shakespeare”
Richard Kent Shakespeare of Earth
(2) “Princess Xenobia”
Princess Xenobia of Io (Sol System), home of the Themiscryan Amazonian diaspora
(3) “Green Lantern of Sector 2814”
Jordana Gardner of Earth
(4) “The Bat-Woman”
Plutonian bat-winged, squid-headed woman, true name unknown.
(5) “Rush”
Mara Williams of Earth
(6) “Devil-Fish”
Danava Matsya of Earth (Atlantean)
(7) “The Cyborg Manhunter”
Victoria Jones of Earth
==============================================================================================
The conference room was almost too small for the Justice League to fit into. It had not been designed for them. The dozen villains sat in their refuge, spread around a huge table. They took up most of the floor space in the small room.
“You are under arrest. You will come with us peacefully,” declared Dr. Shakespeare. “We have some questions for you.”
The first thing Kent Shakespeare noted about the villains was that they were all, to a person, hugely fat. The smallest of them easily hit four hundred pounds. Their leader called himself Mr. Wonderland, his repulsive crimson skin marking him as an alien from the planet Tartarus. His costume was as bizarre as his appearance, a Terran-style tuxedo in a patchwork of an autumn leaf motif and black-and-white checkerboard. He wore a vivid purple stove-pipe hat, and carried a large white rabbit under his left arm.
“I think not, Dr. Shakespeare,” said Mr. Wonderland. “I don’t believe it is in our best interests to go quietly.”
Chairs were pushed back from the table. The morbidly obese villains stood up. The League was outnumbered, at least two to one, but the opposing aliens were nowhere near as powerful as the heroes.
Jordana Gardner enclosed the villains, table and all, within an impenetrable green force-bubble. Mr. Wonderland’s voice echoed hollowly within.
“You missed one of us,” he said gloatingly. “My Cheshire Cat.”
The cat-like girl was not obese like her teammates, but rather as slender and lithe as, well, a cat. She appeared from nowhere, her hands on the shoulders of Rush. She moved quickly, acrobatically, bounding from Justice Leaguer to Justice Leaguer, a blur in violet and mauve stripes. Princess Xenobia almost avoided her, but the Cheshire Cat teleported, feinted, and flicked her with her tail. In seven swift moves, she had tapped or touched each of the League, then somersaulted in front of them with feline grace.
“Good-bye,” she said.
The Justice League of Earth vanished.
“Where did you send them?” asked Mr. Wonderland.
“I’m not sure,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Far. Away towards the center of the Galaxy. Somewhere. At those distances, my control isn’t very good. Some world with a breathable atmosphere, that’s all I know.”
“A breathable atmosphere?” said Mr. Wonderland, stroking the head of his great white rabbit. “That’s too bad.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE
THE EMPIRE OF TEARS
Ysmault, towards the center of the galaxy.
They cannot live in the light.
They do not live in the darkness.
They live on the other side of the darkness.
But they often peer into our Universe.
The Seven Demonic Entities are gods. Yes, gods: of small pustulences, or banal evils, but gods, nevertheless.
The other demonic entities of Ysmault hold them in contempt. They are relegated to an small, smelly, undesirable corner of their twilight world. But at least the seven have each other.
“We have visitors,” said Zalamer.
“Did you see them?” asked Cthuchilla. “There are seven. Exactly seven.”
“And their minds are confused,” said Galgo. “They would make excellent hosts.”
“We ought to hurry,” said Gabbora, “In their own way, they seem quite powerful. We might accomplish something with hosts like that.”
“So, what do you want to do?” asked Manique.
“Same thing as always,” said Elcerebro. “Try to take over their world.”
“That old chestnut?” asked Xaltar.
“You can’t teach an old god new tricks,” said Yema.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX
AN UNEASY ALLIANCE
“The pirate ship is a complete loss,” Ten reported. “It is little more that an empty pluridium-steel box with a couple of unreliable FTL engines attached. The environmental modules are useless, except in the Psion’s laboratory. The Science Police have confiscated his work product, but I have transferred his machines to my lab, where I will examine them for function and usefulness. I was able to cannibalize sufficient material to create a custom flight-communications belt for Korvea, but there is little else…”
There was a sound of distant thunder.
“We had better get outside,” said Saturn Girl.
The Martian sky opened up above the Super-Hero Club Headquarters. Dark eldritch energies crackled as the New Justice League of Earth emerged from the space-warp. Their eyes glowed dully, like dying embers. Their heads were held at slightly uncanny angles.
“Young Legion,” called Zalamer, through Dr. Shakespeare’s mouth. “Come out! Congratulations are in order. You will be the first to have the privilege to join us, or die!”
The seven forms drifted slowly to the surface of Mars, like falling Autumn leaves, harbingers of Winter and Death. Something else else less than a hundred feet above the surface, they passed without resistance through an invisible barrier.
The Justice Leaguers fell to the ground like stones.
Near-invisible, wraith-like entities with glowing red eyes were catapulted out of their bodies, away from the clubhouse. Burning under the weak Martian sun, they quickly slithered away into the dungeon dimensions on other side of the darkness, down beyond the real universe.
The demons fled away beneath the red Martian soil, eventually finding a home in caverns beneath the Grand Marshall Hotel in New Metropolis. Like many other hotels before it, it developed a reputation for being haunted.
Hotel California Grand Hotel
The Batwoman of Pluto was first to recover. “What was that?” she asked.
“A gift,” said Saturn Girl. “From powerful friends.”
The squid-headed Batwoman sniffed the air. “There is no mana here.”
“No, so it’s good none of your powers are magically based,” said Saturn Girl. “Or are they?” She looked around at the seven Justice Leaguers.
“I have lost my sword and my shield,” said Princess Xenobia, the blood-red-armored Amazon. She glanced around, spying the two Olympian artifacts pressed up against some distant trees. There were a couple of golden sandals lying near them as well. “And my talaria,” she noted.
“We owe you a favor,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“Then do us a favor, and leave us in peace,” said Saturn Girl. “Go back to your Hall of Justice, or satellite base, or wherever you come from.”
“We have both,” said the Devil-Fish.
By now, the rest of the Members had appeared, along with the four members ‘Super-Villain Club’. They stared curiously.
“They harbor the turncoats,” said the Cyborg Manhunter. “The blood-traitors to Terra.”
“These college students have had their education interrupted by your interference,” said Saturn Girl, “And are here by the order of the Court, as you well know. You will have your time with them before a judge on Earth, when they are brought up on the false charges you have made against them. Until then... “
“We will leave you in peace, for now,” said Dr. Shakespeare. He turned to his six associates. “Princess, gather your things, and let us return to Earth.”
“Perhaps,” said the Batwoman, fluttering her great wings slightly, “We might ask these self-proclaimed Super-Heroes another... favor... for us. They might be helpful against Mr. Wonderland and his organization. I am… impressed with their resources.” She glanced meaningfully at Princess Xenobia’s discarded equipment.
“And we should help you because…?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Because the Justice League would be in your debt a second time,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“And because you believe in Justice,” said Jordana Gardner, her ring flashing.
“Do not trust them,” said the Cyborg Manhunter. “They will betray us.”
“I don’t know…” said Dr. Shakespeare. He glanced at the Batwoman of Pluto.
There was too much mutual distrust between the two teams for there to be any agreement. The Justice League went back to Earth.
But it was not three days before they called again with the same offer.
“But you already have a telepath,” Star-Woman reminded them.
“Yes, but not a Saturnian telepath,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “The Batwoman’s mental powers can be somewhat invasive and… obvious. We need a more subtle touch. We need intelligence. We walked into a situation we did not understand. It ended badly. It could have been worse.”
“Is this just another group of harmless aliens you wish to banish from Earth?” asked Star-Woman. “That really isn’t our cup of tea.”
Dr. Shakespeare posted an SP file on the viewscreen.
“This is what we know,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “Mr. Wonderland is from Tartarus, a world where there is no crime, because there is no law. He was a successful… ‘businessman’. Very successful, by that world’s standards. Until a cabal of other ‘businessmen’ conspired to take him down. He fled Tartarus in fear of his life. But Earth has one of the most prosperous economies in the United Planets. He felt he could re-establish his businesses here: racketeering, extortion, blackmail, assassination; that sort of thing. He has been recruiting lieutenants-- we don’t know very much about him. This Cheshire Cat was a complete surprise. These criminal organizations have been nearly annihilated on Earth, but new ones keep cropping up. Surely this is more your ‘cup of tea’.”
In a quick council, the rest of the Members agreed. Still, they preferred to meet at the Clubhouse, rather than on Earth.
“We found their offices in Londonopolis, in the Oxford area,” the Batwoman explained. We suspect they must have a larger retreat nearby, but have been unable to find it.”
“I will see what I can do,” said Saturn Girl. “Dacey, I’m going to need you as an anchor.”
The astral form of Dorrit Ranzz slipped out of her body, focusing on the small blue orb in the Martian sky. Instantly, she was on Earth. It took only a moment’s orientation to move to the Oxford area of Londonopolis. She scanned the minds around her quietly, the thoughts of ‘Mr. Wonderland’, and ‘Tartarus’, leading her to an expensive hotel called the Oxford Castle Estates.
She dropped through a ceiling. There was an enormously fat man, heavily bearded, and dressed all in red. He was snoring loudly, lying above the covers: about six centimeters above, for he floated in mid-air.
“The Red King,” she whispered aloud. “I’m afraid we won’t get much information out of him. Yes, I know you’re there, Batwoman. You may have the power to cloud minds, but the psychic energy it burns shines like a candle in the dark.”
The Batwoman appeared before her. Her black, bat-like ears and large, black, bat-like wings blended perfectly with her black body-armor, although Dorrit knew the ears and wings were part of her body. She was too black to blend into the dark gray light of the hotel room, dimly lit with a night-light. Her pink, squiddy head floated above the blackness.
“<We could probe deeper,>” thought the Batwoman at her.
“<I thought that stealth was at a premium,>” Saturn Girl thought back. “<Besides, he does not appear to be entirely in touch with reality. We need to find someone else>.”
Saturn Girl’s astral form drifted through a wall. An equally fat, pale woman lay asleep under a heavy down comforter. “<The Duchess>,” thought Saturn Girl. “<This is more like it. She is one of Mr. Wonderland’s more trusted associates.>”
“<Who would have thought they would be using a luxury hotel as a base?>” thought the Batwoman. “<Do you have what we need?>”
“<If you could teleport here so easily, why did you need me?>” thought Saturn Girl.
“<I require a… target of some kind. A point of focus.>” thought the Batwoman. “<Your unique mind filled just such a requirement.>” thought the Batwoman. “<Intriguing. You and your sister share a link which I cannot penetrate>.”
“<Where I come from,>” thought Saturn Girl, “It is impolite to probe another’s mind without their permission.”
“<Yet I am sure that you have done so yourself, more than once>,” thought the Batwoman.
“<But those were enemies,>” thought Saturn Girl. “<I’m not your enemy>.”
“<We shall see,>” the Batwoman thought back.
THE CYBORG MANHUNTER
My Mother was dying, and it was my fault.
We had been excavating an ancient graveyard in what had once been the Persian Empire. But these graves were ten thousand years older.
It was an anomaly. The remains of a high-tech robot were found in the bottom of one grave beneath a grave beneath a grave. We began excavating it. My mother identified the machine as an Oan Manhunter Robot, one of the precursors to the Green Lantern Corps. Many pieces had rusted away, or were missing, including one full arm, and parts of the head and positronic brain. The pattern of damage and dents seemed to indicate it had been attacked, possibly with stone axes.
We also found a squarish, corroded lantern: green, but not a Green Lantern. One of the earlier, precursor Manhunter models.
We had no idea that it was leaking radiation.
Mother kept it with her in her tent for examination. It was even there when she slept. She received a massive dose of strange, alien radiation.
At first, she seemed just tired. This would have been almost normal; she had been out on digs since before I was born, and she wasn’t getting any younger. The third day after we found the Manhunter, she woke up bald, her hair left behind on her pillow. Her skin was a bilious yellow-green. Burn-like sores began to erupt throughout the day.
We recognized the symptoms of radiation poisoning, and it wasn’t hard to identify the source. I moved the Manhunter battery back into the excavation site, and put in a call to Metropolis University for an emergency extraction. Things were looking grim, but not disastrous. It would be a few hours until the rescue ship arrived, but it looked like we could wait it out.
Then the Manhunter showed up.
I was in Mother’s tent, giving her water, keeping her hydrated. I was beginning to feel tired, beginning to experience some of the effects of radiation poisoning myself. The damaged robot entered jerkily, its half-head held at a bizarre angle. It went right up to Mother. Electrical tentacles snaked out of its chest, implanting in Mother’s skin. Circuitry began to grow, replacing the flesh in her body. I was terrified.
“No!” I shouted. “Not my mother!” and then, “Take me instead!”
The robot shifted its attention. The tentacles removed themselves from my mother, and sunk into me. The pain was agonizing, but when it was over, my mind connected with the mechanical mind of the robot. The realization of the was worse than the pain.
The thing had not been attacking my mother. It had been trying to save her, by fusing itself with her dying body. I had stopped it. It had merged with me, instead.
By the time the rescue ship had arrived, my mother was dead. The interrupted Manhunter ‘cure’ had killed her.
With the robot’s knowledge now directly accessible to me, I was able to repair the green battery. I am no longer Dr. Victoria Jones, archaeologist. I am the Cyborg Manhunter, a Champion of Justice. The fusion process appears to be irreversible. Without my mechanical parts, I would die.
The Manhunter’s oath was, ‘No Man Escapes The Manhunters’.
Stupid.
My new Manhunter motto is from Nietzsche: “Wer Mit Ungeheuern Kämpft, Mag Zusehn, Dass Er Nicht Dabei Zum Ungeheuer Wird.”
But it is too late for me.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR
JUSTICE LEAGUE EARTH VS. MISTER WONDERLAND
The Justice League of Earth
“Doctor Shakespeare”
Richard Kent Shakespeare of Earth
(2) “Princess Xenobia”
Princess Xenobia of Io (Sol System), home of the Themiscryan Amazonian diaspora
(3) “Green Lantern of Sector 2814”
Jordana Gardner of Earth
(4) “The Bat-Woman”
Plutonian bat-winged, squid-headed woman, true name unknown.
(5) “Rush”
Mara Williams of Earth
(6) “Devil-Fish”
Danava Matsya of Earth (Atlantean)
(7) “The Cyborg Manhunter”
Victoria Jones of Earth
==============================================================================================
The conference room was almost too small for the Justice League to fit into. It had not been designed for them. The dozen villains sat in their refuge, spread around a huge table. They took up most of the floor space in the small room.
“You are under arrest. You will come with us peacefully,” declared Dr. Shakespeare. “We have some questions for you.”
The first thing Kent Shakespeare noted about the villains was that they were all, to a person, hugely fat. The smallest of them easily hit four hundred pounds. Their leader called himself Mr. Wonderland, his repulsive crimson skin marking him as an alien from the planet Tartarus. His costume was as bizarre as his appearance, a Terran-style tuxedo in a patchwork of an autumn leaf motif and black-and-white checkerboard. He wore a vivid purple stove-pipe hat, and carried a large white rabbit under his left arm.
“I think not, Dr. Shakespeare,” said Mr. Wonderland. “I don’t believe it is in our best interests to go quietly.”
Chairs were pushed back from the table. The morbidly obese villains stood up. The League was outnumbered, at least two to one, but the opposing aliens were nowhere near as powerful as the heroes.
Jordana Gardner enclosed the villains, table and all, within an impenetrable green force-bubble. Mr. Wonderland’s voice echoed hollowly within.
“You missed one of us,” he said gloatingly. “My Cheshire Cat.”
The cat-like girl was not obese like her teammates, but rather as slender and lithe as, well, a cat. She appeared from nowhere, her hands on the shoulders of Rush. She moved quickly, acrobatically, bounding from Justice Leaguer to Justice Leaguer, a blur in violet and mauve stripes. Princess Xenobia almost avoided her, but the Cheshire Cat teleported, feinted, and flicked her with her tail. In seven swift moves, she had tapped or touched each of the League, then somersaulted in front of them with feline grace.
“Good-bye,” she said.
The Justice League of Earth vanished.
“Where did you send them?” asked Mr. Wonderland.
“I’m not sure,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Far. Away towards the center of the Galaxy. Somewhere. At those distances, my control isn’t very good. Some world with a breathable atmosphere, that’s all I know.”
“A breathable atmosphere?” said Mr. Wonderland, stroking the head of his great white rabbit. “That’s too bad.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE
THE EMPIRE OF TEARS
Ysmault, towards the center of the galaxy.
They cannot live in the light.
They do not live in the darkness.
They live on the other side of the darkness.
But they often peer into our Universe.
The Seven Demonic Entities are gods. Yes, gods: of small pustulences, or banal evils, but gods, nevertheless.
The other demonic entities of Ysmault hold them in contempt. They are relegated to an small, smelly, undesirable corner of their twilight world. But at least the seven have each other.
“We have visitors,” said Zalamer.
“Did you see them?” asked Cthuchilla. “There are seven. Exactly seven.”
“And their minds are confused,” said Galgo. “They would make excellent hosts.”
“We ought to hurry,” said Gabbora, “In their own way, they seem quite powerful. We might accomplish something with hosts like that.”
“So, what do you want to do?” asked Manique.
“Same thing as always,” said Elcerebro. “Try to take over their world.”
“That old chestnut?” asked Xaltar.
“You can’t teach an old god new tricks,” said Yema.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX
AN UNEASY ALLIANCE
“The pirate ship is a complete loss,” Ten reported. “It is little more that an empty pluridium-steel box with a couple of unreliable FTL engines attached. The environmental modules are useless, except in the Psion’s laboratory. The Science Police have confiscated his work product, but I have transferred his machines to my lab, where I will examine them for function and usefulness. I was able to cannibalize sufficient material to create a custom flight-communications belt for Korvea, but there is little else…”
There was a sound of distant thunder.
“We had better get outside,” said Saturn Girl.
The Martian sky opened up above the Super-Hero Club Headquarters. Dark eldritch energies crackled as the New Justice League of Earth emerged from the space-warp. Their eyes glowed dully, like dying embers. Their heads were held at slightly uncanny angles.
“Young Legion,” called Zalamer, through Dr. Shakespeare’s mouth. “Come out! Congratulations are in order. You will be the first to have the privilege to join us, or die!”
The seven forms drifted slowly to the surface of Mars, like falling Autumn leaves, harbingers of Winter and Death. Something else else less than a hundred feet above the surface, they passed without resistance through an invisible barrier.
The Justice Leaguers fell to the ground like stones.
Near-invisible, wraith-like entities with glowing red eyes were catapulted out of their bodies, away from the clubhouse. Burning under the weak Martian sun, they quickly slithered away into the dungeon dimensions on other side of the darkness, down beyond the real universe.
The demons fled away beneath the red Martian soil, eventually finding a home in caverns beneath the Grand Marshall Hotel in New Metropolis. Like many other hotels before it, it developed a reputation for being haunted.
Hotel California Grand Hotel
The Batwoman of Pluto was first to recover. “What was that?” she asked.
“A gift,” said Saturn Girl. “From powerful friends.”
The squid-headed Batwoman sniffed the air. “There is no mana here.”
“No, so it’s good none of your powers are magically based,” said Saturn Girl. “Or are they?” She looked around at the seven Justice Leaguers.
“I have lost my sword and my shield,” said Princess Xenobia, the blood-red-armored Amazon. She glanced around, spying the two Olympian artifacts pressed up against some distant trees. There were a couple of golden sandals lying near them as well. “And my talaria,” she noted.
“We owe you a favor,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“Then do us a favor, and leave us in peace,” said Saturn Girl. “Go back to your Hall of Justice, or satellite base, or wherever you come from.”
“We have both,” said the Devil-Fish.
By now, the rest of the Members had appeared, along with the four members ‘Super-Villain Club’. They stared curiously.
“They harbor the turncoats,” said the Cyborg Manhunter. “The blood-traitors to Terra.”
“These college students have had their education interrupted by your interference,” said Saturn Girl, “And are here by the order of the Court, as you well know. You will have your time with them before a judge on Earth, when they are brought up on the false charges you have made against them. Until then... “
“We will leave you in peace, for now,” said Dr. Shakespeare. He turned to his six associates. “Princess, gather your things, and let us return to Earth.”
“Perhaps,” said the Batwoman, fluttering her great wings slightly, “We might ask these self-proclaimed Super-Heroes another... favor... for us. They might be helpful against Mr. Wonderland and his organization. I am… impressed with their resources.” She glanced meaningfully at Princess Xenobia’s discarded equipment.
“And we should help you because…?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Because the Justice League would be in your debt a second time,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“And because you believe in Justice,” said Jordana Gardner, her ring flashing.
“Do not trust them,” said the Cyborg Manhunter. “They will betray us.”
“I don’t know…” said Dr. Shakespeare. He glanced at the Batwoman of Pluto.
There was too much mutual distrust between the two teams for there to be any agreement. The Justice League went back to Earth.
But it was not three days before they called again with the same offer.
“But you already have a telepath,” Star-Woman reminded them.
“Yes, but not a Saturnian telepath,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “The Batwoman’s mental powers can be somewhat invasive and… obvious. We need a more subtle touch. We need intelligence. We walked into a situation we did not understand. It ended badly. It could have been worse.”
“Is this just another group of harmless aliens you wish to banish from Earth?” asked Star-Woman. “That really isn’t our cup of tea.”
Dr. Shakespeare posted an SP file on the viewscreen.
“This is what we know,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “Mr. Wonderland is from Tartarus, a world where there is no crime, because there is no law. He was a successful… ‘businessman’. Very successful, by that world’s standards. Until a cabal of other ‘businessmen’ conspired to take him down. He fled Tartarus in fear of his life. But Earth has one of the most prosperous economies in the United Planets. He felt he could re-establish his businesses here: racketeering, extortion, blackmail, assassination; that sort of thing. He has been recruiting lieutenants-- we don’t know very much about him. This Cheshire Cat was a complete surprise. These criminal organizations have been nearly annihilated on Earth, but new ones keep cropping up. Surely this is more your ‘cup of tea’.”
In a quick council, the rest of the Members agreed. Still, they preferred to meet at the Clubhouse, rather than on Earth.
“We found their offices in Londonopolis, in the Oxford area,” the Batwoman explained. We suspect they must have a larger retreat nearby, but have been unable to find it.”
“I will see what I can do,” said Saturn Girl. “Dacey, I’m going to need you as an anchor.”
The astral form of Dorrit Ranzz slipped out of her body, focusing on the small blue orb in the Martian sky. Instantly, she was on Earth. It took only a moment’s orientation to move to the Oxford area of Londonopolis. She scanned the minds around her quietly, the thoughts of ‘Mr. Wonderland’, and ‘Tartarus’, leading her to an expensive hotel called the Oxford Castle Estates.
She dropped through a ceiling. There was an enormously fat man, heavily bearded, and dressed all in red. He was snoring loudly, lying above the covers: about six centimeters above, for he floated in mid-air.
“The Red King,” she whispered aloud. “I’m afraid we won’t get much information out of him. Yes, I know you’re there, Batwoman. You may have the power to cloud minds, but the psychic energy it burns shines like a candle in the dark.”
The Batwoman appeared before her. Her black, bat-like ears and large, black, bat-like wings blended perfectly with her black body-armor, although Dorrit knew the ears and wings were part of her body. She was too black to blend into the dark gray light of the hotel room, dimly lit with a night-light. Her pink, squiddy head floated above the blackness.
“<We could probe deeper,>” thought the Batwoman at her.
“<I thought that stealth was at a premium,>” Saturn Girl thought back. “<Besides, he does not appear to be entirely in touch with reality. We need to find someone else>.”
Saturn Girl’s astral form drifted through a wall. An equally fat, pale woman lay asleep under a heavy down comforter. “<The Duchess>,” thought Saturn Girl. “<This is more like it. She is one of Mr. Wonderland’s more trusted associates.>”
“<Who would have thought they would be using a luxury hotel as a base?>” thought the Batwoman. “<Do you have what we need?>”
“<If you could teleport here so easily, why did you need me?>” thought Saturn Girl.
“<I require a… target of some kind. A point of focus.>” thought the Batwoman. “<Your unique mind filled just such a requirement.>” thought the Batwoman. “<Intriguing. You and your sister share a link which I cannot penetrate>.”
“<Where I come from,>” thought Saturn Girl, “It is impolite to probe another’s mind without their permission.”
“<Yet I am sure that you have done so yourself, more than once>,” thought the Batwoman.
“<But those were enemies,>” thought Saturn Girl. “<I’m not your enemy>.”
“<We shall see,>” the Batwoman thought back.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 10/03/18 06:45 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
WONDERLAND, WITHOUT ALICE
“The Duchess,” Saturn Girl explained, “Is from some place called Somathur. She is immune to all diseases, but is a carrier for every one she has been exposed to. And she has made sure to expose herself to many. One breathe, and you could come down with a hundred different random illnesses from across the Galaxy. That’s why she wears that rebreather, day and night. To protect her comrades.”
“There was a member of the old Legion of Substitute Heroes that had powers similar to that,” said Shrinking Violet. “But no one knows whatever happened to her.”
“This is Father William,” she said, pointing at the projection from the Green Lantern’s power ring, “Despite his age and rotundity, he is an expert acrobat. He seems to drain strength and youth from others to fund that agility.”
“This is Tweedle, a young Janusite. Two heads, nothing more.”
“This bovinoid is called the Mock Turtle. It has some sort of sonic powers.”
“The huge, slug-like thing is called Professor Caterpillar. It is able to change its size, either to grow or to shrink.”
“Here’s a recognizable name: Hector Niwtyn-LaFeaugh, son of Tusker and Eyeful Ethel of the old Legion of Super-Villains. Unlike his father, his tusks point down, rather that up. Like his father, he has an unbreakable skeleton. They call him The Walrus.”
“His parents reformed; they were founding members of the Justice League of Earth,” the Cyborg Manhunter commented. “It is sad to see him go bad.”
Saturn Girl shook her head. “This is The Gryphon, a chicken-headed, lion-bodied, winged alien. It also breathes fire, so watch your step.”
“And this blobby thing is a shapeshifter from Planet Hagen. They call him The Pudding.”
“They’re called Clayfaces,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“Actually, that is considered an insulting and derogatory term,” said Chameleon.
“I know,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“You know the Cheshire Cat. Then there is a mysterious member that the Duchess has never seen, called The Carpenter, some sort of technological wizard. This armored creature is The White Knight, a powerful robot of his creation. He also provides them other technology .”
“And this is the most dangerous of all, at least according to The Duchess’ mind. The Red King - he is in some sort of coma due to a bizarre accident. He used to be a renowned physicist, specializing in quantum probability. On the rare occasions he awakes, his dreams momentarily become reality. The effect is localized, and temporary… although the Duchess fears that over time, they are merely forgetting what the old reality looked like.” She shuddered.
“He has been very careful in recruiting his people,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “There is obviously some overall plan, but we just can’t see it. Aside from the fact that most of them seem morbidly obese. His group seems just a random assortment of strange individuals with odd powers.”
Saturn Girl gaped. “Didn’t your mother ever read fairy tales to you?” Dr. Shakespeare seemed puzzled by the question. “None of you?” she addressed the rest of the League.
“Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, Dodgson, Baum, L’Engle?” added Matter-Eater Lad Two, helpfully.
The League looked nonplussed.
Saturn Girl sighed. “These recruits are all themed based on characters in Dodgson’s Fairy Tales,” she explained. “One of his Tales is even called ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. That’s where the ‘Mr. Wonderland’ identity comes from.”
“Is this helpful?” asked the Batwoman. “To know the pattern is based on a children’s book.”
“It means they’re nuts,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Insane, crazy, bonkers, ‘round the bend. ‘We’re all mad here’. That’s from the book.”
“I don’t think they’re actually mentally ill,” said Saturn Girl. “At least, not all of them. But I would expect a certain… unpredictability… in dealing with them. Mr. Wonderland’s goal, especially, may not be completely rational.”
“We will need some time to formulate a plan of attack,” said Star-Woman.
“I agree,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “And to find a place to confront them where it will be to our greatest advantage.”
“One more thing,” said Saturn Girl. “The Carpenter has created some sort of mind-control device. Not all of the ‘lieutenants’ are there voluntarily. We should be able to tell easily: the device is an obvious sort of circlet around their heads.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
VS. WONDERLAND
Jordana Gardner, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, set the dozen plus-sized stasis units she was carrying out outside the Oxford Castle Estates Luxury Hotel. The Wonderland Syndicate were caught in the act of heading toward their cars. She power-ringed a force-bubble around the super-infectious Duchess.
Another green beam shone from the Cyborg Manhunter’s square lantern. It played over the nine-foot-tall White Knight robot.
“I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light,” she intoned. “It’s remote controlled,” she announced. “And I’ve found the controller.” she soared away into the sky.
Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad moved in to take her place. With their powers, it was only a matter of time before the giant robot was disassembled.
The Triplicate Girls closed in on Tweedle. They were wearing mind-controlling circlets around their two heads. They proved difficult to remove, as they were braced with spikes entering the skull.
The Pudding was a muddy, gray-brown mass of dense protoplasm, six feet tall and six feet around. Chameleon, in his blue chainmail costume, was the obvious one to confront him. Chameleon’s initial attempts at punching were futile; it was like punching mud. The Durlan assumed the largest form he could think of: a Ganesagarian, towering over The Pudding. The Hagenite just chuckled, a thick, suety laugh. It began to puddle, creeping up Chameleon’s ankles, calves, and thighs, eventually covering him completely in a clay-like mass. Then it started to compress, resuming its original form. Chameleon seemed trapped inside, until he shot out as an orange-gold, burrowing snake.
“You forgot your super-costume,” The Pudding laughed again. Indeed, Chameleon had re-formed in nude, androgynous shape.
“Oh, right, my super-costume,” said Chameleon. “My semi-telepathic martian Zo’Ok pet, as nigh-invulnerable as any martian life-form.” Midnight-blue scales were beginning to form on The Pudding’s ‘skin’. Soon, The Pudding who was coated with the blue armor. It shot out spikes of resistance, but was unable to penetrate the alien plant The Zo’Ok continued to compress, until it was a perfect sphere, The Pudding trapped helplessly inside.
“Good work, my little friend,” said Chameleon. “We make a great team.”
Rush had a single target: the Cheshire Cat. She had entered the battle, her speed-inhibiting bracelets off. Her opponents and companions seemed nearly frozen. She spied the Cheshire Cat, who was wearing one of the mind-control circlets.
“This should be easy,” thought Rush. But she underestimated the cat-girl’s reaction time. Before she could remove circlet, the Cheshire Cat had teleported. Rush searched the area, and located her target again. This time she came up from behind, and vibrated the circlet into intangibility. A glazed look came into the cat-girl’s eyes, and she began to collapse in slow motion.
The Mock Turtle looked like a rotund minotaur in tortoiseshell-patterned armor. His bellows were loud enough to create shock waves, more powerful than sonic booms. Devil-Fish, however, used to the massive pressure gradients at the bottom of the ocean, was unaffected. The amphibian-man attacked with a frog-like leap. He landed a blow that staggered the Mock Turtle, but did not take him down. The fight continued.
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet took on Professor Caterpillar. The large, slug-like alien grew even larger, towering fifty feet high. His trailing hindquarters took up an additional fifty feet of length.
“Think you can shrink him down?” asked Phantom Girl.
“I don’t think I need to,” said Shrinking Violet. “He’s wearing a mind-control circlet, too. We just have to convince him to take it off.” Her flight belt propelled her up into the air; she landed on the crown of the creature’s head. She grasped the circlet tight, and shrank-- not far, the circlet was too large for her to affect much, but it tightened around the molluscoid head. Professor Caterpillar instinctively shrunk himself, in order to ease the pressure on his brain. But Shrinking Violet maintained the same relative size, and the circlet shrunk as well. After a few moments, Professor Caterpillar was slightly below his natural size. Shrinking Violet released the circlet: it returned to normal size for a moment, coming loose from the alien’s head. She shot up to full size, and grabbed it, holding it aloft like a trophy. Professor Caterpillar clutched his head.
“Thank you,” he said.
The Walrus was not mind-controlled. Matter-Eater Lad Two flitted around him like Peter Pan around Captain Hook.
“You know, Hector, the Justice League have quite a high opinion of your parents,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Your choice of a criminal career is something of a disappointment to them. Why don’t you just peacefully climb into one of those stasis chambers? I’m sure they will treat you with special deference.”
“Shut up,” said the Walrus. He tossed his head back, and two elongated tusks flashed at Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Wow,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, easily dodging the enlarged incisor. “You can’t aim and shoot at the same time. How useful are those tusks, anyway? Did I mention I’m Bismollian? I could perform a dental extraction the hard way.”
“My tuthkth are unbreakable,” said the Walrus. “Jutht like my father. And my thkeleton ith jutht ath indethtructible. You have no chanthe againtht me.” He swung a massive fist that missed as well.
“Oh, wow,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “A speech impediment as well. No wonder you turned to crime.” The flying Bismollian dashed in close for a moment, and bit off a tusk, quite near the root. The Walrus dropped to his knees in pain, eyes watering. Matter-Eater Lad Two held the three-inch tusk in his hand. “Did I mention, super-fast biting? Believe me, I’m doing you a favor. I’m sure the dentists at whatever correctional facility you end up at can take out the other one, too.”
The Walrus got up, seething with rage. He threw his head back again, shooting out another elongated tusk at Matter-Eater Lad Two, this time sweeping the air in front of him.
“Wow, another miss,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, hovering above his opponent’s head. “Have you had any practice at this super-villain stuff?”
Star-Woman was not having such an easy time with the bouncing Father William. He seemed to be gaining energy and vitality the longer they fought, moving faster and bouncing higher, nearly flying. Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy had finished with the White Knight robot, and had come to help.
“I think he’s absorbing bio-energy,” said Star-Woman to Lightning Lass. “Maybe the two of us can overload him.” Star-Woman focused her electro-vision on fat old man; Lightning Lass blasted him with thunderbolts.
“It’s like a warm bath,” said Father William, caroming at Lightning Lass. She barely dodged him. He unleashed a bolt of electrical energy from behind; Cosmic Boy deflected the bolt with a magnetic shield.
“He’s duplicating our powers,” said Lightning Lass.
“No, I think he’s just shedding excess energy,” said Star-Woman. “He must be nearing his limit.” On his next path, she hit him with flame breath.
“Now you’ve singed my suit,” said Father William. His next bounce took him straight into and impace with Star-Woman. He grabbed her head with both hands. “Nowhere near my limit,” he said. Star-Woman felt life-energy draining out through her ears. She tore away from the old man, staggered.
“We need to get him into one of those containment units before he gets too strong,” said Star-Woman.
“If we had enough scrap iron... “ said Cosmic Boy.
Star-Woman flew straight down, burrowing into the ground. Moments later, she re-appeared, tossing up a huge boulder. “Iron ore,” she explained.
Cosmic Boy’s magnetic powers wrapped the iron around Father William, while the three super-heroes kept far away. The iron ball dropped from the sky. It lay on the ground, still… then shattered.
“You misunderestimate me,” said Father William.
Korvea and Polar Lass battled the flame-breathing Gryphon with darkness and cold. Polar Lass was using her flight belt, but Korvea had grown wings. So far, it had been a stalemate. Polar Lass was able to stanch the flames, and Korvea was able to blind the lion-bird, but they had not been able to come near capturing him.
“Look, in the feathers on top of his head,” said Korvea. “Is that a mind-control circlet?”
“You have better eyes than I do,” said Polar Lass. “Blind him again, and let me try to get behind him.”
Polar Lass concentrated her frost power on the golden metal shining beneath The Gryphon’s feathers. There was a *crack*, and the metal circlet split in two. The Gryphon plunged toward Earth. They were quite high up; Korvea changed to giant bird-form to slow his descent. Polar Lass was able to reach the duo before they hit the ground, and used her flight belt to slow them down further. It was not a graceful landing, but there were, at least, no injuries.
Dr. Shakespeare took on Mr. Wonderland directly. The red-skinned Tartaran seemed amused. He took off his purple top-hat, revealing twin, black goat-horns. Black beams shot from them, and Dr. Shakespeare vanished.
“No!” screamed Princess Xenobia, flying at Mr. Wonderland. Phantom Girl intercepted her in the air.
“He’s all right,” said Phantom Girl. “He’s not dead. He was just projected into some sort of pocket dimension. I’m sure I can get him out. Just keep Mr. Wonderland occupied.” She vanished, falling into the Phantom Zone.
From the outside, the pocket dimension resembled a sphere of thick, tangled, sticky vines. Unable to phase through, Phantom Girl pulled them apart with her hands. It was bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside.
Dr. Shakespeare was sitting in a chair carved of red stone, beneath a tree of red leaves, with red pear-like fruit growing on the boughs.
“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. “I’ve been here nearly a day, with nothing to eat.”
“It’s only been moments outside,” said Phantom Girl. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“How?” said Dr. Shakespeare. “I’ve already walked for miles. There seems no end to this place.” He pointed at the sky. “That red dodecahedron is the ‘sun’ that illuminates this world. It also saps my powers.”
Princess Xenobia suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She was holding a badly damaged, mechanical rabbit.
“It’s a robot with laser-vision,” she explained. “That one he always kept under his arm. I wasn’t able to dodge them both.”
“So Mr. Wonderland’s pretty dangerous,” said Phantom Girl. “Even if his appearance is slightly ridiculous. I think I can take you both out of here at once. Hold onto my hands.” A strange portal opened in the air, seemingly surrounded by thick, tangled, sticky vines. The three were drawn through, then fell from the Phantom Zone back to Earth.
The Cheshire Cat, the Gryphon, and Professor Caterpillar had gathered at some distance from the center of the battle. Rush, Polar Lass, Korvea, and Shrinking Violet were protecting them.
The Gryphon blinked its chicken-like eyes. “Should we go back and help?” he asked.
“They have a plan,” said Korvea. “Let’s let them work it.”
“Well, I’m getting out of here,” said the Cheshire Cat. Suddenly, the group of seven was… somewhere else.
“What did you do?” asked Rush. “Where are we?”
“Downtown Metropolis,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Six-point-seven megameters away from Oxford. Safe.”
“Oh, grife,” said Rush. “Keep an eye on them, will you? I need to get back.” She took off in a rush.
“Look,” said Shrinking Violet. “Once the rest of the Wonderland Syndicate is rounded up, it would be really helpful you would testify.”
“I assume you have no love for Mr. Wonderland and his associates,” said Korvea.
“Fear is a better word,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Abject terror. What happened to Tweedle?”
“The last I saw, the Triplicates had managed to get one circlet off, and the two heads were fighting each other,” said Shrinking Violet. “Otherwise, we would have pulled him… them… out of the battle as well.”
“I just want to be sent home,” said the Gryphon.
“Where is home?” Shrinking Violet inquired.
“My world is not a member of the United Planets,” said the Gryphon. “We have had some contact. You call our world Gallus, but we call it Kikirikiri.”
“My world’s oceans were colonized by the Gil’Dishpan long ago,” said Professor Caterpillar. “Our world has been known as Gildan-7 for at least fifty generations of my people.” His torso was almost human, above his visceral mass, but his head was quite insectoid. Shrinking Violet marvelled that he could enunciate so well.
“You’ll all be sent home, I’m sure,” said Polar Lass. “The Terran courts may just have you swear testimony, and then let you go your way. And we will keep an eye on things, to make sure you are well-treated.”
“We will do our best,” said Korvea. Shrinking Violet thought she detected some hesitation in her voice.
When Rush returned from her trip across the sea, Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy were still trying to get Father William under control. The Mock Turtle and Devil-Fish were in a standoff, as were The Walrus and Matter-Eater Lad Two.
The Green Lantern still struggled to get the resisting Duchess into a stasis chamber; only The Pudding had been safely stowed away so far.
The White Knight Robot lay in pieces. The Cyborg Manhunter was returning with a tall, slender man with wildly unkempt white hair, wearing a pleather apron with many pockets.
“The Carpenter,” she announced. “I traced the White Knight Robot’s signal to Aberdeen.” As she landed, the Carpenter slipped a device no longer than a fountain pen into his hand. He pointed it at the Cyborg Manhunter, and she collapsed.
The Carpenter targeted the next closest hero, which happened to be Ten. He triggered the device again, but there was only a faint crackling around Ten’s force-field.
Vesta, Ten’s robotic nanny, grabbed the device from the Carpenter with a short-range tractor beam, and dropped it into Ten’s waiting hand.
“Interesting…” said Ten. “A good attempt at making an actual Sonic Screwdriver. I have something similar.” He pulled a small box, about an inch square and half an inch deep, with a large red button on it. “I call it a ‘Panic Button’.” He depressed the stud, and energy crackled all around the Carpenter, as his hidden tech was rendered inoperative. “I don’t suppose you want to surrender?”
But Rush had already grabbed the helpless Carpenter, and locked him in a stasis chamber.
“Father William absorbs bio-energy,” Star-Woman cried. “Of all kinds. But let’s see how he reacts to concentrated stellar energy.” He drew the Star-Rod from its holster. The blast seemed to stagger Father William, but he swiftly bounced back-- bounced right up, and into Star-Woman. In the confusion of the impact, Father William grabbed the Star-Rod.
“You actually hurt me,” he said. “Now let’s see what this little gizmo will do to you.” He fumbled with the rod, but did not seem able to activate it.
Elsewhere, Phantom Girl had returned with Dr. Shakespeare and Princess Xenobia, and they were closing on Mr. Wonderland. But the Syndicate leader had moved over next to the floating bed on which lay The Red King.
“We need you, King,” he muttered, pulling out a hypo-spray, and injecting the sleeping figure.
The world changed.
Eight members of the Wonderland Syndicate: Mr. Wonderland, The Duchess, Father William, The Mock Turtle, The Walrus, The Pudding and The Carpenter stood confined in the isolation chambers. Even the White Knight Robot had been re-assembled, and stood quietly in stasis.
Tweedle’s second mind-control circlet had been removed. The Red King stood blinking at the setting sun.
“Professor Carroll,” Saturn Girl addressed The Red King. “Are you ready to return to the Institute?”
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said the little red-clad man. “I had the strangest dream: I was kidnapped by super-villains, and rescued by super-heroes.”
“Yes, the Saturnian and I were guiding your dreams,” said the Batwoman.
“My, you are an odd one, aren’t you?” said The Red King. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell dreams from waking life. Of course, when one spends as much time asleep as I do…”
“We’ll take care of you, sir,” said Saturn Girl. “And make sure you get back to New Titan”
There was quite a lot of cleanup to do, despite the easiness of the victory.
After it was all over, Saturn Girl approached the Batwoman.
“I’m sorry, I have no time to talk,” said the Batwoman. “I really must leave. There is a circuit on the Justice League Satellite that is calling me.”
“I’m sure,” said Saturn Girl. “I just wanted you to know, I’ve caught you probing my mind from time to time during this Adventure. Find anything interesting?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
“If you want to know something, just ask,” said Saturn Girl. “We have very few secrets here. And probing another’s mind without permission is rude. You haven’t caught me deep-probing your mind, trying to search out your secrets, have I?”
“No,” the Batwoman admitted.
“Then perhaps we are not enemies after all?” said Saturn Girl.
“Perhaps.” The squid-like face was inscrutable.
“You still remind me of the Star-Spawn.”
“What Star-Spawn?”
“The Star-Spawn with the Power.”
“What Power?”
“The Power of Cthulhu.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
Saturn Girl shrugged. “Well, safe journey to your satellite. Good-bye, Acchabhalla.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
“No?” said Saturn Girl. “I thought she was standing right here, just a minute ago.”
“You know,” said the Batwoman, “If you would only smile more often… you would be terrifying.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
CAT TALE
“I can no longer stay on Earth,” said the cat-faced girl. “I was hoping you could suggest another world… somewhere I could live a peaceful, untroubled life.”
“Karna and Tamaran are felinoid worlds, out in the Vega system,” Shrinking Violet suggested.
“A number of worlds belong to the Cat Hegemony, out in the general direction of Procyon,” said Ten. “Although one is a world of mostly super-powered giants.”
“The Kzin Worlds lie on the other side of the Khundish Empire,” said Saturn Girl, “although they are not exactly peaceful.”
“It doesn’t really need to be people who look like me,” said the cat-girl. “Just somewhere comfortable, with a warm sun. Or people aren’t very gregarious, anyway.”
“Who are your people?” asked Phantom Girl. “And can you not go back home?”
“We are from the star you call Alsciaukat,” replied the cat-girl, “But which my people call Arau. I was infected by an Antipath Phage, and…”
“Really?” Ten perked up. “How long ago?”
“Oh, it’s been close to a year now, your time,” said the cat-girl
“Fascinating,” said Ten. “How have you managed to survive so long?”
“Wait a minute,” said Polar Lass. “What is… Antipath Phage? I’ve never heard of it. Is it contagious?”
“A giant, space-faring virus,” Ten explained. “About as big as your fist. It attaches itself to a host, injects RNA, and dies. The host then splits into two identical duplicates, indistinguishable in any way from the original, except for an intense hatred for each other. Usually, one duplicate murders the other in a very short time; then, as the corpse composts, new Phages develop, and fly off into space, seeking new hosts.”
“That’s horrible!” exclaimed Polar Lass.
“Yeah, it pretty much is,” said the cat-girl. “But we were able to keep our anger under control until we devised to arrange a disparity between us. My replicant agreed to remain on Arau forever, and I agreed to leave, and never return. Of course, I still experience terrible paranoia that she has somehow followed me, and an almost overwhelming desire to go back to Arau and eliminate her… but I have managed to learn to live with it, and as long as I am able to keep my feelings in check, I trust that she is able to as well.”
“Impressive,” said Ten. “I have never heard of anyone overcoming an Antipath infection through the application of free will.”
“My teleportative powers helped immensely,” said the cat-girl. “I was able to leave my replicant behind immediately, and travel far into space on my own power. When my paranoia overwhelms me, I can teleport away again. It has even given me a new identity-- although I resist Mr. Wonderland’s childish appellation of “The Cheshire Cat”, I have decided to call myself Tesser Cat, because my powers involve folding space in order to teleport. You can call me Tesser.”
“Tesser,” said Ffiona, “You might very much like the Pacht worlds. Peaceful, technology at least as advanced as Earth or Xanthu. And somewhat isolated.”
“Thank you, you have given me some good ideas,” said the Tesser Cat. “I think I’ll pop around Mars for awhile, see the sights, and then leave the Sol System behind.”
CHAPTER VI
PIG AND PEPPER
She was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked goodnatured, she thought : still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt it ought to be treated with respect.
“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would
like the name : however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it ’s pleased so far,” thought
Alice, and she went on, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here ?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where——” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.
“ ——so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here ?”
“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “ lives a Hatter : and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like : they ’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad ?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “ or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on: “And how do you know that you’re mad?”
“To begin with,” said the Cat, “ a dog’s not mad. You grant that ?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it ’s
pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”
“I call it purring, not growling,” said Alice.
“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the Queen to day?”
“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited yet.”
“You ’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”
“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a natural way.
“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.
Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live.
She looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.
“Did you say pig, or fig ?” said the Cat.
“I said pig,” replied Alice; “ and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly:
you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of
the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Well ! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice ; “ but a grin without a cat ! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life !”
(
WONDERLAND, WITHOUT ALICE
“The Duchess,” Saturn Girl explained, “Is from some place called Somathur. She is immune to all diseases, but is a carrier for every one she has been exposed to. And she has made sure to expose herself to many. One breathe, and you could come down with a hundred different random illnesses from across the Galaxy. That’s why she wears that rebreather, day and night. To protect her comrades.”
“There was a member of the old Legion of Substitute Heroes that had powers similar to that,” said Shrinking Violet. “But no one knows whatever happened to her.”
“This is Father William,” she said, pointing at the projection from the Green Lantern’s power ring, “Despite his age and rotundity, he is an expert acrobat. He seems to drain strength and youth from others to fund that agility.”
“This is Tweedle, a young Janusite. Two heads, nothing more.”
“This bovinoid is called the Mock Turtle. It has some sort of sonic powers.”
“The huge, slug-like thing is called Professor Caterpillar. It is able to change its size, either to grow or to shrink.”
“Here’s a recognizable name: Hector Niwtyn-LaFeaugh, son of Tusker and Eyeful Ethel of the old Legion of Super-Villains. Unlike his father, his tusks point down, rather that up. Like his father, he has an unbreakable skeleton. They call him The Walrus.”
“His parents reformed; they were founding members of the Justice League of Earth,” the Cyborg Manhunter commented. “It is sad to see him go bad.”
Saturn Girl shook her head. “This is The Gryphon, a chicken-headed, lion-bodied, winged alien. It also breathes fire, so watch your step.”
“And this blobby thing is a shapeshifter from Planet Hagen. They call him The Pudding.”
“They’re called Clayfaces,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“Actually, that is considered an insulting and derogatory term,” said Chameleon.
“I know,” said Dr. Shakespeare.
“You know the Cheshire Cat. Then there is a mysterious member that the Duchess has never seen, called The Carpenter, some sort of technological wizard. This armored creature is The White Knight, a powerful robot of his creation. He also provides them other technology .”
“And this is the most dangerous of all, at least according to The Duchess’ mind. The Red King - he is in some sort of coma due to a bizarre accident. He used to be a renowned physicist, specializing in quantum probability. On the rare occasions he awakes, his dreams momentarily become reality. The effect is localized, and temporary… although the Duchess fears that over time, they are merely forgetting what the old reality looked like.” She shuddered.
“He has been very careful in recruiting his people,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “There is obviously some overall plan, but we just can’t see it. Aside from the fact that most of them seem morbidly obese. His group seems just a random assortment of strange individuals with odd powers.”
Saturn Girl gaped. “Didn’t your mother ever read fairy tales to you?” Dr. Shakespeare seemed puzzled by the question. “None of you?” she addressed the rest of the League.
“Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, Dodgson, Baum, L’Engle?” added Matter-Eater Lad Two, helpfully.
The League looked nonplussed.
Saturn Girl sighed. “These recruits are all themed based on characters in Dodgson’s Fairy Tales,” she explained. “One of his Tales is even called ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. That’s where the ‘Mr. Wonderland’ identity comes from.”
“Is this helpful?” asked the Batwoman. “To know the pattern is based on a children’s book.”
“It means they’re nuts,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Insane, crazy, bonkers, ‘round the bend. ‘We’re all mad here’. That’s from the book.”
“I don’t think they’re actually mentally ill,” said Saturn Girl. “At least, not all of them. But I would expect a certain… unpredictability… in dealing with them. Mr. Wonderland’s goal, especially, may not be completely rational.”
“We will need some time to formulate a plan of attack,” said Star-Woman.
“I agree,” said Dr. Shakespeare. “And to find a place to confront them where it will be to our greatest advantage.”
“One more thing,” said Saturn Girl. “The Carpenter has created some sort of mind-control device. Not all of the ‘lieutenants’ are there voluntarily. We should be able to tell easily: the device is an obvious sort of circlet around their heads.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
VS. WONDERLAND
Jordana Gardner, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, set the dozen plus-sized stasis units she was carrying out outside the Oxford Castle Estates Luxury Hotel. The Wonderland Syndicate were caught in the act of heading toward their cars. She power-ringed a force-bubble around the super-infectious Duchess.
Another green beam shone from the Cyborg Manhunter’s square lantern. It played over the nine-foot-tall White Knight robot.
“I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light,” she intoned. “It’s remote controlled,” she announced. “And I’ve found the controller.” she soared away into the sky.
Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad moved in to take her place. With their powers, it was only a matter of time before the giant robot was disassembled.
The Triplicate Girls closed in on Tweedle. They were wearing mind-controlling circlets around their two heads. They proved difficult to remove, as they were braced with spikes entering the skull.
The Pudding was a muddy, gray-brown mass of dense protoplasm, six feet tall and six feet around. Chameleon, in his blue chainmail costume, was the obvious one to confront him. Chameleon’s initial attempts at punching were futile; it was like punching mud. The Durlan assumed the largest form he could think of: a Ganesagarian, towering over The Pudding. The Hagenite just chuckled, a thick, suety laugh. It began to puddle, creeping up Chameleon’s ankles, calves, and thighs, eventually covering him completely in a clay-like mass. Then it started to compress, resuming its original form. Chameleon seemed trapped inside, until he shot out as an orange-gold, burrowing snake.
“You forgot your super-costume,” The Pudding laughed again. Indeed, Chameleon had re-formed in nude, androgynous shape.
“Oh, right, my super-costume,” said Chameleon. “My semi-telepathic martian Zo’Ok pet, as nigh-invulnerable as any martian life-form.” Midnight-blue scales were beginning to form on The Pudding’s ‘skin’. Soon, The Pudding who was coated with the blue armor. It shot out spikes of resistance, but was unable to penetrate the alien plant The Zo’Ok continued to compress, until it was a perfect sphere, The Pudding trapped helplessly inside.
“Good work, my little friend,” said Chameleon. “We make a great team.”
Rush had a single target: the Cheshire Cat. She had entered the battle, her speed-inhibiting bracelets off. Her opponents and companions seemed nearly frozen. She spied the Cheshire Cat, who was wearing one of the mind-control circlets.
“This should be easy,” thought Rush. But she underestimated the cat-girl’s reaction time. Before she could remove circlet, the Cheshire Cat had teleported. Rush searched the area, and located her target again. This time she came up from behind, and vibrated the circlet into intangibility. A glazed look came into the cat-girl’s eyes, and she began to collapse in slow motion.
The Mock Turtle looked like a rotund minotaur in tortoiseshell-patterned armor. His bellows were loud enough to create shock waves, more powerful than sonic booms. Devil-Fish, however, used to the massive pressure gradients at the bottom of the ocean, was unaffected. The amphibian-man attacked with a frog-like leap. He landed a blow that staggered the Mock Turtle, but did not take him down. The fight continued.
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet took on Professor Caterpillar. The large, slug-like alien grew even larger, towering fifty feet high. His trailing hindquarters took up an additional fifty feet of length.
“Think you can shrink him down?” asked Phantom Girl.
“I don’t think I need to,” said Shrinking Violet. “He’s wearing a mind-control circlet, too. We just have to convince him to take it off.” Her flight belt propelled her up into the air; she landed on the crown of the creature’s head. She grasped the circlet tight, and shrank-- not far, the circlet was too large for her to affect much, but it tightened around the molluscoid head. Professor Caterpillar instinctively shrunk himself, in order to ease the pressure on his brain. But Shrinking Violet maintained the same relative size, and the circlet shrunk as well. After a few moments, Professor Caterpillar was slightly below his natural size. Shrinking Violet released the circlet: it returned to normal size for a moment, coming loose from the alien’s head. She shot up to full size, and grabbed it, holding it aloft like a trophy. Professor Caterpillar clutched his head.
“Thank you,” he said.
The Walrus was not mind-controlled. Matter-Eater Lad Two flitted around him like Peter Pan around Captain Hook.
“You know, Hector, the Justice League have quite a high opinion of your parents,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Your choice of a criminal career is something of a disappointment to them. Why don’t you just peacefully climb into one of those stasis chambers? I’m sure they will treat you with special deference.”
“Shut up,” said the Walrus. He tossed his head back, and two elongated tusks flashed at Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Wow,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, easily dodging the enlarged incisor. “You can’t aim and shoot at the same time. How useful are those tusks, anyway? Did I mention I’m Bismollian? I could perform a dental extraction the hard way.”
“My tuthkth are unbreakable,” said the Walrus. “Jutht like my father. And my thkeleton ith jutht ath indethtructible. You have no chanthe againtht me.” He swung a massive fist that missed as well.
“Oh, wow,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “A speech impediment as well. No wonder you turned to crime.” The flying Bismollian dashed in close for a moment, and bit off a tusk, quite near the root. The Walrus dropped to his knees in pain, eyes watering. Matter-Eater Lad Two held the three-inch tusk in his hand. “Did I mention, super-fast biting? Believe me, I’m doing you a favor. I’m sure the dentists at whatever correctional facility you end up at can take out the other one, too.”
The Walrus got up, seething with rage. He threw his head back again, shooting out another elongated tusk at Matter-Eater Lad Two, this time sweeping the air in front of him.
“Wow, another miss,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two, hovering above his opponent’s head. “Have you had any practice at this super-villain stuff?”
Star-Woman was not having such an easy time with the bouncing Father William. He seemed to be gaining energy and vitality the longer they fought, moving faster and bouncing higher, nearly flying. Lightning Lass and Cosmic Boy had finished with the White Knight robot, and had come to help.
“I think he’s absorbing bio-energy,” said Star-Woman to Lightning Lass. “Maybe the two of us can overload him.” Star-Woman focused her electro-vision on fat old man; Lightning Lass blasted him with thunderbolts.
“It’s like a warm bath,” said Father William, caroming at Lightning Lass. She barely dodged him. He unleashed a bolt of electrical energy from behind; Cosmic Boy deflected the bolt with a magnetic shield.
“He’s duplicating our powers,” said Lightning Lass.
“No, I think he’s just shedding excess energy,” said Star-Woman. “He must be nearing his limit.” On his next path, she hit him with flame breath.
“Now you’ve singed my suit,” said Father William. His next bounce took him straight into and impace with Star-Woman. He grabbed her head with both hands. “Nowhere near my limit,” he said. Star-Woman felt life-energy draining out through her ears. She tore away from the old man, staggered.
“We need to get him into one of those containment units before he gets too strong,” said Star-Woman.
“If we had enough scrap iron... “ said Cosmic Boy.
Star-Woman flew straight down, burrowing into the ground. Moments later, she re-appeared, tossing up a huge boulder. “Iron ore,” she explained.
Cosmic Boy’s magnetic powers wrapped the iron around Father William, while the three super-heroes kept far away. The iron ball dropped from the sky. It lay on the ground, still… then shattered.
“You misunderestimate me,” said Father William.
Korvea and Polar Lass battled the flame-breathing Gryphon with darkness and cold. Polar Lass was using her flight belt, but Korvea had grown wings. So far, it had been a stalemate. Polar Lass was able to stanch the flames, and Korvea was able to blind the lion-bird, but they had not been able to come near capturing him.
“Look, in the feathers on top of his head,” said Korvea. “Is that a mind-control circlet?”
“You have better eyes than I do,” said Polar Lass. “Blind him again, and let me try to get behind him.”
Polar Lass concentrated her frost power on the golden metal shining beneath The Gryphon’s feathers. There was a *crack*, and the metal circlet split in two. The Gryphon plunged toward Earth. They were quite high up; Korvea changed to giant bird-form to slow his descent. Polar Lass was able to reach the duo before they hit the ground, and used her flight belt to slow them down further. It was not a graceful landing, but there were, at least, no injuries.
Dr. Shakespeare took on Mr. Wonderland directly. The red-skinned Tartaran seemed amused. He took off his purple top-hat, revealing twin, black goat-horns. Black beams shot from them, and Dr. Shakespeare vanished.
“No!” screamed Princess Xenobia, flying at Mr. Wonderland. Phantom Girl intercepted her in the air.
“He’s all right,” said Phantom Girl. “He’s not dead. He was just projected into some sort of pocket dimension. I’m sure I can get him out. Just keep Mr. Wonderland occupied.” She vanished, falling into the Phantom Zone.
From the outside, the pocket dimension resembled a sphere of thick, tangled, sticky vines. Unable to phase through, Phantom Girl pulled them apart with her hands. It was bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside.
Dr. Shakespeare was sitting in a chair carved of red stone, beneath a tree of red leaves, with red pear-like fruit growing on the boughs.
“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. “I’ve been here nearly a day, with nothing to eat.”
“It’s only been moments outside,” said Phantom Girl. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“How?” said Dr. Shakespeare. “I’ve already walked for miles. There seems no end to this place.” He pointed at the sky. “That red dodecahedron is the ‘sun’ that illuminates this world. It also saps my powers.”
Princess Xenobia suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She was holding a badly damaged, mechanical rabbit.
“It’s a robot with laser-vision,” she explained. “That one he always kept under his arm. I wasn’t able to dodge them both.”
“So Mr. Wonderland’s pretty dangerous,” said Phantom Girl. “Even if his appearance is slightly ridiculous. I think I can take you both out of here at once. Hold onto my hands.” A strange portal opened in the air, seemingly surrounded by thick, tangled, sticky vines. The three were drawn through, then fell from the Phantom Zone back to Earth.
The Cheshire Cat, the Gryphon, and Professor Caterpillar had gathered at some distance from the center of the battle. Rush, Polar Lass, Korvea, and Shrinking Violet were protecting them.
The Gryphon blinked its chicken-like eyes. “Should we go back and help?” he asked.
“They have a plan,” said Korvea. “Let’s let them work it.”
“Well, I’m getting out of here,” said the Cheshire Cat. Suddenly, the group of seven was… somewhere else.
“What did you do?” asked Rush. “Where are we?”
“Downtown Metropolis,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Six-point-seven megameters away from Oxford. Safe.”
“Oh, grife,” said Rush. “Keep an eye on them, will you? I need to get back.” She took off in a rush.
“Look,” said Shrinking Violet. “Once the rest of the Wonderland Syndicate is rounded up, it would be really helpful you would testify.”
“I assume you have no love for Mr. Wonderland and his associates,” said Korvea.
“Fear is a better word,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Abject terror. What happened to Tweedle?”
“The last I saw, the Triplicates had managed to get one circlet off, and the two heads were fighting each other,” said Shrinking Violet. “Otherwise, we would have pulled him… them… out of the battle as well.”
“I just want to be sent home,” said the Gryphon.
“Where is home?” Shrinking Violet inquired.
“My world is not a member of the United Planets,” said the Gryphon. “We have had some contact. You call our world Gallus, but we call it Kikirikiri.”
“My world’s oceans were colonized by the Gil’Dishpan long ago,” said Professor Caterpillar. “Our world has been known as Gildan-7 for at least fifty generations of my people.” His torso was almost human, above his visceral mass, but his head was quite insectoid. Shrinking Violet marvelled that he could enunciate so well.
“You’ll all be sent home, I’m sure,” said Polar Lass. “The Terran courts may just have you swear testimony, and then let you go your way. And we will keep an eye on things, to make sure you are well-treated.”
“We will do our best,” said Korvea. Shrinking Violet thought she detected some hesitation in her voice.
When Rush returned from her trip across the sea, Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy were still trying to get Father William under control. The Mock Turtle and Devil-Fish were in a standoff, as were The Walrus and Matter-Eater Lad Two.
The Green Lantern still struggled to get the resisting Duchess into a stasis chamber; only The Pudding had been safely stowed away so far.
The White Knight Robot lay in pieces. The Cyborg Manhunter was returning with a tall, slender man with wildly unkempt white hair, wearing a pleather apron with many pockets.
“The Carpenter,” she announced. “I traced the White Knight Robot’s signal to Aberdeen.” As she landed, the Carpenter slipped a device no longer than a fountain pen into his hand. He pointed it at the Cyborg Manhunter, and she collapsed.
The Carpenter targeted the next closest hero, which happened to be Ten. He triggered the device again, but there was only a faint crackling around Ten’s force-field.
Vesta, Ten’s robotic nanny, grabbed the device from the Carpenter with a short-range tractor beam, and dropped it into Ten’s waiting hand.
“Interesting…” said Ten. “A good attempt at making an actual Sonic Screwdriver. I have something similar.” He pulled a small box, about an inch square and half an inch deep, with a large red button on it. “I call it a ‘Panic Button’.” He depressed the stud, and energy crackled all around the Carpenter, as his hidden tech was rendered inoperative. “I don’t suppose you want to surrender?”
But Rush had already grabbed the helpless Carpenter, and locked him in a stasis chamber.
“Father William absorbs bio-energy,” Star-Woman cried. “Of all kinds. But let’s see how he reacts to concentrated stellar energy.” He drew the Star-Rod from its holster. The blast seemed to stagger Father William, but he swiftly bounced back-- bounced right up, and into Star-Woman. In the confusion of the impact, Father William grabbed the Star-Rod.
“You actually hurt me,” he said. “Now let’s see what this little gizmo will do to you.” He fumbled with the rod, but did not seem able to activate it.
Elsewhere, Phantom Girl had returned with Dr. Shakespeare and Princess Xenobia, and they were closing on Mr. Wonderland. But the Syndicate leader had moved over next to the floating bed on which lay The Red King.
“We need you, King,” he muttered, pulling out a hypo-spray, and injecting the sleeping figure.
The world changed.
Eight members of the Wonderland Syndicate: Mr. Wonderland, The Duchess, Father William, The Mock Turtle, The Walrus, The Pudding and The Carpenter stood confined in the isolation chambers. Even the White Knight Robot had been re-assembled, and stood quietly in stasis.
Tweedle’s second mind-control circlet had been removed. The Red King stood blinking at the setting sun.
“Professor Carroll,” Saturn Girl addressed The Red King. “Are you ready to return to the Institute?”
“Absolutely, absolutely,” said the little red-clad man. “I had the strangest dream: I was kidnapped by super-villains, and rescued by super-heroes.”
“Yes, the Saturnian and I were guiding your dreams,” said the Batwoman.
“My, you are an odd one, aren’t you?” said The Red King. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell dreams from waking life. Of course, when one spends as much time asleep as I do…”
“We’ll take care of you, sir,” said Saturn Girl. “And make sure you get back to New Titan”
There was quite a lot of cleanup to do, despite the easiness of the victory.
After it was all over, Saturn Girl approached the Batwoman.
“I’m sorry, I have no time to talk,” said the Batwoman. “I really must leave. There is a circuit on the Justice League Satellite that is calling me.”
“I’m sure,” said Saturn Girl. “I just wanted you to know, I’ve caught you probing my mind from time to time during this Adventure. Find anything interesting?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
“If you want to know something, just ask,” said Saturn Girl. “We have very few secrets here. And probing another’s mind without permission is rude. You haven’t caught me deep-probing your mind, trying to search out your secrets, have I?”
“No,” the Batwoman admitted.
“Then perhaps we are not enemies after all?” said Saturn Girl.
“Perhaps.” The squid-like face was inscrutable.
“You still remind me of the Star-Spawn.”
“What Star-Spawn?”
“The Star-Spawn with the Power.”
“What Power?”
“The Power of Cthulhu.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
Saturn Girl shrugged. “Well, safe journey to your satellite. Good-bye, Acchabhalla.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the Batwoman.
“No?” said Saturn Girl. “I thought she was standing right here, just a minute ago.”
“You know,” said the Batwoman, “If you would only smile more often… you would be terrifying.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
CAT TALE
“I can no longer stay on Earth,” said the cat-faced girl. “I was hoping you could suggest another world… somewhere I could live a peaceful, untroubled life.”
“Karna and Tamaran are felinoid worlds, out in the Vega system,” Shrinking Violet suggested.
“A number of worlds belong to the Cat Hegemony, out in the general direction of Procyon,” said Ten. “Although one is a world of mostly super-powered giants.”
“The Kzin Worlds lie on the other side of the Khundish Empire,” said Saturn Girl, “although they are not exactly peaceful.”
“It doesn’t really need to be people who look like me,” said the cat-girl. “Just somewhere comfortable, with a warm sun. Or people aren’t very gregarious, anyway.”
“Who are your people?” asked Phantom Girl. “And can you not go back home?”
“We are from the star you call Alsciaukat,” replied the cat-girl, “But which my people call Arau. I was infected by an Antipath Phage, and…”
“Really?” Ten perked up. “How long ago?”
“Oh, it’s been close to a year now, your time,” said the cat-girl
“Fascinating,” said Ten. “How have you managed to survive so long?”
“Wait a minute,” said Polar Lass. “What is… Antipath Phage? I’ve never heard of it. Is it contagious?”
“A giant, space-faring virus,” Ten explained. “About as big as your fist. It attaches itself to a host, injects RNA, and dies. The host then splits into two identical duplicates, indistinguishable in any way from the original, except for an intense hatred for each other. Usually, one duplicate murders the other in a very short time; then, as the corpse composts, new Phages develop, and fly off into space, seeking new hosts.”
“That’s horrible!” exclaimed Polar Lass.
“Yeah, it pretty much is,” said the cat-girl. “But we were able to keep our anger under control until we devised to arrange a disparity between us. My replicant agreed to remain on Arau forever, and I agreed to leave, and never return. Of course, I still experience terrible paranoia that she has somehow followed me, and an almost overwhelming desire to go back to Arau and eliminate her… but I have managed to learn to live with it, and as long as I am able to keep my feelings in check, I trust that she is able to as well.”
“Impressive,” said Ten. “I have never heard of anyone overcoming an Antipath infection through the application of free will.”
“My teleportative powers helped immensely,” said the cat-girl. “I was able to leave my replicant behind immediately, and travel far into space on my own power. When my paranoia overwhelms me, I can teleport away again. It has even given me a new identity-- although I resist Mr. Wonderland’s childish appellation of “The Cheshire Cat”, I have decided to call myself Tesser Cat, because my powers involve folding space in order to teleport. You can call me Tesser.”
“Tesser,” said Ffiona, “You might very much like the Pacht worlds. Peaceful, technology at least as advanced as Earth or Xanthu. And somewhat isolated.”
“Thank you, you have given me some good ideas,” said the Tesser Cat. “I think I’ll pop around Mars for awhile, see the sights, and then leave the Sol System behind.”
CHAPTER VI
PIG AND PEPPER
She was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked goodnatured, she thought : still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt it ought to be treated with respect.
“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would
like the name : however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it ’s pleased so far,” thought
Alice, and she went on, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here ?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where——” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk,” said the Cat.
“ ——so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here ?”
“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “ lives a Hatter : and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like : they ’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad ?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “ or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on: “And how do you know that you’re mad?”
“To begin with,” said the Cat, “ a dog’s not mad. You grant that ?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it ’s
pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”
“I call it purring, not growling,” said Alice.
“Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the Queen to day?”
“I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited yet.”
“You ’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”
“It turned into a pig,” Alice answered very quietly, just as if the Cat had come back in a natural way.
“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.
Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live.
She looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.
“Did you say pig, or fig ?” said the Cat.
“I said pig,” replied Alice; “ and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly:
you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of
the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Well ! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice ; “ but a grin without a cat ! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life !”
(
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 10/03/18 06:51 PM
“It was brillig again, but this time it was the mome raths that were mimsy.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/01/18 05:57 PM
I like the way magic and fairy tales are so integrated in this universe. It's as if the effects of the Magic Wars persisted and just became accepted by everyone as normal - or as normal as magic can be. It must be how are ancestors lived (without the spaceships, of course). I remember my mother's books of Grimm and AnNderson fairy tales - must have been published in the1920's - stories like The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, everyday life, with demons when you step out of line.
Brainy calls on Jenny Dark without snide remarks (perhaps he's just getting mellow as he ages). And who's more mellow than Jo Nah, doing what he enjoys and at ease with life; Tinya hasn't fared so well, but her PTSD explains why they didn't settle on Rimbor. It's good to see the parents around, but not overly interfering.
As I wrote in your profiles thread, I find the kids in the Villains group a charming addition to the world of these young achievers and wonder what you have in store for them. Maybe they'll just be a reminder that not everyone wants to play hero or serve as the Chorus for the ongoing narrative.
Star-Woman's a fine character for your get-out-of-jail card. She isn't overpowering the action here, but has lots of tricks to pull out when needed. And Tesser Cat is a great invention!
BTW edit: Any prospects for a Super-Hero Club Cookbook?
Brainy calls on Jenny Dark without snide remarks (perhaps he's just getting mellow as he ages). And who's more mellow than Jo Nah, doing what he enjoys and at ease with life; Tinya hasn't fared so well, but her PTSD explains why they didn't settle on Rimbor. It's good to see the parents around, but not overly interfering.
As I wrote in your profiles thread, I find the kids in the Villains group a charming addition to the world of these young achievers and wonder what you have in store for them. Maybe they'll just be a reminder that not everyone wants to play hero or serve as the Chorus for the ongoing narrative.
Star-Woman's a fine character for your get-out-of-jail card. She isn't overpowering the action here, but has lots of tricks to pull out when needed. And Tesser Cat is a great invention!
BTW edit: Any prospects for a Super-Hero Club Cookbook?
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/10/18 02:10 PM
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
As I wrote in your profiles thread, I find the kids in the Villains group a charming addition to the world of these young achievers and wonder what you have in store for them. Maybe they'll just be a reminder that not everyone wants to play hero or serve as the Chorus for the ongoing narrative.
You know that story where the main protagonists just can't seem to get the job done, but then the second-stringers step up, show unexpected grit, and save the day?
This isn't that story.
However, I do promise a punchline in about ten or twenty chapters.
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
BTW edit: Any prospects for a Super-Hero Club Cookbook?
Food has always been an important part of my life.
Unfortunatelu, I cannot tell you the recipe for Coluan Nutritive Paste, or where to buy Kathooni Black Honey, but here is a recipe for the 21st-century version of Meatmelon.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/11/18 03:16 AM
I love the Wonderland Syndicate
Tweedle as a Janusian is perfect, and Tesser's backstory is a great bit of worldbuilding and potential plot seeding. I also liked the interplay between Saturn Girl and Batwoman.
Tweedle as a Janusian is perfect, and Tesser's backstory is a great bit of worldbuilding and potential plot seeding. I also liked the interplay between Saturn Girl and Batwoman.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/19/18 10:43 AM
This item from New Scientist (22 September) on "Elf Commissioners" sounds like something out of your Earth-K2:
Highway officials in Germany, who pride themselves on being open-minded and supporting all citizens, have really outdone themselves. Their latest idea is to hire "elf commissioners" to improve safety on a notorious stretch of road. The A2 autobahn outside Hanover sees five accidents a day, on average, something concerned citizen Melanie Ruter suggested was the result of trolls and elves disturbed by traffic noise.
The Hanoversche Allgemeine newspaper reports that Ruter and "animal communicator" Marion Lindhof accompanied an official from the highway authority for a routine check of perimeter fences. They noted "very sad energies"emanating from several points of the motorway - drivers will know the feeling.
Tuter asked the elves to look kindly on travelers, while Lindhof apologised to local boars. They then declared that the psychic wounds had been "energetically sealed".
Ruter says her methods will prove effective, and is calling for the government to establish an official elf commissioner, someone whose job it is to be away with the fairies in a professional capacity. German news site The Local notes that soon after the blessing, a nearby collision between two lorries left one driver with life-threatening injuries.
Highway officials in Germany, who pride themselves on being open-minded and supporting all citizens, have really outdone themselves. Their latest idea is to hire "elf commissioners" to improve safety on a notorious stretch of road. The A2 autobahn outside Hanover sees five accidents a day, on average, something concerned citizen Melanie Ruter suggested was the result of trolls and elves disturbed by traffic noise.
The Hanoversche Allgemeine newspaper reports that Ruter and "animal communicator" Marion Lindhof accompanied an official from the highway authority for a routine check of perimeter fences. They noted "very sad energies"emanating from several points of the motorway - drivers will know the feeling.
Tuter asked the elves to look kindly on travelers, while Lindhof apologised to local boars. They then declared that the psychic wounds had been "energetically sealed".
Ruter says her methods will prove effective, and is calling for the government to establish an official elf commissioner, someone whose job it is to be away with the fairies in a professional capacity. German news site The Local notes that soon after the blessing, a nearby collision between two lorries left one driver with life-threatening injuries.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/21/18 03:08 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN
A BRIEF HISTORY
From the Sol system, gaze upwards towards the constellation Mensa. Although not visible to the human eye, there is an unusual star there.
It is an enfolded binary: a low-density blue giant, with a yellow dwarf enclosed in its center.
From a distance, the star appears a bright greenish color.
This is Yod, the 'sun', or stellar primary, of the planet Bryak. In the Yoddish language, the planet's name means 'our home'.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, the merger of these two stars into one resulted in gravitational chaos for the planets in this system, which is still in evidence today.
Bryak, for example, has been knocked on its side, with an axial tilt of nearly 90°. Therefore, 'day' and 'night' on the planet each last half a planetary year, in any particular location.
As Bryak's distant orbit makes its year the equivalent of just over sixteen Earth years, the day and night last some eight years each.
Two races of intelligent, sentient, sapient beings have evolved on Bryak.
The Yoddu clans, or 'day-beings', were small, slender, green-skinned humanoids.
They were migratory. When the sun began to fall low on the horizon, the last of their clans would abandon their cities, let their fields fall fallow, lock up their houses, and moved on to a brighter, more sun-lit portion of the planet.
The Yäbbu tribes, or 'night-beings', lived in perpetual darkness. Purple-skinned, semi-bipedal behemoths with enormous luninous azure eyes, they were likewise nomadic, moving around the planet in order to keep forever within the shadow of night.
Bryak is a small, dense world, with a diameter less than half that of Earth. Moving at an average speed of only a football field per hour, or a couple of hundred kilometers per month, was enough to allow the Yoddu and Yäbbu to travel 'round their world once each sixteen-earth-year-long day/night cycle, never seeing one another.
The rough Yäbbu left behind only coarse, fallen lean-tos, gnawed animal bones, and simple stone tools.
The more delicate Yoddu built great cities and pleasant fields, which were inhabited successively by the various clans as they traveled across the single globe-girdling continent.
One clan would sow, another would tend, a third would harvest, and thus, through sequential cooperation, agriculture and civilization flourished among the Yoddu. One clan would leave behind journals of their history for others to read and study, and knowledge and discovery flowed from one clan to another.
After circumnavigating their globe with the day, the first of the Yoddu clans would return to their cities and fields, abandoned now for eight Earth-years. Often, they would discover extensive vandalism by the brutal, careless Yäbbu barbarian nomads. The Yäbbu had no use for the small, pleasant dwellings or farms and fields, but seemed to take pleasure in wrecking those they found.
The work of rebuilding would commence.
This continued for untold millennia. The Yoddu civilization grew, progressed, and prospered. The savage, stagnant Yäbbu did not.
As Yoddu civiliazation became more exalted and refined, and more dependent upon delicate mechanical devices, rebuilding after the wanton night-time destruction of the Yäbbu tribes became more expensive.
A cold war of sorts developed between the Yoddu and the Yäbbu.
The Yoddu would build walls, moats, and fortifications around their cities and farms. The Yäbbu would destroy them. Perhaps not immediately but eventually,
The Yäbbu depredations initially seemed mindless. Then they began to appear purposeful. The most essential parts of the city were attacked first: waterways, power stations, and communication outposts. When they destroyed buildings, the tallest would always be the first to go, toppling and crushing the smaller ones. Fields and farmlands were often salted or poisoned, for no good reason.
As the technology of the Yoddu advanced, many years would go by before the Yäbbu could breach the increasingly sophisticated protections. But every generation (the Yoddu were particularly long-lived) experienced some disasterous destruction of property from the 'night beings'.
Technology continued its progress. Robot sentries were left behind to guard the silent, darkened cities through the long night. The Yäbbu were at first afraid of these creations, but in time these cybernetic guards became a favorite target of the marauding hordes.
Ambassadors were sent into the long night from the Yoddu to the Yäbbu, to negotiate treaties of peace, and a cessation of hostilities. None ever returned.
At last, somewhat less than nine thousand years ago, a 'final solution' was proposed. A number of cryogenic space-arks were constructed. A habitable world-- tidally locked, one side forever in darkness, and orbiting a small, red-orange, M-type star-- was identified.
Regiments of night-hunting soldiers and robots were sent out into the dark lands. Eventually, the entire population of the Yäbbu were captured, loaded onto ships, placed in cryo-sleep, transported to their new world, and then released.
It was the work of ten generations. In Terran terms, about five thousand years. At last the resettlement was complete. Not a single Yäbbu remained on Bryak.
The Yoddu called the new world Yäbbugar, using Interlac conventions. In the Yoddish language, it was called Brycedyt, or 'Home of the Exiles'.
On Earth, Solomon's temple was beginning construction. It is the Song dynasty in China. Chichen Itza has become a regional capital in the Mayan Empire.
Alone on their world now, the Yoddu began to refer to themselves as 'Colu', or 'beings of the planet'. The people of Earth, and most of the rest of the United Planets, call them 'Coluans'. Bryak itself takes on the interlac name 'Coluangar', often shortened to 'Colu', thus conflating the planet with its people.
Freed by technology, the entire planet is permanently illuminated, and the Coluans no longer migrate from city to city.
Their centuries of desperate struggles against the Yäbbu ended, in an age of abundance, the Coluans dedicate themselves to the pursuit of pure knowledge.
But there is one piece of knowledge which is not found on Colu. Where is Brycedyt, or Yäbbugar, located? Which of all the thousands of red-orange stars in Colu's vicinity is the Star of the Exiles?
No one knows.
It is forgotten, but not hidden, nor forbidden, knowledge. It is simply that Colu does not care to know.
A BRIEF HISTORY
From the Sol system, gaze upwards towards the constellation Mensa. Although not visible to the human eye, there is an unusual star there.
It is an enfolded binary: a low-density blue giant, with a yellow dwarf enclosed in its center.
From a distance, the star appears a bright greenish color.
This is Yod, the 'sun', or stellar primary, of the planet Bryak. In the Yoddish language, the planet's name means 'our home'.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, the merger of these two stars into one resulted in gravitational chaos for the planets in this system, which is still in evidence today.
Bryak, for example, has been knocked on its side, with an axial tilt of nearly 90°. Therefore, 'day' and 'night' on the planet each last half a planetary year, in any particular location.
As Bryak's distant orbit makes its year the equivalent of just over sixteen Earth years, the day and night last some eight years each.
Two races of intelligent, sentient, sapient beings have evolved on Bryak.
The Yoddu clans, or 'day-beings', were small, slender, green-skinned humanoids.
They were migratory. When the sun began to fall low on the horizon, the last of their clans would abandon their cities, let their fields fall fallow, lock up their houses, and moved on to a brighter, more sun-lit portion of the planet.
The Yäbbu tribes, or 'night-beings', lived in perpetual darkness. Purple-skinned, semi-bipedal behemoths with enormous luninous azure eyes, they were likewise nomadic, moving around the planet in order to keep forever within the shadow of night.
Bryak is a small, dense world, with a diameter less than half that of Earth. Moving at an average speed of only a football field per hour, or a couple of hundred kilometers per month, was enough to allow the Yoddu and Yäbbu to travel 'round their world once each sixteen-earth-year-long day/night cycle, never seeing one another.
The rough Yäbbu left behind only coarse, fallen lean-tos, gnawed animal bones, and simple stone tools.
The more delicate Yoddu built great cities and pleasant fields, which were inhabited successively by the various clans as they traveled across the single globe-girdling continent.
One clan would sow, another would tend, a third would harvest, and thus, through sequential cooperation, agriculture and civilization flourished among the Yoddu. One clan would leave behind journals of their history for others to read and study, and knowledge and discovery flowed from one clan to another.
After circumnavigating their globe with the day, the first of the Yoddu clans would return to their cities and fields, abandoned now for eight Earth-years. Often, they would discover extensive vandalism by the brutal, careless Yäbbu barbarian nomads. The Yäbbu had no use for the small, pleasant dwellings or farms and fields, but seemed to take pleasure in wrecking those they found.
The work of rebuilding would commence.
This continued for untold millennia. The Yoddu civilization grew, progressed, and prospered. The savage, stagnant Yäbbu did not.
As Yoddu civiliazation became more exalted and refined, and more dependent upon delicate mechanical devices, rebuilding after the wanton night-time destruction of the Yäbbu tribes became more expensive.
A cold war of sorts developed between the Yoddu and the Yäbbu.
The Yoddu would build walls, moats, and fortifications around their cities and farms. The Yäbbu would destroy them. Perhaps not immediately but eventually,
The Yäbbu depredations initially seemed mindless. Then they began to appear purposeful. The most essential parts of the city were attacked first: waterways, power stations, and communication outposts. When they destroyed buildings, the tallest would always be the first to go, toppling and crushing the smaller ones. Fields and farmlands were often salted or poisoned, for no good reason.
As the technology of the Yoddu advanced, many years would go by before the Yäbbu could breach the increasingly sophisticated protections. But every generation (the Yoddu were particularly long-lived) experienced some disasterous destruction of property from the 'night beings'.
Technology continued its progress. Robot sentries were left behind to guard the silent, darkened cities through the long night. The Yäbbu were at first afraid of these creations, but in time these cybernetic guards became a favorite target of the marauding hordes.
Ambassadors were sent into the long night from the Yoddu to the Yäbbu, to negotiate treaties of peace, and a cessation of hostilities. None ever returned.
At last, somewhat less than nine thousand years ago, a 'final solution' was proposed. A number of cryogenic space-arks were constructed. A habitable world-- tidally locked, one side forever in darkness, and orbiting a small, red-orange, M-type star-- was identified.
Regiments of night-hunting soldiers and robots were sent out into the dark lands. Eventually, the entire population of the Yäbbu were captured, loaded onto ships, placed in cryo-sleep, transported to their new world, and then released.
It was the work of ten generations. In Terran terms, about five thousand years. At last the resettlement was complete. Not a single Yäbbu remained on Bryak.
The Yoddu called the new world Yäbbugar, using Interlac conventions. In the Yoddish language, it was called Brycedyt, or 'Home of the Exiles'.
On Earth, Solomon's temple was beginning construction. It is the Song dynasty in China. Chichen Itza has become a regional capital in the Mayan Empire.
Alone on their world now, the Yoddu began to refer to themselves as 'Colu', or 'beings of the planet'. The people of Earth, and most of the rest of the United Planets, call them 'Coluans'. Bryak itself takes on the interlac name 'Coluangar', often shortened to 'Colu', thus conflating the planet with its people.
Freed by technology, the entire planet is permanently illuminated, and the Coluans no longer migrate from city to city.
Their centuries of desperate struggles against the Yäbbu ended, in an age of abundance, the Coluans dedicate themselves to the pursuit of pure knowledge.
But there is one piece of knowledge which is not found on Colu. Where is Brycedyt, or Yäbbugar, located? Which of all the thousands of red-orange stars in Colu's vicinity is the Star of the Exiles?
No one knows.
It is forgotten, but not hidden, nor forbidden, knowledge. It is simply that Colu does not care to know.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/22/18 01:27 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
HOLIDAYS-PART ONE: CHRISTMAS BALLET
“Your Adult Guardian has assigned you a lot of Earth historical literature to study, hasn’t he?” queried Phantom Girl.
“This is true,” replied Ten. “Primarily theatrical productions: plays, opera, ballet. I have studied some of Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. I have viewed at least one version of each of Shakespeare’s plays, and studied all one-hundred-thirty-seven sonnets. I have viewed a production of Hamlet in the original Anglish-- a remarkable use of language, despite the problematic supernatural content. I have written a comparison of the 19th-century ballet Swan Lake, and the 28th-century Drakul, which uses the identical musical score. This led to a study of the actual vampiric species extant in the galaxy, both mundane and supernatural. I have written a paper comparing the operas Knodar, the Last Criminal, and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. We recently completed an exploration of the opera Gwynplaine and Fledermaus, and its sequel, Der Spassmacher. This sort of operatic sequel recalls the 18th-century operas The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. My Adult Guardian has further arranged that I attend the 1,075th annual performance of the Nutcracker Ballet at San Francisco Island on Earth,” said Ten. “In order to better appreciate the upcoming Christmas season on the Terran worlds.”
“It’s a very popular Terran holiday,” said Phantom Girl. “A three thousand year old celebration of Birth, Re-birth, and Hope. Hope for Peace, Love, Forgiveness… and Hope for Goodwill from the gods. One Earth, all Terrans know it is now December. Mars, in the middle of the its own month of Aquarius, is preparing for the four-week commemoration of the Christmas season. Even many Bgzltr celebrate it.”
“Indeed. My adult guardian has suggested I invite you and Ronin as my companions again for this performance Nutcracker.”
“No thanks this time,” said Phantom Girl. “Giant rats kind of creep me out. I’ll be getting plenty of Christmas later: Ronin’s family invited me to visit their Granny Winema on Earth for a couple of weeks’ stay. But here’s a thought: maybe you could invite a Coluan girl your own age as a ‘date’?”
“A fascinating idea,” said Ten. “There are fewer than one hundred children my age on Colu-- a natural result of the extended Coluan lifespan-- and although I imagine none share the same eccentric learning plan as I, I expect I could find one Coluan Adult Guardian who might consider a Terran Ballet appropriate alien cultural enrichment.”
“Do you find yourself culturally enriched among the Members?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Such an intensive study of an alien culture is its own reward,” said Ten. “And I am recognizing a number of parallels between Earth culture and attitudes and those of many other non-Terran humanoid species. Even Bgztlrs”
“There are some Bgztlrs who would find that statement shocking,” said Phantom Girl. “We like to think of ourselves as much more civilized and polite than Earthers.”
“And yet you, too, have your history,” said Ten.
Zthirri La’Ax of Colu visited the Clubhouse with Ten, returning from San Francisco Island and the ballet. Her dark golden eyes were startling against the lemon-yellow Coluan sclera. Her long blond hair hung past her waist, in complex supermathematical braids. Her cybernetic nanny was a rotating cube.
“Is that a robo-monkey?” she asked Ten, indicating mechanism perched the roof of the Clubhouse. “I one of those myself as an childish exercise. How did yours last so long?”
“It is a recent construction,” said Ten. “An experiment in... nostalgia.”
Zthirri frowned, processing this information. “And how do you get along on this world with so many diverse low-intelligence life-forms?”
“They are actually mostly Terrans,” Ten explained. “One Durlan, one Krill, one Bgztlr. We get along fine.”
“Did you enjoy Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker?” asked Phantom Girl the two brightly.
“I am still attempting to process the symbology,” said Zthirri. “Herr Drosselmeyer is especially vexing. Is he a friendly puppeteer, an eccentric relative, or a mysterious, even dangerous, antagonist? Are his living dolls intended to be technological achievements, or magical in nature? Entertaining, or threatening?”
“I believe Herr Drosselmeyer is intended to be an ambiguous character,” said Phantom Girl. “The audience is not given a complete explanation; everyone has to make up their own mind.”
“An interesting literary technique,” said Zthirri. “Perhaps it reflects on certain ambiguities in fundamental Terran nature itself.” She indicated the clubhouse area. “You are attempting to re-create the Legion of Super-Heroes legend?”
“More or less,” said Phantom Girl. “We are trying to do what good we can with our own peculiar talents and abilities. The most famous Coluan I know was a Legionnaire, of course.”
“Querl Dox is himself something of an ambiguous character,” said Zthirri. “Even Coluans to not entirely trust his family. It does not have an outstanding ‘track record’. Vril Dox was famed for his amorality, and his son Lyrl-- Brainiac 3-- was no better. Brainiac 4 was emotionally unstable, a serial murderer, and associated with the Dark Circle. There have been incursions from the future from Brainiacs 7, 8, 11, and 13, all of them irredeemably evil. Even Brainiac 5 himself exhibited dangerous mental instability at one point, and his career is far from over. Who knows what future centuries may bring? These days he seems well under control by ColuGov, and useful overall, but it is reasonable to treat any inheritor of the Brainiac mantle with caution.”
“There is a saying around the United Planets: ‘Never trust a Coluan’. I suppose the attitude on Colu is ‘Never trust a Brainiac’. No offense,” said Phantom Girl.
“None taken,” said Zthirri. “‘Never trust a Coluan’ is good advice.”
“We must both leave for Colu itself soon,” said Ten. “I will see you after the Christmas holidays.”
“The two of you are going home together?” asked Phantom Girl. “You must have really hit it off.”
“I understand that a Terran ‘date’ may have certain romantic components or implications,” said Zthirri. “But from the Coluan point of view, we are virtual infants. It will be at least a standard Earth century before either of us formally bond. Of course, there are so few children on Colu, there is a high point-five percent probability that Txarlz and I will eventually bond with one another.”
“Perhaps somewhat less,” said Ten. “There is an increasing probability that I will ultimately bond with a non-Coluan. Increased association has caused my opinion of the non-Coluan races to evolve.”
“They are, at best, level four intelligences!” exclaimed Zthirri, shocked. She eyed Phantom Girl. “And I am being generous in my assessment. How can you possibly expect to bond with them as equals? Your logical processes are befuddled by your Adult Guardian’s peculiar insistence on in-depth studies of non-Coluan cultural patterns,” Zthirri eyed Phantom Girl. "I suppose you will mate with a Terran then, or Bgztlr?"
"It is possible," Ten answered.
"Or perhaps a slith or flasher-beast?"
“This is what the Terrans call an ad hominem argument," said Ten patiently, "That is a logical fallacy based on attacking the individual, rather than the subject of discussion itself. I believe you may also be making an argumentum ad lapidem error. It is well known that Coluan intelligence evaluations below two-point-five are differences of kind, and not merely of degree."
Zthirri sniffed. “So humans even have pet names for their errors,” she said. “They must love them a great deal. Of course, they have very little else than errors to recommend them.”
“I have learned that intellect and the acquisition of data is not the sole measure of a being’s worth,” Ten explained. “It matters a great deal how that intellect and data are applied.”
"Af efyk ab yeyl, ab yeyl af efyk", Zthirri spat. "Yäbbu."
A temporary star-gate opened up, projected by Zthirri’s cubic robo-nanny.
"I must return to my studies," she explained. She turned to Phantom Girl. “It was a… pleasure to meet you.”
"Was she speaking Coluan?" asked Phantom Girl as Zthirri vanished. "What did she say?"
"Yoddish, the language of my ancestors," said Ten. "You must excuse her rudeness. She has not been not as… diversely socialized... as I have."
"But what did she say?"
"Roughly translated, she said 'They told me you were seven years old, with a tenth-level intelligence. But perhaps you are ten years old, with a seventh-level intelligence.'"
"That's bad enough," said Phantom Girl. "But what was that last word she said? It sounded like some kind of nasty insult."
"Tru, it is an epithet. She called me…Yabbu... an extinct Coluan species," Ten admitted.
"Oh, Ten, I'm so sorry."
Ten smiled. "There is no need for you to apologize. It was my fault entirely. I don't think the 'date' went well at all, do you?"
"No, I suppose not," said Phantom Girl, laughing uncomfortably.
"Well, it has been a learning experience. As are all things. However, I, also, must return to Colu soon," said Ten. "I have interviews with my Adult Guardian, and with the Proctors General. Using Zthirri’s nanny’s spacetime portal would have been very convenient, but is out of the question now. It is unfortunate my own family cannot afford such a luxury. I suppose I will have to call for a ship. This is an opportune time, I suppose. There is much travel around the Christmas holidays in the Terran sectors.”
“Good luck, Ten,” said Phantom Girl.
“I have already had the good luck of associating with you and your-- my-- friends,” said Ten.
HOLIDAYS-PART ONE: CHRISTMAS BALLET
“Your Adult Guardian has assigned you a lot of Earth historical literature to study, hasn’t he?” queried Phantom Girl.
“This is true,” replied Ten. “Primarily theatrical productions: plays, opera, ballet. I have studied some of Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. I have viewed at least one version of each of Shakespeare’s plays, and studied all one-hundred-thirty-seven sonnets. I have viewed a production of Hamlet in the original Anglish-- a remarkable use of language, despite the problematic supernatural content. I have written a comparison of the 19th-century ballet Swan Lake, and the 28th-century Drakul, which uses the identical musical score. This led to a study of the actual vampiric species extant in the galaxy, both mundane and supernatural. I have written a paper comparing the operas Knodar, the Last Criminal, and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. We recently completed an exploration of the opera Gwynplaine and Fledermaus, and its sequel, Der Spassmacher. This sort of operatic sequel recalls the 18th-century operas The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. My Adult Guardian has further arranged that I attend the 1,075th annual performance of the Nutcracker Ballet at San Francisco Island on Earth,” said Ten. “In order to better appreciate the upcoming Christmas season on the Terran worlds.”
“It’s a very popular Terran holiday,” said Phantom Girl. “A three thousand year old celebration of Birth, Re-birth, and Hope. Hope for Peace, Love, Forgiveness… and Hope for Goodwill from the gods. One Earth, all Terrans know it is now December. Mars, in the middle of the its own month of Aquarius, is preparing for the four-week commemoration of the Christmas season. Even many Bgzltr celebrate it.”
“Indeed. My adult guardian has suggested I invite you and Ronin as my companions again for this performance Nutcracker.”
“No thanks this time,” said Phantom Girl. “Giant rats kind of creep me out. I’ll be getting plenty of Christmas later: Ronin’s family invited me to visit their Granny Winema on Earth for a couple of weeks’ stay. But here’s a thought: maybe you could invite a Coluan girl your own age as a ‘date’?”
“A fascinating idea,” said Ten. “There are fewer than one hundred children my age on Colu-- a natural result of the extended Coluan lifespan-- and although I imagine none share the same eccentric learning plan as I, I expect I could find one Coluan Adult Guardian who might consider a Terran Ballet appropriate alien cultural enrichment.”
“Do you find yourself culturally enriched among the Members?” asked Phantom Girl.
“Such an intensive study of an alien culture is its own reward,” said Ten. “And I am recognizing a number of parallels between Earth culture and attitudes and those of many other non-Terran humanoid species. Even Bgztlrs”
“There are some Bgztlrs who would find that statement shocking,” said Phantom Girl. “We like to think of ourselves as much more civilized and polite than Earthers.”
“And yet you, too, have your history,” said Ten.
Zthirri La’Ax of Colu visited the Clubhouse with Ten, returning from San Francisco Island and the ballet. Her dark golden eyes were startling against the lemon-yellow Coluan sclera. Her long blond hair hung past her waist, in complex supermathematical braids. Her cybernetic nanny was a rotating cube.
“Is that a robo-monkey?” she asked Ten, indicating mechanism perched the roof of the Clubhouse. “I one of those myself as an childish exercise. How did yours last so long?”
“It is a recent construction,” said Ten. “An experiment in... nostalgia.”
Zthirri frowned, processing this information. “And how do you get along on this world with so many diverse low-intelligence life-forms?”
“They are actually mostly Terrans,” Ten explained. “One Durlan, one Krill, one Bgztlr. We get along fine.”
“Did you enjoy Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker?” asked Phantom Girl the two brightly.
“I am still attempting to process the symbology,” said Zthirri. “Herr Drosselmeyer is especially vexing. Is he a friendly puppeteer, an eccentric relative, or a mysterious, even dangerous, antagonist? Are his living dolls intended to be technological achievements, or magical in nature? Entertaining, or threatening?”
“I believe Herr Drosselmeyer is intended to be an ambiguous character,” said Phantom Girl. “The audience is not given a complete explanation; everyone has to make up their own mind.”
“An interesting literary technique,” said Zthirri. “Perhaps it reflects on certain ambiguities in fundamental Terran nature itself.” She indicated the clubhouse area. “You are attempting to re-create the Legion of Super-Heroes legend?”
“More or less,” said Phantom Girl. “We are trying to do what good we can with our own peculiar talents and abilities. The most famous Coluan I know was a Legionnaire, of course.”
“Querl Dox is himself something of an ambiguous character,” said Zthirri. “Even Coluans to not entirely trust his family. It does not have an outstanding ‘track record’. Vril Dox was famed for his amorality, and his son Lyrl-- Brainiac 3-- was no better. Brainiac 4 was emotionally unstable, a serial murderer, and associated with the Dark Circle. There have been incursions from the future from Brainiacs 7, 8, 11, and 13, all of them irredeemably evil. Even Brainiac 5 himself exhibited dangerous mental instability at one point, and his career is far from over. Who knows what future centuries may bring? These days he seems well under control by ColuGov, and useful overall, but it is reasonable to treat any inheritor of the Brainiac mantle with caution.”
“There is a saying around the United Planets: ‘Never trust a Coluan’. I suppose the attitude on Colu is ‘Never trust a Brainiac’. No offense,” said Phantom Girl.
“None taken,” said Zthirri. “‘Never trust a Coluan’ is good advice.”
“We must both leave for Colu itself soon,” said Ten. “I will see you after the Christmas holidays.”
“The two of you are going home together?” asked Phantom Girl. “You must have really hit it off.”
“I understand that a Terran ‘date’ may have certain romantic components or implications,” said Zthirri. “But from the Coluan point of view, we are virtual infants. It will be at least a standard Earth century before either of us formally bond. Of course, there are so few children on Colu, there is a high point-five percent probability that Txarlz and I will eventually bond with one another.”
“Perhaps somewhat less,” said Ten. “There is an increasing probability that I will ultimately bond with a non-Coluan. Increased association has caused my opinion of the non-Coluan races to evolve.”
“They are, at best, level four intelligences!” exclaimed Zthirri, shocked. She eyed Phantom Girl. “And I am being generous in my assessment. How can you possibly expect to bond with them as equals? Your logical processes are befuddled by your Adult Guardian’s peculiar insistence on in-depth studies of non-Coluan cultural patterns,” Zthirri eyed Phantom Girl. "I suppose you will mate with a Terran then, or Bgztlr?"
"It is possible," Ten answered.
"Or perhaps a slith or flasher-beast?"
“This is what the Terrans call an ad hominem argument," said Ten patiently, "That is a logical fallacy based on attacking the individual, rather than the subject of discussion itself. I believe you may also be making an argumentum ad lapidem error. It is well known that Coluan intelligence evaluations below two-point-five are differences of kind, and not merely of degree."
Zthirri sniffed. “So humans even have pet names for their errors,” she said. “They must love them a great deal. Of course, they have very little else than errors to recommend them.”
“I have learned that intellect and the acquisition of data is not the sole measure of a being’s worth,” Ten explained. “It matters a great deal how that intellect and data are applied.”
"Af efyk ab yeyl, ab yeyl af efyk", Zthirri spat. "Yäbbu."
A temporary star-gate opened up, projected by Zthirri’s cubic robo-nanny.
"I must return to my studies," she explained. She turned to Phantom Girl. “It was a… pleasure to meet you.”
"Was she speaking Coluan?" asked Phantom Girl as Zthirri vanished. "What did she say?"
"Yoddish, the language of my ancestors," said Ten. "You must excuse her rudeness. She has not been not as… diversely socialized... as I have."
"But what did she say?"
"Roughly translated, she said 'They told me you were seven years old, with a tenth-level intelligence. But perhaps you are ten years old, with a seventh-level intelligence.'"
"That's bad enough," said Phantom Girl. "But what was that last word she said? It sounded like some kind of nasty insult."
"Tru, it is an epithet. She called me…Yabbu... an extinct Coluan species," Ten admitted.
"Oh, Ten, I'm so sorry."
Ten smiled. "There is no need for you to apologize. It was my fault entirely. I don't think the 'date' went well at all, do you?"
"No, I suppose not," said Phantom Girl, laughing uncomfortably.
"Well, it has been a learning experience. As are all things. However, I, also, must return to Colu soon," said Ten. "I have interviews with my Adult Guardian, and with the Proctors General. Using Zthirri’s nanny’s spacetime portal would have been very convenient, but is out of the question now. It is unfortunate my own family cannot afford such a luxury. I suppose I will have to call for a ship. This is an opportune time, I suppose. There is much travel around the Christmas holidays in the Terran sectors.”
“Good luck, Ten,” said Phantom Girl.
“I have already had the good luck of associating with you and your-- my-- friends,” said Ten.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/18 07:52 AM
Quote
“I have already had the good luck of associating with you and your-- my-- friends,” said Ten.
Aww
Love the Coluan ancient history lesson and the interactions between those three...my main takeaway here though is that I never knew I needed a Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth opera in my life so badly until today
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/27/18 02:43 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
HOLIDAYS-PART TWO: THARR
As the Clubhouse would be otherwise vacant for a month or so, Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, took the opportunity to visit her mother on Naltor, which did not celebrate Christmas. As the ‘Super-Villains’ were exiled from Earth-- forbidden to even visit their parents over the Christmas holidays-- they accompanied her. Kimota, Villian, Atta and Annie were relieved to be going somewhere new for a change. Kimota, in particular, was interested in seeing Naltor’s fellow planet, New Titan. Her mother had been, after all, born on Old Titan. It was possible she might even had distant relations there.
As it happened, Herringbone Day and Christmas coincided this year by a only a matter of couple of weeks. Polar Lass arranged to take Matter-Eater Lad Two home to Tharn to visit her family.
It was now Matter-Eater Lad Two who wore a cooling belt, as Polar Lass relaxed in the swelteringly hot underground tunnels.
They were greeted at the door of the Zimm home by Polar Lass’s little sister, Aava.
“Will you take me to the Square, Kylda?” she begged. “Mor and Far are so slow in getting ready!”
Per-Blomst and Jan-Stjerne Zimm waved from inside the hobbit-hole-like house.
“Hallo! Pleased to meet you, Hillarie. Go on ahead without us, Kylda, your sister is so impatient.”
The Square was a large underground cube, decorated with metallic fish and plastic streamers. Booths of all kinds, selling anything from cakes to artwork to furniture lined the streets. Here and there were great troughs of near-boiling water.
“Do you want to build a snowman?” asked Aava.
Polar Lass obliged by tossing handfuls of water into the air, then freezing the droplets so that they fell as snow. Aava joined in, and Matter-Eater Lad Two was encouraged to get in the spirit as well. In a short time, there was a fluffy mound up to their knees. Polar Lass kept the area cold as she, Aava, and Matter-Eater Lad Two carefully built a snowman. It quickly melted, then turned to vapor, when they had left it behind. Matter-Eater Lad Two noticed more snowmen as they walked around the square, in various stages of completion or deliquescence.
The air was festive with happy chatter among the Tharrans.
Polar Lass’s parents showed up eventually, and treated everyone to a deep-fried something-or-other at the fair. For Per and Jan, it was fish, for Polar Lass, it was some odd Tharran vegetable, for Aava it was a fish-shaped chocolate cake, and Matter-Eater Lad Two tried “deep-fried water”, a hollow sugary, salty, crust of batter.
The Zimms joined with a wandering street choir, and Matter-Eater Lad Two followed along with them, although he did not know the words to any of the songs
There was a great feast in the evening at the Zimm’s home, the main course being salted, pickled fish, but a great many starchy foods, sweets and desserts as well. As promised, Matter-Eater Lad Two was provided with a wide variety of metallic salts to season his food: Sodium, potassium, sulphur, mercury, cesium, lithium, chromium, aluminum, and even small amounts of gold, silver and palladium.
Occasionally the evening’s festivities were broken up by families dropping by with fish-themed gifts; later on, Matter-Eater Lad Two accompanied the Zimms as they went out to make their own deliveries. These visits went on well past midnight.
“With everyone going out this evening, how do you know when people will be home?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Oh, you don’t, that’s part of the fun,” said Polar Lass. “Last year, we went out really early; one year we went out so late our friends almost thought we weren’t coming. And, of course, if you see your friends on the street, you absolutely don’t exchange gifts. It has to be done at someone’s house.”
The second day was a repeat of the first, but tables were set up around the square for an outdoor feast. After everyone went home, there was another round of door-to-door gift-giving until early morning.
Hillarie opened his gift from Kylda. It was a Vavallan Scarlet Spiral Coral.
"But this must have cost you a year's stipend!" Hillarie protested.
"Is he going to eat it?" Aava asked.
"No, silly," said Kylda. "It means..."
"We know what it means," said Per Kimm, somewhat disapprovingly.
The third day, the Ancient Mariner was at the square, handing out more gifts and candy to all the little children. Brightly colored feathers were tossed in the air, and littered the ground all around as well.
Everyone on Tharr seemed happy and exhausted, from too much to eat and too little sleep. There was a great concert in the evening, with the audience singing along (at the appropriate times) until everyone was hoarse.
“We’re so proud of our girl,” said Mrs. Zimm. “A real super hero in the family.”
“I wish I had frost powers,” said Aava.
HOLIDAYS-PART TWO: THARR
As the Clubhouse would be otherwise vacant for a month or so, Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, took the opportunity to visit her mother on Naltor, which did not celebrate Christmas. As the ‘Super-Villains’ were exiled from Earth-- forbidden to even visit their parents over the Christmas holidays-- they accompanied her. Kimota, Villian, Atta and Annie were relieved to be going somewhere new for a change. Kimota, in particular, was interested in seeing Naltor’s fellow planet, New Titan. Her mother had been, after all, born on Old Titan. It was possible she might even had distant relations there.
As it happened, Herringbone Day and Christmas coincided this year by a only a matter of couple of weeks. Polar Lass arranged to take Matter-Eater Lad Two home to Tharn to visit her family.
It was now Matter-Eater Lad Two who wore a cooling belt, as Polar Lass relaxed in the swelteringly hot underground tunnels.
They were greeted at the door of the Zimm home by Polar Lass’s little sister, Aava.
“Will you take me to the Square, Kylda?” she begged. “Mor and Far are so slow in getting ready!”
Per-Blomst and Jan-Stjerne Zimm waved from inside the hobbit-hole-like house.
“Hallo! Pleased to meet you, Hillarie. Go on ahead without us, Kylda, your sister is so impatient.”
The Square was a large underground cube, decorated with metallic fish and plastic streamers. Booths of all kinds, selling anything from cakes to artwork to furniture lined the streets. Here and there were great troughs of near-boiling water.
“Do you want to build a snowman?” asked Aava.
Polar Lass obliged by tossing handfuls of water into the air, then freezing the droplets so that they fell as snow. Aava joined in, and Matter-Eater Lad Two was encouraged to get in the spirit as well. In a short time, there was a fluffy mound up to their knees. Polar Lass kept the area cold as she, Aava, and Matter-Eater Lad Two carefully built a snowman. It quickly melted, then turned to vapor, when they had left it behind. Matter-Eater Lad Two noticed more snowmen as they walked around the square, in various stages of completion or deliquescence.
The air was festive with happy chatter among the Tharrans.
Polar Lass’s parents showed up eventually, and treated everyone to a deep-fried something-or-other at the fair. For Per and Jan, it was fish, for Polar Lass, it was some odd Tharran vegetable, for Aava it was a fish-shaped chocolate cake, and Matter-Eater Lad Two tried “deep-fried water”, a hollow sugary, salty, crust of batter.
The Zimms joined with a wandering street choir, and Matter-Eater Lad Two followed along with them, although he did not know the words to any of the songs
There was a great feast in the evening at the Zimm’s home, the main course being salted, pickled fish, but a great many starchy foods, sweets and desserts as well. As promised, Matter-Eater Lad Two was provided with a wide variety of metallic salts to season his food: Sodium, potassium, sulphur, mercury, cesium, lithium, chromium, aluminum, and even small amounts of gold, silver and palladium.
Occasionally the evening’s festivities were broken up by families dropping by with fish-themed gifts; later on, Matter-Eater Lad Two accompanied the Zimms as they went out to make their own deliveries. These visits went on well past midnight.
“With everyone going out this evening, how do you know when people will be home?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
“Oh, you don’t, that’s part of the fun,” said Polar Lass. “Last year, we went out really early; one year we went out so late our friends almost thought we weren’t coming. And, of course, if you see your friends on the street, you absolutely don’t exchange gifts. It has to be done at someone’s house.”
The second day was a repeat of the first, but tables were set up around the square for an outdoor feast. After everyone went home, there was another round of door-to-door gift-giving until early morning.
Hillarie opened his gift from Kylda. It was a Vavallan Scarlet Spiral Coral.
"But this must have cost you a year's stipend!" Hillarie protested.
"Is he going to eat it?" Aava asked.
"No, silly," said Kylda. "It means..."
"We know what it means," said Per Kimm, somewhat disapprovingly.
The third day, the Ancient Mariner was at the square, handing out more gifts and candy to all the little children. Brightly colored feathers were tossed in the air, and littered the ground all around as well.
Everyone on Tharr seemed happy and exhausted, from too much to eat and too little sleep. There was a great concert in the evening, with the audience singing along (at the appropriate times) until everyone was hoarse.
“We’re so proud of our girl,” said Mrs. Zimm. “A real super hero in the family.”
“I wish I had frost powers,” said Aava.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/18 04:17 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART THREE: EARTH
Ronin Nah arrived at the Super-Hero Clubhouse in his landspeeder.
“The Martian stargates to Earth are jammed with Christmas season traffic,” Ronin told Phantom Girl. “Do you think your friends from Winath could give us a lift to Earth?”
“We’d be happy to,” Saturn Girl interrupted. Lightning Lass nodded her head behind her.
“We’re headed to Old Lisbon, on the Western European continent. “Granny Winema owns a cruise ship: the Princess Antigone. She said could pick us up at the docks there.”
“What’s a ‘cruise ship’?” asked Phantom Girl.
“It’s kind of like one of those old Dirigible-Hotels,” said Ronin. “But they float on the ocean, not in the air. Granny Winema bought one for hosting her occasional massive parties. Like the one we’re heading to.”
Dacey and Dorrit dropped them off on Earth, then set off for their own rendezvous on Wondil-9.
Ronin and Irinia waited half-a-day near the docks for the cruise ship to arrive. They had lunch at a churrascaria-- a Portuguese-Argentinian barbecue, where they each ate more meat than they had ever had before in a single sitting.
Ronin’s Granny Winema greeted them has they walked up the gangplank.
“Merry Christmas, my dears,” she said, kissing them each on the cheeks. She took a step back, looking them up and down. “No one told me my grandson’s paramour was a pbazo!”
Ronin and Irinia were speechless.
“At least she didn’t say ‘coloured’”, whispered Irinia, after Granny Winema had pointed the way to their cabins.
“It’s just how things were back in her generation,” said Ronin. “She didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I think that was two or three generations before her generation,” said Irinia. “And I think I know just what she meant. I’m more offended by being called a ‘paramour’.”
“I don’t think I know that word,” said Ronin.
“It’s Old Terran,” said Irinia. “You could look it up.”
Irinia was sharing a stateroom with young Arna, who was terribly excited about the evening-wear and ball gowns and makeup her grandmother had provided for them.
“This is what we’re wearing to dinner?” asked Irinia. “How did she know my size? She only just now learned the colour of my skin.”
Arna looked at Irinia curiously. “It’s IntelliFabri©,” Arna explained. “It fits itself to you automatically.” She frowned for a moment. “Irinia, I know my grandmother can be a pain in the… neck… but she’s the only living grandparent I have. Besides, she’s old and rich, and I want to stay on her good side.”
“Arna, I didn’t think you would be so mercenary,” said Irinia.
“Oh, I’m kidding,” said Arna. “Sort of. I mean, Mom and Dad are comfortable, but Granny Winema bought a whole cruise ship! And a crew to go with it! I could get used to living like this. How about some of this gold glitter under your eyes?”
Irinia allowed Arna to play dress-up with her; she seemed so excited. She herself had never been much for fashion or re-painting her features. She had spent too much of her childhood fighting her parents to be allowed to be herself, than to want to be someone else.
Arna enthusiastically introduced her extended family to Irinia.
Irinia met her older brother Dav and his wife Lespra for the first time; although of course she was well acquainted with their daughter, ‘Li’l Winema’, the bubbly four-year-old.
Irinia was introduced to Arna’s uncle Gmya and his wife Chvh, and their two grown, married children: Kaspar, their son, his wife Wyndii thier daughter, Margarethe, a couple of years older then Li’l Winema; and Moli, Kaspar’s sister, her husband Pedo Mellon, and their son El, a couple of years older than Margarethe.
“Grampa Byzjn passed away a long time ago,” said Arna. “Even before Mom and Dad met. I’ve only seen pictures of him. He sort of reminds me of those old holos of R.J. Brande, you know? Granny Winema never remarried. I guess she really loved him, although Mom says she remembers they fought a lot while she was growing up.”
“I wish I was close to my family,” said Irinia. “Well, not really, I guess. I mean, we were close once, but not close. They never approved of me. Out in the Tropic of Zeppelins, everyone is pretty… well, you know.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that before,” said Arna. “And I know it’s a sore spot with you. But I’m glad to share my family with you. And Ronin…”
“Where is that boy?” Irinia said. “I haven’t seen him since dinner.”
“Oh, Granny’s probably introducing him to some of her friends,” said Arna. “She wants him to attend some toff college on Earth, but he wants to go to school on Bgztl, like Dav did.”
Arna and Irinia finally found Ronin, and managed to pull him away from Granny Winema, after which Arna discreetly disappeared. There was a lot to do on the Antigone, holo-games, live concerts, exercise rooms, a pool-- but the two teens had to show up for Granny Winema’s examination at every meal, and attend the nightly formal balls and galas. They stole what time they could for themselves.
Christmas Day was one long, exhausting party, with the hundreds of guests exchanging presents, eating and drinking all day. Granny Winema saved the most outlandish entertainments for that day, and the Antigone became a virtual floating circus. On Boxing Day the staff and crew were feted, and the next day Irinia and Ronin returned to Mars and Gzbk, respectively.
Irinia, Ronin and Arna and stayed through New Years Day, then returned to Mars and Bgztl. School was back in session for Ronin and Arna, and as Ronin was technically an adult, their parents felt they could stay be themselves for a few weeks.
* * *
Jo and Tinya stayed through Lunar New Year.
Jo had taken to carrying a large handkerchief with him at all times. His sinuses were constantly inflamed, and his eyes were bloodshot every morning, and itched and burned.
“There must be something on Earth that I’m allergic to,” he complained. “The ship’s doctor prescribed some allergy tabs, but they don’t seem to be working.”
“You never had this problem back when we lived at Legion HQ,” said Tinya. “Maybe it’s something in the sea air?”
“Yes, well…” said Jo. “Is that what you’re wearing to the Lunar New Year Party? Isn’t it a little… revealing? I mean, I don’t mind personally, but your mother…”
“There’s nothing wrong with this dress,” said Tinya, looking herself over. “It’s perfectly modest… oh, no.” She held up her purse. “What do I have in my purse?”
Jo rubbed his eyes. “Just and old McCauley Omnicom. What is it, some kind of transparent plastic?” he asked.
Tinya sighed. “Jo, this purse is perfectly opaque. Just like my dress.”
“Penetra-vision,” said Jo. “The itching, burning eyes. Sinus problems. This is just what it was like the first time.” He concentrated. “The easiest thing to do is switch the ultra-energy to invulnerability… it should stick there as a default. But why, after all these years, do my ultra-powers decide to return?”
“Obviously, it’s Earth,” said Tinya. “This is the first time since you followed me to Bgztl that we’ve stayed her so long. There must be some subtle difference in the laws of physics, or chemistry, or biology. Stay too long on Bgztl, and your ultra-powers fade. Stay too long on Earth, and your powers return. Looks like about two months.” She sighed again. “Should we start shopping for a home in Metropolis, so you can be Ultra-Man permanently?”
“At my age?” said Jo. “I should hope not. I’m thinking of retiring from the Mechanic business, why would I want another career? And as a geriatric super-hero? No thank you. I’m too lazy now. We’ll just need to make sure we make our visits to Earth infrequent and brief.”
“My mother thinks they’re infrequent enough,” said Tinya. “Oh no-- if she convinces Ronin to go to University here do you think…”
“We’ll cross that ultra-bridge when we come to it,” said Jo. “For now, let’s have one more celebration with your mother, while I still have ultra-stamina, and then let her know we’re going home.”
HOLIDAYS-PART THREE: EARTH
Ronin Nah arrived at the Super-Hero Clubhouse in his landspeeder.
“The Martian stargates to Earth are jammed with Christmas season traffic,” Ronin told Phantom Girl. “Do you think your friends from Winath could give us a lift to Earth?”
“We’d be happy to,” Saturn Girl interrupted. Lightning Lass nodded her head behind her.
“We’re headed to Old Lisbon, on the Western European continent. “Granny Winema owns a cruise ship: the Princess Antigone. She said could pick us up at the docks there.”
“What’s a ‘cruise ship’?” asked Phantom Girl.
“It’s kind of like one of those old Dirigible-Hotels,” said Ronin. “But they float on the ocean, not in the air. Granny Winema bought one for hosting her occasional massive parties. Like the one we’re heading to.”
Dacey and Dorrit dropped them off on Earth, then set off for their own rendezvous on Wondil-9.
Ronin and Irinia waited half-a-day near the docks for the cruise ship to arrive. They had lunch at a churrascaria-- a Portuguese-Argentinian barbecue, where they each ate more meat than they had ever had before in a single sitting.
Ronin’s Granny Winema greeted them has they walked up the gangplank.
“Merry Christmas, my dears,” she said, kissing them each on the cheeks. She took a step back, looking them up and down. “No one told me my grandson’s paramour was a pbazo!”
Ronin and Irinia were speechless.
“At least she didn’t say ‘coloured’”, whispered Irinia, after Granny Winema had pointed the way to their cabins.
“It’s just how things were back in her generation,” said Ronin. “She didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I think that was two or three generations before her generation,” said Irinia. “And I think I know just what she meant. I’m more offended by being called a ‘paramour’.”
“I don’t think I know that word,” said Ronin.
“It’s Old Terran,” said Irinia. “You could look it up.”
Irinia was sharing a stateroom with young Arna, who was terribly excited about the evening-wear and ball gowns and makeup her grandmother had provided for them.
“This is what we’re wearing to dinner?” asked Irinia. “How did she know my size? She only just now learned the colour of my skin.”
Arna looked at Irinia curiously. “It’s IntelliFabri©,” Arna explained. “It fits itself to you automatically.” She frowned for a moment. “Irinia, I know my grandmother can be a pain in the… neck… but she’s the only living grandparent I have. Besides, she’s old and rich, and I want to stay on her good side.”
“Arna, I didn’t think you would be so mercenary,” said Irinia.
“Oh, I’m kidding,” said Arna. “Sort of. I mean, Mom and Dad are comfortable, but Granny Winema bought a whole cruise ship! And a crew to go with it! I could get used to living like this. How about some of this gold glitter under your eyes?”
Irinia allowed Arna to play dress-up with her; she seemed so excited. She herself had never been much for fashion or re-painting her features. She had spent too much of her childhood fighting her parents to be allowed to be herself, than to want to be someone else.
Arna enthusiastically introduced her extended family to Irinia.
Irinia met her older brother Dav and his wife Lespra for the first time; although of course she was well acquainted with their daughter, ‘Li’l Winema’, the bubbly four-year-old.
Irinia was introduced to Arna’s uncle Gmya and his wife Chvh, and their two grown, married children: Kaspar, their son, his wife Wyndii thier daughter, Margarethe, a couple of years older then Li’l Winema; and Moli, Kaspar’s sister, her husband Pedo Mellon, and their son El, a couple of years older than Margarethe.
“Grampa Byzjn passed away a long time ago,” said Arna. “Even before Mom and Dad met. I’ve only seen pictures of him. He sort of reminds me of those old holos of R.J. Brande, you know? Granny Winema never remarried. I guess she really loved him, although Mom says she remembers they fought a lot while she was growing up.”
“I wish I was close to my family,” said Irinia. “Well, not really, I guess. I mean, we were close once, but not close. They never approved of me. Out in the Tropic of Zeppelins, everyone is pretty… well, you know.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that before,” said Arna. “And I know it’s a sore spot with you. But I’m glad to share my family with you. And Ronin…”
“Where is that boy?” Irinia said. “I haven’t seen him since dinner.”
“Oh, Granny’s probably introducing him to some of her friends,” said Arna. “She wants him to attend some toff college on Earth, but he wants to go to school on Bgztl, like Dav did.”
Arna and Irinia finally found Ronin, and managed to pull him away from Granny Winema, after which Arna discreetly disappeared. There was a lot to do on the Antigone, holo-games, live concerts, exercise rooms, a pool-- but the two teens had to show up for Granny Winema’s examination at every meal, and attend the nightly formal balls and galas. They stole what time they could for themselves.
Christmas Day was one long, exhausting party, with the hundreds of guests exchanging presents, eating and drinking all day. Granny Winema saved the most outlandish entertainments for that day, and the Antigone became a virtual floating circus. On Boxing Day the staff and crew were feted, and the next day Irinia and Ronin returned to Mars and Gzbk, respectively.
Irinia, Ronin and Arna and stayed through New Years Day, then returned to Mars and Bgztl. School was back in session for Ronin and Arna, and as Ronin was technically an adult, their parents felt they could stay be themselves for a few weeks.
* * *
Jo and Tinya stayed through Lunar New Year.
Jo had taken to carrying a large handkerchief with him at all times. His sinuses were constantly inflamed, and his eyes were bloodshot every morning, and itched and burned.
“There must be something on Earth that I’m allergic to,” he complained. “The ship’s doctor prescribed some allergy tabs, but they don’t seem to be working.”
“You never had this problem back when we lived at Legion HQ,” said Tinya. “Maybe it’s something in the sea air?”
“Yes, well…” said Jo. “Is that what you’re wearing to the Lunar New Year Party? Isn’t it a little… revealing? I mean, I don’t mind personally, but your mother…”
“There’s nothing wrong with this dress,” said Tinya, looking herself over. “It’s perfectly modest… oh, no.” She held up her purse. “What do I have in my purse?”
Jo rubbed his eyes. “Just and old McCauley Omnicom. What is it, some kind of transparent plastic?” he asked.
Tinya sighed. “Jo, this purse is perfectly opaque. Just like my dress.”
“Penetra-vision,” said Jo. “The itching, burning eyes. Sinus problems. This is just what it was like the first time.” He concentrated. “The easiest thing to do is switch the ultra-energy to invulnerability… it should stick there as a default. But why, after all these years, do my ultra-powers decide to return?”
“Obviously, it’s Earth,” said Tinya. “This is the first time since you followed me to Bgztl that we’ve stayed her so long. There must be some subtle difference in the laws of physics, or chemistry, or biology. Stay too long on Bgztl, and your ultra-powers fade. Stay too long on Earth, and your powers return. Looks like about two months.” She sighed again. “Should we start shopping for a home in Metropolis, so you can be Ultra-Man permanently?”
“At my age?” said Jo. “I should hope not. I’m thinking of retiring from the Mechanic business, why would I want another career? And as a geriatric super-hero? No thank you. I’m too lazy now. We’ll just need to make sure we make our visits to Earth infrequent and brief.”
“My mother thinks they’re infrequent enough,” said Tinya. “Oh no-- if she convinces Ronin to go to University here do you think…”
“We’ll cross that ultra-bridge when we come to it,” said Jo. “For now, let’s have one more celebration with your mother, while I still have ultra-stamina, and then let her know we’re going home.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/04/18 08:17 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part One:
It was Shrinking Violet that greeted Hu Krinn when he arrived on Mars in his late-30th-century space-hot-rod. His sky-blue eyes were almost as bright as his silver-white hair.
“Do you know you have Hoppers?” he asked.
“Sorry, what? Hoppers?” asked Eluia.
“Descendants of Earth sandpipers,” said Grandpa Hu. “A little bird. First brought to colonize Mars in the original terraforming. Mutated since then, of course. One of their legs has evolved into a little arm-- one-legged, now, so, Hoppers. I was driving around your sea, and I saw a colony of them. They’re pretty bright-- they build huts out of mud and grass for nests, organize them into little cities, and even farm sand-worms. They have a rudimentary culture, even a technology. In a million years they might evolve into another intelligent species.”
“Wow,” said Shrinking Violet. The centenarian was a font of pontless information.
“I see you’re staring at my arm,” said Grandpa Hu.
Shrinking Violet was not staring-- she was sure she had not been staring-- but the arm was certainly an interesting appendage. Chrome-steel, polished to a sparkling shine, it hovered in the air, just a centimeter away from the old man’s shoulder. Grandpa Hu lifted the arm in a wave, then sent it whirling and spiraling in loops above and around the clubhouse.
“You’re showing off, Grandpa,” said Cosmic Boy, emerging from the clubhouse.
The arm slipped back into place. “You’re the image of your Uncle Pol,” said Grandpa Hu. “Now more than ever.”
“I know, Grandpa,” said Pol Krinn II. He had heard it enough-- from his parents, his Aunt Imra and Uncle Garth... and from his grandfather, every time he saw him.
“Young lady, ask me how I lost my arm,” Grandpa Hu challenged Shrinking Violet.
“I… I’m kind of afraid to,” said Shrinking Violet, looking over her shoulder at Pol.
“You are looking at a man who survived the blast of a Quark Fusion Bomb. It took my arm, and my wife, and a big chunk of Metropolis with her. My boy Rokk rescued us-- and he saved his little brother Pol, too. My boy Pol went on to become a hero in his own right-- and now, Rokk’s own Pol #2 follows in the family tradition.”
Pol had a small bag of warm clothes for Wondil IX, which he stowed in the hot-rod’s luggage compartment.
“That was a little embarrassing,” said Pol.
“If I can’t be a fan of my super-hero family, who can?” asked Grandpa Hu.
Eulia noticed the chrome-steel arm was starting up the hot-rod and taking hold of the steering wheel. “Pretty advanced robotics,” she noted.
“Nope. Just a hollow metal arm, with sixteen lubricated ball joints. Controlled with by magnetism,” said Grandpa Hu.
“That’s really good control,” Eulia noted.
“You don’t win Magno-Ball trophies without developing fine control,” said Grandpa Hu. “My boy Rokk is pretty impressive in the raw power department, but Pol was the one who inherited fine control.”
“I don’t know,” said Pol. “Aunt Ayla was pretty much the one who taught me how to control my powers, but.. I guess she isn’t really an expert, is she? I mean, I know as much about electricity as magnetism itself.”
“Well, you ought to come to Earth again sometime,” said Grandpa Hu. “Visit me. We could train together.”
“You know I come whenever I can, Granpa, ” said Pol.
“Well, I mean, for a few weeks,” said Grandpa Hu. “A couple of months. Or, I could even come to Mars to train you.”
“After Wondil-9, why don’t you come back with us to Winath?” asked Pol. “Live with Dad and everybody else on Lightning Ring Farms.”
“Ah, no, not Winath,” said Grandpa Hu. “I’ve moved seen enough planets. Earth has been my home now for more that fifty years, almost half my life. But I tell you, if I live on Earth another fifty, I still want to be buried on Braal, in the end. I’d retire there now, if I could afford it.”
“You don’t have some problem with Dad, do you?” Pol ventured. “Is that why you stay away from Winath?”
“Nah,” said Grandpa Hu. “Your Dad’s my hero. I just like my independence.”
When the reached the Taine house on Wondil-9, Dorrit and Dacey were outside with Graym, Garridan, and Yves, as well as Ayla, Salu, Mekt, and Pol’s parents. They formed a tight huddle in the snowy landscape.
“Looks like a family council,” said Grandpa Hu. “Why don’t you go see what’s up, and I’ll go announce us to Charles and his wife.”
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part One:
It was Shrinking Violet that greeted Hu Krinn when he arrived on Mars in his late-30th-century space-hot-rod. His sky-blue eyes were almost as bright as his silver-white hair.
“Do you know you have Hoppers?” he asked.
“Sorry, what? Hoppers?” asked Eluia.
“Descendants of Earth sandpipers,” said Grandpa Hu. “A little bird. First brought to colonize Mars in the original terraforming. Mutated since then, of course. One of their legs has evolved into a little arm-- one-legged, now, so, Hoppers. I was driving around your sea, and I saw a colony of them. They’re pretty bright-- they build huts out of mud and grass for nests, organize them into little cities, and even farm sand-worms. They have a rudimentary culture, even a technology. In a million years they might evolve into another intelligent species.”
“Wow,” said Shrinking Violet. The centenarian was a font of pontless information.
“I see you’re staring at my arm,” said Grandpa Hu.
Shrinking Violet was not staring-- she was sure she had not been staring-- but the arm was certainly an interesting appendage. Chrome-steel, polished to a sparkling shine, it hovered in the air, just a centimeter away from the old man’s shoulder. Grandpa Hu lifted the arm in a wave, then sent it whirling and spiraling in loops above and around the clubhouse.
“You’re showing off, Grandpa,” said Cosmic Boy, emerging from the clubhouse.
The arm slipped back into place. “You’re the image of your Uncle Pol,” said Grandpa Hu. “Now more than ever.”
“I know, Grandpa,” said Pol Krinn II. He had heard it enough-- from his parents, his Aunt Imra and Uncle Garth... and from his grandfather, every time he saw him.
“Young lady, ask me how I lost my arm,” Grandpa Hu challenged Shrinking Violet.
“I… I’m kind of afraid to,” said Shrinking Violet, looking over her shoulder at Pol.
“You are looking at a man who survived the blast of a Quark Fusion Bomb. It took my arm, and my wife, and a big chunk of Metropolis with her. My boy Rokk rescued us-- and he saved his little brother Pol, too. My boy Pol went on to become a hero in his own right-- and now, Rokk’s own Pol #2 follows in the family tradition.”
Pol had a small bag of warm clothes for Wondil IX, which he stowed in the hot-rod’s luggage compartment.
“That was a little embarrassing,” said Pol.
“If I can’t be a fan of my super-hero family, who can?” asked Grandpa Hu.
Eulia noticed the chrome-steel arm was starting up the hot-rod and taking hold of the steering wheel. “Pretty advanced robotics,” she noted.
“Nope. Just a hollow metal arm, with sixteen lubricated ball joints. Controlled with by magnetism,” said Grandpa Hu.
“That’s really good control,” Eulia noted.
“You don’t win Magno-Ball trophies without developing fine control,” said Grandpa Hu. “My boy Rokk is pretty impressive in the raw power department, but Pol was the one who inherited fine control.”
“I don’t know,” said Pol. “Aunt Ayla was pretty much the one who taught me how to control my powers, but.. I guess she isn’t really an expert, is she? I mean, I know as much about electricity as magnetism itself.”
“Well, you ought to come to Earth again sometime,” said Grandpa Hu. “Visit me. We could train together.”
“You know I come whenever I can, Granpa, ” said Pol.
“Well, I mean, for a few weeks,” said Grandpa Hu. “A couple of months. Or, I could even come to Mars to train you.”
“After Wondil-9, why don’t you come back with us to Winath?” asked Pol. “Live with Dad and everybody else on Lightning Ring Farms.”
“Ah, no, not Winath,” said Grandpa Hu. “I’ve moved seen enough planets. Earth has been my home now for more that fifty years, almost half my life. But I tell you, if I live on Earth another fifty, I still want to be buried on Braal, in the end. I’d retire there now, if I could afford it.”
“You don’t have some problem with Dad, do you?” Pol ventured. “Is that why you stay away from Winath?”
“Nah,” said Grandpa Hu. “Your Dad’s my hero. I just like my independence.”
When the reached the Taine house on Wondil-9, Dorrit and Dacey were outside with Graym, Garridan, and Yves, as well as Ayla, Salu, Mekt, and Pol’s parents. They formed a tight huddle in the snowy landscape.
“Looks like a family council,” said Grandpa Hu. “Why don’t you go see what’s up, and I’ll go announce us to Charles and his wife.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/08/18 05:38 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part Two:
The Taine house was small, and crowded. But Chuck Taine stood out among the crowd. Dressed in Christmas red and green, his beard was too gray for him to be the express image of Santa Claus, but he was nevertheless pretty much the incarnation of the Christmas Spirit.
“Mr. Krinn! So glad you could come this year!” He pumped the old man’s flesh-and-blood arm enthusiastically. “It’s great to see you again. Happy Christmas Eve!”
Grandpa Hu noticed a sort of trophy case just inside the entryway. It was filled with several dozen rock samples.
“Yes, this is my rock collection,” said Chuck. “Wondil-9 is a diverse mining community, and these are a few samples of the uncommon minerals found here.”
Grandpa Hu looked over the collection. “But these are dilithium crystals,” he noted. “Nth metal ore, rainbow metal, promethium, pluridium, and… is that what I think it is?”
“Green gem-metal,” Chuck affirmed. “The jewel precipitates out of the metal. The metal is used to make Oan power-batteries, the gemstone is the key element of Green Lantern rings. That purple stuff next to it is tricorundum, the other green gem is hyperemerald, and that golden powder is actually fullerene micro-diamonds.”
“But this is a priceless collection!” Grandpa Hu exclaimed.
“No, no, these are all well below even industrial quality,” said Chuck. “Mine tailings, really. I served a couple of terms as Sheriff, and became pretty well-known locally. The miners here learned of my interest in amateur mineralogy, and sometimes bring me interesting our unusual samples. But I’ll show you something really valuable.”
He opened a drawer in the cabinet, and took out a thick book, filled with sports trading cards. He turned to a particular page. “The ‘38 Braalien Steelwolves Magno-Ball team. Probably the greatest infield in the history of the sport.” He pointed out one particular card. “That’s you. And here’s your Second Basewoman, Peggi Su Watt. And Hal Ideno, Third Base. Historical. Legendary.”
Grandpa Hu stared at the old trading cards. He was carried back to Braal, some eighty years in the past. “I didn’t know you were a Magno-Ball fan,” he said.
“Sports is my Life,” said Chuck. “All kinds. Well, watching, not playing.” He patted his expansive belly. “Here, let me show you off to my guests.”
“This is an old family friend, Nam’Lor, former Planetary Champion of Ikros. And his wife, Ydal. Their son, Yob’Lor, is the new Planetary Champion. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be with us today due to business obligations.” Grandpa Hu exchanged pleasantries with the Ikrons.
Chuck introduced him to a younger couple. “This is Grava d’Quall, and her husband Timm Karlo. Grava was a student of mine, many years ago.”
“An Extalent, right?” asked Granpa Hu.
“Half,” said Grava. “My mom’s Terran. Timm is 100% Terran, too, but he’s fourth-generation Wondilixian.”
“Miner,” said Timm Karlo. “Specialty is exotic gemstones.”
“You’re a contributor to Charles’ rock collection?” asked Grandpa Hu.
“Nope. Never find anything of that poor a quality.” He shrugged. “My family’s got a real knack for mining.”
Chuck called over an older couple. Grandpa Hu recognized them immediately.
“Doctor and Doctor Jath,” said Grandpa Hu. “It’s been a long time. Great to see you.” The Kathooni scientists wore blackout contacts, making their eyes appear solid, shiny black. “How’s the endocrinology business?”
“I’m afraid we have given up on further development of Jathosterone,” said the distaff Dr. Jath. “Lydda was a fortunate genetic fluke, but it seems to have little general application to the planetary population. We are still doing general consulting work with other Kathooni medical researchers, though.”
Two large young men, nearly their father’s younger twins, greeted the old man. “My bouncing boys, Lloyd and Aaron,” said Chuck. The young men motioned to two identical young women, who came over to greet Grandpa Hu as well.
“This is my fiance, Gwen,” said Aaron.
“And this is her twin sister, Ceci, who has been hanging around waiting for me to propose,” said Lloyd.
“And this is Lloyd,” said Ceci, “Who evidently thinks I’m going to hang around waiting forever. He may be surprised very soon..”
“When is the happy date?” Grandpa Hu asked Aaron and Gwen.
“After Christmas,” Gwen replied. “At the Wondilixian Equinox.” A great white sheepdog bounded out of another room, and nestled between Gwen and Aaron.
“Oh, and this is Wilby,” said Aaron. “He’s a Wondilixian Ice Dragon, a semi-telepathic shapeshifter. Tiger, Wilby!” The english sheepdog shifted into a small white bengal tiger. “His natural body temperature is zero celsius,” Aaron explained. “But as long as we keep the house below twenty, he’s in no danger of melting. Still, he does like to spend a lot of time outside. Oh, here comes Mom!”
“We meet at last,” said Grandpa Hu. “So sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding.”
Aemelia Taine laughed, as round and jolly as her husband. “You’re the one who sent us that wonderful set of cooking knives as a wedding present, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I find a really good set of knives makes a happy kitchen,” said Grandpa Hu. “Happy kitchen, happy family. And it came with one millicredit postage due? I hope they made you pay it.”
“So that was intentional?” asked Aemelia.
“An old Terran superstition,” said Grandpa Hu. “Giving knives as a wedding gift is imagined to be bad luck, as it might ‘sever’ a friendship, or ‘cut’ the marriage bonds. So by forcing you to pay the postage due, you actually ‘purchased’ the knife set yourselves, rather than receiving them as a gift.”
Aemelia Taine laughed again. “If you’re intending to spend the night, we’ve rented several quonsets, out at the end of snow-tunnels leading away from the house. I don’t know if Pol intends to stay with you or his folks, but there’s plenty of room either way. We’re not having a sit-down dinner tonight, but there is plenty of food set out on tables around the house, so help yourself, buffet-style. We even have a Vegan table over by the fireplace.”
Grandpa Hu had already helped himself to a cup of eggnog on his way through the house. “This is very good,” he complimented Aemelia. “A little different from the way they serve it on Earth.”
“Chuck has become lactose-intolerant in his old age,” said Aemelia. “So the base of the eggnog is Soy Almoco, a blend of soybean, almond, and coconut milk. With plenty of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, rum to help it along.”
“So how did you and Charles meet?” asked Grandpa Hu. “That’s the standard question for newlyweds, isn’t it?”
Aemelia laughed again. “Not so newly wed now. Our little girl Talitha is nearly two. She should be up from her nap within the hour, and you can meet her then. I was actually Aaron and Lloyd’s nanny way back when.
“I was very close to Lluornu… by the time the boys were in school, she was my best friend, despite the difference in our ages. Is it funny to say I miss her, when I married her husband? But I do. I tried to help her as much as possible at the end… those last few months were so hard. Chuck was devastated when she passed on. It was after that the two of us became close.”
Aemelia had to hurry away to tend to other guests, and Aaron and Lloyd and Ceci and Gwen drifted off. Grandpa Hu nursed his eggnog.
“You should also try Amelia’s homemade ginger perry,” said a voice behind him.
Granpa Hu turned. The voice belonged to a plump, lavender-skinned man with shocking red hair.
“Jediah Rikane,” he introduced himself. “And this is my husband, Tel Vole.” He was well-tanned, with short dark hair, and slightly balding.
“You’re Hu Krinn, Rokk’s father, right?” said Tel Vole. “Jed and I knew him when we were students of Chuck and Lu’s, back in the day. We both work as SPs, now.”
“You’re the Officer Vole that sorted out that incident on Llarr a few years ago, aren’t you?” said Grandpa Hu. “You were a minor celebrity for a while.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Tel Vole. “Did the chat-show circuit for a bit. Oh, here’s our son!”
The young man looked about Pol’s age, maybe a year or two younger. One side of his face was lavender with black hair, the other tan, with red hair. “Ted Rivolkane,” he introduced himself. Grandpa Hu noticed that he was holding his cup without actually touching it. His father Tel was doing the same, the cup floating a couple centimeters away from his hand.
“Magnetism?” Grandpa Hu asked, indicating the cups. “Are you Braalien?”
“Anti-gravity,” said Ted Rivolkane. “A gift from my dad.”
“Designer genes?” asked Grandpa Hu. “I see he has a little bit of the both of you in him.”
“But he’s his own man, through and through,” said Jed Rikane. “We’re proud of our boy.”
The talk of family reminded Grandpa Hu that he wanted to talk to Rokk and Lydda. But where were they? And Pol hadn’t come inside yet, either.
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part Two:
The Taine house was small, and crowded. But Chuck Taine stood out among the crowd. Dressed in Christmas red and green, his beard was too gray for him to be the express image of Santa Claus, but he was nevertheless pretty much the incarnation of the Christmas Spirit.
“Mr. Krinn! So glad you could come this year!” He pumped the old man’s flesh-and-blood arm enthusiastically. “It’s great to see you again. Happy Christmas Eve!”
Grandpa Hu noticed a sort of trophy case just inside the entryway. It was filled with several dozen rock samples.
“Yes, this is my rock collection,” said Chuck. “Wondil-9 is a diverse mining community, and these are a few samples of the uncommon minerals found here.”
Grandpa Hu looked over the collection. “But these are dilithium crystals,” he noted. “Nth metal ore, rainbow metal, promethium, pluridium, and… is that what I think it is?”
“Green gem-metal,” Chuck affirmed. “The jewel precipitates out of the metal. The metal is used to make Oan power-batteries, the gemstone is the key element of Green Lantern rings. That purple stuff next to it is tricorundum, the other green gem is hyperemerald, and that golden powder is actually fullerene micro-diamonds.”
“But this is a priceless collection!” Grandpa Hu exclaimed.
“No, no, these are all well below even industrial quality,” said Chuck. “Mine tailings, really. I served a couple of terms as Sheriff, and became pretty well-known locally. The miners here learned of my interest in amateur mineralogy, and sometimes bring me interesting our unusual samples. But I’ll show you something really valuable.”
He opened a drawer in the cabinet, and took out a thick book, filled with sports trading cards. He turned to a particular page. “The ‘38 Braalien Steelwolves Magno-Ball team. Probably the greatest infield in the history of the sport.” He pointed out one particular card. “That’s you. And here’s your Second Basewoman, Peggi Su Watt. And Hal Ideno, Third Base. Historical. Legendary.”
Grandpa Hu stared at the old trading cards. He was carried back to Braal, some eighty years in the past. “I didn’t know you were a Magno-Ball fan,” he said.
“Sports is my Life,” said Chuck. “All kinds. Well, watching, not playing.” He patted his expansive belly. “Here, let me show you off to my guests.”
“This is an old family friend, Nam’Lor, former Planetary Champion of Ikros. And his wife, Ydal. Their son, Yob’Lor, is the new Planetary Champion. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be with us today due to business obligations.” Grandpa Hu exchanged pleasantries with the Ikrons.
Chuck introduced him to a younger couple. “This is Grava d’Quall, and her husband Timm Karlo. Grava was a student of mine, many years ago.”
“An Extalent, right?” asked Granpa Hu.
“Half,” said Grava. “My mom’s Terran. Timm is 100% Terran, too, but he’s fourth-generation Wondilixian.”
“Miner,” said Timm Karlo. “Specialty is exotic gemstones.”
“You’re a contributor to Charles’ rock collection?” asked Grandpa Hu.
“Nope. Never find anything of that poor a quality.” He shrugged. “My family’s got a real knack for mining.”
Chuck called over an older couple. Grandpa Hu recognized them immediately.
“Doctor and Doctor Jath,” said Grandpa Hu. “It’s been a long time. Great to see you.” The Kathooni scientists wore blackout contacts, making their eyes appear solid, shiny black. “How’s the endocrinology business?”
“I’m afraid we have given up on further development of Jathosterone,” said the distaff Dr. Jath. “Lydda was a fortunate genetic fluke, but it seems to have little general application to the planetary population. We are still doing general consulting work with other Kathooni medical researchers, though.”
Two large young men, nearly their father’s younger twins, greeted the old man. “My bouncing boys, Lloyd and Aaron,” said Chuck. The young men motioned to two identical young women, who came over to greet Grandpa Hu as well.
“This is my fiance, Gwen,” said Aaron.
“And this is her twin sister, Ceci, who has been hanging around waiting for me to propose,” said Lloyd.
“And this is Lloyd,” said Ceci, “Who evidently thinks I’m going to hang around waiting forever. He may be surprised very soon..”
“When is the happy date?” Grandpa Hu asked Aaron and Gwen.
“After Christmas,” Gwen replied. “At the Wondilixian Equinox.” A great white sheepdog bounded out of another room, and nestled between Gwen and Aaron.
“Oh, and this is Wilby,” said Aaron. “He’s a Wondilixian Ice Dragon, a semi-telepathic shapeshifter. Tiger, Wilby!” The english sheepdog shifted into a small white bengal tiger. “His natural body temperature is zero celsius,” Aaron explained. “But as long as we keep the house below twenty, he’s in no danger of melting. Still, he does like to spend a lot of time outside. Oh, here comes Mom!”
“We meet at last,” said Grandpa Hu. “So sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding.”
Aemelia Taine laughed, as round and jolly as her husband. “You’re the one who sent us that wonderful set of cooking knives as a wedding present, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I find a really good set of knives makes a happy kitchen,” said Grandpa Hu. “Happy kitchen, happy family. And it came with one millicredit postage due? I hope they made you pay it.”
“So that was intentional?” asked Aemelia.
“An old Terran superstition,” said Grandpa Hu. “Giving knives as a wedding gift is imagined to be bad luck, as it might ‘sever’ a friendship, or ‘cut’ the marriage bonds. So by forcing you to pay the postage due, you actually ‘purchased’ the knife set yourselves, rather than receiving them as a gift.”
Aemelia Taine laughed again. “If you’re intending to spend the night, we’ve rented several quonsets, out at the end of snow-tunnels leading away from the house. I don’t know if Pol intends to stay with you or his folks, but there’s plenty of room either way. We’re not having a sit-down dinner tonight, but there is plenty of food set out on tables around the house, so help yourself, buffet-style. We even have a Vegan table over by the fireplace.”
Grandpa Hu had already helped himself to a cup of eggnog on his way through the house. “This is very good,” he complimented Aemelia. “A little different from the way they serve it on Earth.”
“Chuck has become lactose-intolerant in his old age,” said Aemelia. “So the base of the eggnog is Soy Almoco, a blend of soybean, almond, and coconut milk. With plenty of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, rum to help it along.”
“So how did you and Charles meet?” asked Grandpa Hu. “That’s the standard question for newlyweds, isn’t it?”
Aemelia laughed again. “Not so newly wed now. Our little girl Talitha is nearly two. She should be up from her nap within the hour, and you can meet her then. I was actually Aaron and Lloyd’s nanny way back when.
“I was very close to Lluornu… by the time the boys were in school, she was my best friend, despite the difference in our ages. Is it funny to say I miss her, when I married her husband? But I do. I tried to help her as much as possible at the end… those last few months were so hard. Chuck was devastated when she passed on. It was after that the two of us became close.”
Aemelia had to hurry away to tend to other guests, and Aaron and Lloyd and Ceci and Gwen drifted off. Grandpa Hu nursed his eggnog.
“You should also try Amelia’s homemade ginger perry,” said a voice behind him.
Granpa Hu turned. The voice belonged to a plump, lavender-skinned man with shocking red hair.
“Jediah Rikane,” he introduced himself. “And this is my husband, Tel Vole.” He was well-tanned, with short dark hair, and slightly balding.
“You’re Hu Krinn, Rokk’s father, right?” said Tel Vole. “Jed and I knew him when we were students of Chuck and Lu’s, back in the day. We both work as SPs, now.”
“You’re the Officer Vole that sorted out that incident on Llarr a few years ago, aren’t you?” said Grandpa Hu. “You were a minor celebrity for a while.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Tel Vole. “Did the chat-show circuit for a bit. Oh, here’s our son!”
The young man looked about Pol’s age, maybe a year or two younger. One side of his face was lavender with black hair, the other tan, with red hair. “Ted Rivolkane,” he introduced himself. Grandpa Hu noticed that he was holding his cup without actually touching it. His father Tel was doing the same, the cup floating a couple centimeters away from his hand.
“Magnetism?” Grandpa Hu asked, indicating the cups. “Are you Braalien?”
“Anti-gravity,” said Ted Rivolkane. “A gift from my dad.”
“Designer genes?” asked Grandpa Hu. “I see he has a little bit of the both of you in him.”
“But he’s his own man, through and through,” said Jed Rikane. “We’re proud of our boy.”
The talk of family reminded Grandpa Hu that he wanted to talk to Rokk and Lydda. But where were they? And Pol hadn’t come inside yet, either.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/14/18 01:31 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part Three:
Pol stepped out of Grandpa Hu’s hot-rod, and put on the fur-lined thermal jacket.
“Mom and Dad aren’t here,” Dacey explained to Pol.
“When are they coming?” Pol asked.
“They’re not coming,” said Rokk. “Your Aunt Imra is ill.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Pol. “Are they back on Winath?”
“No, they’re on Medicus One-Oh-One,” said Rokk.
“One-Oh-One?” said Pol. “Isn’t that the Psych Ward?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Rokk. “Your Aunt had a breakdown a couple of days ago. A complete psychotic break. Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, the whole package. It was pretty terrifying.”
“You know that Imra is a powerful telepath,” said Mekt. “We all experienced it when she... lost control. She was broadcasting her breakdown out to all of us… even our neighbors felt a distinct unease.”
“When we were little, Mom would sometimes get mad, and speak directly to our minds,” said Graym. “That was scary enough, knowing exactly what she was thinking and feeling. But this was terrifying. It was almost like she wasn’t thinking at all.”
Garridan, Dorrit and Dacey nodded.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said Yves. “It was like the whole world turned inside-out.”
“Little Vi was terrified,” said Salu. “She and Ayla and I just clung to each other, paralyzed with terror.”
Pol looked around. “Where is Vi now?” he asked.
“She went in with Aemelia when we arrived,” said Salu. “She and the other kids have been set up with their own room, with its own little Christmas tree, toys, and whatnot.”
“Garth was just amazing,” said Ayla. “He got Imra calmed down, called the paramedics, and had her consent to being sedated. I guess all their time together has allowed him to build some resistance to her telepathy. He and the paramedics got her under control, then had her transferred to Medicus One-Oh-One. When he was sure we were all OK, he followed her there. He claims he’s not coming back until she’s cured.”
“From personal experience,” said Mekt, “I have high confidence in the modern psychiatric science. But I do not expect Imra to return to us in a short time.”
“I thought your mom was doing well,” said Pol. “Last time you talked to her, she was so positive, right?”
“Well, actually,” said Dacey, “Her calm, worry-free acceptance was a symptom of the underlying problem. When she and Dad were on vacation on Vondra, she had some kind of uncanny, supernatural epiphany that she claimed changed her life and resolved all her fears. She hasn’t talked about the particulars. But it seems like she’s just been suppressing all her anxieties since then, and the cognitive dissonance finally overwhelmed her.”
“Wow, how are you guys holding up?” asked Pol.
“OK, I guess,” said Dorrit. “But I don’t think Christmas is going to be such an enjoyable time of year for us in the future.”
HOLIDAYS-PART FOUR: WONDIL-9
Part Three:
Pol stepped out of Grandpa Hu’s hot-rod, and put on the fur-lined thermal jacket.
“Mom and Dad aren’t here,” Dacey explained to Pol.
“When are they coming?” Pol asked.
“They’re not coming,” said Rokk. “Your Aunt Imra is ill.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Pol. “Are they back on Winath?”
“No, they’re on Medicus One-Oh-One,” said Rokk.
“One-Oh-One?” said Pol. “Isn’t that the Psych Ward?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Rokk. “Your Aunt had a breakdown a couple of days ago. A complete psychotic break. Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, the whole package. It was pretty terrifying.”
“You know that Imra is a powerful telepath,” said Mekt. “We all experienced it when she... lost control. She was broadcasting her breakdown out to all of us… even our neighbors felt a distinct unease.”
“When we were little, Mom would sometimes get mad, and speak directly to our minds,” said Graym. “That was scary enough, knowing exactly what she was thinking and feeling. But this was terrifying. It was almost like she wasn’t thinking at all.”
Garridan, Dorrit and Dacey nodded.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said Yves. “It was like the whole world turned inside-out.”
“Little Vi was terrified,” said Salu. “She and Ayla and I just clung to each other, paralyzed with terror.”
Pol looked around. “Where is Vi now?” he asked.
“She went in with Aemelia when we arrived,” said Salu. “She and the other kids have been set up with their own room, with its own little Christmas tree, toys, and whatnot.”
“Garth was just amazing,” said Ayla. “He got Imra calmed down, called the paramedics, and had her consent to being sedated. I guess all their time together has allowed him to build some resistance to her telepathy. He and the paramedics got her under control, then had her transferred to Medicus One-Oh-One. When he was sure we were all OK, he followed her there. He claims he’s not coming back until she’s cured.”
“From personal experience,” said Mekt, “I have high confidence in the modern psychiatric science. But I do not expect Imra to return to us in a short time.”
“I thought your mom was doing well,” said Pol. “Last time you talked to her, she was so positive, right?”
“Well, actually,” said Dacey, “Her calm, worry-free acceptance was a symptom of the underlying problem. When she and Dad were on vacation on Vondra, she had some kind of uncanny, supernatural epiphany that she claimed changed her life and resolved all her fears. She hasn’t talked about the particulars. But it seems like she’s just been suppressing all her anxieties since then, and the cognitive dissonance finally overwhelmed her.”
“Wow, how are you guys holding up?” asked Pol.
“OK, I guess,” said Dorrit. “But I don’t think Christmas is going to be such an enjoyable time of year for us in the future.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/17/18 01:56 PM
Encounter with a God
Keith Douglas (1936)
Ono-no-komache the poetess
sat on the ground among her flowers,
sat in her delicate-patterned dress
thinking of the rowers,
thinking of the god Daikoku.
Thinking of the rock pool
and carp in the waterfall at night.
Daikoku in accordance with the rule
is beautiful, she said, with a slight
tendency to angles.
But Daikoku came
who had been drinking all night
with the greenish gods of chance and fame.
He was rotund standing in the moonlight,
with a round, white paunch.
Who said
I am not beautiful,
I do not wish to be wonderfully made,
I am intoxicated dutiful daughter,
and I will not be in a poem.
But the poetess sat still
holding her head and making verses:
‘How intricate and peculiarly well-
arranged the symmetrical belly-purses
of lord Daikoku.’
=================================================
Ballad of the Bread Man
Charles Causley (1968)
Mary stood in the kitchen
Baking a loaf of bread.
An angel flew in through the window.
‘We’ve a job for you,’ he said.
'God in his big gold heaven
Sitting in his big blue chair,
Wanted a mother for his little son.
Suddenly saw you there.’
Mary shook and trembled,
‘It isn’t true what you say.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said the angel.
‘The baby’s on its way.’
Joseph was in the workshop
Planing a piece of wood.
‘The old man’s past it,’ the neighbours said.
‘That girl’s been up to no good.’
‘And who was that elegant fellow,’
They said. ‘in the shiny gear?’
The things they said about Gabriel
Were hardly fit to hear.
Mary never answered,
Mary never replied.
She kept the information,
Like the baby, safe inside.
It was the election winter.
They went to vote in town.
When Mary found her time had come
The hotels let her down.
The baby was born in an annex
Next to the local pub.
At midnight, a delegation
Turned up from the Farmers’ Club.
They talked about an explosion
That made a hole in the sky,
Said they’d been sent to the Lamb and Flag
To see God come down from on high.
A few days later a bishop
And a five-star general were seen
With the head of an African country
In a bullet-proof limousine.
‘We’ve come,’ they said ‘with tokens
For the little boy to choose.’
Told the tale about war and peace
In the television news.
After them came the soldiers
With rifle and bombs and gun,
Looking for enemies of the state.
The family had packed up and gone.
When they got back to the village
The neighbours said, to a man,
‘That boy will never be one of us,
Though he does what he blessed well can.’
He went round to all the people
A paper crown on his head.
Here is some bread from my father.
Take, eat, he said.
Nobody seemed very hungry.
Nobody seemed to care.
Nobody saw the god in himself
Quietly standing there.
He finished up in the papers,
He came to a very bad end.
He was charged with bringing the living to life.
No man was that prisoner’s friend.
There’s only one kind of punishment
To fit that kind of crime.
They rigged a trial and shot him dead.
They were only just in time.
They lifted the young man by the leg,
Thy lifted him by the arm,
They locked him in a cathedral
In case he came to harm.
They stored him safe as water
Under seven rocks.
One Sunday morning he burst out
Like a jack-in-the-box.
Through the town he went walking.
He showed them the holes in his head.
Now do you want any loaves? he cried.
‘Not today’ they said.
==========================================================
Keith Douglas (1936)
Ono-no-komache the poetess
sat on the ground among her flowers,
sat in her delicate-patterned dress
thinking of the rowers,
thinking of the god Daikoku.
Thinking of the rock pool
and carp in the waterfall at night.
Daikoku in accordance with the rule
is beautiful, she said, with a slight
tendency to angles.
But Daikoku came
who had been drinking all night
with the greenish gods of chance and fame.
He was rotund standing in the moonlight,
with a round, white paunch.
Who said
I am not beautiful,
I do not wish to be wonderfully made,
I am intoxicated dutiful daughter,
and I will not be in a poem.
But the poetess sat still
holding her head and making verses:
‘How intricate and peculiarly well-
arranged the symmetrical belly-purses
of lord Daikoku.’
=================================================
Ballad of the Bread Man
Charles Causley (1968)
Mary stood in the kitchen
Baking a loaf of bread.
An angel flew in through the window.
‘We’ve a job for you,’ he said.
'God in his big gold heaven
Sitting in his big blue chair,
Wanted a mother for his little son.
Suddenly saw you there.’
Mary shook and trembled,
‘It isn’t true what you say.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said the angel.
‘The baby’s on its way.’
Joseph was in the workshop
Planing a piece of wood.
‘The old man’s past it,’ the neighbours said.
‘That girl’s been up to no good.’
‘And who was that elegant fellow,’
They said. ‘in the shiny gear?’
The things they said about Gabriel
Were hardly fit to hear.
Mary never answered,
Mary never replied.
She kept the information,
Like the baby, safe inside.
It was the election winter.
They went to vote in town.
When Mary found her time had come
The hotels let her down.
The baby was born in an annex
Next to the local pub.
At midnight, a delegation
Turned up from the Farmers’ Club.
They talked about an explosion
That made a hole in the sky,
Said they’d been sent to the Lamb and Flag
To see God come down from on high.
A few days later a bishop
And a five-star general were seen
With the head of an African country
In a bullet-proof limousine.
‘We’ve come,’ they said ‘with tokens
For the little boy to choose.’
Told the tale about war and peace
In the television news.
After them came the soldiers
With rifle and bombs and gun,
Looking for enemies of the state.
The family had packed up and gone.
When they got back to the village
The neighbours said, to a man,
‘That boy will never be one of us,
Though he does what he blessed well can.’
He went round to all the people
A paper crown on his head.
Here is some bread from my father.
Take, eat, he said.
Nobody seemed very hungry.
Nobody seemed to care.
Nobody saw the god in himself
Quietly standing there.
He finished up in the papers,
He came to a very bad end.
He was charged with bringing the living to life.
No man was that prisoner’s friend.
There’s only one kind of punishment
To fit that kind of crime.
They rigged a trial and shot him dead.
They were only just in time.
They lifted the young man by the leg,
Thy lifted him by the arm,
They locked him in a cathedral
In case he came to harm.
They stored him safe as water
Under seven rocks.
One Sunday morning he burst out
Like a jack-in-the-box.
Through the town he went walking.
He showed them the holes in his head.
Now do you want any loaves? he cried.
‘Not today’ they said.
==========================================================
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/21/18 11:07 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART FIVE: MEDICUS ONE-ZERO-ONE
“I must have your complete trust, Mrs. Ranzz,” the Head Physician of MIOI insisted. “Would you prefer a Terran doctor? I acknowledge there have been… conflicts… in the past, between our two peoples.”
“And yet it was the White Bokkites who rescued the first Titan colonies from disaster,” said Imra. “New Titan still celebrates Thanksgiving Night. No, Dr. Gudur, I am not one of the fashionably modern-day Terran xenophobes.”
Dr. Gudur pursed her lips, and steepled her fingers. “Tell me about your symptoms, as you experience them.”
“It is as if there is a second world overlaid on the one we share,” said Imra. “I know it is not real to you, but it appears as tangible to me as this table.” She rapped her knuckles on the desk between them. “I wear myself out disbelieving it.”
“For example?” asked Dr. Gudur.
“There is a scarlet serpent coiled on the corner of your desk. He is not threatening. Friendly, in fact. But I somehow know you cannot see him. The walls of this Station sometimes seem terribly thin, like gauze. It is a wonder they can hold an atmosphere. I feel as though I could puncture them with my finger. The floors are soft, like pillows, or balloons. They shift. I have difficulty keeping my balance when I walk. Yet Garth has no problem walking right beside me. In fact, he is always there to catch me when I stumble.” She smiled at her husband sitting beside her. “Sometimes, I forget things. I find it difficult to concentrate. There is a constant murmuring of voices I cannot understand, and a background of music I do not recognize, distracting me. I will suddenly lose interest in life-- of either world-- and find I have been sitting, staring, doing nothing, for hours. Other times I am overcome with rage, that seems to come from nowhere. When I look in the mirror, my eyes and nose and mouth are empty sockets. I am frequently terrified that something disastrous has happened to my family, and it is my fault. I know this is all a product of my own disturbed mind, but I cannot get it under control. Just keeping up an appearance of normalcy exhausts me.”
“Do you understand you must continue to wear your psionic suppressor?” asked Dr. Gudur. “And not attempt to escape from this Station again until we release you?”
Imra nodded. “Of course I understand. But I cannot guarantee that tomorrow I will not try again. You must keep me under constant monitoring, for my safety, and yours. I’m sorry.” Tears dripped from her red-rimmed blue eyes. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
Her room on Medicus IOI was dark when Imra awoke. Garth lay beside her, snoring gently.
“I love you, My Fire,” said Imra. Her husband gave no sign that he had heard.
The lights in the common room were low, scarcely bright enough to find one’s way across the floor. Wally was sitting in one of the reclining chairs. He rather resembled a very young Clark Kent.
“Hello, Wally,” said Imra. “Things haven’t gone so well since I saw you on Vondra.”
“A great man once said, ‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.’”
“I never understand you.”
“Do you remember what I told you on Vondra?”
“You told me to become as a little child. Quite the advice in Aurora Valley.”
“I also told you to stop worrying so much. I believe my exact words were ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”
“Are you real, or just part of my illness?” asked Imra. “You haven’t appeared to anyone but me.”
“I’m not appearing to you,” said Wally, “You’re seeing me. And yes, I’m real. Realer than a lot of things in this Galaxy you take for granted.”
“Who are you, really, Wally? What are you?”
“Well, you’ve met Dream and Delirium of the Endless? You know what they are? Anthropomorphic Personifications of Universal Forces. There are a lot of them running around the Universe. That’s what I am. An Anthropomorphic Personification.”
“Of what?” asked Imra. “Of God?”
“Of the idea of God,” said Wally.
“And where is the idea of Imra Ardeen-Ranzz?”
“Oh, all over, really. There is one in your husband’s mind, and one in each of the minds of your children, and one in the mind of God. That’s the important one.”
Imra sighed. “Why are you here, Wally? Why bother with me?”
“I like you, Imra.”
“Like those Hari Ramas at the spaceport say?” asked Imra. “The ones who shout ‘God loves you!’ at the all the people waiting in the queues?”
“The Hari Ramas get many thing wrong,” said Wally. “But they are right about that.”
“Why? Am I such a good person?”
“That’s beside the point.” Wally shook his head. “It’s not that you’re necessarily a good person, it’s that you are worth saving.”
“I’m afraid I’ve fallen too far,” said Imra. “I can’t see how I could ever find my way back.”
“Well, I can’t heal you all at once,” said Wally, hopping down from the chair. “That would seem suspicious. The doctors here would never believe it. And believe me, I'm an expert on believing. I think maybe… two weeks? Of steady, rapid progress? Then a few months of more gradual recovery. Are you on board?”
“But how?”
“Two pieces of advice. Firstly: that there are false gods, and there are true Gods. False gods are strengthened by your belief in them. But your faith in the true Gods strengthens you. This is how to ell the difference. Now please stop wasting your strength believing in Darkseid.”
Imra could no longer look Wally in the eye.
“Secondly,” said Wally. “Be Still And Know.”
“Know? What?” asked Imra, confused. A shiver suddenly passed over her. She had the beginning of an inkling that there might indeed be a path back to her old self stretching out into the future.
“And there is one last thing,” said Wally. “I must call upon the assistance of one more Anthropomorphic Personification. The Avatar of the Joy of Giving.”
A large round man emerged from the shadows. He strongly resembled Chuck Taine, although his beard was whiter and fuller, and his nose was rounder and pinker. He was clothed entirely in auburn and cream-colored fur. There was a sense of snow and holly about him.
“Santa Claus?” cried Imra. “Now I know this is only a dream-- or a hallucination.”
“There is a quality to Dreams,” said Wally. “Just as there is a quality to Life. Look within yourself. You know now that this is not a dream. But you will need a token of some kind to still believe that tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll overlook your lack of faith, Imra,” said Santa, sighing. “I’m afraid I don’t meet many your age who still believe in me.” He handed a package wrapped in a red-and-green plaid to Imra. “I brought you a gift. Don’t open it until tomorrow morning.” Santa smiled at Imra, and winked.
The room began to spin, and Imra sunk down on one of the soft couches.
“Merry Christmas,” said Santa Claus.
“Sleep well,” said Wally. “Get better.”
She awoke in her own bed. Garth was standing over her, holding the red-and-green plaid package.
“Full service on MIOI,” said Garth. “Presents on Christmas morning. Look what Santa brought me.”
He held up a Christmas ornament: a small wooden lightning bolt, hand-carved, painted gold.
“Open yours.”
Imra took the package cautiously. It was about the size of a shoebox. There was a soft fabric doll inside, obviously handmade.
“Iggles?” she said. She looked up at Garth. “My mother made me a doll just like this when I was… I had Iggles forever, kept her for years and years, until I wore the stuffing out of her…” She turned the doll over. The crooked stitching was perfectly recognizable. “Oh, only until I was in Kindergarten, really... I’d forgotten all about her... Haven’t thought of her since… a long, long time ago. Before we formed the Legion, at least. How could even a telepath…?”
Garth seemed perplexed by his wife’s reaction to a perfectly ordinary little child’s doll.
“Do you know what, My Fire?” said Imra. “I think that next year is the year I'm going get better. I feel like I’ve been… reborn this Christmas. I love you.” She kissed her husband Christmas morning.
HOLIDAYS-PART FIVE: MEDICUS ONE-ZERO-ONE
“I must have your complete trust, Mrs. Ranzz,” the Head Physician of MIOI insisted. “Would you prefer a Terran doctor? I acknowledge there have been… conflicts… in the past, between our two peoples.”
“And yet it was the White Bokkites who rescued the first Titan colonies from disaster,” said Imra. “New Titan still celebrates Thanksgiving Night. No, Dr. Gudur, I am not one of the fashionably modern-day Terran xenophobes.”
Dr. Gudur pursed her lips, and steepled her fingers. “Tell me about your symptoms, as you experience them.”
“It is as if there is a second world overlaid on the one we share,” said Imra. “I know it is not real to you, but it appears as tangible to me as this table.” She rapped her knuckles on the desk between them. “I wear myself out disbelieving it.”
“For example?” asked Dr. Gudur.
“There is a scarlet serpent coiled on the corner of your desk. He is not threatening. Friendly, in fact. But I somehow know you cannot see him. The walls of this Station sometimes seem terribly thin, like gauze. It is a wonder they can hold an atmosphere. I feel as though I could puncture them with my finger. The floors are soft, like pillows, or balloons. They shift. I have difficulty keeping my balance when I walk. Yet Garth has no problem walking right beside me. In fact, he is always there to catch me when I stumble.” She smiled at her husband sitting beside her. “Sometimes, I forget things. I find it difficult to concentrate. There is a constant murmuring of voices I cannot understand, and a background of music I do not recognize, distracting me. I will suddenly lose interest in life-- of either world-- and find I have been sitting, staring, doing nothing, for hours. Other times I am overcome with rage, that seems to come from nowhere. When I look in the mirror, my eyes and nose and mouth are empty sockets. I am frequently terrified that something disastrous has happened to my family, and it is my fault. I know this is all a product of my own disturbed mind, but I cannot get it under control. Just keeping up an appearance of normalcy exhausts me.”
“Do you understand you must continue to wear your psionic suppressor?” asked Dr. Gudur. “And not attempt to escape from this Station again until we release you?”
Imra nodded. “Of course I understand. But I cannot guarantee that tomorrow I will not try again. You must keep me under constant monitoring, for my safety, and yours. I’m sorry.” Tears dripped from her red-rimmed blue eyes. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
Her room on Medicus IOI was dark when Imra awoke. Garth lay beside her, snoring gently.
“I love you, My Fire,” said Imra. Her husband gave no sign that he had heard.
The lights in the common room were low, scarcely bright enough to find one’s way across the floor. Wally was sitting in one of the reclining chairs. He rather resembled a very young Clark Kent.
“Hello, Wally,” said Imra. “Things haven’t gone so well since I saw you on Vondra.”
“A great man once said, ‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.’”
“I never understand you.”
“Do you remember what I told you on Vondra?”
“You told me to become as a little child. Quite the advice in Aurora Valley.”
“I also told you to stop worrying so much. I believe my exact words were ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”
“Are you real, or just part of my illness?” asked Imra. “You haven’t appeared to anyone but me.”
“I’m not appearing to you,” said Wally, “You’re seeing me. And yes, I’m real. Realer than a lot of things in this Galaxy you take for granted.”
“Who are you, really, Wally? What are you?”
“Well, you’ve met Dream and Delirium of the Endless? You know what they are? Anthropomorphic Personifications of Universal Forces. There are a lot of them running around the Universe. That’s what I am. An Anthropomorphic Personification.”
“Of what?” asked Imra. “Of God?”
“Of the idea of God,” said Wally.
“And where is the idea of Imra Ardeen-Ranzz?”
“Oh, all over, really. There is one in your husband’s mind, and one in each of the minds of your children, and one in the mind of God. That’s the important one.”
Imra sighed. “Why are you here, Wally? Why bother with me?”
“I like you, Imra.”
“Like those Hari Ramas at the spaceport say?” asked Imra. “The ones who shout ‘God loves you!’ at the all the people waiting in the queues?”
“The Hari Ramas get many thing wrong,” said Wally. “But they are right about that.”
“Why? Am I such a good person?”
“That’s beside the point.” Wally shook his head. “It’s not that you’re necessarily a good person, it’s that you are worth saving.”
“I’m afraid I’ve fallen too far,” said Imra. “I can’t see how I could ever find my way back.”
“Well, I can’t heal you all at once,” said Wally, hopping down from the chair. “That would seem suspicious. The doctors here would never believe it. And believe me, I'm an expert on believing. I think maybe… two weeks? Of steady, rapid progress? Then a few months of more gradual recovery. Are you on board?”
“But how?”
“Two pieces of advice. Firstly: that there are false gods, and there are true Gods. False gods are strengthened by your belief in them. But your faith in the true Gods strengthens you. This is how to ell the difference. Now please stop wasting your strength believing in Darkseid.”
Imra could no longer look Wally in the eye.
“Secondly,” said Wally. “Be Still And Know.”
“Know? What?” asked Imra, confused. A shiver suddenly passed over her. She had the beginning of an inkling that there might indeed be a path back to her old self stretching out into the future.
“And there is one last thing,” said Wally. “I must call upon the assistance of one more Anthropomorphic Personification. The Avatar of the Joy of Giving.”
A large round man emerged from the shadows. He strongly resembled Chuck Taine, although his beard was whiter and fuller, and his nose was rounder and pinker. He was clothed entirely in auburn and cream-colored fur. There was a sense of snow and holly about him.
“Santa Claus?” cried Imra. “Now I know this is only a dream-- or a hallucination.”
“There is a quality to Dreams,” said Wally. “Just as there is a quality to Life. Look within yourself. You know now that this is not a dream. But you will need a token of some kind to still believe that tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll overlook your lack of faith, Imra,” said Santa, sighing. “I’m afraid I don’t meet many your age who still believe in me.” He handed a package wrapped in a red-and-green plaid to Imra. “I brought you a gift. Don’t open it until tomorrow morning.” Santa smiled at Imra, and winked.
The room began to spin, and Imra sunk down on one of the soft couches.
“Merry Christmas,” said Santa Claus.
“Sleep well,” said Wally. “Get better.”
She awoke in her own bed. Garth was standing over her, holding the red-and-green plaid package.
“Full service on MIOI,” said Garth. “Presents on Christmas morning. Look what Santa brought me.”
He held up a Christmas ornament: a small wooden lightning bolt, hand-carved, painted gold.
“Open yours.”
Imra took the package cautiously. It was about the size of a shoebox. There was a soft fabric doll inside, obviously handmade.
“Iggles?” she said. She looked up at Garth. “My mother made me a doll just like this when I was… I had Iggles forever, kept her for years and years, until I wore the stuffing out of her…” She turned the doll over. The crooked stitching was perfectly recognizable. “Oh, only until I was in Kindergarten, really... I’d forgotten all about her... Haven’t thought of her since… a long, long time ago. Before we formed the Legion, at least. How could even a telepath…?”
Garth seemed perplexed by his wife’s reaction to a perfectly ordinary little child’s doll.
“Do you know what, My Fire?” said Imra. “I think that next year is the year I'm going get better. I feel like I’ve been… reborn this Christmas. I love you.” She kissed her husband Christmas morning.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/28/18 02:00 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART SIX: ORZDE
Shrinking Violet, Chameleon, The Triplicate Girls and Korvea thought it absurd to hang around the Clubhouse on Mars with the rest of the members scattered across the Galaxy. Shrinking Violet convinced her parents to spring for passage for six to Orzde.
“If you don’t mind staying on a farm,” she cautioned. “We have plenty of room, although the accommodations might not be what you’re used to.”
“I’ve slept in trees and burrows,” Chameleon reminded her.
“It may not be a palace,” said Korvea, “But what is?” She looked pointedly at the Mark II Cruiser-now-Clubhouse on the beach.
“Should we be offended?” asked Ffey.
“We better get on our way to the Metropolis Spaceport,” said Korvea. “We don’t want to miss our flight to the Irulan System.”
Eulia and the Triplicates used their flight rings. Korvea and Chameleon sprouted wings, and flew under their own power. When they disembarked at the Orzdean spaceport, they used the same method to fly out to the M’Kord farm.
They were met by a young girl, perhaps half Ten’s age.
“Where are the folks, Song?” asked Eulia.
“They went over to Brokee’s Ranch. Dad’s tired of Elvabird again.”
Eulia swept her arm around the farm. “We grow vegetable exotics, mostly,” she said. “Some staples for our own consumption. But the only animals on the farm are Elvabirds.”
“Or my pets!” Song reminded her.
“We’re a small operation-- just a kilohectare-- but up the road, the Brokees run big grazing lands for cattle: Dragolopes, Hoppos, Hexacorns and Woollies.”
The M’Kord parents still had not returned by the time Eulia had given the other Members a tour of the main house and the farm.
“The folks fixed up rooms in the Old House for you,” Song told them. There were three rooms: one for the Triplicates, one for Korvea and Shrinking Violet, and one for Chameleon. Eulia’s room had a small aquarium in it.
“I put Charlotte in your room to keep you company,” said Song.
Charlotte was a triangular, semi-transparent, fishy thing.
“He’s a Mega-Copepod,” Eulia explained.
“I have two more,” said Song.
“It’s been a long flight,” said Eulia. “But I think tomorrow we’ll go into The City.”
Hal and Puira M’Kord returned a couple of hours before suppertime. Eulia’s older brothers Antoin and Anson came with them. Korvea thought Puira looked scarcely older than her sons-- only slightly older than Kallor Nal, even.
“They’re half-brothers,” Eulia explained. “Their other mother lives out in the opposite hemisphere. They visit her regularly, but they mostly live here. They like the Farm a lot.”
Hal M’Kord was tall and broad, with curly red hair and a bushy red beard. He was smiling and friendly, but quiet and taciturn. A six-word sentence from him was an oration.
Dinner was a savory Elvabird-egg custard with plenty of vegetables, served with thick Hoppo-bacon, and spongy Orzdean muffins.
Afterwards, the visitors went out to watch the sunset. Irulan, Orzde’s tiny white sun, was scarcely a small dot in the sky, but kaleidoscopic light colors flooded the horizon at dusk.
Song followed them out with two swooping parrotdactyls and a largish hamster-like creature with an immense black nose behind her.
“That’s Scarlet and Sapphire in the sky,” said Eulia.
“And this is Trip,” said Song, holding up the large-nosed creature proudly.
“Funnily enough,” said Eulia, “Triprodons are the only other animals in the Irulan system who can change their size at will. Aside from people, that is, and space-dragons.”
Trip was sniffing Chameleon when he startled suddenly, and shot up to an immense size-- at least three meters at the shoulder. Chameleon responded in kind, morphing into Trip’s twin. Trip sniffed again, and evidently satisfied, shrank back down to small-puppy-dog-size.
Song laughed. “Can I have Chameleon for a pet?”
“Chameleon is a person,” Eulia reminded her.
“I know,” Song sing-songed. But she also gave a little pout before her smile returned.
“Song also has a Mothcat and a Zortugan,” said Eulia. “She takes care of her pets, and that keeps her out of trouble on the farm. You haven’t got any more since I’ve been away, have you?”
“Do you know about Fluffy?” asked Song.
“Yes, I heard about Fluffy,” said Eulia.
“What I really want a snake,” said Song. “But the folks won’t get any strange alien animals for me.”
“We’ll go to Germel City tomorrow,” Eulia told the others. “It’s one of Orzde’s fractal cities. You might find it interesting.
HOLIDAYS-PART SIX: ORZDE
Shrinking Violet, Chameleon, The Triplicate Girls and Korvea thought it absurd to hang around the Clubhouse on Mars with the rest of the members scattered across the Galaxy. Shrinking Violet convinced her parents to spring for passage for six to Orzde.
“If you don’t mind staying on a farm,” she cautioned. “We have plenty of room, although the accommodations might not be what you’re used to.”
“I’ve slept in trees and burrows,” Chameleon reminded her.
“It may not be a palace,” said Korvea, “But what is?” She looked pointedly at the Mark II Cruiser-now-Clubhouse on the beach.
“Should we be offended?” asked Ffey.
“We better get on our way to the Metropolis Spaceport,” said Korvea. “We don’t want to miss our flight to the Irulan System.”
Eulia and the Triplicates used their flight rings. Korvea and Chameleon sprouted wings, and flew under their own power. When they disembarked at the Orzdean spaceport, they used the same method to fly out to the M’Kord farm.
They were met by a young girl, perhaps half Ten’s age.
“Where are the folks, Song?” asked Eulia.
“They went over to Brokee’s Ranch. Dad’s tired of Elvabird again.”
Eulia swept her arm around the farm. “We grow vegetable exotics, mostly,” she said. “Some staples for our own consumption. But the only animals on the farm are Elvabirds.”
“Or my pets!” Song reminded her.
“We’re a small operation-- just a kilohectare-- but up the road, the Brokees run big grazing lands for cattle: Dragolopes, Hoppos, Hexacorns and Woollies.”
The M’Kord parents still had not returned by the time Eulia had given the other Members a tour of the main house and the farm.
“The folks fixed up rooms in the Old House for you,” Song told them. There were three rooms: one for the Triplicates, one for Korvea and Shrinking Violet, and one for Chameleon. Eulia’s room had a small aquarium in it.
“I put Charlotte in your room to keep you company,” said Song.
Charlotte was a triangular, semi-transparent, fishy thing.
“He’s a Mega-Copepod,” Eulia explained.
“I have two more,” said Song.
“It’s been a long flight,” said Eulia. “But I think tomorrow we’ll go into The City.”
Hal and Puira M’Kord returned a couple of hours before suppertime. Eulia’s older brothers Antoin and Anson came with them. Korvea thought Puira looked scarcely older than her sons-- only slightly older than Kallor Nal, even.
“They’re half-brothers,” Eulia explained. “Their other mother lives out in the opposite hemisphere. They visit her regularly, but they mostly live here. They like the Farm a lot.”
Hal M’Kord was tall and broad, with curly red hair and a bushy red beard. He was smiling and friendly, but quiet and taciturn. A six-word sentence from him was an oration.
Dinner was a savory Elvabird-egg custard with plenty of vegetables, served with thick Hoppo-bacon, and spongy Orzdean muffins.
Afterwards, the visitors went out to watch the sunset. Irulan, Orzde’s tiny white sun, was scarcely a small dot in the sky, but kaleidoscopic light colors flooded the horizon at dusk.
Song followed them out with two swooping parrotdactyls and a largish hamster-like creature with an immense black nose behind her.
“That’s Scarlet and Sapphire in the sky,” said Eulia.
“And this is Trip,” said Song, holding up the large-nosed creature proudly.
“Funnily enough,” said Eulia, “Triprodons are the only other animals in the Irulan system who can change their size at will. Aside from people, that is, and space-dragons.”
Trip was sniffing Chameleon when he startled suddenly, and shot up to an immense size-- at least three meters at the shoulder. Chameleon responded in kind, morphing into Trip’s twin. Trip sniffed again, and evidently satisfied, shrank back down to small-puppy-dog-size.
Song laughed. “Can I have Chameleon for a pet?”
“Chameleon is a person,” Eulia reminded her.
“I know,” Song sing-songed. But she also gave a little pout before her smile returned.
“Song also has a Mothcat and a Zortugan,” said Eulia. “She takes care of her pets, and that keeps her out of trouble on the farm. You haven’t got any more since I’ve been away, have you?”
“Do you know about Fluffy?” asked Song.
“Yes, I heard about Fluffy,” said Eulia.
“What I really want a snake,” said Song. “But the folks won’t get any strange alien animals for me.”
“We’ll go to Germel City tomorrow,” Eulia told the others. “It’s one of Orzde’s fractal cities. You might find it interesting.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/02/19 07:07 PM
The near-forgotten history of Colu, to diverse Christmas parties, to encounters with the idea of God and ending on a fractal city: the head spins, sans champagne.
Yoddish is a very compact language. Efficiency or merely simplicity?
The poor Super-Villains can't go home for Xmas and it appears their parents don't want to come visit them. Good to have a friend like Kallor Nal.
If I could only attend one party, I'd go for the Taines. Snow and conviviality and ginger perry (which I had never heard of). Tharr sure knows how to celebrate but it's a bit too much - and not sure I'd want to be stuck on a cruise ship with Winema.
Is that the first time anyone has called Chuck Taine "Charles"? Reminds me of Marion calling Fonzie Arthur on Happy Days.
Imra's encounter with Wally was particularly interesting. A spiritual awakening, or perhaps more of a cleansing, of the power which Darkseid (the idea of Darkseid) had over her.
Yoddish is a very compact language. Efficiency or merely simplicity?
The poor Super-Villains can't go home for Xmas and it appears their parents don't want to come visit them. Good to have a friend like Kallor Nal.
If I could only attend one party, I'd go for the Taines. Snow and conviviality and ginger perry (which I had never heard of). Tharr sure knows how to celebrate but it's a bit too much - and not sure I'd want to be stuck on a cruise ship with Winema.
Is that the first time anyone has called Chuck Taine "Charles"? Reminds me of Marion calling Fonzie Arthur on Happy Days.
Imra's encounter with Wally was particularly interesting. A spiritual awakening, or perhaps more of a cleansing, of the power which Darkseid (the idea of Darkseid) had over her.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/03/19 11:55 AM
I'm glad Imra's story doesn't end with her having a breakdown
Also, the idea of a snake as a strange alien animal made me chuckle
Also, the idea of a snake as a strange alien animal made me chuckle
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/05/19 02:34 PM
razsolo:
Imra’s story is far, far from over. Considering the life-extension techniques extant in the 31st century, she reasonably has a good century of life left.
Of course, Rejuvium’s efficacy can vary from individual to individual…
Cramer:
OF COURSE anyone would want to spend Christmas with the Taines.
While penning the Rainbow Girl Epic, I realized how central Chuck and Lu really are to Legion history.
Triplicate Girl was the fourth member to join, after the founders (and arguably the fifth and sixth as well) and she was still there at the end. Chuck encouraged Legion rejects and had ties to the Science Police. They were the first to marry, and leave the Legion and begin their adult lives-- but kept coming back. We have seen them as colonists on Wondil-9, military leaders on Xolnar (they seemed to have an affinity for frozen worlds) and instructors at the Academy. They worked with the first Legionnaires, and taught the last Legionnaires.
And now, about that fractal city...
Imra’s story is far, far from over. Considering the life-extension techniques extant in the 31st century, she reasonably has a good century of life left.
Of course, Rejuvium’s efficacy can vary from individual to individual…
Cramer:
OF COURSE anyone would want to spend Christmas with the Taines.
While penning the Rainbow Girl Epic, I realized how central Chuck and Lu really are to Legion history.
Triplicate Girl was the fourth member to join, after the founders (and arguably the fifth and sixth as well) and she was still there at the end. Chuck encouraged Legion rejects and had ties to the Science Police. They were the first to marry, and leave the Legion and begin their adult lives-- but kept coming back. We have seen them as colonists on Wondil-9, military leaders on Xolnar (they seemed to have an affinity for frozen worlds) and instructors at the Academy. They worked with the first Legionnaires, and taught the last Legionnaires.
And now, about that fractal city...
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/05/19 02:36 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN
HOLIDAYS-PART SEVEN: THE MICROVERSE
Germel City was a set of concentric rings, each decreasing in size by one-half as it approached the city center. Korvea, the Triplicates, and Chameleon were supplied with shrinking belts so that they could tour the entire town.
Halfway to the city center, the height of all the building reduced by half. Three-quarters of the way in, the size of the neighborhoods reduced by half again. Seven-eighths of the way in, everything reduced by half again, and so on.
After four hours of walking-- and seven reductions-- they had, of course, made no progress at all to the City Center.
“Come on-- we’ll take a Tourist Bus,” said Eulia, laughing.
They drove through the Circles for another hour and a half. The neighborhoods repeated themselves over and over, each replicating the structures a level above. Each reduction saw a change of materials: wood and brick gave way to ceramic and shellacked cardboard; then things began to get very metallic, and at last, unidentifiable materials. At last they came to a great wall, where in other circles there had been a border between reductions.
“Everybody out,” said Eulia. “Twenty-Fourth Circle of Germel City. End of the line.”
“But couldn’t we just keep on forever?” asked Ffarrah.
“Mathematically, yes,” said the driver. “Practically, no. Building at levels below this one would be unstable, especially during the Shrinking Seasons.”
“What is this gritty material?” asked Ffiona, looking at a wall. “It looks almost like sandstone.”
“Those tiny grains,” said Eulia, “Are atoms. And beyond that barrier”-- she indicated a portal masked in sparkling, violet energy-- “lies the Microverse, where the laws of physics are… different.”
The Tourist Bus and driver left, and the Members went to inspect the portal.
“This portal will reduce us in size another billion times,” said Eulia. “Small enough to enter deep within the Microverse, and live comfortably on the surface of an atom, as if it were a planet. Full-on quantum mechanics is the rule there, but there is also some uncertainty about what is real, and when what you are perceiving is only symbolic of what is really there. Remember, uncertainty is the rule, and not the exception. And the Laws of the Universe change in other, less intuitive ways as well. No two experiences of the Microverse are ever the same. But one thing is certain: there are two ways out: UP, back the way we came, and DOWN, out through the other side of the Planck length.”
“Got it,” said Ffiona.
“You do?” asked Ffarrah and Ffey together.
The Triplicates, Chameleon, Korvea, and Shrinking Violet went through the violet curtain.
And came out the other side.
The Triplicates and Shrinking Violet were unchanged, but Chameleon and Korvea were nearly unrecognizable.
Chameleon had the appearance of an melting, orange pyramid, his humanoid head perched atop at a skewed angle. Korvea appeared a living, three-dimensional shadow, with bird wings and bird head. Her hands, when she spread them, were like claws.
“I feel cold,” said Korvea. “Colder than I’ve ever felt. But strangely, not uncomfortable.”
“Don’t try to shape-shift just yet,” Eulia instructed Chameleon. “Watch what happens when the Triplicates try to use their powers. Go ahead and fuse together for a moment,” she instructed them.
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey moved toward one another, but as they did, shimmering, ghostly copies of themselves appeared around them. As they fused together, the doppelgangers became more solid, until there were thousands of the girls stretching out into the distance.
“Just as I thought,” said Eulia. “When you try to combine, your position only becomes more uncertain. It would probably be better to remain as three, and keep several arms-lengths away from each other. You will probably be more comfortable when traveling, as the uncertainty in momentum will make up for some of the uncertainty in position.”
“What about me?” asked Chameleon. “I can grow somewhat larger or smaller, but I can’t change shape-- and this is a particularly uncomfortable shape.”
“Try replicating something we can see in our immediate area-- like one of those tree-like things.”
“Wow, they’re hard to read,” said Chameleon, a flabby arm appearing to scratch his antennae. He finally managed to assume the form of an golden, tree-like semi-humanoid.
“Are we all OK?” asked Eulia. “Being Orzdean, I am perfectly comfortable in the Microverse.” She shot up to a relative height of about twenty feet, then shrunk back down again. “Perfect control,” she said. “Of course, I’ve been here before.”
It was at that point they heard the cries for help.
It was a rough, stone prison, with iron bars. A beautiful young girl cried frantically from within.
“Oh, help me, brave knights! I am the Princess Duessa, held captive here by a loathsome, savage giant. Oh, rescue me.”
“How can you be held captive?” asked Ffiona. “If I understand the way things work here…” she approached the prison, and pressed herself up against the bars, remaining perfectly still. Her image shimmered, and she was suddenly inside the prison cell with Princess Duessa. “Quantum tunneling, right? That’s the first time I’ve tried that trick, and it’s easy enough. Can’t you do the same?”
Princess Duessa drew back, her hand over her mouth in terror-- or mock terror.
“Take my hand, and we’ll leave this place together,” said Ffiona.
A voice came from outside.
“Do not trust her!” shouted a second girl. She is leading you into a trap!”
“And who are you?” asked Ffey.
“I am Princess Una,” said the Princess. “And you are in grave danger!”
Ffiona had phased through the walls of Duessa’s prison alone. “Are there Cargggites in the Microverse?” she asked Shrinking Violet. “Una, Duessa… I’m expecting Princess Treya to show up any time now.”
“They may not even be strictly real,” said Eulia. “Their main purpose seems to be to serve as a warning or harbinger of something…”
“Her purpose is to hold you here until the giant Orgoglio arrives!” cried Princess Una.
“It is Duessa that is the servant of Orgoglio!” cried Princess Duessa, still cowering in her cell. “Oh, please rescue me, brave knights!”
“And why are we the knights?” asked Ffey. “I feel like we’ve wandered into a story, and been mistaken for someone else.”
“Duessa is duplicitous and untrue…” cried Una.
The giant Orgoglio rose from beneath the ground, to the harmonious screaming of the two princesses.
He was at least fifty feet tall, with warty orange skin. He was much broader, relatively speaking, than an ordinary man, and objectively uglier. The giant grabbed at Korvea, then shrieked in startled pain as his hand passed through her living shadow-self, and emerged covered with ice. Chameleon attempted to match the giant’s form, but ended up twice as tall. He threw Orgoglio back at the pit where he had risen from, but overshot, the giant landing amidst, and crushing, a small woodlands. An enraged Orgoglio surged to his feet, bellowing, but an enlarged Shrinking Violet grabbed the giant in one hand, and threw him a good hundred yards up and away. More crashing of trees was heard in the distance, and more-- but more pained-- bellowing.
“Hold, Monsters,” cried a third voice. A silver-clad knight on a cream-white charger had entered the battlefield. “You will answer to Dame Britomart, greatest of knights. But be warned-- never have I been defeated in battle!”
Chameleon returned to his lopsided pyramid shape, then struggled to return to humanoid tree form. Shrinking Violet did what she did best, and returned to an inconspicuous size.
“Where are your tormentors, Princesses?” asked Britomart. Her armour must have been quite loose-fitting, for no woman, however mightily endowed, could have filled its contours.
“Have you had enough?” asked Shrinking Violet. “We seem to be interfering in a tale whose logic frankly escapes me.”
The Triplicates nodded, in unanimous agreement.
“I, for one, would like to regain more control over my shape,” said Chameleon.
“And while I find these new abilities intriguing, I would like to practice them under more controlled circumstances,” said Korvea. “Do you think I might be able to replicate this shadow-self back in the Macroverse?”
“Doubtful,” said Shrinking Violet, growing again to an immense height. She scooped up the other five members. “The laws of physics are so different at this size.” At an appropriate size, she leaped off the little world, and continued rapidly growing up to full size. She stowed her friends in one of the pouches of her belt. When the reached the Twenty-Fourth Circle, she used her flight belt to fly out and above the Germel City. At her full height of nearly six feet, she released the other Members.
“I’ve taken you this far,” she said. “You should be able to use your belts to return to full-size. We’ll need to turn them in at the front gate, and reclaim our deposits. I’m afraid we missed lunch at the farm, but we should be home in time for dinner.”
HOLIDAYS-PART SEVEN: THE MICROVERSE
Germel City was a set of concentric rings, each decreasing in size by one-half as it approached the city center. Korvea, the Triplicates, and Chameleon were supplied with shrinking belts so that they could tour the entire town.
Halfway to the city center, the height of all the building reduced by half. Three-quarters of the way in, the size of the neighborhoods reduced by half again. Seven-eighths of the way in, everything reduced by half again, and so on.
After four hours of walking-- and seven reductions-- they had, of course, made no progress at all to the City Center.
“Come on-- we’ll take a Tourist Bus,” said Eulia, laughing.
They drove through the Circles for another hour and a half. The neighborhoods repeated themselves over and over, each replicating the structures a level above. Each reduction saw a change of materials: wood and brick gave way to ceramic and shellacked cardboard; then things began to get very metallic, and at last, unidentifiable materials. At last they came to a great wall, where in other circles there had been a border between reductions.
“Everybody out,” said Eulia. “Twenty-Fourth Circle of Germel City. End of the line.”
“But couldn’t we just keep on forever?” asked Ffarrah.
“Mathematically, yes,” said the driver. “Practically, no. Building at levels below this one would be unstable, especially during the Shrinking Seasons.”
“What is this gritty material?” asked Ffiona, looking at a wall. “It looks almost like sandstone.”
“Those tiny grains,” said Eulia, “Are atoms. And beyond that barrier”-- she indicated a portal masked in sparkling, violet energy-- “lies the Microverse, where the laws of physics are… different.”
The Tourist Bus and driver left, and the Members went to inspect the portal.
“This portal will reduce us in size another billion times,” said Eulia. “Small enough to enter deep within the Microverse, and live comfortably on the surface of an atom, as if it were a planet. Full-on quantum mechanics is the rule there, but there is also some uncertainty about what is real, and when what you are perceiving is only symbolic of what is really there. Remember, uncertainty is the rule, and not the exception. And the Laws of the Universe change in other, less intuitive ways as well. No two experiences of the Microverse are ever the same. But one thing is certain: there are two ways out: UP, back the way we came, and DOWN, out through the other side of the Planck length.”
“Got it,” said Ffiona.
“You do?” asked Ffarrah and Ffey together.
The Triplicates, Chameleon, Korvea, and Shrinking Violet went through the violet curtain.
And came out the other side.
The Triplicates and Shrinking Violet were unchanged, but Chameleon and Korvea were nearly unrecognizable.
Chameleon had the appearance of an melting, orange pyramid, his humanoid head perched atop at a skewed angle. Korvea appeared a living, three-dimensional shadow, with bird wings and bird head. Her hands, when she spread them, were like claws.
“I feel cold,” said Korvea. “Colder than I’ve ever felt. But strangely, not uncomfortable.”
“Don’t try to shape-shift just yet,” Eulia instructed Chameleon. “Watch what happens when the Triplicates try to use their powers. Go ahead and fuse together for a moment,” she instructed them.
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey moved toward one another, but as they did, shimmering, ghostly copies of themselves appeared around them. As they fused together, the doppelgangers became more solid, until there were thousands of the girls stretching out into the distance.
“Just as I thought,” said Eulia. “When you try to combine, your position only becomes more uncertain. It would probably be better to remain as three, and keep several arms-lengths away from each other. You will probably be more comfortable when traveling, as the uncertainty in momentum will make up for some of the uncertainty in position.”
“What about me?” asked Chameleon. “I can grow somewhat larger or smaller, but I can’t change shape-- and this is a particularly uncomfortable shape.”
“Try replicating something we can see in our immediate area-- like one of those tree-like things.”
“Wow, they’re hard to read,” said Chameleon, a flabby arm appearing to scratch his antennae. He finally managed to assume the form of an golden, tree-like semi-humanoid.
“Are we all OK?” asked Eulia. “Being Orzdean, I am perfectly comfortable in the Microverse.” She shot up to a relative height of about twenty feet, then shrunk back down again. “Perfect control,” she said. “Of course, I’ve been here before.”
It was at that point they heard the cries for help.
It was a rough, stone prison, with iron bars. A beautiful young girl cried frantically from within.
“Oh, help me, brave knights! I am the Princess Duessa, held captive here by a loathsome, savage giant. Oh, rescue me.”
“How can you be held captive?” asked Ffiona. “If I understand the way things work here…” she approached the prison, and pressed herself up against the bars, remaining perfectly still. Her image shimmered, and she was suddenly inside the prison cell with Princess Duessa. “Quantum tunneling, right? That’s the first time I’ve tried that trick, and it’s easy enough. Can’t you do the same?”
Princess Duessa drew back, her hand over her mouth in terror-- or mock terror.
“Take my hand, and we’ll leave this place together,” said Ffiona.
A voice came from outside.
“Do not trust her!” shouted a second girl. She is leading you into a trap!”
“And who are you?” asked Ffey.
“I am Princess Una,” said the Princess. “And you are in grave danger!”
Ffiona had phased through the walls of Duessa’s prison alone. “Are there Cargggites in the Microverse?” she asked Shrinking Violet. “Una, Duessa… I’m expecting Princess Treya to show up any time now.”
“They may not even be strictly real,” said Eulia. “Their main purpose seems to be to serve as a warning or harbinger of something…”
“Her purpose is to hold you here until the giant Orgoglio arrives!” cried Princess Una.
“It is Duessa that is the servant of Orgoglio!” cried Princess Duessa, still cowering in her cell. “Oh, please rescue me, brave knights!”
“And why are we the knights?” asked Ffey. “I feel like we’ve wandered into a story, and been mistaken for someone else.”
“Duessa is duplicitous and untrue…” cried Una.
The giant Orgoglio rose from beneath the ground, to the harmonious screaming of the two princesses.
He was at least fifty feet tall, with warty orange skin. He was much broader, relatively speaking, than an ordinary man, and objectively uglier. The giant grabbed at Korvea, then shrieked in startled pain as his hand passed through her living shadow-self, and emerged covered with ice. Chameleon attempted to match the giant’s form, but ended up twice as tall. He threw Orgoglio back at the pit where he had risen from, but overshot, the giant landing amidst, and crushing, a small woodlands. An enraged Orgoglio surged to his feet, bellowing, but an enlarged Shrinking Violet grabbed the giant in one hand, and threw him a good hundred yards up and away. More crashing of trees was heard in the distance, and more-- but more pained-- bellowing.
“Hold, Monsters,” cried a third voice. A silver-clad knight on a cream-white charger had entered the battlefield. “You will answer to Dame Britomart, greatest of knights. But be warned-- never have I been defeated in battle!”
Chameleon returned to his lopsided pyramid shape, then struggled to return to humanoid tree form. Shrinking Violet did what she did best, and returned to an inconspicuous size.
“Where are your tormentors, Princesses?” asked Britomart. Her armour must have been quite loose-fitting, for no woman, however mightily endowed, could have filled its contours.
“Have you had enough?” asked Shrinking Violet. “We seem to be interfering in a tale whose logic frankly escapes me.”
The Triplicates nodded, in unanimous agreement.
“I, for one, would like to regain more control over my shape,” said Chameleon.
“And while I find these new abilities intriguing, I would like to practice them under more controlled circumstances,” said Korvea. “Do you think I might be able to replicate this shadow-self back in the Macroverse?”
“Doubtful,” said Shrinking Violet, growing again to an immense height. She scooped up the other five members. “The laws of physics are so different at this size.” At an appropriate size, she leaped off the little world, and continued rapidly growing up to full size. She stowed her friends in one of the pouches of her belt. When the reached the Twenty-Fourth Circle, she used her flight belt to fly out and above the Germel City. At her full height of nearly six feet, she released the other Members.
“I’ve taken you this far,” she said. “You should be able to use your belts to return to full-size. We’ll need to turn them in at the front gate, and reclaim our deposits. I’m afraid we missed lunch at the farm, but we should be home in time for dinner.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/11/19 10:05 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY
HOLIDAYS-PART SEVEN: THE RETURN
Saturn Girl, :Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy returned to the Clubhouse first.
“If I hear ‘All I Want For Christmas Is The Universe’ one more time, I think I’ll scream,” said Saturn Girl.
“Hey!” objected Lightning Lass. “That’s my favorite Christmas song!”
Polar Lass and Matter-Eater Lad Two showed up the next day.
“Next year, I’ll take you to Bismoll for Crystal Christmas,” Matter-Eater Lad Two promised.”Of course, we’ll have to pack you plenty of snacks.”
Ronin Nah dropped off Phantom Girl the following morning, and the Triplicates, Chameleon, Korvea and Shrinking Violet returned in that evening.
Star-Woman and the Super-Villain Club returned the following afternoon.
Ten and Vesta were last back from the holidays. “Who is that jolly fat man, all dressed in yellow, who gives away fruit to children at Christmastime?” asked Ten. “Banana Claus!" He paused a moment. “Juvenile Terran humour.” he explained.
The Members and Villains groaned.
“Please tell us this is not your latest course of study,” Black Flame implored.
“I am in a good mood,” Ten explained. “Despite the disapproval of Zthirri and her family, my parents and Guardian are sanguine regarding my increasing assimilation into alien cultures. If it is the wrong path after all, and I wish to embrace natural Coluan isolationism, I will have many centuries remaining to do so.”
“I find the remaining undercurrents of isolationism among the United Planets troubling,” said Black Flame. “Half of Earth is xenophobic, the Daxamites even moreso. The Krill keep to themselves, as do the Coluans and Amazonians. Naltorans, and the Saturnians of New Titan, are ostracized on many worlds, as are Durlans and Tharnans. It is a troubling state of affairs, for a confederacy of worlds who claim to be ‘United’.”
“I would not characterize Colu as xenophobic, merely inflexible and rigid. My Adult Advisor attributes this to an overenthusiam for gnostic learning, and an aversion to noetic experience. Gnostiphilia and Noetiphobia, if you will.”
Most of the Members and Villains stared at Ten blankly.
“Coluans study 17th-century philosophy?” asked Villian.
“The terminology dates from that period,” said Ten, “But the concepts were discussed at length a full millenium before, by the philosopher Lao Tzu and the Taoists, and may actually pre-date them. Of course, such ideas have been discussed on Colu for far longer. Although my Adult Advisor attributes general racial chauvinism throughout the Galaxy to his Parochialism Theory.”
“Which is?” asked Villian.
“Suppose you had ten thousand close friends,” said Ten. “People you really knew well, interacted with frequently, knew the intimate details of their lives. Of course, time constraints alone would make an intimacy of such proportions impossible. But suppose. And suppose you had ten thousand times ten thousand acquaintances-- people your friends were familiar with, and who you were somewhat aware of. There would still be a hundred trillion citizens of the United Planets who were complete strangers to you: their hopes, dreams, and sorrows unknown. You could only think of them in massive groups: inaccurate, generalized stereotypes. There would be some amelioration of this effect if your intimates were extraordinarily diverse, but this is seldom the case.”
“And your intimate associates are extremely diverse,” said Black Flame. “For the past year, you have seldom associated with other Coluans at all. Only-- well, to you, aliens.”
“This is correct,” said Ten. “I am something of a living social experiment. Although willing, I might add.”
“It is not just a problem in the UP,” said Shrinking Violet. “Between two and three Galactic Years ago, the Galaxy we now call the Milky Way had been colonized by two great civilizations: the Llorn and the Krill. Each inhabited hundreds of thousands of worlds, and consisted of tens of thousand of species. You could not identify a Llorn or Krill by sight alone. Each Empire, for instance, had several humanoid member species who would have been indistinguishable from Orzdeans.”
“And yet they were not one Empire, but two Empires. Supposedly divided by deep philosophical differences... but primarily just a plain Tribalism Mentality, the Krill-Llorn Wars stretched on for hundreds of millenia, sometimes flaring hot, the cooling off for a few centuries. At last, their hyper-advanced technology caused Galaxy-wide levels of destruction. Whole star clusters were annihilated, uncounted numbers died, and the Galaxy was thrown into chaos. A treaty was finally brokered: the Krill ‘won’; the Llorn left the Galaxy to colonize Andromeda. But the Galaxy had been unalterably changed. Extant planets found their ecologies thrown into chaos, the development of emerging worlds were stymied or corrupted by clouds of molecular-level debris fields throughout the Galaxy. Earth, for example, passed through a Krill-Llorn generated debris cloud a little under a half-billion years ago, which probably lead to what is known as the Cambrian extinction.”
“Fascinating,” Ten remarked. “Organic molecules would have made up a portion of those debris clouds, which might have altered the course of evolution on countless worlds. Inorganic molecules would have had a negative effect on developing life. All the Galaxy might all be descendants-- at least partially-- of the Krill and Llorn.”
“And Llorn,” noted Shrinking Violet.
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Evil-Eye Annie. “Are you saying that without these Galactic Wars, Terrans might have evolved from Trilobites or Nautili?”
“Like the Huuduu or Zpirrians?” asked Shriking Violet.
“Point taken,” said Annie. “The science of exovulution is complex, and unpredictable.”
“An interesting historical and philosophical discussion,” said Ten. “But I have work to do. Phantom Girl has returned me with a working flight ring, loaned to us by Mrs. Nah. If I can reverse-engineer it-- and obtain the appropriate materials-- I may be able to create a superior replacement for our flight belts.
HOLIDAYS-PART SEVEN: THE RETURN
Saturn Girl, :Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy returned to the Clubhouse first.
“If I hear ‘All I Want For Christmas Is The Universe’ one more time, I think I’ll scream,” said Saturn Girl.
“Hey!” objected Lightning Lass. “That’s my favorite Christmas song!”
Polar Lass and Matter-Eater Lad Two showed up the next day.
“Next year, I’ll take you to Bismoll for Crystal Christmas,” Matter-Eater Lad Two promised.”Of course, we’ll have to pack you plenty of snacks.”
Ronin Nah dropped off Phantom Girl the following morning, and the Triplicates, Chameleon, Korvea and Shrinking Violet returned in that evening.
Star-Woman and the Super-Villain Club returned the following afternoon.
Ten and Vesta were last back from the holidays. “Who is that jolly fat man, all dressed in yellow, who gives away fruit to children at Christmastime?” asked Ten. “Banana Claus!" He paused a moment. “Juvenile Terran humour.” he explained.
The Members and Villains groaned.
“Please tell us this is not your latest course of study,” Black Flame implored.
“I am in a good mood,” Ten explained. “Despite the disapproval of Zthirri and her family, my parents and Guardian are sanguine regarding my increasing assimilation into alien cultures. If it is the wrong path after all, and I wish to embrace natural Coluan isolationism, I will have many centuries remaining to do so.”
“I find the remaining undercurrents of isolationism among the United Planets troubling,” said Black Flame. “Half of Earth is xenophobic, the Daxamites even moreso. The Krill keep to themselves, as do the Coluans and Amazonians. Naltorans, and the Saturnians of New Titan, are ostracized on many worlds, as are Durlans and Tharnans. It is a troubling state of affairs, for a confederacy of worlds who claim to be ‘United’.”
“I would not characterize Colu as xenophobic, merely inflexible and rigid. My Adult Advisor attributes this to an overenthusiam for gnostic learning, and an aversion to noetic experience. Gnostiphilia and Noetiphobia, if you will.”
Most of the Members and Villains stared at Ten blankly.
“Coluans study 17th-century philosophy?” asked Villian.
“The terminology dates from that period,” said Ten, “But the concepts were discussed at length a full millenium before, by the philosopher Lao Tzu and the Taoists, and may actually pre-date them. Of course, such ideas have been discussed on Colu for far longer. Although my Adult Advisor attributes general racial chauvinism throughout the Galaxy to his Parochialism Theory.”
“Which is?” asked Villian.
“Suppose you had ten thousand close friends,” said Ten. “People you really knew well, interacted with frequently, knew the intimate details of their lives. Of course, time constraints alone would make an intimacy of such proportions impossible. But suppose. And suppose you had ten thousand times ten thousand acquaintances-- people your friends were familiar with, and who you were somewhat aware of. There would still be a hundred trillion citizens of the United Planets who were complete strangers to you: their hopes, dreams, and sorrows unknown. You could only think of them in massive groups: inaccurate, generalized stereotypes. There would be some amelioration of this effect if your intimates were extraordinarily diverse, but this is seldom the case.”
“And your intimate associates are extremely diverse,” said Black Flame. “For the past year, you have seldom associated with other Coluans at all. Only-- well, to you, aliens.”
“This is correct,” said Ten. “I am something of a living social experiment. Although willing, I might add.”
“It is not just a problem in the UP,” said Shrinking Violet. “Between two and three Galactic Years ago, the Galaxy we now call the Milky Way had been colonized by two great civilizations: the Llorn and the Krill. Each inhabited hundreds of thousands of worlds, and consisted of tens of thousand of species. You could not identify a Llorn or Krill by sight alone. Each Empire, for instance, had several humanoid member species who would have been indistinguishable from Orzdeans.”
“And yet they were not one Empire, but two Empires. Supposedly divided by deep philosophical differences... but primarily just a plain Tribalism Mentality, the Krill-Llorn Wars stretched on for hundreds of millenia, sometimes flaring hot, the cooling off for a few centuries. At last, their hyper-advanced technology caused Galaxy-wide levels of destruction. Whole star clusters were annihilated, uncounted numbers died, and the Galaxy was thrown into chaos. A treaty was finally brokered: the Krill ‘won’; the Llorn left the Galaxy to colonize Andromeda. But the Galaxy had been unalterably changed. Extant planets found their ecologies thrown into chaos, the development of emerging worlds were stymied or corrupted by clouds of molecular-level debris fields throughout the Galaxy. Earth, for example, passed through a Krill-Llorn generated debris cloud a little under a half-billion years ago, which probably lead to what is known as the Cambrian extinction.”
“Fascinating,” Ten remarked. “Organic molecules would have made up a portion of those debris clouds, which might have altered the course of evolution on countless worlds. Inorganic molecules would have had a negative effect on developing life. All the Galaxy might all be descendants-- at least partially-- of the Krill and Llorn.”
“And Llorn,” noted Shrinking Violet.
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Evil-Eye Annie. “Are you saying that without these Galactic Wars, Terrans might have evolved from Trilobites or Nautili?”
“Like the Huuduu or Zpirrians?” asked Shriking Violet.
“Point taken,” said Annie. “The science of exovulution is complex, and unpredictable.”
“An interesting historical and philosophical discussion,” said Ten. “But I have work to do. Phantom Girl has returned me with a working flight ring, loaned to us by Mrs. Nah. If I can reverse-engineer it-- and obtain the appropriate materials-- I may be able to create a superior replacement for our flight belts.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/24/19 01:55 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE
REVERSE ENGINEERING
Saturn Girl was concerned.
“Please Ten-- Txarlz-- take a break for some food and rest. We haven’t seen you for days.”
“I have had regular meals, sufficient water, and adequate rest.” He opened a drawer in one of his laboratory benches. “Coluan nutritive paste takes up little room. And I acquired a supply of the appropriate formulation for my age and development during my recent stay with my Adult Guardian on Colu.” He gave Dorrit a pitiful glance. “However, I must admit that my efforts at duplicating this Legion Flight Ring appear to be futile. I must confess it is beyond by technological know-how.”
“Really? What’s wrong?” Saturn Girl was surprised. “I… I don’t think I ever imagined a Coluan would say such a thing.”
“I am only a child,” said Ten. “And this object was created by one of the greatest minds in the Universe. Much of the design is opaque to me. For example, I know that the ring is powered by Unpentbium, but I cannot seem to find where Brainiac 5 put it. Possibly in some extra-dimensional micro-pocket universe? I don’t know. And, of course, I am familiar with psionic interfaces-- I use a simple one in the flight belts-- but this one… It is designed to do things I am unable to identify. I theorize that over time, it may create a bond with the user… but I can’t be sure. And much of the other software-- and even hardware, I think-- exists only virtually, unavailable for examination. It is most perplexing…”
“I can sometimes ‘read’ computer minds, if they are complex enough…” said Saturn Girl. “Yes, it seems to be marginally sentient… it could be designed to learn to recognize the mind of the user… and to stimulate the acuity of certain mental faculties… Courage? Positive thinking? I can’t get a good read, the programming is either vague or shielded.”
“Shielded, yes,” said Ten. “Portions of the design are intentionally obfuscated. This might interest you, however.”
He pulled up a translucent holo-screen.
“Similar flight rings are available for sale on special order. Unfortunately, they cost over ten kilocredits apiece-- a good seventy-five weeks worth of Stipend, if it was spent on nothing else. I had hoped that the proprietors might be related to the old Legion, and perhaps offer us a deep discount. But it seems that the original patent was taken out by Brande Industries, as Querl Dox was-- is-- only a child by Coluan standards. After the death of Mr. Daggle, RJ Brande’s heir, his children sold the patent to some organization known as the Malverne Family Trust, on Earth. They have operated Element 152 LLC ever since, the only source for flight rings in the Galaxy.” He stared at the ring on his workbench. “After studying the design, I cannot imagine they could manufacture these rings without input from Querl Dox himself, but there appears to be no connection between Element 152 and Querl Dox at all. They must have a brilliant engineer and technologist on staff.”
“Well, I suppose we will have to make do with your artisanal flight belts, until one of us becomes the next billionaire entrepreneur,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ve become quite fond of my belt, really.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/25/19 11:52 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO
1O-A
“Mr. Luz, I presume?” asked the pig-faced girl.
“Indeed,” said Ten, turning his teal-speckled chartreuse face up towards the monitor.
“I had not realized Coluans were so small.”
“Coluans come in many sizes,” Ten replied truthfully.
“I received your inquiry regarding a purchase of one gram of para-stable Element 152. I can only produce a few micrograms per second, and I have other orders. I expect it would be several months before I would be able to ship. The total cost could run you some ¢9200up.”
“I am afraid I will need to cancel my order,” said Ten. “There have been… irresolvable technical issues on this end.”
“I did produce a small test sample. This metal has some… unusual… properties. I could ship it to you for ¢55up, including postage and handling.”
Ten thought for a microsecond. “Yes, I think that would be acceptable,” he said. “Please debit my Interplanetary Bank account, and send the shipment.” He thumbed an identification node, which transmitted the data.
“A pleasure doing business with you. I look forward to your custom in the future.” The screen went dark.
“And who are you purchasing fifty-five credits worth of anti-gravity metal from?” asked Shrinking Violet.
Ten jumped. Shrinking Violet, Saturn Girl, and Star-Woman had silently entered behind him.
“Her name is Grizella. Originally from World 318, she is now living in exile on Afrofuturus. Because of her powers.”
“Her powers?” asked Star-Woman.
“She is a nucleosynthesist,” said Ten. “Able to transmute the chemical elements.”
“I expect she makes a good living,” said Star-Woman, “Providing underage Coluans with exotic materials. From outside U.P. space. Where there is no one to question her or her motives.”
“And where were you going to find 10,000 credits?” asked Shrinking Violet. “That would exhaust our annual budget several times over.”
“Don’t tell me Renlo Tagor…” put in Saturn Girl.
“My Adult Guardian,” said Ten, “Encouraged me in my efforts to reproduce Brainiac Dox’s flight ring technology. I expected he would also support my acquisition of the necessary materials. I see now I acted rashly-- I perceive that he must have known such an effort was beyond my capabilities. I expect this was a lesson in humility.”
“Well, I need to pick up some details from the wallscreen regarding a request for help we received from from Terran Colony Ten-Alpha,” Saturn Girl announced.
“Ah, Planet Ten-Alpha,” said Ten.
“That’s a pretty exclusive spot, isn’t it?” asked Star-Woman.
“Well, yes, I suppose,” answered Saturn Girl. “A retirement community, Terrans only, no one under the age of seventy-five allowed.”
“Well, that lets us all out for at least another half-century” said Star-Woman. “Most of the original Legion as well.”
“Maybe as residents,” said Saturn Girl. “But they’re inviting us as guests. Well, investigators, really. They are afraid there may be a preparatory invasion force hiding somewhere on the planet.”
“So a group of wealthy senior citizens wants our assistance, because they are hearing noises in the woods?” asked Star-Woman.
“I am sensing a lack of enthusiasm on your part for this mission,” said Saturn Girl.
“No, no,” said Star-Woman. “This would be an excellent opportunity to try something new, and sent part of the team. It doesn’t sound like something that would require all of us. And if it is a full-blown Khundish invasion, our best option anyway would be to run away and call for help.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ll take Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Ten with me, and we’ll investigate.”
“If it is a stealth invasion,” said Ten, “It is more likely to be the Dark Circle than the Khunds. Khundia and its dominions are not known for their subtlety.”
There was no formal governing authority on 1O-A, just a number of Boards of Directors for various Homeowner Associations. The Members met with the Board who had contacted them.
“It’s here,” said the old woman who served as Chair. “Nearly the other side of the planet. Some of our residents have reported seeing unusual activity on flyovers there.”
“Ten-Alpha was UP-certified uninhabited previously?” Saturn Girl queried.
“Naturally,” said the old woman. “Plant life only. That is why these reports are so disturbing. We would like to make a small donation to your ‘Super-Hero Club’ for you services in investigating this.”
“We would help you anyway,” said Saturn Girl. “But any donation would be much appreciated. We don’t really have any regular sources of funding. Our treasurer is Eulia M’Kord, Shrinking Violet. You can reach her the same way you contacted me.”
The four Members took a quick trip to the other side of the planet. The area in question was obvious.
“It looks like someone has cleared out part of the forest, and has created farmland,” Lightning Lass observed.
“Looks like less than an acre from here,” said Cosmic Boy. “That doesn’t really look like an invasion force.”
They circled around the farmed land until they found a small wooden house, painted green, nearly blending into the forest background. They landed a respectful distance away, and found a cobblestone path leading to the front door. They were greeted by a small robot, no less than a meter-and-a-half in height.
“Tom Tinkham,” said the little robot, extending a hand. “Who d-do I have the pl-pleasure of addressing?” He had an obvious, pronounced stutter.
“We call ourselves the Super-Hero Club,” said Saturn Girl. “Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, and Ten.”
“A little C-Coluan,” Tom Tinkham noted.
“Where is your master?” asked Ten. “I assume you are the major domo of this house?”
“He is the master,” said an eight-foot-tall Lionoid, squeezing through the door onto the porch. “As well as my host. Mr. Tinkham is a fully sentient, fully independent artificial lifeform.”
“You are a Regulan?” asked Ten. The Lionid nodded. “Not members of the United Planets, then?”
“One of the Unaffiliated Worlds,” said the Regulan. “You can call me Richard, as my Regulan name is… rather too loud for polite Terran conversation.”
The little robot gave a tinny sigh. “I g-guess you are here about the T-Terran c-colony on the other side of the p-planet,” he said.
“You four ought to know,” said Richard the Regulan, “that Tom and his family have been living on this little world for centuries. It has only been since I came, however, that they have made a noticeable impact on the local environment.”
Cosmic Boy looked over the small fields to a hydroponic hothouse. “Meatmelons?” he asked. “And… hay?”
The Regulan nodded his shaggy head. “The melons for me, and hay and straw for the golem. Golem! Come meet our visitors!”
A peculiar creature came out of the house. It was made of bundles of straw and hay, tightly woven and tied. What clothes it had were ill-fitting, and seemed only an afterthought. Its face was nearly blank, with only a suggestion of eyes and mouth in its sculpted hollows.
“Emmet is animated by m-magic,” said Tom. “The only m-magic we’ve ever done. We c-can’t s-seem make him speak, though. B-but he’s a g-good worker, and grows his own st-straw.”
“Magic-working robots,” said Ten. “This may be unprecedented.”
“Th-there is th-
“How many more of you are there?” asked Lightning Lass. “A robot, a golem-- all artificial creatures. Your Regulan guest excepted.”
“J-just my wife, d-Dorothy,” said Tom. “Another r-robot, like m-me. Sh-she’s our in the h-hothouse right now, b-but she’ll be b-back soon.”
“Dorothy and Tom have lived here with the golem for centuries,” said Richard the Regulan. “They have a standing invitation with my family to visit, as we wish. Usually when one of us has grown old.” He brushed back his mane, well shot through with gray. “So this was something of a small retirement community even before the Terrans came.”
“W-we would be h-happy to r-relocate,” said Tom. “If w-we are in the w-way. B-but our ship is long g-gone. W-we would need h-help moving, and s-somewhere to go.”
“I seem to have been through this before,” said Saturn Girl. “There is no universal consensus in the United Planets on the status of artificial intelligences, so it is up to the government of this world-- such as it is-- whether to accept you or not.”
There was a glint of silver from the hothouse, and they could see a second little robot moving in their direction. It-- she-- was not an exact replica of Tom Tinkham, but she came close.
“H-has the time c-come for us to leave?” asked the female robot.
Cosmic Boy had been conferring with Lightning Lass.
“Tom, I can sense magnetic fields”, said Cosmic Boy. “Dacey can sense electric fields. There is something very unusual about the metal you are composed of. We have never quite seen anything like it.”
“A p-polymorphic al-alloy,” said Tom. “It can m-mimic the properties of other m-metals.”
“And w-we can r-reshape ourselves,” said Dorothy, demonstrating. Her metal body seemed almost fluid, then settled into a new, elongated form, then returned to normal.
“Oh, dear, I just realized! I know who you are,” said Saturn Girl. “You may be robots, but unless I am very much mistaken, you are unquestionably Terran, or at least from Earth, and certainly over the age of seventy-five. I believe we can convince the other inhabitants of this world that you are not invaders, and have as much right to be here as they do-- if not more. Although we might have to reveal your true identities.”
“W-we would prefer you n-not…” said Dorothy, exchanging a glance with Tom.
“We will do what we can, then,” said Saturn Girl.
“As you have lived solitary lives on this world for hundreds of years,” said Ten, “I deduce that what you most want is to be left in peace. Correct?”
The two little robots nodded.
“I-if you c-can help us with the b-Boards,” said Tom, “C-could you do me one other f-favor?”
* * *
“Tom and Dorothy do not exhibit the standard patterns of stuttering,” noted Ten. “I suspect that there may be something wrong with their speech processors. Perhaps I could return to Ten-Alpha sometime, and take a look at their construction?”
“That is a lovely thought,” said Saturn Girl. “But Tom and Dorothy have been around for over a thousand years. They are very ancient technology, and it is best to leave well enough alone. There is an old Winathan saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”
Ten nodded. “There is also the ancient Terran parable of ‘new wine in old bottles’,” he said. “Your point is well taken.”
The Members landed in the park on Manna-Three, across from the University, just at dusk. The people of that world would be mostly indoors at the evening meal; they hoped to have a short time away from curious eyes.
The statue stood on a medium-high pedestal. It was of a round, hefty humanoid male, who might have been a native of any the Manna Worlds, or even of Earth, or the Terran colonies. It was made of some pale, shiny blue-gray metal. The head was crowned with an odd helmet, topped with a reversed, un-aerodynamic fin.
The plaque on the pedestal identified the statue as The Gourmand, a work by W. Sungam.
“Hello, Oz,” said Saturn Girl, addressing the statue.
The statue, unsurprisingly, did not respond.
“My name is Dorrit Ranzz,” she continued. “Tom Tinkham and Dorothy sent us to see how you are doing.”
As if waking from a deep trance, the statue blinked, then stirred, then sat down on top of the pedestal. It looked down at the four Members.
“Do you have an older brother named Graym?” asked the statue.
“Why, yes, in fact, I do,” said Dorrit. “This is my sister, Dacey.”
“Well, it is a small Universe,” said Osmium. “Your brother and his girlfriend, Yves Jor, used to come to this park regularly, and sit on that bench right over there.”
“They’re married now,” said Dorrit.
“I’m not surprised,” said Osmium “And how are my tin friends?”
“We have successfully negotiated approval of their permanent settlement on Colony Ten-Alpha,” said Ten. “As well as for their guests, Emmet, their golem, and the Richard the Regulan.”
“I don’t know Richard,” said Osmium. “But it is good to hear they are entertaining a Regulan again.”
“They want to know if you are happy on Manna-Three,” said Saturn Girl.
“It must be dull, just standing there all day long,” said Cosmic Boy. Don’t you ever get up and move around at night?”
“If I don’t move, I don’t trip over things, or crush them,” said Osmium. “I like just watching these people live their lives. One family has been coming to the park for five generations.” He held up his finger to show them. “They are almost like friends.”
Using the peculiar shape-shifting ability both Tom and Dorothy had displayed, Osmium created a little ukulele for himself. He played and sang for about two minutes
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The metal man resumed his normal form, and climbed back up onto his place on the pedestal.
“Well, Oz,” said Cosmic Boy, “If you ever get tired of just standing and looking, Tom and Dorothy have invited you to live with them on Colony Ten-Alpha.”
“Thank them for me,” said Osmium. He then resumed his motionless vigil.
* * *
“You were quiet this trip, Dacey,” said Cosmic Boy on the trip back.
“It’s just…” Lightning Lass mused. “Tom and Dorothy seem so happy together. And Oz seems content to be alone. I don’t know… I don’t know what I want. After all the weirdness with Arnion, I still a little freaked out, I guess… so I can’t see myself ending up like Tom and Dorothy. But I don’t want to end up like Oz, either…”
“Hey, we’ve got probably a century of life ahead of us, even more,” said Cosmic Boy. “Don’t rush it. I’m sure something interesting is bound to happen in the next hundred years or so. Who knows? You might even end up heading a new generation back on Lightning Ring Farms. They do say that there’s no place like home.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ― Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz (film)
“The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."
"That is because you have no brains" answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."
The Scarecrow sighed.
"Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains." -- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (book) -- L. Frank Baum
1O-A
“Mr. Luz, I presume?” asked the pig-faced girl.
“Indeed,” said Ten, turning his teal-speckled chartreuse face up towards the monitor.
“I had not realized Coluans were so small.”
“Coluans come in many sizes,” Ten replied truthfully.
“I received your inquiry regarding a purchase of one gram of para-stable Element 152. I can only produce a few micrograms per second, and I have other orders. I expect it would be several months before I would be able to ship. The total cost could run you some ¢9200up.”
“I am afraid I will need to cancel my order,” said Ten. “There have been… irresolvable technical issues on this end.”
“I did produce a small test sample. This metal has some… unusual… properties. I could ship it to you for ¢55up, including postage and handling.”
Ten thought for a microsecond. “Yes, I think that would be acceptable,” he said. “Please debit my Interplanetary Bank account, and send the shipment.” He thumbed an identification node, which transmitted the data.
“A pleasure doing business with you. I look forward to your custom in the future.” The screen went dark.
“And who are you purchasing fifty-five credits worth of anti-gravity metal from?” asked Shrinking Violet.
Ten jumped. Shrinking Violet, Saturn Girl, and Star-Woman had silently entered behind him.
“Her name is Grizella. Originally from World 318, she is now living in exile on Afrofuturus. Because of her powers.”
“Her powers?” asked Star-Woman.
“She is a nucleosynthesist,” said Ten. “Able to transmute the chemical elements.”
“I expect she makes a good living,” said Star-Woman, “Providing underage Coluans with exotic materials. From outside U.P. space. Where there is no one to question her or her motives.”
“And where were you going to find 10,000 credits?” asked Shrinking Violet. “That would exhaust our annual budget several times over.”
“Don’t tell me Renlo Tagor…” put in Saturn Girl.
“My Adult Guardian,” said Ten, “Encouraged me in my efforts to reproduce Brainiac Dox’s flight ring technology. I expected he would also support my acquisition of the necessary materials. I see now I acted rashly-- I perceive that he must have known such an effort was beyond my capabilities. I expect this was a lesson in humility.”
“Well, I need to pick up some details from the wallscreen regarding a request for help we received from from Terran Colony Ten-Alpha,” Saturn Girl announced.
“Ah, Planet Ten-Alpha,” said Ten.
“That’s a pretty exclusive spot, isn’t it?” asked Star-Woman.
“Well, yes, I suppose,” answered Saturn Girl. “A retirement community, Terrans only, no one under the age of seventy-five allowed.”
“Well, that lets us all out for at least another half-century” said Star-Woman. “Most of the original Legion as well.”
“Maybe as residents,” said Saturn Girl. “But they’re inviting us as guests. Well, investigators, really. They are afraid there may be a preparatory invasion force hiding somewhere on the planet.”
“So a group of wealthy senior citizens wants our assistance, because they are hearing noises in the woods?” asked Star-Woman.
“I am sensing a lack of enthusiasm on your part for this mission,” said Saturn Girl.
“No, no,” said Star-Woman. “This would be an excellent opportunity to try something new, and sent part of the team. It doesn’t sound like something that would require all of us. And if it is a full-blown Khundish invasion, our best option anyway would be to run away and call for help.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” said Saturn Girl. “I’ll take Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Ten with me, and we’ll investigate.”
“If it is a stealth invasion,” said Ten, “It is more likely to be the Dark Circle than the Khunds. Khundia and its dominions are not known for their subtlety.”
There was no formal governing authority on 1O-A, just a number of Boards of Directors for various Homeowner Associations. The Members met with the Board who had contacted them.
“It’s here,” said the old woman who served as Chair. “Nearly the other side of the planet. Some of our residents have reported seeing unusual activity on flyovers there.”
“Ten-Alpha was UP-certified uninhabited previously?” Saturn Girl queried.
“Naturally,” said the old woman. “Plant life only. That is why these reports are so disturbing. We would like to make a small donation to your ‘Super-Hero Club’ for you services in investigating this.”
“We would help you anyway,” said Saturn Girl. “But any donation would be much appreciated. We don’t really have any regular sources of funding. Our treasurer is Eulia M’Kord, Shrinking Violet. You can reach her the same way you contacted me.”
The four Members took a quick trip to the other side of the planet. The area in question was obvious.
“It looks like someone has cleared out part of the forest, and has created farmland,” Lightning Lass observed.
“Looks like less than an acre from here,” said Cosmic Boy. “That doesn’t really look like an invasion force.”
They circled around the farmed land until they found a small wooden house, painted green, nearly blending into the forest background. They landed a respectful distance away, and found a cobblestone path leading to the front door. They were greeted by a small robot, no less than a meter-and-a-half in height.
“Tom Tinkham,” said the little robot, extending a hand. “Who d-do I have the pl-pleasure of addressing?” He had an obvious, pronounced stutter.
“We call ourselves the Super-Hero Club,” said Saturn Girl. “Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, and Ten.”
“A little C-Coluan,” Tom Tinkham noted.
“Where is your master?” asked Ten. “I assume you are the major domo of this house?”
“He is the master,” said an eight-foot-tall Lionoid, squeezing through the door onto the porch. “As well as my host. Mr. Tinkham is a fully sentient, fully independent artificial lifeform.”
“You are a Regulan?” asked Ten. The Lionid nodded. “Not members of the United Planets, then?”
“One of the Unaffiliated Worlds,” said the Regulan. “You can call me Richard, as my Regulan name is… rather too loud for polite Terran conversation.”
The little robot gave a tinny sigh. “I g-guess you are here about the T-Terran c-colony on the other side of the p-planet,” he said.
“You four ought to know,” said Richard the Regulan, “that Tom and his family have been living on this little world for centuries. It has only been since I came, however, that they have made a noticeable impact on the local environment.”
Cosmic Boy looked over the small fields to a hydroponic hothouse. “Meatmelons?” he asked. “And… hay?”
The Regulan nodded his shaggy head. “The melons for me, and hay and straw for the golem. Golem! Come meet our visitors!”
A peculiar creature came out of the house. It was made of bundles of straw and hay, tightly woven and tied. What clothes it had were ill-fitting, and seemed only an afterthought. Its face was nearly blank, with only a suggestion of eyes and mouth in its sculpted hollows.
“Emmet is animated by m-magic,” said Tom. “The only m-magic we’ve ever done. We c-can’t s-seem make him speak, though. B-but he’s a g-good worker, and grows his own st-straw.”
“Magic-working robots,” said Ten. “This may be unprecedented.”
“Th-there is th-
“How many more of you are there?” asked Lightning Lass. “A robot, a golem-- all artificial creatures. Your Regulan guest excepted.”
“J-just my wife, d-Dorothy,” said Tom. “Another r-robot, like m-me. Sh-she’s our in the h-hothouse right now, b-but she’ll be b-back soon.”
“Dorothy and Tom have lived here with the golem for centuries,” said Richard the Regulan. “They have a standing invitation with my family to visit, as we wish. Usually when one of us has grown old.” He brushed back his mane, well shot through with gray. “So this was something of a small retirement community even before the Terrans came.”
“W-we would be h-happy to r-relocate,” said Tom. “If w-we are in the w-way. B-but our ship is long g-gone. W-we would need h-help moving, and s-somewhere to go.”
“I seem to have been through this before,” said Saturn Girl. “There is no universal consensus in the United Planets on the status of artificial intelligences, so it is up to the government of this world-- such as it is-- whether to accept you or not.”
There was a glint of silver from the hothouse, and they could see a second little robot moving in their direction. It-- she-- was not an exact replica of Tom Tinkham, but she came close.
“H-has the time c-come for us to leave?” asked the female robot.
Cosmic Boy had been conferring with Lightning Lass.
“Tom, I can sense magnetic fields”, said Cosmic Boy. “Dacey can sense electric fields. There is something very unusual about the metal you are composed of. We have never quite seen anything like it.”
“A p-polymorphic al-alloy,” said Tom. “It can m-mimic the properties of other m-metals.”
“And w-we can r-reshape ourselves,” said Dorothy, demonstrating. Her metal body seemed almost fluid, then settled into a new, elongated form, then returned to normal.
“Oh, dear, I just realized! I know who you are,” said Saturn Girl. “You may be robots, but unless I am very much mistaken, you are unquestionably Terran, or at least from Earth, and certainly over the age of seventy-five. I believe we can convince the other inhabitants of this world that you are not invaders, and have as much right to be here as they do-- if not more. Although we might have to reveal your true identities.”
“W-we would prefer you n-not…” said Dorothy, exchanging a glance with Tom.
“We will do what we can, then,” said Saturn Girl.
“As you have lived solitary lives on this world for hundreds of years,” said Ten, “I deduce that what you most want is to be left in peace. Correct?”
The two little robots nodded.
“I-if you c-can help us with the b-Boards,” said Tom, “C-could you do me one other f-favor?”
* * *
“Tom and Dorothy do not exhibit the standard patterns of stuttering,” noted Ten. “I suspect that there may be something wrong with their speech processors. Perhaps I could return to Ten-Alpha sometime, and take a look at their construction?”
“That is a lovely thought,” said Saturn Girl. “But Tom and Dorothy have been around for over a thousand years. They are very ancient technology, and it is best to leave well enough alone. There is an old Winathan saying, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”
Ten nodded. “There is also the ancient Terran parable of ‘new wine in old bottles’,” he said. “Your point is well taken.”
The Members landed in the park on Manna-Three, across from the University, just at dusk. The people of that world would be mostly indoors at the evening meal; they hoped to have a short time away from curious eyes.
The statue stood on a medium-high pedestal. It was of a round, hefty humanoid male, who might have been a native of any the Manna Worlds, or even of Earth, or the Terran colonies. It was made of some pale, shiny blue-gray metal. The head was crowned with an odd helmet, topped with a reversed, un-aerodynamic fin.
The plaque on the pedestal identified the statue as The Gourmand, a work by W. Sungam.
“Hello, Oz,” said Saturn Girl, addressing the statue.
The statue, unsurprisingly, did not respond.
“My name is Dorrit Ranzz,” she continued. “Tom Tinkham and Dorothy sent us to see how you are doing.”
As if waking from a deep trance, the statue blinked, then stirred, then sat down on top of the pedestal. It looked down at the four Members.
“Do you have an older brother named Graym?” asked the statue.
“Why, yes, in fact, I do,” said Dorrit. “This is my sister, Dacey.”
“Well, it is a small Universe,” said Osmium. “Your brother and his girlfriend, Yves Jor, used to come to this park regularly, and sit on that bench right over there.”
“They’re married now,” said Dorrit.
“I’m not surprised,” said Osmium “And how are my tin friends?”
“We have successfully negotiated approval of their permanent settlement on Colony Ten-Alpha,” said Ten. “As well as for their guests, Emmet, their golem, and the Richard the Regulan.”
“I don’t know Richard,” said Osmium. “But it is good to hear they are entertaining a Regulan again.”
“They want to know if you are happy on Manna-Three,” said Saturn Girl.
“It must be dull, just standing there all day long,” said Cosmic Boy. Don’t you ever get up and move around at night?”
“If I don’t move, I don’t trip over things, or crush them,” said Osmium. “I like just watching these people live their lives. One family has been coming to the park for five generations.” He held up his finger to show them. “They are almost like friends.”
Using the peculiar shape-shifting ability both Tom and Dorothy had displayed, Osmium created a little ukulele for himself. He played and sang for about two minutes
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
The metal man resumed his normal form, and climbed back up onto his place on the pedestal.
“Well, Oz,” said Cosmic Boy, “If you ever get tired of just standing and looking, Tom and Dorothy have invited you to live with them on Colony Ten-Alpha.”
“Thank them for me,” said Osmium. He then resumed his motionless vigil.
* * *
“You were quiet this trip, Dacey,” said Cosmic Boy on the trip back.
“It’s just…” Lightning Lass mused. “Tom and Dorothy seem so happy together. And Oz seems content to be alone. I don’t know… I don’t know what I want. After all the weirdness with Arnion, I still a little freaked out, I guess… so I can’t see myself ending up like Tom and Dorothy. But I don’t want to end up like Oz, either…”
“Hey, we’ve got probably a century of life ahead of us, even more,” said Cosmic Boy. “Don’t rush it. I’m sure something interesting is bound to happen in the next hundred years or so. Who knows? You might even end up heading a new generation back on Lightning Ring Farms. They do say that there’s no place like home.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.” ― Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz (film)
“The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."
"That is because you have no brains" answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home."
The Scarecrow sighed.
"Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains." -- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (book) -- L. Frank Baum
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/28/19 09:35 AM
It's nice seeing Tin and his lady friend get a happy ending...and the Scarecrow quote was very well placed
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/08/19 03:46 AM
Not an ending so much as a… snapshot.
![[Linked Image]]( https://66.media.tumblr.com/3f24364d87e108ce8d4e1df61f4b6d53/tumblr_pm3jlznJMc1uwm5uqo1_250.jpg)
‘Tom’ and ‘Dot’ are now nearly eleven centuries old. I’m not sure how long responsometers live.
‘Tom’ and ‘Dot’ are now nearly eleven centuries old. I’m not sure how long responsometers live.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/08/19 03:49 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE
THE OTHER MARA
The cat-girl grabbed Ten by the neck.
“Where is she?” she hissed, lifting him off the ground.
There were no flashing lights, no whirring of gears from Vesta, but Ten’s force-shield belt snapped on.
“Ah, you must be the Other Mara,” said Ten. “I am afraid cannot entertain you. I really need to finish my Astronomy assignment, and the sun will be up soon.” He gestured toward the pink horizon, then flew up and away, his force-shield slick, slippery, and unholdable. Vesta followed after.
“Are you looking for me?” A new Mara came around from behind the clubhouse. The Other Mara vanished on the spot, instantly re-appearing before the New Mara. The New Mara stood calmly; the Other Mara’s claws were ineffective. This New Mara was wearing some kind of armor. The Other Mara attacked the New Mara’s head visciously-- but it was like clawing at gelatin, which re-formed instantaneously.
The Cargggan Triplicates attacked from behind, grabbing the Other Mara by the arms, legs, and torso. The New Mara shifted into Chameleon form.
“OK, so that was a bad idea,” Chameleon noted. “It only seemed to enrage her.” He shifted again into a fourth duplicate of the Triplicates, and assisted them in restraining the cat-girl. The Other Mara easily teleported out of their grasp.
“We spoke with the Justice League of Earth,” the Other Mara spit. “They said she came her, looking for you. Bring her to me, or tell me where she went. Or...”
“Take out the teleporter first,” cried Lightning Lass. She had just appeared with two more Members.
“There’s more than one?” asked Ffiona. She looked around. There was, indeed, a cat-boy standing off to one side.
Lightning Lass flashed lightning in the Other Mara’s direction. To her dismay, her electrical bolts turned to tiny colored flowers. Polar Lass began creating ice prisons around the two cat-people. But the ice dissolved, and blew away like dust in the wind. The ground heaved, and two buried steel girders rose up, wrapping around the two cat-people. But the girders melted away like water.
Saturn Girl rose up into the air, in front of the Clubhouse. “{{His name is Kit. He’s her… husband. He’s an Elementalist, controlling the seven elements of Arau: Stone, Metal, Wind, Ice, Wood, Fire, and Lightning. He is able to… transmute one element into another.}}”
Star-Woman flew down from the sky, brandishing her star-rod. “I don’t suppose he controls gravity, or stellar energy?” Energy-spheres formed around the two, but the Other Mara teleported away. She appeared in the air, grasping the star-rod, and Star-Woman’s shoulder. First the rod disappeared, then, with a cry, the Star-Woman. The Other Mara herself fell toward the ground, then vanished, re-appearing beside her husband.
“You are powerful,” she said. “But I am determined. If you are hiding my enemy, then you are my enemy as well.”
“{{Your sister Mara is not here}}”, Saturn Girl answered. “{{And we do not know where she has gone. We suggested she might find asylum with the Pacht, but whether she took that suggestion or not we have no idea. She is not your enemy. She has upheld her part of the bargain-- to leave you alone, to let you both live your own lives}}.”
“My [i]sister?” the Other Mara cried, incensed. “You lie! She is even now plotting, sneaking, tracking me down. Waiting for her opportunity to ambush me-- destroy me..”.
“{{And you know this because…?}}”
“Because I am doing the same thing!” cried the Other Mara. “The antipathy grows… it is overwhelming.” She crouched, eyeing the collected Members, evidently selecting who to attack next.
“Oh, I think that’s enough of that,” said Korvea, rising on black wings with the dawn. Shadows enveloped the Other Mara and Kit. The followed the Other Mara as she teleported blindly about the Clubhouse terraces.
Ten had returned, emerging from the Clubhouse with a squarish box, about the size of of a shoebox. Odd antennae, wires and aerials stuck out of it at peculiar angles. Ten manipulated a trigger mechanism. The shadows around Kit vanished, and a portal appeared in front of him, framing him like a portrait. Ten turned, focused on the Other Mara, and the same thing happened.
“What did you do?” asked Ffarrah.
“They are trapped in temporary, artificial pocket dimensions,” Ten explained. “Look in back of the portals. They appear to be standing there, when seen face-on, but they are actually… elsewhere. And the Other Mara has nowhere to teleport to. The dimensions are rather small.”
Ten’s look of satisfaction vanished, as a sand-clone in his image rose from the ground in front of him, and grabbed the boxy device. It turned toward Kit, and fired a second blast.
“I appear to have miscalculated,” Ten admitted. “The Aruaan’s psionic abilities are able to penetrate the dimensional barrier.”
As the ray hit the portal, it vanished-- and so did the image of Kit. The sand-golem collapsed into a pile, and the ray-gun fell to the ground with an unhealthy crack.
“He closed the portal without freeing himself,” Ten observed, picking up the pieces of the ray-gun. “Evidently he did not know how to work the controls… unsurprising, as I barely finished fitting them a few moments ago.”
Star-Woman had returned from wherever the Other Mara had sent her.
“Where is my star-rod?” she questioned the cat-girl.
The Other Mara looked sulky. It was an improvement over rage. “It is orbiting the second planet of this system, at some distance.”
Star-Woman looked up towards the sun. She squinted. “Yes, I see it.” She took to the sky again, and disappeared from sight.
“Your invention is broken,” said Saturn Girl. “We can’t leave them there forever. They’ll starve to death.”
Ten considered. “They are unlikely to starve. However, the oxygen in those dimensions is limited-- probably only a few hour’s worth-- so it would be best if I repaired this device as soon a possible. Perhaps you can help me? And Shrinking Violet’s assistance would be invaluable as well.”
“A Coluan, asking for help from lower intelligences?” asked Shrinking Violet. “The Galaxy is getting stranger every day.”
“Time is of the essence,” Ten replied. “And I need to manipulate some very small pieces in this repair.”
* * *
“You really ought to return to Alsciaukat,” Saturn Girl counseled Kit. “You do realize that once the two Antipathetic Duplicates encounter each other, there is a 50% chance that your Mara will be the one to die.”
“But the element of surprise would be a distinct advantage,” the Other Mara objected.
“But that’s the Antipath Phage talking,” said Saturn Girl. “You two really are safest apart. And Mara… your duplicate… seemed convinced of that, when she was here. She wanted to get far, far away.”
“But there are Pacht worlds near Arau,” said Kit. “She could be hiding out on one of them.”
“The key concept here is hiding,” said Saturn Girl.
“Dorrit, please, they must be starving,” said Phantom Girl, standing beside the AutoChef. “So being felinoid… are you carnivores? You look like you have the teeth for it. Have you tried Earth’s roast chicken?”
“Two, please,” said Kit. “Two, each.”
“Unless you have a roast turkey,” said the Other Mara. “And the cavity filled with that oleaginous, flavored grain?”
“One whole roast turkey with stuffing, coming up.” She keyed in the order. “Just call me Tryptophantom Girl.”
(Note: Mara of Arau, the Tesser Cat, last appeared in Chapter One Hundred Nine)
THE OTHER MARA
The cat-girl grabbed Ten by the neck.
“Where is she?” she hissed, lifting him off the ground.
There were no flashing lights, no whirring of gears from Vesta, but Ten’s force-shield belt snapped on.
“Ah, you must be the Other Mara,” said Ten. “I am afraid cannot entertain you. I really need to finish my Astronomy assignment, and the sun will be up soon.” He gestured toward the pink horizon, then flew up and away, his force-shield slick, slippery, and unholdable. Vesta followed after.
“Are you looking for me?” A new Mara came around from behind the clubhouse. The Other Mara vanished on the spot, instantly re-appearing before the New Mara. The New Mara stood calmly; the Other Mara’s claws were ineffective. This New Mara was wearing some kind of armor. The Other Mara attacked the New Mara’s head visciously-- but it was like clawing at gelatin, which re-formed instantaneously.
The Cargggan Triplicates attacked from behind, grabbing the Other Mara by the arms, legs, and torso. The New Mara shifted into Chameleon form.
“OK, so that was a bad idea,” Chameleon noted. “It only seemed to enrage her.” He shifted again into a fourth duplicate of the Triplicates, and assisted them in restraining the cat-girl. The Other Mara easily teleported out of their grasp.
“We spoke with the Justice League of Earth,” the Other Mara spit. “They said she came her, looking for you. Bring her to me, or tell me where she went. Or...”
“Take out the teleporter first,” cried Lightning Lass. She had just appeared with two more Members.
“There’s more than one?” asked Ffiona. She looked around. There was, indeed, a cat-boy standing off to one side.
Lightning Lass flashed lightning in the Other Mara’s direction. To her dismay, her electrical bolts turned to tiny colored flowers. Polar Lass began creating ice prisons around the two cat-people. But the ice dissolved, and blew away like dust in the wind. The ground heaved, and two buried steel girders rose up, wrapping around the two cat-people. But the girders melted away like water.
Saturn Girl rose up into the air, in front of the Clubhouse. “{{His name is Kit. He’s her… husband. He’s an Elementalist, controlling the seven elements of Arau: Stone, Metal, Wind, Ice, Wood, Fire, and Lightning. He is able to… transmute one element into another.}}”
Star-Woman flew down from the sky, brandishing her star-rod. “I don’t suppose he controls gravity, or stellar energy?” Energy-spheres formed around the two, but the Other Mara teleported away. She appeared in the air, grasping the star-rod, and Star-Woman’s shoulder. First the rod disappeared, then, with a cry, the Star-Woman. The Other Mara herself fell toward the ground, then vanished, re-appearing beside her husband.
“You are powerful,” she said. “But I am determined. If you are hiding my enemy, then you are my enemy as well.”
“{{Your sister Mara is not here}}”, Saturn Girl answered. “{{And we do not know where she has gone. We suggested she might find asylum with the Pacht, but whether she took that suggestion or not we have no idea. She is not your enemy. She has upheld her part of the bargain-- to leave you alone, to let you both live your own lives}}.”
“My [i]sister?” the Other Mara cried, incensed. “You lie! She is even now plotting, sneaking, tracking me down. Waiting for her opportunity to ambush me-- destroy me..”.
“{{And you know this because…?}}”
“Because I am doing the same thing!” cried the Other Mara. “The antipathy grows… it is overwhelming.” She crouched, eyeing the collected Members, evidently selecting who to attack next.
“Oh, I think that’s enough of that,” said Korvea, rising on black wings with the dawn. Shadows enveloped the Other Mara and Kit. The followed the Other Mara as she teleported blindly about the Clubhouse terraces.
Ten had returned, emerging from the Clubhouse with a squarish box, about the size of of a shoebox. Odd antennae, wires and aerials stuck out of it at peculiar angles. Ten manipulated a trigger mechanism. The shadows around Kit vanished, and a portal appeared in front of him, framing him like a portrait. Ten turned, focused on the Other Mara, and the same thing happened.
“What did you do?” asked Ffarrah.
“They are trapped in temporary, artificial pocket dimensions,” Ten explained. “Look in back of the portals. They appear to be standing there, when seen face-on, but they are actually… elsewhere. And the Other Mara has nowhere to teleport to. The dimensions are rather small.”
Ten’s look of satisfaction vanished, as a sand-clone in his image rose from the ground in front of him, and grabbed the boxy device. It turned toward Kit, and fired a second blast.
“I appear to have miscalculated,” Ten admitted. “The Aruaan’s psionic abilities are able to penetrate the dimensional barrier.”
As the ray hit the portal, it vanished-- and so did the image of Kit. The sand-golem collapsed into a pile, and the ray-gun fell to the ground with an unhealthy crack.
“He closed the portal without freeing himself,” Ten observed, picking up the pieces of the ray-gun. “Evidently he did not know how to work the controls… unsurprising, as I barely finished fitting them a few moments ago.”
Star-Woman had returned from wherever the Other Mara had sent her.
“Where is my star-rod?” she questioned the cat-girl.
The Other Mara looked sulky. It was an improvement over rage. “It is orbiting the second planet of this system, at some distance.”
Star-Woman looked up towards the sun. She squinted. “Yes, I see it.” She took to the sky again, and disappeared from sight.
“Your invention is broken,” said Saturn Girl. “We can’t leave them there forever. They’ll starve to death.”
Ten considered. “They are unlikely to starve. However, the oxygen in those dimensions is limited-- probably only a few hour’s worth-- so it would be best if I repaired this device as soon a possible. Perhaps you can help me? And Shrinking Violet’s assistance would be invaluable as well.”
“A Coluan, asking for help from lower intelligences?” asked Shrinking Violet. “The Galaxy is getting stranger every day.”
“Time is of the essence,” Ten replied. “And I need to manipulate some very small pieces in this repair.”
* * *
“You really ought to return to Alsciaukat,” Saturn Girl counseled Kit. “You do realize that once the two Antipathetic Duplicates encounter each other, there is a 50% chance that your Mara will be the one to die.”
“But the element of surprise would be a distinct advantage,” the Other Mara objected.
“But that’s the Antipath Phage talking,” said Saturn Girl. “You two really are safest apart. And Mara… your duplicate… seemed convinced of that, when she was here. She wanted to get far, far away.”
“But there are Pacht worlds near Arau,” said Kit. “She could be hiding out on one of them.”
“The key concept here is hiding,” said Saturn Girl.
“Dorrit, please, they must be starving,” said Phantom Girl, standing beside the AutoChef. “So being felinoid… are you carnivores? You look like you have the teeth for it. Have you tried Earth’s roast chicken?”
“Two, please,” said Kit. “Two, each.”
“Unless you have a roast turkey,” said the Other Mara. “And the cavity filled with that oleaginous, flavored grain?”
“One whole roast turkey with stuffing, coming up.” She keyed in the order. “Just call me Tryptophantom Girl.”
(Note: Mara of Arau, the Tesser Cat, last appeared in Chapter One Hundred Nine)
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/14/19 04:01 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE - A
(addendum)
SECOND THOUGHTS
“It is frustrating,” Kallor Nal complained. “We have faced an aggressive teleporter before-- twice, in fact. We ought to have developed a standard defensive response, instead of these uncoordinated, ad hoc attacks.”
“There was never any doubt of the outcome,” Ann Foxmoor reassured her. “While you were out on the terrace, I was inside the Clubhouse, focusing my curse-power on them. That’s why you suddenly went from fighting them to rescuing them.”
“Really?” said Kallor. “It is true that the damage to Ten’s improvised Gaoler was unexpected… but I would have thought an unluckier outcome would have been for the two Maras to confront one another.”
A few days later, Kallor approached Ann again.
“Your powers only work on living beings, correct?” she asked. “I mean, you couldn’t curse a wall or a spaceship.”
“As far as I know,” said Ann. “I don’t much like to experiment. It’s dangerous.”
Kallor pulled out a large potted mushroom. “Try your malediction powers on this,” Kallor asked.
Ann squinted her eyes, wrinkling her forehead and nose. There was no effect.
“Maybe I can’t affect plants,” she said, resignedly. “No, that’s wrong. I wilted a dozen long-stemmed roses once. Well, I can’t always do it on command, anyway. It’s tied to my emotions.”
“Imagine this mushroom is an old boyfriend,” said Kallor.
“It does remind me of… never mind.” Ann concentrated on the mushroom again, without effect.
“Come with me,” said Kallor. They strode some distance away, off the terrace, and nearly into the woods.
Kallor set down the pot.
“Try it now.”
The puffball exploded violently. The two young women were covered in spores. The remainder of the mushroom shriveled and blackened.
“We’re beyond the null-Mana field now,” said Kallor. “I was thinking about your name. Foxmoor. It’s old Terran-- means ‘fairy-field’. Your powers are magical in nature.”
“Eldritch,” said Ann. “Villian taught me the word. It means ‘elf-magic’.”
“Maybe you should be the one studying on the Sorcerer’s World,” Kallor suggested.
“Only if they set up a campus on Earth,” she said. “One hundred percent Earth-born, remember? Mars-- now-- is the furthest anyone in my family has traveled since… well, before humans were human.”
“I don’t dispute it,” said Kallor. “But at least one of your ancestors was from Faery.”
(addendum)
SECOND THOUGHTS
“It is frustrating,” Kallor Nal complained. “We have faced an aggressive teleporter before-- twice, in fact. We ought to have developed a standard defensive response, instead of these uncoordinated, ad hoc attacks.”
“There was never any doubt of the outcome,” Ann Foxmoor reassured her. “While you were out on the terrace, I was inside the Clubhouse, focusing my curse-power on them. That’s why you suddenly went from fighting them to rescuing them.”
“Really?” said Kallor. “It is true that the damage to Ten’s improvised Gaoler was unexpected… but I would have thought an unluckier outcome would have been for the two Maras to confront one another.”
A few days later, Kallor approached Ann again.
“Your powers only work on living beings, correct?” she asked. “I mean, you couldn’t curse a wall or a spaceship.”
“As far as I know,” said Ann. “I don’t much like to experiment. It’s dangerous.”
Kallor pulled out a large potted mushroom. “Try your malediction powers on this,” Kallor asked.
Ann squinted her eyes, wrinkling her forehead and nose. There was no effect.
“Maybe I can’t affect plants,” she said, resignedly. “No, that’s wrong. I wilted a dozen long-stemmed roses once. Well, I can’t always do it on command, anyway. It’s tied to my emotions.”
“Imagine this mushroom is an old boyfriend,” said Kallor.
“It does remind me of… never mind.” Ann concentrated on the mushroom again, without effect.
“Come with me,” said Kallor. They strode some distance away, off the terrace, and nearly into the woods.
Kallor set down the pot.
“Try it now.”
The puffball exploded violently. The two young women were covered in spores. The remainder of the mushroom shriveled and blackened.
“We’re beyond the null-Mana field now,” said Kallor. “I was thinking about your name. Foxmoor. It’s old Terran-- means ‘fairy-field’. Your powers are magical in nature.”
“Eldritch,” said Ann. “Villian taught me the word. It means ‘elf-magic’.”
“Maybe you should be the one studying on the Sorcerer’s World,” Kallor suggested.
“Only if they set up a campus on Earth,” she said. “One hundred percent Earth-born, remember? Mars-- now-- is the furthest anyone in my family has traveled since… well, before humans were human.”
“I don’t dispute it,” said Kallor. “But at least one of your ancestors was from Faery.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/14/19 04:02 PM
UNTOLD TALES
DIGRESSION: VIGNETTE ALPHA
“Kal? Or should I call you Clark?” asked fourteen-year-old Imra Ardeen, the Saturn Girl.
“How about just Superboy?” said Superboy.
“All right… Superboy.” {“He wants to be called ‘Superboy’?} Imra thought to herself. {“Is he a narcissist, or just hopelessly naïve? He’s hovering just a half-inch above the seat of the chair. Showing off? But most people wouldn’t even notice. Is he just practicing his anti-gravity powers? It does demonstrate remarkable control.[/i]”} “You’ve just met our Supergirl?” she asked aloud.
“She’s from your past, and my future, right?” Superboy inquired. “She told me her Kryptonian name is Kara Zor-El. Is she my… grand-daughter?”
“Younger cousin,” Imra answered. “It’s a long story. You should spend some time talking to her.”
Superboy spend a moment pondering the implications of this revelation. “Maybe I shouldn’t try to learn too much about my future.”
“We had been thinking the same thing,” said Imra. “It might be a good idea for Kara and I to hypnotize you into forgetting any personal information about your future life you learn in the 3Oth century, when you return to your own time.”
“I wouldn’t want to forget everything I learn here…” said Superboy.
“We wouldn’t want you to,” said Imra. “We believe there are valuable things you can learn here, that will make you a better hero. For example, you have probably by now learned every Earth language…”
“Only a couple dozen, so far,” said Superboy. “I guess I really should buckle down and learn them all?”
“Yes, and while you are in the 3Oth century, you ought to become fluent in Interlac, and the various native languages of nearby systems: Centauri, Wolfish, Teegardenese…”
Superboy nodded. “That seems like a good idea. We don’t have Universal Language Computers in Smallville.”
“Let me show you something else.” Imra pulled out a chalky, white stone. “This is White Kryptonite.” Superboy startled. “You haven’t encountered it-- yet. But it is probably worthwhile to know it exists. White Kryptonite is harmless to you-- but deadly to all plant life. Kryptonian, Terran, any other alien plant life. Even some bacteria and fungi. Anything that makes a living by any photosynthetic process.” She put the stone away in a lead box. “This are just a sample of things the Legion has to offer you. What I’m trying to say is… we would really like you to visit us more often.”
Superboy smiled. “I really am terribly busy back in the 2Oth century. I don’t see how I could spend much time here.”
Imra smiled back. “There is something you obviously don’t know about Kryptonians. Once a Kryptonian hits puberty, their maturation rate slows relative to Earth-people. For example, your cousin Supergirl appears to be in her mid-teens, but is actually some twenty years old, Earth-standard. Chronologically speaking. It will actually be another eight or ten years before she is physiologically an adult. Time-traveling to the future-- spending a week with the Legion every weekend could actually help protect your secret identity.”
“You’re right,” said Superboy. “I didn’t know that. Maybe I should do more time-traveling.”
“Ask Ma and Pa Kent regularly how old you look,” Imra suggested. “To make sure you’re growing up ‘properly’. There is one other thing.”
Imra hesitated, evidently somewhat embarrassed.
“We need you, Kal. Superboy. The Legion need heroes. If it were just a matter of raw power, we could recruit from Almerac, or Daxam, or Khera, or Kormo, or New Zoron, or Rokyn, or Terminus. But there is more to being a hero than just impressive super-powers. That’s why we recruited you and Kara, and even heroes with seemingly lesser abilities, like Lluornu, and Lyle. We can teach you to be a hero, Superboy. And we want you to teach us, as well.”
DIGRESSION: VIGNETTE ALPHA
“Kal? Or should I call you Clark?” asked fourteen-year-old Imra Ardeen, the Saturn Girl.
“How about just Superboy?” said Superboy.
“All right… Superboy.” {“He wants to be called ‘Superboy’?} Imra thought to herself. {“Is he a narcissist, or just hopelessly naïve? He’s hovering just a half-inch above the seat of the chair. Showing off? But most people wouldn’t even notice. Is he just practicing his anti-gravity powers? It does demonstrate remarkable control.[/i]”} “You’ve just met our Supergirl?” she asked aloud.
“She’s from your past, and my future, right?” Superboy inquired. “She told me her Kryptonian name is Kara Zor-El. Is she my… grand-daughter?”
“Younger cousin,” Imra answered. “It’s a long story. You should spend some time talking to her.”
Superboy spend a moment pondering the implications of this revelation. “Maybe I shouldn’t try to learn too much about my future.”
“We had been thinking the same thing,” said Imra. “It might be a good idea for Kara and I to hypnotize you into forgetting any personal information about your future life you learn in the 3Oth century, when you return to your own time.”
“I wouldn’t want to forget everything I learn here…” said Superboy.
“We wouldn’t want you to,” said Imra. “We believe there are valuable things you can learn here, that will make you a better hero. For example, you have probably by now learned every Earth language…”
“Only a couple dozen, so far,” said Superboy. “I guess I really should buckle down and learn them all?”
“Yes, and while you are in the 3Oth century, you ought to become fluent in Interlac, and the various native languages of nearby systems: Centauri, Wolfish, Teegardenese…”
Superboy nodded. “That seems like a good idea. We don’t have Universal Language Computers in Smallville.”
“Let me show you something else.” Imra pulled out a chalky, white stone. “This is White Kryptonite.” Superboy startled. “You haven’t encountered it-- yet. But it is probably worthwhile to know it exists. White Kryptonite is harmless to you-- but deadly to all plant life. Kryptonian, Terran, any other alien plant life. Even some bacteria and fungi. Anything that makes a living by any photosynthetic process.” She put the stone away in a lead box. “This are just a sample of things the Legion has to offer you. What I’m trying to say is… we would really like you to visit us more often.”
Superboy smiled. “I really am terribly busy back in the 2Oth century. I don’t see how I could spend much time here.”
Imra smiled back. “There is something you obviously don’t know about Kryptonians. Once a Kryptonian hits puberty, their maturation rate slows relative to Earth-people. For example, your cousin Supergirl appears to be in her mid-teens, but is actually some twenty years old, Earth-standard. Chronologically speaking. It will actually be another eight or ten years before she is physiologically an adult. Time-traveling to the future-- spending a week with the Legion every weekend could actually help protect your secret identity.”
“You’re right,” said Superboy. “I didn’t know that. Maybe I should do more time-traveling.”
“Ask Ma and Pa Kent regularly how old you look,” Imra suggested. “To make sure you’re growing up ‘properly’. There is one other thing.”
Imra hesitated, evidently somewhat embarrassed.
“We need you, Kal. Superboy. The Legion need heroes. If it were just a matter of raw power, we could recruit from Almerac, or Daxam, or Khera, or Kormo, or New Zoron, or Rokyn, or Terminus. But there is more to being a hero than just impressive super-powers. That’s why we recruited you and Kara, and even heroes with seemingly lesser abilities, like Lluornu, and Lyle. We can teach you to be a hero, Superboy. And we want you to teach us, as well.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/20/19 03:01 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
Earth I; University Central Laboratory, Bottle City of Kandor, 1975
“The theory is sound,” said sixteen-year-old Lyle-Zee.
“Then why not present it to the Science Council?” asked Lili Van-Zee, his twin sister. “Why conduct these experiments in secret?”
“The theory is sound,” said Lyle-Zee. “But I want to make sure the practical application of the technology is workable.”
“Isn’t it a little… hubristic?” asked Lili. “To think you can succeed where Kandor’s greatest scientists-- and even Superman and Supergirl-- have failed so far?”
“It is an entirely different approach,” said Lyle. “I am not trying to reverse the effects of Brainiac’s shrinking ray, or exchanging one individual for another. I intend to merely create a stable wormhole from our pocket micro-universe into the outer world. The ordinary laws of nature will take care of the size differential. Once I have demonstrated that an object can be transferred safely through the wormhole, it is entirely scalable upward-- and all of Kandor can be restored, on the planet of our choosing.” He held up an ornate jewelry box. “I intend to move this little box out into the Fortress of Solitude, as proof of concept.”
He turned on a monitor which displayed an outside view of the interior of the Fortress. A horizontal aperture hung in the empty air.
“But where’s the other end?” asked Lili. “You can’t have a one-sided wormhole. It’s impossible!”
“That’s the exit,” explained Lyle. “A wormhole connects two locations in spacetime, and the entrance is located a few seconds in the future.” He indicated the ornate box. “It should appear right under this box, which will fall through the wormhole, and emerge, full-sized, into the Fortress.”
Sure enough, there was the sound like the tearing of paper, and the smaller end of the wormhole appeared in the spot Lyle had indicated. The box tilted, and began to fall, but before it could enter completely, the wormhole flickered and vanished. There was an explosion of Scarlet Forest wood splinters, as the little box exploded, cut in half. The wormhole reappeared, vertical this time, then vanished again with a pop.
“It’s become unstable somehow,” said Lyle-Zee. “I’ll need to collapse it…” The aberrant vanished and reappeared again, taking a bite out of one of the walls. Pebbles of plascrete rained from the ceiling.
“Do something before it damages the equipment!” shouted Lili. Half a sparrow dropped in front of her, evidently from the Earth outside.
“I’ve almost got it,” said Lyle-Zee. “It should have been more stable. I can’t think what made it degrade so fast. I’ll need to go back and check my calculations. Obviously, I missed something.”
He looked around the lab. The damage was noticeable, but not too bad. A small accident, easily explained, easily forgiven. Except…
His sister was gone.
Earth-K2, Somewhere near the North Pole, twenty-nine years ago
Lili Van-Zee dropped out of the air, and fell face-first into a deep pack of snow. It was neither as cold nor as painful as she had expected.
She then felt the strange but familiar exhilaration as Earth’s yellow solar radiation flowed into her, and the super-powers she had in this environment activated.
She hadn’t been out of Kandor since she was nine.
She looked for the Fortress of Solitude. It was not far away, especially as she now possessed telescopic vision. But something was wrong. She quickly flew over to investigate.
The golden door of the Fortress hung open at an odd angle, the hinges bent and broken. Ice and snow had invaded the entryway for some distance. She took a quick tour. The Interstellar Zoo was tenantless. The wall that held Supercomputer was blank and empty. There was no evidence of the robots, or statues, or other memorabilia that usually filled the Fortress.
And the Bottle City of Kandor was gone, of course.
She paused in her survey. Her super-hearing had detected the approach of a flying vessel. It was landing just outside the entrance of the Fortress. Seven brightly-clad humans were exiting the vehicle. Lili flew down to meet them.
“What happened here?” Lili asked in English. There was no response from the humans except puzzlement. “Was ist geschehen? ¿Que pasó aquí? Qu'est-il arrivé? Nini kimetokea? Anong nangyari dito? Kio okazis?”
“What language are you speaking?” asked a blonde man, in formal, highly accented Interlac.
“Oh, thank Rao, you speak Interlac,” said Lili. “What happened to the Fortress of Solitude? Why is it in ruins?”
“Nothing has happened to the Fortress,” the blonde man answered. “It has been a ruin for centuries. It is a great tourist attraction, when North Polar Park is open. How do you not know that? What planet are you from?”
“Earth,” said Lili. “I’m from Earth… wait, what year is this?”
“A time traveler,” said the blonde man, with a faint note of disgust. “You are in the 31st century. Where do you think you should be?”
Lili looked back over her shoulder. “Well, I used to live in the Fortress of Solitude, to be perfectly honest. Back in the 2Oth century. My name is Lili Van-Zee.” She extended a hand, which none of the humans seemed interested in taking. Maybe greetings were different on Earth in the 31st century?
“I am Earth-Man,” said the blonde. “These are my associates: Stormtrooper, Spider Queen, Golden Midas, Tusker, Radiation Roy, Eyeful Ethel. We are the protectors of Earth.”
“Oh, if this is the 31st century, are you the Legion of Super-Heroes?” asked Lili excitedly.
Earth-Man spat on the ground. “Aliens, traitors, and cowards,” he said. “Good riddance to them. We are the Justice League. How do you know about the Legion, if you come from so far in the past?”
“Well, Superman, naturally,” said Lili. “I’m, let see, technically his first cousin once removed. My mother is from Earth, but my father, is from Krypton, Superman’s cousin. From the Bottle City of Kandor.”
“Krypton is a lie!” shouted Spider-Girl. “Superman was as much of the Earth as we are.”
“That has been authoritatively established,” said Radiation Roy, his voice echoing in his bright red hazmat suit.
“Yet she I do feel power from her,” said Earth-Man. “Probably a renegade Daxamite, separated from her an invasion force.”
Lili felt a peculiar weakness, as though her powers were draining away. Of course: this Earth-Man must have powers similar to Superman’s enemy, the Parasite. Lili shot straight up into the air-- or tried to. She was already a little wobbly, but pressed herself. The further she got away from this Earth-Man character, the better. There was something very not right about this future “Justice League”.
She looked behind her, and saw Earth-Man rising after her. The other six Justice Leaguers were rather farther behind. She was now high in the atmosphere, but she took a deep breath, and blew a small hurricane at her pursuers. Caught off-guard, the seven fell backward, toward the Earth. She took off into outer space proper, passing the orbit of the Moon, then Mars. She finally came to rest on a small rock in the asteroid belt. Her powers had quickly returned to normal levels. She scanned for anyone who might still be chasing her.
Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan, and Neptune appeared to have been colonized in the last thousand years. The other worlds had plenty of artificial satellites, as well. There were what looked like mining craft throughout the asteroid belt-- and more ships, in the low Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune.
No one seemed particularly interested in a sixteen-year-old girl, a thousand-plus years from home.
Well, the thing to do was to catch up on the news, figure out a safe place to hide for awhile, then time-travel back home. It might take a few months, but Lili was confident she could do it.
And when she got home, she would give Lyle such a kick.
* * *
Kirt Niedrigh stared up at the empty sky. The rest of the Justice League had retired to their Pod, to warm themselves by the heaters. He would have to join them. He could feel the powers he had absorbed fading away already. Oh, but they had felt good while he had had them.
“The Substitutes have broken into a Xudaran juvenile holding compound, and escaped with about a hundred of the children,” said Eyeful Ethel. “They are probably headed to one of the Northern Metropolis Ghettos. We could confront them there.”
“At least we’ve cleansed Earth of the Legion,” said Earth-Man. “Although their powers are a great temptation to me. There may be a way, though… I’ve been thinking. He looked out at the sky again. What we really need is to get rid of that sprocking yellow sun.”
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
Earth I; University Central Laboratory, Bottle City of Kandor, 1975
“The theory is sound,” said sixteen-year-old Lyle-Zee.
“Then why not present it to the Science Council?” asked Lili Van-Zee, his twin sister. “Why conduct these experiments in secret?”
“The theory is sound,” said Lyle-Zee. “But I want to make sure the practical application of the technology is workable.”
“Isn’t it a little… hubristic?” asked Lili. “To think you can succeed where Kandor’s greatest scientists-- and even Superman and Supergirl-- have failed so far?”
“It is an entirely different approach,” said Lyle. “I am not trying to reverse the effects of Brainiac’s shrinking ray, or exchanging one individual for another. I intend to merely create a stable wormhole from our pocket micro-universe into the outer world. The ordinary laws of nature will take care of the size differential. Once I have demonstrated that an object can be transferred safely through the wormhole, it is entirely scalable upward-- and all of Kandor can be restored, on the planet of our choosing.” He held up an ornate jewelry box. “I intend to move this little box out into the Fortress of Solitude, as proof of concept.”
He turned on a monitor which displayed an outside view of the interior of the Fortress. A horizontal aperture hung in the empty air.
“But where’s the other end?” asked Lili. “You can’t have a one-sided wormhole. It’s impossible!”
“That’s the exit,” explained Lyle. “A wormhole connects two locations in spacetime, and the entrance is located a few seconds in the future.” He indicated the ornate box. “It should appear right under this box, which will fall through the wormhole, and emerge, full-sized, into the Fortress.”
Sure enough, there was the sound like the tearing of paper, and the smaller end of the wormhole appeared in the spot Lyle had indicated. The box tilted, and began to fall, but before it could enter completely, the wormhole flickered and vanished. There was an explosion of Scarlet Forest wood splinters, as the little box exploded, cut in half. The wormhole reappeared, vertical this time, then vanished again with a pop.
“It’s become unstable somehow,” said Lyle-Zee. “I’ll need to collapse it…” The aberrant vanished and reappeared again, taking a bite out of one of the walls. Pebbles of plascrete rained from the ceiling.
“Do something before it damages the equipment!” shouted Lili. Half a sparrow dropped in front of her, evidently from the Earth outside.
“I’ve almost got it,” said Lyle-Zee. “It should have been more stable. I can’t think what made it degrade so fast. I’ll need to go back and check my calculations. Obviously, I missed something.”
He looked around the lab. The damage was noticeable, but not too bad. A small accident, easily explained, easily forgiven. Except…
His sister was gone.
Earth-K2, Somewhere near the North Pole, twenty-nine years ago
Lili Van-Zee dropped out of the air, and fell face-first into a deep pack of snow. It was neither as cold nor as painful as she had expected.
She then felt the strange but familiar exhilaration as Earth’s yellow solar radiation flowed into her, and the super-powers she had in this environment activated.
She hadn’t been out of Kandor since she was nine.
She looked for the Fortress of Solitude. It was not far away, especially as she now possessed telescopic vision. But something was wrong. She quickly flew over to investigate.
The golden door of the Fortress hung open at an odd angle, the hinges bent and broken. Ice and snow had invaded the entryway for some distance. She took a quick tour. The Interstellar Zoo was tenantless. The wall that held Supercomputer was blank and empty. There was no evidence of the robots, or statues, or other memorabilia that usually filled the Fortress.
And the Bottle City of Kandor was gone, of course.
She paused in her survey. Her super-hearing had detected the approach of a flying vessel. It was landing just outside the entrance of the Fortress. Seven brightly-clad humans were exiting the vehicle. Lili flew down to meet them.
“What happened here?” Lili asked in English. There was no response from the humans except puzzlement. “Was ist geschehen? ¿Que pasó aquí? Qu'est-il arrivé? Nini kimetokea? Anong nangyari dito? Kio okazis?”
“What language are you speaking?” asked a blonde man, in formal, highly accented Interlac.
“Oh, thank Rao, you speak Interlac,” said Lili. “What happened to the Fortress of Solitude? Why is it in ruins?”
“Nothing has happened to the Fortress,” the blonde man answered. “It has been a ruin for centuries. It is a great tourist attraction, when North Polar Park is open. How do you not know that? What planet are you from?”
“Earth,” said Lili. “I’m from Earth… wait, what year is this?”
“A time traveler,” said the blonde man, with a faint note of disgust. “You are in the 31st century. Where do you think you should be?”
Lili looked back over her shoulder. “Well, I used to live in the Fortress of Solitude, to be perfectly honest. Back in the 2Oth century. My name is Lili Van-Zee.” She extended a hand, which none of the humans seemed interested in taking. Maybe greetings were different on Earth in the 31st century?
“I am Earth-Man,” said the blonde. “These are my associates: Stormtrooper, Spider Queen, Golden Midas, Tusker, Radiation Roy, Eyeful Ethel. We are the protectors of Earth.”
“Oh, if this is the 31st century, are you the Legion of Super-Heroes?” asked Lili excitedly.
Earth-Man spat on the ground. “Aliens, traitors, and cowards,” he said. “Good riddance to them. We are the Justice League. How do you know about the Legion, if you come from so far in the past?”
“Well, Superman, naturally,” said Lili. “I’m, let see, technically his first cousin once removed. My mother is from Earth, but my father, is from Krypton, Superman’s cousin. From the Bottle City of Kandor.”
“Krypton is a lie!” shouted Spider-Girl. “Superman was as much of the Earth as we are.”
“That has been authoritatively established,” said Radiation Roy, his voice echoing in his bright red hazmat suit.
“Yet she I do feel power from her,” said Earth-Man. “Probably a renegade Daxamite, separated from her an invasion force.”
Lili felt a peculiar weakness, as though her powers were draining away. Of course: this Earth-Man must have powers similar to Superman’s enemy, the Parasite. Lili shot straight up into the air-- or tried to. She was already a little wobbly, but pressed herself. The further she got away from this Earth-Man character, the better. There was something very not right about this future “Justice League”.
She looked behind her, and saw Earth-Man rising after her. The other six Justice Leaguers were rather farther behind. She was now high in the atmosphere, but she took a deep breath, and blew a small hurricane at her pursuers. Caught off-guard, the seven fell backward, toward the Earth. She took off into outer space proper, passing the orbit of the Moon, then Mars. She finally came to rest on a small rock in the asteroid belt. Her powers had quickly returned to normal levels. She scanned for anyone who might still be chasing her.
Venus, Earth, Mars, Titan, and Neptune appeared to have been colonized in the last thousand years. The other worlds had plenty of artificial satellites, as well. There were what looked like mining craft throughout the asteroid belt-- and more ships, in the low Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune.
No one seemed particularly interested in a sixteen-year-old girl, a thousand-plus years from home.
Well, the thing to do was to catch up on the news, figure out a safe place to hide for awhile, then time-travel back home. It might take a few months, but Lili was confident she could do it.
And when she got home, she would give Lyle such a kick.
* * *
Kirt Niedrigh stared up at the empty sky. The rest of the Justice League had retired to their Pod, to warm themselves by the heaters. He would have to join them. He could feel the powers he had absorbed fading away already. Oh, but they had felt good while he had had them.
“The Substitutes have broken into a Xudaran juvenile holding compound, and escaped with about a hundred of the children,” said Eyeful Ethel. “They are probably headed to one of the Northern Metropolis Ghettos. We could confront them there.”
“At least we’ve cleansed Earth of the Legion,” said Earth-Man. “Although their powers are a great temptation to me. There may be a way, though… I’ve been thinking. He looked out at the sky again. What we really need is to get rid of that sprocking yellow sun.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/19 01:44 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE
"|K"
Alala was a white Old Colonial-style mansion built up on a hill just outside Mars City.
It had, among other amenities, seven cleanrooms. "One for each day of the week," as Vera Danforth noted.
Known to her grand-nieces and grand-nephews as 'Old Aunt Vera', she was actually the youngest of her sisters. Small in stature, and prematurely gray ("It is premature, isn't it? I'm only in my mid-forties.") she had been given sole stewardship of the Danforth estate on Mars, while her sisters and their extended families remained on Earth.
Some of her relatives, she was sure, referred to her as 'Crazy Old Aunt Vera'. It was no doubt due to that unfortunate incident with Kimball and Emelia Zendak. May they rest in peace.
Not that she did not have one family or another come for a visit nearly every Martian month for a vacation. Still, the house was large enough that she did not need to see them if she did not want to. Unless she wanted to use the pool.
But this week had been blissfully quiet. She enjoyed the solitude, no doubt rather too much. She has spent the afternoon playing 1O-S with the Pro-bot, but all the house robo-staff had now retired to their charging stations. They would be up and about again before the Martian sunrise, long before she woke up.
The picture window in the sitting at the front of the house had a beautiful view of the Mars City Dome, which shimmered with iridescent rainbow highlights during the day, and glowed with bright interior neon lights at night. But Vera had no interest in relaxing in the sitting room tonight.
She had set herself up in the more secluded interior of the house.
A high desk stood beside a comfortable easy chair. The lights were comfortably low. The house was silent. On the desk was a large box, containing, well-organized, a collection of perhaps fifty small ring-boxes. One small box, marked with a bright green Interlac '"|K", had been placed within easy reach of the armchair.
Vera took a seat, relaxed, and opened the box. Within, a gold ring with a small emerald stone glowed faintly. Vera was the only member of her family in generations to be affected by these elements.
The pain was excruciating. Waves of weakness washed over her. The veins in her left hand, nearest the kryptonite ring, fluoresced a pale green.
Before the enervation overcame her, she clicked the lead-lined lid shut. She gasped at the endorphin rush as the pain subsided. She replaced the little box in its space.
There was a box marked with a gold '"|K", another blue, another white. There were four dozen small boxes marked with a crimson red '"|K". Each had a small card inserted next to them.
One read, 'Ant's Head'. Another, 'Lion's Head'. Others, 'Understand the Language of Birds', 'Third Eye', 'Gender Reversal (96 hours)', 'Dwarfism', 'Hallucinations of Death'. More than half of the little cards were blank.
Vera chose one of the red '"|K" boxes at random with the blank cards. The tiny mineral chip was not set in any jewelry, merely on a slip of plain paper, yellowing at the edges.
"Well, Vera, you are quite fortunate," said a voice. Her own voice. "We are about to become very, very wealthy women."
Vera blinked in the dim light. Her thoughts swirled, but then coalesced into perfect clarity. It was like looking into a mirror. The second diminutive, grey-haired, middle-aged woman slowly rose above the carpet, and with a blast of wind, flew from the house.
Vera closed the ring-box, and picked up the little white card. She wrote in small, careful script, "Super-Powered Evil Twin", and replaced it in the appropriate slot.
"|K"
Alala was a white Old Colonial-style mansion built up on a hill just outside Mars City.
It had, among other amenities, seven cleanrooms. "One for each day of the week," as Vera Danforth noted.
Known to her grand-nieces and grand-nephews as 'Old Aunt Vera', she was actually the youngest of her sisters. Small in stature, and prematurely gray ("It is premature, isn't it? I'm only in my mid-forties.") she had been given sole stewardship of the Danforth estate on Mars, while her sisters and their extended families remained on Earth.
Some of her relatives, she was sure, referred to her as 'Crazy Old Aunt Vera'. It was no doubt due to that unfortunate incident with Kimball and Emelia Zendak. May they rest in peace.
Not that she did not have one family or another come for a visit nearly every Martian month for a vacation. Still, the house was large enough that she did not need to see them if she did not want to. Unless she wanted to use the pool.
But this week had been blissfully quiet. She enjoyed the solitude, no doubt rather too much. She has spent the afternoon playing 1O-S with the Pro-bot, but all the house robo-staff had now retired to their charging stations. They would be up and about again before the Martian sunrise, long before she woke up.
The picture window in the sitting at the front of the house had a beautiful view of the Mars City Dome, which shimmered with iridescent rainbow highlights during the day, and glowed with bright interior neon lights at night. But Vera had no interest in relaxing in the sitting room tonight.
She had set herself up in the more secluded interior of the house.
A high desk stood beside a comfortable easy chair. The lights were comfortably low. The house was silent. On the desk was a large box, containing, well-organized, a collection of perhaps fifty small ring-boxes. One small box, marked with a bright green Interlac '"|K", had been placed within easy reach of the armchair.
Vera took a seat, relaxed, and opened the box. Within, a gold ring with a small emerald stone glowed faintly. Vera was the only member of her family in generations to be affected by these elements.
The pain was excruciating. Waves of weakness washed over her. The veins in her left hand, nearest the kryptonite ring, fluoresced a pale green.
Before the enervation overcame her, she clicked the lead-lined lid shut. She gasped at the endorphin rush as the pain subsided. She replaced the little box in its space.
There was a box marked with a gold '"|K", another blue, another white. There were four dozen small boxes marked with a crimson red '"|K". Each had a small card inserted next to them.
One read, 'Ant's Head'. Another, 'Lion's Head'. Others, 'Understand the Language of Birds', 'Third Eye', 'Gender Reversal (96 hours)', 'Dwarfism', 'Hallucinations of Death'. More than half of the little cards were blank.
Vera chose one of the red '"|K" boxes at random with the blank cards. The tiny mineral chip was not set in any jewelry, merely on a slip of plain paper, yellowing at the edges.
"Well, Vera, you are quite fortunate," said a voice. Her own voice. "We are about to become very, very wealthy women."
Vera blinked in the dim light. Her thoughts swirled, but then coalesced into perfect clarity. It was like looking into a mirror. The second diminutive, grey-haired, middle-aged woman slowly rose above the carpet, and with a blast of wind, flew from the house.
Vera closed the ring-box, and picked up the little white card. She wrote in small, careful script, "Super-Powered Evil Twin", and replaced it in the appropriate slot.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/19 08:40 AM
Are Lyle-Zee and Lili Van-Zee existing characters? I like her very matter of fact approach to things!
Also, Stormtrooper is an excellent name considering the not very subtle analogy Geoff Johns was putting out there when he did that Legion/Superman story...and I have to admit, every time I see Storm Boy all I can think of is a kid and his pelican friend
Also, Stormtrooper is an excellent name considering the not very subtle analogy Geoff Johns was putting out there when he did that Legion/Superman story...and I have to admit, every time I see Storm Boy all I can think of is a kid and his pelican friend
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/19 10:38 AM
Originally Posted by razsolo
Are Lyle-Zee and Lili Van-Zee existing characters?
In the Silver Age, Van-Zee was the Kandorian cousin of Superman, and was his exact double. He married Sylvia DeWitt, an Earth-woman and wealthy heiress who was the exact double of Lois Lane. It was canon that Van-Zee gave his wife a serum which allows her to survive in Kandor's red-sun, super-gravity environment, which gave her Kryptonian-like super-powers on Earth.
Van-Zee and a reformed Phantom Zone criminal named Ak-Var were stand-ins for Superman and Jimmy Olsen as "Nightwing and Flamebird" when the latter two were not in Kandor-- which was most of the time!
Van-Zee and Sylvia (whose married name was, we suppose, Sylvia Van-Zee, according to the then-current Kryptonian naming traditions) were the parents of twins, Lyle and Lili, who, when last seen in the late 1960's, appeared maybe kindergarten age.
The Zee family occasionally visited Earth, and Superman's friends occasionally visited Kandor. So the Zees were well-known to Lois Lane, Lana Lang and Jimmy Olsen-- including the fact that there existed a way to give any human Kryptonian-like super-powers. Think on that for awhile.
Van-Zee write-up
Here are some pics.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MgOEYPpw...
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/03/19 08:40 AM
Thanks! Now that you have told me, I kinda remember reading something with them in it maybe....it was somewhere in my head with all the other stories with identical duplicates of Superman just coincidentally wandering around
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/07/19 02:00 PM
Van-Zee also had an identical twin brother named Dik-Zee.
I blame Mort Weisinger.
I blame Mort Weisinger.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/07/19 02:35 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
SHOPPING
Kallor, Kimota, and Annie announced that they were going shopping in New Metropolis.
"It's kind of ironic that a village this small is called 'New Metropolis', don't you think?" asked Kimota.
"I'm sure it was originally intended to be bigger," opined Annie. "But we can't all be Nix Olympica, or Mars City, or Marsopolis."
"Prime beach-front real estate, though," said Kallor. "There is a lot of coastline around New Hellespont just waiting for development. Look at Rabe City."
"And there is a Mr. Phil's here," noted Annie. "I could use some additions to my wardrobe."
The New Metropolis Mr. Phil's was small, but pricey. Custom fitted clothing was available to order from Earth, as well as off-the-shelf miscellany.
“I need shoes,” Annie announced.
Mr. Phil did not have a line of shoes of his own, but sold creations from Rivera Zapateros in-store.
The cheapest were one hundred credits.
“We also solid-print replicas, in-store,” the salesgirl offered helpfully. “Not the same quality, of course, but still quite stylish.”
A holovid screen, the sound turned low, was set to a news channel.
"The Capitol Building in Mars City has been successfully evacuated," the newswoman reported. "We are waiting for a message from Martian President Ynner."
The screen flickered, replaced by an image of the President Ynner. He was a youngish Ungaran, and he stood beside a diminutive, gray-haired, middle-aged Terran woman.
"The Science Police are by no means to approach the Capitol," he instructed. "I am officially tendering my resignation as President in favor of Mars Citizen Vera Danforth." He indicated the woman beside him.
A crawl immediately appeared on the bottom of the screen: "Eccentric cosmetics heiress Vera Danforth named President of Mars under bizarre circumstances," it read. "This is a developing story."
"Greetings, my loyal supporters," said the new President Danforth. "This is a request for donations to my campaign for re-election. Please transfer your generous donation directly into my account with the Intergalactic Bank." She glanced at the Presidential Desk in the background. Twin lasers shot from her eyes, and the desk was split cleanly in two.
"Those who donate generously will have their names recorded," she continued. "Those who do not, will also have their names recorded. Donations in kind-- precious metals and jewelry only, please-- may be left outside your front doors. The offerings collection in Mars City is scheduled for one half-hour from now. Other Martian cities will be notified soon when in-kind pickups will be scheduled as soon as practicable."
"A Daxamite imposter?" Kimota suggested.
"I don't think so," said Kallor. "Otherwise, why use her personal bank accoutnt? I imagine it is something far stranger. She does not seem quite… sane."
"Well, the Science Police have been ordered to stay away," said Annie. "So she must have made more direct threats than those that have been already implied."
"Well, Star-Woman can't stay away," said Kallor. "This Vera Danforth is coming out within the half-hour to pick up her 'donations'… and I've gone up against Daxamites before. The trick is to get her as far away from Mars City as possible, and as quickly as possible-- to avoid casualties. There may be a little damage to the Mars City dome."
"Don't you think you're acting a little rashly?" asked Annie. But she was talking to the wind. "I'd put a curse on this Danforth woman, for Kallor's benefit," she told Kimota, "If only she weren't on the other side of the planet."
Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, and the super-powered Vera Danforth, were tangling just above the Martian atmosphere. There was a small hole in the Mars City dome below, just large enough for two women to squeeze through.
Star-Woman had blocked several attempts at heat-vision and frost-breath aimed at the ground. Her efforts were focused on getting them higher, beyond the atmosphere, out into space. The older woman's strategy seemed to be to ignore Star-Woman, and try and cause as much random destruction as she could on the surface. She had so far been unsuccessful.
The Danforth woman was fast, and Star-Woman had to prevent her from using that speed: keep her locked down, and pointed away from the planet. It was difficult to get in any disabling move, but so far, it had only been seconds.
That was when the third woman showed up in the sky.
Slender, and dressed in a red-and-black form-fitting jumpsuit and skirt, she appeared to be of approximately the same generation as the Danforth woman. She approached the newly-appointed President of Mars from behind, and put her in a head-lock, eyes facing the stars.
"Slip this on her finger," said the third woman, offering a small ring-box to Star-Woman.
Inside was a gold ring with an emerald-colored stone set in it.
Vera Danforth collapsed almost immediately. The other woman winced, dropping out of the sky. 'President' Danforth fell toward the surface as well, hitting the ground hard. Kallor descended more slowly. The other middle-aged woman recovered quickly, landing some meter away from Danforth and Kallor Nal.
"Lili Jazar," the red-clad woman introduced herself. "You looked like you needed help."
"I appreciate it," said Kallor. "Should I know you?"
"Probably not," said Lili. "But I know you: Kallor Nal, the Star-Woman, Planetary Champion of Naltor and New Titan."
"It's a funny thing," said Kallor. "As a Naltoran, I should have expected something like this today. Chalk it up to the inherent randomness of Naltoran precognitive powers."
"Maybe it just wasn't important for you to know," said Lili.
The SP's were converging quickly around the prone body of erstwhile 'President' Vera Danforth.
"Is there a red-sun holding cell in Mars City?" asked Star-Woman.
"It will only take a short time to equip one," said the SP captain. "We will have to requisition the generators from Earth, but the transport is pretty quick."
"There is already one set up in New Metropolis, although it hasn't been used for months," said Star-Woman. "I'd like to get that ring off her finger before it kills her."
She looked at Lili Jazar. "Can you keep up?"
"Oh, yes," said Lili. And they were off around the planet.
==========================================================================================================================
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN
LILI JAZAR’S STORY
Officers Bradbury and Burroughs took possession of the prisoner. Freed of the kryptonite ring, she sat sulking under the red-solar-radiation projectors.
By the time things had settled down, Kimota and Annie had found Kallor at the jail, and Shrinking Violet, the Triplicates, and Chameleon had joined them.
Star-Woman returned the ring in its lead-lined box to Lili Jazar.
"You seemed affected by this kryptonite, too," said Star-Woman. "Two Kryptonian descendants on Mars in one day seems too coincidental. Who are you?"
"I was born Lili Van-Zee… oh, nearly eleven hundred years ago, now. But time is a funny thing. Non-linear; a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. I was lost when I accidentally came to Earth around thirty years ago. Lost in time, and, as I would learn, from a different version of reality as well."
"Exiled from Earth by Kirt Niedrigh and his 'Justice League'... I got here at just the wrong time... I knocked around the Galaxy for awhile, registered my identity on Weber's World, got a job, earned some credits. I tried living on Daxam, but Daxamites were too strange… insular, tribal, and xenophobic, even more than Earth's present-day xenophobes."
"I learned of Rokyn, founded by the descendants of Kandorians, and a few other the survivors of Krypton, but… well, they've changed over the past thousand years. They're not like the Old Kryptonians at all anymore."
"I was finally successful in going back in time… a thousand years, but found it was not my own Universe. Different Superman, different Krypton, different Kandor. I'm not even sure my world is even accessible from here anymore... or even 'exists', in the strictest sense."
"I had no place in that Earth's 2Oth century, so I came back to the 31st. But not back to Earth. Not at first. I moved around a lot before that."
"When Niedrigh's government failed, I went back-- I am half-Earther, after all-- thinking I might play super-hero there. But it turns out I don't really have the disposition for heroics."
"I got acquainted over the years with some of the other families who claim also Kryptonian descent here: the Emorys and Kweskills in Metropolis, the Bennets and Beignets in France, the Canterburys and the Danforths in England. Never really got to know the Shakespeares. Stand-offish family."
"And then I met Jake, and all I wanted after that was to be was an ordinary Earth-woman. The Danforth family had a collection of various kinds of kryptonite: a family heirloom passed down for generations. They did me a favor. Exposed me to a little sliver of gold K, and that was the end of my Kryptonian super-powers… forever, I thought, at first. So I married Jake Jazar, without worrying I might accidentally crush him to death."
"We had a pretty normal life on Earth together. We've got a son about your age," she indicated Star-Woman. "Esau. And a daughter, Bianca, probably close to yours." She indicated the Triplicates. "Both one-quarter Kryptonian, but they don't fly." She shrugged.
"Then there came that one horrible day. Bianca was on an 'outdoor school' trip. Jake had gone along as a chaperone. It was supposed to be completely safe, well-vetted, well-supervised, but in a distant star-system."
"They didn't expect an invasion by a renegade Khund fleet. But I guess no one ever does."
"UPGov was doing what they could, but it was taking days. No one wanted to go in guns blazing with a bunch of school-kids hiding in some unknown location on the planet's surface."
"Now, I'm only half-Kryptonian. My mother Sylvia was from Earth. But the Kandorians developed a serum which allowed her to live comfortably in the super-high gravity, and under the artificial red sun in Kandor. Provided she took it regularly."
"Whenever she came out under Earth's yellow sun under the influence of the serum, she gained Kryptonian-like superpowers. It was kind of an unfortunate side-effect really: her human body processing that much energy was so exhausting it was dangerous, so we mostly stayed in Kandor. But it gave me an idea."
"I knew that formula. I'd mixed it up before with my parents in our kitchen. By the 3Oth century, the ingredients were all easily available. I didn't know how it would affect me, after the exposure to the gold K, but I was desperate."
"It restored my powers for twenty-four hours. Long enough for me to disable the Khund fleet, and rescue Jake and Bianca and all the rest of the class."
"I was miserable for three days after that. It wasn't like using my powers when I had them naturally. I was wiped out, exhausted. I just stayed in bed for half a week, and Jake fed me chicken soup."
"Vera was in a complete panic this morning when she accidentally created an evil, super-powered red kryptonite clone of herself." Lili indicated the woman in the cell. "I was the first person she called. And I had a little serum prepared for just such an emergency."
"The original Vera Danforth is being interviewed by the Mars City SP's," said Officer Bradbury. "We may be sending her little kryptonite collection back to her family on Earth."
Lili nodded. "Vera is a little eccentric, but not really dangerous. Well, except this time around. When I got her call, it was a quick trip from Earth to Mars, although I'll bet I set off a dozen alarms streaking through the atmosphere, and out beyond the polymer shield. Vera had given me a kryptonite ring. Every Kryptonian family chould have one, and... Oh, dear." Lili Jazar stumbled. "The serum is beginning to wear off. I'll need some help getting back home. Either an SP gate, or hitch a ride from one of you?"
The Members and SP's nodded. Lili Jazar sat down.
"Here," said Lili. "This might interest you. It's a holo-crystal that came with me from Kandor-- all I have left of my childhood."
"This is a picture of our family-- Lyle and I are about four years old. Dad was a dead ringer for the Superman of our world, and Mom was the same for Lois Lane."
"She was also heir to a small fortune on our Earth-- if I could make it back there, I'd be a corporate heiress myself. I guess my brother Lyle would have ended up running DeWitt Industries after he grew up."
"This is a picture of my brother and I, dressed as Nightwing and Flamebird on Masque Night. We must be ten or eleven years old here."
"Masque Night? What is that?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"It's an annual Kryptonian holiday, something like Hallowe'en on Earth. We dress up as characters we admire or fear-- real or imaginary-- and there are games, and parties, and food and desserts. That's my mother, Sylvia, dressed as the Kryptonian demon-goddess Chythonna, and my father, Van-Zee, dressed as a Kryptonite Man. The costumes are always very intricate and ornate, but they're only made of paper*, and at midnight, there's a big bonfire where everyone's costumes are burned. It's symbolic of overcoming one's fears and overcoming... what's the word? Hero-worship? It's about learning to be your own best, authentic self."
"This is the last holo I have of my parents, and this one is the last I have of Lyle. Our sixteenth birthday." She sighed. "So many memories… oh, dear, I think I serum might need a nap before getting back home."
"And how are you doing?" she asked the Vera Danforth clone. But as they watched, the woman faded away.
"Twenty-four hours," said Lili. "Her time must be up, too. Oh, I'm tired. Do you have a place where I can lie down?"
"We'll take her back to Earth in when she wakes up," said Kallor Nal. "That is, if the SP will give their approval."
*Note: When Lili says “paper” she means something more like “papyrus” or “linen”, because it is made from Kryptonian crimson marsh rushes. After exposure to radiation of a yellow sun, it is more stronger and more durable than titanium steel.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/07/19 05:00 PM
Loving your work Klar. Officers Burroughs and Bradbury need another appearance.
Spotted this at lunchtime and thought of you:
https://www.cbr.com/superman-exact-doubles/
Spotted this at lunchtime and thought of you:
https:/
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/08/19 09:22 AM
![[Linked Image]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/5a1ce1ae524f2d4760150b1147a6bad4/tumblr_po15mcObEb1uwm5uqo1_400.png)
Officer Douglas Bradbury and Officer Lance Burroughs of the New Metropolis Science Police Department (NMSPD) are minor characters for whom I have no immediate plans.
This does not mean, however, that I have not already gone down a rabbit hole developing these characters in my mind.
When first introduced, these two were working at the Nix Olympica SPD, but were captivated by the charms of New Metropolis, and recently transferred there.
I even have an outline of the hierarchy structure (positions, if not names) of the NMSPD, including such developed characters as Police Chief Moqed, Gamma (Graveyard) Shift Sergeant Howard Phillips, and K9 Officer Zeus, a genetically corrected Doberman Shepherd, and his handler, young Sergeant Alyss Holt, a New Titan telepath...
Officers Bradbury and Burroughs are assigned to the Alpha (Afternoon) Shift.
Perhaps I will take some time and do a full write-up (or Brain Dump) in my “Who’s Who” thread.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/11/19 05:50 PM
Being partial to felines, I admired the Aruaans, even the bad ones.
Imra convincing Kal to join the Legion: none of the gosh-wow hero worship of the original story, this Imra is negotiating a deal of mutual benefit. She's a smart one.
Some characters certainly have interesting ancestors. Will we learn more about Annie Foxmoor's faery heritage? And the Kryptonian-blood families sound like a bit of an aristocracy or private club. What makes the Shakespeares so standoffish? Vera Danforth is just the right kind of batty, playing around with the kryptonite samples. Scientific curiosity or getting some thrill out of the unexpected. She seemed pretty calm about creating the super-powered evil twin although Lili claimed she called in a panic.
I want to know more about l'Affaire Zendak.
Lili Van Zee-Jazar is a great character. You take a character with nothing more than a name and give her a detailed and credible (for comics) history in a couple of chapters. With great power comes a three-day headache.
I like the idea that Naltorans might only get visions of what's important or pertinent to their own lives. It puts a limiter on the power that isn't associated with lack of reliability.
Masque Night sounds like an excellent idea. We should reformulate Hallowe'en - dump the candy, examine your soul.
What a fascinating universe to visit!
Imra convincing Kal to join the Legion: none of the gosh-wow hero worship of the original story, this Imra is negotiating a deal of mutual benefit. She's a smart one.
Some characters certainly have interesting ancestors. Will we learn more about Annie Foxmoor's faery heritage? And the Kryptonian-blood families sound like a bit of an aristocracy or private club. What makes the Shakespeares so standoffish? Vera Danforth is just the right kind of batty, playing around with the kryptonite samples. Scientific curiosity or getting some thrill out of the unexpected. She seemed pretty calm about creating the super-powered evil twin although Lili claimed she called in a panic.
I want to know more about l'Affaire Zendak.
Lili Van Zee-Jazar is a great character. You take a character with nothing more than a name and give her a detailed and credible (for comics) history in a couple of chapters. With great power comes a three-day headache.
I like the idea that Naltorans might only get visions of what's important or pertinent to their own lives. It puts a limiter on the power that isn't associated with lack of reliability.
Masque Night sounds like an excellent idea. We should reformulate Hallowe'en - dump the candy, examine your soul.
What a fascinating universe to visit!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/14/19 01:21 PM
Canadian Cramer: I am gratified that you enjoy visiting my little intrapersonal paracosm. I spend a lot of time there myself.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/14/19 01:52 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT
"ROKYN”
Kallor Nal found the high gravity and dense atmosphere of Rokyn psychologically oppressive, but it was nothing her electro-cometary enhanced metabolism couldn't handle.
The Speaker-- an ambassadorial position?-- introduced herself as Kymura Won-Bah. Her office was appointed in comfortable furniture and copious artwork.. "What can I do for you, Ms. Nal?" she asked.
"As I am sure you know, one of the greatest heroes in Earth's history came from Krypton. Two, actually. I represent an organization which calls itself 'The Super-Hero Club'. Inspired in part by those heroes, it is our goal to restore a heroic tradition to the Galaxy. We were curious to know if any of your young citizens, as descendants of Krypton, might be interested in such an endeavor."
"Do not each of your worlds have a Planetary Champion of their own?" asked the Speaker. "And are there not a number of able part-Kryptonian descendants on Earth, and scattered throughout the United Planets?"
"A few worlds have Planetary Champions," admitted Kallor. "But by no means all. Not anymore. And the vast majority of citizens of the U.P. claiming part-Kryptonian abilities have no remarkable powers or abilities at all."
"Ah, well, I am not surprised if my information is out-of-date. Time does move on. Nevertheless, I am afraid we cannot help you," said the Speaker. "The cost to our people of leaving Rokyn is too great. I have researched your Super-Hero Club, and its predecessor, the Legion of Super-Heroes. It is filled with idealistic young people, and I daresay we might be able to find some such among the youth of Rokyn. But they would be too immature to appreciate the... gravity of what you are asking, and the consequences of leaving Rokyn. The adult population of Rokyn would never stand for it."
"What dire consequences could come from from association with the greater Galaxy?" asked Kallor. "Perhaps there is something I do not understand about your world?"
"I am sure you are correct," said the Speaker. "We do not advertise it. We do have little contact with the outside Universe. And I will tell you why."
She produced a card.
"Please meet me at my private residence, at sundown," she said. "Our ordinary meal-time. Let me treat you to dinner. I will introduce you to my family, and then I will show you something."
The streets of New Kandor, Rokyn's capital city, were laid out in a straightforward logical manner. Kallor was able to find the little house easily. The speaker greeted her warmly.
"'This is my husband, Won-Bah," she introduced. "And our great grand-daughter, Rora Mar-Ur, who is staying with us at present."
Rora Mar-Ur was a woman who appeared at least as old as Kallor herself.
"Great grand-daughter?" exclaimed Kallor. "Perhaps I misunderstand the term. I would hardly have thought you would be old enough to have grandchildren, let alone a generation beyond."
"We are older than we appear," said Won-Bah. "You would be surprised.
Dinner was adequate, heavy on fruits and grains, with a bland sort of meat dish called babootch.
"Tastes just like chicken," thought Kallor.
"Now let me show you something," said the Speaker. She and her husband led Kallor to another room. "These are our sleeping quarters. You see the golden lamps on each side of the bed? They bathe us as we sleep in a modified gold kryptonite radiation."
"So the people of Rokyn will have no powers under a yellow sun?" asked Kallor.
"It is not that simple," said the Speaker. "Gold kryptonite radiation is in many ways similar to yellow solar radiation. A Kryptonian under a yellow sun, when exposed to gold K, experiences a metabolic overload, and his or her powers simply shut down-- permanently. But there is no such effect under the red sun of Rokyn."
"Solar-induced super-abilities confer a number of benefits, one of which is invulnerability-- including increased resistance to disease. A Kryptonian under a yellow sun seldom becomes ill, and only in extraordinary circumstances. The modified Gold K radiation from these lamps replicates that-- and only that-- longevity benefit."
"Exposure results in a greatly extended life-span as well. At least in one alternate future, Kal-El had a lifespan of more than eight hundred centuries. We do not know how much longer he lived beyond that. The same appears to be true of Rokynites exposed to the modified Gold K radiation."
"My husband and I were, in fact, two of the original colonizers of Rokyn. Born in the original Bottle City of Kandor, we were just toddlers at Rokyn's founding. We are both now well over nine hundred years old. As you see, we have aged well. Rora is, in fact, our descendant, but not exactly our great grand-daughter. She is some nine generations removed." Kymura counted on her fingers. "Our great-great-great-great-great-great grand-daughter. She is visiting us from the Provinces; living with us now, while studying at the University here."
"Children are precious on Rokyn. It became necessary to severly curtail our population growth at one point in our history. Each couple may now have only one child… which means, mathematically, that the population of Rokyn will never more than double its present size."
"It is theoretically possible to leave Rokyn, and to gain super-abilities under a more energetic star. But it would first be necessary for the individual to spend several days in isolation, purging the body of the life-giving K-radiation, so as not to overload the Rokynite metabolism. It would be just as difficult to return. And there is no guarantee that the life-extending benefits would remain. We cannot risk sending our children out into the outer Universe-- where they might risk losing millennia of life."
"So you see, we cannot help you. And you ask not merely for our children, but the finest and bravest and noblest among us to be your heroes. And putting them in danger as well, to possibly risk hundreds of centuries of future, productive life. Or longer."
"Perhaps, at some time in the future, Rokyn will be of benefit to the rest of the Galaxy. With great age comes great wisdom, they say. And in a hundred thousand years, who knows what Rokyn might learn and know and become."
“And so I must refuse you. Are you satisfied with my answer, Kallor Nal?"
Kallor looked at the speaker. This woman who might consider Terrans-- or even the long-lived Coluans-- as mere mayflies, whose lives are lived out in what is relatively a single day.
"I thank you, Madame Speaker," she said. "I see that our… perspectives… are quite different. Keep an eye on the Galaxy's heroes throughout the centuries, if you would. They seem to come and go from history. But I think that they are ultimately necessary."
"Peace and long life," said the Speaker, by way of farewell.
"That means a lot," said Kallor Nal, "Coming from you."
"ROKYN”
Kallor Nal found the high gravity and dense atmosphere of Rokyn psychologically oppressive, but it was nothing her electro-cometary enhanced metabolism couldn't handle.
The Speaker-- an ambassadorial position?-- introduced herself as Kymura Won-Bah. Her office was appointed in comfortable furniture and copious artwork.. "What can I do for you, Ms. Nal?" she asked.
"As I am sure you know, one of the greatest heroes in Earth's history came from Krypton. Two, actually. I represent an organization which calls itself 'The Super-Hero Club'. Inspired in part by those heroes, it is our goal to restore a heroic tradition to the Galaxy. We were curious to know if any of your young citizens, as descendants of Krypton, might be interested in such an endeavor."
"Do not each of your worlds have a Planetary Champion of their own?" asked the Speaker. "And are there not a number of able part-Kryptonian descendants on Earth, and scattered throughout the United Planets?"
"A few worlds have Planetary Champions," admitted Kallor. "But by no means all. Not anymore. And the vast majority of citizens of the U.P. claiming part-Kryptonian abilities have no remarkable powers or abilities at all."
"Ah, well, I am not surprised if my information is out-of-date. Time does move on. Nevertheless, I am afraid we cannot help you," said the Speaker. "The cost to our people of leaving Rokyn is too great. I have researched your Super-Hero Club, and its predecessor, the Legion of Super-Heroes. It is filled with idealistic young people, and I daresay we might be able to find some such among the youth of Rokyn. But they would be too immature to appreciate the... gravity of what you are asking, and the consequences of leaving Rokyn. The adult population of Rokyn would never stand for it."
"What dire consequences could come from from association with the greater Galaxy?" asked Kallor. "Perhaps there is something I do not understand about your world?"
"I am sure you are correct," said the Speaker. "We do not advertise it. We do have little contact with the outside Universe. And I will tell you why."
She produced a card.
"Please meet me at my private residence, at sundown," she said. "Our ordinary meal-time. Let me treat you to dinner. I will introduce you to my family, and then I will show you something."
The streets of New Kandor, Rokyn's capital city, were laid out in a straightforward logical manner. Kallor was able to find the little house easily. The speaker greeted her warmly.
"'This is my husband, Won-Bah," she introduced. "And our great grand-daughter, Rora Mar-Ur, who is staying with us at present."
Rora Mar-Ur was a woman who appeared at least as old as Kallor herself.
"Great grand-daughter?" exclaimed Kallor. "Perhaps I misunderstand the term. I would hardly have thought you would be old enough to have grandchildren, let alone a generation beyond."
"We are older than we appear," said Won-Bah. "You would be surprised.
Dinner was adequate, heavy on fruits and grains, with a bland sort of meat dish called babootch.
"Tastes just like chicken," thought Kallor.
"Now let me show you something," said the Speaker. She and her husband led Kallor to another room. "These are our sleeping quarters. You see the golden lamps on each side of the bed? They bathe us as we sleep in a modified gold kryptonite radiation."
"So the people of Rokyn will have no powers under a yellow sun?" asked Kallor.
"It is not that simple," said the Speaker. "Gold kryptonite radiation is in many ways similar to yellow solar radiation. A Kryptonian under a yellow sun, when exposed to gold K, experiences a metabolic overload, and his or her powers simply shut down-- permanently. But there is no such effect under the red sun of Rokyn."
"Solar-induced super-abilities confer a number of benefits, one of which is invulnerability-- including increased resistance to disease. A Kryptonian under a yellow sun seldom becomes ill, and only in extraordinary circumstances. The modified Gold K radiation from these lamps replicates that-- and only that-- longevity benefit."
"Exposure results in a greatly extended life-span as well. At least in one alternate future, Kal-El had a lifespan of more than eight hundred centuries. We do not know how much longer he lived beyond that. The same appears to be true of Rokynites exposed to the modified Gold K radiation."
"My husband and I were, in fact, two of the original colonizers of Rokyn. Born in the original Bottle City of Kandor, we were just toddlers at Rokyn's founding. We are both now well over nine hundred years old. As you see, we have aged well. Rora is, in fact, our descendant, but not exactly our great grand-daughter. She is some nine generations removed." Kymura counted on her fingers. "Our great-great-great-great-great-great grand-daughter. She is visiting us from the Provinces; living with us now, while studying at the University here."
"Children are precious on Rokyn. It became necessary to severly curtail our population growth at one point in our history. Each couple may now have only one child… which means, mathematically, that the population of Rokyn will never more than double its present size."
"It is theoretically possible to leave Rokyn, and to gain super-abilities under a more energetic star. But it would first be necessary for the individual to spend several days in isolation, purging the body of the life-giving K-radiation, so as not to overload the Rokynite metabolism. It would be just as difficult to return. And there is no guarantee that the life-extending benefits would remain. We cannot risk sending our children out into the outer Universe-- where they might risk losing millennia of life."
"So you see, we cannot help you. And you ask not merely for our children, but the finest and bravest and noblest among us to be your heroes. And putting them in danger as well, to possibly risk hundreds of centuries of future, productive life. Or longer."
"Perhaps, at some time in the future, Rokyn will be of benefit to the rest of the Galaxy. With great age comes great wisdom, they say. And in a hundred thousand years, who knows what Rokyn might learn and know and become."
“And so I must refuse you. Are you satisfied with my answer, Kallor Nal?"
Kallor looked at the speaker. This woman who might consider Terrans-- or even the long-lived Coluans-- as mere mayflies, whose lives are lived out in what is relatively a single day.
"I thank you, Madame Speaker," she said. "I see that our… perspectives… are quite different. Keep an eye on the Galaxy's heroes throughout the centuries, if you would. They seem to come and go from history. But I think that they are ultimately necessary."
"Peace and long life," said the Speaker, by way of farewell.
"That means a lot," said Kallor Nal, "Coming from you."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/21/19 01:35 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE
WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY, THE TEACHER WILL APPEAR
A dozen flying mini-drones hovered above the training field.
“Saturn Girl!” cried the first drone. “How will you defend against a blast of psionic white noise?” The green-and-yellow clad girl fell to her knees.
“Lightning Lass!” cried the second drone, on the opposite side of the field. “These restraints contain duralim, which will absorb and negate your powers. How will you escape?”
Cosmic Boy was surrounded by a ring of blazing fire from the third drone, the heat calculated to weaken Braalien magnetic powers.
The fourth drone snaked out cybernetic fibers, attaching themselves to Vesta. “Ten, I now control your robo-nanny, which in turn has access to your force-belt and other weapon controls. You are at my mercy!”
Matter-Eater Lad Two was imprisoned by the fifth drone in a cage of a metal so toxic even Bismollians are unable to eat it.
Polar Lass, always sensitive to cold, was trapped in an ice cage by the sixth drone.
Ffiona found herself wrapped tight in an elastic polymer. “In this plastic prison, you will be unable to summon your duplicates, and will, yourself, suffocate in a matter of minutes!” announced the seventh drone.
Chameleon was sprayed with aerosolized Cancelite from an eighth drone.
Shrinking Violet found herself bathed in a beam of golden energy. “This radiation will cancel the effects of the Irulan white dwarf ultraviolet radiation which gives you your powers!” the ninth drone declared.
Korvea found herself enveloped in hot, blinding white light from the tenth drone. “Has your Talokan training prepared you for this?” the drone mocked.
No drone approached Star-Woman, hovering above the training field. Rather, an odd robot descended from the sky. Its metallic body was skeletal, and painted a metallic green. A motley collection of odd weapons decorated its torso. Its crimson-and-gold head was too large for its body, and resembled a giant toaster, with for the two strange antennae protruding from its forehead.
“You are the most powerful of all,” said Topar, the Super-Teacher from Krypton. “But this exotic, radioactive mineral will nullify all of your powers.” The robot produced a fist-sized chunk of black stone, which glowed with a bizarre dark radiation. Star-Woman fell to the ground. The robot descended with her, at last tossing the stone before her supine body.
The Super-Teacher looked around the training ground at the helpless members. “Your training routines are foolish and ineffectual,” Topar declared. “You need me to teach you how to use your powers properly, before you can become real heroes. Admit I have defeated you all, with a single surprise attack, and I may consent to be your instructor.”
Star-Woman pulled herself up on her elbows. “You’re a monster!” she cried. “This black element not only removes my powers… if I were exposed to it long enough, it would kill me! How can you be so cruel?”
“I suggest you agree quickly, for several of your colleagues are in similar danger. Talokites cannot stand too long an exposure to super-intense light, and your Cargggan friend is unable to breathe…”
“This black element would kill me,” said Star-Woman. “If I were Star-Woman.” Chameleon reverted to his Durlan form, picking up the deadly stone as he rose to his feet.
The ‘Chameleon’ who had been exposed to Cancelite revealed herself to be Ffarrah, disguised by Chameleon’s shape-shifting Martian Zo’Ok ‘costume’. “And my sister was prepared for your polymer trap, with a small plasteel knife in one of the pouches of her utility belt." Ffiona had already cut herself a breathing hole, and was swiftly removing the rest of the plastic prison.
“Your ultra-bright light trap would have been effective, if I were Korvea, and not Phantom Girl, wearing Korvea’s costume.” The black-clad Phantom Girl sank down through the soil, beneath the surface of Mars, suddenly emerging from the Phantom Zone behind the befuddled robot. "Surprise yourself," she said.
Phantom Girl brought with ther the real Star-Woman, previously hidden in the Phantom Zone. The Planetary Champion of Naltor raised the ancient star-rod, which glowed with a blade like a light-saber. A quick super-swing severed the robot’s head from its body.
“Your first error,” said Star-Woman, “was discounting Naltoran precognitive powers. We prepared Ffiona, Ten, and Vesta for your anticipated attack, and the rest of us simply switched costumes. There were a dozen ways you might have been defeated.” She indicated the nearby wood. “The real Korvea has been hiding there, in shadow, since before you arrived. Saturn Girl is disguised as Lightning Lass, and vice-versa. Cosmic Boy and Matter-Eater Lad Two switched costumes, as did Polar Lass and Shrinking Violet. I think you can figure out the rest. It was a simple gambit, but we knew that, overconfident, you would not even bother to use your facial recognition software.”
“Your programming has become corrupted over the past centuries,” Ten remarked. “Including your prime directive. But when you attempted to take over Vesta’s systems, we took over yours. Your central operating system, after all, is centuries inferior to Coluan computing technology. But do not despair.” Ten pulled a small toolkit from his utility belt. “I can repair you… or, at least, patch you up, with instructions to go in for a full rebuild on Colu.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two sat munching on one of the alien weapons attached the robot’s inert body.
“Don’t eat its anti-gravity generator, I’ll need that,” said Ten, diligently working in the back of the robot’s open head. “And there should be a warp coil or superluminal drive attachment. And some sort of mapping and guidance mechanism. Leave those alone, too.”
* * *
Sometime later...
Cyranus. Headquarters of the Super-Hero Club of that world.
“Look, it’s just too confusing,” said Whippy. “One of us needs to change his name.”
“OK, you can change yours,” Whiptail replied hotly.
A crimson-and-gold robot head, somewhat resembling a 2Oth-century Earth toaster, quietly appeared on the conference table beside them.
“A little confusion among your enemies can be a good thing,” said Topar, the Super-Teacher from Krypton. “I have had some experience with these things. And now that I have completed some extensive repair and refurbishment, I would like to offer my humble services as an instructor to your team.”
WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY, THE TEACHER WILL APPEAR
A dozen flying mini-drones hovered above the training field.
“Saturn Girl!” cried the first drone. “How will you defend against a blast of psionic white noise?” The green-and-yellow clad girl fell to her knees.
“Lightning Lass!” cried the second drone, on the opposite side of the field. “These restraints contain duralim, which will absorb and negate your powers. How will you escape?”
Cosmic Boy was surrounded by a ring of blazing fire from the third drone, the heat calculated to weaken Braalien magnetic powers.
The fourth drone snaked out cybernetic fibers, attaching themselves to Vesta. “Ten, I now control your robo-nanny, which in turn has access to your force-belt and other weapon controls. You are at my mercy!”
Matter-Eater Lad Two was imprisoned by the fifth drone in a cage of a metal so toxic even Bismollians are unable to eat it.
Polar Lass, always sensitive to cold, was trapped in an ice cage by the sixth drone.
Ffiona found herself wrapped tight in an elastic polymer. “In this plastic prison, you will be unable to summon your duplicates, and will, yourself, suffocate in a matter of minutes!” announced the seventh drone.
Chameleon was sprayed with aerosolized Cancelite from an eighth drone.
Shrinking Violet found herself bathed in a beam of golden energy. “This radiation will cancel the effects of the Irulan white dwarf ultraviolet radiation which gives you your powers!” the ninth drone declared.
Korvea found herself enveloped in hot, blinding white light from the tenth drone. “Has your Talokan training prepared you for this?” the drone mocked.
No drone approached Star-Woman, hovering above the training field. Rather, an odd robot descended from the sky. Its metallic body was skeletal, and painted a metallic green. A motley collection of odd weapons decorated its torso. Its crimson-and-gold head was too large for its body, and resembled a giant toaster, with for the two strange antennae protruding from its forehead.
“You are the most powerful of all,” said Topar, the Super-Teacher from Krypton. “But this exotic, radioactive mineral will nullify all of your powers.” The robot produced a fist-sized chunk of black stone, which glowed with a bizarre dark radiation. Star-Woman fell to the ground. The robot descended with her, at last tossing the stone before her supine body.
The Super-Teacher looked around the training ground at the helpless members. “Your training routines are foolish and ineffectual,” Topar declared. “You need me to teach you how to use your powers properly, before you can become real heroes. Admit I have defeated you all, with a single surprise attack, and I may consent to be your instructor.”
Star-Woman pulled herself up on her elbows. “You’re a monster!” she cried. “This black element not only removes my powers… if I were exposed to it long enough, it would kill me! How can you be so cruel?”
“I suggest you agree quickly, for several of your colleagues are in similar danger. Talokites cannot stand too long an exposure to super-intense light, and your Cargggan friend is unable to breathe…”
“This black element would kill me,” said Star-Woman. “If I were Star-Woman.” Chameleon reverted to his Durlan form, picking up the deadly stone as he rose to his feet.
The ‘Chameleon’ who had been exposed to Cancelite revealed herself to be Ffarrah, disguised by Chameleon’s shape-shifting Martian Zo’Ok ‘costume’. “And my sister was prepared for your polymer trap, with a small plasteel knife in one of the pouches of her utility belt." Ffiona had already cut herself a breathing hole, and was swiftly removing the rest of the plastic prison.
“Your ultra-bright light trap would have been effective, if I were Korvea, and not Phantom Girl, wearing Korvea’s costume.” The black-clad Phantom Girl sank down through the soil, beneath the surface of Mars, suddenly emerging from the Phantom Zone behind the befuddled robot. "Surprise yourself," she said.
Phantom Girl brought with ther the real Star-Woman, previously hidden in the Phantom Zone. The Planetary Champion of Naltor raised the ancient star-rod, which glowed with a blade like a light-saber. A quick super-swing severed the robot’s head from its body.
“Your first error,” said Star-Woman, “was discounting Naltoran precognitive powers. We prepared Ffiona, Ten, and Vesta for your anticipated attack, and the rest of us simply switched costumes. There were a dozen ways you might have been defeated.” She indicated the nearby wood. “The real Korvea has been hiding there, in shadow, since before you arrived. Saturn Girl is disguised as Lightning Lass, and vice-versa. Cosmic Boy and Matter-Eater Lad Two switched costumes, as did Polar Lass and Shrinking Violet. I think you can figure out the rest. It was a simple gambit, but we knew that, overconfident, you would not even bother to use your facial recognition software.”
“Your programming has become corrupted over the past centuries,” Ten remarked. “Including your prime directive. But when you attempted to take over Vesta’s systems, we took over yours. Your central operating system, after all, is centuries inferior to Coluan computing technology. But do not despair.” Ten pulled a small toolkit from his utility belt. “I can repair you… or, at least, patch you up, with instructions to go in for a full rebuild on Colu.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two sat munching on one of the alien weapons attached the robot’s inert body.
“Don’t eat its anti-gravity generator, I’ll need that,” said Ten, diligently working in the back of the robot’s open head. “And there should be a warp coil or superluminal drive attachment. And some sort of mapping and guidance mechanism. Leave those alone, too.”
* * *
Sometime later...
Cyranus. Headquarters of the Super-Hero Club of that world.
“Look, it’s just too confusing,” said Whippy. “One of us needs to change his name.”
“OK, you can change yours,” Whiptail replied hotly.
A crimson-and-gold robot head, somewhat resembling a 2Oth-century Earth toaster, quietly appeared on the conference table beside them.
“A little confusion among your enemies can be a good thing,” said Topar, the Super-Teacher from Krypton. “I have had some experience with these things. And now that I have completed some extensive repair and refurbishment, I would like to offer my humble services as an instructor to your team.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/22/19 04:19 AM
DIGRESSION: VIGNETTE BETA
TRUE BELIEVER
=========================================================================
I stared up into the night sky. I could find it. I believed I could find it.
The Charybdis of Space had once been thought to be an Old Spacer’s Legend.
Then it had appeared here, in Central United Planets Space, near my homeworld of Cyranus. Several ships had already vanished completely. A few had escaped. Some members of their crews swore the the strange, warped spacetime maelstrom had followed them. Others said they heard it speaking to them.
Whatever the truth was, I had to stop it. I had the power. I had to have the power.
Hadn’t I proved himself faster than the Velocitas Squadron? Wasn’t I more powerful than the giantess Trex Trolgre?
They tell me do anything I truly believe, I can do. This is my super-power. Of course, I also have to actually do something. It wasn’t as if I can just imagine that everyone on Cyranus is suddenly peaceful, and law-abiding, and kind, and good.
Or could I? Perhaps it would be worth giving it a try.
But for now, I must find Charybdis.
I scan the skies, deeper and deeper into space. The interstellar void is black, featureless. I stare harder. I see the thin mist of hydrogen gas that permeated the Galaxy, hear the song of 21-centimeter radiation. I observe the few stray molecules of heavier elements. Then I see it. An invisible line, separating normal spacetime from… something else. It is small, no larger than a large asteroid. It is drifting on a seemingly random, meandering path, but appears unaffected by gravity.
My silver-and-gold Planetary Champion uniform gleaming, I launch myself into space.
Now I see the Thing before me, a portal to Elsewhere. I cannot see inside-- or, perhaps I don’t want to. I am afraid. But there is nothing for it but to go through.
It is like flying through black gelatin. For a moment, I seem to sense a voice in his mind, calling my name.
“Vrai Hundueber… Vrai Hundueber… “
Then suddenly, I am through.
It is a tiny universe, no more than a few miles across. Rocks and debris were everywhere; there are no large planets. There are, however, over a hundred lost starships. Nearly half show signs of life to my scanning-vision. I approach the nearest one, and phase into a nearby airlock.
“May I speak to your Captain?” I ask the first being I meet-- a canary-headed llamazoid. “How long have you been here?”
He takes me to see the Captain.
“It is hard to say,” the Captain chirped. “We cannot trust the chronometers-- they sometimes run backwards-- and there are no constellations to measure the years. The Charybdis seems to regenerate our stores automatically, as well as fuel for life-support. Our children have all grown to young adulthood, but have not seemed to age beyond that. None of us seem to have really aged for quite a while. And no one has died for a long, long time.”
“The Charybdis cares for you? Feeds you, provides for you, and extends your lives?”
“That is true,” chirped the Captain. “But we would still like to leave, and return to our homeworlds. Even those with family here. This place is too weird and uncanny. And there is a sense that we are being kept… like animals in a zoo”
The story is the same on the other ships I visit. There were two Cyranian vessels here, which cannot have been here more than a couple of weeks, but are still beginning to feel the eerie timeless quality of this pocket dimension. Everyone wants to go home to a more mundane reality.
I can hear the Charybdis of Space calling from the portal. It is unmistakable now. It is calling my name.
“Vrai Hundueber. Come to me, Vrai. Come Back to the portal. Vrai. Come to me, my child.”
I fly back to the strange, sticky blackness between the universes.
“See how well I am caring for our pets?” the voice in my mind asks.
“How many are you,” I ask.
“At first, I was alone. Then we were two. Then I was alone again. But now you have returned, my child. Have they made you forget me so soon?”
“I am not your child,” I protest. “I was born on Cyranus. My parents are Cyranians. I am the Champion of my people.”
“Are you really Cyranian?” asks the silent voice. “Do you remember your parents? Do you remember your childhood home?”
The Charybdis watches as I search my mind.
“This is your childhood home. I am your beloved mother. I made you to help me-- to go into the Universe where I cannot go myself. But you became lost. I am so pleased you have returned to me.”
The dark, gluey space becomes warmer.
“Mother,” I say. “You must release these living beings you have captured. They are unhappy here. They wish to return home.”
“But they are my pets,” Charybdis protests. “They are all I care about. They are my only pastime, my only darlings. I have learned how to care for them.”
“They have family who miss them. Surely you understand that?” I plead.
“Some of them are too old to return. They have lived ten or twenty or thirty times your brief existence. If I were to send them back, they would die.”
She was silent for a time.
“Bring me your adopted world of Cyranus,” she suggested. “With your power and mine, we can enlarge my inner space, to make room for it. Those who are here can have a real planet to live on, a complex ecology and technology, and many friends. In time, you could bring me a real star. After many generations, they would forget that the Outer Universe. We would never be lonely again.”
This does not sound like a good idea to me.
The Charybdis of Space reads my mind, and casts me back into the graveyard of ships.
“I will give you time to think about it” are the last angry words that echo in my mind.
I try to imagine where I am. There is the portal to the Universe of Cyranus. There is this pocket Universe-- the ‘interior’ of the Charybdis? And a membrane of some kind, separating the Charybdis from… what? A higher-dimensional space? I imagine the Universe of Cyranus as an immense sphere, curving through 4-dimensional spacetime. The Charybdis is a smaller sphere, attached to the larger Universe like a parasite. I fly to the side opposite the portal. Space is noticeably curved here. I step through…
Into a five-dimensional chaos. My three dimensions of space, and one scalar of time, are like a flat playing-card here. At the same time, I see my past like a great cord, looping out of what must be the Charybdis, out into space, and then back again. I travel some way into my future, and meet…
“J’Nn J’Nnzz, Imphunter from Zrfff,” says the little bald green-skinned man. “At your service.”
“I am called True Believer, Planetary Champion of Cyranus,” I explain.
Time flickers, and I jump forward a few moments.
“So your old Ma is feeling lonely, is she?” asks the Imphunter. “Try one of them Coccus Glomes grazing over there.” He gestures. “I myself can’t tell the boys from the girls, but maybe you’ll have better luck playing matchmaker.
“What is your real name?” I ask.
“I can’t tell you that here,” he laughs. Time skips again.
“Wait here,” I tell the young Glome, and re-enter the Charybdis. There is no indication any time has passed since I have been gone. The Charybdis immediately reads my mind, and turns away from the Universe of Cyranus, through Otherspace, and towards the Coccus Glome I have brought. Their portals align and meet. The Charybdis’ interior shudders, as a brief electrical storm ripples through.
The world is madly spinning as the Charybdis turns back toward the Universe of Cyranus. The graveyard of ships, small asteroids and debris accompany me in our trip back into normal space. The portal between Universes turns away, shinks, and vanishes.
The Charybdis of Space is gone, having found something more interesting to focus on.
My name is Vrai Hundueber.
On my world of Cyranus, I am known as Planetary Champion, and leader of the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus.
But secretly, I am the son of a small Universe. Mother and I have a complicated relationship.
I have powers and abilities even I do not understand. They tell me that anything I can truly believe is within my power to do.
I am… True Believer
=========================================================================
TRUE BELIEVER
=========================================================================
I stared up into the night sky. I could find it. I believed I could find it.
The Charybdis of Space had once been thought to be an Old Spacer’s Legend.
Then it had appeared here, in Central United Planets Space, near my homeworld of Cyranus. Several ships had already vanished completely. A few had escaped. Some members of their crews swore the the strange, warped spacetime maelstrom had followed them. Others said they heard it speaking to them.
Whatever the truth was, I had to stop it. I had the power. I had to have the power.
Hadn’t I proved himself faster than the Velocitas Squadron? Wasn’t I more powerful than the giantess Trex Trolgre?
They tell me do anything I truly believe, I can do. This is my super-power. Of course, I also have to actually do something. It wasn’t as if I can just imagine that everyone on Cyranus is suddenly peaceful, and law-abiding, and kind, and good.
Or could I? Perhaps it would be worth giving it a try.
But for now, I must find Charybdis.
I scan the skies, deeper and deeper into space. The interstellar void is black, featureless. I stare harder. I see the thin mist of hydrogen gas that permeated the Galaxy, hear the song of 21-centimeter radiation. I observe the few stray molecules of heavier elements. Then I see it. An invisible line, separating normal spacetime from… something else. It is small, no larger than a large asteroid. It is drifting on a seemingly random, meandering path, but appears unaffected by gravity.
My silver-and-gold Planetary Champion uniform gleaming, I launch myself into space.
Now I see the Thing before me, a portal to Elsewhere. I cannot see inside-- or, perhaps I don’t want to. I am afraid. But there is nothing for it but to go through.
It is like flying through black gelatin. For a moment, I seem to sense a voice in his mind, calling my name.
“Vrai Hundueber… Vrai Hundueber… “
Then suddenly, I am through.
It is a tiny universe, no more than a few miles across. Rocks and debris were everywhere; there are no large planets. There are, however, over a hundred lost starships. Nearly half show signs of life to my scanning-vision. I approach the nearest one, and phase into a nearby airlock.
“May I speak to your Captain?” I ask the first being I meet-- a canary-headed llamazoid. “How long have you been here?”
He takes me to see the Captain.
“It is hard to say,” the Captain chirped. “We cannot trust the chronometers-- they sometimes run backwards-- and there are no constellations to measure the years. The Charybdis seems to regenerate our stores automatically, as well as fuel for life-support. Our children have all grown to young adulthood, but have not seemed to age beyond that. None of us seem to have really aged for quite a while. And no one has died for a long, long time.”
“The Charybdis cares for you? Feeds you, provides for you, and extends your lives?”
“That is true,” chirped the Captain. “But we would still like to leave, and return to our homeworlds. Even those with family here. This place is too weird and uncanny. And there is a sense that we are being kept… like animals in a zoo”
The story is the same on the other ships I visit. There were two Cyranian vessels here, which cannot have been here more than a couple of weeks, but are still beginning to feel the eerie timeless quality of this pocket dimension. Everyone wants to go home to a more mundane reality.
I can hear the Charybdis of Space calling from the portal. It is unmistakable now. It is calling my name.
“Vrai Hundueber. Come to me, Vrai. Come Back to the portal. Vrai. Come to me, my child.”
I fly back to the strange, sticky blackness between the universes.
“See how well I am caring for our pets?” the voice in my mind asks.
“How many are you,” I ask.
“At first, I was alone. Then we were two. Then I was alone again. But now you have returned, my child. Have they made you forget me so soon?”
“I am not your child,” I protest. “I was born on Cyranus. My parents are Cyranians. I am the Champion of my people.”
“Are you really Cyranian?” asks the silent voice. “Do you remember your parents? Do you remember your childhood home?”
The Charybdis watches as I search my mind.
“This is your childhood home. I am your beloved mother. I made you to help me-- to go into the Universe where I cannot go myself. But you became lost. I am so pleased you have returned to me.”
The dark, gluey space becomes warmer.
“Mother,” I say. “You must release these living beings you have captured. They are unhappy here. They wish to return home.”
“But they are my pets,” Charybdis protests. “They are all I care about. They are my only pastime, my only darlings. I have learned how to care for them.”
“They have family who miss them. Surely you understand that?” I plead.
“Some of them are too old to return. They have lived ten or twenty or thirty times your brief existence. If I were to send them back, they would die.”
She was silent for a time.
“Bring me your adopted world of Cyranus,” she suggested. “With your power and mine, we can enlarge my inner space, to make room for it. Those who are here can have a real planet to live on, a complex ecology and technology, and many friends. In time, you could bring me a real star. After many generations, they would forget that the Outer Universe. We would never be lonely again.”
This does not sound like a good idea to me.
The Charybdis of Space reads my mind, and casts me back into the graveyard of ships.
“I will give you time to think about it” are the last angry words that echo in my mind.
I try to imagine where I am. There is the portal to the Universe of Cyranus. There is this pocket Universe-- the ‘interior’ of the Charybdis? And a membrane of some kind, separating the Charybdis from… what? A higher-dimensional space? I imagine the Universe of Cyranus as an immense sphere, curving through 4-dimensional spacetime. The Charybdis is a smaller sphere, attached to the larger Universe like a parasite. I fly to the side opposite the portal. Space is noticeably curved here. I step through…
Into a five-dimensional chaos. My three dimensions of space, and one scalar of time, are like a flat playing-card here. At the same time, I see my past like a great cord, looping out of what must be the Charybdis, out into space, and then back again. I travel some way into my future, and meet…
“J’Nn J’Nnzz, Imphunter from Zrfff,” says the little bald green-skinned man. “At your service.”
“I am called True Believer, Planetary Champion of Cyranus,” I explain.
Time flickers, and I jump forward a few moments.
“So your old Ma is feeling lonely, is she?” asks the Imphunter. “Try one of them Coccus Glomes grazing over there.” He gestures. “I myself can’t tell the boys from the girls, but maybe you’ll have better luck playing matchmaker.
“What is your real name?” I ask.
“I can’t tell you that here,” he laughs. Time skips again.
“Wait here,” I tell the young Glome, and re-enter the Charybdis. There is no indication any time has passed since I have been gone. The Charybdis immediately reads my mind, and turns away from the Universe of Cyranus, through Otherspace, and towards the Coccus Glome I have brought. Their portals align and meet. The Charybdis’ interior shudders, as a brief electrical storm ripples through.
The world is madly spinning as the Charybdis turns back toward the Universe of Cyranus. The graveyard of ships, small asteroids and debris accompany me in our trip back into normal space. The portal between Universes turns away, shinks, and vanishes.
The Charybdis of Space is gone, having found something more interesting to focus on.
My name is Vrai Hundueber.
On my world of Cyranus, I am known as Planetary Champion, and leader of the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus.
But secretly, I am the son of a small Universe. Mother and I have a complicated relationship.
I have powers and abilities even I do not understand. They tell me that anything I can truly believe is within my power to do.
I am… True Believer
=========================================================================
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/28/19 09:44 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LEAGUE OF SUPER-ASSASSINS?
(RAZOR’S STORY)
Razor (Atta-Karr of Earth): He has Neptunian and Korlon-Dryad colonist heritage, as his parents are Ron-Karr and Ki-Lan (the Silver Slasher).
“You would think it would have been easy,” said Razor. “The Dark Man kidnapped Mom and her cousins, held them prisoner for years, brainwashed them, implanted false memories, and overlaid violent personalities. Modern psionic psychological medical technology ought to just be able to peel away those layers like an onion, and reveal and restore the normal mind and personality underneath. Right?”
“On the other hand,” said Dorrit, “Our mother is a master psychic, so Dacey and I know just enought to understand how difficult that kind of therapy can be.”
“The League was also physically transformed by the Dark Man,” said Razor. “With the exception of Blok. And with no real attempt to moderate the brutality of the process.” Razor paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I don’t think the Dark Man really expected the League to survive their encounters with the Legion.”
“Blok’s history is the one I least understand,” Razor continued. “Everyone thought at first that all the Dryads had been rescued, along with the Terran colonists, but when when they arrived… only Blok had escaped, with Titania’s family. The rest of the Dryads had disappeared. They called him Blok, because they couldn’t pronounce the name he called himself... he grew up on the comume my great-grandparents established on Korlon-Two.”
“I thought the Korlon colonists were resettled to Ganadan,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Ganaden was what United Planets officially named the place,” said Razor. “But the descendants of the original colonists still think of it today as Korlon-Two. Our family was closer to Dad’s parents than my Mom’s-- I’ve only been to Ganaden a couple of times. Mom has a hard time even remembering her family is still alive-- not intellectually, you know, but emotionally-- a residual of the Dark Man’s programming. She’s close to the other Leaguers, though. Blok’s death at the hands of Validus and the New Fatal Five hit her hard. Although, from what you tell me, it’s more complicated than that. She blamed the Legion-- she still blames the Legion for a lot of things, including the way the rest of my ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ ended up.”
“Next to Mom, Titania is the most normal of the Leaguers, and the one who has come closest to a happy ending. She’s married, has a more-or-less stable home and family. Of course, she and Tyr are pirates, but that’s an honorable profession on Tyrazz. And he’s an important figure in government, too, which makes her something of a celebrity. I understand their son Auberon is ambitious, and looking to make a name for himself as a warrior-- although that has already put him at odds with the United Planets. Still, from a Tyrazzite perspective, he’s a success.”
“The psych-techs had good luck with Uncle Sti-Tuan, after the introduction of the 7G protocol.”
“7G: that’s what helped Uncle Mekt so much,” said Dacey.
“Yes, well,” said Razor. “The problem was, his powers continued to mutate, and overwhelmed him. He lost control of his… bodily cohesion. In the end he just… sublimed away into vapour. Whether he remained conscious or not-- that’s a horrifying thought, isn’t it? The Titan telepaths couldn’t find any indication of his mind remaining in existence.”.
“Uncle Cey-Nu had a similar problem. He had to be kept in a mirrored room. It contained him when he lost control, and transformed into pure light. I don’t really remember him, but I have a holo of the two of us in his hospital room when I was a toddler. With my sister, and my parents. Uncle Cey-Nu was luckier than Uncle Sti-Tuan. The crosstime researchers discovered a dimension inhabited by sentient light-beings, and he eventually relocated there. Of course, Mom hasn’t heard much from him since then. Although I understand he found a ‘female’ beam of light, and got married. Or the equivalent.”
“Mom had the opposite problem. Her powers began to fade. She can still assume ‘Silver Slasher’ form-- superhard metallic skin, super-speed-- but only for short periods, and with sustained concentration. She passed on some of her abilities to my sister and me. Dad complains his arthritis makes it painful to become two-dimensional anymore, so they’re pretty much normal Terrans. As much as any family is normal.”
“Aron Chazir is a mid-security prison hospital for inmates still receiving psychiatric treatment. It’s a massive artificial structure, covering most of the surface of Triton, the largest moon of Neptune. Dad’s parents, and my aunts and uncles and cousins on his side of the family, live in various Sky-Cities of Neptune. So it’s not hard to visit Aron Chazir. That’s where Wi Kan Muur, my ‘Uncle Neutrax’, lives. He’s the worst off of them all. He suffers delusions-- not just the ones the Dark Man implanted in his head, but other, ever-changing ones as well. One time we visited, he insisted that he was a champion bat-ball player, and was being held against his will so that Xanthu would win the interplanetary cup. This despite the fact that he is paralyzed from the neck down. His neutralizing powers have turned in on himself, making it impossible to heal his somatic nervous system. He’s also dangerous: he sometimes goes into fits of rage where he tries to ‘neutralize’ people. He’s even managed to thrash his head around to the point where his protective visor has come loose, and he’s caused some injury to the staff. Still, Mom and Dad take us kids to visit him, and they do what they can. If they don’t visit him, they send presents and holo-cards to Aron Chazir for Christmas, and his birthday, and Klordny Week. I think Uncle Neutrax is why they eventually became Pastors of the First Church of Neptune on Earth. Mom, especially, seems to get satisfaction from being of help to others.”
“And that’s why you’re also studying theology at Metropolis University?” asked Dacey.
“I was studying theology,” said Razor. “Now I’m just cooling my heels on Mars. EarthGov won’t even allow me to go visit my parents in the Maldives. Or allow them to come here.”
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LEAGUE OF SUPER-ASSASSINS?
(RAZOR’S STORY)
Razor (Atta-Karr of Earth): He has Neptunian and Korlon-Dryad colonist heritage, as his parents are Ron-Karr and Ki-Lan (the Silver Slasher).
“You would think it would have been easy,” said Razor. “The Dark Man kidnapped Mom and her cousins, held them prisoner for years, brainwashed them, implanted false memories, and overlaid violent personalities. Modern psionic psychological medical technology ought to just be able to peel away those layers like an onion, and reveal and restore the normal mind and personality underneath. Right?”
“On the other hand,” said Dorrit, “Our mother is a master psychic, so Dacey and I know just enought to understand how difficult that kind of therapy can be.”
“The League was also physically transformed by the Dark Man,” said Razor. “With the exception of Blok. And with no real attempt to moderate the brutality of the process.” Razor paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. “I don’t think the Dark Man really expected the League to survive their encounters with the Legion.”
“Blok’s history is the one I least understand,” Razor continued. “Everyone thought at first that all the Dryads had been rescued, along with the Terran colonists, but when when they arrived… only Blok had escaped, with Titania’s family. The rest of the Dryads had disappeared. They called him Blok, because they couldn’t pronounce the name he called himself... he grew up on the comume my great-grandparents established on Korlon-Two.”
“I thought the Korlon colonists were resettled to Ganadan,” said Shrinking Violet.
“Ganaden was what United Planets officially named the place,” said Razor. “But the descendants of the original colonists still think of it today as Korlon-Two. Our family was closer to Dad’s parents than my Mom’s-- I’ve only been to Ganaden a couple of times. Mom has a hard time even remembering her family is still alive-- not intellectually, you know, but emotionally-- a residual of the Dark Man’s programming. She’s close to the other Leaguers, though. Blok’s death at the hands of Validus and the New Fatal Five hit her hard. Although, from what you tell me, it’s more complicated than that. She blamed the Legion-- she still blames the Legion for a lot of things, including the way the rest of my ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ ended up.”
“Next to Mom, Titania is the most normal of the Leaguers, and the one who has come closest to a happy ending. She’s married, has a more-or-less stable home and family. Of course, she and Tyr are pirates, but that’s an honorable profession on Tyrazz. And he’s an important figure in government, too, which makes her something of a celebrity. I understand their son Auberon is ambitious, and looking to make a name for himself as a warrior-- although that has already put him at odds with the United Planets. Still, from a Tyrazzite perspective, he’s a success.”
“The psych-techs had good luck with Uncle Sti-Tuan, after the introduction of the 7G protocol.”
“7G: that’s what helped Uncle Mekt so much,” said Dacey.
“Yes, well,” said Razor. “The problem was, his powers continued to mutate, and overwhelmed him. He lost control of his… bodily cohesion. In the end he just… sublimed away into vapour. Whether he remained conscious or not-- that’s a horrifying thought, isn’t it? The Titan telepaths couldn’t find any indication of his mind remaining in existence.”.
“Uncle Cey-Nu had a similar problem. He had to be kept in a mirrored room. It contained him when he lost control, and transformed into pure light. I don’t really remember him, but I have a holo of the two of us in his hospital room when I was a toddler. With my sister, and my parents. Uncle Cey-Nu was luckier than Uncle Sti-Tuan. The crosstime researchers discovered a dimension inhabited by sentient light-beings, and he eventually relocated there. Of course, Mom hasn’t heard much from him since then. Although I understand he found a ‘female’ beam of light, and got married. Or the equivalent.”
“Mom had the opposite problem. Her powers began to fade. She can still assume ‘Silver Slasher’ form-- superhard metallic skin, super-speed-- but only for short periods, and with sustained concentration. She passed on some of her abilities to my sister and me. Dad complains his arthritis makes it painful to become two-dimensional anymore, so they’re pretty much normal Terrans. As much as any family is normal.”
“Aron Chazir is a mid-security prison hospital for inmates still receiving psychiatric treatment. It’s a massive artificial structure, covering most of the surface of Triton, the largest moon of Neptune. Dad’s parents, and my aunts and uncles and cousins on his side of the family, live in various Sky-Cities of Neptune. So it’s not hard to visit Aron Chazir. That’s where Wi Kan Muur, my ‘Uncle Neutrax’, lives. He’s the worst off of them all. He suffers delusions-- not just the ones the Dark Man implanted in his head, but other, ever-changing ones as well. One time we visited, he insisted that he was a champion bat-ball player, and was being held against his will so that Xanthu would win the interplanetary cup. This despite the fact that he is paralyzed from the neck down. His neutralizing powers have turned in on himself, making it impossible to heal his somatic nervous system. He’s also dangerous: he sometimes goes into fits of rage where he tries to ‘neutralize’ people. He’s even managed to thrash his head around to the point where his protective visor has come loose, and he’s caused some injury to the staff. Still, Mom and Dad take us kids to visit him, and they do what they can. If they don’t visit him, they send presents and holo-cards to Aron Chazir for Christmas, and his birthday, and Klordny Week. I think Uncle Neutrax is why they eventually became Pastors of the First Church of Neptune on Earth. Mom, especially, seems to get satisfaction from being of help to others.”
“And that’s why you’re also studying theology at Metropolis University?” asked Dacey.
“I was studying theology,” said Razor. “Now I’m just cooling my heels on Mars. EarthGov won’t even allow me to go visit my parents in the Maldives. Or allow them to come here.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/29/19 01:22 AM
I love reading your interpretations of various characters as we often share the same thoughts. I agree with a lot of your choices for the fate of the League of Assassins. The main places we diverge is that I usually write about a weakened United Planets, so I often give the villains their own planets.
I'm also using the light dimension in my stories, mostly in regards to the Aurakles of the Outsiders.
I think Kallor should turn to juvenile delinquents to get her Kryptonian! Drax-Zod would be a lot of fun, though you would have to de-power him significantly to be usable.
I'm also using the light dimension in my stories, mostly in regards to the Aurakles of the Outsiders.
I think Kallor should turn to juvenile delinquents to get her Kryptonian! Drax-Zod would be a lot of fun, though you would have to de-power him significantly to be usable.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/29/19 02:31 AM
Oh, I suspect the Lazon probably got himself involved with the Cintosians. Of course, Razor would not know this, as Quanto was before his time. Before his parent’s time, really. Well, his mother, at least.
I impose some pretty strict rules on myself in creating the Earth-K and Earth-K2 paracosms. Drax does not exist in either Universe.
And the Super-Hero Club Members have to live with each other in pretty close quarters, so personality trumps power in Member considerations.
I impose some pretty strict rules on myself in creating the Earth-K and Earth-K2 paracosms. Drax does not exist in either Universe.
And the Super-Hero Club Members have to live with each other in pretty close quarters, so personality trumps power in Member considerations.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/29/19 01:48 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE
RHEA
“What do you think?” Ten asked Vesta. He proudly displayed the steel robot monkey, built from odds and ends he and Cosmic Boy had collected. It had been rebuilt, revised, reprogramed, and polished to a shine. “I call it Kappa-Omicron-Two.”
“It is inferior technology,” said Vesta. “Why do you build it? I am more useful.”
“Inferior technology can have its uses,” said Ten. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
“I am not programmed for emotional response,” said Vesta. “I merely observe that this mechanical creature seems extraneous.”
“Don’t you love me, Vesta?” asked Ten.
“If necessary, I would sacrifice my positronic artificial intelligence to assure your continued well-being,” said Vesta. “But no, Master Txarlz, I do not love you, or anything else.”
“Too bad,” Ten shrugged. “Why did I build it? Nostalgia, I suppose. My intention is for it to be a lookout for the Clubhouse. A watchman. Or watch-monkey. Of course, as a neural network, it will define the limits of its own function, to a great extent.”
“A lookout?” asked Vesta. “A… nanny for the Clubhouse?”
“Well, it’s solar powered, and charges slowly in the dim Martian sunlight,” Ten explained. “I expect it to remain on the roof of the clubhouse, charging itself most ot the time. A good spot for a lookout. But I believe it should be capable of about a half-hour of motion every day.”
“You could have installed better batteries, a more efficient charging system,” said Vesta.
“I could have, but I didn’t,” said Ten. “It is based on my original two-year-old design. I did not want to modify it too much; only sufficient to extend its projected lifespan.”
Phantom Girl interrupted Ten’s conversation with his robo-nanny.
“Saturn Girl and Star-Woman want to meet with us all. They have another mission for us.”
“It is a typical super-hero mission,” said Saturn Girl. “This is Rhea, the largest moon of Saturn. The Terran colony is at Tirawa City in Infinity Valley. It has now been etherwave-silent for thirty-six hours. An investigative team of SPs was sent from Earth twenty-four hours ago, but they too fell silent. Nothing has been heard from a second team for twelve hours. I propose we investigate ourselves.”
“Could the whole city have been destroyed?” asked Cosmic Boy. “As well as the two investigative teams?”
“Long-range sensors show continuing life-signs,” said Saturn Girl.
“You ought to do a reconnaissance through astral projection before we go rushing in,” Ffiona suggested.
“We already have,” said Lightning Lass. “There is something preventing psychic contact with the city itself. And everything there is, well…”
“Blue,” said Saturn Girl. “There is some sort of blue energy permeating the whole area. Any ideas?”
“Some sort of energy that makes the area psionically opaque, and cuts off etherwave transmission as well,” said Ten. “And produces a blue-light signature as a side-effect. Honestly, I admit I cannot identify any known phenomenon with those characteristics.”
“We’re thinking, some unique meta-human,” said Star-Woman. “Is twenty minutes to prepare, and load up the Sojourner sufficient time?”
Within the hour they were orbiting above Tirawa City on Rhea.
“Those two large craters form a figure-eight,” Saturn Girl pointed out. “Or, the old symbol for ‘infinity’. That’s why it’s called ‘Infinity Valley’.”
At the intersection of the two craters, a deep blue light gleamed. “I’ll set down just outside the blue area, and we’ll use our flight-belts to get us to the city center. Be alert for… well, anything.”
About a mile in, as they passed through some sort of municipal park, Matter-Eater Lad Two announced, “I feel drained, exhausted. I need to stop and rest a minute before we go on.”
The other Members paused. “Could some strange radiation be affecting us?” asked Polar Lass. “I’m feeling tired as well.”
Ten checked his portable sensors. “I detect no unusual energy readings,” he said. “I cannot even account for the blue color around us.” He sat on the ground, absorbed in the readings, adjusting the sensor.
“Master Txarlz, I have lost my link with Colu,” Vesta announced. It settled down on the ground beside him.
Ffiona looked around in alarm. Korvea was sitting on a bench, head back, sound asleep. Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl were somewhat ahead, also apparently passed out on the ground. Chameleon had collapsed into an orange puddle, the other members were similarly lethargic.
“Are you all right, sisters?” Ffiona asked.
“As OK as always,” said Ffarrah.
“Normal,” said Ffey. “What’s wrong with everyone else?”
The Triplicates approached Star-Woman, who sat on another bench with her head in her hands.
“What’s going on?” Ffiona inquired. “Are you feeling sick?”
“No, I’m all right,” said Kallor Nal. “It’s just… I think we were wrong to come here. There’s nothing we can do.”
“You think we should leave?” asked Ffiona. “Go back to the Sojourner?”
“No,” said Star-Woman. “We may as well stay here, as anywhere. It makes no difference, anyway.”
Ffiona looked at her sisters. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” Dawning comprehension crossed Ffarrah and Ffey’s faces.”
“We haven’t got enough for everybody,” said Ffey.
“Ten first, then Saturn Girl, I think,” said Ffiona. “Her telepathic abilities might be able to help the others, once we pull her out.”
Ffiona approached Ten, and pulled a small container out of a belt-pouch. “Just one, for starters, I think,” she said. “I hope it’s enough.” She placed the pill under the little Coluan’s tongue. Slowly, he stirred, opening his eyes.
“The Lantern Corps,” said Ffiona. “The emotional spectrum. What is Blue?”
“It is powered by Hope,” said Ten.
“Could a Blue Lantern be absorbing all the Hope in this area?” asked Ffiona.
Ten re-calibrated his sensors. “Unlikely,” he said. “But a reverse Blue Lantern-- say, from the Anti-Matter Universe-- its light might project and inspire Despair.”
Saturn Girl was up on her feet now, as well, thanks to Ffarrah. “What did you give me?” she asked.
“A powerful, fast-acting, serotonin uptake inhibitor,” said Ffarrah. "Fortunately, we carry a supply."
“Of course,” said Ten. “You were not affected by the Anti-Blue Lantern because the three of you must be somehow used to resisting clinical depression.”
“All our lives,” said Ffiona. “You learn to cope, after a while. Plus the fact that we three are always doped up to the gills on this stuff. Now that we know what’s going on, we can sense the waves of hopelessness emanating from… there.” She pointed towards the city center.
“Saturn Girl, can you broadcast cheeriness, positivity, and emotional energy to the rest of the Members?” Ffey asked.
“I’m not sure I have the resources,” said Saturn Girl. “Do you have another one of those Happy Pills?”
“It would probably be better if you could draw from within,” said Ffiona. “We’ve only got one left, without going back to Mars. Best to save it for an emergency. It’s only likely to get worse, the farther we get in. Don’t you have any happy memories?”
“Happiness, yes,” said Saturn Girl, concentrating. “Although anger works, too. Anything to motivate action.”
The other Members began to stir. Saturn Girl, Ten, and the Triplicates quickly explained the situation.
“Somehow, this blue light has affected Vesta as well,” said Ten. “She’s not supposed to be programmed for emotion, but all her systems have shut down. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave her here. For now.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two raised his hand. “I am really not good at handling this,” he said. “It seems to be really affecting me badly. Maybe I could take Vesta back to the Sojourner?”
“I could go with him,” said Polar Lass, “and if you… um… don’t make it back, we can go for help?”
“Ffiona, Ffarrah and I will make it back,” said Ffey. “This artificial hopelessness is nothing compared to the Hopeless Bleak Despair that comes from our own triple-mind. But it’s probably a good idea for anyone who’s badly affected at this point to turn back. This Anti-Blue Lantern has a whole city-- and two platoons of SPs-- under its control.”
No one else besides Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Vesta turned back.
The waves of despair increased as they approached the city center, but Saturn Girl pulled up memories of happy times on Winath, from herself, her sister, and Cosmic Boy. She pulled will from the Triplicates, and anger from Star-Woman and Ten, who really did not like having their minds messed with.
The source was a little alcove at the top of a tall building. The creature from the Anti-Matter Universe was about three feet tall, and as blue as the lantern and ring it held.
“I am St. Zophos,” the little creature announced. “Look on me, and despair.”
“Or not,” said Star-Woman, blowing a blast of scarlet fire-breath at the blue-metal lantern.
“Blue Lanterns in this Universe have no offensive capability,” said Ten. “I imagine it is the same where this creature comes from.”
The little blue man powered up his ring, and vanished through a wall, leaving the smoking blue-metal lantern behind.
Phantom Girl followed immediately. “That won’t help, you know,” she said. “There are a lot of us, and we are smarter and faster, and, frankly, meaner than you.”
Using the star-rod, Star-Woman followed the Bgztlr through the wall.
The little man vanished. The blue aura around Tirawa City faded away.
“I’m pretty sure he’s gone back to the Anti-Matter Universe,” Phantom Girl reported. “I’ve never been there myself, but the dimensional path he took seemed weird enough.”
“At any rate, I don’t think he’ll be much of a threat without this,” Star-Woman held up the scorched, battered blue lantern. “Do we have a Souvenir Collection?”
RHEA
“What do you think?” Ten asked Vesta. He proudly displayed the steel robot monkey, built from odds and ends he and Cosmic Boy had collected. It had been rebuilt, revised, reprogramed, and polished to a shine. “I call it Kappa-Omicron-Two.”
“It is inferior technology,” said Vesta. “Why do you build it? I am more useful.”
“Inferior technology can have its uses,” said Ten. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
“I am not programmed for emotional response,” said Vesta. “I merely observe that this mechanical creature seems extraneous.”
“Don’t you love me, Vesta?” asked Ten.
“If necessary, I would sacrifice my positronic artificial intelligence to assure your continued well-being,” said Vesta. “But no, Master Txarlz, I do not love you, or anything else.”
“Too bad,” Ten shrugged. “Why did I build it? Nostalgia, I suppose. My intention is for it to be a lookout for the Clubhouse. A watchman. Or watch-monkey. Of course, as a neural network, it will define the limits of its own function, to a great extent.”
“A lookout?” asked Vesta. “A… nanny for the Clubhouse?”
“Well, it’s solar powered, and charges slowly in the dim Martian sunlight,” Ten explained. “I expect it to remain on the roof of the clubhouse, charging itself most ot the time. A good spot for a lookout. But I believe it should be capable of about a half-hour of motion every day.”
“You could have installed better batteries, a more efficient charging system,” said Vesta.
“I could have, but I didn’t,” said Ten. “It is based on my original two-year-old design. I did not want to modify it too much; only sufficient to extend its projected lifespan.”
Phantom Girl interrupted Ten’s conversation with his robo-nanny.
“Saturn Girl and Star-Woman want to meet with us all. They have another mission for us.”
“It is a typical super-hero mission,” said Saturn Girl. “This is Rhea, the largest moon of Saturn. The Terran colony is at Tirawa City in Infinity Valley. It has now been etherwave-silent for thirty-six hours. An investigative team of SPs was sent from Earth twenty-four hours ago, but they too fell silent. Nothing has been heard from a second team for twelve hours. I propose we investigate ourselves.”
“Could the whole city have been destroyed?” asked Cosmic Boy. “As well as the two investigative teams?”
“Long-range sensors show continuing life-signs,” said Saturn Girl.
“You ought to do a reconnaissance through astral projection before we go rushing in,” Ffiona suggested.
“We already have,” said Lightning Lass. “There is something preventing psychic contact with the city itself. And everything there is, well…”
“Blue,” said Saturn Girl. “There is some sort of blue energy permeating the whole area. Any ideas?”
“Some sort of energy that makes the area psionically opaque, and cuts off etherwave transmission as well,” said Ten. “And produces a blue-light signature as a side-effect. Honestly, I admit I cannot identify any known phenomenon with those characteristics.”
“We’re thinking, some unique meta-human,” said Star-Woman. “Is twenty minutes to prepare, and load up the Sojourner sufficient time?”
Within the hour they were orbiting above Tirawa City on Rhea.
“Those two large craters form a figure-eight,” Saturn Girl pointed out. “Or, the old symbol for ‘infinity’. That’s why it’s called ‘Infinity Valley’.”
At the intersection of the two craters, a deep blue light gleamed. “I’ll set down just outside the blue area, and we’ll use our flight-belts to get us to the city center. Be alert for… well, anything.”
About a mile in, as they passed through some sort of municipal park, Matter-Eater Lad Two announced, “I feel drained, exhausted. I need to stop and rest a minute before we go on.”
The other Members paused. “Could some strange radiation be affecting us?” asked Polar Lass. “I’m feeling tired as well.”
Ten checked his portable sensors. “I detect no unusual energy readings,” he said. “I cannot even account for the blue color around us.” He sat on the ground, absorbed in the readings, adjusting the sensor.
“Master Txarlz, I have lost my link with Colu,” Vesta announced. It settled down on the ground beside him.
Ffiona looked around in alarm. Korvea was sitting on a bench, head back, sound asleep. Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, and Saturn Girl were somewhat ahead, also apparently passed out on the ground. Chameleon had collapsed into an orange puddle, the other members were similarly lethargic.
“Are you all right, sisters?” Ffiona asked.
“As OK as always,” said Ffarrah.
“Normal,” said Ffey. “What’s wrong with everyone else?”
The Triplicates approached Star-Woman, who sat on another bench with her head in her hands.
“What’s going on?” Ffiona inquired. “Are you feeling sick?”
“No, I’m all right,” said Kallor Nal. “It’s just… I think we were wrong to come here. There’s nothing we can do.”
“You think we should leave?” asked Ffiona. “Go back to the Sojourner?”
“No,” said Star-Woman. “We may as well stay here, as anywhere. It makes no difference, anyway.”
Ffiona looked at her sisters. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” Dawning comprehension crossed Ffarrah and Ffey’s faces.”
“We haven’t got enough for everybody,” said Ffey.
“Ten first, then Saturn Girl, I think,” said Ffiona. “Her telepathic abilities might be able to help the others, once we pull her out.”
Ffiona approached Ten, and pulled a small container out of a belt-pouch. “Just one, for starters, I think,” she said. “I hope it’s enough.” She placed the pill under the little Coluan’s tongue. Slowly, he stirred, opening his eyes.
“The Lantern Corps,” said Ffiona. “The emotional spectrum. What is Blue?”
“It is powered by Hope,” said Ten.
“Could a Blue Lantern be absorbing all the Hope in this area?” asked Ffiona.
Ten re-calibrated his sensors. “Unlikely,” he said. “But a reverse Blue Lantern-- say, from the Anti-Matter Universe-- its light might project and inspire Despair.”
Saturn Girl was up on her feet now, as well, thanks to Ffarrah. “What did you give me?” she asked.
“A powerful, fast-acting, serotonin uptake inhibitor,” said Ffarrah. "Fortunately, we carry a supply."
“Of course,” said Ten. “You were not affected by the Anti-Blue Lantern because the three of you must be somehow used to resisting clinical depression.”
“All our lives,” said Ffiona. “You learn to cope, after a while. Plus the fact that we three are always doped up to the gills on this stuff. Now that we know what’s going on, we can sense the waves of hopelessness emanating from… there.” She pointed towards the city center.
“Saturn Girl, can you broadcast cheeriness, positivity, and emotional energy to the rest of the Members?” Ffey asked.
“I’m not sure I have the resources,” said Saturn Girl. “Do you have another one of those Happy Pills?”
“It would probably be better if you could draw from within,” said Ffiona. “We’ve only got one left, without going back to Mars. Best to save it for an emergency. It’s only likely to get worse, the farther we get in. Don’t you have any happy memories?”
“Happiness, yes,” said Saturn Girl, concentrating. “Although anger works, too. Anything to motivate action.”
The other Members began to stir. Saturn Girl, Ten, and the Triplicates quickly explained the situation.
“Somehow, this blue light has affected Vesta as well,” said Ten. “She’s not supposed to be programmed for emotion, but all her systems have shut down. I’m afraid we’ll have to leave her here. For now.”
Matter-Eater Lad Two raised his hand. “I am really not good at handling this,” he said. “It seems to be really affecting me badly. Maybe I could take Vesta back to the Sojourner?”
“I could go with him,” said Polar Lass, “and if you… um… don’t make it back, we can go for help?”
“Ffiona, Ffarrah and I will make it back,” said Ffey. “This artificial hopelessness is nothing compared to the Hopeless Bleak Despair that comes from our own triple-mind. But it’s probably a good idea for anyone who’s badly affected at this point to turn back. This Anti-Blue Lantern has a whole city-- and two platoons of SPs-- under its control.”
No one else besides Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Vesta turned back.
The waves of despair increased as they approached the city center, but Saturn Girl pulled up memories of happy times on Winath, from herself, her sister, and Cosmic Boy. She pulled will from the Triplicates, and anger from Star-Woman and Ten, who really did not like having their minds messed with.
The source was a little alcove at the top of a tall building. The creature from the Anti-Matter Universe was about three feet tall, and as blue as the lantern and ring it held.
“I am St. Zophos,” the little creature announced. “Look on me, and despair.”
“Or not,” said Star-Woman, blowing a blast of scarlet fire-breath at the blue-metal lantern.
“Blue Lanterns in this Universe have no offensive capability,” said Ten. “I imagine it is the same where this creature comes from.”
The little blue man powered up his ring, and vanished through a wall, leaving the smoking blue-metal lantern behind.
Phantom Girl followed immediately. “That won’t help, you know,” she said. “There are a lot of us, and we are smarter and faster, and, frankly, meaner than you.”
Using the star-rod, Star-Woman followed the Bgztlr through the wall.
The little man vanished. The blue aura around Tirawa City faded away.
“I’m pretty sure he’s gone back to the Anti-Matter Universe,” Phantom Girl reported. “I’ve never been there myself, but the dimensional path he took seemed weird enough.”
“At any rate, I don’t think he’ll be much of a threat without this,” Star-Woman held up the scorched, battered blue lantern. “Do we have a Souvenir Collection?”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/11/19 12:30 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO
THE TRIAL OF THE SUPER-VILLAINS
“I have good news and bad news,” said Star-Woman. “On the one hand, you ‘super-villains’ have been set a court date. On the other, it is before one of the extremist judges newly-appointed by the Acclaimant.”
“I don’t understand,” Annie Foxmoor complained, “How 15% of the population can just say, ‘We no longer accept the decision of the World Computer’, elect their own ‘Acclaimant’, and the President of Earth just steps aside. And the rest of Earth is just OK with this?”
“Politics is not logical,” said Atta-Karr. “Governments ought to gain their power only by the consent of the governed. The alternative is violent compulsion. Earth is not prepared for a civil war.”
“And many more Terrans support the goals of the 15% than you might think,” Black Flame noted. “The neo-Neidrighs, the Ogilvy Society, the Earth-Firsters, the Devolutionary Neanderthalists… even combined, they are a small minority, extreme in their views. But many see the general direction of their positions as morally defensible. There still remains an undercurrent of xenophobia on Earth even a quarter-century after Kirt Neidrigh came to power.”
“There is also the slogan nowadays, ‘Shall We Be Ruled By The Programmers?’,” Villian offered. “As though the World Computer was controlled solely by a small elite of computer scientists-- and that those computer scientists formed some homogeneous political bloc.”
“The pendulum swings,” said Star-Woman. “History shows that political fads and opinions come and go. But I am optimistic that the trend will always be forward. I suspect that the vast majority of sentients everywhere disdain politics as a necessary evil, and would prefer to just leave it alone, wishing merely to live honest, quiet and peaceable lives.”
======================================================================
“Tell me what you think," said Ten, as he downed the purplish-black liquid. It smelled like turpentine. His chartreuse-gold skin began to fade to gray, then brightened to a pale peach. His freckles darkened from teal to café-au-lait. The yellow sclera of his eyes lightened to a dull white, his lime-green irises deepened to a more human-like green. "How do I look?" he asked.
"Like an ordinary human third-grader," said Phantom Girl. “Still bald, though.”
Ten picked up an auburn wig from his workbench, and attached it to his head. "Shaved head not the current fashion on Earth?" The wig was not too long, and not too short. The edges were ragged; he looked like a boy who needed a haircut. He had changed into a plain grey-and-black jumpsuit in the current style, adaptive coloration for his visit to Earth.
"You look like a perfectly non-descript Terran eight-year-old," Phantom Girl complimented him. "Or, you could pass as Dacey and Dorrit's little brother."
"Saturn Girl is not allowed on Earth during the trial," said Ten. "A remnant of anti-psi prejudice. But Lightning Lass will be accompanying me as my 'big sister', as you suggest."
"How long will the color change last?" asked Lightning Lass.
"At least a hundred hours," said Ten. "Or until I take the antidote." He held up a pack of gum. "Which has been infused into this ‘gum’. One stick will get me back to normal."
'Black Flame', 'Evil-Eye Annie', 'Villian the Sorcerer', and 'Razor' entered Ten's lab. The little Coluan held up a small device.
"This is an ordinary MusicJakk®, such as any child might wear", he explained. "But I have adapted it for my own purposes. I have added a telepathic-mike, which can pick up-- some of-- my thoughts." He opened a small box containing a dozen miniature earrings. "These are your receivers. The whole system operates on an unused sub-etheric frequency; the courthouse will be telepathically shielded, but with these, you will be able to hear any messages I may 'think' at you. I will also be able to hear anything you say, or anything you may hear. So if you want to talk to me, just say something out loud. It has a very low energy output, and should not draw attention. However, it is quite limited in range-- only a few hundred feet."
"I would expect your Selachii will be able to give you better advice than I can," said Ten. "He will have had years of practical experience, while my studies of Earth and U.P. law have been purely theoretical. However, Star-Woman asked that we prepare for whatever contingencies we can imagine. And she wants to know what happens in the hearing in real time. I can keep her informed with a more ordinary connection."
"The Terran Members will be in the audience at the courtroom," said Phantom Girl. "Cosmic Boy, one of the Triplicates, Polar Lass and Hilary. Ten and Dacey will be on a bench in the park across from the courthouse. Dorrit will have to remain on Mars. Kallor will be coordinating things from somewhere in Metropolis, and the rest of the us will be scattered around the city as well."
"Surely you don't think you're fooling anyone," said Kimota. "The officers of the court will know who we are and why we’re there. And the city SPs as well."
"Yes," said Phantom Girl. "We're just trying to keep a low profile. Remember what a circus the first hearing was, when we all showed up in costume?"
"Well, that 'circus' ended up allowing us to spend the last few months on Mars," said Atta. "Rather than being banished to one of the Purple Moons of Rimbor, or somewhere like that."
"All except for poor Menelaus," said Bungle. "Although I can't feel too sorry for him on Talok, where he's treated like royalty.
"He actually is royalty," Ten noted. "But I have an idea about his exile, too."
======================================================================
Elsewhere, Cosmic Boy was asking, “Do you have something against Star-Woman? You have seemed rather distant from her recently. Perhaps you feel she’s usurping your role as Leader of the Super-Hero Club?”
“I don’t consider myself the leader,” said Saturn Girl. “We thought we agreed at the beginning that the Club would be more of a cooperative venture? It’s just that… well, she hasn’t really integrated into the Club yet, has she? We’re more a group of side-kicks than equals. And she socializes more with the ‘super-villains’ than with the rest of us. I’m afraid after the trial, with them gone...”
“You think she went to Rokyn looking for a replacement?” asked Cosmic Boy. “There is a big difference in age between us. It’s normal. Remember when I was only twelve, and you and Dacey had just turned fourteen? It was like you were embarrassed to be associated with me.”
“Well, you were a little brat at the time, if you remember,” said Saturn Girl. “But you’re right, Kallor probably feels more at home with college-age kids. And despite calling themselves ‘super-villains’, they seem nice enough. I wouldn’t mind having them permanently in our ‘Super-Hero Club’. They have some interesting talents.”
“It’s too bad they don’t have more of a sense of adventure,” said Cosmic Boy. “They’re more like super-civilians… super-bystanders… something like that.”
======================================================================
The judge looked at a note from the bailiff on his Omnicom.
“It appears that the EarthGov-appointed defense attorney has been delayed,” he reported. “Mr. Prosecutor, I am afraid we will have to postpone jury selection at this time. However, I will take pleadings from the defendants.” He addressed the ‘super-villains’ directly. You four are charged, collectively and separately, with violation of EarthGov Penal Codes Chapter 12769, sections 543, 822, and 233. How do you plead?”
Atta-Karr, Annie Foxmoor, Kimota Grezz, and Bungle Spelling sat at the defendant’s table. Conspicuously empty was the chair for their defense attorney.
Kimota scratched her ear. “I’m not sure what all those numbers mean,” she muttered, apparently to herself.
“Excuse me?” asked the judge. “I didn’t catch that. How do you plead?”
Ten sat on a park bench outside the courthouse. “You are being accused of terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and destruction of property in an act of terrorism,” said Ten. “Which does not seem to fit the underlying facts of this case.”
“I plead not guilty,” said Kimota. Atta, Annie, and Bungle made the same pleading.
“You are further charged,” said the judge, with three violations of Chapter 34969, in the first degree.”
“Three charges of first-degree murder,” Ten explained. “This seems… perhaps we are at the wrong trial? EarthGov cannot possibly…”
“Who do you think we murdered?” blurted Kimota. The judge seemed taken aback.
“The victims are all aliens,” the prosecutor volunteered. “Listed are Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII, Ojina Einstein of Faustos, and Auberon Tyrson of Tyrraz.”
Murmurs erupted throughout the courtroom. The ‘super-villains’ were part of the chaos. “These charges are absurd… what are they thinking... We never heard anything like this… how do we ask for a continuance… “
Amid the chaos, the doors of the chamber opened, and Kallor Nal entered, accompanied by a very disheveled-looking Selachii.
“The defense’s vehicle was delayed by some... unusual... construction work downtown,” Star-Woman explained to the court.
The Selachii approached the bench. “May I have some time to confer with my clients?”
“Menaleas is absolutely alive,” Bungle told the Selachii. “I talked to him just yesterday.”
“And the others…” Kimota added, “Well, last time we saw those two, they were in the custody of the Justice League of Earth. What is going on? We don’t even know them.”
“Technically,” said Atta-Karr, “Auberon is my cousin-- second cousin, I guess-- but our moms really aren’t that close since she moved to Tyrazz.”
“The prosecution is charging you with as much as they can think of,” said the Selachii. “They can always walk it back later. There is a list of a half-dozen other charges. They are hoping to get you to plea-bargain: plead guilty to something, make this case go away, get it out of the spotlight. The worst that can happen to them is more delay… I’m sure you want to get back to your families, but... It may mean your returning to Mars for a while longer.” The four nodded.
“Your honor,” said the Selachii, addressing the bench. “I request a writ of habeus corpus be served upon the prosecution, requesting that they display to myself and appropriate witnesses the bodies of Auberon Tyrson and Ojina Einstein, presumably deceased. We are willing to travel to make the identification, if necessary. I also would like time to locate a physician of my choice to conduct private autopsies. At the same time, I request a subpoena be sent for Menaleas Mallor on Talok VIII, who, I have on good authority, is still alive, so that we may depose him, and resolve at least one charge against my clients. I have also examined the remainder of the charges, and have advised each of my clients to plead not guilty to each and all of them. I also observe that my clients are charged with illegal entry to the planet Earth, and unauthorized residence therein. As all persons of Terran ancestry are considered sin argumento citizens of Earth, and have a right to immigrate to and reside upon this world, I request the DNA samples obtained upon their arrest be examined, that we may prove their Terran parentage, and settle that accusation as well.”
The prosecutor looked at the judge, and shrugged helplessly. The judge seemed displeased. “We will take a fifteen-minute recess, while I instruct my staff to prepare the requested documents.” He looked sternly at the Selachii. “We will then begin jury selection in this case.”
When the judge arrived at his chambers with the prosecutor, Ten was waiting outside the door.
“Your honour,” said Ten. “I have information relevant to this case which you would be very interested in hearing. The prosecution would no doubt be interested as well. If possible, I would like to exclude the Selachii; the defendants would probably be upset to know that I am revealing this to you.”
“What is this child doing here?” asked the prosecutor.
“A child, yes,” replied the judge. “But don’t let his appearance deceive you. He is a Coluan. I don’t trust Coluans,”
“You don’t have to trust me,” said Ten. “I said I have information. But it is, in fact, information you already possess, but seem to be unaware of, although it is… what is the idiom? ‘Staring you in the face’.”
Ten, the judge, and the prosecutor settled comfortably in chambers.
“You took DNA samples of all those arrested,” said Ten. “Including one who is missing today. Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII. You know he is a descendant of members of the Legion of Superheroes?”
“Yes,” said the judge. “The fact that he is the son of Tasmia Mallor and Lar Gand, but is a mule, who has inherited none of their powers, is well known across the Galaxy.”
“Yes, well,” said Ten. “You have the DNA sequenced for all the Legionnaires in secure, protected database, correct? Unavailable to the public, but easily accessible to you through your government computers. True?”
“Of course,” said the judge.
“I wonder if you would do a quick sequencing match, just to verify his parentage,” said Ten. “Menaleas, I mean.”
“I don’t see why…” the prosecutor protested.
“I think you will find something... interesting... in this exercise,” said Ten. “Interesting to you. And relevant to this case.”
It took only moments. The judge and prosecutor stared at the screen, open-mouthed.
“A little disconcerting, isn’t it?” said Ten. “And here the defense attorney has requested a subpoena to have him come and testify. It would be… awkward… for the public to learn he has as much right to be on Earth as his four other Terran friends? Perhaps you could bar the defense attorney from pursuing any embarrassing lines of questioning. Beginning with ‘state your full name’.”
“Are you trying to blackmail this court?” thundered the judge, rising from his seat, and facing down the little color-changed Coluan.
“Not at all,” said Ten. “I am merely pointing out the obvious: that you will be stepping into a… ‘hornet’s nest?... when you summon to the stand, to testify, under oath, a member of the Royal Family of Talok VIII, Menaleas Niedrigh Mallor.”
THE TRIAL OF THE SUPER-VILLAINS
“I have good news and bad news,” said Star-Woman. “On the one hand, you ‘super-villains’ have been set a court date. On the other, it is before one of the extremist judges newly-appointed by the Acclaimant.”
“I don’t understand,” Annie Foxmoor complained, “How 15% of the population can just say, ‘We no longer accept the decision of the World Computer’, elect their own ‘Acclaimant’, and the President of Earth just steps aside. And the rest of Earth is just OK with this?”
“Politics is not logical,” said Atta-Karr. “Governments ought to gain their power only by the consent of the governed. The alternative is violent compulsion. Earth is not prepared for a civil war.”
“And many more Terrans support the goals of the 15% than you might think,” Black Flame noted. “The neo-Neidrighs, the Ogilvy Society, the Earth-Firsters, the Devolutionary Neanderthalists… even combined, they are a small minority, extreme in their views. But many see the general direction of their positions as morally defensible. There still remains an undercurrent of xenophobia on Earth even a quarter-century after Kirt Neidrigh came to power.”
“There is also the slogan nowadays, ‘Shall We Be Ruled By The Programmers?’,” Villian offered. “As though the World Computer was controlled solely by a small elite of computer scientists-- and that those computer scientists formed some homogeneous political bloc.”
“The pendulum swings,” said Star-Woman. “History shows that political fads and opinions come and go. But I am optimistic that the trend will always be forward. I suspect that the vast majority of sentients everywhere disdain politics as a necessary evil, and would prefer to just leave it alone, wishing merely to live honest, quiet and peaceable lives.”
======================================================================
“Tell me what you think," said Ten, as he downed the purplish-black liquid. It smelled like turpentine. His chartreuse-gold skin began to fade to gray, then brightened to a pale peach. His freckles darkened from teal to café-au-lait. The yellow sclera of his eyes lightened to a dull white, his lime-green irises deepened to a more human-like green. "How do I look?" he asked.
"Like an ordinary human third-grader," said Phantom Girl. “Still bald, though.”
Ten picked up an auburn wig from his workbench, and attached it to his head. "Shaved head not the current fashion on Earth?" The wig was not too long, and not too short. The edges were ragged; he looked like a boy who needed a haircut. He had changed into a plain grey-and-black jumpsuit in the current style, adaptive coloration for his visit to Earth.
"You look like a perfectly non-descript Terran eight-year-old," Phantom Girl complimented him. "Or, you could pass as Dacey and Dorrit's little brother."
"Saturn Girl is not allowed on Earth during the trial," said Ten. "A remnant of anti-psi prejudice. But Lightning Lass will be accompanying me as my 'big sister', as you suggest."
"How long will the color change last?" asked Lightning Lass.
"At least a hundred hours," said Ten. "Or until I take the antidote." He held up a pack of gum. "Which has been infused into this ‘gum’. One stick will get me back to normal."
'Black Flame', 'Evil-Eye Annie', 'Villian the Sorcerer', and 'Razor' entered Ten's lab. The little Coluan held up a small device.
"This is an ordinary MusicJakk®, such as any child might wear", he explained. "But I have adapted it for my own purposes. I have added a telepathic-mike, which can pick up-- some of-- my thoughts." He opened a small box containing a dozen miniature earrings. "These are your receivers. The whole system operates on an unused sub-etheric frequency; the courthouse will be telepathically shielded, but with these, you will be able to hear any messages I may 'think' at you. I will also be able to hear anything you say, or anything you may hear. So if you want to talk to me, just say something out loud. It has a very low energy output, and should not draw attention. However, it is quite limited in range-- only a few hundred feet."
"I would expect your Selachii will be able to give you better advice than I can," said Ten. "He will have had years of practical experience, while my studies of Earth and U.P. law have been purely theoretical. However, Star-Woman asked that we prepare for whatever contingencies we can imagine. And she wants to know what happens in the hearing in real time. I can keep her informed with a more ordinary connection."
"The Terran Members will be in the audience at the courtroom," said Phantom Girl. "Cosmic Boy, one of the Triplicates, Polar Lass and Hilary. Ten and Dacey will be on a bench in the park across from the courthouse. Dorrit will have to remain on Mars. Kallor will be coordinating things from somewhere in Metropolis, and the rest of the us will be scattered around the city as well."
"Surely you don't think you're fooling anyone," said Kimota. "The officers of the court will know who we are and why we’re there. And the city SPs as well."
"Yes," said Phantom Girl. "We're just trying to keep a low profile. Remember what a circus the first hearing was, when we all showed up in costume?"
"Well, that 'circus' ended up allowing us to spend the last few months on Mars," said Atta. "Rather than being banished to one of the Purple Moons of Rimbor, or somewhere like that."
"All except for poor Menelaus," said Bungle. "Although I can't feel too sorry for him on Talok, where he's treated like royalty.
"He actually is royalty," Ten noted. "But I have an idea about his exile, too."
======================================================================
Elsewhere, Cosmic Boy was asking, “Do you have something against Star-Woman? You have seemed rather distant from her recently. Perhaps you feel she’s usurping your role as Leader of the Super-Hero Club?”
“I don’t consider myself the leader,” said Saturn Girl. “We thought we agreed at the beginning that the Club would be more of a cooperative venture? It’s just that… well, she hasn’t really integrated into the Club yet, has she? We’re more a group of side-kicks than equals. And she socializes more with the ‘super-villains’ than with the rest of us. I’m afraid after the trial, with them gone...”
“You think she went to Rokyn looking for a replacement?” asked Cosmic Boy. “There is a big difference in age between us. It’s normal. Remember when I was only twelve, and you and Dacey had just turned fourteen? It was like you were embarrassed to be associated with me.”
“Well, you were a little brat at the time, if you remember,” said Saturn Girl. “But you’re right, Kallor probably feels more at home with college-age kids. And despite calling themselves ‘super-villains’, they seem nice enough. I wouldn’t mind having them permanently in our ‘Super-Hero Club’. They have some interesting talents.”
“It’s too bad they don’t have more of a sense of adventure,” said Cosmic Boy. “They’re more like super-civilians… super-bystanders… something like that.”
======================================================================
The judge looked at a note from the bailiff on his Omnicom.
“It appears that the EarthGov-appointed defense attorney has been delayed,” he reported. “Mr. Prosecutor, I am afraid we will have to postpone jury selection at this time. However, I will take pleadings from the defendants.” He addressed the ‘super-villains’ directly. You four are charged, collectively and separately, with violation of EarthGov Penal Codes Chapter 12769, sections 543, 822, and 233. How do you plead?”
Atta-Karr, Annie Foxmoor, Kimota Grezz, and Bungle Spelling sat at the defendant’s table. Conspicuously empty was the chair for their defense attorney.
Kimota scratched her ear. “I’m not sure what all those numbers mean,” she muttered, apparently to herself.
“Excuse me?” asked the judge. “I didn’t catch that. How do you plead?”
Ten sat on a park bench outside the courthouse. “You are being accused of terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and destruction of property in an act of terrorism,” said Ten. “Which does not seem to fit the underlying facts of this case.”
“I plead not guilty,” said Kimota. Atta, Annie, and Bungle made the same pleading.
“You are further charged,” said the judge, with three violations of Chapter 34969, in the first degree.”
“Three charges of first-degree murder,” Ten explained. “This seems… perhaps we are at the wrong trial? EarthGov cannot possibly…”
“Who do you think we murdered?” blurted Kimota. The judge seemed taken aback.
“The victims are all aliens,” the prosecutor volunteered. “Listed are Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII, Ojina Einstein of Faustos, and Auberon Tyrson of Tyrraz.”
Murmurs erupted throughout the courtroom. The ‘super-villains’ were part of the chaos. “These charges are absurd… what are they thinking... We never heard anything like this… how do we ask for a continuance… “
Amid the chaos, the doors of the chamber opened, and Kallor Nal entered, accompanied by a very disheveled-looking Selachii.
“The defense’s vehicle was delayed by some... unusual... construction work downtown,” Star-Woman explained to the court.
The Selachii approached the bench. “May I have some time to confer with my clients?”
“Menaleas is absolutely alive,” Bungle told the Selachii. “I talked to him just yesterday.”
“And the others…” Kimota added, “Well, last time we saw those two, they were in the custody of the Justice League of Earth. What is going on? We don’t even know them.”
“Technically,” said Atta-Karr, “Auberon is my cousin-- second cousin, I guess-- but our moms really aren’t that close since she moved to Tyrazz.”
“The prosecution is charging you with as much as they can think of,” said the Selachii. “They can always walk it back later. There is a list of a half-dozen other charges. They are hoping to get you to plea-bargain: plead guilty to something, make this case go away, get it out of the spotlight. The worst that can happen to them is more delay… I’m sure you want to get back to your families, but... It may mean your returning to Mars for a while longer.” The four nodded.
“Your honor,” said the Selachii, addressing the bench. “I request a writ of habeus corpus be served upon the prosecution, requesting that they display to myself and appropriate witnesses the bodies of Auberon Tyrson and Ojina Einstein, presumably deceased. We are willing to travel to make the identification, if necessary. I also would like time to locate a physician of my choice to conduct private autopsies. At the same time, I request a subpoena be sent for Menaleas Mallor on Talok VIII, who, I have on good authority, is still alive, so that we may depose him, and resolve at least one charge against my clients. I have also examined the remainder of the charges, and have advised each of my clients to plead not guilty to each and all of them. I also observe that my clients are charged with illegal entry to the planet Earth, and unauthorized residence therein. As all persons of Terran ancestry are considered sin argumento citizens of Earth, and have a right to immigrate to and reside upon this world, I request the DNA samples obtained upon their arrest be examined, that we may prove their Terran parentage, and settle that accusation as well.”
The prosecutor looked at the judge, and shrugged helplessly. The judge seemed displeased. “We will take a fifteen-minute recess, while I instruct my staff to prepare the requested documents.” He looked sternly at the Selachii. “We will then begin jury selection in this case.”
When the judge arrived at his chambers with the prosecutor, Ten was waiting outside the door.
“Your honour,” said Ten. “I have information relevant to this case which you would be very interested in hearing. The prosecution would no doubt be interested as well. If possible, I would like to exclude the Selachii; the defendants would probably be upset to know that I am revealing this to you.”
“What is this child doing here?” asked the prosecutor.
“A child, yes,” replied the judge. “But don’t let his appearance deceive you. He is a Coluan. I don’t trust Coluans,”
“You don’t have to trust me,” said Ten. “I said I have information. But it is, in fact, information you already possess, but seem to be unaware of, although it is… what is the idiom? ‘Staring you in the face’.”
Ten, the judge, and the prosecutor settled comfortably in chambers.
“You took DNA samples of all those arrested,” said Ten. “Including one who is missing today. Menaleas Mallor of Talok VIII. You know he is a descendant of members of the Legion of Superheroes?”
“Yes,” said the judge. “The fact that he is the son of Tasmia Mallor and Lar Gand, but is a mule, who has inherited none of their powers, is well known across the Galaxy.”
“Yes, well,” said Ten. “You have the DNA sequenced for all the Legionnaires in secure, protected database, correct? Unavailable to the public, but easily accessible to you through your government computers. True?”
“Of course,” said the judge.
“I wonder if you would do a quick sequencing match, just to verify his parentage,” said Ten. “Menaleas, I mean.”
“I don’t see why…” the prosecutor protested.
“I think you will find something... interesting... in this exercise,” said Ten. “Interesting to you. And relevant to this case.”
It took only moments. The judge and prosecutor stared at the screen, open-mouthed.
“A little disconcerting, isn’t it?” said Ten. “And here the defense attorney has requested a subpoena to have him come and testify. It would be… awkward… for the public to learn he has as much right to be on Earth as his four other Terran friends? Perhaps you could bar the defense attorney from pursuing any embarrassing lines of questioning. Beginning with ‘state your full name’.”
“Are you trying to blackmail this court?” thundered the judge, rising from his seat, and facing down the little color-changed Coluan.
“Not at all,” said Ten. “I am merely pointing out the obvious: that you will be stepping into a… ‘hornet’s nest?... when you summon to the stand, to testify, under oath, a member of the Royal Family of Talok VIII, Menaleas Niedrigh Mallor.”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/11/19 09:03 AM
Well, DAMN.
And here I thought Tenzil and Brek had the most memorable courtroom victory in Legion history
And here I thought Tenzil and Brek had the most memorable courtroom victory in Legion history
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/11/19 03:08 PM
Oh, please Raz.
Nothing can possibly compare to Tenzil's brilliant banana-custard-cream-pie defense.
<Legion of Super-Heroes v.4 #11>
“There, you see! He's powerless against the color yellow!" *
* Editor's note: Due to a necessary impurity, Green Lantern rings are powerless against the color yellow.
Nothing can possibly compare to Tenzil's brilliant banana-custard-cream-pie defense.
<Legion of Super-Heroes v.4 #11>
“There, you see! He's powerless against the color yellow!" *
* Editor's note: Due to a necessary impurity, Green Lantern rings are powerless against the color yellow.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/17/19 09:31 AM
Uncle Klar's Brilliant Banana Custard Cream Pie Recipe
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/17/19 09:39 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE
RETURN TO MU
Metropolis University, Metropolis, Northwestern Continent, Earth
The hovering MU parking lots were a bustle of activity. Crowds of family and well-wishers gathered in groups around students beginning their higher education, or returning to the University. It was crowded and chaotic enough that no one noticed the group of a dozen-and-a-half off to one side.
The Super-Hero Club had dressed in civilian clothing. Korvea wore a hood to somewhat conceal her Talokan features-- although aliens far from uncommon on Earth, there was no sense antagonizing the Earth-Firsters. Chameleon had assumed his ‘Ffameleon’ guise, so the Triplicates now looked like Quadruplicates. Ten wore his human appearance, looking like Dorrit and Dacey’s little brother.
“Wow, look at this place,” said Ffey. “Maybe I’d like to go to school here in a couple of years.”
“You would need to buckle down in your studies,” said Star-Woman. “Enroll in a University Prep program through an Upper School. Metropolis U. has very high admission standards.”
Dacey looked around. “Where are your parents?” she asked the nominal super-villains. “I would think they would be here to see you off.”
“We had a big hail-and-farewell at the hotel last night,” said Kimota Grezz, the Black Flame. “We even met Bungle’s parents-- Mr. and Mrs. Sammad.”
“I am still registering at the University under my Sorcerer’s World name,” said Villian.
“How many other identities to you have?” teased Evil-Eye Annie. “Villian the Sorcerer-- Bungle Spelling-- Bandar Sammad.”
“Perhaps I should invent a few more,” said Villian. “Those are becoming too well-known.”
“Over the past few months,” said Atta-Karr, aka ‘Razor’, “Our parents have come together, united by difficult circumstance. They have even formed a classic holo-vid club. The eight of them now meet regularly to watch and critique old movies-- some from the 29th century! I think they are planning to view The Nightingale and The Mockingbird together as we register for classes.”
A peculiar, boxy, flat-black mini-ship with a golden barred-spiral-galaxy emblem descended from the sky. Menaleas Mallor emerged from the gull-wing door. He wore all-black (naturally): a loose, half-open tunic, black harem pants, and black leather boots.
The four other ‘villains’ rushed over to him, the young men vigourously pumping his hand, and the young women embracing him tightly.
“And this must be the Super-Hero Club,” said Menaleas. Star-Woman greeted him warmly, and the others followed suit.
“So, Prince Talok, are you ready to continue our University extracurriculars?” asked Atta. “It got us into nearly a year of trouble last time.”
“He is no Prince,” a commanding voice interrupted. “His proper title is Aloof.”
Tasmia Mallor’s presence was as commanding as her voice. Tall and slender, her black hair was half-greyed, her cerulean blue skin somewhat weathered. She wore a formal black salwar-style suit, and a voluminous black hooded cloak-- some of which may have only been floating shadow.
“Lady Tasmia.” Star-Woman bowed slightly.
“Seersdaughter,” Tasmia Mallor acknowledged.
“She is impressive, isn’t she? I’ve never met my Aunt before,” whispered Korvea. “Or Menaleas either, for that matter. Only seen them from a distance, at big family gatherings. Well, there goes keeping a low profile.”
“Aloof,” mused Star-Woman. “I am not familiar with the term.”
“I believe the Old Terran equivalent would be Duc,” said Tasmia. “The Interlac would be archaic-- it is a language unfriendly to the concept of subtle distinctions among nobility.”
“Wow, you’re a Duck?” exclaimed Villian, clapping Menaleas on the back. “You never told us that.”
“Menaleas, Duc d’Ombres,” Menaleas explained. “It means that I am the lawful inheritor of a Talokan Estate-- although in former times, that included a small city as well.” He staggered, putting a hand to his head. “I’m sorry, I feel… odd.”
Then Aloof Menaleas Mallor, Duc d’Ombres, fainted.
============================================================================================================
Note: Lady Tasmia is not Korvea’s literal aunt. She uses the term out of respect. Genealogically speaking, Tasmia is technically Korvea’s grandfather’s first cousin. This means Menaleas is Korvea’s 2nd cousin once removed. Due to common intermarriage among the Malloreans, her is also her eighth and tenth cousin.
============================================================================================================
RETURN TO MU
Metropolis University, Metropolis, Northwestern Continent, Earth
The hovering MU parking lots were a bustle of activity. Crowds of family and well-wishers gathered in groups around students beginning their higher education, or returning to the University. It was crowded and chaotic enough that no one noticed the group of a dozen-and-a-half off to one side.
The Super-Hero Club had dressed in civilian clothing. Korvea wore a hood to somewhat conceal her Talokan features-- although aliens far from uncommon on Earth, there was no sense antagonizing the Earth-Firsters. Chameleon had assumed his ‘Ffameleon’ guise, so the Triplicates now looked like Quadruplicates. Ten wore his human appearance, looking like Dorrit and Dacey’s little brother.
“Wow, look at this place,” said Ffey. “Maybe I’d like to go to school here in a couple of years.”
“You would need to buckle down in your studies,” said Star-Woman. “Enroll in a University Prep program through an Upper School. Metropolis U. has very high admission standards.”
Dacey looked around. “Where are your parents?” she asked the nominal super-villains. “I would think they would be here to see you off.”
“We had a big hail-and-farewell at the hotel last night,” said Kimota Grezz, the Black Flame. “We even met Bungle’s parents-- Mr. and Mrs. Sammad.”
“I am still registering at the University under my Sorcerer’s World name,” said Villian.
“How many other identities to you have?” teased Evil-Eye Annie. “Villian the Sorcerer-- Bungle Spelling-- Bandar Sammad.”
“Perhaps I should invent a few more,” said Villian. “Those are becoming too well-known.”
“Over the past few months,” said Atta-Karr, aka ‘Razor’, “Our parents have come together, united by difficult circumstance. They have even formed a classic holo-vid club. The eight of them now meet regularly to watch and critique old movies-- some from the 29th century! I think they are planning to view The Nightingale and The Mockingbird together as we register for classes.”
A peculiar, boxy, flat-black mini-ship with a golden barred-spiral-galaxy emblem descended from the sky. Menaleas Mallor emerged from the gull-wing door. He wore all-black (naturally): a loose, half-open tunic, black harem pants, and black leather boots.
The four other ‘villains’ rushed over to him, the young men vigourously pumping his hand, and the young women embracing him tightly.
“And this must be the Super-Hero Club,” said Menaleas. Star-Woman greeted him warmly, and the others followed suit.
“So, Prince Talok, are you ready to continue our University extracurriculars?” asked Atta. “It got us into nearly a year of trouble last time.”
“He is no Prince,” a commanding voice interrupted. “His proper title is Aloof.”
Tasmia Mallor’s presence was as commanding as her voice. Tall and slender, her black hair was half-greyed, her cerulean blue skin somewhat weathered. She wore a formal black salwar-style suit, and a voluminous black hooded cloak-- some of which may have only been floating shadow.
“Lady Tasmia.” Star-Woman bowed slightly.
“Seersdaughter,” Tasmia Mallor acknowledged.
“She is impressive, isn’t she? I’ve never met my Aunt before,” whispered Korvea. “Or Menaleas either, for that matter. Only seen them from a distance, at big family gatherings. Well, there goes keeping a low profile.”
“Aloof,” mused Star-Woman. “I am not familiar with the term.”
“I believe the Old Terran equivalent would be Duc,” said Tasmia. “The Interlac would be archaic-- it is a language unfriendly to the concept of subtle distinctions among nobility.”
“Wow, you’re a Duck?” exclaimed Villian, clapping Menaleas on the back. “You never told us that.”
“Menaleas, Duc d’Ombres,” Menaleas explained. “It means that I am the lawful inheritor of a Talokan Estate-- although in former times, that included a small city as well.” He staggered, putting a hand to his head. “I’m sorry, I feel… odd.”
Then Aloof Menaleas Mallor, Duc d’Ombres, fainted.
============================================================================================================
Note: Lady Tasmia is not Korvea’s literal aunt. She uses the term out of respect. Genealogically speaking, Tasmia is technically Korvea’s grandfather’s first cousin. This means Menaleas is Korvea’s 2nd cousin once removed. Due to common intermarriage among the Malloreans, her is also her eighth and tenth cousin.
============================================================================================================
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/21/19 05:09 PM
Tabor the Super-Teacher was clearly outclassed. Must have felt like a substitute teacher with an unruly class. The Super-Hero Club got to demonstrate that they aren't as inexperienced as they used to be. Interesting idea to have Tabor as some sort of itinerant teacher, looking for students. When the students are ready, the teacher appears.
I got a bit lost in the interlude with Vrai Hundebeur and his strange mother, although it did remind me a bit of a Sandman story in which our young sun, Sol, meets other suns.
The scenes with Vesta made me think that Ten should have Mary Poppins as a nanny, then thought, cancel that idea. Those two would get up to all sorts of mischief.
Anti-Green Lanterns, with casting hopelessness as a super-power - devastating. Score one for the Ff girls and modern pharmaceuticals. Also interesting that both anger and happiness were used together to combat despair.
Looks like the courts - and politics - function just like today. A happy ending for the Villains regardless, with more than a little help from their friends. By-standers indeed. A rather comedic ending for Duc d'Ombres, and a fine appearance of an older, impressive Tasmia.
I am curious to see if Star Woman will be moving on. She has been very beneficial to the group.
I got a bit lost in the interlude with Vrai Hundebeur and his strange mother, although it did remind me a bit of a Sandman story in which our young sun, Sol, meets other suns.
The scenes with Vesta made me think that Ten should have Mary Poppins as a nanny, then thought, cancel that idea. Those two would get up to all sorts of mischief.
Anti-Green Lanterns, with casting hopelessness as a super-power - devastating. Score one for the Ff girls and modern pharmaceuticals. Also interesting that both anger and happiness were used together to combat despair.
Looks like the courts - and politics - function just like today. A happy ending for the Villains regardless, with more than a little help from their friends. By-standers indeed. A rather comedic ending for Duc d'Ombres, and a fine appearance of an older, impressive Tasmia.
I am curious to see if Star Woman will be moving on. She has been very beneficial to the group.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/21/19 11:35 PM
Originally Posted by Fat Cramer
Interesting idea to have Tabor as some sort of itinerant teacher, looking for students.
Not my idea.
![[Linked Image]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/2b9712c82043ecbf8644ec8e3a16c509/tumblr_pqc42q2trZ1uwm5uqo1_400.jpg)
Adventure #382
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/24/19 02:18 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR
FAMILY REUNION
Metropolis University Cafeteria One was at the top of the 99-story dome at the center of the campus. It was large enough to comfortably accommodate the three dozen concerned sentients who awaited word of Menaleas’ condition.
It also afforded an unobstructed view of the hundred kilohectare Metropolis University campus.
“Unbelievable,” said Khadija Sammad. “There must be ten thousand protestors down there.”
“And most of them are entirely unaffiliated with the University,” Bandar noted. “Earth-Firsters, even some... neo-Neanderthals. News of our sudden acquittal has traveled quickly. They have an extensive network, and Menaleas’ return to M.U. has incited a call for protests. He is a symbol-- moreso even than the rest of ‘super-villains’.”
“They see non-Terrans on Earth as an economic invasion,” noted Justin Foxmoor, Ann’s younger brother. “Jobs are so scarce on Earth-- and so many of them are held by aliens.”
“It is an absurd position,” said Ali Sammad. “What do you suppose would happen if the fifty billion non-Terrans were to suddenly leave Earth?”
“Well,” said Justin, “There would all of a sudden be a lot more jobs and resources available.”
“The inhabitants of Earth-- Terran and alien-- are our resources,” said Ali Sammad. “When you send an alien back to their ‘home’ planet, you may as well convert a hundred thousand credits into gold, and toss it into a tank of aqua regia.”
“You’ll have to excuse him,” said Olivia, Justin’s mother. “Dr. Sammad is an Economist.”
“It is a valid argument,” said Ten. “This anti-alien sentiment is born only of ignorance and prejudice.” He was seated at a table with the Sammad’s younger children, Mo and Najri, and the Sammad family’s huge manny, Dhuon. His own robo-nanny, Vesta, hovered nearby.
Mo was only a little older than Ten, but the two found one other’s respective interests mutually boring. Najri was three-going-on-four, and at the moment was very involved with her manny, a spoon and a very green pie.
“It is true that the majority of Earth is on the Stipend,” said Ali Sammad. “But there is a reason they are called Consumers. They are the chief engine driving the Terran economy-- which is axiomatically the circulation of credits. When any Consumer leaves Earth, the economy cools a little. And for anyone seeking additional credits-- well, there is a nearly unlimited demand for Walgdockers, Mome Lawyers, and Roboriders. And anyone at all can begin a Treeming business, or become an Artisanal Reviewer.”
“Some argue, ” said Justin. “That Earth needs to remain free and independent. We need to be able to rely on ourselves, on our own industry, and not give away what we have to aliens.”
“What do you suppose would happen,” asked Ali Sammad, “If Earth shut its borders, expelled all non-Terrans, and cut off all contact with other worlds?”
“Oh, I think we’d do all right,” said Justin. “Earth is one of the richest-- if not the richest-- worlds in the U.P.”
“A wealthy world which imports twenty million tonne of food per hour,” said Ali Sammad. “Without the Manna Worlds, there would be food riots in a matter of days-- and the population of Earth would starve to death in a matter of weeks.”
“Don’t forget Winath,” Dorrit reminded him.
“Oh, I am not even considering the fresh, artisanal shipments from places like Mardru and Winath,” said Ali Sammad. “That is consumption for the elite. Most Earth imports are just to keep the food packs full for the AutoChefs. The notion that Earth could be a solitary, independent world meeting all its own needs is a centuries-old anachronism. Perhaps if 99% or more of the population were to emigrate, and we had a five or ten year head-start on restoring sufficient arable land...”
The Karrs and the Grezzes shared a table. They were substantially older than the Sammads and the Foxmoors, and had known each other a long time.
“Human beings are suggestible,” said Meta Grezz. “And not only through Titan telepathy. Groupthink and mob mentality can afflict each of us all more easily than we would like to believe. But there are always a core few in any revolution that promote the enterprise-- that exploit prejudices and discontent of others for their own goals.”
“In our case,” said Kort Grezz, “It was Laevar. He set the agenda, and enforced compliance ruthlessly.”
Kimota Grezz looked at her parents, and then at the members of the Super-Hero Club scattered about the room. She knew the story. At one point, her parents, as members of the Legion of Super-Villains, had sworn an oath to kill a Legionnaire apiece-- any Legionnaire. The same was true of the Karrs. Had they fulfilled their oath, Dorrit and Dacey and Pol would never have been born. Advances in psychiatry in the past couple of decades had cured them of the violent tendencies that had overwhelmed their minds.
Kimota looked past Mrs. Sammad to the thousands of protesters swarming the MU campus like ants. Here and there she saw the bright yellow crowd-control vans of the SPs. Would this crisis only be resolved by the mass psychiatric re-education of a substantial population of Earth?
“So is President Bridges the one orchestrating this?” she asked.
“I think not,” said Ron-Karr. “President Bridges is a Useful Idiot, appointing the officials and judges he is instructed to. He enjoys the spotlight, and the trappings of power, but he does not have the wit, will or endurance to manipulate on this large a scale.”
“Then who do you think is at the center of this?” asked Atta-Karr. His father shrugged.
“Ask yourself: who would benefit by the collapse of the economy and society of Earth?” said Ali Sammad. “Cyranus, Amazonia, Orax, and Torad, of course. If Earth leaves the Inner Council, Xanthu is expected to be named fill its position. There is the Dark Circle, the Dominion, and the Khunds, of course; they are benefitted by anything that weakens the United Planets, and Earth’s collapse would certainly do that. But we do not need to look to extraterrestrial agents. Certain wealthy interests here on Earth no doubt believe that they could prosper from an economic collapse, Earth’s economy as a whole might go into depression, but their personal position would improve.”
“So which do you think it is?” asked Atta-Karr.
“I have no idea,” said Ali Sammad. “I expect, however, it would be some disparate coalition of some or all of the above.”
At another table in the cafeteria, Polar Lass, Shrinking Violet, Lighting Lass, and Phantom Girl were sitting with Qi-Karr, Razor’s older sister. Justin Foxmoor, Ann’s younger brother, was just out of hearing range at a table with Matter-Eater Lad Two and Cosmic Boy.
“Are you interested?” Lightning Lass was asking Shrinking Violet. “If you’re not going to… approach… Justin, I will.”
“Would you find him as attractive if you knew his name is really Eldon, not Justin?” asked Qi-Karr. “He thinks calling himself Justin makes him seem retro and cool.”
“Your brother’s power is pretty impressive,” said Phantom Girl. “Have you inherited either of your parent’s abilities?”
Qi-Karr smiled. Her skin lightened, brightened, becoming white, then silvery. Her original peach complexion quickly returned. “That’s all, I’m afraid,” she said.
“Our families really got to know each other while Ann and the others were in exile,” Justin was explaining. “The only one not here now is Ronal Grezz-- he’s back on his father’s homeworld of Braal, participating in their economic resurgence.”
“Braal is prosperous now?” asked Cosmic Boy. “According to my father, it’s been nothing but Magno-Ball and off-world construction work there for decades.”
“They had some sort of breakthrough in the formatting of attoprocessors,” said Justin. “Even the Coluans are impressed.”
“What I wonder,” said Ki-Lan Karr, “Is whatever happened to Auberon? Tyr and Titania came looking for him a couple of weeks ago, but the only answer they got from EarthGov was a beating from the Justice League.”
“But they put up a good fight,” said her husband. “I think Doctor Shakespeare is going to have to learn to live with that scar. Tyr and his people are little better than pirates, and I’m afraid the psych-conditioning didn’t entirely take on your cousin, but I was rooting for the two of them in that confrontation. Is that wrong?”
“A mother bear will fight for her cub,” said Ki-Lan.
The room suddenly fell silent, and all eyes turned when Lady Tasmia Mallor walked into the room.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/01/19 12:43 PM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE
COLLAGE
Three hours earlier:
Their names were Lombrix and Kamar, and they were Mallorean guards. Their assignment for the last two years was Lady Tasmia, and her son, when he was home. They had escorted her here in the shadowship.
Neither of them would have ever said a word against Lady Tasmia.
Talokan hearing was too sharp.
Lombrix looked at the unconscious, mottled form of Menaleas Mallor.
“Rejected by the Shadow Cave,” thought Lombrix to himself. “No better than me. But a descendant of Sarven Mallor, so he receives special consideration. Nobility, indeed.” He spit in his mind, but his face remained impassive.
Kamar had also been tried in the Shadow Cave. He had scarcely passed the entrance, when he turned and ran. Voices had been whispering to him from deep within the shadows. Therefore, while he did not mind serving the shadow-casters, but he disliked associating with them. He sometimes imagined he could here those same whispers coming from the darkness they projected. As a consequence, he preferred assignments with the son than with the mother.
Professor Gauean Mallor was an old, heavy-set, white-haired Talokan. He had been teaching medicine at Metropolis University for decades. He was on staff at University Hospital, and while he held no official administrative position, the Chief treated him as an equal. When the young Talokan had collapsed on University grounds, he had immediately been called upon. It was a puzzling case-- at first, nothing seemed to be physically wrong with the boy-- except that he was in a coma.
Gauean Mallor was therefore half relieved and half offended when the boy’s personal Healers showed up from Talok, and took over the case.
Dr. Beltza Mallor had raised Menaleas from a zygote. She had nurtured and monitored him in the Artificial Womb, and supervised his birthing. She had served as the Talokan equivalent of godmother to the boy, as well as Chief Pediatrician. She had had high hopes for him, and was both surprised and disappointed when he failed as Shadow Champion.
Then Dr. Itzal had taken over primary care of Menaleas, when he turned twelve. He was as conversant as Dr. Beltza with the boy’s unique Talokan-Human physiology.
By decree of the Talokan Council, they were to take over his treatment.
And so they, too, took some offense two hours later, when Renlo Tagor of Colu emerged from a Time Tetrahedron.
It was fortunate that Menaleas had been brought to one of the University Hospital’s operating theaters, rather than a simple operating room. In addition to the Coluan, three Healers and two Guards, Tasmia and Korvea were present, although relegated to the observation seats.
“We suspect a severe allergic reaction,” Dr. Iztal explained. “Note the rash on his face and body-- it is a human phenomenon known as hives.”
“A reasonable diagnosis,” said Renlo Tagor. A battery of Coluan medical diagnostic devices floated above and around his head. “And the reasonable response and treatment would be removal from the allergen-producing environment-- in this case, presumably, Earth-- or the administration of an appropriate adrenergic agonist. Yes-- a reasonable diagnosis indeed. But entirely wrong, I’m afraid.”
The three Talokan Healers sputtered their indignation.
“I was multiply degreed in exobiology before any of you were born,” Renlo Tagor casually observed. “You are correct in one thing: that this coma has nothing to do with his Talokan genome. However, neither is it entirely to do with his human ancestry.” He paused, as the Healers looked puzzled. “It is his inherited metagene,” he continued, speaking slowly.
“I do not suppose your eyes differentiate color as well as a Coluan,” Renlo Tagor continued. “But it is apparent that these ‘hives’ as you call them, are of four different shades. A deep genetic probe indicates that they represent four separate species of metagene. This is his native metagene,” he indicated, “inherited from his father. This is Cargggan, this is Bismollean, and this is a Tharran strain.”
“He is absorbing the powers of some of the Members of the Super-Hero Club we met today,” said Tasmia. “Like Kirt could.”
“His father’s metagene,” said Renlo Tagor, “Allowed him to temporarily utilize excess hyper-bio-energy from the local environment. Your son appears to be re-writing his own genome-- at least, the manner in which his meta-gene manifests itself. I believe he is permanently replicating these various abilities.” He looked at his readouts. “And at the way it is progressing, I would project that he will complete the process in less than four hours.” He looked at Lady Tasmia. “It is not an instantaneous process. Each re-calibration of his genome appears to require a coma of two or three hours.”
“So he will be a combined Cargggan-Bismollean-Tharran-Terran when he wakes up?” asked Korvea.
“But still half-Talokan,” said Renlo Tagor. “And with an ordinary Talokan appearance. The Terran discolorations will be re-absorbed. But should he come in contact with other metagenetic Terrans… he would ‘absorb’ their powers as well.”
“But he has been in contact with metahumans before!” Tasmia protested. “He was been close friends with Ann, Kimota, and Atta-- and associated with them at the University for months!”
“Ah, but Kimota Grezz and Atta-Karr are hetero-metagenetic. As are the Ranzz twins, and Pol Krinn-- whose metagenetic presentation, it is true, he has not replicated. I believe he needs to be in close contact with a specimen of a pure, stable metagenetic Terran sub-race. Not a one-off mutant, but a sufficiently stable metagenetic that it has formed an extant population. There probably needs to be physical contact involved, although close proximity may be all that is required.”
At this news, Dr. Itzal and Dr. Beltza began conferring together.
“We need to have him visit Geeqou,” said Dr. Itzal. “And Naltor.”
“I wonder if Titans would be stable enough for him to replicate?” wondered Dr. Beltza. “There is tremendous variability in their telepathic and telekinetic powers.”
“Imskians, Bgztlrs, Durlans and Daxamites are non-Terran humanoids… too bad,” mused Dr. Itzal.
“We ought to track down Jan Arrah, the last Tromman,” said Dr. Beltza.
“I will thank you, Healers,” said Lady Tasmia, “To cease so enthusiastically putting my son into a series of two-hour comas.”
“Forgive me, Lady Tasmia,” said the guard, Lombrix, bowing low. “But this must be immediately reported to the Council. It is too important a development to keep… private.”
“I have every intention of informing the Council in due time,” said Lady Tasmia. “But if you would like to bask in the glory of that duty yourself, by all means, do so.”
Lombrix left the surgical theater in an enthusiastic rush.
=============================================================================
“Would you mind terribly?” Tasmia Mallor asked the Grezzes with exaggerated politeness, “Could I ask you to sit at the far end of the cafeteria? Menaleas wants to see his friends, and it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? To us? How?” asked Meta Grezz.
“Dangerous to him,” said Tasmia. “A kind of… allergic reaction. The two of you together may have the power to put him into a coma again for another four hours.”
“Just us?” asked Kort Grezz.
“Menaleas will explain,” said Lady Tasmia. “And we do want you to see him. Just… later, after he’s rested up, prepared himself, and had something to eat.”
==============================================================================
“It’s very strange,” said the three copies of Menaleas, as they fused back together. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
“Some of us don’t,” admitted Ffiona.
“And a whole new sense of taste,” said Menaleas, eating a fork and spoon from off the table.
“You’ll need to pace yourself,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Just because you can eat a hundred kilos in one sitting, doesn’t mean you should.”
The temperature around them began to drop. The Super-Hero Club and Super-Villain Club began to breathe out breath like steam. Glasses of water on the table frosted.
“And how do you develop such fine control?” asked Menaleas.
“Practice,” said Polar Lass. “Years and years of practice. Frankly, many Tharran glaciokinetics don’t bother.”
=============================================================================
The little Talokan shadowships emblazoned with the Mallorean crest left Earth in the midst of a crowd. Most of that crowd was happy to see them go. The Science Police were there as well, to enforce a perimeter.
The guard Kamar piloted the craft with the two healers. Lombrix was crowded in with Korvea, Lady Tasmia, and Menaleas.
The second ship made a brief stopover on Mars to drop off Korvea and Chameleon at the clubhouse. The ship continued onward with Lombrix and Lady Tasmia alone.
The real Menaleas Mallor fell off the ethernet radar, as other ‘alien threats’ to Earth took precedence among the Earth-Firster movement.
And as long as he kept a low profile, Metropolis University was happy to have him.
=============================================================================
“You need a new code-name,” said Razor. “We can’t go on calling you Prince Talok.”
“We could call you Duck,” suggested Villian.
“No.”
“Shadow Duck?” suggested Villian.
“No.”
“What was that crafts project our parents always had us do to keep us busy in pre-school?” Razor asked Black Flame. “Where we would lay down different colored strips of paper or plasteel film to make a picture?”
“Collage,” said Kimota Grezz. “You know, that’s not a bad name. It really describes his new powers-- and the ones he hasn’t even got yet. And if he displays those powers regularly, and keeps his ears covered, he will be assumed to be a multiple-metagenetic Terran. Which, you know, he is.”
“I agree,” said the newly-christened Collage. “‘Collage’ sounds like a super-hero name. Or super-villain, as long as the so-called ‘Justice League’ is still administering so-called ‘justice’.”
=============================================================================
“Hello, cousin,” said Menaleas, from Earth.
“Hello, cousin,” said Korvea, on Mars.
“The Council has tasked me with conveying a message to you.”
Korvea sighed. “I was expecting this. Go on.”
“I am to complete my studies at Metropolis University, and will be allowed to earn a Ph.D. in Advanced Hydroponic Gardening. This should take another six or seven years. I am to spend my spare time, and my summer breaks, accumulating whatever metagenetic abilities I can, and learning to master them. After I have earned my degree, I am to return to Talok VIII as husband of the new Mallorean Planetary Champion.”
“Namely?” asked Korvea.
Menaleas nodded his head. “It appears that we are betrothed.”
“It is not unexpected,” said Korvea. “It is… logical? I suppose we ought to start dating in a couple of years?”
“I’ll invite you to the awarding of my Bachelor of Science degree,” said Menaleas. “We can go out to dinner afterward. Maybe take in a show. Or go dancing. Do you dance?”
“I’ll learn,” said Korvea. “I’ll consider it part of my Champion’s education.”
=============================================================================
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Titan’s metagenetic abilities did prove too varied or unstable for Menaleas to duplicate. Nor was he able to acquire the abilities of the Phlonite sub-race of psychocatalytics.
He did, however, eventually gain the abilities of the following races:
O1 Cargggan
O2 Bismollean
O3 Tharran
O4 Braalien
O5 Kathooni (infra-red vision only)
O6 Zwenite
O7 Atlantean
(There is a funny story about how Menaleas goes on a date with an Atlantean girl at MU, and ends up passing out on her doorstep when she kisses him good-night, but this tale has gone on long enough.)
O8 Geeqouan
O9 Naltoran
1O Tromman (yes, they finally tracked down Jan Arrah)
=============================================================================
COLLAGE
Three hours earlier:
Their names were Lombrix and Kamar, and they were Mallorean guards. Their assignment for the last two years was Lady Tasmia, and her son, when he was home. They had escorted her here in the shadowship.
Neither of them would have ever said a word against Lady Tasmia.
Talokan hearing was too sharp.
Lombrix looked at the unconscious, mottled form of Menaleas Mallor.
“Rejected by the Shadow Cave,” thought Lombrix to himself. “No better than me. But a descendant of Sarven Mallor, so he receives special consideration. Nobility, indeed.” He spit in his mind, but his face remained impassive.
Kamar had also been tried in the Shadow Cave. He had scarcely passed the entrance, when he turned and ran. Voices had been whispering to him from deep within the shadows. Therefore, while he did not mind serving the shadow-casters, but he disliked associating with them. He sometimes imagined he could here those same whispers coming from the darkness they projected. As a consequence, he preferred assignments with the son than with the mother.
Professor Gauean Mallor was an old, heavy-set, white-haired Talokan. He had been teaching medicine at Metropolis University for decades. He was on staff at University Hospital, and while he held no official administrative position, the Chief treated him as an equal. When the young Talokan had collapsed on University grounds, he had immediately been called upon. It was a puzzling case-- at first, nothing seemed to be physically wrong with the boy-- except that he was in a coma.
Gauean Mallor was therefore half relieved and half offended when the boy’s personal Healers showed up from Talok, and took over the case.
Dr. Beltza Mallor had raised Menaleas from a zygote. She had nurtured and monitored him in the Artificial Womb, and supervised his birthing. She had served as the Talokan equivalent of godmother to the boy, as well as Chief Pediatrician. She had had high hopes for him, and was both surprised and disappointed when he failed as Shadow Champion.
Then Dr. Itzal had taken over primary care of Menaleas, when he turned twelve. He was as conversant as Dr. Beltza with the boy’s unique Talokan-Human physiology.
By decree of the Talokan Council, they were to take over his treatment.
And so they, too, took some offense two hours later, when Renlo Tagor of Colu emerged from a Time Tetrahedron.
It was fortunate that Menaleas had been brought to one of the University Hospital’s operating theaters, rather than a simple operating room. In addition to the Coluan, three Healers and two Guards, Tasmia and Korvea were present, although relegated to the observation seats.
“We suspect a severe allergic reaction,” Dr. Iztal explained. “Note the rash on his face and body-- it is a human phenomenon known as hives.”
“A reasonable diagnosis,” said Renlo Tagor. A battery of Coluan medical diagnostic devices floated above and around his head. “And the reasonable response and treatment would be removal from the allergen-producing environment-- in this case, presumably, Earth-- or the administration of an appropriate adrenergic agonist. Yes-- a reasonable diagnosis indeed. But entirely wrong, I’m afraid.”
The three Talokan Healers sputtered their indignation.
“I was multiply degreed in exobiology before any of you were born,” Renlo Tagor casually observed. “You are correct in one thing: that this coma has nothing to do with his Talokan genome. However, neither is it entirely to do with his human ancestry.” He paused, as the Healers looked puzzled. “It is his inherited metagene,” he continued, speaking slowly.
“I do not suppose your eyes differentiate color as well as a Coluan,” Renlo Tagor continued. “But it is apparent that these ‘hives’ as you call them, are of four different shades. A deep genetic probe indicates that they represent four separate species of metagene. This is his native metagene,” he indicated, “inherited from his father. This is Cargggan, this is Bismollean, and this is a Tharran strain.”
“He is absorbing the powers of some of the Members of the Super-Hero Club we met today,” said Tasmia. “Like Kirt could.”
“His father’s metagene,” said Renlo Tagor, “Allowed him to temporarily utilize excess hyper-bio-energy from the local environment. Your son appears to be re-writing his own genome-- at least, the manner in which his meta-gene manifests itself. I believe he is permanently replicating these various abilities.” He looked at his readouts. “And at the way it is progressing, I would project that he will complete the process in less than four hours.” He looked at Lady Tasmia. “It is not an instantaneous process. Each re-calibration of his genome appears to require a coma of two or three hours.”
“So he will be a combined Cargggan-Bismollean-Tharran-Terran when he wakes up?” asked Korvea.
“But still half-Talokan,” said Renlo Tagor. “And with an ordinary Talokan appearance. The Terran discolorations will be re-absorbed. But should he come in contact with other metagenetic Terrans… he would ‘absorb’ their powers as well.”
“But he has been in contact with metahumans before!” Tasmia protested. “He was been close friends with Ann, Kimota, and Atta-- and associated with them at the University for months!”
“Ah, but Kimota Grezz and Atta-Karr are hetero-metagenetic. As are the Ranzz twins, and Pol Krinn-- whose metagenetic presentation, it is true, he has not replicated. I believe he needs to be in close contact with a specimen of a pure, stable metagenetic Terran sub-race. Not a one-off mutant, but a sufficiently stable metagenetic that it has formed an extant population. There probably needs to be physical contact involved, although close proximity may be all that is required.”
At this news, Dr. Itzal and Dr. Beltza began conferring together.
“We need to have him visit Geeqou,” said Dr. Itzal. “And Naltor.”
“I wonder if Titans would be stable enough for him to replicate?” wondered Dr. Beltza. “There is tremendous variability in their telepathic and telekinetic powers.”
“Imskians, Bgztlrs, Durlans and Daxamites are non-Terran humanoids… too bad,” mused Dr. Itzal.
“We ought to track down Jan Arrah, the last Tromman,” said Dr. Beltza.
“I will thank you, Healers,” said Lady Tasmia, “To cease so enthusiastically putting my son into a series of two-hour comas.”
“Forgive me, Lady Tasmia,” said the guard, Lombrix, bowing low. “But this must be immediately reported to the Council. It is too important a development to keep… private.”
“I have every intention of informing the Council in due time,” said Lady Tasmia. “But if you would like to bask in the glory of that duty yourself, by all means, do so.”
Lombrix left the surgical theater in an enthusiastic rush.
=============================================================================
“Would you mind terribly?” Tasmia Mallor asked the Grezzes with exaggerated politeness, “Could I ask you to sit at the far end of the cafeteria? Menaleas wants to see his friends, and it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? To us? How?” asked Meta Grezz.
“Dangerous to him,” said Tasmia. “A kind of… allergic reaction. The two of you together may have the power to put him into a coma again for another four hours.”
“Just us?” asked Kort Grezz.
“Menaleas will explain,” said Lady Tasmia. “And we do want you to see him. Just… later, after he’s rested up, prepared himself, and had something to eat.”
==============================================================================
“It’s very strange,” said the three copies of Menaleas, as they fused back together. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
“Some of us don’t,” admitted Ffiona.
“And a whole new sense of taste,” said Menaleas, eating a fork and spoon from off the table.
“You’ll need to pace yourself,” said Matter-Eater Lad Two. “Just because you can eat a hundred kilos in one sitting, doesn’t mean you should.”
The temperature around them began to drop. The Super-Hero Club and Super-Villain Club began to breathe out breath like steam. Glasses of water on the table frosted.
“And how do you develop such fine control?” asked Menaleas.
“Practice,” said Polar Lass. “Years and years of practice. Frankly, many Tharran glaciokinetics don’t bother.”
=============================================================================
The little Talokan shadowships emblazoned with the Mallorean crest left Earth in the midst of a crowd. Most of that crowd was happy to see them go. The Science Police were there as well, to enforce a perimeter.
The guard Kamar piloted the craft with the two healers. Lombrix was crowded in with Korvea, Lady Tasmia, and Menaleas.
The second ship made a brief stopover on Mars to drop off Korvea and Chameleon at the clubhouse. The ship continued onward with Lombrix and Lady Tasmia alone.
The real Menaleas Mallor fell off the ethernet radar, as other ‘alien threats’ to Earth took precedence among the Earth-Firster movement.
And as long as he kept a low profile, Metropolis University was happy to have him.
=============================================================================
“You need a new code-name,” said Razor. “We can’t go on calling you Prince Talok.”
“We could call you Duck,” suggested Villian.
“No.”
“Shadow Duck?” suggested Villian.
“No.”
“What was that crafts project our parents always had us do to keep us busy in pre-school?” Razor asked Black Flame. “Where we would lay down different colored strips of paper or plasteel film to make a picture?”
“Collage,” said Kimota Grezz. “You know, that’s not a bad name. It really describes his new powers-- and the ones he hasn’t even got yet. And if he displays those powers regularly, and keeps his ears covered, he will be assumed to be a multiple-metagenetic Terran. Which, you know, he is.”
“I agree,” said the newly-christened Collage. “‘Collage’ sounds like a super-hero name. Or super-villain, as long as the so-called ‘Justice League’ is still administering so-called ‘justice’.”
=============================================================================
“Hello, cousin,” said Menaleas, from Earth.
“Hello, cousin,” said Korvea, on Mars.
“The Council has tasked me with conveying a message to you.”
Korvea sighed. “I was expecting this. Go on.”
“I am to complete my studies at Metropolis University, and will be allowed to earn a Ph.D. in Advanced Hydroponic Gardening. This should take another six or seven years. I am to spend my spare time, and my summer breaks, accumulating whatever metagenetic abilities I can, and learning to master them. After I have earned my degree, I am to return to Talok VIII as husband of the new Mallorean Planetary Champion.”
“Namely?” asked Korvea.
Menaleas nodded his head. “It appears that we are betrothed.”
“It is not unexpected,” said Korvea. “It is… logical? I suppose we ought to start dating in a couple of years?”
“I’ll invite you to the awarding of my Bachelor of Science degree,” said Menaleas. “We can go out to dinner afterward. Maybe take in a show. Or go dancing. Do you dance?”
“I’ll learn,” said Korvea. “I’ll consider it part of my Champion’s education.”
=============================================================================
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Titan’s metagenetic abilities did prove too varied or unstable for Menaleas to duplicate. Nor was he able to acquire the abilities of the Phlonite sub-race of psychocatalytics.
He did, however, eventually gain the abilities of the following races:
O1 Cargggan
O2 Bismollean
O3 Tharran
O4 Braalien
O5 Kathooni (infra-red vision only)
O6 Zwenite
O7 Atlantean
(There is a funny story about how Menaleas goes on a date with an Atlantean girl at MU, and ends up passing out on her doorstep when she kisses him good-night, but this tale has gone on long enough.)
O8 Geeqouan
O9 Naltoran
1O Tromman (yes, they finally tracked down Jan Arrah)
=============================================================================
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/11/19 01:25 AM
DIGRESSION
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO…
Mr. B. was tall and broad-shouldered; impressive, despite his age. This was Rikk’s first impression. And it was an impressive impression, as Rikk himself was literally an eight-hundred-pound gorilla.
“If you don’t mind…” asked Rikk hesitantly. “Where…”
“Where do they breed people like me?” asked Mr. B. in return. “Why don’t you guess?”
“Uhn… I don’t really know,” Rikk replied. “Durlan?”
“Yeah, yeah… bald, orangey-skinned-- that’s everyone’s first guess. No, my friend, I am a human. A mutie, but as Terran as you are.”
“I’m no Human,” insisted Rikk.
“No, but your ancestors came from Earth-- Gorilla City, on the continent that looks like a skull. You colonized the world you now call Goodall, establishing a peaceful, parallel culture with the indigenous Trogs. Then you turned right around, and joined the United Planets.
“Now my people wanted to get as far away from EarthGov and the U.P. as we possibly could, and ended up on Lallor, distant enough from Earth, but right on the border of the Khundish Empire and the Dominion. They fought over us diplomatically for a couple of years-- who would have the privilege of conquering us upstart humans-- but then we nearly atomized ourselves in the Accidental Nuclear War, and they thought is best to leave us alone for a few decades. Even the Khunds don’t want to get involved with crazy people.
“Probably one in a million of my generation are mutants, and I am one of a kind.”
“How long have you been at Casino 1837?” asked Rikk.
“It will be my thirtieth sola-year anniversary next occultation,” said Mr. B. “Thirty sola-years in the Accounting Department, in various capacities of increasing responsibilities.”
“You enjoy your work?” asked Rikk.
“I enjoy feeding my family,” said Mr. B. “I have two kids at University, and one starting next year. Here-- we’re taking that white van today. You want to drive?”
Rikk shrugged, and nodded. “OK,” he said.
“This your first time threading the needle?” asked Mr. B.
“I’m sorry-- what?”
“That’s what we call the thirty-block run between the Casino and the Interplanetary Bank,” Mr. B. explained. “Every Accountant takes a rotating shift making the bank deposit. You’ll do this again within the year. Now if this were Earth, or Weber’s World, or Xanthu, it would all be done with the click of a button. But the Casinos on Ventura accept all sorts of money from all sorts of worlds, not just the electronic kind, and it has to be stored somewhere.”
They drove on for a short time, following the randomized path the navi-comp had plotted at the beginning of the trip.
“Notice anything unusual about this route?” asked Mr. B.
“Not really,” said Rikk. “Kind of empty.”
“Too empty,” said Mr. B. “Someone has cleared the route; bought today’s navi-comp directions from someone in the Department.” He clicked his tongue. “Stupid. Ventura does does not look charitably on bribery. Someone will be let go tomorrow. Now, remember, in case of a robbery, the Casino would rather see an increase in their cash-loss premiums than life-insurance premiums.”
“You’re scaring me,” said Rikk.
“Good. Fear promotes caution, and you’re going to need it. Run through the protocols in your head. If you’re going to fight it out, take out the most dangerous opponent first. If you can’t take that one, you’re done before you begin. Otherwise… give up, and give them whatever they ask for.”
“Are we going to be robbed?” asked Rikk. “Does… does this happen a lot?”
“It almost never happens,” said Mr. B.
But it was happening. After the next turn, five heavily-armed pedestrians stood blocking the street. A black, semi-cloaked van stood parked in back of them.
Rikk recognized two Gamorreans, a Dominion Brute, some sort of purplish-gray troll-like alien, and, incongruously, a tiny, bald, dark-blue man.
Rikk stopped the vehicle, and he and Mr. B. got out.
“We’ll take it easy on you,” said the little blue man. “Only the stuff that’s easy to carry. Spican flame gems, living crystal money, glass coins. No Huopian Energy Money, thanks.”
“Five against two. Do you think you can take them?” asked Mr. B., sizing up the gorilla.
The Gamorreans and the Dominator were big, but did not look very smart. They did have some nasty-looking energy rifles trained on them, however.
The purple alien had a double-barrelled blaster in each of its four hands, a total of eight barrels aimed directly at them.
“That’s a Branx Warrior,” said Mr. B. “Reputed to be the best-trained soldiers in the galaxy. Why he’s slumming with these stooges is beyond me. Well? What do you think?”
Rikk shook his head. “We’re completely outgunned,” he declared.
Mr. B. was taking off his coat. He took a magnetic key out from under one armpit. “So, open the back,” he said, handing Rikk the coat and the key.
“Good choice,” said the little blue man. Oddly, he was unarmed. He could not have been more than a meter tall. His companions towered over him, but seemed to defer to him. He was so small that Mr. B. had to crouch down in order to plant his knee in the little blue man’s groin. A double-fisted blow to the top of the head left the little man out cold in the middle of the street.
“Most dangerous opponent first,” Mr. B. noted. “He’s from a high-gravity world.”
Before Rikk could really process what was going on, Mr. B. was an airborne dervish, his feet disarming both Gamorreans and the Brute in an instant.
Time seemed to slow. Rikk noted that the Branx was backing up, moving out of Mr. B.’s rangeThree of his blasters were still pointed in Rikk’s direction. With the fourth, he was taking careful aim at the weaponless Mr. B.-- whose other opponents were now either fallen or falling.
There was a flash-bang, and a smell like burning, rancid bacon. The top quarter of the chest of one of the Gamorreans vanished.
In what seemed like slow-motion, the Branx took another step back, re-aiming all four blasters at Rikk. Mr. B. was weaponless, the Gamorrean energy-rifles meters away. He was at least several steps away from the Branx. Rikk waited for his life to flash before his eyes.
Then Mr. B. had a weapon in his hand after all: some sort of cudgel or staff. A quick figure-eight motion, and the four blasters went flying out of the Branx’s hands. Mr. B. was back on two feet, his arm extended, and at the end of his arm… another arm. And at the end of that arm, one of the Branx blasters.
There was another flash-bang.
“I’ve never known a Branx Warrior to hit something he wasn’t aiming for,” said Mr. B., calmly re-attaching his arm at the shoulder. “Now we know why he was slumming.”
Rikk gaped, open-mouthed.
“He’s not really dead,” said Mr. B. “You can’t really kill a Branx Warrior. He will shortly resurrect on his homeworld of Emana Branx. As an infant. Maybe he will pay closer attention to his training this time.”
Mr. B. toggled the ‘phone in his ear. “Margo, I have a pickup for the SP’s. A Gamorrean, a Dominion Brute, and an Indigo Brobdingnabite. Plus two casualties. There’s a getaway driver in a truck parked nearby, who is currently deciding whether to turn himself over to the SP’s when they arrive, or to take a chance returning empty-handed to his employer. I hope he makes the right decision. The three stooges are sleeping it off; I’m going to give them a little sedative to hold them until the SP’s get here. Proceeding to the Interstellar Bank as planned.”
It was only a few more blocks.
“Robotic arm?” asked Rikk.
“Completely natural,” said Mr. B. “Part of my mutation. Comes in real handy when it takes them by surprise.”
“How did you know they’d be surprised?” asked Rikk. “You’ve been around thirty sola-years. What if they had recognized you?”
“Well, they wouldn’t have tried to rob us then, would they?” said Mr. B.
This iteration of the character is based on the Silver Age version who appeared in Secret Origins, not the later, scrawnier ones in the Reboot or "Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century".
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO…
Mr. B. was tall and broad-shouldered; impressive, despite his age. This was Rikk’s first impression. And it was an impressive impression, as Rikk himself was literally an eight-hundred-pound gorilla.
“If you don’t mind…” asked Rikk hesitantly. “Where…”
“Where do they breed people like me?” asked Mr. B. in return. “Why don’t you guess?”
“Uhn… I don’t really know,” Rikk replied. “Durlan?”
“Yeah, yeah… bald, orangey-skinned-- that’s everyone’s first guess. No, my friend, I am a human. A mutie, but as Terran as you are.”
“I’m no Human,” insisted Rikk.
“No, but your ancestors came from Earth-- Gorilla City, on the continent that looks like a skull. You colonized the world you now call Goodall, establishing a peaceful, parallel culture with the indigenous Trogs. Then you turned right around, and joined the United Planets.
“Now my people wanted to get as far away from EarthGov and the U.P. as we possibly could, and ended up on Lallor, distant enough from Earth, but right on the border of the Khundish Empire and the Dominion. They fought over us diplomatically for a couple of years-- who would have the privilege of conquering us upstart humans-- but then we nearly atomized ourselves in the Accidental Nuclear War, and they thought is best to leave us alone for a few decades. Even the Khunds don’t want to get involved with crazy people.
“Probably one in a million of my generation are mutants, and I am one of a kind.”
“How long have you been at Casino 1837?” asked Rikk.
“It will be my thirtieth sola-year anniversary next occultation,” said Mr. B. “Thirty sola-years in the Accounting Department, in various capacities of increasing responsibilities.”
“You enjoy your work?” asked Rikk.
“I enjoy feeding my family,” said Mr. B. “I have two kids at University, and one starting next year. Here-- we’re taking that white van today. You want to drive?”
Rikk shrugged, and nodded. “OK,” he said.
“This your first time threading the needle?” asked Mr. B.
“I’m sorry-- what?”
“That’s what we call the thirty-block run between the Casino and the Interplanetary Bank,” Mr. B. explained. “Every Accountant takes a rotating shift making the bank deposit. You’ll do this again within the year. Now if this were Earth, or Weber’s World, or Xanthu, it would all be done with the click of a button. But the Casinos on Ventura accept all sorts of money from all sorts of worlds, not just the electronic kind, and it has to be stored somewhere.”
They drove on for a short time, following the randomized path the navi-comp had plotted at the beginning of the trip.
“Notice anything unusual about this route?” asked Mr. B.
“Not really,” said Rikk. “Kind of empty.”
“Too empty,” said Mr. B. “Someone has cleared the route; bought today’s navi-comp directions from someone in the Department.” He clicked his tongue. “Stupid. Ventura does does not look charitably on bribery. Someone will be let go tomorrow. Now, remember, in case of a robbery, the Casino would rather see an increase in their cash-loss premiums than life-insurance premiums.”
“You’re scaring me,” said Rikk.
“Good. Fear promotes caution, and you’re going to need it. Run through the protocols in your head. If you’re going to fight it out, take out the most dangerous opponent first. If you can’t take that one, you’re done before you begin. Otherwise… give up, and give them whatever they ask for.”
“Are we going to be robbed?” asked Rikk. “Does… does this happen a lot?”
“It almost never happens,” said Mr. B.
But it was happening. After the next turn, five heavily-armed pedestrians stood blocking the street. A black, semi-cloaked van stood parked in back of them.
Rikk recognized two Gamorreans, a Dominion Brute, some sort of purplish-gray troll-like alien, and, incongruously, a tiny, bald, dark-blue man.
Rikk stopped the vehicle, and he and Mr. B. got out.
“We’ll take it easy on you,” said the little blue man. “Only the stuff that’s easy to carry. Spican flame gems, living crystal money, glass coins. No Huopian Energy Money, thanks.”
“Five against two. Do you think you can take them?” asked Mr. B., sizing up the gorilla.
The Gamorreans and the Dominator were big, but did not look very smart. They did have some nasty-looking energy rifles trained on them, however.
The purple alien had a double-barrelled blaster in each of its four hands, a total of eight barrels aimed directly at them.
“That’s a Branx Warrior,” said Mr. B. “Reputed to be the best-trained soldiers in the galaxy. Why he’s slumming with these stooges is beyond me. Well? What do you think?”
Rikk shook his head. “We’re completely outgunned,” he declared.
Mr. B. was taking off his coat. He took a magnetic key out from under one armpit. “So, open the back,” he said, handing Rikk the coat and the key.
“Good choice,” said the little blue man. Oddly, he was unarmed. He could not have been more than a meter tall. His companions towered over him, but seemed to defer to him. He was so small that Mr. B. had to crouch down in order to plant his knee in the little blue man’s groin. A double-fisted blow to the top of the head left the little man out cold in the middle of the street.
“Most dangerous opponent first,” Mr. B. noted. “He’s from a high-gravity world.”
Before Rikk could really process what was going on, Mr. B. was an airborne dervish, his feet disarming both Gamorreans and the Brute in an instant.
Time seemed to slow. Rikk noted that the Branx was backing up, moving out of Mr. B.’s rangeThree of his blasters were still pointed in Rikk’s direction. With the fourth, he was taking careful aim at the weaponless Mr. B.-- whose other opponents were now either fallen or falling.
There was a flash-bang, and a smell like burning, rancid bacon. The top quarter of the chest of one of the Gamorreans vanished.
In what seemed like slow-motion, the Branx took another step back, re-aiming all four blasters at Rikk. Mr. B. was weaponless, the Gamorrean energy-rifles meters away. He was at least several steps away from the Branx. Rikk waited for his life to flash before his eyes.
Then Mr. B. had a weapon in his hand after all: some sort of cudgel or staff. A quick figure-eight motion, and the four blasters went flying out of the Branx’s hands. Mr. B. was back on two feet, his arm extended, and at the end of his arm… another arm. And at the end of that arm, one of the Branx blasters.
There was another flash-bang.
“I’ve never known a Branx Warrior to hit something he wasn’t aiming for,” said Mr. B., calmly re-attaching his arm at the shoulder. “Now we know why he was slumming.”
Rikk gaped, open-mouthed.
“He’s not really dead,” said Mr. B. “You can’t really kill a Branx Warrior. He will shortly resurrect on his homeworld of Emana Branx. As an infant. Maybe he will pay closer attention to his training this time.”
Mr. B. toggled the ‘phone in his ear. “Margo, I have a pickup for the SP’s. A Gamorrean, a Dominion Brute, and an Indigo Brobdingnabite. Plus two casualties. There’s a getaway driver in a truck parked nearby, who is currently deciding whether to turn himself over to the SP’s when they arrive, or to take a chance returning empty-handed to his employer. I hope he makes the right decision. The three stooges are sleeping it off; I’m going to give them a little sedative to hold them until the SP’s get here. Proceeding to the Interstellar Bank as planned.”
It was only a few more blocks.
“Robotic arm?” asked Rikk.
“Completely natural,” said Mr. B. “Part of my mutation. Comes in real handy when it takes them by surprise.”
“How did you know they’d be surprised?” asked Rikk. “You’ve been around thirty sola-years. What if they had recognized you?”
“Well, they wouldn’t have tried to rob us then, would they?” said Mr. B.
This iteration of the character is based on the Silver Age version who appeared in Secret Origins, not the later, scrawnier ones in the Reboot or "Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century".
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/16/19 01:45 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX
GHOSTS
December 25th, Earth Date.
Five Months Ago.
Naltor...
The High Seer dreamed.
It was not a usual dream, a realistic depiction of some future event.
It was… dreamlike. Nura found herself sitting upright in a broad, curtained, antique four-poster bed. The curtains were were drawn aside, and Nura could see the two odd beings stood beyond them.
The first was a strange figure—small, like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium which gave the appearance of having receded from view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it.
The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength.
Its legs and feet, were bare, like the ams, and most delicately formed. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was very beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.
From the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible. But this was not its strangest quality, for as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
Beside the little creature there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on the room. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark curls were long and free; as free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.
Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Giant.
“There is no Christmas on Naltor,” replied the High Seer.
“But there is on New Titan.” said the smaller figure. “Which I have visited many times. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
Nura was not unfamiliar with this particular vision. “And where is the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come?” she asked.
“There is no Christmas Yet-To-Come,” said the Ghost of Christmas Present, solemnly. "Not anymore."
GHOSTS
December 25th, Earth Date.
Five Months Ago.
Naltor...
The High Seer dreamed.
It was not a usual dream, a realistic depiction of some future event.
It was… dreamlike. Nura found herself sitting upright in a broad, curtained, antique four-poster bed. The curtains were were drawn aside, and Nura could see the two odd beings stood beyond them.
The first was a strange figure—small, like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium which gave the appearance of having receded from view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it.
The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength.
Its legs and feet, were bare, like the ams, and most delicately formed. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was very beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.
From the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible. But this was not its strangest quality, for as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
Beside the little creature there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on the room. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark curls were long and free; as free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.
Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Giant.
“There is no Christmas on Naltor,” replied the High Seer.
“But there is on New Titan.” said the smaller figure. “Which I have visited many times. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
Nura was not unfamiliar with this particular vision. “And where is the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come?” she asked.
“There is no Christmas Yet-To-Come,” said the Ghost of Christmas Present, solemnly. "Not anymore."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/16/19 01:49 AM
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN
THE KHUND-DOMINION WAR
The great ship hung over Daxam like a small moon.
There were thousands of crew aboard. All Khundish engineers, or Dominator brutes-- the lowest castes of their respective societies. The brutes had caste-marks on their foreheads the size of pinheads.
A hundred thousand pencil-shaped missiles, none over two meters long, were launched from the bay doors. They blanketed the surface of Daxam, each releasing a sickly green gas. The base formulation was well known, ten or eleven centuries old. It had been modified for Daxamite physiology.
The gas infiltrated everywhere. The epidermis of the population blanched, bleached, turned jaundiced, then white. Zygomaticus muscles were paralyzed, shrunken, the lips, in contrast stretched out into in a horrific rictus. Black, brown, and blonde hair turned various shades of green.
Mad laughter echoed across the surface of Daxam like a soft wind.
Meanwhile, aboard the ship, a beam of light flashed from a radar-like dish, directly at Daxam’s primary. Gravity twisted and distorted, fueling and expanding thermonuclear reactions in the star. Red light turned orange, then golden, then yellow. After some fifteen minutes, the wave of yellow light passed the planetary orbit.
The population of Daxam-- men, women, and children, but animals as well, rose up as one mad mass, to lay waste to the Galaxy.
For the crew aboard the orbiting ship, it had been a suicide mission, of course. They were the first to be destroyed.
The United Planets had some early warning. The Darkseid invasion, and two decades of Daxamite piracy had prepared them. Many worlds were equipped with defenses: Coluan force-shields, Imskian shrinking rays, Bgztlr phantom zone projectors, Kormon stun-beams, Venturan probability distorters, red-sun cannons, and more. However, anything less than lethal force proved useless against the Daxamites mobs. They were to a person both homicidal and suicidal. If they could not kill, they would destroy. In the end, most of the thousands of United Planets worlds were spared much destruction. But the Daxamite population was essentially extinct.
A few Daxamite pirate ships, deep in space, and a small diaspora of emigrants on various worlds, survived. But Daxam itself was a dead world.
It had happened so fast that the Super-Hero Club had not been involved in the war at all. But that does not mean they were unaffected.
Some ten days later, on Mars, Ten stood up from the kitchen table, where he had been nursing a tube of Coluan nutritive paste.
“Something else else is wrong,” he said. He wiped his nose. He looked startled, at the green-black blood on his finger. He vomited, the same green-black blood. It was oozing from his tear ducts, ears, and nose as well.
Star-Woman lifted him in her arms, as sped at ultrasonic speed to the hospital at Nix Olympica. The doctors gave him a bed, but gave her no hope. Black, necrotic patches were already forming on Ten’s skin.
“In addition to being infected with Joker gas,” an orderly explained. “The Daxamites carried some virulent bacteria-- one we have never seen before. In the past twenty-four hours, it has become epidemic across the United Planets.” He wiped a blood-red tear from his eye. “All races and species seem to be affected, both flora and fauna. As far as we can determine, it is at least 90% fatal.”
Star-Woman looked down at her hands, the blackening patches spreading over her own skin.
Kallor Nal woke up in a sweat. It had been a dream.
But a Naltoran dream. And Naltoran dreams always came true.
She had seen the future. And the near future at that.
She had seen the end of everything. At least, of the United Planets. The end.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, incongruously, she heard a fat lady singing.
THE KHUND-DOMINION WAR
The great ship hung over Daxam like a small moon.
There were thousands of crew aboard. All Khundish engineers, or Dominator brutes-- the lowest castes of their respective societies. The brutes had caste-marks on their foreheads the size of pinheads.
A hundred thousand pencil-shaped missiles, none over two meters long, were launched from the bay doors. They blanketed the surface of Daxam, each releasing a sickly green gas. The base formulation was well known, ten or eleven centuries old. It had been modified for Daxamite physiology.
The gas infiltrated everywhere. The epidermis of the population blanched, bleached, turned jaundiced, then white. Zygomaticus muscles were paralyzed, shrunken, the lips, in contrast stretched out into in a horrific rictus. Black, brown, and blonde hair turned various shades of green.
Mad laughter echoed across the surface of Daxam like a soft wind.
Meanwhile, aboard the ship, a beam of light flashed from a radar-like dish, directly at Daxam’s primary. Gravity twisted and distorted, fueling and expanding thermonuclear reactions in the star. Red light turned orange, then golden, then yellow. After some fifteen minutes, the wave of yellow light passed the planetary orbit.
The population of Daxam-- men, women, and children, but animals as well, rose up as one mad mass, to lay waste to the Galaxy.
For the crew aboard the orbiting ship, it had been a suicide mission, of course. They were the first to be destroyed.
The United Planets had some early warning. The Darkseid invasion, and two decades of Daxamite piracy had prepared them. Many worlds were equipped with defenses: Coluan force-shields, Imskian shrinking rays, Bgztlr phantom zone projectors, Kormon stun-beams, Venturan probability distorters, red-sun cannons, and more. However, anything less than lethal force proved useless against the Daxamites mobs. They were to a person both homicidal and suicidal. If they could not kill, they would destroy. In the end, most of the thousands of United Planets worlds were spared much destruction. But the Daxamite population was essentially extinct.
A few Daxamite pirate ships, deep in space, and a small diaspora of emigrants on various worlds, survived. But Daxam itself was a dead world.
It had happened so fast that the Super-Hero Club had not been involved in the war at all. But that does not mean they were unaffected.
Some ten days later, on Mars, Ten stood up from the kitchen table, where he had been nursing a tube of Coluan nutritive paste.
“Something else else is wrong,” he said. He wiped his nose. He looked startled, at the green-black blood on his finger. He vomited, the same green-black blood. It was oozing from his tear ducts, ears, and nose as well.
Star-Woman lifted him in her arms, as sped at ultrasonic speed to the hospital at Nix Olympica. The doctors gave him a bed, but gave her no hope. Black, necrotic patches were already forming on Ten’s skin.
“In addition to being infected with Joker gas,” an orderly explained. “The Daxamites carried some virulent bacteria-- one we have never seen before. In the past twenty-four hours, it has become epidemic across the United Planets.” He wiped a blood-red tear from his eye. “All races and species seem to be affected, both flora and fauna. As far as we can determine, it is at least 90% fatal.”
Star-Woman looked down at her hands, the blackening patches spreading over her own skin.
Kallor Nal woke up in a sweat. It had been a dream.
But a Naltoran dream. And Naltoran dreams always came true.
She had seen the future. And the near future at that.
She had seen the end of everything. At least, of the United Planets. The end.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, incongruously, she heard a fat lady singing.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/19/19 03:36 AM
Very interesting story developments! It seems like you might be headed towards a fractured or destroyed United Planets. I wonder where you are going with this...are the other species the good guys somehow and we the Legion readers have been misled?
POST-MORTEM - 05/27/19 03:56 PM
[b]POST-MORTEM[/I]
From Tumblr: Writers Write
From Tumblr: Writers Write
From Tumblr: Writers Write
Well, there were some problems with this series, some expected, and some unexpected.
My desire in writing Young Legion was to explore Earth-K2, the Universe accidentally created by Dori and Brainiac 5 in my Rainbow Girl series.
The conceit of Earth-K2 is that first, 5YL, the re-boot, and the three-boot never happened: only TOS and the retroboot. And there are enough continuity paradoxes to resolve with just these two!
Secondly, I wanted Death to have real consequences: Everyone dead (or lost in time) at the end of Levitz & Maguire’s #23 stayed dead, or lost in time. Mon-el also dies before Our Story Begins, because he had his arms ripped off, you know? Also Reep (Chameleon Boy) Daggle and Lluornu (Triplicate Girl, et al) Durgo-Taine, necessitated by my take on Durlan and Cargggan physiologies. And Blok. Because I love Blok, and “kill your darlings”. I also sent Mysa back to the dimension Zeerox was in at the end of #23, because her, I could not bear to kill.
So problems.
I knew I was going to spend a great deal of time world-building, describing the appearance of the Earth-K2 paracosm, and fan-boyishly investigating just how powers and things work. Catherynne Valente does this extremely well; I do it extremely poorly. I slows down the action, bores the reader, and I am not getting any better at it. But this is a Vanity project, so I forgave myself.
I wanted to explore how difficult it is to go super-heroing if you are not Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, or have the backing of RJ Brande, “the richest man in the Galaxy.” I had not really realized just how difficult it would be, especially for a bunch of teen-agers surviving on the UP stipend. I had the idea that the Super-Hero Club would eventually become the Legion, but they never made it. I had in my mind allowing a “Flying Brick” to join, upping the power levels and making them able to build stuff without paying for it. This turned out to be Kallor Nah, who had all the powers of every version of Star Boy, plus her mother’s. (A teen-aged Lili Van-Zee or Ariella Kent, or a young yellow Martian, were other possibilities.) And the backing of Naltor / New Titan. (Both are in the same star system by the end of #23. Unnamed until now, I call it the Hekuban System.)
I wanted them to have opposition from their own families, and EarthGov, but quickly realized that both those entities were entirely capable of putting the SHC out of business. So I had to soften up the parents a little. OK, a lot. Complete personality changes. Bad writing. The Triplicates and Chameleon remained planetary outcasts throughout, however. Say, do I have a deep-seated prejudice against Cargggans and Durlans?
I wanted them to go up against powerful adversaries, and somehow succeed. In fact, in Book I, I pitted them against Mordru. They very nearly died (and I very nearly let them) and had to have their fat pulled from the fire by the old Legion. In fact, it would have been easy for their parents, and their parents’ wealthy and well-connected friends, to solve all their problems, once I wrote them as supporting the venture. But Dacey and Dorrit, especially, would not have liked that. (Though Chameleon would have been all in, I think.)
Throughout the story, there is also the problem of a lack of consistent POV. Superboy in the 3Oth century was actually just a normal, wide-eyed Earth-kid from Smallville, who just happened to have been born on another planet, and the be the most powerful being in his Universe. Thus he was the perfect proxy for the reader to meet the 3Oth century- and the myriad characters, exotic planets and locations. I unfortunately had no such consistent point of view in Earth-K2, but jumped around from character to character.
(It was much easier to do before with Dori in the Earth-K paracosm.)
The stories themselves were often disjointed, like the single-issue-single-story format of the comics of the 5O’s. This was an intentional choice, but I now rather regret not conceiving of a unifying plot-thread, especially in Book Two.
There may be a way to bring the Super-Hero Club and the United Planets back from the dead, without actually bringing them back from the dead. Death must have consequences, but the death of 90% of 31st-century Earth’s population would still leave ten billion alive. And so on, through the rest of the U.P.
But I am getting tired- or possibly just bored- with this paracosm, and I have the story of the 31st-century Teen Titans at the back of my mind. Also, my slightly fictionalized biography. I have put some of myself into Earth-K2, and I really have led an interesting- if not exciting- life.
We shall see.
TTFN
From Tumblr: Writers Write
From Tumblr: Writers Write
From Tumblr: Writers Write
Well, there were some problems with this series, some expected, and some unexpected.
My desire in writing Young Legion was to explore Earth-K2, the Universe accidentally created by Dori and Brainiac 5 in my Rainbow Girl series.
The conceit of Earth-K2 is that first, 5YL, the re-boot, and the three-boot never happened: only TOS and the retroboot. And there are enough continuity paradoxes to resolve with just these two!
Secondly, I wanted Death to have real consequences: Everyone dead (or lost in time) at the end of Levitz & Maguire’s #23 stayed dead, or lost in time. Mon-el also dies before Our Story Begins, because he had his arms ripped off, you know? Also Reep (Chameleon Boy) Daggle and Lluornu (Triplicate Girl, et al) Durgo-Taine, necessitated by my take on Durlan and Cargggan physiologies. And Blok. Because I love Blok, and “kill your darlings”. I also sent Mysa back to the dimension Zeerox was in at the end of #23, because her, I could not bear to kill.
So problems.
I knew I was going to spend a great deal of time world-building, describing the appearance of the Earth-K2 paracosm, and fan-boyishly investigating just how powers and things work. Catherynne Valente does this extremely well; I do it extremely poorly. I slows down the action, bores the reader, and I am not getting any better at it. But this is a Vanity project, so I forgave myself.
I wanted to explore how difficult it is to go super-heroing if you are not Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, or have the backing of RJ Brande, “the richest man in the Galaxy.” I had not really realized just how difficult it would be, especially for a bunch of teen-agers surviving on the UP stipend. I had the idea that the Super-Hero Club would eventually become the Legion, but they never made it. I had in my mind allowing a “Flying Brick” to join, upping the power levels and making them able to build stuff without paying for it. This turned out to be Kallor Nah, who had all the powers of every version of Star Boy, plus her mother’s. (A teen-aged Lili Van-Zee or Ariella Kent, or a young yellow Martian, were other possibilities.) And the backing of Naltor / New Titan. (Both are in the same star system by the end of #23. Unnamed until now, I call it the Hekuban System.)
I wanted them to have opposition from their own families, and EarthGov, but quickly realized that both those entities were entirely capable of putting the SHC out of business. So I had to soften up the parents a little. OK, a lot. Complete personality changes. Bad writing. The Triplicates and Chameleon remained planetary outcasts throughout, however. Say, do I have a deep-seated prejudice against Cargggans and Durlans?
I wanted them to go up against powerful adversaries, and somehow succeed. In fact, in Book I, I pitted them against Mordru. They very nearly died (and I very nearly let them) and had to have their fat pulled from the fire by the old Legion. In fact, it would have been easy for their parents, and their parents’ wealthy and well-connected friends, to solve all their problems, once I wrote them as supporting the venture. But Dacey and Dorrit, especially, would not have liked that. (Though Chameleon would have been all in, I think.)
Throughout the story, there is also the problem of a lack of consistent POV. Superboy in the 3Oth century was actually just a normal, wide-eyed Earth-kid from Smallville, who just happened to have been born on another planet, and the be the most powerful being in his Universe. Thus he was the perfect proxy for the reader to meet the 3Oth century- and the myriad characters, exotic planets and locations. I unfortunately had no such consistent point of view in Earth-K2, but jumped around from character to character.
(It was much easier to do before with Dori in the Earth-K paracosm.)
The stories themselves were often disjointed, like the single-issue-single-story format of the comics of the 5O’s. This was an intentional choice, but I now rather regret not conceiving of a unifying plot-thread, especially in Book Two.
There may be a way to bring the Super-Hero Club and the United Planets back from the dead, without actually bringing them back from the dead. Death must have consequences, but the death of 90% of 31st-century Earth’s population would still leave ten billion alive. And so on, through the rest of the U.P.
But I am getting tired- or possibly just bored- with this paracosm, and I have the story of the 31st-century Teen Titans at the back of my mind. Also, my slightly fictionalized biography. I have put some of myself into Earth-K2, and I really have led an interesting- if not exciting- life.
We shall see.
TTFN
Re: POST-MORTEM - 05/27/19 07:52 PM
I hope you didn't stop writing on account of my question...I was just curious as to why the Khunds/Dominion would destroy all life on the planets. I play Stellaris quite a bit, and even extremely xenophobic races leave the plants and animals alive because in order to keep the resources. To me, it would be a waste of resources unless the Khunds/Dominion have an emotional reason for destroying everything (maybe on Earth-3 they do).
Re: POST-MORTEM - 05/28/19 04:12 AM
Originally Posted by Emily Sivana
I hope you didn't stop writing on account of my question... (I wonder where you are going with this)
My snarky answer to this question was "What makes you think I am going anywhere with this?"
This was intended to be The End from some time ago.
re: the question of "wasted resources". There has been a great deal of human history in which the invaders do such things as "salt the earth", or "destroy all men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys".
Especially with truly alien races, all they may want from Earth is the gravitational well. Everything else is weeds and vermin.
Re: POST-MORTEM - 05/28/19 02:05 PM
It has been a very enjoyable ride, thanks Klar! I quite like the way you detail the specifics of your world and characters etc, I find it makes me look at different story elements in a new light a lot of the time and sparks fresh ideas for my own stuff
A Way Forward - 06/13/19 01:57 AM
A WAY FORWARD
==========================================================================================================
The irony is, although any particular individual you may have known has only a one-in-one-hundred chance of having actually survived, there are still trillions of sentients-- trillions of stories still being told throughout the United Planets.
==========================================================================================================
Queen Nokomis of Amazonia had the appearance of a serious-faced 12-year-old girl. Whether or not she was actually female or male was a mystery, as all native Amazonians resembled female Terrans whatever their gender.
She was, however, clearly only about twelve years old.
She was accompanied by her Prime Minister and her Vizier, as she would not be legitimately, fully Queen for another half-dozen years.
“The inhabitants of Durla, Iuquhu, Planet Hagen, and Nyorp have withdrawn from all but the most formal interactions with the United Planets,” she reported in flat tones. “As would be expected of such insular species. Dvorak and Galadriel are seriously considering secession, as they see the success of the Khund-Dominion attack as a breach of our mutual protection agreements. With the disappearance of Colu-- still under investigation-- Amazonia has had to turn to the Gildaan for maintenance of advanced technologies.” She eyed the President of Xanthu. “We are not alone in this. It is not ideal. Gil’Dishpan has been pressuring Amazonia to take a less neutral position with regard to the insurgents on Hykraius. Still, without their existence, we may be facing an existential dilemma.”
“There are murmurs anticipating a war of vengeance against the Khund Empire and the Dominion. This is a venture which Amazonia views as both pointless and futile, and possibly quite dangerous.”
“Torad disagrees,” interrupted Prime Minister Torgax. She looked less human than some other Krill species, with her beetling brows and deep-set eyes. “Although we have not yet seen a full-on Dominator invasion, after this overt act of war, one is certainly coming soon. I say we strike first! The Khunds have re-taken Calish-Aetia, Xolnar is now wholly under their military rule, Ikros is negotiating for terms-- the Khunds may settle for a substantial annual tribute-- and Lallor has not been heard from since the attack. None are more aware than the Krill Compact of the dangers of war. Fallout from the ancient Krill-Llorn Wars persists even today, millions of years after cessation of hostilities. But we must dissuade the Khunds and Dominators of their plans of conquest, or the United Planets will never be safe.”
“Safe?” spat Chancellor Neich of Cyranus. She would have passed for human on any Terran world, but there was a subtle, doggy component to her countenance. Her hair was shaved from her chin to the crown of her head, although all the other councilors knew this was a Cyranian affectation, just as Terran males often shaved their beards.
“Ninety-nine out of every one hundred sentient beings in the United Planet is dead of the Plague! Hundreds of thousands of native species face a credible threat of extinction! Interstellar commerce has ground to a halt, and many worlds are starving! This ‘safety’ you speak of has already ceased to exist since this Second Daxamite Invasion!”
“I object.” Representative Lorn-Orl was an old woman-- easily on the far side of one hundred, although still tall and broad-shouldered. “The Chancellor is new to the Inner Council, so I will forgive him his outburst,” she said quietly. “All of us have received emergency appointment-- unless I am mistaken, only I have ever been called to this service before. We must remember that the other Inner Councils will take their cues from the minutes of our meetings. The Tellarite Federation and the Pacht meet later this week-- we must eschew all recriminations, remain united and supportive of one another.”
“Oranx would remind Torad that the red-sun worlds have suffered as much or more from this Dominion attack as any of the rest of the United Planets. Daxam is a dead world-- although the few Daxamites who are left seem irresistibly drawn to there, where only death awaits them. It has become, in the Terran idiom, and Elephant’s Graveyard.”
“The infected, lunatic Daxamite beast-- non-sentients-- seem to have been drawn to the red-sun worlds. Rokyn was inundated by schools of dead fish falling from space. Kormo experience a rain of Kwhale. Almerac, Khera, New Zoron, and Terminus were similarly affected, as was my homeworld. The Plague that has decimated our worlds cannot be blamed on the Daxamites. They were the victims of this attack as well, perhaps even moreso than your worlds.”
“Robots were spared, but the Plague affected androids as well. Even the non-living inhabitants of Htrae succumbed to the Dominion Plague. Of course, when they discovered the threat to their existence, the survivors did as their Bizarro logic dictated: they ‘saved’ themselves by annihilating one another. Htrae is now another dead, empty world.”
Muffled coughing among the other councilors concealed barely suppressed laughter.
“Do not laugh at tragedy,” said Representative Lorn-Orl. “I understand there have been food riots among the survivors of some of your worlds, adding to the toll taken by the Plague. The Sol system in particular.”
“Sadly, what you have heard is true,” acknowledged President Hari of Xanthu. “Earth has been especially hard hit. But the Manna worlds are attempting to accelerate production, and they tell me Venus is amenable to becoming Manna-17, and a new, more local food source for Sol.”
“There are two items I wish to bring to the Inner Council’s attention. The first relates to the Gil’Disphan on Xanthu. They have succeeded in fully sequencing the Dominion microbe-- originally invisible to our medical scans-- and have discovered that it has a pre-programmed evolutionary path. Progressing from innocuous to hyper-virulent in a few days, the next stage in its development is as a vector for eco-forming. Evidently the Dominion synthetic biologists designed it to repurpose all the dead organic matter on all our worlds into a living ecosystem more suitable for Dominator life-forms. The Gil’Dispan have successfully neutralized the threat on Xanthu and in the Sol System, and will be contacting your worlds for vaccination.”
“How do we know,” said Prime Minister Torgax, “That the Gildaan will not utilize this infernal Dominion technology to transform our worlds into ecosystems more suitable for the Gil’Dishpan life-forms?”
“Madame Prime Minister,” said Representative Lorn-Orl, “Torad’s famous skepticism might have served us better before the Dominion attack.”
“Please, Councillors,” interrupted President Hari. “Our worlds have experienced great losses. All our worlds have grievances-- some of us even with one another. But there is a second matter I wish to discuss. A proposal-- which will require a vote of the Inner Council, and very possbily referendums on our various worlds.”
“I believe the time has come to implement the UltraCorp Initiative.”
The room fell deadly silent.
“I propose we begin with a quota of one thousand volunteers from the appropriate worlds,” said the President. “And that we begin a review of the ‘forbidden weapons’.”
The air barely quivered as a young woman shivered into being.
She was in her mid-teens, and perfectly human-looking. Her long, curly brown hair cascaded out from her head, and half-way down her back. She wore a simple black jumpsuit, with black boots, a short red skirt trimmed with blue, and a short red cape trimmed with gold.
“Hi! I’m from a place called Earth,” she said. “One Earth. An Earth. From sometime in the past, I think. I’m pretty sure. I travel around a lot.” She took a deep breath. “My name is Ariella Kent. I think you need me.”
==========================================================================================================
The irony is, although any particular individual you may have known has only a one-in-one-hundred chance of having actually survived, there are still trillions of sentients-- trillions of stories still being told throughout the United Planets.
==========================================================================================================
Queen Nokomis of Amazonia had the appearance of a serious-faced 12-year-old girl. Whether or not she was actually female or male was a mystery, as all native Amazonians resembled female Terrans whatever their gender.
She was, however, clearly only about twelve years old.
She was accompanied by her Prime Minister and her Vizier, as she would not be legitimately, fully Queen for another half-dozen years.
“The inhabitants of Durla, Iuquhu, Planet Hagen, and Nyorp have withdrawn from all but the most formal interactions with the United Planets,” she reported in flat tones. “As would be expected of such insular species. Dvorak and Galadriel are seriously considering secession, as they see the success of the Khund-Dominion attack as a breach of our mutual protection agreements. With the disappearance of Colu-- still under investigation-- Amazonia has had to turn to the Gildaan for maintenance of advanced technologies.” She eyed the President of Xanthu. “We are not alone in this. It is not ideal. Gil’Dishpan has been pressuring Amazonia to take a less neutral position with regard to the insurgents on Hykraius. Still, without their existence, we may be facing an existential dilemma.”
“There are murmurs anticipating a war of vengeance against the Khund Empire and the Dominion. This is a venture which Amazonia views as both pointless and futile, and possibly quite dangerous.”
“Torad disagrees,” interrupted Prime Minister Torgax. She looked less human than some other Krill species, with her beetling brows and deep-set eyes. “Although we have not yet seen a full-on Dominator invasion, after this overt act of war, one is certainly coming soon. I say we strike first! The Khunds have re-taken Calish-Aetia, Xolnar is now wholly under their military rule, Ikros is negotiating for terms-- the Khunds may settle for a substantial annual tribute-- and Lallor has not been heard from since the attack. None are more aware than the Krill Compact of the dangers of war. Fallout from the ancient Krill-Llorn Wars persists even today, millions of years after cessation of hostilities. But we must dissuade the Khunds and Dominators of their plans of conquest, or the United Planets will never be safe.”
“Safe?” spat Chancellor Neich of Cyranus. She would have passed for human on any Terran world, but there was a subtle, doggy component to her countenance. Her hair was shaved from her chin to the crown of her head, although all the other councilors knew this was a Cyranian affectation, just as Terran males often shaved their beards.
“Ninety-nine out of every one hundred sentient beings in the United Planet is dead of the Plague! Hundreds of thousands of native species face a credible threat of extinction! Interstellar commerce has ground to a halt, and many worlds are starving! This ‘safety’ you speak of has already ceased to exist since this Second Daxamite Invasion!”
“I object.” Representative Lorn-Orl was an old woman-- easily on the far side of one hundred, although still tall and broad-shouldered. “The Chancellor is new to the Inner Council, so I will forgive him his outburst,” she said quietly. “All of us have received emergency appointment-- unless I am mistaken, only I have ever been called to this service before. We must remember that the other Inner Councils will take their cues from the minutes of our meetings. The Tellarite Federation and the Pacht meet later this week-- we must eschew all recriminations, remain united and supportive of one another.”
“Oranx would remind Torad that the red-sun worlds have suffered as much or more from this Dominion attack as any of the rest of the United Planets. Daxam is a dead world-- although the few Daxamites who are left seem irresistibly drawn to there, where only death awaits them. It has become, in the Terran idiom, and Elephant’s Graveyard.”
“The infected, lunatic Daxamite beast-- non-sentients-- seem to have been drawn to the red-sun worlds. Rokyn was inundated by schools of dead fish falling from space. Kormo experience a rain of Kwhale. Almerac, Khera, New Zoron, and Terminus were similarly affected, as was my homeworld. The Plague that has decimated our worlds cannot be blamed on the Daxamites. They were the victims of this attack as well, perhaps even moreso than your worlds.”
“Robots were spared, but the Plague affected androids as well. Even the non-living inhabitants of Htrae succumbed to the Dominion Plague. Of course, when they discovered the threat to their existence, the survivors did as their Bizarro logic dictated: they ‘saved’ themselves by annihilating one another. Htrae is now another dead, empty world.”
Muffled coughing among the other councilors concealed barely suppressed laughter.
“Do not laugh at tragedy,” said Representative Lorn-Orl. “I understand there have been food riots among the survivors of some of your worlds, adding to the toll taken by the Plague. The Sol system in particular.”
“Sadly, what you have heard is true,” acknowledged President Hari of Xanthu. “Earth has been especially hard hit. But the Manna worlds are attempting to accelerate production, and they tell me Venus is amenable to becoming Manna-17, and a new, more local food source for Sol.”
“There are two items I wish to bring to the Inner Council’s attention. The first relates to the Gil’Disphan on Xanthu. They have succeeded in fully sequencing the Dominion microbe-- originally invisible to our medical scans-- and have discovered that it has a pre-programmed evolutionary path. Progressing from innocuous to hyper-virulent in a few days, the next stage in its development is as a vector for eco-forming. Evidently the Dominion synthetic biologists designed it to repurpose all the dead organic matter on all our worlds into a living ecosystem more suitable for Dominator life-forms. The Gil’Dispan have successfully neutralized the threat on Xanthu and in the Sol System, and will be contacting your worlds for vaccination.”
“How do we know,” said Prime Minister Torgax, “That the Gildaan will not utilize this infernal Dominion technology to transform our worlds into ecosystems more suitable for the Gil’Dishpan life-forms?”
“Madame Prime Minister,” said Representative Lorn-Orl, “Torad’s famous skepticism might have served us better before the Dominion attack.”
“Please, Councillors,” interrupted President Hari. “Our worlds have experienced great losses. All our worlds have grievances-- some of us even with one another. But there is a second matter I wish to discuss. A proposal-- which will require a vote of the Inner Council, and very possbily referendums on our various worlds.”
“I believe the time has come to implement the UltraCorp Initiative.”
The room fell deadly silent.
“I propose we begin with a quota of one thousand volunteers from the appropriate worlds,” said the President. “And that we begin a review of the ‘forbidden weapons’.”
The air barely quivered as a young woman shivered into being.
She was in her mid-teens, and perfectly human-looking. Her long, curly brown hair cascaded out from her head, and half-way down her back. She wore a simple black jumpsuit, with black boots, a short red skirt trimmed with blue, and a short red cape trimmed with gold.
“Hi! I’m from a place called Earth,” she said. “One Earth. An Earth. From sometime in the past, I think. I’m pretty sure. I travel around a lot.” She took a deep breath. “My name is Ariella Kent. I think you need me.”
Another Way Forward - 06/20/19 09:50 PM
==============================================================
My original intention was to do this in twelve chapters, each focusing on one character, from Wade Stout’s POV.
However, with a brand-new 31st century on its way, why keep fanfixating on old, worn-out Universes?
==============================================================
ANOTHER WAY FORWARD
O1 The Batman Legacy
Wade Stout was a professional circus clown. He moved with the circus, he lived in a circus trailer six to eight months out of the year.
After several years doing ordinary clowning, a vigilante called The Bat-Man began patrolling Gotham City. Within a couple of years, this Batman became famous, and even, in some circles, beloved. Wade Stout put together a new act in which he portayed ”Fatman”, a parody of the Caped Crusader.
Robust and limber despite his frame, he specialized in pratfalls and broad slapstick humor.
At one time, he even helped the real Batman and Robin on a case. (The Case of the Red Mask Gang)
Time passed, and the Fatman-clown routine began to lose its appeal to the crowds. Wade Stout went back to his more ordinary clowning.
At one point, he shared his trailer with one Palmer Leon, who billed himself variously as “The Immolated Man”, and the “Human Burning Cross”. He was essentially a fire-eater and fire-juggler, who at the end of his act would spread his arms wide and light himself on fire.
Wade discovered that this ‘act’ was no trick or deception, but Palmer actually set himself on fire every night, two shows on weekends. He would be brought back to their trailer on a stretcher, badly burned, where he would drink from one of the little bottles in a chest under his bunk. He would then collapse on the bed, and be perfectly whole after a half-hour nap.
One night, Palmer spent a little too long aflame, and when he was brought back to their trailer, he was dead. Wade tried to revive him with the mysterious elixir, but it had no effect.
At the bottom of the chest there was a map to the Fountain of Youth, on a small, otherwise uncharted island in the Bahamas.
By the 31st century, a thousand years of conservative investments had left Wade Stout a very wealthy man. Perhaps no R.J. Brande, but very comfortable. (One of his smaller enterprises was the retro space-traveling “Double Star Carnival and Circus”.) Following the devastation of the Dominion Plague, Wade Stout began a philanthropic project which involved re-creating a new Teen Titans.
It took some doing, but eventually he gathered:
O2 The Flash Legacy
FTL: (V.J. Torr of Rimbor)
Son of Bar Torr and Kiran Singh, born in the 31st century. Possesses both super-speed and light-radiating powers.
O3 The Wonder Woman Legacy
Wonder Girl: (Charity Nikopoulos of Earth) Daughter of the Greek god Hephaestus and Mela Nikopoulos, a human woman. Charity has access to copies of all the weaponry created by her father-- and can even create some specialized items of her own.
O4 The Green Arrow Legacy
M.E.C.H.: (Quinn of Galadriel)
Has access to a wide variety of advanced technology-- basically any device in the DC Universe. Super-computers, Green Lantern rings, 64th-century magitech, Korman stun-pistols, Raagarite duplicator-rays, Rannan Zeta-beams, and so on.
M.E.C.H. is an acronym for “The Museum of Engineering and Computer History”, for which Quinn is Junior Assistant Curator.
Note that Wonder Girl and M.E.C.H. together are quite the team, having access to a wide array of both magical and super-scientific weaponry.
O5 The Aquaman Legacy
Cytrella the Sea Troll
Resident of a deep abyss near one of the dead cities of Atlantis, her people are phenomenally durable and strong, capable of living comfortably at the bottom of the sea. She is also a sorceress with numerous magical abilities, including psychokinesis, and the ability to transform humans into sea creatures. (see Sotrold)
O6 The Captain Marvel Legacy
The Avatar of Sekhmet: (Moli Dor of Tharn)
Empowered by Mariam Abraxas, the 31st-century identity of Mary Batson Bromfield, she is able to transform herself into a teen version of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, with all the accompanying powers, abilities, and equipment.
O7 The Martian Manhunter Legacy
Golden Girl: (Pa’az Yald’ah of Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer)
A diasporate yellow Martian. (They actually prefer the term Aureate Martians.)
O8 The Atom Legacy
Quant: (Maara Yan, originally of Colu)
Colu has disappeared, no one knows where. There are now small Coluan ghettos (barrios? pueblos?) on Manna-5 and Sklar.
She shrinks. Herself and other things.
O9 The Zatara Legacy
Zatamazzar: (Zaragoza Stefanacci of Earth)
An illusionist. Anything he says backward appears to happen. Gnihtyna eh syas drawkcab sraeppa ot neppah.
10 The Cyborg Legacy
Cyberion: (Jasmin Rebeka Chazz of Earth)
She is a technologically augmented artificial human created by the Technis Construct as a kind of experiment. She just discovered this recently, as until now her parents brought her up as an ordinary adoptee.
11 The Hawkman Legacy
Aurora the Bird-Girl of Nesos Nubicuculia, an island near Themiskyra on Earth. She is of the same race as the 20th century Wonder Girl’s Bird Boy.
(New Themyscira has moved to Io, the moon of Jupiter, because EarthGov paved Paradise Island and put up a parking lot. The Iotian Amazons actually fared pretty well during the Dominion Plague, due to their still having access to the Healing Purple Ray.)
12 The Superman Legacy
Rocket, son of the thousand-year-old Krypto, and a member of a superintelligent Caninoid race near Procyon. His mother’s name is Skyla. Rocket looks very much like a younger version of his father, but with golden ears, paws, and a golden tip on his tail. He has the power of speech, and possesses opposable thumbs on his forepaws. Very close to his parents, he calls and visits them regularly.
![[Linked Image from media.giphy.com]](https://media.giphy.com/media/Xj1GHC7mXPquY/200.gif)
My original intention was to do this in twelve chapters, each focusing on one character, from Wade Stout’s POV.
However, with a brand-new 31st century on its way, why keep fanfixating on old, worn-out Universes?
==============================================================
ANOTHER WAY FORWARD
O1 The Batman Legacy
Wade Stout was a professional circus clown. He moved with the circus, he lived in a circus trailer six to eight months out of the year.
After several years doing ordinary clowning, a vigilante called The Bat-Man began patrolling Gotham City. Within a couple of years, this Batman became famous, and even, in some circles, beloved. Wade Stout put together a new act in which he portayed ”Fatman”, a parody of the Caped Crusader.
Robust and limber despite his frame, he specialized in pratfalls and broad slapstick humor.
At one time, he even helped the real Batman and Robin on a case. (The Case of the Red Mask Gang)
Time passed, and the Fatman-clown routine began to lose its appeal to the crowds. Wade Stout went back to his more ordinary clowning.
At one point, he shared his trailer with one Palmer Leon, who billed himself variously as “The Immolated Man”, and the “Human Burning Cross”. He was essentially a fire-eater and fire-juggler, who at the end of his act would spread his arms wide and light himself on fire.
Wade discovered that this ‘act’ was no trick or deception, but Palmer actually set himself on fire every night, two shows on weekends. He would be brought back to their trailer on a stretcher, badly burned, where he would drink from one of the little bottles in a chest under his bunk. He would then collapse on the bed, and be perfectly whole after a half-hour nap.
One night, Palmer spent a little too long aflame, and when he was brought back to their trailer, he was dead. Wade tried to revive him with the mysterious elixir, but it had no effect.
At the bottom of the chest there was a map to the Fountain of Youth, on a small, otherwise uncharted island in the Bahamas.
By the 31st century, a thousand years of conservative investments had left Wade Stout a very wealthy man. Perhaps no R.J. Brande, but very comfortable. (One of his smaller enterprises was the retro space-traveling “Double Star Carnival and Circus”.) Following the devastation of the Dominion Plague, Wade Stout began a philanthropic project which involved re-creating a new Teen Titans.
It took some doing, but eventually he gathered:
O2 The Flash Legacy
FTL: (V.J. Torr of Rimbor)
Son of Bar Torr and Kiran Singh, born in the 31st century. Possesses both super-speed and light-radiating powers.
O3 The Wonder Woman Legacy
Wonder Girl: (Charity Nikopoulos of Earth) Daughter of the Greek god Hephaestus and Mela Nikopoulos, a human woman. Charity has access to copies of all the weaponry created by her father-- and can even create some specialized items of her own.
O4 The Green Arrow Legacy
M.E.C.H.: (Quinn of Galadriel)
Has access to a wide variety of advanced technology-- basically any device in the DC Universe. Super-computers, Green Lantern rings, 64th-century magitech, Korman stun-pistols, Raagarite duplicator-rays, Rannan Zeta-beams, and so on.
M.E.C.H. is an acronym for “The Museum of Engineering and Computer History”, for which Quinn is Junior Assistant Curator.
Note that Wonder Girl and M.E.C.H. together are quite the team, having access to a wide array of both magical and super-scientific weaponry.
O5 The Aquaman Legacy
Cytrella the Sea Troll
Resident of a deep abyss near one of the dead cities of Atlantis, her people are phenomenally durable and strong, capable of living comfortably at the bottom of the sea. She is also a sorceress with numerous magical abilities, including psychokinesis, and the ability to transform humans into sea creatures. (see Sotrold)
O6 The Captain Marvel Legacy
The Avatar of Sekhmet: (Moli Dor of Tharn)
Empowered by Mariam Abraxas, the 31st-century identity of Mary Batson Bromfield, she is able to transform herself into a teen version of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, with all the accompanying powers, abilities, and equipment.
O7 The Martian Manhunter Legacy
Golden Girl: (Pa’az Yald’ah of Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer)
A diasporate yellow Martian. (They actually prefer the term Aureate Martians.)
O8 The Atom Legacy
Quant: (Maara Yan, originally of Colu)
Colu has disappeared, no one knows where. There are now small Coluan ghettos (barrios? pueblos?) on Manna-5 and Sklar.
She shrinks. Herself and other things.
O9 The Zatara Legacy
Zatamazzar: (Zaragoza Stefanacci of Earth)
An illusionist. Anything he says backward appears to happen. Gnihtyna eh syas drawkcab sraeppa ot neppah.
10 The Cyborg Legacy
Cyberion: (Jasmin Rebeka Chazz of Earth)
She is a technologically augmented artificial human created by the Technis Construct as a kind of experiment. She just discovered this recently, as until now her parents brought her up as an ordinary adoptee.
11 The Hawkman Legacy
Aurora the Bird-Girl of Nesos Nubicuculia, an island near Themiskyra on Earth. She is of the same race as the 20th century Wonder Girl’s Bird Boy.
(New Themyscira has moved to Io, the moon of Jupiter, because EarthGov paved Paradise Island and put up a parking lot. The Iotian Amazons actually fared pretty well during the Dominion Plague, due to their still having access to the Healing Purple Ray.)
12 The Superman Legacy
Rocket, son of the thousand-year-old Krypto, and a member of a superintelligent Caninoid race near Procyon. His mother’s name is Skyla. Rocket looks very much like a younger version of his father, but with golden ears, paws, and a golden tip on his tail. He has the power of speech, and possesses opposable thumbs on his forepaws. Very close to his parents, he calls and visits them regularly.
Re: Another Way Forward - 06/23/19 05:51 PM
Does anything ever end in comics? It's all out there waiting for its moment of re-introduction or reincarnation. A post-plague galaxy with Coluan ghettos and the Superman legacy enshrined in a noble line of dogs, among other unique creations, is good reading even in its undeveloped form.
Your origin story for Collage was wonderful, with its logical limitations to acquiring all super-powers; it's kind of an ugly duckling or secretly-born-the-prince story.
As for the smell of burning rancid bacon, that must have been a sad morning in the Klar Ken household.
Your origin story for Collage was wonderful, with its logical limitations to acquiring all super-powers; it's kind of an ugly duckling or secretly-born-the-prince story.
As for the smell of burning rancid bacon, that must have been a sad morning in the Klar Ken household.
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/08/21 08:01 PM
DIGRESSION
CONVERSATIONS
YESTERDAY:
"You wear a copy of your father's original red "Lightning Boy" costume," said Eulia. "But you use your aunt's "Lightning Lass" name."
"And you use my Aunt Salu's "Shrinking Violet" name," said Dacey. "My niece is also named Violet. That's a lot of Violets."
"But shouldn't you be "Lightning Girl?," asked Eulia. "For consistency, I mean."
"'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'," said Dacey.
"Hobgoblin?" Elulia mused. "That might be a good name for Chameleon."
============================================================================
"I know you eat only Coluan Nutritive Paste," said Irinia. "But you really have to try this." She set a small, black hemisphere down on the laboratory work bench.
"Primarily Coluan Nutritive Paste," said Ten. "It is efficient. The Paste my Adult Guardian sends me is especially compounded for my metabolism at this age and stage of my life. Of course, I can- all Coluans can- eat alternate foods, if the need arises. What is this?"
"It's chocolate," said Irinia. "The Nahs sent over a box of Wienrich and Boettcher's from Gzbk. They are... very good. And mostly gone. I saved this one for you. Please try it."
"Certainly," said Ten. He popped the chocolate into his mouth, and it was gone in a moment. The little chocolate weighed only about a third of an ounce, but to Irinia it was worth at least four bites.
"I appreciate the sugar, for quick energy," said Ten. "And the vegetable fats are nutritive and sustaining. But I have always found it interesting that Earth creatures find it metabolically pleasurable to ingest small amounts of poison."
"Chocolate?" cried Irinia. "Poison?"
"Yes, trace amounts of caffeine and theobromine," said Ten. "Only mild toxins to humans... but it seems anomalous."
"Then I don't suppose you would like one of the bourbon-filled chocolates Mrs. Nah's mother puts out for Christmas, then?"
"Alcohol has no effect on Coluans," said Ten. "Just another energy source, really. That is true of many other life forms in the Galaxy. Another Terran anomaly. However I do appreciate your sharing with me. It is a learning experience."
"A learning experience. High praise from a Coluan?" asked Irinia.
"Indeed," said Ten. "The highest."
"Well, you're welcome then, I suppose," said Irinia. A part of her regretted giving away the last of the Wienrich and Boettchers.
When Ten was alone, he picked up a crystal beaker, and carefully vomited up the caffeine and theobromine as a brownish oil. Not one to waste anything, he titrated the mixture into a little bottle, and marked the Coluan symbol for "poison" on it. He then stoppered it, and put it on his chemical shelf, making a mental note to separate and purify the ingredients when he had the time. He hoped he had not offended Phantom Girl, but his mind was so disoriented by the toxins while they had been talking, he could hardly think straight. He made another mental note to show Irinia some extra kindness in the future to make up for it.
=============================================================================
CONVERSATIONS
YESTERDAY:
"You wear a copy of your father's original red "Lightning Boy" costume," said Eulia. "But you use your aunt's "Lightning Lass" name."
"And you use my Aunt Salu's "Shrinking Violet" name," said Dacey. "My niece is also named Violet. That's a lot of Violets."
"But shouldn't you be "Lightning Girl?," asked Eulia. "For consistency, I mean."
"'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'," said Dacey.
"Hobgoblin?" Elulia mused. "That might be a good name for Chameleon."
============================================================================
"I know you eat only Coluan Nutritive Paste," said Irinia. "But you really have to try this." She set a small, black hemisphere down on the laboratory work bench.
"Primarily Coluan Nutritive Paste," said Ten. "It is efficient. The Paste my Adult Guardian sends me is especially compounded for my metabolism at this age and stage of my life. Of course, I can- all Coluans can- eat alternate foods, if the need arises. What is this?"
"It's chocolate," said Irinia. "The Nahs sent over a box of Wienrich and Boettcher's from Gzbk. They are... very good. And mostly gone. I saved this one for you. Please try it."
"Certainly," said Ten. He popped the chocolate into his mouth, and it was gone in a moment. The little chocolate weighed only about a third of an ounce, but to Irinia it was worth at least four bites.
"I appreciate the sugar, for quick energy," said Ten. "And the vegetable fats are nutritive and sustaining. But I have always found it interesting that Earth creatures find it metabolically pleasurable to ingest small amounts of poison."
"Chocolate?" cried Irinia. "Poison?"
"Yes, trace amounts of caffeine and theobromine," said Ten. "Only mild toxins to humans... but it seems anomalous."
"Then I don't suppose you would like one of the bourbon-filled chocolates Mrs. Nah's mother puts out for Christmas, then?"
"Alcohol has no effect on Coluans," said Ten. "Just another energy source, really. That is true of many other life forms in the Galaxy. Another Terran anomaly. However I do appreciate your sharing with me. It is a learning experience."
"A learning experience. High praise from a Coluan?" asked Irinia.
"Indeed," said Ten. "The highest."
"Well, you're welcome then, I suppose," said Irinia. A part of her regretted giving away the last of the Wienrich and Boettchers.
When Ten was alone, he picked up a crystal beaker, and carefully vomited up the caffeine and theobromine as a brownish oil. Not one to waste anything, he titrated the mixture into a little bottle, and marked the Coluan symbol for "poison" on it. He then stoppered it, and put it on his chemical shelf, making a mental note to separate and purify the ingredients when he had the time. He hoped he had not offended Phantom Girl, but his mind was so disoriented by the toxins while they had been talking, he could hardly think straight. He made another mental note to show Irinia some extra kindness in the future to make up for it.
=============================================================================
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/08/21 08:12 PM
CHAPTER ONE
THE ENDGAME GAMBIT
TODAY:
Irinia Apero, the Phantom Girl, phased through Star-Woman's door.
"Get ready as quickly as you can," she said. "Your mother has sent an ultra-speed ship for us. The High Seer requests our immediate presence on Naltor. All of us."
o o o
Hours later, the Super-Hero Club were in the chambers of the High Seer of Naltor, Kallor Nal's mother. She seemed tired, and looked older than her fifty-some years.
"...nothing to be done," the High Seer of Naltor was saying. "Already, the Khund-Dominator vessel is on its way to Daxam. In two weeks or less, the United Planets as we know it will cease to exist. We cannot change the future. The Dream is certain, and the Interpretation thereof sure."
"Mother, certainly you would not have summoned us here, if there were no hope," Star-Woman objected.
"There is no hope for us," Nura Nal acknowledged. "We are surging against the tides of time. There is a possibility... if you were to return to a time before all Naltor had these visions... you might be able to alter events... create a new Universe in which the Khund-Dominator War is decided in another way."
"Or never happened!" exclaimed Star-Woman.
'New Titan and the Time Institute are only a half-orbit away," noted the High Seer. "I contacted the Chronarch some five months ago, and he has been making ready..."
"But in opposing the natural order of events?"
"Yes, Kallor. There is a danger you will lose your precognitive abilities."
"I have foreseen my own death," said Kallor Nal. "My precognitive abilities are at an end in any case."
"I suggest that if you are to succeed, the best plan is to stoke the latent mistrust between the Dominion and the Khundish Empire,'' said the High Seer. Before now, no one would have believed they would ever work together."
The Super-Hero Club members marched swiftly to the transport that would take them to New Titan "Perhaps we should split into teams, one team to Khundia, and the other to Elia," Ten suggested.
"A good plan," agreed Saturn Girl. "We can send raw power to Khundia, which they value, and intellect to the Dominion, which they respect."
"This is the Time Cube," said the Chronarch. "We can send each group a few weeks into the past. Strict calibration takes more time than we have; you may find yourselves in slightly different eras. But you should arrive just outside the capital cities of each world."
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, Polar Lass, Matter-Eater Lad Two, Korvea, and Chameleon made up the first group. The High Seer hugged her daughter, then handed Chameleon a small, green capsule.
"Hang onto this," she said. "You will recognize the moment you need it."
The first group departed. Saturn Girl staggered, and fell to her knees.
"What's wrong?" asked Shrinking Violet. She and the Triplicates helped Saturn Girl to stand.
"Dacey?" said Saturn Girl. "She's gone from my mind... I'm alone? I've never..."
"She no longer exists in this Universe," said the High Seer. "She has been sent to the past. Perhaps when you arrive there, your link will be re-established."
The Triplicates and Shrinking Violet assisted Saturn Girl into the Time Cube. They were joined by Ten , and Phantom Girl.
"The jokerized Daxamites are already on their way," said the High Seer to the Chronarch. "We have precious little time left."
The Chronarch thumbed the controls of the Time Cube.
==============================================================================
The telepaths and telekinetics of New Titan responded to the initial attack in force. There were casualties on both sides, but New Titan gave better than it got.
The Naltorans were, of course, prepared. Many sported leaden wristbands, and lead tchotchkes scattered around their houses and yards for protection. The Precommandos were armed with Red-sun bazookas as well. Some of the more farsighted simply resigned themselves to their final fates. Better to perish now in the debris of collapsing buildings, or incinerated by heat vision, than to await the Plague coming within the week.
Nura Nal sat at her private communications console in the High Seer's residence. She had recovered. She had fallen ill, become feverish. Fever dreams were not to be trusted. She had spent two weeks in a daze, wandering the halls of the palace. It was disorienting. She had dreamed about all these events before. But was she dreaming again, or was this finally, really happening?
"You've lost weight," said Nura.
"I've lost more than that,? replied the emaciated Rokk Krinn. "I'm the only survivor at Lightning Ring Farms. But I suppose, as High Seer, you know that already."
"I see the future, not the present. And I have seen a great deal too much of the future for now. The deaths of thousands of trillions. But I cannot foresee the death of everyone."
"Lydda's gone," said Rokk. "Garth. Imra. The children. Along with most of Winath. We... I... heard from Wondil IX. The Taines didn't make it either. Fewer than a hundred colonists remain alive there. They want to come to Winath-- we have food, you know, which is becoming a precious commodity throughout the Galaxy. Our crops have been decimated ten times over... but we're doing better than others. We had a Zoonan android working with us. it seems even they were not immune to the Plague."
"We lost Tenzil, and Eve, and Noria, and Tenzil Jr. on New Titan in the Daxamite Wave," said Nura. "Bgztl was spared from the Daxamites themselves, but the Plague crossed the Buffer Zone with... someone. Bgztl is devastated, Gzbk seems to have had no survivors. We should assume Jo and Tinya and their family are gone. Zwen and Xanthu are reportedly dead worlds. Many others are not communicating at all... Colu is reported to have disappeared entirely-- population, planet, and all. Perhaps they fled to another dimension, or down into the microverse. We can hope they survived this attack."
"You and I made it through," Rokk commented. "That's something?"
"As High Seer, I am privileged to have access to the best of medical care," said Nura. "They kept me alive when I should have died, even as my own physicians fell around me. It was not enough. I am so ravaged..." She slumped in her chair. "They say now they can sustain my life for another day or two."
Rokk was silent for a time. "I'm sorry," he said. "Beyond sorry. I'm out of sorry. But may I say, you look terrible. I mean that as a compliment."
The High Seer almost smiled. "You've always known how to cheer a girl up," she said.
"High Seer!" piped a high-pitched voice. Now, even in her private quarters, she had no privacy.
"Duty calls," said Nura. "Rebuild for me, Rokk. Please."
The senior member of the new Council of Seers seemed impossibly young. His sparse beard was little more than peach-fuzz.
"How fares Naltor, Huld"? asked Nura.
Huld raised a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed. He was still spitting up red-black blood, but appeared to be making a satisfactory recovery. Nura had no strength to cough anymore, and the nasty stuff was slowly filling her lungs.
"We have nearly re-constituted the Council," Huld reported. "But time is short. You must summon your daughter to be installed as High Seer."
"Kallor is gone," said Nura. "Forever. You will have to choose one of Beren's descendants, or anoint a new House."
"There are so few of us left, and so little time," Huld complained. "Are you sure Kallor will not return?"
"Quite sure," said Nura.
"The great-grandchild of Beren Kah is not yet in her teens," said Huld. It was a peculiar feature of the Dominion Plague that while the very young and the very old were the first to contract the disease, they also recovered and survived at a much higher rate than the general population. "She is the only survivor of the House. But future-blind since birth."
"Perhaps that is what the Fates have decreed for Naltor in this hour," said Nura. "A High Seer to lead them who cannot see a dangerous and uncertain future."
The senior member of the Council of Seers paused. "I see that this is what will be," he said.
I have sent Kallor away to safety, thought Nura Nal to herself. At least for a time. Perhaps she will create a better reality for herself and her friends. But have I already changed the future by sending her into the past? I foresaw the death of trillions. I did not actually see Kallor die. I only saw her dream of her own death."
The Plague had not been kind to Fryda Tor, great-granddaughter of Beren Kah. She had lost all her hair; her skin was badly pockmarked; and she rode in a hover-chair, paralyzed from the waist down. It was hoped the paralysis would be temporary, but no cure was as yet foreseen.
"You will have many people telling you what to think, and do, and say," said Nura. "Most of them will be older than you, and most of them will have precognitive powers. Receive their advice graciously, then make your best decision. You are now the High Seer." She paused. This was a long speech, and she was short of breath. "That's my advice. No better or worse than any other advice you will receive. These are the pharmaceuticals that shorten the High Seers' lives, but expand their abilities. They allow us to see farther into the future, and in more detail. They allow us to dream the dreams of others-- sometimes before they themselves have had them. I don't know how they will work for you. Their effect on the future-blind is uncertain. They didn't help my sister Mysa when she was your age." She paused again, breathing as slowly and as deeply as she could. "I imagine they would give you headaches and a sour stomach. That's what they've always done for me. Do you understand??
"Yes, High Seer," said Fryda Tor.
"No, please, please. Nura will do. Or Ms. Nal. You are the High Seer now."
THE ENDGAME GAMBIT
TODAY:
Irinia Apero, the Phantom Girl, phased through Star-Woman's door.
"Get ready as quickly as you can," she said. "Your mother has sent an ultra-speed ship for us. The High Seer requests our immediate presence on Naltor. All of us."
o o o
Hours later, the Super-Hero Club were in the chambers of the High Seer of Naltor, Kallor Nal's mother. She seemed tired, and looked older than her fifty-some years.
"...nothing to be done," the High Seer of Naltor was saying. "Already, the Khund-Dominator vessel is on its way to Daxam. In two weeks or less, the United Planets as we know it will cease to exist. We cannot change the future. The Dream is certain, and the Interpretation thereof sure."
"Mother, certainly you would not have summoned us here, if there were no hope," Star-Woman objected.
"There is no hope for us," Nura Nal acknowledged. "We are surging against the tides of time. There is a possibility... if you were to return to a time before all Naltor had these visions... you might be able to alter events... create a new Universe in which the Khund-Dominator War is decided in another way."
"Or never happened!" exclaimed Star-Woman.
'New Titan and the Time Institute are only a half-orbit away," noted the High Seer. "I contacted the Chronarch some five months ago, and he has been making ready..."
"But in opposing the natural order of events?"
"Yes, Kallor. There is a danger you will lose your precognitive abilities."
"I have foreseen my own death," said Kallor Nal. "My precognitive abilities are at an end in any case."
"I suggest that if you are to succeed, the best plan is to stoke the latent mistrust between the Dominion and the Khundish Empire,'' said the High Seer. Before now, no one would have believed they would ever work together."
The Super-Hero Club members marched swiftly to the transport that would take them to New Titan "Perhaps we should split into teams, one team to Khundia, and the other to Elia," Ten suggested.
"A good plan," agreed Saturn Girl. "We can send raw power to Khundia, which they value, and intellect to the Dominion, which they respect."
"This is the Time Cube," said the Chronarch. "We can send each group a few weeks into the past. Strict calibration takes more time than we have; you may find yourselves in slightly different eras. But you should arrive just outside the capital cities of each world."
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, Polar Lass, Matter-Eater Lad Two, Korvea, and Chameleon made up the first group. The High Seer hugged her daughter, then handed Chameleon a small, green capsule.
"Hang onto this," she said. "You will recognize the moment you need it."
The first group departed. Saturn Girl staggered, and fell to her knees.
"What's wrong?" asked Shrinking Violet. She and the Triplicates helped Saturn Girl to stand.
"Dacey?" said Saturn Girl. "She's gone from my mind... I'm alone? I've never..."
"She no longer exists in this Universe," said the High Seer. "She has been sent to the past. Perhaps when you arrive there, your link will be re-established."
The Triplicates and Shrinking Violet assisted Saturn Girl into the Time Cube. They were joined by Ten , and Phantom Girl.
"The jokerized Daxamites are already on their way," said the High Seer to the Chronarch. "We have precious little time left."
The Chronarch thumbed the controls of the Time Cube.
==============================================================================
The telepaths and telekinetics of New Titan responded to the initial attack in force. There were casualties on both sides, but New Titan gave better than it got.
The Naltorans were, of course, prepared. Many sported leaden wristbands, and lead tchotchkes scattered around their houses and yards for protection. The Precommandos were armed with Red-sun bazookas as well. Some of the more farsighted simply resigned themselves to their final fates. Better to perish now in the debris of collapsing buildings, or incinerated by heat vision, than to await the Plague coming within the week.
Nura Nal sat at her private communications console in the High Seer's residence. She had recovered. She had fallen ill, become feverish. Fever dreams were not to be trusted. She had spent two weeks in a daze, wandering the halls of the palace. It was disorienting. She had dreamed about all these events before. But was she dreaming again, or was this finally, really happening?
"You've lost weight," said Nura.
"I've lost more than that,? replied the emaciated Rokk Krinn. "I'm the only survivor at Lightning Ring Farms. But I suppose, as High Seer, you know that already."
"I see the future, not the present. And I have seen a great deal too much of the future for now. The deaths of thousands of trillions. But I cannot foresee the death of everyone."
"Lydda's gone," said Rokk. "Garth. Imra. The children. Along with most of Winath. We... I... heard from Wondil IX. The Taines didn't make it either. Fewer than a hundred colonists remain alive there. They want to come to Winath-- we have food, you know, which is becoming a precious commodity throughout the Galaxy. Our crops have been decimated ten times over... but we're doing better than others. We had a Zoonan android working with us. it seems even they were not immune to the Plague."
"We lost Tenzil, and Eve, and Noria, and Tenzil Jr. on New Titan in the Daxamite Wave," said Nura. "Bgztl was spared from the Daxamites themselves, but the Plague crossed the Buffer Zone with... someone. Bgztl is devastated, Gzbk seems to have had no survivors. We should assume Jo and Tinya and their family are gone. Zwen and Xanthu are reportedly dead worlds. Many others are not communicating at all... Colu is reported to have disappeared entirely-- population, planet, and all. Perhaps they fled to another dimension, or down into the microverse. We can hope they survived this attack."
"You and I made it through," Rokk commented. "That's something?"
"As High Seer, I am privileged to have access to the best of medical care," said Nura. "They kept me alive when I should have died, even as my own physicians fell around me. It was not enough. I am so ravaged..." She slumped in her chair. "They say now they can sustain my life for another day or two."
Rokk was silent for a time. "I'm sorry," he said. "Beyond sorry. I'm out of sorry. But may I say, you look terrible. I mean that as a compliment."
The High Seer almost smiled. "You've always known how to cheer a girl up," she said.
"High Seer!" piped a high-pitched voice. Now, even in her private quarters, she had no privacy.
"Duty calls," said Nura. "Rebuild for me, Rokk. Please."
The senior member of the new Council of Seers seemed impossibly young. His sparse beard was little more than peach-fuzz.
"How fares Naltor, Huld"? asked Nura.
Huld raised a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed. He was still spitting up red-black blood, but appeared to be making a satisfactory recovery. Nura had no strength to cough anymore, and the nasty stuff was slowly filling her lungs.
"We have nearly re-constituted the Council," Huld reported. "But time is short. You must summon your daughter to be installed as High Seer."
"Kallor is gone," said Nura. "Forever. You will have to choose one of Beren's descendants, or anoint a new House."
"There are so few of us left, and so little time," Huld complained. "Are you sure Kallor will not return?"
"Quite sure," said Nura.
"The great-grandchild of Beren Kah is not yet in her teens," said Huld. It was a peculiar feature of the Dominion Plague that while the very young and the very old were the first to contract the disease, they also recovered and survived at a much higher rate than the general population. "She is the only survivor of the House. But future-blind since birth."
"Perhaps that is what the Fates have decreed for Naltor in this hour," said Nura. "A High Seer to lead them who cannot see a dangerous and uncertain future."
The senior member of the Council of Seers paused. "I see that this is what will be," he said.
I have sent Kallor away to safety, thought Nura Nal to herself. At least for a time. Perhaps she will create a better reality for herself and her friends. But have I already changed the future by sending her into the past? I foresaw the death of trillions. I did not actually see Kallor die. I only saw her dream of her own death."
The Plague had not been kind to Fryda Tor, great-granddaughter of Beren Kah. She had lost all her hair; her skin was badly pockmarked; and she rode in a hover-chair, paralyzed from the waist down. It was hoped the paralysis would be temporary, but no cure was as yet foreseen.
"You will have many people telling you what to think, and do, and say," said Nura. "Most of them will be older than you, and most of them will have precognitive powers. Receive their advice graciously, then make your best decision. You are now the High Seer." She paused. This was a long speech, and she was short of breath. "That's my advice. No better or worse than any other advice you will receive. These are the pharmaceuticals that shorten the High Seers' lives, but expand their abilities. They allow us to see farther into the future, and in more detail. They allow us to dream the dreams of others-- sometimes before they themselves have had them. I don't know how they will work for you. Their effect on the future-blind is uncertain. They didn't help my sister Mysa when she was your age." She paused again, breathing as slowly and as deeply as she could. "I imagine they would give you headaches and a sour stomach. That's what they've always done for me. Do you understand??
"Yes, High Seer," said Fryda Tor.
"No, please, please. Nura will do. Or Ms. Nal. You are the High Seer now."
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/15/21 07:58 PM
CHAPTER TWO
THE PAST
Several weeks ago:
The Dominion homeworld:
Elia was an inky black swamp, as far as the eye could see. The little group stood on an island with a narrow shore: a slime-covered beach. Above them loomed immense golden egg-shaped buildings. Stretching out to the horizon, they could see innumerable other isles with similar massive, egg-shaped buildings.
"According to the Chronarch," said Ffiona, gesturing upwards, "This is the Dominion Capitol. I wonder where the doorbell is?"
Shrinking Violet had miniaturized herself, and made herself comfortable in one of Phantom Girl's belt-pockets. The two vanished into that portion of the Phantom Zone pervading this region of space.
Saturn Girl's tears mingled with dripping perspiration. "I can't find Dacey's mind," she said, looking up at Ten and the Triplicates. "Our link is irretrievably broken."
===========================================================================
Several more weeks ago:
The Khund homeworld:
Khundia has a single continent, and the majority of that is permanently eclipsed by its massive moon. Only some edges by the seashore saw any light at all. Yet the Khundish fauna was not adapted to live in darkness, as on Kathoon. Many creatures here had their own personal light-producing organs. Tentacles of some glowing ivy festooned the buildings. The sparse shrubbery luminesced as well. An ever-present mist spread the light across the ground. As Khundia was nearer to the center of the Galaxy, the center of the Milky Way shone more brightly, further illuminating the world.
Somehow, the sparse glow only seemed to accentuate the presence of the dismal darkness.
Star-Woman, Korvea, Polar Lass, and Matter-Eater Lad Two found themselves on the crowded streets of a massive city. Rodent-like creatures with glowing illicia, something like a cross between anglerfish and rats, scurried around their feet. Lightning Lass had collapsed onto Cosmic Boy?s shoulder.
"I feel like I've half lost my mind," she whimpered. "Do you think Dorrit is... do you think she didn't make it?"
"I don't know," said Cosmic Boy. He looked at the others helplessly.
"Is your friend hurt?" asked a large yellow female Khund in passing. "It is unwise to show weakness on Khundia; especially for an Outworlder." She smiled a broad toothy smile, and chuckled gutturally.
The seven Members were almost immediately approached by two Khundish military police, one peach, one pink.
"Why are you here?" asked the big, peach-colored officer. "You are not welcome."
"We have come," said Star-Woman, as confidently as possible, "With an urgent message for your leaders."
The big pink guard laughed, but the big peach officer remained stone-faced. "Take me to your leader?" he said. "How original. We will give you an opportunity to leave now, because you are weak and stupid. This will be your last chance, however. The Spaceport, or the Challenge Courts?"
"The Challenge Courts," said Star-Woman, confidently. The others voiced their assent.
The big pink guard seemed to get control of himself, sobering up.
"There is a saying on your worlds, I believe," he said. "It's your funeral."
The officers handed the members over to a slender, yellow dwarf Khund. "An Engineer, or Scientist," Star-Woman thought.
"I am Qalraq," the little Khund introduced himself. "You will begin at the Tenth Challenge of the Courts, as you are weak and untested." He escorted them into a huge room, filled with all manner of weaponry, from stone clubs to disintegrator cannons. "You may borrow whatever gear you wish, but you will be financially
responsible for any damage to the weapons when you lose."
"And if we win?" asked Star-Woman.
"No outworlder has won in the Challenge Courts for decades," said Qalraq. "But should you prevail, you will advance without penalty to the next level."
"I ought to warn you," said Star-Woman, "I am of Daxamite-class strength. Perhaps you should schedule me immediately for a level-one Challenge?"
"Not possible," said Qalraq. "That would mean a Challenge to the Champion, who is on an interplanetary tour. Should you survive at Level Two, you would be able to face him upon his return, if you were out of hospital. I could schedule you for Level Three, but you would have only half-an-gioq to prepare."
"I am already prepared," said Star-Woman. Qalraq snorted.
"How many weapons are we allowed to take?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"As many as you can carry," Qalraq replied. "But unless you have trained extensively with one weapon for sometime, I think you will find any of them... difficult to master."
Cosmic Boy cast his eyes upwards, and turned up his palms. Ferrous metal weapons of all kinds-- axes, hammers, swords, maces, morning-stars, tribulii, and various pieces of armor came flying through the air, hovering in a massive cloud above his head.
"I'll take these," he said.
"You, I will schedule for the Ninth Challenge," said Qualraq.
THE PAST
Several weeks ago:
The Dominion homeworld:
Elia was an inky black swamp, as far as the eye could see. The little group stood on an island with a narrow shore: a slime-covered beach. Above them loomed immense golden egg-shaped buildings. Stretching out to the horizon, they could see innumerable other isles with similar massive, egg-shaped buildings.
"According to the Chronarch," said Ffiona, gesturing upwards, "This is the Dominion Capitol. I wonder where the doorbell is?"
Shrinking Violet had miniaturized herself, and made herself comfortable in one of Phantom Girl's belt-pockets. The two vanished into that portion of the Phantom Zone pervading this region of space.
Saturn Girl's tears mingled with dripping perspiration. "I can't find Dacey's mind," she said, looking up at Ten and the Triplicates. "Our link is irretrievably broken."
===========================================================================
Several more weeks ago:
The Khund homeworld:
Khundia has a single continent, and the majority of that is permanently eclipsed by its massive moon. Only some edges by the seashore saw any light at all. Yet the Khundish fauna was not adapted to live in darkness, as on Kathoon. Many creatures here had their own personal light-producing organs. Tentacles of some glowing ivy festooned the buildings. The sparse shrubbery luminesced as well. An ever-present mist spread the light across the ground. As Khundia was nearer to the center of the Galaxy, the center of the Milky Way shone more brightly, further illuminating the world.
Somehow, the sparse glow only seemed to accentuate the presence of the dismal darkness.
Star-Woman, Korvea, Polar Lass, and Matter-Eater Lad Two found themselves on the crowded streets of a massive city. Rodent-like creatures with glowing illicia, something like a cross between anglerfish and rats, scurried around their feet. Lightning Lass had collapsed onto Cosmic Boy?s shoulder.
"I feel like I've half lost my mind," she whimpered. "Do you think Dorrit is... do you think she didn't make it?"
"I don't know," said Cosmic Boy. He looked at the others helplessly.
"Is your friend hurt?" asked a large yellow female Khund in passing. "It is unwise to show weakness on Khundia; especially for an Outworlder." She smiled a broad toothy smile, and chuckled gutturally.
The seven Members were almost immediately approached by two Khundish military police, one peach, one pink.
"Why are you here?" asked the big, peach-colored officer. "You are not welcome."
"We have come," said Star-Woman, as confidently as possible, "With an urgent message for your leaders."
The big pink guard laughed, but the big peach officer remained stone-faced. "Take me to your leader?" he said. "How original. We will give you an opportunity to leave now, because you are weak and stupid. This will be your last chance, however. The Spaceport, or the Challenge Courts?"
"The Challenge Courts," said Star-Woman, confidently. The others voiced their assent.
The big pink guard seemed to get control of himself, sobering up.
"There is a saying on your worlds, I believe," he said. "It's your funeral."
The officers handed the members over to a slender, yellow dwarf Khund. "An Engineer, or Scientist," Star-Woman thought.
"I am Qalraq," the little Khund introduced himself. "You will begin at the Tenth Challenge of the Courts, as you are weak and untested." He escorted them into a huge room, filled with all manner of weaponry, from stone clubs to disintegrator cannons. "You may borrow whatever gear you wish, but you will be financially
responsible for any damage to the weapons when you lose."
"And if we win?" asked Star-Woman.
"No outworlder has won in the Challenge Courts for decades," said Qalraq. "But should you prevail, you will advance without penalty to the next level."
"I ought to warn you," said Star-Woman, "I am of Daxamite-class strength. Perhaps you should schedule me immediately for a level-one Challenge?"
"Not possible," said Qalraq. "That would mean a Challenge to the Champion, who is on an interplanetary tour. Should you survive at Level Two, you would be able to face him upon his return, if you were out of hospital. I could schedule you for Level Three, but you would have only half-an-gioq to prepare."
"I am already prepared," said Star-Woman. Qalraq snorted.
"How many weapons are we allowed to take?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"As many as you can carry," Qalraq replied. "But unless you have trained extensively with one weapon for sometime, I think you will find any of them... difficult to master."
Cosmic Boy cast his eyes upwards, and turned up his palms. Ferrous metal weapons of all kinds-- axes, hammers, swords, maces, morning-stars, tribulii, and various pieces of armor came flying through the air, hovering in a massive cloud above his head.
"I'll take these," he said.
"You, I will schedule for the Ninth Challenge," said Qualraq.
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/22/21 08:13 PM
CHAPTER THREE
STAR-WOMAN vs. KHOMAR
Star-Woman used her flight belt to hover above the arena, conserving her strength. She had no illusions: her opponent would be immensely powerful. She had her precognitive sense on full alert. She heard the starting gong, signalling the beginning of the battle. The massive, armored Khund moved incredibly fast, but she moved equally as quickly to avoid him. Time caught up with her vision, and the starting gong sounded in real life. The Khund bounced off the heavy force-dome surrounding the arena, and fell heavily to the ground. Star-Woman saw that he was about to fire a red-sun cannon at her.
"Daxamite-class, but not Daxamite," She thought to herself, and allowed him a direct hit. She felt a warm glow. She used the extra fractions of a second to draw the Star-Rod, then felt a wave of future-obscuring tachyons wash over her. "So, they do know I am Naltoran," she thought.
The Khund used a tractor beam to pull the Star-Rod from her hand. Surprisingly, he knew how to use the weapon, and confined her within an energy-globe. She turned up her mass-inducing powers to full force, concentrating on the Khund in the suit, and not the suit itself. The Star-Rod fell to the ground, and she summoned it to her. Two more energy blasts ricocheted harmlessly off the force-dome, as the Khund began to lose coordination in his limbs. He gave a remarkable leap, almost reaching Star-Woman, but then fell back heavily to the ground. His armor began to strain and crack against the still-increasing mass of its wearer. The Khund, gasping for breath, fell out naked onto the superconcrete floor, a Khund-shaped depression beginning to form beneath him...
Qalraq entered the stadium, just below where Star-Woman hovered.
"You may kill him if you like," he said quietly, "But Khomar has surrendered, and pleads for your mercy. He is weak and cowardly; it is only because of the Guilde he ever made it to the Third Challenge. Sparing his life might be unentertaining to the crowd; however, by our laws, he would then be your vassal in perpetuity."
"Thank you, I am familiar with your cultural norms," said Star-Woman. "We studied them at school. Tell Khomar that when he can pull himself out of his hole, he is welcome to help me prepare for the level-two Challenge."
"That will not be for at least two time-cycles," said Qalraq. "There are no second-level Challengers available at present. In the meantime, do not assume that because he is your sworn vassal, he will not try to assassinate you."
"Thank you, Qalraq."
CHAPTER FOUR
MATTER-EATER LAD TWO vs. ARMONICKA
Armonika was at least seven feet tall, a golden-skinned female Khund cyborg. Her left arm had been fully replaced, and most of the rest of her body enhanced.
Even before the starting gong, Matter-Eater Lad Two had begun excavating a hole in the floor of the Challenge Court. By the time the gong rang, he was gone from view.
Armonicka tramped steadily toward the hole in the ground. Her cybernetic eye scanned the darkness beneath.
Matter-Eater Lad Two quietly broke through the surface of the floor behind her, and rose into the air with his flight belt. In a rapid move, he flew at the Khund from behind, instantly biting off her robotic arm at the shoulder. He hovered near the top of the dome, making a leisurely meal of the rest of the arm.
"Is there any rule against me just eating her weapons?" Matter-Eater Lad Two asked into the air.
"No," came the quiet voice of Qalraq over a loudspeaker.
Matter-Eater Lad Two swooped down like an eagle, taking a bite out of Armonicka's right knee. She fell to the floor.
"Oy! Ptui!" Matter-Eater Lad Two spit out the kneecap. "Organic!"
Black Khundish blood pooled on the superconcrete.
"I yield, I yield," Armonika cried in both Interlac and Khundish.
Shortly thereafter, the six Members, Khomar and Armonika (both well bandaged) sat in the waiting room.
"The cannibal boy will no longer be allowed to participate in the Challenge Courts," Qalraq announced. "Whether he will be able to remain in the territories of the Khundish Empire is currently a matter under discussion."
COSMIC BOY AND POLAR LASS vs. KARHAKK AND DEVYAN
A massive shield composed of metallic weapons stood between the opponents in the center of the challenge court...
"I just remembered something," said Cosmic Boy. "Liquid oxygen is highly magnetic. If you could produce enough, I could use it to infiltrate their cybernetic components. Shut down their mechanisms."
A blinding blast from Karhakk disintegrated the central portion of the shield. Cosmic Boy re-organized the various weapons to form a somewhat smaller shield.
"I'm dropping the temperature on the other side of the court," said Polar Lass. "But it doesn't seem to be affecting them."
"See if you can focus on our opponents themselves," said Cosmic Boy. "Lower their core temperatures. I think that disintegration ray takes a while to charge."
Another blast knocked a hole in the metal shield.
"OK, I admit I was wrong about the disintegration ray," said Cosmic Boy.
"There's your oxygen," said Polar Lass, indicating several pools of blue-white liquid forming on the floor. "Focusing on reducing their core temperatures now."
"That disintegration ray only reduces matter to molecular dust," said Cosmic Boy. "I can still feel the aerosolized iron in the air. Which means I can still use it."
Gray tendrils formed in the air, as more tendrils of blue liquid oxygen rose up from the floor. Writhing tentacles of aerosolized iron and supercooled liquid oxygen attacked the joints of Karhakk and Devyan's suits. Attoprocessers and nanomachines froze and broke. Connections to power sources were severed. The two Khunds collapsed like calving icebergs, their cybernetic components detaching from their bodies, and sliding to the floor...
LIGHTNING LASS vs. DONARAK
Donorak was the first non-cyborg Khund the Members had seen in the arena. He did have a weapon. though: a massive electro-mace, which fired neuro-electric bolts. He was also eerily silent, not boastin gor trash-talking as the other Khunds had. He simply attacked.
The bolts stung. Dacey's mind was getting foggy. She shouldn't be so vulnerable to electrical attacks, she knew, but there was a black fog in her mind, and an ache in her heart, since her telepathic link with Dorrit had been severed.
What would Dorrit want her to do?
The future of the Galaxy was at stake. If they made a good showing at the Challenge Courts, they could get access to whatever council governed the Khunds-- and perhaps convince them to resist the Dominion alliance.
Her sister was on the other side of the Galaxy, working the second part of the plan.
Then there was Chameleon's assignment...
Each part of the plan had so little chance of success. Even all three together seemed unlikely to prevent the Naltoran prophecy. It seemed easier to just give up and go to sleep.
No, Dorrit would want her to fight back. Dacey would want to fight back, if it were not for this cursed neurological numbing. She reached inside herself for the lightning... but couldn't find it.
Stupid.
Donarak himself was providing her with the lightning.
She absorbed the power, took it into her cells, into her mitochondria. She was filled with power. It ached. It hurt. Rather than numb, her neurons were now flaming in pain. It made her angry. She lifted up her head, and saw Donorak through a red haze. He was smiling. Then he was not smiling. Donarak seemed confused, then concerned, then afraid. Then terrified.
Dacey's universe blinked.
She awoke on a cot in the waiting area, surrounded by the other Members.
"Are you all right?" asked Star-Woman. Dacey nodded.
"Did I win or lose?" asked Dacey.
"A draw. You don't advance," said Cosmic Boy. "You both collapsed simultaneously."
Dacey saw that she was holding Donarak's scorched electro-mace. She looked from the mace to the members curiously.
"The judges awarded it to you,' said Cosmic Boy. "Donarak won't be needing it for a while."
KORVEA vs. KRULLIA
Black spheres swarmed the court, rolling, floating. Krullia cursed. One formed into the silhouette of a caped girl. Another into a massive shadow-bird.
Krullia fired at the bird. An illusion. It was replaced by another one of the constantly-moving black spheres. The shadow-girl attacked. Another illusion, but Krullia's weapon had not recharged anyway.
The first thing the infernal Talokan had done was disable Krullia's sensor array. Now she was reliant on her own eight senses, and the Talokan controlled light. One of the black spheres passed closeby, and a fist popped out of it. Krullia staggered. Her opponent was surprisingly strong for such a young girl.
Her weapon re-powered, Krullia fired at the sphere which had just passed-- or was it a different one? No effect. Another illusion.
She was going to lose again. Trapped at Level One in the challenge courts. No, this would be her thirteenth failure. She would be thrown out. There was only one choice.
She feinted, her weapon still recharging. The shadow-spheres swirled, some forming into more silhouettes. Krullia toggled a switch hidden in her shoulder.
A blinding flash. An energy-sphere swept the entire challenge court, reducing to molecular dust anything not protected by the court's powerful force-fields.
"Illegal weapon!" a computerized voice announced. "Match forfeited! Challengers return to neutral stations!"
CHAMELEON
"I am sorry," said Qalraq. "Death in the Challenge Courts is a common occurrence. But cheating is unforgivable... Demon Mother! An untargeted weapon! Krullia will be banned from the Courts for one hundred forty-four time-cycles."
He left the five Members for the evening.
Lightning Lass hefted Donarak's electro-mace. "We keep fighting," she said. "The stakes are unchanged."
"Kylda and I make a good team," said Cosmic Boy. "Unfortunately, Hillarie has been permanently eliminated from competition. These Khundish ethics are unfathomable"
"At least being banned from the Challenge Courts," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "I will have time to mourn."
"We're not stone-hearted," said Lightning Lass. "But we knew this would be dangerous... if not impossible. We're fighting to prevent Galactic Armageddon. If we fail... Korvea would be dead anyway, and hundreds of billions more."
One of the omnipresent luminous lizard-rodents had been crouching in the corner. Chameleon shape-shifted into his natural form.
"Korvea is dead?" he asked.
"Disintegrated by an illegal Khundish weapon," said Cosmic Boy. "Reduced to molecular dust."
"I wish to report," said Chameleon.
"Go ahead," said Star-Woman.
"I have assumed the forms of various Dominion races," said Chameleon. "and allowed myself to be seen. I encountered a Khund patrol, and was almost captured, but used the High Seer's gift to escape. It is a form of 'joker-gas', although temporary in its effects. I followed the Patrol in rodent-form when they were sent to Hospital, and they recovered in a few hours. But there are now rumors of unauthorized Dominators attacking on Khundia."
"Dacey, Pol, and Kylda will return to the Challenge Courts tomorrow," said Star-Woman.
"I have a question regarding Naltoran premonition," said Chameleon. "We are now in the past, yet the High Seer foresaw that my having need of the 'joker-gas'. Yet if we are ultimately successful, this will not be the timeline in which the High Seer foresaw these things-- or in which I ever met the High Seer. How is this possible?"
"The short answer is," said Star-Woman, "'She is the High Seer, and the rules do not necessarily apply to her.'. A more complex answer is, "'I don't know'."
"I would like to sleep here tonight," said Chameleon. "In unobtrusive glow-rodent form, of course. The streets are a little wild."
"I don't think anyone has any objections," said Star-Woman.
"I have objections," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "But only to the Universe in general, and the suggestion box appears to be closed. You're welcome to stay here, Cham, until... until the end, I guess."
Chameleon woke the following morning in glow-rodent form. There was a small bird beside him, about his size. Black, with a red crest. Chameleon gave a little rodent gasp.
"As the man said," said the bird, in Korvea's voice, "It appears that the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
KORVEA vs. DEATH
"Shelbonites have regenerative powers," said Korvea. She had grown in size substantially over the last half-day, and was nearly a meter tall in her humanoid form. "Although they are not taken lightly. After all, even if you could regenerate, would you cut off your arm on a regular basis? Well, having just learned that, in fact, I can, the answer to that would be 'No'."
"But that weapon reduced you to molecular dust," said Cosmic Boy.
"I know," said Korvea. "I can still feel more than half of myself swarming around in the ventilation system. And I know that those little particulates are faithfully endeavoring to rendezvous with the rest of me. I know it seems weird, but... yeah, it's weird. I'm going to have to have a long talk with my mother when I get home."
"She wasn't dead," Polar Lass was explaining to Matter-Eater Lad Two. "She was just... injured. Like Dacey, only... worse. And they're both getting better."
"But I thought she was dead," said Hillarie. "So did you. We all thought she was dead. And here she is again."
"Well, Qalraq is going to be surprised," said Polar Lass.
"How can you joke about this?" asked Hillarie. "This is Death. We are all in mortal danger, surrounded by crazy Khunds who would kill us without a second thought! Look, I'm having a little bit of a crisis here."
"Hillarie," said Star-Woman, "I thought we all realized that this was most probably a suicide mission. Even if we can prevent the Khund-Dominion attack on the U.P., the Universe as we knew it will no longer exist. The Super-Hero Club-- we will be trapped in Khundish and Dominion space, and no one in the U.P. will know we are here, because another Super-Hero Club will be living happily-ever-after on Mars. Because the war will have never happened. We certainly can't return to where we came from, because... because that time-line will not exist anymore."
"I guess I knew that," said Hillarie. "Or most of it. I just... I guess I didn't want to think about it."
"I imagine," interjected Chameleon, "It is too much to expect that when this is all over, we can find some nice, peaceful world in the the Khund Empire, and live out our lives in quiet anonymity."
Star-Woman shook her head.
"Now I'm having a crisis," said Polar Lass.
STAR-WOMAN vs. KHOMAR
Star-Woman used her flight belt to hover above the arena, conserving her strength. She had no illusions: her opponent would be immensely powerful. She had her precognitive sense on full alert. She heard the starting gong, signalling the beginning of the battle. The massive, armored Khund moved incredibly fast, but she moved equally as quickly to avoid him. Time caught up with her vision, and the starting gong sounded in real life. The Khund bounced off the heavy force-dome surrounding the arena, and fell heavily to the ground. Star-Woman saw that he was about to fire a red-sun cannon at her.
"Daxamite-class, but not Daxamite," She thought to herself, and allowed him a direct hit. She felt a warm glow. She used the extra fractions of a second to draw the Star-Rod, then felt a wave of future-obscuring tachyons wash over her. "So, they do know I am Naltoran," she thought.
The Khund used a tractor beam to pull the Star-Rod from her hand. Surprisingly, he knew how to use the weapon, and confined her within an energy-globe. She turned up her mass-inducing powers to full force, concentrating on the Khund in the suit, and not the suit itself. The Star-Rod fell to the ground, and she summoned it to her. Two more energy blasts ricocheted harmlessly off the force-dome, as the Khund began to lose coordination in his limbs. He gave a remarkable leap, almost reaching Star-Woman, but then fell back heavily to the ground. His armor began to strain and crack against the still-increasing mass of its wearer. The Khund, gasping for breath, fell out naked onto the superconcrete floor, a Khund-shaped depression beginning to form beneath him...
Qalraq entered the stadium, just below where Star-Woman hovered.
"You may kill him if you like," he said quietly, "But Khomar has surrendered, and pleads for your mercy. He is weak and cowardly; it is only because of the Guilde he ever made it to the Third Challenge. Sparing his life might be unentertaining to the crowd; however, by our laws, he would then be your vassal in perpetuity."
"Thank you, I am familiar with your cultural norms," said Star-Woman. "We studied them at school. Tell Khomar that when he can pull himself out of his hole, he is welcome to help me prepare for the level-two Challenge."
"That will not be for at least two time-cycles," said Qalraq. "There are no second-level Challengers available at present. In the meantime, do not assume that because he is your sworn vassal, he will not try to assassinate you."
"Thank you, Qalraq."
CHAPTER FOUR
MATTER-EATER LAD TWO vs. ARMONICKA
Armonika was at least seven feet tall, a golden-skinned female Khund cyborg. Her left arm had been fully replaced, and most of the rest of her body enhanced.
Even before the starting gong, Matter-Eater Lad Two had begun excavating a hole in the floor of the Challenge Court. By the time the gong rang, he was gone from view.
Armonicka tramped steadily toward the hole in the ground. Her cybernetic eye scanned the darkness beneath.
Matter-Eater Lad Two quietly broke through the surface of the floor behind her, and rose into the air with his flight belt. In a rapid move, he flew at the Khund from behind, instantly biting off her robotic arm at the shoulder. He hovered near the top of the dome, making a leisurely meal of the rest of the arm.
"Is there any rule against me just eating her weapons?" Matter-Eater Lad Two asked into the air.
"No," came the quiet voice of Qalraq over a loudspeaker.
Matter-Eater Lad Two swooped down like an eagle, taking a bite out of Armonicka's right knee. She fell to the floor.
"Oy! Ptui!" Matter-Eater Lad Two spit out the kneecap. "Organic!"
Black Khundish blood pooled on the superconcrete.
"I yield, I yield," Armonika cried in both Interlac and Khundish.
Shortly thereafter, the six Members, Khomar and Armonika (both well bandaged) sat in the waiting room.
"The cannibal boy will no longer be allowed to participate in the Challenge Courts," Qalraq announced. "Whether he will be able to remain in the territories of the Khundish Empire is currently a matter under discussion."
COSMIC BOY AND POLAR LASS vs. KARHAKK AND DEVYAN
A massive shield composed of metallic weapons stood between the opponents in the center of the challenge court...
"I just remembered something," said Cosmic Boy. "Liquid oxygen is highly magnetic. If you could produce enough, I could use it to infiltrate their cybernetic components. Shut down their mechanisms."
A blinding blast from Karhakk disintegrated the central portion of the shield. Cosmic Boy re-organized the various weapons to form a somewhat smaller shield.
"I'm dropping the temperature on the other side of the court," said Polar Lass. "But it doesn't seem to be affecting them."
"See if you can focus on our opponents themselves," said Cosmic Boy. "Lower their core temperatures. I think that disintegration ray takes a while to charge."
Another blast knocked a hole in the metal shield.
"OK, I admit I was wrong about the disintegration ray," said Cosmic Boy.
"There's your oxygen," said Polar Lass, indicating several pools of blue-white liquid forming on the floor. "Focusing on reducing their core temperatures now."
"That disintegration ray only reduces matter to molecular dust," said Cosmic Boy. "I can still feel the aerosolized iron in the air. Which means I can still use it."
Gray tendrils formed in the air, as more tendrils of blue liquid oxygen rose up from the floor. Writhing tentacles of aerosolized iron and supercooled liquid oxygen attacked the joints of Karhakk and Devyan's suits. Attoprocessers and nanomachines froze and broke. Connections to power sources were severed. The two Khunds collapsed like calving icebergs, their cybernetic components detaching from their bodies, and sliding to the floor...
LIGHTNING LASS vs. DONARAK
Donorak was the first non-cyborg Khund the Members had seen in the arena. He did have a weapon. though: a massive electro-mace, which fired neuro-electric bolts. He was also eerily silent, not boastin gor trash-talking as the other Khunds had. He simply attacked.
The bolts stung. Dacey's mind was getting foggy. She shouldn't be so vulnerable to electrical attacks, she knew, but there was a black fog in her mind, and an ache in her heart, since her telepathic link with Dorrit had been severed.
What would Dorrit want her to do?
The future of the Galaxy was at stake. If they made a good showing at the Challenge Courts, they could get access to whatever council governed the Khunds-- and perhaps convince them to resist the Dominion alliance.
Her sister was on the other side of the Galaxy, working the second part of the plan.
Then there was Chameleon's assignment...
Each part of the plan had so little chance of success. Even all three together seemed unlikely to prevent the Naltoran prophecy. It seemed easier to just give up and go to sleep.
No, Dorrit would want her to fight back. Dacey would want to fight back, if it were not for this cursed neurological numbing. She reached inside herself for the lightning... but couldn't find it.
Stupid.
Donarak himself was providing her with the lightning.
She absorbed the power, took it into her cells, into her mitochondria. She was filled with power. It ached. It hurt. Rather than numb, her neurons were now flaming in pain. It made her angry. She lifted up her head, and saw Donorak through a red haze. He was smiling. Then he was not smiling. Donarak seemed confused, then concerned, then afraid. Then terrified.
Dacey's universe blinked.
She awoke on a cot in the waiting area, surrounded by the other Members.
"Are you all right?" asked Star-Woman. Dacey nodded.
"Did I win or lose?" asked Dacey.
"A draw. You don't advance," said Cosmic Boy. "You both collapsed simultaneously."
Dacey saw that she was holding Donarak's scorched electro-mace. She looked from the mace to the members curiously.
"The judges awarded it to you,' said Cosmic Boy. "Donarak won't be needing it for a while."
KORVEA vs. KRULLIA
Black spheres swarmed the court, rolling, floating. Krullia cursed. One formed into the silhouette of a caped girl. Another into a massive shadow-bird.
Krullia fired at the bird. An illusion. It was replaced by another one of the constantly-moving black spheres. The shadow-girl attacked. Another illusion, but Krullia's weapon had not recharged anyway.
The first thing the infernal Talokan had done was disable Krullia's sensor array. Now she was reliant on her own eight senses, and the Talokan controlled light. One of the black spheres passed closeby, and a fist popped out of it. Krullia staggered. Her opponent was surprisingly strong for such a young girl.
Her weapon re-powered, Krullia fired at the sphere which had just passed-- or was it a different one? No effect. Another illusion.
She was going to lose again. Trapped at Level One in the challenge courts. No, this would be her thirteenth failure. She would be thrown out. There was only one choice.
She feinted, her weapon still recharging. The shadow-spheres swirled, some forming into more silhouettes. Krullia toggled a switch hidden in her shoulder.
A blinding flash. An energy-sphere swept the entire challenge court, reducing to molecular dust anything not protected by the court's powerful force-fields.
"Illegal weapon!" a computerized voice announced. "Match forfeited! Challengers return to neutral stations!"
CHAMELEON
"I am sorry," said Qalraq. "Death in the Challenge Courts is a common occurrence. But cheating is unforgivable... Demon Mother! An untargeted weapon! Krullia will be banned from the Courts for one hundred forty-four time-cycles."
He left the five Members for the evening.
Lightning Lass hefted Donarak's electro-mace. "We keep fighting," she said. "The stakes are unchanged."
"Kylda and I make a good team," said Cosmic Boy. "Unfortunately, Hillarie has been permanently eliminated from competition. These Khundish ethics are unfathomable"
"At least being banned from the Challenge Courts," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "I will have time to mourn."
"We're not stone-hearted," said Lightning Lass. "But we knew this would be dangerous... if not impossible. We're fighting to prevent Galactic Armageddon. If we fail... Korvea would be dead anyway, and hundreds of billions more."
One of the omnipresent luminous lizard-rodents had been crouching in the corner. Chameleon shape-shifted into his natural form.
"Korvea is dead?" he asked.
"Disintegrated by an illegal Khundish weapon," said Cosmic Boy. "Reduced to molecular dust."
"I wish to report," said Chameleon.
"Go ahead," said Star-Woman.
"I have assumed the forms of various Dominion races," said Chameleon. "and allowed myself to be seen. I encountered a Khund patrol, and was almost captured, but used the High Seer's gift to escape. It is a form of 'joker-gas', although temporary in its effects. I followed the Patrol in rodent-form when they were sent to Hospital, and they recovered in a few hours. But there are now rumors of unauthorized Dominators attacking on Khundia."
"Dacey, Pol, and Kylda will return to the Challenge Courts tomorrow," said Star-Woman.
"I have a question regarding Naltoran premonition," said Chameleon. "We are now in the past, yet the High Seer foresaw that my having need of the 'joker-gas'. Yet if we are ultimately successful, this will not be the timeline in which the High Seer foresaw these things-- or in which I ever met the High Seer. How is this possible?"
"The short answer is," said Star-Woman, "'She is the High Seer, and the rules do not necessarily apply to her.'. A more complex answer is, "'I don't know'."
"I would like to sleep here tonight," said Chameleon. "In unobtrusive glow-rodent form, of course. The streets are a little wild."
"I don't think anyone has any objections," said Star-Woman.
"I have objections," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "But only to the Universe in general, and the suggestion box appears to be closed. You're welcome to stay here, Cham, until... until the end, I guess."
Chameleon woke the following morning in glow-rodent form. There was a small bird beside him, about his size. Black, with a red crest. Chameleon gave a little rodent gasp.
"As the man said," said the bird, in Korvea's voice, "It appears that the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
KORVEA vs. DEATH
"Shelbonites have regenerative powers," said Korvea. She had grown in size substantially over the last half-day, and was nearly a meter tall in her humanoid form. "Although they are not taken lightly. After all, even if you could regenerate, would you cut off your arm on a regular basis? Well, having just learned that, in fact, I can, the answer to that would be 'No'."
"But that weapon reduced you to molecular dust," said Cosmic Boy.
"I know," said Korvea. "I can still feel more than half of myself swarming around in the ventilation system. And I know that those little particulates are faithfully endeavoring to rendezvous with the rest of me. I know it seems weird, but... yeah, it's weird. I'm going to have to have a long talk with my mother when I get home."
"She wasn't dead," Polar Lass was explaining to Matter-Eater Lad Two. "She was just... injured. Like Dacey, only... worse. And they're both getting better."
"But I thought she was dead," said Hillarie. "So did you. We all thought she was dead. And here she is again."
"Well, Qalraq is going to be surprised," said Polar Lass.
"How can you joke about this?" asked Hillarie. "This is Death. We are all in mortal danger, surrounded by crazy Khunds who would kill us without a second thought! Look, I'm having a little bit of a crisis here."
"Hillarie," said Star-Woman, "I thought we all realized that this was most probably a suicide mission. Even if we can prevent the Khund-Dominion attack on the U.P., the Universe as we knew it will no longer exist. The Super-Hero Club-- we will be trapped in Khundish and Dominion space, and no one in the U.P. will know we are here, because another Super-Hero Club will be living happily-ever-after on Mars. Because the war will have never happened. We certainly can't return to where we came from, because... because that time-line will not exist anymore."
"I guess I knew that," said Hillarie. "Or most of it. I just... I guess I didn't want to think about it."
"I imagine," interjected Chameleon, "It is too much to expect that when this is all over, we can find some nice, peaceful world in the the Khund Empire, and live out our lives in quiet anonymity."
Star-Woman shook her head.
"Now I'm having a crisis," said Polar Lass.
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/29/21 05:09 PM
[/u]CHAPTER FIVE[/u]
MEANWHILE"?
Elia, The Dominion Homeworld
"A child among children,"mused the Dominator Overlord. "Yet a Coluan. Reasonably intelligent, especially compared to these pathetic monkeys you have brought with you."
Saturn Girl sat staring, blank-eyed, nearly comatose. Ffiona sat beside her, in singlet form. Ten faced the Overlord alone.
"Dorrit Ranzz is a powerful telepath," Ten explained. "But has suffered psychic trauma from our journey into the past. My other companion is finding Elia's environment inimical to her physiology."
"You all seem a poor choice for a mission to hostile territories,"said the Dominator.
"We were the only choice," said Ten. "In the future, your Doomsday Weapon was very effective. The United Planets has been reduced to a collection of dead and near-dead worlds. It would, however, be in your best interests not to employ it. Your scientists made an error in their calculations. The Last Plague has spread out into Khundish Space. It will even spread back into the Dominions, eventually."
"You are not being entirely forthcoming,"said the Dominator. "We have analyzed your chronal signature, and you have not come from far enough in the future for the United Planets to have experienced the full effects of Microbe Alpha. There is an incubation period, you see. It has been well tested, despite your libels of our scientists."
"If you know our temporal origins, then you know our spatial origins as well," said Ten.
"Yes, the Time Institute on New Titan," said the Dominator.
"Which is in the Naltoran system," said Ten.
"Ah, the Prophecy Planet," said the Dominator. "You claim to have seen the end from the beginning. Still, the Microbe Alpha vaccine has been well-tested, and distributed to the populations of the Dominions. I suppose that we could make it known to the United Planets, and offer to provide it to them at a high price, but"? sadly, we have used up all our stores, and there is no time to make more before"? your time." The Dominator smiled, showing his sharp, pointed teeth. But then, the Dominators were always smiling. "It is a shame your mission to the past has been a failure. Now, where are your other companions?"
"It is only the three of us," said Ffiona.
"I think not," said the Dominator. "Our sensors clearly indicated the extra-temporal appearance of five individuals."
"We are Cargggan," Ffiona explained, separating. Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey breathed an almost-hidden sigh of relief.
"Interesting," said the Dominator. "Yet again, why only you? Terran children, and a Coluan infant."
"Again, we werre all who were available," said Ten. "Even as we departed, New Titan and Naltor were being destroyed."
"Ah," said the Dominator. "Success."
REPORT
The message appeared out of thin air, written on some sort of parchment. Written in Old Bgztlr, but with Yoddish characters.
Very few in the Galaxy could have read it, aside from Ten and Phantom Girl.
"As suspected, the Dominion's sensors are unable to penetrate the Phantom Zone. In addition, Eulia has found a size below which the sensors simply ignore her.
The Doomsday Sphere is being constructed in the Southern Hemisphere. Completion is expected within ten days. I will attempt to infiltrate the station. I will need to hitch a ride on one of the Dominion shuttles-- it is too far for me to travel within the Phantom Zone without getting lost.
There seems to be unanimity among the Dominion counselors regarding this operation. I do not believe we will be able to sow doubt or discord there."
Ten attempted to relay the information telepathically to Saturn Girl.
"{I am much recovered from the trauma of Dacey 's absence from my mind,"} Saturn Girl responded. "{I have been feigning a continued comatose condition to search for additional intelligence which might assist us in finding a way to thwart the Dominion. It is difficult, as there are numerous telepathic sensors in the more secure areas.
"When you told the Dominator that in our future, the Dominion is infected with what they call the "?Alpha Microbe ', he immediately discounted it. However, I note that he was unsurprised when you informed him the Microbe had spread to Khundish Space. It may have been a prevarication on your part, but you may have been accidentally correct}."
A Dominion Brute, the red dot on his forehead a mere pinpoint, arrived with a trays of food.
"They said Coluans just eat this paste," he said, placing a tube before Ten. "They said you should tell me if it 's the wrong kind for your age." He placed three trays before the Triplicates. "Us Dominators are good at vegetables," he explained. "This is real Earth-like food. They said you should tell me if you want something different."
"Roasted eggplant would be nice," said Ffarrah.
"Soy, spinach, carrots, onions, and garlic," said Ffey.
"The fruit of the Terran Solanum Melongena," Ten translated... "Glycine Max, as a bean or curd, Spinacia Oleracea, Daucus Carota Sativus, any color, some variety of Allium Cepa and Allium Sativum."
"OK", said the Brute. He laid out a fourth tray. "This is gruel and pudding you can feed the sick one." He indicated Saturn Girl. "They said it would be good for her."
"You seem to be treating us well," said Ten. "For prisoners of war."
The Brute's smile broadened. It was not a pleasant sight. "They like to breed exo-Elians," he laughed. "To study the ones with Powers. There is a big Khund they are saving for the Cargggans. One of them might even live through it." The Brute looked at Ten. "They say Coluans have long lives. You will be here a long time. They like to study the smart ones."
"You seem to know a great deal about Terran food, for someone who only eats Nutritive Paste," Ffiona told Ten.
"I know a great deal about a great many things," said Ten.
"{Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey," said Saturn Girl. {I would not worry about the threats to experiment on us. I believe we will be leaving soon. I have a plan.}"
MEANWHILE"?
Elia, The Dominion Homeworld
"A child among children,"mused the Dominator Overlord. "Yet a Coluan. Reasonably intelligent, especially compared to these pathetic monkeys you have brought with you."
Saturn Girl sat staring, blank-eyed, nearly comatose. Ffiona sat beside her, in singlet form. Ten faced the Overlord alone.
"Dorrit Ranzz is a powerful telepath," Ten explained. "But has suffered psychic trauma from our journey into the past. My other companion is finding Elia's environment inimical to her physiology."
"You all seem a poor choice for a mission to hostile territories,"said the Dominator.
"We were the only choice," said Ten. "In the future, your Doomsday Weapon was very effective. The United Planets has been reduced to a collection of dead and near-dead worlds. It would, however, be in your best interests not to employ it. Your scientists made an error in their calculations. The Last Plague has spread out into Khundish Space. It will even spread back into the Dominions, eventually."
"You are not being entirely forthcoming,"said the Dominator. "We have analyzed your chronal signature, and you have not come from far enough in the future for the United Planets to have experienced the full effects of Microbe Alpha. There is an incubation period, you see. It has been well tested, despite your libels of our scientists."
"If you know our temporal origins, then you know our spatial origins as well," said Ten.
"Yes, the Time Institute on New Titan," said the Dominator.
"Which is in the Naltoran system," said Ten.
"Ah, the Prophecy Planet," said the Dominator. "You claim to have seen the end from the beginning. Still, the Microbe Alpha vaccine has been well-tested, and distributed to the populations of the Dominions. I suppose that we could make it known to the United Planets, and offer to provide it to them at a high price, but"? sadly, we have used up all our stores, and there is no time to make more before"? your time." The Dominator smiled, showing his sharp, pointed teeth. But then, the Dominators were always smiling. "It is a shame your mission to the past has been a failure. Now, where are your other companions?"
"It is only the three of us," said Ffiona.
"I think not," said the Dominator. "Our sensors clearly indicated the extra-temporal appearance of five individuals."
"We are Cargggan," Ffiona explained, separating. Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey breathed an almost-hidden sigh of relief.
"Interesting," said the Dominator. "Yet again, why only you? Terran children, and a Coluan infant."
"Again, we werre all who were available," said Ten. "Even as we departed, New Titan and Naltor were being destroyed."
"Ah," said the Dominator. "Success."
REPORT
The message appeared out of thin air, written on some sort of parchment. Written in Old Bgztlr, but with Yoddish characters.
Very few in the Galaxy could have read it, aside from Ten and Phantom Girl.
"As suspected, the Dominion's sensors are unable to penetrate the Phantom Zone. In addition, Eulia has found a size below which the sensors simply ignore her.
The Doomsday Sphere is being constructed in the Southern Hemisphere. Completion is expected within ten days. I will attempt to infiltrate the station. I will need to hitch a ride on one of the Dominion shuttles-- it is too far for me to travel within the Phantom Zone without getting lost.
There seems to be unanimity among the Dominion counselors regarding this operation. I do not believe we will be able to sow doubt or discord there."
Ten attempted to relay the information telepathically to Saturn Girl.
"{I am much recovered from the trauma of Dacey 's absence from my mind,"} Saturn Girl responded. "{I have been feigning a continued comatose condition to search for additional intelligence which might assist us in finding a way to thwart the Dominion. It is difficult, as there are numerous telepathic sensors in the more secure areas.
"When you told the Dominator that in our future, the Dominion is infected with what they call the "?Alpha Microbe ', he immediately discounted it. However, I note that he was unsurprised when you informed him the Microbe had spread to Khundish Space. It may have been a prevarication on your part, but you may have been accidentally correct}."
A Dominion Brute, the red dot on his forehead a mere pinpoint, arrived with a trays of food.
"They said Coluans just eat this paste," he said, placing a tube before Ten. "They said you should tell me if it 's the wrong kind for your age." He placed three trays before the Triplicates. "Us Dominators are good at vegetables," he explained. "This is real Earth-like food. They said you should tell me if you want something different."
"Roasted eggplant would be nice," said Ffarrah.
"Soy, spinach, carrots, onions, and garlic," said Ffey.
"The fruit of the Terran Solanum Melongena," Ten translated... "Glycine Max, as a bean or curd, Spinacia Oleracea, Daucus Carota Sativus, any color, some variety of Allium Cepa and Allium Sativum."
"OK", said the Brute. He laid out a fourth tray. "This is gruel and pudding you can feed the sick one." He indicated Saturn Girl. "They said it would be good for her."
"You seem to be treating us well," said Ten. "For prisoners of war."
The Brute's smile broadened. It was not a pleasant sight. "They like to breed exo-Elians," he laughed. "To study the ones with Powers. There is a big Khund they are saving for the Cargggans. One of them might even live through it." The Brute looked at Ten. "They say Coluans have long lives. You will be here a long time. They like to study the smart ones."
"You seem to know a great deal about Terran food, for someone who only eats Nutritive Paste," Ffiona told Ten.
"I know a great deal about a great many things," said Ten.
"{Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey," said Saturn Girl. {I would not worry about the threats to experiment on us. I believe we will be leaving soon. I have a plan.}"
Re: Another Way Forward - 09/29/21 05:09 PM
CHAPTER SIX
STAR-WOMAN VS. KARKYN
Karkyn hit her hard and fast, shattering the isolated asteroid on which their battle had been appointed. They were outside the Challenge Courts, in interplanetary Khund space. Level One.
Kallor was stunned, disoriented and confused. This Khund was strong-- as strong as a Daxamite.
With Donarak's electro-mace, Dacey was essentially unbeatable back on the Khundish homeworld, working her way slowly through various challengers. Korvea and Matter-Eater Lad Two had been banned from the Courts, branded as "zombie" and "cannibal", respectively. They had been allowed to freely wander the city outside the Courts, and were treated with respect by the local populace, or possibly simple fear. Meal vendors were generous to Korvea, and they both had been approached to join an Assassin's Guild.
Cosmic Boy and Polar Lass had faced a Khund who controlled fire. His powers had stunted Cosmic Boy's magnetism, and had explosively ignited the liquid oxygen Polar Lass was producing. All three were in hospital, severely injured.
Chameleon had not been heard from for days.
Their plan had been to gain sufficient cachet to be able to contact and convince one of the Khundish leaders. It had seemed doomed. Then Kallor had received a challenge from the Khundish Planetary Champion: Karkyn, who had been following her exploits. Her hopes revived: here was the chance they had been waiting for.
Now she floated in the rubble of the fractured asteroid, as Karkyn delivered crushing blow after crushing blow. She felt her consciousness begin to slip away.
She hoped that Group B was having success on Elia. She doubted that she would survive this confrontation.
Karkyn was clearly more powerful than her.
Or was he?
Yes, he was very strong, but so was she. He was nowhere near as fast-- he had not exhibited even a fraction of lightspeed.
And she was more versatile than him, she was sure of it. She ran through the litany of her powers? and found she couldn?t quite remember them all.
Telepathic, she thought to herself. He's telepathic-- broadcasting despair and confusion at me.? She tried to take a swing at Karkyn, but he easily dodged. I'm faster than this, she thought. Much faster. Much, much faster.
She flew up from the midst of the debris, as fast as she could manage, careening off the ultra-strong force shield that surrounded their asteroid arena. Outside hovered the field generators and the cameras recording their battle. She began to fly in a circle just within the field, as fast as she could manage. Her head began to clear. She began to fly in random, twisting patterns, at a substantial portion of the speed of light. Occasionally she would approach Karkyn, and hit him with a smashing blow, or toss off a gout of fire-breath, or a blast of lightning-vision. As her mind cleared, she could see where he would be moving, a moment into the future.
Kallor realized Karkyn didn't stand a chance.
But she needed him to surrender. She didn't want to kill him.
She focused her mass-inducing abilities on her opponent, then on the shattered asteroid. The asteroid pulled itself together, with Karkyn at the center. Gravity began increasing, to Earth-normal, then Jupiter-normal, then beyond.
The cameras and field generators were having difficulty maintaining stable orbits, as the continual need to make small course corrections was overloading their processors.
Kallor was now standing on the re-formed asteroid, her flight powers fighting the now-massive gravitational force. A hologram appeared before her.
"Karkyn has yielded," announced Qalraq's hologram. "He requests that you free him before he is crushed within a gravitational singularity."
===========================================================================
"You United Planets types never understand. The Empire is not a monolith," Karkyn was explaining. "This is why you repeatedly fail at diplomatic negotiations. No one Khund can speak for all."
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Korvea and Matter-Eater Lad Two had been welcomed aboard his ship. It was, by the measure of any United Planets civilization, grand and impressive.
"I can put my resources at your service," said Karkyn. "There are perhaps a million Khunds who are under my protection, and owe me fealty. And I am aware of the faction cooperating with the Dominators. I disagree with their goals, and with the risks they are taking. But what can I do? How can I move against them, when they have the strength of the Dominionators behind them?"
"We want to destroy one ship," said Kallor. "Within the next few days, it will move from the Dominion Homeworld to the planet Daxam, in United Planets space. We need to intercept it, and destroy it."
"You? Alone?" asked Karkyn. "How large a ship is this?"
"About the size of a small moon," said Kallor.
"I may owe you my life," said Karkyn. "But this is a fool's errand."
"Then lend us-- give us-- a small cloaked ship, and access to your star-maps, and let us make the journey to Elia ourselves."
"Just the four of you, against the Dominion?" asked Karkyn.
"There may be as many as seven," said Kallor.
STAR-WOMAN VS. KARKYN
Karkyn hit her hard and fast, shattering the isolated asteroid on which their battle had been appointed. They were outside the Challenge Courts, in interplanetary Khund space. Level One.
Kallor was stunned, disoriented and confused. This Khund was strong-- as strong as a Daxamite.
With Donarak's electro-mace, Dacey was essentially unbeatable back on the Khundish homeworld, working her way slowly through various challengers. Korvea and Matter-Eater Lad Two had been banned from the Courts, branded as "zombie" and "cannibal", respectively. They had been allowed to freely wander the city outside the Courts, and were treated with respect by the local populace, or possibly simple fear. Meal vendors were generous to Korvea, and they both had been approached to join an Assassin's Guild.
Cosmic Boy and Polar Lass had faced a Khund who controlled fire. His powers had stunted Cosmic Boy's magnetism, and had explosively ignited the liquid oxygen Polar Lass was producing. All three were in hospital, severely injured.
Chameleon had not been heard from for days.
Their plan had been to gain sufficient cachet to be able to contact and convince one of the Khundish leaders. It had seemed doomed. Then Kallor had received a challenge from the Khundish Planetary Champion: Karkyn, who had been following her exploits. Her hopes revived: here was the chance they had been waiting for.
Now she floated in the rubble of the fractured asteroid, as Karkyn delivered crushing blow after crushing blow. She felt her consciousness begin to slip away.
She hoped that Group B was having success on Elia. She doubted that she would survive this confrontation.
Karkyn was clearly more powerful than her.
Or was he?
Yes, he was very strong, but so was she. He was nowhere near as fast-- he had not exhibited even a fraction of lightspeed.
And she was more versatile than him, she was sure of it. She ran through the litany of her powers? and found she couldn?t quite remember them all.
Telepathic, she thought to herself. He's telepathic-- broadcasting despair and confusion at me.? She tried to take a swing at Karkyn, but he easily dodged. I'm faster than this, she thought. Much faster. Much, much faster.
She flew up from the midst of the debris, as fast as she could manage, careening off the ultra-strong force shield that surrounded their asteroid arena. Outside hovered the field generators and the cameras recording their battle. She began to fly in a circle just within the field, as fast as she could manage. Her head began to clear. She began to fly in random, twisting patterns, at a substantial portion of the speed of light. Occasionally she would approach Karkyn, and hit him with a smashing blow, or toss off a gout of fire-breath, or a blast of lightning-vision. As her mind cleared, she could see where he would be moving, a moment into the future.
Kallor realized Karkyn didn't stand a chance.
But she needed him to surrender. She didn't want to kill him.
She focused her mass-inducing abilities on her opponent, then on the shattered asteroid. The asteroid pulled itself together, with Karkyn at the center. Gravity began increasing, to Earth-normal, then Jupiter-normal, then beyond.
The cameras and field generators were having difficulty maintaining stable orbits, as the continual need to make small course corrections was overloading their processors.
Kallor was now standing on the re-formed asteroid, her flight powers fighting the now-massive gravitational force. A hologram appeared before her.
"Karkyn has yielded," announced Qalraq's hologram. "He requests that you free him before he is crushed within a gravitational singularity."
===========================================================================
"You United Planets types never understand. The Empire is not a monolith," Karkyn was explaining. "This is why you repeatedly fail at diplomatic negotiations. No one Khund can speak for all."
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Korvea and Matter-Eater Lad Two had been welcomed aboard his ship. It was, by the measure of any United Planets civilization, grand and impressive.
"I can put my resources at your service," said Karkyn. "There are perhaps a million Khunds who are under my protection, and owe me fealty. And I am aware of the faction cooperating with the Dominators. I disagree with their goals, and with the risks they are taking. But what can I do? How can I move against them, when they have the strength of the Dominionators behind them?"
"We want to destroy one ship," said Kallor. "Within the next few days, it will move from the Dominion Homeworld to the planet Daxam, in United Planets space. We need to intercept it, and destroy it."
"You? Alone?" asked Karkyn. "How large a ship is this?"
"About the size of a small moon," said Kallor.
"I may owe you my life," said Karkyn. "But this is a fool's errand."
"Then lend us-- give us-- a small cloaked ship, and access to your star-maps, and let us make the journey to Elia ourselves."
"Just the four of you, against the Dominion?" asked Karkyn.
"There may be as many as seven," said Kallor.
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/04/21 05:40 PM
CHAPTER SEVEN
SABOTAGE, ESPIONAGE, AND RESTORATION
"We have analyzed your Vesta," said the Overlord. "As you indicated, there were no weapons or espionage software per se onboard. We did find an emergency alert transmitter to Colu, but that was easily disabled. The force-shield, micro-ray, and microversal ampulle, while not technically weapons, would certainly have come in handy for you. Unfortunately, we cannot return them. We are unable to reassemble it. But I am impressed by Coluan engineering."
"We have been straightforward," said Ten. "As I first told you."
"I am skeptical," said the Overlord. "Why would you bring a Cargggan on a mission to the Dominion?"
"We are no ordinary Cargggans," boasted Ffiona. "We are of exceptional intelligence."
"Well, one of us is," said Ffarrah.
"I have exceptional emotional intelligence, too," noted Ffey.
"So the Coluan child has brought his clever, trained pets with him," said the Overlord.
"As I have explained," said Ten, "There were no other options. There was a crisis. We were available. There was no one else."
"Or perhaps," said the Overlord, "They are here to disguise your numbers. We have been experiencing minor, yet inexplicable failures in some of our control systems. We might almost suspect sabotage. Perhaps one or two invisible spies have accompanied you? Yes, we know all about how Norgine effects Terran physiology. The Dominion are adept exo-biologists."
"I am sorry for the failures in your control systems," said Ten. "Perhaps you should delay your attack?"
"We would very much like to watch a Coluan grow up," said the Overlord. "But you are of no use in our breeding programmes. Coluan genetic material is over-complex-- sixteen base pairs? Overdone, if you ask me. Perhaps the satisfaction of curiosity in watching you grow up in captivity would not be worth the trouble."
"You are threatening me," said Ten.
"Yes," said the Overlord. "Your cooperation might change my mind."
"I am cooperating as fully as possible," said Ten. "If only I could convince you that the Microbe A project is a bad idea. What will you do with thousands of dead worlds?"
The Overlord's permanent smile broadened.
"You have not seen far enough into the future," he said.
==============================================================================
"{I have a lock on his mind,}" said Saturn Girl. "{He is meeting with his advisory group now. Oh! A trojan horse within a trojan horse! The plan is, after wiping out the living populations of the U.P. worlds, Microbe A will further mutate into Microbe B-- which will use the resources of the dead biomass to terraform-- eliaform-- those worlds into more perfectly suitable environments for Dominator colonization. Unfortunately, the Dominion scientists have been unable to perfectly verify this result. There is a 50/50 chance that United Planets Space will be a dead sector... And we were correct. The Dominion has already infected several of the Khundish homeworlds with Microbe A. It will begin spreading even before the UP worlds are affected... Oh}!" Saturn Girl shot up from her affected coma. "Dacey is here!" she cried out loud.
==============================================================================
The tiny cloaked ship dropped out of Otherspace on the opposite side of the Dominator's homeworld's primary. As they came out from behind the star, Elia appeared on the viewscreen. From certain angles, it was a beautiful world, with a rainbow-hued ring system. From others, the fragments of the giant, cracked moon-- actually, once Elia's twin-- could be seen, the remnant of the Great War.
The Doomsday Sphere could also be seen in orbit. A thousand kilometers in diameter, it appeared, from all external evidence, to be complete.
"Dorrit says that they have had no more luck dissuading the Dominion than we have had in inflaming the Khunds," said Dacey. "Irinia and Eulia are on the Sphere, and have been doing some minor sabotage, but they are near being detected by the Dominators."
"We should have just gone to Weber's World and warned UPGov," said Polar Lass.
"Still possible," said Star-Woman. "If we can rescue Group B, Ten might be able to convert this Khundish ship into a Timevessel."
Kallor was thinking. The Khund ship had nowhere near the firepower needed to take on the Doomsday Sphere. Even assuming only moderate defenses would mean thousands of ships, each as powerful as this one. On the other hand, she, herself, could do substantial damage. She could punch a hole from pole to pole, right through the center-- possibly destroying the energy core. The Star-Rod could do additional damage. How many times could she puncture the Sphere before they found a weapon powerful enough to stop her? She might even be able to incapacitate the entire construct.
"Go get Dorrit, the Triplicates and Ten," Star-Woman instructed her companions. "Go in guns blazing, if you have to. Have Saturn Girl get a telepathic message out to Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet, wherever they are. Have the two retreat to the Phantom Zone, then rendezvous with our ship. I have something to do." Star-Woman prepared to leave the ship.
=============================================================================
"Dacey, Kallor, Hillarie, and Korvea are on a borrowed Khundish ship," Saturn Girl reported. "Pol and Kylda are with them, but badly injured. Chameleon is lost somewhere on Khundia, his condition unknown. Dacey but she says they are coming for us. I don't know their chances of success. Kallor wants us to rendezvous with Eulia and Irinia."
The Overlord stormed into their cell, accompanied by another of his Brutes. Or was it the same one?
"You violated my mind!" he snarled. "For that, you will die before your home worlds do." Saturn Girl's eyes narrowed. On the far wall, a psionic image appeared. The Overlord, with his advisors.
"The ship is now crewed entirely with Dominion Brutes and Khundish Scientists," one advisor reported. "Both are completely expendable to their respective civilizations. As our territory expands, we rid ourselves of unwanted chaff. It is an admirable irony."
"Our agents report that infected Khund agents have reached their homeworlds," said a second. "The devastation will not be so great as in the cursed United Planets, but the Empire will be severely weakened, and ripe for conquest, once the Microbe mutates."
"This is also being broadcast throughout the Doomsday Sphere," said Saturn Girl. "It has my psychic signature on it, so that no one can doubt that it is real. Chaos will soon be erupting on your station."
"Foolish human," sneered the Overlord. "The crews of the Doomsday Sphere have already accepted a known suicide mission. They know their place in their respective societies. They are, to a soul, ready to sacrifice their lives for the greater good of their homeworlds. But you have proven a nuisance, so the time has come to be rid of you." He withdrew a communications device from his robe. "Engage temporal restoration," he ordered.
"You see," the Overlord explained, "We have completed analysis of your time-signatures, and we are sending you home."
The Brute snatched Ffiona in one massive hand. "Can't I keep this one?" he asked.
The Overlord gave no answer, as the prisoners vanished into thin air.
=============================================================================
They were on Mars.
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Korvea, and Matter-Eater Lad Two appeared in one group. Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass materialized supine nearby, They appeared without the Khundish healing devices to which they had been attached.
On the other side of the Clubhouse, Saturn Girl, Ten, Ffarrah, Ffey, and Ffiona appeared.
"That monster broke my arm," Ffiona whimpered.
"We seem to have lost Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet," Kallor said to Saturn Girl. "Can you sense any trace of them telepathically?"
"Yes, they... no, look!" Saturn Girl pointed up into the sky. The Ranzz runabout and Kallor's space-van were hurtling towards the stratosphere.
"On their way to Naltor," said Kallor. "Well, we know what time it is, anyway."
"We are only hours away from the Daxamite Wave," said Saturn Girl.
"And ten days away from the Plague," said Kallor.
"Something is wrong," said Ten. He wiped his nose. He looked startled at the green-black blood on his hand. Ten vomited. The same green-black blood was coloring his tear ducts, ears, and nose.
"They must have infected us while we were imprisoned on Elia," said Saturn Girl. "We need to quarantine ourselves," she told the Triplicates. "Keep back," she told the others.
But Star-Woman was already moving. She lifted Ten up in her arms, and sped at ultrasonic speed to the hospital at Nix Olympica. She explained the coming plague, instructing them to place Ten in a sterile, isolated environment. Black, necrotic patches were already forming on Ten's skin.
Star-Woman looked down at her own hands, the blackening patches spreading over her own skin.
=============================================================================
SABOTAGE, ESPIONAGE, AND RESTORATION
"We have analyzed your Vesta," said the Overlord. "As you indicated, there were no weapons or espionage software per se onboard. We did find an emergency alert transmitter to Colu, but that was easily disabled. The force-shield, micro-ray, and microversal ampulle, while not technically weapons, would certainly have come in handy for you. Unfortunately, we cannot return them. We are unable to reassemble it. But I am impressed by Coluan engineering."
"We have been straightforward," said Ten. "As I first told you."
"I am skeptical," said the Overlord. "Why would you bring a Cargggan on a mission to the Dominion?"
"We are no ordinary Cargggans," boasted Ffiona. "We are of exceptional intelligence."
"Well, one of us is," said Ffarrah.
"I have exceptional emotional intelligence, too," noted Ffey.
"So the Coluan child has brought his clever, trained pets with him," said the Overlord.
"As I have explained," said Ten, "There were no other options. There was a crisis. We were available. There was no one else."
"Or perhaps," said the Overlord, "They are here to disguise your numbers. We have been experiencing minor, yet inexplicable failures in some of our control systems. We might almost suspect sabotage. Perhaps one or two invisible spies have accompanied you? Yes, we know all about how Norgine effects Terran physiology. The Dominion are adept exo-biologists."
"I am sorry for the failures in your control systems," said Ten. "Perhaps you should delay your attack?"
"We would very much like to watch a Coluan grow up," said the Overlord. "But you are of no use in our breeding programmes. Coluan genetic material is over-complex-- sixteen base pairs? Overdone, if you ask me. Perhaps the satisfaction of curiosity in watching you grow up in captivity would not be worth the trouble."
"You are threatening me," said Ten.
"Yes," said the Overlord. "Your cooperation might change my mind."
"I am cooperating as fully as possible," said Ten. "If only I could convince you that the Microbe A project is a bad idea. What will you do with thousands of dead worlds?"
The Overlord's permanent smile broadened.
"You have not seen far enough into the future," he said.
==============================================================================
"{I have a lock on his mind,}" said Saturn Girl. "{He is meeting with his advisory group now. Oh! A trojan horse within a trojan horse! The plan is, after wiping out the living populations of the U.P. worlds, Microbe A will further mutate into Microbe B-- which will use the resources of the dead biomass to terraform-- eliaform-- those worlds into more perfectly suitable environments for Dominator colonization. Unfortunately, the Dominion scientists have been unable to perfectly verify this result. There is a 50/50 chance that United Planets Space will be a dead sector... And we were correct. The Dominion has already infected several of the Khundish homeworlds with Microbe A. It will begin spreading even before the UP worlds are affected... Oh}!" Saturn Girl shot up from her affected coma. "Dacey is here!" she cried out loud.
==============================================================================
The tiny cloaked ship dropped out of Otherspace on the opposite side of the Dominator's homeworld's primary. As they came out from behind the star, Elia appeared on the viewscreen. From certain angles, it was a beautiful world, with a rainbow-hued ring system. From others, the fragments of the giant, cracked moon-- actually, once Elia's twin-- could be seen, the remnant of the Great War.
The Doomsday Sphere could also be seen in orbit. A thousand kilometers in diameter, it appeared, from all external evidence, to be complete.
"Dorrit says that they have had no more luck dissuading the Dominion than we have had in inflaming the Khunds," said Dacey. "Irinia and Eulia are on the Sphere, and have been doing some minor sabotage, but they are near being detected by the Dominators."
"We should have just gone to Weber's World and warned UPGov," said Polar Lass.
"Still possible," said Star-Woman. "If we can rescue Group B, Ten might be able to convert this Khundish ship into a Timevessel."
Kallor was thinking. The Khund ship had nowhere near the firepower needed to take on the Doomsday Sphere. Even assuming only moderate defenses would mean thousands of ships, each as powerful as this one. On the other hand, she, herself, could do substantial damage. She could punch a hole from pole to pole, right through the center-- possibly destroying the energy core. The Star-Rod could do additional damage. How many times could she puncture the Sphere before they found a weapon powerful enough to stop her? She might even be able to incapacitate the entire construct.
"Go get Dorrit, the Triplicates and Ten," Star-Woman instructed her companions. "Go in guns blazing, if you have to. Have Saturn Girl get a telepathic message out to Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet, wherever they are. Have the two retreat to the Phantom Zone, then rendezvous with our ship. I have something to do." Star-Woman prepared to leave the ship.
=============================================================================
"Dacey, Kallor, Hillarie, and Korvea are on a borrowed Khundish ship," Saturn Girl reported. "Pol and Kylda are with them, but badly injured. Chameleon is lost somewhere on Khundia, his condition unknown. Dacey but she says they are coming for us. I don't know their chances of success. Kallor wants us to rendezvous with Eulia and Irinia."
The Overlord stormed into their cell, accompanied by another of his Brutes. Or was it the same one?
"You violated my mind!" he snarled. "For that, you will die before your home worlds do." Saturn Girl's eyes narrowed. On the far wall, a psionic image appeared. The Overlord, with his advisors.
"The ship is now crewed entirely with Dominion Brutes and Khundish Scientists," one advisor reported. "Both are completely expendable to their respective civilizations. As our territory expands, we rid ourselves of unwanted chaff. It is an admirable irony."
"Our agents report that infected Khund agents have reached their homeworlds," said a second. "The devastation will not be so great as in the cursed United Planets, but the Empire will be severely weakened, and ripe for conquest, once the Microbe mutates."
"This is also being broadcast throughout the Doomsday Sphere," said Saturn Girl. "It has my psychic signature on it, so that no one can doubt that it is real. Chaos will soon be erupting on your station."
"Foolish human," sneered the Overlord. "The crews of the Doomsday Sphere have already accepted a known suicide mission. They know their place in their respective societies. They are, to a soul, ready to sacrifice their lives for the greater good of their homeworlds. But you have proven a nuisance, so the time has come to be rid of you." He withdrew a communications device from his robe. "Engage temporal restoration," he ordered.
"You see," the Overlord explained, "We have completed analysis of your time-signatures, and we are sending you home."
The Brute snatched Ffiona in one massive hand. "Can't I keep this one?" he asked.
The Overlord gave no answer, as the prisoners vanished into thin air.
=============================================================================
They were on Mars.
Star-Woman, Lightning Lass, Korvea, and Matter-Eater Lad Two appeared in one group. Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass materialized supine nearby, They appeared without the Khundish healing devices to which they had been attached.
On the other side of the Clubhouse, Saturn Girl, Ten, Ffarrah, Ffey, and Ffiona appeared.
"That monster broke my arm," Ffiona whimpered.
"We seem to have lost Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet," Kallor said to Saturn Girl. "Can you sense any trace of them telepathically?"
"Yes, they... no, look!" Saturn Girl pointed up into the sky. The Ranzz runabout and Kallor's space-van were hurtling towards the stratosphere.
"On their way to Naltor," said Kallor. "Well, we know what time it is, anyway."
"We are only hours away from the Daxamite Wave," said Saturn Girl.
"And ten days away from the Plague," said Kallor.
"Something is wrong," said Ten. He wiped his nose. He looked startled at the green-black blood on his hand. Ten vomited. The same green-black blood was coloring his tear ducts, ears, and nose.
"They must have infected us while we were imprisoned on Elia," said Saturn Girl. "We need to quarantine ourselves," she told the Triplicates. "Keep back," she told the others.
But Star-Woman was already moving. She lifted Ten up in her arms, and sped at ultrasonic speed to the hospital at Nix Olympica. She explained the coming plague, instructing them to place Ten in a sterile, isolated environment. Black, necrotic patches were already forming on Ten's skin.
Star-Woman looked down at her own hands, the blackening patches spreading over her own skin.
=============================================================================
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/06/21 08:39 AM
Klar, hi there,
It's really great to have you back with us as I've really missed your stories.
This is turning really dark, which givea a great counterpoint to the sometimes naive and positive outlook of your characters.
Great point about the Khunds - they are not a unified people so diplomacy with them is virtually impossible - I may have to steal that idea as it is really great.
The Dominion infecting the group before sending them away was expected, though I didn't think you would have it hit so quickly - gulp! Hope Ten can be saved as he's possibly my favourite.
Your characters are really in keeping with earlier versions of the Legion and I really admire the respect you give them such love in their attempts to tackle galactic problems. Certainly, their parents/predecessors wouldn't have tackled anything this huge at the same stage of their development.
You'd think after the last couple of years we'd have had enough of pandemics and rising death numbers, but I'm totally hooked and looking forward to more, more, more!
It's really great to have you back with us as I've really missed your stories.
This is turning really dark, which givea a great counterpoint to the sometimes naive and positive outlook of your characters.
Great point about the Khunds - they are not a unified people so diplomacy with them is virtually impossible - I may have to steal that idea as it is really great.
The Dominion infecting the group before sending them away was expected, though I didn't think you would have it hit so quickly - gulp! Hope Ten can be saved as he's possibly my favourite.
Your characters are really in keeping with earlier versions of the Legion and I really admire the respect you give them such love in their attempts to tackle galactic problems. Certainly, their parents/predecessors wouldn't have tackled anything this huge at the same stage of their development.
You'd think after the last couple of years we'd have had enough of pandemics and rising death numbers, but I'm totally hooked and looking forward to more, more, more!
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 07:19 PM
CHAPTER EIGHT
DESTINY
Hillarie Norgay of Bismoll, who called himself Matter-Eater Lad Two, was overwhelmed.
They had gone up on the Clubhouse roof, and gotten down Kappa-Omicron-II, Ten's stainless steel monkey-bot. They had managed to get it to set up isolated medical recuperation rooms in the staterooms of the converted starship / clubhouse. Matter-Eater Lad Two had sent the little robot in to tend to Polar Lass and Cosmic Boy, both badly burned, while Lightning Lass was looking after Saturn Girl and the Triplicates, who were all already developing signs of the Dominion Plague.
Hillarie had hoped for a rapid response from the paramedics in New Metropolis, but the Daxamite Wave had begun, and all of Mars was on Planetary Alert. They had not heard from Kallor Nal or Txarlz since she had flown him off to the hospital at Nix Olympica.
His mind wandered for a moment, wondering about Eulia and Irinia, lost somewhere in Dominion space, and Chameleon, left behind on the Khund homeworld. They had not returned when the Dominators had "snapped' the rest of the Super-Hero Club back to the future.
Korvea was in the communication room, and had been trying for hours to get in touch with Talok VIII, but there was some sort of interference on all sub-etheric communications. There was no way of knowing if this was part of the Dominion invasion, or something else.
Matter-Eater Lad Two coughed up a few specks of blood. They burned his skin. "Not already," he said aloud to himself. He checked the cameras Kappa-Omicron-II had set up in the room holding Saturn Girl and the Triplicates. They appeared to be sleeping, but there were small patches of black on their faces. Lightning Lass was slumped over a console, an agonized expression on her face. Passed out? Sleeping? Nightmares?
He ran to the front of the Clubhouse, where the communications center was located. The room was empty. Korvea had probably returned to her quarters. There were patches of blue-black stain on the floor. Talokan blood.
He had to see Polar Lass, one more time. She was resting supine in her quarters, with improvised healing devices he and the monkey-bot had cobbled together from Ten's lab. The room was impossibly hot, and Hillarie hesitated to enter. First, he ran to his own quarters, and got the cooling belt Kylda's parents had given him at the Herringbone celebration. By the time he got back to Kylda, he was breathing hard, and feeling dizzy.
Polar Lass was now obviously suffering from Plague as well. The disease progressed with astonishing rapidity. Spots danced before Matter-Eater Lad Two's eyes. It had probably been a bad idea to run around the clubhouse. He retched again. He felt his cold fusion digestive system shutting down-- a vital evolutionary protection in Bismollians before serious illness. Or death.
DESTINY
Hillarie Norgay of Bismoll, who called himself Matter-Eater Lad Two, was overwhelmed.
They had gone up on the Clubhouse roof, and gotten down Kappa-Omicron-II, Ten's stainless steel monkey-bot. They had managed to get it to set up isolated medical recuperation rooms in the staterooms of the converted starship / clubhouse. Matter-Eater Lad Two had sent the little robot in to tend to Polar Lass and Cosmic Boy, both badly burned, while Lightning Lass was looking after Saturn Girl and the Triplicates, who were all already developing signs of the Dominion Plague.
Hillarie had hoped for a rapid response from the paramedics in New Metropolis, but the Daxamite Wave had begun, and all of Mars was on Planetary Alert. They had not heard from Kallor Nal or Txarlz since she had flown him off to the hospital at Nix Olympica.
His mind wandered for a moment, wondering about Eulia and Irinia, lost somewhere in Dominion space, and Chameleon, left behind on the Khund homeworld. They had not returned when the Dominators had "snapped' the rest of the Super-Hero Club back to the future.
Korvea was in the communication room, and had been trying for hours to get in touch with Talok VIII, but there was some sort of interference on all sub-etheric communications. There was no way of knowing if this was part of the Dominion invasion, or something else.
Matter-Eater Lad Two coughed up a few specks of blood. They burned his skin. "Not already," he said aloud to himself. He checked the cameras Kappa-Omicron-II had set up in the room holding Saturn Girl and the Triplicates. They appeared to be sleeping, but there were small patches of black on their faces. Lightning Lass was slumped over a console, an agonized expression on her face. Passed out? Sleeping? Nightmares?
He ran to the front of the Clubhouse, where the communications center was located. The room was empty. Korvea had probably returned to her quarters. There were patches of blue-black stain on the floor. Talokan blood.
He had to see Polar Lass, one more time. She was resting supine in her quarters, with improvised healing devices he and the monkey-bot had cobbled together from Ten's lab. The room was impossibly hot, and Hillarie hesitated to enter. First, he ran to his own quarters, and got the cooling belt Kylda's parents had given him at the Herringbone celebration. By the time he got back to Kylda, he was breathing hard, and feeling dizzy.
Polar Lass was now obviously suffering from Plague as well. The disease progressed with astonishing rapidity. Spots danced before Matter-Eater Lad Two's eyes. It had probably been a bad idea to run around the clubhouse. He retched again. He felt his cold fusion digestive system shutting down-- a vital evolutionary protection in Bismollians before serious illness. Or death.
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 07:25 PM
===============================================================================
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
NO!
{accordion music}
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isnit here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn?t here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn't here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn't here
And this is all in your program
It's a comic book space opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit
If you wanna keep with the plot
Cause it's a complicated hundred chapters
With a whole lot of different names
So look it up in your program
We'd appreciate it, thanks a lot
Da da da
Da da da
Da da da...
Dorrit!
Dorrit is a telepath
Daughter of Garth and Imra Ranzz
Daughter of Garth and Imra Ranzz
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit's sister: they share a metatelepathic mind-link
They share a metatelepathic mind-link
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon is?t here
Pol is magnetic, son of Rokk and Lydda Krinn
He?s had a secret crush on Dacey for years
A secret crush
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
And this is all in your program
It's a comic book space opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit
If you wanna keep with the plot
Cause it's a complicated hundred chapters
With a whole lot of different names
So look it up in your program
We'd appreciate it, thanks a lot
Da da da
Da da da
Da da da...
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey Ffarr!
Cargggan girls who live apart
In love with Chameleon, but it's complicated.
It's complicated!
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Txarlz is smart
A prepubescent Coluan boy
A prepubescent Coluan boy
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Kallor is powerful, Daxamite class
Daughter of Nura Nal, the High Seer
Daughter of Nura and Thom
Kallor is powerful
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Time travel and paradoxes, the war can't touch us here
More characters!
Hillarie EATS ANYTHING
And Kylda is always cold
They're in a star-crossed romance
And Korvea's just for fun!
Korvea's just for fun!
Korvea is fun
Hillarie EATS ANYTHING
Kylda is cold
Kallor is powerful
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
And what about Irinia?
Trapped in the Phantom Zone?
What about Eulia?
Tiny and abandoned in the Phantom Zone?
What about Eulia?
What about Irinia?
What about Irinia and Eulia?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4D19-1l1EQ
===============================================================================
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
NO!
{accordion music}
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isnit here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn?t here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn't here
There's a war going on
Out there somewhere
And Chameleon isn't here
And this is all in your program
It's a comic book space opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit
If you wanna keep with the plot
Cause it's a complicated hundred chapters
With a whole lot of different names
So look it up in your program
We'd appreciate it, thanks a lot
Da da da
Da da da
Da da da...
Dorrit!
Dorrit is a telepath
Daughter of Garth and Imra Ranzz
Daughter of Garth and Imra Ranzz
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit's sister: they share a metatelepathic mind-link
They share a metatelepathic mind-link
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon is?t here
Pol is magnetic, son of Rokk and Lydda Krinn
He?s had a secret crush on Dacey for years
A secret crush
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
And this is all in your program
It's a comic book space opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit
If you wanna keep with the plot
Cause it's a complicated hundred chapters
With a whole lot of different names
So look it up in your program
We'd appreciate it, thanks a lot
Da da da
Da da da
Da da da...
Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey Ffarr!
Cargggan girls who live apart
In love with Chameleon, but it's complicated.
It's complicated!
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Txarlz is smart
A prepubescent Coluan boy
A prepubescent Coluan boy
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Kallor is powerful, Daxamite class
Daughter of Nura Nal, the High Seer
Daughter of Nura and Thom
Kallor is powerful
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
Time travel and paradoxes, the war can't touch us here
More characters!
Hillarie EATS ANYTHING
And Kylda is always cold
They're in a star-crossed romance
And Korvea's just for fun!
Korvea's just for fun!
Korvea is fun
Hillarie EATS ANYTHING
Kylda is cold
Kallor is powerful
Txarlz is smart
Cargggan girls who live apart
Pol is magnetic
Dacey has lightning
Dorrit is a telepath
And Chameleon isn't here
And what about Irinia?
Trapped in the Phantom Zone?
What about Eulia?
Tiny and abandoned in the Phantom Zone?
What about Eulia?
What about Irinia?
What about Irinia and Eulia?
https:/
===============================================================================
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 07:33 PM
Meanwhile... Somewhere near Dominion Space
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet floated in the Phantom Zone. The Dominator's Temporal Restorator had not reached here. Across the dimensions, they were onboard the Doomsday Sphere, but did not dare come out into the solid world. There were too many Khundish scientists and Dominion Brutes roaming the corridors now.
By eavesdropping, they had learned of the disappearance of the rest of the Members. The empty Khundish cloaked ship had been located and destroyed. It was now just the two of them.
A few days before, they had still been attempting sabotage. There had been a small explosion, and a few microdroplets of green gas had grazed Shrinking Violet, turning her left hand, and a patch on the left side of her face, a leprous white. Phantom Girl had snatched her companion back into the Zone, but Eulia was now stuck at five inches high. She seemed incapable of changing size while in the Zone. Shrinking Violet's fingernails on the affected hand had turned dark. Shrinking Violet's mind seemed unaffected by the modified joker-gas. For now.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0d7ddcaef1adc772c3dbaf6ed74650d6/tumblr_psfk9vb7RO1uwm5uqo1_400.png)
The Sphere had now begun its journey to U.P. space, accelerating at sub-light speeds toward a portal on the edge of the Elian system.
"I'm not sure I can keep us in phase with the ship when it crosses into Hyperspace," said Phantom Girl.
"If we could find a Central Control, we still might be able to stop all this," said Shrinking Violet. "But this bastardized Khund-Dominion tech is beyond my understanding."
"The Central Control may be back on Elia," said Phantom Girl. "But let's continue..."
The ship vanished around them. The two Members were alone, just outside the Hyperspace portal.
"Back to the Dominion Homeworld, then," said Shrinking Violet.
"I'm not sure I know the way," said Phantom Girl.
Then there was a third personage in the Phantom Zone.
"Little children," the figure was clothed in a tattered robe, with a deep cowl hiding his face. "You are unhappy with your Destiny. You have sought to change it. But Destiny is not so easily changed as that."
Shrinking Violet gasped when she saw the figure. "The Time Trapper?" she exclaimed.
The robed figure drew back his hood. It was the face of an old man. "Fortune smiles upon you," he said. "I am not the Time Trapper, but Destiny of the Endless."
Phantom Girl and the tiny Shrinking Violet stood silent.
"Destiny, of the Endless," Destiny repeated. He consulted the huge, worn book bound with chains to his waist. "Ah, I see. You have never heard of me. Well, I am the embodiment of Destiny. A... an anthropomorphic personification, as it were. Since before the beginning of time, I have been reading this book, which contains all that has ever happened, all that ever will happen, anywhere, in the past, the present, or the future. This is what you and your companions have tried to change. Do not be discouraged that your efforts have proven futile."
"But thousands of trillions of sentient beings will die!" cried Phantom Girl.
"I have seen thousands of trillions of stars die," said Destiny. "And that since your last birthday,"
"But there must be a way to change the future?" asked Phantom Girl. "The 'destiny' of the United Planets, at least. Of course... otherwise, why would you be here?"
"There is a way. It is not easy. And there is a cost." said Destiny.
"Anything," said Phantom Girl.
"That is precisely the cost," said Destiny. "Anything. Everything."
A second Book of Destiny, trailing chains, appeared in the airless atmosphere of the Phantom Zone.
"Bind yourself to this book," said Destiny. "Take upon yourself my role, with this new history of a new Universe. You will become the Destiny of this Universe. You will read every word of the Book of Destiny, from the first to the last. It is not so bad. There are pictures."
"And what is the use of a book," said Phantom Girl, "without pictures or conversations?"
Destiny looked at her oddly. "There are other considerations. Your friends are now at peace. Bring them back, and the Super-Hero Club will face trials and challenges you have not hitherto imagined."
Phantom Girl, without hesitation, bound the chains of the Book of Destiny about her waist. She opened the book. The pages glowed faintly in the purple-gray darkness of the Zone.
"But these pages are blank!" said Phantom Girl.
"Precisely," said Destiny. "Begin reading."
A single word appeared at the top of the first page. Shrinking Violet read over Phantom Girl's shoulder.
"Yehior?" read Shrinking Violet. "But what does it mean?"
But Phantom Girl was already turning pages, past text and illustrations. Her short blonde hair grew long, then gray, then white. Her dark face became lined with age. Her 'Phantom Girl' cape enlarged and grew, becoming a paler version of the other Destiny's robe. She lifted the hood up over her head.
"But observe," said Destiny-- the first Destiny. "Already she had read through the history of fourteen gigaannum. She is now coming to a page that will interest you."
The three read the new Book of Destiny together. Phantom Girl turned a page, and there was a strange illustration.
"It looks like a cross between a sea anemone and a green salad," said Shrinking Violet.
"It is the Dominator's Time Restorator," said Destiny. "If someone were to sabotage it..." He picked up the tiny Shrinking Violet, and dropped her into the page.
Shrinking Violet tore at the interior of the Time Restorator with both hands. Her right hand nut-brown, her left hand chalk-white, with green nails. Sparks crackled, fumes filled the chamber. The machine was clearly malfunctioning.
"The beginning of a new Destiny," thought Shrinking Violet, "But the end of me.
A white-gloved hand reached through the wall of the Time Restorator, grabbed Shrinking Violet, and drew her out. They were in some sort of Dominion control room. The Time Restorator did not look well.
"Back to the Phantom Zone," said Phantom Girl. "Guards are coming,"
"But how are you here?" asked Shrinking Violet. "Didn't we..."
"Do you think I would abandon you?" asked Phantom Girl.
"But you were..." said Shrinking Violet. But she had forgotten what she was going to say.
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet floated in the Phantom Zone. The Dominator's Temporal Restorator had not reached here. Across the dimensions, they were onboard the Doomsday Sphere, but did not dare come out into the solid world. There were too many Khundish scientists and Dominion Brutes roaming the corridors now.
By eavesdropping, they had learned of the disappearance of the rest of the Members. The empty Khundish cloaked ship had been located and destroyed. It was now just the two of them.
A few days before, they had still been attempting sabotage. There had been a small explosion, and a few microdroplets of green gas had grazed Shrinking Violet, turning her left hand, and a patch on the left side of her face, a leprous white. Phantom Girl had snatched her companion back into the Zone, but Eulia was now stuck at five inches high. She seemed incapable of changing size while in the Zone. Shrinking Violet's fingernails on the affected hand had turned dark. Shrinking Violet's mind seemed unaffected by the modified joker-gas. For now.
The Sphere had now begun its journey to U.P. space, accelerating at sub-light speeds toward a portal on the edge of the Elian system.
"I'm not sure I can keep us in phase with the ship when it crosses into Hyperspace," said Phantom Girl.
"If we could find a Central Control, we still might be able to stop all this," said Shrinking Violet. "But this bastardized Khund-Dominion tech is beyond my understanding."
"The Central Control may be back on Elia," said Phantom Girl. "But let's continue..."
The ship vanished around them. The two Members were alone, just outside the Hyperspace portal.
"Back to the Dominion Homeworld, then," said Shrinking Violet.
"I'm not sure I know the way," said Phantom Girl.
Then there was a third personage in the Phantom Zone.
"Little children," the figure was clothed in a tattered robe, with a deep cowl hiding his face. "You are unhappy with your Destiny. You have sought to change it. But Destiny is not so easily changed as that."
Shrinking Violet gasped when she saw the figure. "The Time Trapper?" she exclaimed.
The robed figure drew back his hood. It was the face of an old man. "Fortune smiles upon you," he said. "I am not the Time Trapper, but Destiny of the Endless."
Phantom Girl and the tiny Shrinking Violet stood silent.
"Destiny, of the Endless," Destiny repeated. He consulted the huge, worn book bound with chains to his waist. "Ah, I see. You have never heard of me. Well, I am the embodiment of Destiny. A... an anthropomorphic personification, as it were. Since before the beginning of time, I have been reading this book, which contains all that has ever happened, all that ever will happen, anywhere, in the past, the present, or the future. This is what you and your companions have tried to change. Do not be discouraged that your efforts have proven futile."
"But thousands of trillions of sentient beings will die!" cried Phantom Girl.
"I have seen thousands of trillions of stars die," said Destiny. "And that since your last birthday,"
"But there must be a way to change the future?" asked Phantom Girl. "The 'destiny' of the United Planets, at least. Of course... otherwise, why would you be here?"
"There is a way. It is not easy. And there is a cost." said Destiny.
"Anything," said Phantom Girl.
"That is precisely the cost," said Destiny. "Anything. Everything."
A second Book of Destiny, trailing chains, appeared in the airless atmosphere of the Phantom Zone.
"Bind yourself to this book," said Destiny. "Take upon yourself my role, with this new history of a new Universe. You will become the Destiny of this Universe. You will read every word of the Book of Destiny, from the first to the last. It is not so bad. There are pictures."
"And what is the use of a book," said Phantom Girl, "without pictures or conversations?"
Destiny looked at her oddly. "There are other considerations. Your friends are now at peace. Bring them back, and the Super-Hero Club will face trials and challenges you have not hitherto imagined."
Phantom Girl, without hesitation, bound the chains of the Book of Destiny about her waist. She opened the book. The pages glowed faintly in the purple-gray darkness of the Zone.
"But these pages are blank!" said Phantom Girl.
"Precisely," said Destiny. "Begin reading."
A single word appeared at the top of the first page. Shrinking Violet read over Phantom Girl's shoulder.
"Yehior?" read Shrinking Violet. "But what does it mean?"
But Phantom Girl was already turning pages, past text and illustrations. Her short blonde hair grew long, then gray, then white. Her dark face became lined with age. Her 'Phantom Girl' cape enlarged and grew, becoming a paler version of the other Destiny's robe. She lifted the hood up over her head.
"But observe," said Destiny-- the first Destiny. "Already she had read through the history of fourteen gigaannum. She is now coming to a page that will interest you."
The three read the new Book of Destiny together. Phantom Girl turned a page, and there was a strange illustration.
"It looks like a cross between a sea anemone and a green salad," said Shrinking Violet.
"It is the Dominator's Time Restorator," said Destiny. "If someone were to sabotage it..." He picked up the tiny Shrinking Violet, and dropped her into the page.
Shrinking Violet tore at the interior of the Time Restorator with both hands. Her right hand nut-brown, her left hand chalk-white, with green nails. Sparks crackled, fumes filled the chamber. The machine was clearly malfunctioning.
"The beginning of a new Destiny," thought Shrinking Violet, "But the end of me.
A white-gloved hand reached through the wall of the Time Restorator, grabbed Shrinking Violet, and drew her out. They were in some sort of Dominion control room. The Time Restorator did not look well.
"Back to the Phantom Zone," said Phantom Girl. "Guards are coming,"
"But how are you here?" asked Shrinking Violet. "Didn't we..."
"Do you think I would abandon you?" asked Phantom Girl.
"But you were..." said Shrinking Violet. But she had forgotten what she was going to say.
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 07:43 PM
CHAPTER NINE
DISASTER
"You see," the Overlord explained, "We have completed analysis of your time-signatures, and we are sending you home."
The Brute snatched Ffiona in one massive hand. "Can't I keep this one"? he asked.
The Overlord was startled, as the prisoners failed to vanish into thin air.
"Temporal Control!" he hissed into his communication device. "What is the problem?" He turned to the Brute. "Put that creature down, and come with me." He exited in haste. "Nothing can ever be easy," he muttered under his breath.
"That monster broke my arm," Ffiona whimpered.
There was enough loose material in the room-- or material that could be loosened-- to wrap Ffiona's arm in a splint.
"I?m going to give you a hypnotic suggestion," said Saturn Girl. "It will ease the pain."
"Something is wrong," said Ten. He coughed, and wiped his nose. He looked startled at the green-black blood on his hand. Ten vomited. The same green-black blood was coloring his tear ducts, ears, and nose.
"The Overlord infected us!" Saturn Girl cried out. "And he was going to send us back to the future-- back into United Planets space." She fumed. "The Dominators are all monsters."
============================================================================
The trip through the Doomsday Sphere had been harder than Kallor had expected. There had been plenty of defenses prepared, and she had not yet come across a central power station. It must have been placed somewhere off-center. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. It was just her and the Doomsday Sphere now. She had no idea of the status of her comrades.
There was some sort of malfunction. An intense beam of radiation shot out from the central deflector towards the Dominator's stellar primary. Had she caused this? This was the ray that had turned Daxam's red sun yellow. But the Dominion primary was a blue-white giant. The effect...
The effect would be evident in minutes. A three-hundred-mile-wide column of energy towered above the central deflector. If Kallor could disable that... perhaps the damage could be... well, a little less.
=============================================================================
The Khund ship uncloaked, as it took a direct hit. All systems shut down, including life-support.
"It's been a good run," said Matter-Eater Lad Two to Korvea. "See you on the other side?"
A giant ship loomed over them. A tractor beam dragged the little ship onboard.
"I am a fool," said Karkyn. "And the members of my crew who stayed are fools with me."
"We need to rescue our friends," said Dacey. Korvea nodded in agreement.
"We need," said Karkyn, "To get to the night side of this planet. It is the one possible safe place. Have you ever seen a supernova up close? Neither have I. This is our opportunity."
Karkyn indicated the injured Polar Lass and Cosmic Boy. "Get these two to the medical bay," he ordered his crew. "Give them all appropriate care. We await Kallor Nah. Beyond all expectation, our enemies, it appears, are about to be defeated."
The Dominion primary detonated. The Doomsday Sphere was atomized in the explosion, as was the sunward half of Elia. From Karkyn's ship, they saw the jagged fragments of Elia's ring light up like suns.
==============================================================================
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet, hiding in the Phantom Zone, saw the supernova on the flowery Dominion monitors as they ghosted through the corridors of the Citadel. It was accompanied by a tremendous earthquake.
"We must be on the night side of Elia," said Shrinking Violet.
"Why do you say that"? said Phantom Girl.
"Because we are not looking at a pool of molten slag."
"That flare destroyed the Doomsday Sphere," said Phantom Girl. "Which side of the planet do you think Saturn Girl, Ten, and the Triplicates were on?"
"If you remember," said Shrinking Violet, "We left them on the sunward side a few hours ago. We checked in with them at dawn. But maybe Kallor's group managed to rescue them? Our friends may have survived. As well as the United Planets."
"But at what cost? Billions of Dominators' lives?" said Phantom Girl. "We are complicit in those deaths!"
"Billions of Dominators will die," said Shrinking Violet, "But hundreds of trillions in the United Planets will be saved."
"This is not some Trolley Problem," said Phantom Girl, her voice choking. "This is not what I signed up for."
"No, you are right, this is not super-heroing," said Shrinking Violet. "It is war. And in war, there are winners and losers. And death. Death and Destruction immeasurable."
DISASTER
"You see," the Overlord explained, "We have completed analysis of your time-signatures, and we are sending you home."
The Brute snatched Ffiona in one massive hand. "Can't I keep this one"? he asked.
The Overlord was startled, as the prisoners failed to vanish into thin air.
"Temporal Control!" he hissed into his communication device. "What is the problem?" He turned to the Brute. "Put that creature down, and come with me." He exited in haste. "Nothing can ever be easy," he muttered under his breath.
"That monster broke my arm," Ffiona whimpered.
There was enough loose material in the room-- or material that could be loosened-- to wrap Ffiona's arm in a splint.
"I?m going to give you a hypnotic suggestion," said Saturn Girl. "It will ease the pain."
"Something is wrong," said Ten. He coughed, and wiped his nose. He looked startled at the green-black blood on his hand. Ten vomited. The same green-black blood was coloring his tear ducts, ears, and nose.
"The Overlord infected us!" Saturn Girl cried out. "And he was going to send us back to the future-- back into United Planets space." She fumed. "The Dominators are all monsters."
============================================================================
The trip through the Doomsday Sphere had been harder than Kallor had expected. There had been plenty of defenses prepared, and she had not yet come across a central power station. It must have been placed somewhere off-center. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. It was just her and the Doomsday Sphere now. She had no idea of the status of her comrades.
There was some sort of malfunction. An intense beam of radiation shot out from the central deflector towards the Dominator's stellar primary. Had she caused this? This was the ray that had turned Daxam's red sun yellow. But the Dominion primary was a blue-white giant. The effect...
The effect would be evident in minutes. A three-hundred-mile-wide column of energy towered above the central deflector. If Kallor could disable that... perhaps the damage could be... well, a little less.
=============================================================================
The Khund ship uncloaked, as it took a direct hit. All systems shut down, including life-support.
"It's been a good run," said Matter-Eater Lad Two to Korvea. "See you on the other side?"
A giant ship loomed over them. A tractor beam dragged the little ship onboard.
"I am a fool," said Karkyn. "And the members of my crew who stayed are fools with me."
"We need to rescue our friends," said Dacey. Korvea nodded in agreement.
"We need," said Karkyn, "To get to the night side of this planet. It is the one possible safe place. Have you ever seen a supernova up close? Neither have I. This is our opportunity."
Karkyn indicated the injured Polar Lass and Cosmic Boy. "Get these two to the medical bay," he ordered his crew. "Give them all appropriate care. We await Kallor Nah. Beyond all expectation, our enemies, it appears, are about to be defeated."
The Dominion primary detonated. The Doomsday Sphere was atomized in the explosion, as was the sunward half of Elia. From Karkyn's ship, they saw the jagged fragments of Elia's ring light up like suns.
==============================================================================
Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet, hiding in the Phantom Zone, saw the supernova on the flowery Dominion monitors as they ghosted through the corridors of the Citadel. It was accompanied by a tremendous earthquake.
"We must be on the night side of Elia," said Shrinking Violet.
"Why do you say that"? said Phantom Girl.
"Because we are not looking at a pool of molten slag."
"That flare destroyed the Doomsday Sphere," said Phantom Girl. "Which side of the planet do you think Saturn Girl, Ten, and the Triplicates were on?"
"If you remember," said Shrinking Violet, "We left them on the sunward side a few hours ago. We checked in with them at dawn. But maybe Kallor's group managed to rescue them? Our friends may have survived. As well as the United Planets."
"But at what cost? Billions of Dominators' lives?" said Phantom Girl. "We are complicit in those deaths!"
"Billions of Dominators will die," said Shrinking Violet, "But hundreds of trillions in the United Planets will be saved."
"This is not some Trolley Problem," said Phantom Girl, her voice choking. "This is not what I signed up for."
"No, you are right, this is not super-heroing," said Shrinking Violet. "It is war. And in war, there are winners and losers. And death. Death and Destruction immeasurable."
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 07:56 PM
=============================================================================
THE NEXT WAR
-- Wilfred Owen
War's a joke for me and you,
While we know such dreams are true.
- Siegfried Sassoon
Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
=============================================================================
THE NEXT WAR
-- Wilfred Owen
War's a joke for me and you,
While we know such dreams are true.
- Siegfried Sassoon
Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.
Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.
=============================================================================
Re: Another Way Forward - 10/08/21 08:04 PM
INTERREGNUM
TEMPORAL MECHANICS SIMPLIFIED
Four Super-Hero Clubs, Three Universes:
Earth K2-Alpha:
This is the original timeline foreseen by Kallor and her mother.The High Seer does not summon the Members, nor send them back in time. Ten days after the Daxamite wave, everyone on Mars dies from the Dominion Plague, and ninety-something percent of the rest of the United Planets.
Earth K2-Beta:
This timeline diverges from the Beta line, as the Members appear several weeks in the past in Khund and Dominion Space. They had been / will be summoned from Mars to Naltor by the High Seer, and sent back in time. Due to the intervention of the Dominators the teams reappear back on Mars (except Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet and Chameleon) just as their past selves leave Mars for Naltor. Already infected with the Plague, they die several days earlier than everyone else in the United Planets.
Events after this progress similarly as on Earth K2-Alpha. Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet are removed from this reality through the interference of Destiny of the Endless.
Earth K2-Gamma:
An entirely new Universe, which diverges from Earth K2-Beta at the point when the Dominion fails to send the Super-Hero Club back to Mars, as Shrinking Violet (merged with her Beta counterpart) sabotages the Dominator?s Time Restorator. The Earth K2-Beta Irinia Apero becomes the new Destiny of this timeline, observing this Universe from its beginning (including another version of Irinia Apero being born, and becoming a Phantom Girl in this universe). Because the Doomsday Sphere is destroyed, the Khund-Dominion War, the Daxamite Wave, and the Dominion Plague never happen. But at great cost. The Super-Hero Club in Dominion and Khund space never returns to Mars, and most die. However, as the High Seer never summons the Super-Hero Club of this Universe to Naltor, and they do not travel back in time, they remain safe on Mars. It is only their temporal duplicates who never return
This results in a temporal paradox. The Members of the Super-Hero Club who appear in the past in Khund and Dominion Space to save the future come from Nowhere. They have memories of the Beta Universe, but that future no longer exists. They are sourceless chronal quantum replicants.
And they sacrificed their lives for the existence of this Universe.
The Super-Hero Club that exists in this continuity is unaware of the threat that their other selves succeeded in preventing. The Earth K2-Beta Irinia / Phantom Girl / Destiny, however, remembers both Universes, and continues to observe this new Universe?s progression.
As now, so do we.
==========================================================================
In the kitchen of the Super-Hero Clubhouse on Mars, Saturn Girl was reading the daily newsfeeds. Star-Woman came in, looking for a cup of Kono.
"Had any portentous dreams lately?" asked Saturn Girl.
"My sleep has been remarkably restful recently," said Star-Woman.
"Have you seen this?" Saturn Girl asked. "Some kind of massive catastrophe on Elia-- the Dominion Homeworld. And a devastating plague of some sort has hit a smattering of worlds in the Khundish Empire. Aetia, Brok, some others. Details are scarce, because both governments are denying everything. But there also seems to have been a mutual declaration of war between the Dominators and the Khunds. No ships have been launched yet, but sectors of the United Planets that lie between the two Empires have been put on alert."
"They say 'May you live in interesting times' is an old Terran curse," said Star-Woman.
TEMPORAL MECHANICS SIMPLIFIED
Four Super-Hero Clubs, Three Universes:
Earth K2-Alpha:
This is the original timeline foreseen by Kallor and her mother.The High Seer does not summon the Members, nor send them back in time. Ten days after the Daxamite wave, everyone on Mars dies from the Dominion Plague, and ninety-something percent of the rest of the United Planets.
Earth K2-Beta:
This timeline diverges from the Beta line, as the Members appear several weeks in the past in Khund and Dominion Space. They had been / will be summoned from Mars to Naltor by the High Seer, and sent back in time. Due to the intervention of the Dominators the teams reappear back on Mars (except Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet and Chameleon) just as their past selves leave Mars for Naltor. Already infected with the Plague, they die several days earlier than everyone else in the United Planets.
Events after this progress similarly as on Earth K2-Alpha. Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet are removed from this reality through the interference of Destiny of the Endless.
Earth K2-Gamma:
An entirely new Universe, which diverges from Earth K2-Beta at the point when the Dominion fails to send the Super-Hero Club back to Mars, as Shrinking Violet (merged with her Beta counterpart) sabotages the Dominator?s Time Restorator. The Earth K2-Beta Irinia Apero becomes the new Destiny of this timeline, observing this Universe from its beginning (including another version of Irinia Apero being born, and becoming a Phantom Girl in this universe). Because the Doomsday Sphere is destroyed, the Khund-Dominion War, the Daxamite Wave, and the Dominion Plague never happen. But at great cost. The Super-Hero Club in Dominion and Khund space never returns to Mars, and most die. However, as the High Seer never summons the Super-Hero Club of this Universe to Naltor, and they do not travel back in time, they remain safe on Mars. It is only their temporal duplicates who never return
This results in a temporal paradox. The Members of the Super-Hero Club who appear in the past in Khund and Dominion Space to save the future come from Nowhere. They have memories of the Beta Universe, but that future no longer exists. They are sourceless chronal quantum replicants.
And they sacrificed their lives for the existence of this Universe.
The Super-Hero Club that exists in this continuity is unaware of the threat that their other selves succeeded in preventing. The Earth K2-Beta Irinia / Phantom Girl / Destiny, however, remembers both Universes, and continues to observe this new Universe?s progression.
As now, so do we.
==========================================================================
In the kitchen of the Super-Hero Clubhouse on Mars, Saturn Girl was reading the daily newsfeeds. Star-Woman came in, looking for a cup of Kono.
"Had any portentous dreams lately?" asked Saturn Girl.
"My sleep has been remarkably restful recently," said Star-Woman.
"Have you seen this?" Saturn Girl asked. "Some kind of massive catastrophe on Elia-- the Dominion Homeworld. And a devastating plague of some sort has hit a smattering of worlds in the Khundish Empire. Aetia, Brok, some others. Details are scarce, because both governments are denying everything. But there also seems to have been a mutual declaration of war between the Dominators and the Khunds. No ships have been launched yet, but sectors of the United Planets that lie between the two Empires have been put on alert."
"They say 'May you live in interesting times' is an old Terran curse," said Star-Woman.
YOUNG LEGION BOOK TWO - 10/18/21 05:19 PM
CHAPTER TEN
IKAW
"How's it going, TL?" asked Phantom Girl.
"TL?" asked Ten. "Are you addressing me? Oh, I see. The initial Interlac characters of my given name. We have a similar sobriquet convention on Colu, although we use the terminal characters. It is considered a term of endearment."
"So you would be ZZ?" asked Phantom Girl.
"ZZ3," Ten replied. "Or Plural Zed Tre... no, it does not translate."
"So, who was that you were talking to?" asked Phantom Girl. "Anything the rest of the Members should know about?"
"A metahuman with an interesting story," said Ten. "He calls himself 'Ikaw'."
He is about sixty years old. His metahuman power is the ability to completely replicate the personality, memory, and emotions of any other being, becoming in essence an exact psychic copy of that individual. The problem is that this replication overwrites the previous personality-- his brain can only contain one at a time.
There appears to also be some consistent, unconscious impulse to frequently assume new identities every few years.
About thirty-five years ago, he began keeping journals, to provide himself some sort of continuity. However, he has no record or memory of his life prior to that.
A few years ago, he hired a private detective to uncover his ultimate origins-- a man named Brane. He has been able to reconstruct some of his history from old public records, but he 'hit a wall', so to speak, at age fourteen, when Ikaw appeared on Xanthu, with no indication of how he got there.
Ikaw replicated Brane's identity, and has been working since then on the mystery of his past. Genetic testing has narrowed his parents down to around a thousand possible couples-- but there is no clear indication that any of them had a son his age at the appropriate time. A few of them have already passed on.
Ikaw was considering contacting and interviewing each couple individually, but there is also the possibility that he is the child of unregistered colonists in some remote corner of the U.P., or even Terrans who have emigrated outside the United Planets. He was hesitant to intrude on the thousand couples in what might be a fruitless venture.
He had the idea that I, as a 1Oth-level Coluan intellect, might be able to help him.
"You let him replicate your mind, didn't you?" said Phantom Girl.
"I did indeed," replied Ten. "It is interesting, knowing there is another 'me' out there, at least for a while. He also provided me with his complete history, and I will be dedicating a fraction of my time to studying it. Although, as he will be applying his full intellect to the problem, I believe that if it is soluble, then Ikaw will solve it first. As a long-time adult in the UP, he also has resources available to him that I do not have."
"And where has he gone now?" asked Phantom Girl.
"New Titan," said Ten. "As his genetic profile indicated some Saturnian heritage. Although it is also possible that it is merely a convergent mutation."
===============================================================================
Ikaw peered into the time-viewer at the Time Institute on New Titan. It had taken him several months to gain access, and his screen time was limited. The scene was the Kardinal Spaceport on Xanthu, about fifty years ago. He was comparing two visual frames, side-by-side. In one, his fourteen-year-old self stood there, between two luggage bags. In the other, a few milliseconds before, there was the same spot in the Spaceport, completely empty. There was no indication of a transmatter gate, nor the telltale sparkle of a transporter beam.
"Fascinating," Ikaw said to himself.
===============================================================================
Colu:
"Grumm Boz," said Ikaw. "I know your time is valuable. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you. I am particularly interested in your new Spacetime Pentachoron." The silver-grey pyramid nearly filled the little laboratory.
"At last!" said Grumm Boz. "Someone gets the name right! Others call it the Time Tetrahedron-- even some here on Colu! Ignoramuses! A new kind of time machine, they say. Nincompoops!"
"It is, of course, far more than a time machine," said Ikaw, utilizing the diplomatic skills Ten had learned on Mars.
"Indeed, exactly so," said Grumm Boz. Holographic blueprints sprang up all over the walls. "As you see, it has a Micro-Time Beacon, to prevent parachronal drift. There is a Time Paradox Inhibitor, to prevent you from, for example, killing your grandfather, either accidentally or intentionally. There are mechanisms to either send you through time, or to send time through you, aging or de-aging one as desired. This makes it, in effect, an immortality machine-- although there is the memory loss issue, but I believe that can ultimately be resolved. The Pentachoron even synchronizes an individual's time-signature with the destination. No more strangers in time! It is possible to retrieve any object or individual from any address in spacetime, or to transfer or exchange consciousnesses only. Imagine! An interview with the mind of Vril Dox himself! The Council has had that project under consideration. I believe approval will be shortly forthcoming."
"I am particularly interested," said Ikaw, "In its omnidimensional time-viewing capabilities. I have certain coordinates I am specifically interested in."
Grumm Boz blinked. "You were recommended by Renlo Tabor, on behalf of his juvenile mentor Txarlz Luz..."
Ikaw was momentarily confused. "But I am Txarlz Luz," he thought. "Where is Vesta, my robo-nanny? No, wait, Ikaw asked me to help uncover his origins. I allowed him to replicate my mind. I am Ikaw now. Why am I so confused? I must be having trouble maintaining the coherence of a tenth-level intellect."
"... Renlo Tagor is well respected," Grumm Boz continued, "And Txarlz Luz is from a good family. I am sure I can help you. Let me see those coordinates."
The familiar scene displayed on the triangular screen. "You see this individual?" asked Ikaw. "Jump back a moment, he is not there. Jump forward an instant, and he just suddenly... appears. Yet there is no teleportation signature, no extra-dimensionality or anomalous time-signature detectable. Where does he come from?"
Grumm Boz toggled back and forth between the vacant space at the spaceport, and the sudden mysterious appearance. "A perfect challenge for the Spacetime Pentachoron!" exclaimed Grumm Boz gleefully. "We will determine his origins!"
A wave of dizziness swept over Ikaw. His thoughts were jumbled, confused. The room spun. He felt himself fainting...
"Careful, clumsy oaf!" shouted Grumm Boz, as Ikaw collapsed against a control panel. Ikaw vanished. A much younger version of himself appeared on the triangular screen, at Kardinal Spaceport.
"Buffoon," muttered Grumm Boz, turning back to his work. "And he shorted out the Paradox Inhibitor as well."
IKAW
"How's it going, TL?" asked Phantom Girl.
"TL?" asked Ten. "Are you addressing me? Oh, I see. The initial Interlac characters of my given name. We have a similar sobriquet convention on Colu, although we use the terminal characters. It is considered a term of endearment."
"So you would be ZZ?" asked Phantom Girl.
"ZZ3," Ten replied. "Or Plural Zed Tre... no, it does not translate."
"So, who was that you were talking to?" asked Phantom Girl. "Anything the rest of the Members should know about?"
"A metahuman with an interesting story," said Ten. "He calls himself 'Ikaw'."
He is about sixty years old. His metahuman power is the ability to completely replicate the personality, memory, and emotions of any other being, becoming in essence an exact psychic copy of that individual. The problem is that this replication overwrites the previous personality-- his brain can only contain one at a time.
There appears to also be some consistent, unconscious impulse to frequently assume new identities every few years.
About thirty-five years ago, he began keeping journals, to provide himself some sort of continuity. However, he has no record or memory of his life prior to that.
A few years ago, he hired a private detective to uncover his ultimate origins-- a man named Brane. He has been able to reconstruct some of his history from old public records, but he 'hit a wall', so to speak, at age fourteen, when Ikaw appeared on Xanthu, with no indication of how he got there.
Ikaw replicated Brane's identity, and has been working since then on the mystery of his past. Genetic testing has narrowed his parents down to around a thousand possible couples-- but there is no clear indication that any of them had a son his age at the appropriate time. A few of them have already passed on.
Ikaw was considering contacting and interviewing each couple individually, but there is also the possibility that he is the child of unregistered colonists in some remote corner of the U.P., or even Terrans who have emigrated outside the United Planets. He was hesitant to intrude on the thousand couples in what might be a fruitless venture.
He had the idea that I, as a 1Oth-level Coluan intellect, might be able to help him.
"You let him replicate your mind, didn't you?" said Phantom Girl.
"I did indeed," replied Ten. "It is interesting, knowing there is another 'me' out there, at least for a while. He also provided me with his complete history, and I will be dedicating a fraction of my time to studying it. Although, as he will be applying his full intellect to the problem, I believe that if it is soluble, then Ikaw will solve it first. As a long-time adult in the UP, he also has resources available to him that I do not have."
"And where has he gone now?" asked Phantom Girl.
"New Titan," said Ten. "As his genetic profile indicated some Saturnian heritage. Although it is also possible that it is merely a convergent mutation."
===============================================================================
Ikaw peered into the time-viewer at the Time Institute on New Titan. It had taken him several months to gain access, and his screen time was limited. The scene was the Kardinal Spaceport on Xanthu, about fifty years ago. He was comparing two visual frames, side-by-side. In one, his fourteen-year-old self stood there, between two luggage bags. In the other, a few milliseconds before, there was the same spot in the Spaceport, completely empty. There was no indication of a transmatter gate, nor the telltale sparkle of a transporter beam.
"Fascinating," Ikaw said to himself.
===============================================================================
Colu:
"Grumm Boz," said Ikaw. "I know your time is valuable. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you. I am particularly interested in your new Spacetime Pentachoron." The silver-grey pyramid nearly filled the little laboratory.
"At last!" said Grumm Boz. "Someone gets the name right! Others call it the Time Tetrahedron-- even some here on Colu! Ignoramuses! A new kind of time machine, they say. Nincompoops!"
"It is, of course, far more than a time machine," said Ikaw, utilizing the diplomatic skills Ten had learned on Mars.
"Indeed, exactly so," said Grumm Boz. Holographic blueprints sprang up all over the walls. "As you see, it has a Micro-Time Beacon, to prevent parachronal drift. There is a Time Paradox Inhibitor, to prevent you from, for example, killing your grandfather, either accidentally or intentionally. There are mechanisms to either send you through time, or to send time through you, aging or de-aging one as desired. This makes it, in effect, an immortality machine-- although there is the memory loss issue, but I believe that can ultimately be resolved. The Pentachoron even synchronizes an individual's time-signature with the destination. No more strangers in time! It is possible to retrieve any object or individual from any address in spacetime, or to transfer or exchange consciousnesses only. Imagine! An interview with the mind of Vril Dox himself! The Council has had that project under consideration. I believe approval will be shortly forthcoming."
"I am particularly interested," said Ikaw, "In its omnidimensional time-viewing capabilities. I have certain coordinates I am specifically interested in."
Grumm Boz blinked. "You were recommended by Renlo Tabor, on behalf of his juvenile mentor Txarlz Luz..."
Ikaw was momentarily confused. "But I am Txarlz Luz," he thought. "Where is Vesta, my robo-nanny? No, wait, Ikaw asked me to help uncover his origins. I allowed him to replicate my mind. I am Ikaw now. Why am I so confused? I must be having trouble maintaining the coherence of a tenth-level intellect."
"... Renlo Tagor is well respected," Grumm Boz continued, "And Txarlz Luz is from a good family. I am sure I can help you. Let me see those coordinates."
The familiar scene displayed on the triangular screen. "You see this individual?" asked Ikaw. "Jump back a moment, he is not there. Jump forward an instant, and he just suddenly... appears. Yet there is no teleportation signature, no extra-dimensionality or anomalous time-signature detectable. Where does he come from?"
Grumm Boz toggled back and forth between the vacant space at the spaceport, and the sudden mysterious appearance. "A perfect challenge for the Spacetime Pentachoron!" exclaimed Grumm Boz gleefully. "We will determine his origins!"
A wave of dizziness swept over Ikaw. His thoughts were jumbled, confused. The room spun. He felt himself fainting...
"Careful, clumsy oaf!" shouted Grumm Boz, as Ikaw collapsed against a control panel. Ikaw vanished. A much younger version of himself appeared on the triangular screen, at Kardinal Spaceport.
"Buffoon," muttered Grumm Boz, turning back to his work. "And he shorted out the Paradox Inhibitor as well."
Re: YOUNG LEGION BOOK TWO - 10/19/21 07:37 AM
Did you take "Ikaw" from the Tagalog/Filipino language, Klar? That caught my attention, as it means "you"
Re: YOUNG LEGION BOOK TWO - 10/27/21 05:07 PM
=============================================================================
Yes, IB, I thought ?Ikaw? was an appropriate name for someone who can replicate your mind.
?Ang pangalan ko ay Ikaw.?
=============================================================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYXJlfcfFKU&ab_channel=SesameStreet
Yes, IB, I thought ?Ikaw? was an appropriate name for someone who can replicate your mind.
?Ang pangalan ko ay Ikaw.?
=============================================================================
https:/
Re: YOUNG LEGION BOOK TWO - 10/27/21 05:11 PM
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DIPLOMACY
Ambassador Quintapilot did not like to be kept waiting. Her appointment had been scheduled for 0400, and it was already 0410. She touched the bud in her ear.
"Has my 0400 arrived yet?" she asked.
"The Torad ambassador has not arrived," the receptionist replied. "However, two little human girls here have been insisting on seeing you, and refuse to leave. Weber's World Security says they need your authorization to evict them."
"I believe that is, in fact, my 0400," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "The Torad ambassador is not scheduled to arrive until tomorrow. Please review your calendar." She sighed. "And send the girls in."
Dorrit (Saturn Girl) Ranzz and Kallor (Star-Woman) Nal, entered the ambassador's office, obviously already uncomfortable from their encounter with the receptionist.
"I apologize," said Ambassador Quintapilot, walking around from behind her desk. "UPGov regulations require that all governmental positions be filled by biologicals, rather than mechanicals. Unfortunately, salary expenses are underfunded, and it is difficult to attract competent help. I am required to make do with a Xanthuan Parakat, who is sometimes? limited? intellectually speaking."
"Wouldn't UPGov find it more efficient to replace the biologicals with inexpensive mechanicals?" asked Star-Woman.
"You assume efficiency as the goal," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "Would it not be more efficient to simply replace all biologicals everywhere in the United Planets with piles of rocks? Our missions are more complicated than that."
Star-Woman was nonplussed.
"Speaking of piles of rocks," Ambassador Quintapilot smoothly segued, "This brings us to why you have been asked to meet with me today. Above and beyond my other duties, I am heading the First Contact mission with Excalbia. Its inhabitants are molten silicon-based creatures. They have an unusual technology set, which UP scientists are anxious to study. However, they are easily the most-- alien--- sentients we have encountered. On a par with the Gil'Dishpan."
"Are you asking the Super-Hero Club to be part of the diplomatic team?" asked Star-Woman.
The ambassador fidgeted. "We are asking the Super-Hero Club to be the diplomatic team," said the ambassador. "As well as the Super-Villain Club members who were previously residing with you on Mars. I believe they are at Metropolis University on Earth now? That would be nineteen of you, I think. And you would be the only members of the team. No support staff."
Star-Woman gaped. "Why us?"
"Because the Excalbians have requested it," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "No one knows why. Those are their terms for negotiation. They have examined the cultural material we provided, and have chosen you-all as the only acceptable representatives to their world."
"But the Super-Hero Club has had no diplomatic training at all," said Star-Woman.
Ambassador Quinapilot snorted a short laugh. "Well, the two Talokans in your group have had some elementary exposure," said the ambassador. "As members of the Royal Family of Talok. And I know that you, yourself have had extensive lessons in diplomacy as the daughter of the High Seer. But the Excalbians were quite clear that they were not interested in interacting with professional diplomats. They wish? the word they used we think means, 'authentic experience'."
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Saturn Girl.
"You will not be entirely on your own," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "UPGov will provide transport, and the appropriate gear. There will be a small SP ship stationed nearby. And ColuGov has assured us that they can make modifications to young Mr. Luz's robo-nanny to provide stealth monitoring of your activity at all times."
"I would still be more comfortable if we had access to our own transportation," said Saturn Girl. "We have had a couple of bad experiences relying on the goodwill of others."
Ambassador Quintapilot returned to her desk. "Your personal transport vehicle-- the 'Sojourner', I think it is called?-- can be placed in low orbit above Excalbia," she said.
"This seems an unusual request," said Saturn Girl. "And you seem willing to make unusual concessions to Excalbia. And possibly endanger a couple of dozen young civilians, in the process."
"We do not foresee any real danger," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "The Excalbians are an unusual-- a truly unique race. But harmless, we believe. Their chief attribute in dealing with us seems to be? a bizarre curiosity."
"There are other curious races in the United Planets," said Saturn Girl.
"There are several other considerations'', the Ambassador acknowledged. "As I said, our scientists are very interested in the Excalbian divergent technology. It is different from ours, or even Gil'Disphan tech. Even the Coluans are, at the moment, puzzled by some of its aspects. Secondly, the world of Excalbia itself lies at the nexus of several alternate dimensions-- several parallel UPs could be accessible from this single version of Excalbia. They say the stars in the sky above Excalbia are constantly changing? It would have the possibility of expanding UP influence immeasurably if there were a space-route those other dimensions."
"And?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Influence, and possibly wealth. The United Planets economy thrives on trade. "Hopefully your decision will be expeditious. The Excalbians have a? different? perception of time than we do, and we do not know how long they will wait.
"Allow us to return to Mars," said Star-Woman. "It should not take long to get consensus from the rest of the Members? or not."
"UPGov has some need to keep this mission formally confidential-- from EarthGov. They have had some objections to contact with the Excalbians-- mostly having to do with their very non-humanoid nature, I imagine-- and I believe they would be disturbed to learn that we are sending you as diplomats: Solar residents, and Terran descendants such as yourselves.
"Well, I'm on board then," said Star-Woman. "Anything that makes the current EarthGov administration uncomfortable is all right in my book."
"I am afraid," said Ambassador Quitapilot sadly, "Nothing less than the unanimous attendance of your group would be acceptable to the Excalbians. Please let us know your decision as soon as possible."
============================================================================
The captain of the UP transport vessel was an Aressian Sand-Octopus. "Yes, it is true," the lavender cephalopod told them, looking at Ten with one eye. "We do have eight-lobed brains. We believe we only score at lower Coluan intelligence levels than might be otherwise expected, as our race has allocated their mental resources more in the direction of telepathy and psychokinesis rather than pure data-gathering. We no doubt have more in common with Saturnians than Coluans."
"I hope this flight will not turn into a competition," Saturn Girl interjected.
The captain produced a fine imitation of a human laugh, his coloration changing to a mottled, batik-patterned pink.
"A member of a highly telepathic race, and experts at color-shifting," said Chameleon, "I infer you may lack acoustic names. What should we call you?"
"For the duration of this journey," said the captain, "You may refer to me as Captain Colorumque. However, I expect that you will have more dealings with my crew than with me."
A group of twenty silvery octopoid robots now boarded the transport.
"They should assign themselves to you automatically. They will meet any of your needs during this flight. Do not hesitate to ask. They are programmed to serve.
"You will be all issued an upgraded version of the UP-standard transuit. The ambient temperature on Excalbia is near 1000c, and the native 'soil' is primarily magma. The atmosphere is rich in toxic chlorides and hydrocarbons.
"In addition, you will be provided with temperature-resistant boots, to augment the effectiveness of the transuits. You will also be provided with telepathic translator earbuds, although these have not been shown to be very effective at rendering the Excalbian language. There is already a Terran Environmental Module on the surface to which you may retire. Do not attempt to remove your transuits anywhere else."
The transport was large enough that the Sojourner fit into its shuttle bay. The entire Clubhouse, in fact, might have fit into the transport bay.
After Mars, they made a brief stopover at Metropolis University on Earth, sending an octopoid-robot with a shuttlecraft down to the surface.
"How does Metropolis University feel about having a 'Super-Villain Club' back on campus?" asked Star-Woman.
"They would not allow us to re-register the name," said Black Flame. "We are now known as the 'Secret Society of Supervisors'. Supervising the morally, ethically, and legally questionable actions of the new EarthGov regime, you know."
"I suggested 'The Brotherhood of Dada'," said Villian. "Historical reference. But nobody else thought it was a good idea."
"We actually have about two dozen sub-lieutenants now," said Evil-Eye Annie. "One of them is an Atlantean. Funny story?"
"And of course, there is the mysterious Collage, who has replaced our 'Prince Talok'," said Razor. "Menaleas attends classes with quiet discretion; most students do not know that he has returned. But Collage has got rumors flying. How could one individual display so many super-abilities? Some people think there is more than one of him."
The 'Supervisors' had come aboard in costume.
Villian the Sorcerer, while wearing his magician's evening coat, had replaced the tuxedo shirt with a common white t-shirt which read:
Nothing is better than Eternal Happiness
But a Ham Sandwich is better than Nothing
"I have a 'knock-knock' joke," said Villian to Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Now I now that most 'knock-knock' jokes are stupid; silly puns that don't even make sense if you speak the wrong dialect of Interlac. But I promise, this is a good 'knock-knock' joke. The best 'knock-knock' joke in the Galaxy. Want to hear it?"
"Okay," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I'm game."
"You start," said Villian.
"Knock-knock," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Who's there?" said Villian.
"..." said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Razor, tell them about your family," said Villian excitedly.
Atta-Karr rolled his eyes. "OK, so my sister Qi," he said, "was, uh, experimenting with Bio-Elasticizing Fluid with some of her friends."
"The stuff that gave Uncle Chuck his powers?" asked Cosmic Boy. "Isn't that a Controlled Substance?"
"Well, yeah, but, you know, college kids," said Razor. "Anyway, the effects wear off quickly, especially at the low doses they use. Except that it reacted with Qi's metagene-- the one from our father-- and it gave her new abilities. Perfectly controllable! But still?"
Villian snickered. "She calls herself the Human Trampoline." https://youtu.be/0VTcBO4q5kY?t=161
Menaleas' new costume was a multi-hued riot of colored strips of fabric, including a cowled cape and full-face hood. He removed the hood when he came on board.
"Greetings, cousin," said Korvea. "Narazh."
"Narazh," said Menaleas, nodding. "Greetings, cousin."
"This assignment should prove interesting, at the very least," said Korvea.
Shrinking Violet sensed a coolness in the interaction between the Korvea and her cousin.
"Is there anything wrong between you and Menaleas?? she whispered to Korvea, when the others were out of earshot.
"Nothing at all," said Korvea. "Our relationship is as perfectly normal and pleasant as one could expect of distant cousins."
The group had been provided with animated holos of the indiginous Excalbians.
The first impression was of a pile of fat, glowing, red-hot lobsters, molten stone, with numerous stalk-like eyes and short, claw-like appendages. They appeared to vary from five to seven feet in height. Some of them also appeared to have long, scorpion-like tails. They moved slowly, but inexorably. There seemed to be a wide variety of other silicon-based lifeforms on the world, some living on the surface, some burrowing into the 'soft' magma, some swimming in pools of molten lava.
"And I thought Tharr was hot," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Not even a Tharran glaciator could cool this place down to a livable temperature," Polar Lass commented.
The members were not greeted on the planet's surface by any welcoming party. In fact, the area around the Terran Environmental Module seemed uninhabited out to the horizon.
"I suppose you need to wait for them to contact you," said the octopoid Captain Colorumque.
He returned to the transport, and went back up into orbit.
The robotic cephalopoid crew was left with the Members, to serve as domestic help on the planet. Each member chose a room in the Terran Environmental Module, and entered, accompanied by one of the silvery robots.
DIPLOMACY
Ambassador Quintapilot did not like to be kept waiting. Her appointment had been scheduled for 0400, and it was already 0410. She touched the bud in her ear.
"Has my 0400 arrived yet?" she asked.
"The Torad ambassador has not arrived," the receptionist replied. "However, two little human girls here have been insisting on seeing you, and refuse to leave. Weber's World Security says they need your authorization to evict them."
"I believe that is, in fact, my 0400," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "The Torad ambassador is not scheduled to arrive until tomorrow. Please review your calendar." She sighed. "And send the girls in."
Dorrit (Saturn Girl) Ranzz and Kallor (Star-Woman) Nal, entered the ambassador's office, obviously already uncomfortable from their encounter with the receptionist.
"I apologize," said Ambassador Quintapilot, walking around from behind her desk. "UPGov regulations require that all governmental positions be filled by biologicals, rather than mechanicals. Unfortunately, salary expenses are underfunded, and it is difficult to attract competent help. I am required to make do with a Xanthuan Parakat, who is sometimes? limited? intellectually speaking."
"Wouldn't UPGov find it more efficient to replace the biologicals with inexpensive mechanicals?" asked Star-Woman.
"You assume efficiency as the goal," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "Would it not be more efficient to simply replace all biologicals everywhere in the United Planets with piles of rocks? Our missions are more complicated than that."
Star-Woman was nonplussed.
"Speaking of piles of rocks," Ambassador Quintapilot smoothly segued, "This brings us to why you have been asked to meet with me today. Above and beyond my other duties, I am heading the First Contact mission with Excalbia. Its inhabitants are molten silicon-based creatures. They have an unusual technology set, which UP scientists are anxious to study. However, they are easily the most-- alien--- sentients we have encountered. On a par with the Gil'Dishpan."
"Are you asking the Super-Hero Club to be part of the diplomatic team?" asked Star-Woman.
The ambassador fidgeted. "We are asking the Super-Hero Club to be the diplomatic team," said the ambassador. "As well as the Super-Villain Club members who were previously residing with you on Mars. I believe they are at Metropolis University on Earth now? That would be nineteen of you, I think. And you would be the only members of the team. No support staff."
Star-Woman gaped. "Why us?"
"Because the Excalbians have requested it," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "No one knows why. Those are their terms for negotiation. They have examined the cultural material we provided, and have chosen you-all as the only acceptable representatives to their world."
"But the Super-Hero Club has had no diplomatic training at all," said Star-Woman.
Ambassador Quinapilot snorted a short laugh. "Well, the two Talokans in your group have had some elementary exposure," said the ambassador. "As members of the Royal Family of Talok. And I know that you, yourself have had extensive lessons in diplomacy as the daughter of the High Seer. But the Excalbians were quite clear that they were not interested in interacting with professional diplomats. They wish? the word they used we think means, 'authentic experience'."
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Saturn Girl.
"You will not be entirely on your own," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "UPGov will provide transport, and the appropriate gear. There will be a small SP ship stationed nearby. And ColuGov has assured us that they can make modifications to young Mr. Luz's robo-nanny to provide stealth monitoring of your activity at all times."
"I would still be more comfortable if we had access to our own transportation," said Saturn Girl. "We have had a couple of bad experiences relying on the goodwill of others."
Ambassador Quintapilot returned to her desk. "Your personal transport vehicle-- the 'Sojourner', I think it is called?-- can be placed in low orbit above Excalbia," she said.
"This seems an unusual request," said Saturn Girl. "And you seem willing to make unusual concessions to Excalbia. And possibly endanger a couple of dozen young civilians, in the process."
"We do not foresee any real danger," said Ambassador Quintapilot. "The Excalbians are an unusual-- a truly unique race. But harmless, we believe. Their chief attribute in dealing with us seems to be? a bizarre curiosity."
"There are other curious races in the United Planets," said Saturn Girl.
"There are several other considerations'', the Ambassador acknowledged. "As I said, our scientists are very interested in the Excalbian divergent technology. It is different from ours, or even Gil'Disphan tech. Even the Coluans are, at the moment, puzzled by some of its aspects. Secondly, the world of Excalbia itself lies at the nexus of several alternate dimensions-- several parallel UPs could be accessible from this single version of Excalbia. They say the stars in the sky above Excalbia are constantly changing? It would have the possibility of expanding UP influence immeasurably if there were a space-route those other dimensions."
"And?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Influence, and possibly wealth. The United Planets economy thrives on trade. "Hopefully your decision will be expeditious. The Excalbians have a? different? perception of time than we do, and we do not know how long they will wait.
"Allow us to return to Mars," said Star-Woman. "It should not take long to get consensus from the rest of the Members? or not."
"UPGov has some need to keep this mission formally confidential-- from EarthGov. They have had some objections to contact with the Excalbians-- mostly having to do with their very non-humanoid nature, I imagine-- and I believe they would be disturbed to learn that we are sending you as diplomats: Solar residents, and Terran descendants such as yourselves.
"Well, I'm on board then," said Star-Woman. "Anything that makes the current EarthGov administration uncomfortable is all right in my book."
"I am afraid," said Ambassador Quitapilot sadly, "Nothing less than the unanimous attendance of your group would be acceptable to the Excalbians. Please let us know your decision as soon as possible."
============================================================================
The captain of the UP transport vessel was an Aressian Sand-Octopus. "Yes, it is true," the lavender cephalopod told them, looking at Ten with one eye. "We do have eight-lobed brains. We believe we only score at lower Coluan intelligence levels than might be otherwise expected, as our race has allocated their mental resources more in the direction of telepathy and psychokinesis rather than pure data-gathering. We no doubt have more in common with Saturnians than Coluans."
"I hope this flight will not turn into a competition," Saturn Girl interjected.
The captain produced a fine imitation of a human laugh, his coloration changing to a mottled, batik-patterned pink.
"A member of a highly telepathic race, and experts at color-shifting," said Chameleon, "I infer you may lack acoustic names. What should we call you?"
"For the duration of this journey," said the captain, "You may refer to me as Captain Colorumque. However, I expect that you will have more dealings with my crew than with me."
A group of twenty silvery octopoid robots now boarded the transport.
"They should assign themselves to you automatically. They will meet any of your needs during this flight. Do not hesitate to ask. They are programmed to serve.
"You will be all issued an upgraded version of the UP-standard transuit. The ambient temperature on Excalbia is near 1000c, and the native 'soil' is primarily magma. The atmosphere is rich in toxic chlorides and hydrocarbons.
"In addition, you will be provided with temperature-resistant boots, to augment the effectiveness of the transuits. You will also be provided with telepathic translator earbuds, although these have not been shown to be very effective at rendering the Excalbian language. There is already a Terran Environmental Module on the surface to which you may retire. Do not attempt to remove your transuits anywhere else."
The transport was large enough that the Sojourner fit into its shuttle bay. The entire Clubhouse, in fact, might have fit into the transport bay.
After Mars, they made a brief stopover at Metropolis University on Earth, sending an octopoid-robot with a shuttlecraft down to the surface.
"How does Metropolis University feel about having a 'Super-Villain Club' back on campus?" asked Star-Woman.
"They would not allow us to re-register the name," said Black Flame. "We are now known as the 'Secret Society of Supervisors'. Supervising the morally, ethically, and legally questionable actions of the new EarthGov regime, you know."
"I suggested 'The Brotherhood of Dada'," said Villian. "Historical reference. But nobody else thought it was a good idea."
"We actually have about two dozen sub-lieutenants now," said Evil-Eye Annie. "One of them is an Atlantean. Funny story?"
"And of course, there is the mysterious Collage, who has replaced our 'Prince Talok'," said Razor. "Menaleas attends classes with quiet discretion; most students do not know that he has returned. But Collage has got rumors flying. How could one individual display so many super-abilities? Some people think there is more than one of him."
The 'Supervisors' had come aboard in costume.
Villian the Sorcerer, while wearing his magician's evening coat, had replaced the tuxedo shirt with a common white t-shirt which read:
Nothing is better than Eternal Happiness
But a Ham Sandwich is better than Nothing
"I have a 'knock-knock' joke," said Villian to Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Now I now that most 'knock-knock' jokes are stupid; silly puns that don't even make sense if you speak the wrong dialect of Interlac. But I promise, this is a good 'knock-knock' joke. The best 'knock-knock' joke in the Galaxy. Want to hear it?"
"Okay," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I'm game."
"You start," said Villian.
"Knock-knock," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Who's there?" said Villian.
"..." said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Razor, tell them about your family," said Villian excitedly.
Atta-Karr rolled his eyes. "OK, so my sister Qi," he said, "was, uh, experimenting with Bio-Elasticizing Fluid with some of her friends."
"The stuff that gave Uncle Chuck his powers?" asked Cosmic Boy. "Isn't that a Controlled Substance?"
"Well, yeah, but, you know, college kids," said Razor. "Anyway, the effects wear off quickly, especially at the low doses they use. Except that it reacted with Qi's metagene-- the one from our father-- and it gave her new abilities. Perfectly controllable! But still?"
Villian snickered. "She calls herself the Human Trampoline." https://youtu.be/0VTcBO4q5kY?t=161
Menaleas' new costume was a multi-hued riot of colored strips of fabric, including a cowled cape and full-face hood. He removed the hood when he came on board.
"Greetings, cousin," said Korvea. "Narazh."
"Narazh," said Menaleas, nodding. "Greetings, cousin."
"This assignment should prove interesting, at the very least," said Korvea.
Shrinking Violet sensed a coolness in the interaction between the Korvea and her cousin.
"Is there anything wrong between you and Menaleas?? she whispered to Korvea, when the others were out of earshot.
"Nothing at all," said Korvea. "Our relationship is as perfectly normal and pleasant as one could expect of distant cousins."
The group had been provided with animated holos of the indiginous Excalbians.
The first impression was of a pile of fat, glowing, red-hot lobsters, molten stone, with numerous stalk-like eyes and short, claw-like appendages. They appeared to vary from five to seven feet in height. Some of them also appeared to have long, scorpion-like tails. They moved slowly, but inexorably. There seemed to be a wide variety of other silicon-based lifeforms on the world, some living on the surface, some burrowing into the 'soft' magma, some swimming in pools of molten lava.
"And I thought Tharr was hot," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Not even a Tharran glaciator could cool this place down to a livable temperature," Polar Lass commented.
The members were not greeted on the planet's surface by any welcoming party. In fact, the area around the Terran Environmental Module seemed uninhabited out to the horizon.
"I suppose you need to wait for them to contact you," said the octopoid Captain Colorumque.
He returned to the transport, and went back up into orbit.
The robotic cephalopoid crew was left with the Members, to serve as domestic help on the planet. Each member chose a room in the Terran Environmental Module, and entered, accompanied by one of the silvery robots.
Re: YOUNG LEGION BOOK TWO - 11/01/21 04:57 PM
CHAPTER TWELVE
TESTS
Saturn Girl found herself in her quarters without the silver robot that had been beside her just a moment before. Even more strangely, her sister, Lightning Lass, was walking in through a door set in the opposite wall.
"I can't believe it," said Dacey. "They're treating us like twins again. Like we're the same person, really. I'm sick of it."
"Look, this must be a mistake," said Dorrit. "There are plenty of rooms in the T.E.M. for each of us to have one of our own..."
"Shut up!" screamed Dacey. "I am so sick of you!" Lightning flashed from her hands.
Startled and unprepared, Dorrit took the full force of Dacey's bolts.
Dorrit staggered, stunned. Any ordinary person would have been out cold. As it was, Dorrit could feel her nervous system beginning to shut down. She was only able to cling to consciousness through the superior power of her Saturnian mind. On the other hand, a second bolt would surely send her into complete unconsciousness. Or, Dacey could easily kill her with another, more powerful attack.
Dorrit reached out to Dacey through their shared link. "{What is going on?}" she asked.
Dorrit could see through Dacey's eyes: Dacey was in another room, playing a deadly game of tag with what appeared to be the demon-possessed Arnion.
This 'Dacey' standing in front of her, lightning crackling around her hands, was not the real Dacey. There was no mental link.
Dorrit astral-projected just as Dacey struck. Her body fell to the floor, unconscious.
Let's see who you really are, Dorrit thought. She moved her astral body into Dacey's physical one. She was astonished.
The faux Dacey was utterly empty.
Meanwhile, real Dacey Ranzz had entered the next room, and was facing off against Arnion-- once again demon possessed. She had avoided his teleportative attacks several times-- the room was now filled with a haze of floral-scented vapor. Arnion had used his power of invisibility, but the thick, swirling vapor was showing him in faint outline. Dacey was wondering where the controls for the lights were-- she had hardly had a chance to look around.
Suddenly, the room was plunged into darkness.
Arnion's faintly glowing figure was now perfectly visible. Before Dacey could act, a blast of lightning-- not hers-- momentarily illuminated the room. There was another Dacey standing near the doorway.
"I think I may have hit him too hard," said Dorrit. "I'm not used to your powers yet."
"Is that you, Dorrit?" asked Dacey.
Dorrit confirmed through their telepathic link.
"Yes, it's me. My mind, anyway. My physical body is lying next door, sleeping off a bad electric shock. I borrowed this... android, I guess?... to come help you out."
"An android copy of me... complete with powers," said Dacey.
"Not exactly an android," said Dorrit. "It seems sort of human, from its physiology. Only it has no mind. Just some rudimentary programming. It was easy for my astral self to get in and take over. I expect that is the same," she said, pointing to the unconscious Arnion. "And I would bet that the rest of the Members are now facing similar threats."
"Well, then, let's go," said Dacey.
They found Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass in separate rooms fighting 'evil' versions of themselves, but they were quickly dispatched.
Shrinking Violet had confronted Captain Samuels, a fictional figure, and his long-dead author, Agaton Xavier. She hadn't believed in either of them at all.
Phantom Girl had had no difficulty walking out on duplicates of her parents. She found Ten and his Vesta about to take a portal back to Colu-- ostensibly-- with his parents and Adult Guardian, but Irinia quickly put a stop to that.
"Whoever created them couldn't replicate Coluan super-intelligence," explained Phantom Girl. "A little quick questioning proved them to be fakes. They could not even give the general algorithm for solving tenth-order equations in the fourth dimension with the Rox-Url Galactic Adjustment."
Chameleon and the Triplicates had to be sorted out by Dorrit. They each faced three other versions of themselves, and which of the twelve were the originals was at first confusing.
Pol had been in a heated argument with his parents, and was glad to discover they were only programmed doppelgangers.
The Members were on their way to Korvea and the Secret Society when a roof burst, and Star-Woman flew out and up into the air. She was locked in a fierce battle with some sort of robot, which exploded high in the atmosphere.
"That was a Xanthuan Copperman," Kallor explained, landing. "A failed attempt at super-powered, robotic policing from my father's homeworld. I didn't know any more even existed."
"They probably don't," said Shrinking Violet. "We've been confronting all sorts of strange duplicates."
They found 'Evil-Eye' Annie coming out of her room without assistance.
"Whatever it is," she said, "Was trying to incarnate my greatest fear. Well, my greatest fear is me, and my temper. Obviously, I knew it was some sort of unliving simulacrum. I haven't cursed anything in a while, so..."
Peeking through the door, there appeared in one corner what looked to be a large, shapeless mass of compost: smoking, worm-infested and slightly moldy.
Black Flame, Razor, and Collage were also easy to rescue from their private horror-rooms. Villian the Sorcerer, however, was in the middle of a stage-magic performance for fifty of the artificial men and women. He had to be dragged away against his will.
"Now we need to get some answers," said Saturn Girl.
"It seems we are being tested, somehow," said Star-Woman. "But I don't know if we passed or failed.
As they stood looking out over the volcanic landscape, wondering where to begin, one of the half-rock, half-crab natives appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
"I am Ambassador Yarnek of Excalbia," it said. "Please explain.
TESTS
Saturn Girl found herself in her quarters without the silver robot that had been beside her just a moment before. Even more strangely, her sister, Lightning Lass, was walking in through a door set in the opposite wall.
"I can't believe it," said Dacey. "They're treating us like twins again. Like we're the same person, really. I'm sick of it."
"Look, this must be a mistake," said Dorrit. "There are plenty of rooms in the T.E.M. for each of us to have one of our own..."
"Shut up!" screamed Dacey. "I am so sick of you!" Lightning flashed from her hands.
Startled and unprepared, Dorrit took the full force of Dacey's bolts.
Dorrit staggered, stunned. Any ordinary person would have been out cold. As it was, Dorrit could feel her nervous system beginning to shut down. She was only able to cling to consciousness through the superior power of her Saturnian mind. On the other hand, a second bolt would surely send her into complete unconsciousness. Or, Dacey could easily kill her with another, more powerful attack.
Dorrit reached out to Dacey through their shared link. "{What is going on?}" she asked.
Dorrit could see through Dacey's eyes: Dacey was in another room, playing a deadly game of tag with what appeared to be the demon-possessed Arnion.
This 'Dacey' standing in front of her, lightning crackling around her hands, was not the real Dacey. There was no mental link.
Dorrit astral-projected just as Dacey struck. Her body fell to the floor, unconscious.
Let's see who you really are, Dorrit thought. She moved her astral body into Dacey's physical one. She was astonished.
The faux Dacey was utterly empty.
Meanwhile, real Dacey Ranzz had entered the next room, and was facing off against Arnion-- once again demon possessed. She had avoided his teleportative attacks several times-- the room was now filled with a haze of floral-scented vapor. Arnion had used his power of invisibility, but the thick, swirling vapor was showing him in faint outline. Dacey was wondering where the controls for the lights were-- she had hardly had a chance to look around.
Suddenly, the room was plunged into darkness.
Arnion's faintly glowing figure was now perfectly visible. Before Dacey could act, a blast of lightning-- not hers-- momentarily illuminated the room. There was another Dacey standing near the doorway.
"I think I may have hit him too hard," said Dorrit. "I'm not used to your powers yet."
"Is that you, Dorrit?" asked Dacey.
Dorrit confirmed through their telepathic link.
"Yes, it's me. My mind, anyway. My physical body is lying next door, sleeping off a bad electric shock. I borrowed this... android, I guess?... to come help you out."
"An android copy of me... complete with powers," said Dacey.
"Not exactly an android," said Dorrit. "It seems sort of human, from its physiology. Only it has no mind. Just some rudimentary programming. It was easy for my astral self to get in and take over. I expect that is the same," she said, pointing to the unconscious Arnion. "And I would bet that the rest of the Members are now facing similar threats."
"Well, then, let's go," said Dacey.
They found Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass in separate rooms fighting 'evil' versions of themselves, but they were quickly dispatched.
Shrinking Violet had confronted Captain Samuels, a fictional figure, and his long-dead author, Agaton Xavier. She hadn't believed in either of them at all.
Phantom Girl had had no difficulty walking out on duplicates of her parents. She found Ten and his Vesta about to take a portal back to Colu-- ostensibly-- with his parents and Adult Guardian, but Irinia quickly put a stop to that.
"Whoever created them couldn't replicate Coluan super-intelligence," explained Phantom Girl. "A little quick questioning proved them to be fakes. They could not even give the general algorithm for solving tenth-order equations in the fourth dimension with the Rox-Url Galactic Adjustment."
Chameleon and the Triplicates had to be sorted out by Dorrit. They each faced three other versions of themselves, and which of the twelve were the originals was at first confusing.
Pol had been in a heated argument with his parents, and was glad to discover they were only programmed doppelgangers.
The Members were on their way to Korvea and the Secret Society when a roof burst, and Star-Woman flew out and up into the air. She was locked in a fierce battle with some sort of robot, which exploded high in the atmosphere.
"That was a Xanthuan Copperman," Kallor explained, landing. "A failed attempt at super-powered, robotic policing from my father's homeworld. I didn't know any more even existed."
"They probably don't," said Shrinking Violet. "We've been confronting all sorts of strange duplicates."
They found 'Evil-Eye' Annie coming out of her room without assistance.
"Whatever it is," she said, "Was trying to incarnate my greatest fear. Well, my greatest fear is me, and my temper. Obviously, I knew it was some sort of unliving simulacrum. I haven't cursed anything in a while, so..."
Peeking through the door, there appeared in one corner what looked to be a large, shapeless mass of compost: smoking, worm-infested and slightly moldy.
Black Flame, Razor, and Collage were also easy to rescue from their private horror-rooms. Villian the Sorcerer, however, was in the middle of a stage-magic performance for fifty of the artificial men and women. He had to be dragged away against his will.
"Now we need to get some answers," said Saturn Girl.
"It seems we are being tested, somehow," said Star-Woman. "But I don't know if we passed or failed.
As they stood looking out over the volcanic landscape, wondering where to begin, one of the half-rock, half-crab natives appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
"I am Ambassador Yarnek of Excalbia," it said. "Please explain.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/01/21 05:12 PM
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WILL
"I think you are the one who needs to do some explaining," said Lightning Lass.
Two dozen more Excalbians appeared on the lava plains. A table appeared between them, the side facing the organics loaded down with food, as well as plates and utensils to consume it with. On the Excalbian side, metal discs were loaded with rocks dripping with glowing lava.
"This setting is comfortable for you," said Yarnek. "Eat."
There was an invisible line running down the middle of the table. On one side, the hellish volcanic landscape of Excalbia. On the other, cushioned chairs reclined on greensward before the banquet.
Ten but his hand up to the shimmering barrier.
"There does not seem to be any force field separating the two areas. How do you do it?" he inquired.
"I believe the Earthlings call them 'Maxwell's demons'," said Yarnek. "We will discuss much more important things."
The android duplicate of Lightning Lass seated itself, then immediately slumped, its head resting on the table. A moment later, Saturn Girl herself showed up, back in her own body.
"One of these would be incredibly useful," said Saturn Girl. "Can we take it home with us?"
"You are mistaken. They are not useful," said Yarnek. "Their construction is faulty. They cease functioning within a few days."
Star-Woman examined the sleeping replicant with her enhanced senses.
"Don't you feed them?" she asked. "The gastrointestinal tract seems completely underdeveloped."
"As with so many things," said Yarnek, "These are human concepts which make no sense to us."
"What, you don't understand eating?" asked Star-Woman. "This..." she indicated the table "is food. It is not only meant to enhance social interaction. We organics need it to survive-- to provide energy for life, and to replenish, repair, and replace lost material in our bodies. To grow, if you understand the concept. No doubt on your burning world, energy is plentiful, but on the cold worlds of the United Planets, energy is more scarce."
"You eat every day?" said Yarnek.
"Several times a day," said Ffarrah. "At least every quarter-of-a-day. Do you know hours?"
"The real question is," said Star-Woman, changing the subject, "Why have you been subjecting us to these bizarre ordeals? I thought we were goodwill ambassadors?"
"This is another nonsensical word," said Yarnek. "'Why'. It is an interrogative without meaning."
"Let me put this as simply as I can," said Star-Woman. "Some of us could have died in these ordeals. I expect this would have been unsatisfactory , both to you, and to the United Planets."
"You did not die," said Yarnek. "I count... you are all here. Even the triplicated organics."
"But we could have died," said Star-Woman. "Some of us were in very dangerous situations."
"'Could have,'" said Yarnek. "A contrafactual. Often employed in your languages, but inapplicable by definition. This is the explanation sought. You have been observed under various situations and stimuli. You reacted in accordance to expectations. Explain how you could have... 'chosen'... to 'die' in the past-which-was-once-future."
"Kallor," said Saturn Girl. "I'm having difficulty reading their silicon minds, but... Yarnek is the only one who really understands our language at all, and he... has difficulty with certain concepts. He... they don't seem to understand our concept of 'free will' at all. Somehow, that's what these tests were all about."
"Yes," exclaimed Yarnek, with as much enthusiasm as his harsh, rocky voice could muster. "What is this 'free will'? How can any being act otherwise than is observed? How can any action be more than one action?"
"It is the potential for action..." began Saturn Girl.
"No, let's try a different way," said Star-Woman. "Why do you now, after so many eons, want to understand free will?"
"Want?" asked Yarnek. "I do not understand."
"I'm with him," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, reaching across the barrier with a spoon to sample one of the glowing, semi-molten rock fragments on the Excalbians' plates. "I don't understand any of this."
"To put it another way... What event preceded your contacting the United Planets, which induced you to conduct experiments to understand free will?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Ah, the Artifacts," said Yarnek. "They are said to be activated by this 'Will'."
Yarnek produced from somewhere about its person a shining, brand-new Lantern and Power Ring.
"Now we're getting to the crux of the problem," said Saturn Girl. "You want to know how these work."
"Can you demonstrate and explain?" asked Yarnek.
"Hand them over," said Dorrit. The 'artifacts' were perfectly cool to the touch after passing through the barrier.
Saturn Girl put on the ring, and touched it to the Lantern.
"In de Die Splendor, uel in Nox Tenebris
Nullum Malum est Inobservatus per mi
Qui colit vires Robore Malum Infernales
Cave Viribus meis: Lux Viridian Lanternas!" she recited.
"Unauthorized user," the ring responded. "This Power Ring and Battery are reserved for the Green Lantern of Excalbia,"
"Listen, you stupid ring," said Saturn Girl. "I'm only trying to demonstrate your function to the Excalbians. So they can actually choose a Green Lantern."
"Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath..." The ring flared, "You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."
"Thank you," said Saturn Girl. "This is only a temporary assignment, I hope." She molded the green light into a hand, which waved cheerfully at Yarnek. She then used the light to create replicas of the cups, plates, and silverware in front of her. "It can create constructs of living organisms as well," Saturn Girl explained. She fired a green beam at Yarnek, and a glowing green duplicate appeared behind him.
"There is supposed to be some sort of hidden virtual compartment," Dorrit mused to herself. "Ah, here it is." There was an emerald flash, and Yarnek vanished.
The Excalbian found itself within a glowing green volcanic landscape, with flowing green magma all around. A green construct of Dorrit appeared beside him.
"This is the 'World Inside The Power Ring'," she explained. "A sort of storage facility."
"I am within your Will," exclaimed the Excalbian. "Do I also have such a Will within me?"
"You, or one of the other Excalbians," said Saturn Girl, returning them to the outside world. "Otherwise, it would not have been sent to you. She handed over the Ring and Lantern. "See if you can figure it out."
"You are not going to join the United Planets, are you?" asked Star-Woman. "That was never really your intention."
"'Intentionality'," said Yarnek. "Again these words I do not understand. When we join the United Planets, a Green Lantern will be our emissary."
The entire complement of Excalbians vanished, the table of food as well. The native Excalbian landscape began to slowly reclaim the area the Members occupied. They retreated towards the Terran Environmental Module as they received a communication from Captain Colorumque,
"We received a message that negotiations have been successfully concluded," said the Captain. "I am coming in for retrieval. So the Excalbians have agreed to join the United Planets?"
"It's complicated," said Star-Woman. "But I think UPGov needs to have a talk with Sodam Yat and the Dyogene."
WILL
"I think you are the one who needs to do some explaining," said Lightning Lass.
Two dozen more Excalbians appeared on the lava plains. A table appeared between them, the side facing the organics loaded down with food, as well as plates and utensils to consume it with. On the Excalbian side, metal discs were loaded with rocks dripping with glowing lava.
"This setting is comfortable for you," said Yarnek. "Eat."
There was an invisible line running down the middle of the table. On one side, the hellish volcanic landscape of Excalbia. On the other, cushioned chairs reclined on greensward before the banquet.
Ten but his hand up to the shimmering barrier.
"There does not seem to be any force field separating the two areas. How do you do it?" he inquired.
"I believe the Earthlings call them 'Maxwell's demons'," said Yarnek. "We will discuss much more important things."
The android duplicate of Lightning Lass seated itself, then immediately slumped, its head resting on the table. A moment later, Saturn Girl herself showed up, back in her own body.
"One of these would be incredibly useful," said Saturn Girl. "Can we take it home with us?"
"You are mistaken. They are not useful," said Yarnek. "Their construction is faulty. They cease functioning within a few days."
Star-Woman examined the sleeping replicant with her enhanced senses.
"Don't you feed them?" she asked. "The gastrointestinal tract seems completely underdeveloped."
"As with so many things," said Yarnek, "These are human concepts which make no sense to us."
"What, you don't understand eating?" asked Star-Woman. "This..." she indicated the table "is food. It is not only meant to enhance social interaction. We organics need it to survive-- to provide energy for life, and to replenish, repair, and replace lost material in our bodies. To grow, if you understand the concept. No doubt on your burning world, energy is plentiful, but on the cold worlds of the United Planets, energy is more scarce."
"You eat every day?" said Yarnek.
"Several times a day," said Ffarrah. "At least every quarter-of-a-day. Do you know hours?"
"The real question is," said Star-Woman, changing the subject, "Why have you been subjecting us to these bizarre ordeals? I thought we were goodwill ambassadors?"
"This is another nonsensical word," said Yarnek. "'Why'. It is an interrogative without meaning."
"Let me put this as simply as I can," said Star-Woman. "Some of us could have died in these ordeals. I expect this would have been unsatisfactory , both to you, and to the United Planets."
"You did not die," said Yarnek. "I count... you are all here. Even the triplicated organics."
"But we could have died," said Star-Woman. "Some of us were in very dangerous situations."
"'Could have,'" said Yarnek. "A contrafactual. Often employed in your languages, but inapplicable by definition. This is the explanation sought. You have been observed under various situations and stimuli. You reacted in accordance to expectations. Explain how you could have... 'chosen'... to 'die' in the past-which-was-once-future."
"Kallor," said Saturn Girl. "I'm having difficulty reading their silicon minds, but... Yarnek is the only one who really understands our language at all, and he... has difficulty with certain concepts. He... they don't seem to understand our concept of 'free will' at all. Somehow, that's what these tests were all about."
"Yes," exclaimed Yarnek, with as much enthusiasm as his harsh, rocky voice could muster. "What is this 'free will'? How can any being act otherwise than is observed? How can any action be more than one action?"
"It is the potential for action..." began Saturn Girl.
"No, let's try a different way," said Star-Woman. "Why do you now, after so many eons, want to understand free will?"
"Want?" asked Yarnek. "I do not understand."
"I'm with him," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, reaching across the barrier with a spoon to sample one of the glowing, semi-molten rock fragments on the Excalbians' plates. "I don't understand any of this."
"To put it another way... What event preceded your contacting the United Planets, which induced you to conduct experiments to understand free will?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Ah, the Artifacts," said Yarnek. "They are said to be activated by this 'Will'."
Yarnek produced from somewhere about its person a shining, brand-new Lantern and Power Ring.
"Now we're getting to the crux of the problem," said Saturn Girl. "You want to know how these work."
"Can you demonstrate and explain?" asked Yarnek.
"Hand them over," said Dorrit. The 'artifacts' were perfectly cool to the touch after passing through the barrier.
Saturn Girl put on the ring, and touched it to the Lantern.
"In de Die Splendor, uel in Nox Tenebris
Nullum Malum est Inobservatus per mi
Qui colit vires Robore Malum Infernales
Cave Viribus meis: Lux Viridian Lanternas!" she recited.
"Unauthorized user," the ring responded. "This Power Ring and Battery are reserved for the Green Lantern of Excalbia,"
"Listen, you stupid ring," said Saturn Girl. "I'm only trying to demonstrate your function to the Excalbians. So they can actually choose a Green Lantern."
"Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath..." The ring flared, "You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."
"Thank you," said Saturn Girl. "This is only a temporary assignment, I hope." She molded the green light into a hand, which waved cheerfully at Yarnek. She then used the light to create replicas of the cups, plates, and silverware in front of her. "It can create constructs of living organisms as well," Saturn Girl explained. She fired a green beam at Yarnek, and a glowing green duplicate appeared behind him.
"There is supposed to be some sort of hidden virtual compartment," Dorrit mused to herself. "Ah, here it is." There was an emerald flash, and Yarnek vanished.
The Excalbian found itself within a glowing green volcanic landscape, with flowing green magma all around. A green construct of Dorrit appeared beside him.
"This is the 'World Inside The Power Ring'," she explained. "A sort of storage facility."
"I am within your Will," exclaimed the Excalbian. "Do I also have such a Will within me?"
"You, or one of the other Excalbians," said Saturn Girl, returning them to the outside world. "Otherwise, it would not have been sent to you. She handed over the Ring and Lantern. "See if you can figure it out."
"You are not going to join the United Planets, are you?" asked Star-Woman. "That was never really your intention."
"'Intentionality'," said Yarnek. "Again these words I do not understand. When we join the United Planets, a Green Lantern will be our emissary."
The entire complement of Excalbians vanished, the table of food as well. The native Excalbian landscape began to slowly reclaim the area the Members occupied. They retreated towards the Terran Environmental Module as they received a communication from Captain Colorumque,
"We received a message that negotiations have been successfully concluded," said the Captain. "I am coming in for retrieval. So the Excalbians have agreed to join the United Planets?"
"It's complicated," said Star-Woman. "But I think UPGov needs to have a talk with Sodam Yat and the Dyogene."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/15/21 06:20 PM
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DAVERA
"Dorrit, what have I told you about talking to alien species?" asked Imra. "You must be very careful what you say."
"I know, mother, but the Excalbians were so strange."
"All the more reason to watch your language. I'm not surprised they took your offhand comment as an invitation."
"Or a challenge. At any rate, she arrived about two weeks ago, a perfect replica of Dacey. With a working digestive system, and appropriate instincts for self-care. She ate what was put in front of her, went to bed when she was tired. Recognized what the Cleanroom was for, thank goodness. Even changed her clothes-- although we were the ones who had to wash them-- and took a Sonic every day."
"An actual synthetic human. Amazing."
"No, she's not exactly human. She doesn't even have DNA. Just... her body operates and... grows, I expect... based on some other principle. But she's carbon-based, with the right proportions of oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, iron, and so forth."
"And you say she's been learning?"
"More than that. At first, it was interesting experimenting with her, either by fully moving my consciousness inside her mind, or by... remote control. We were even able to bridge Dacey into her mind, although she doesn't find her as "comfortable', as I do. But she started retaining some of our memories and personalities afterwards. She became restless, and curious. I have crystals with a lot of old books on them-- children's books you got us when we were little. Or inherited from Garridan and Graym. She figured out how to use the Reader, and started reading them. "A is for Alicorn', and "One Owl, Two Hoots' were her favorites at first. But she's up to first-grade level now, and still progressing. And... she's developing a unique personality of her own. She started initiating conversations a week ago. And questions. So many questions. We had to give her a name, she insisted on it."
"What did you name her?"
"We called her "Davera'. And... we don't feel right about taking over her mind anymore, or using her as a convenient "third body'."
"You mean, 'slave'."
"Well, OK, maybe, a little. But we feel like we're in over our heads. It's like having a seventeen-year-old six-year-old, and we're already messing up."
"And now you're calling for advice?"
"More than advice. We were wondering... you did such a good job with us kids..."
"How would we feel about raising a third 'daughter'? Is that what you're asking?"
"It's either that, or a foster home. Please, Dacey and I aren't ready to be Moms."
"Let me talk to your father. Maybe the Krinns... Lydda was saying just the other day how much she and Rokk are not enjoying being empty nesters. Perhaps we could find a place for Davera on Lightning Ring Farms. I assume she has Dacey's electrical powers? And perhaps your telepathy, as well?"
"No, the Excalbians seem to have left all that out. She's just a 'normal' girl. Only... she isn't really normal. Not at all."
"Well, I can't say I approve, and I do think you've done something very foolish. But we will attempt to work out some sort of care for our new granddaughter, Davera."
"Granddaughter? Mother, it's not like that... she's more like... just an extra sister."
"Oh, it is exactly like that, and if I were wiser than I am, I would give you and Dacey the full responsibility for being her Moms, and raising her. I expect you two will treat her as your own little girl when you come to visit for the Holidays, or any other time. Ultimately, Davera is your responsibility, and you need to recognize that, and... let her know you love her."
DAVERA
"Dorrit, what have I told you about talking to alien species?" asked Imra. "You must be very careful what you say."
"I know, mother, but the Excalbians were so strange."
"All the more reason to watch your language. I'm not surprised they took your offhand comment as an invitation."
"Or a challenge. At any rate, she arrived about two weeks ago, a perfect replica of Dacey. With a working digestive system, and appropriate instincts for self-care. She ate what was put in front of her, went to bed when she was tired. Recognized what the Cleanroom was for, thank goodness. Even changed her clothes-- although we were the ones who had to wash them-- and took a Sonic every day."
"An actual synthetic human. Amazing."
"No, she's not exactly human. She doesn't even have DNA. Just... her body operates and... grows, I expect... based on some other principle. But she's carbon-based, with the right proportions of oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, iron, and so forth."
"And you say she's been learning?"
"More than that. At first, it was interesting experimenting with her, either by fully moving my consciousness inside her mind, or by... remote control. We were even able to bridge Dacey into her mind, although she doesn't find her as "comfortable', as I do. But she started retaining some of our memories and personalities afterwards. She became restless, and curious. I have crystals with a lot of old books on them-- children's books you got us when we were little. Or inherited from Garridan and Graym. She figured out how to use the Reader, and started reading them. "A is for Alicorn', and "One Owl, Two Hoots' were her favorites at first. But she's up to first-grade level now, and still progressing. And... she's developing a unique personality of her own. She started initiating conversations a week ago. And questions. So many questions. We had to give her a name, she insisted on it."
"What did you name her?"
"We called her "Davera'. And... we don't feel right about taking over her mind anymore, or using her as a convenient "third body'."
"You mean, 'slave'."
"Well, OK, maybe, a little. But we feel like we're in over our heads. It's like having a seventeen-year-old six-year-old, and we're already messing up."
"And now you're calling for advice?"
"More than advice. We were wondering... you did such a good job with us kids..."
"How would we feel about raising a third 'daughter'? Is that what you're asking?"
"It's either that, or a foster home. Please, Dacey and I aren't ready to be Moms."
"Let me talk to your father. Maybe the Krinns... Lydda was saying just the other day how much she and Rokk are not enjoying being empty nesters. Perhaps we could find a place for Davera on Lightning Ring Farms. I assume she has Dacey's electrical powers? And perhaps your telepathy, as well?"
"No, the Excalbians seem to have left all that out. She's just a 'normal' girl. Only... she isn't really normal. Not at all."
"Well, I can't say I approve, and I do think you've done something very foolish. But we will attempt to work out some sort of care for our new granddaughter, Davera."
"Granddaughter? Mother, it's not like that... she's more like... just an extra sister."
"Oh, it is exactly like that, and if I were wiser than I am, I would give you and Dacey the full responsibility for being her Moms, and raising her. I expect you two will treat her as your own little girl when you come to visit for the Holidays, or any other time. Ultimately, Davera is your responsibility, and you need to recognize that, and... let her know you love her."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/15/21 06:22 PM
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PLAYDATE
The dark-haired man welcomed the two young families to Lightning Ring Farms.
"Eliza Checkoff," the tall blonde introduced herself. "And these are my daughters, Millie and Molly."
"Marg Checkoff," said the identical tall blonde. "And this is Hannah and Vanna. You are Ayla's brother?"
"Rokk Krinn," said Rokk Krinn. "Executive Supervisor."
"Oh, you're the Braalien," said Eliza. "And your wife is... Kathooni? Tell me, is it difficult?"
"Is what difficult?" asked Rokk Krinn.
"She means," said Marg, "Is it difficult being singlets?"
"I wouldn't know," said Rokk Krinn. "I've always been a singlet. Never known anything else. It might be a little difficult for little Violet, being a singlet in a school full of twins. She seems to have only a few friends. We appreciate your coming over for a playdate."
"We've met her at the Parent Sharing Times," said Eliza. "She seems a quiet, well-behaved little girl. Perhaps a bit shy."
"Really?" said Rokk Krinn. "They used to say that about her mother, too."
"Our grand-parents say this plantation used to be called Lucky Pearl," said Marg. "But the owners passed away, and it lay fallow for decades. You purchased the place?"
"No, I work with the heirs," said Rokk. "Your families run the farm down the highway with the Meat-Melon hothouses?"
'
"Oh, yes. Everyone asks about the hothouses," said Marg. "But it's really only a small part of our operation. We only produce hamelon, beeves, and Lamuellan PNB. We have some off-world customers who like them as part of a... square meal' package."
"Of course, the real Meat-Melon producers on Winath are Gorbon, Steel, & Micawber over on the Peninsula," Eliza remarked. "They have a huge operation there, including omni-protein genetic replicators. They can make custom Meat-Melons that replicate any sort of protein you like."
"Sheep, snake, blue whale, babootch... even human, if you want. You could literally feast on the flesh of your enemies. Or friends, for that matter. Or yourself," Marg added. "Not my cup of kono, but there are some..."
"Actually, their human-replicant protein melons have quite a market on Kanamit," said Eliza. "They ship them out with a mini-cookbook. Of course, we have no interest at all in trying to break into that market."
Violet's mother was waiting by the flower patch.
"Morning, Krinn."
"Morning, Digby."
"Eliza, Marg, so glad you could make it," said Salu Digby. "Violet is already out in the flower patch... somewhere. Molly and Millie and Vanna and Hannah can try to find her."
"I'll go out with the girls," said Marg.
"Those tall flowers," said Eliza. "The ones with the bright, roundish heads. I don't think I've ever seen them before."
"Those are tulips from Earth," said Salu. "Distantly related to onions, but purely ornamental. Not many people cultivate them anymore, but several centuries ago, they were very popular."
Marg was already back. "Well, they found your rabbit warrens right away," she said. "They're all having a fine time underground."
"Don't worry. The warrens are self-cleaning porcelain," said Salu. "They'll all come out cleaner than they went in."
The four adults casually kept an eye on the flower patch. Occasionally one or two of the heads of the five girls would pop up. There was a great deal of distant giggling.
A drone brought a light lunch for everyone, and then it was time to go home. As they were leaving, Millie-- or, perhaps, Molly-- whispered to Rokk Krinn. "I think Violet is doing something bad."
"What's that?" asked Rokk.
"I think she's been leaving the flower patch," said Molly. Or possibly Millie. Then she quickly skipped away with her mother, her sister, her aunt and cousins.
"So long, Krinn," said Salu. "See you around the farm."
"Uhm... could I talk to Violet for a minute?" he asked. "One of the girls told me she thought she was doing something... 'bad'," said Rokk. "Do you know what she means?" He asked Violet.
Violet hung her head. "I can do something they can't do," said the little girl. "Is that bad?"
"Why don't you tell me about it?" said Salu.
Violet held her hands apart. "I can make sparks, Mommy, just like Mommy Ayla." Tiny, bright lightning jumped between her fingers. "And I can be small, like you. And when I get smaller than the sparks, I can... ride them across the garden. Faster than anyone can run."
"Can you show me?" asked Salu. Violet vanished, instantly re-appearing on the opposite side of the flower garden. The little girl waved. Then she was back again, in a shower of tiny electrical sparks.
"She literally rides the lightning. Did you know she could do that?" asked Rokk.
"We made sure she had the meta-gene," said Salu. "But we didn't know how it would manifest. We had no idea before now that she had any unusual abilities at all."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," said Violet. "Is it bad?"
"Oh, sweetheart," said Salu. "No, it's not bad at all. It's wonderful. I just want you to make me a promise."
"Not to do it around the twins?" asked Violet.
"No, no, oh, not at all," said Salu. "You have a wonderful talent. You should practice it, and master it. It's just... the spark flies so fast. Be careful you don't get lost."
"Do you have any other special talents?" asked Rokk. He was weaving grasses together into a kind of ring.
Violet looked around. "See that big rock?" It was about three meters tall. Pink lightning corruscated around it. Slowly, it began to rise above the soil.
"Anti-gravity, too," said Rokk.
"Annie-gravity is hard," said Violet, the huge rock crashing back to the ground.
"Anti-gravity," corrected Salu.
"Anti-gravity," said Violet.
"Little Violet, I made you something," said Rokk. He held up a necklace of woven grasses and flower stems. A tarnished gold ring was woven into the necklace. "If you wear this, your mommies will always be able to find you, no matter how far you might go."
"Your old flight ring?" asked Salu.
"The anti-gravity metal has deteriorated," said Rokk. "But it still has its tracking function. You still have your rings too?"
"Yes, and it's the same," said Salu. "But you don't need to give up yours. We could give Violet Ayla's, or mine."
"No, I want her to have it," said Rokk. "You'll want to get a sturdier chain at some point. Until she grows into it..."
His Omnicomm chimed.
"Rokk, this is Garth," came the message. "We just got word that Pol is having some trouble. All the Members are, in fact. They're perfectly safe, but... they're going to need some help."
"Not too much help," said Rokk. "Remember what it was like when we were their age."
"That's what I told Imra," said Garth.
PLAYDATE
The dark-haired man welcomed the two young families to Lightning Ring Farms.
"Eliza Checkoff," the tall blonde introduced herself. "And these are my daughters, Millie and Molly."
"Marg Checkoff," said the identical tall blonde. "And this is Hannah and Vanna. You are Ayla's brother?"
"Rokk Krinn," said Rokk Krinn. "Executive Supervisor."
"Oh, you're the Braalien," said Eliza. "And your wife is... Kathooni? Tell me, is it difficult?"
"Is what difficult?" asked Rokk Krinn.
"She means," said Marg, "Is it difficult being singlets?"
"I wouldn't know," said Rokk Krinn. "I've always been a singlet. Never known anything else. It might be a little difficult for little Violet, being a singlet in a school full of twins. She seems to have only a few friends. We appreciate your coming over for a playdate."
"We've met her at the Parent Sharing Times," said Eliza. "She seems a quiet, well-behaved little girl. Perhaps a bit shy."
"Really?" said Rokk Krinn. "They used to say that about her mother, too."
"Our grand-parents say this plantation used to be called Lucky Pearl," said Marg. "But the owners passed away, and it lay fallow for decades. You purchased the place?"
"No, I work with the heirs," said Rokk. "Your families run the farm down the highway with the Meat-Melon hothouses?"
'
"Oh, yes. Everyone asks about the hothouses," said Marg. "But it's really only a small part of our operation. We only produce hamelon, beeves, and Lamuellan PNB. We have some off-world customers who like them as part of a... square meal' package."
"Of course, the real Meat-Melon producers on Winath are Gorbon, Steel, & Micawber over on the Peninsula," Eliza remarked. "They have a huge operation there, including omni-protein genetic replicators. They can make custom Meat-Melons that replicate any sort of protein you like."
"Sheep, snake, blue whale, babootch... even human, if you want. You could literally feast on the flesh of your enemies. Or friends, for that matter. Or yourself," Marg added. "Not my cup of kono, but there are some..."
"Actually, their human-replicant protein melons have quite a market on Kanamit," said Eliza. "They ship them out with a mini-cookbook. Of course, we have no interest at all in trying to break into that market."
Violet's mother was waiting by the flower patch.
"Morning, Krinn."
"Morning, Digby."
"Eliza, Marg, so glad you could make it," said Salu Digby. "Violet is already out in the flower patch... somewhere. Molly and Millie and Vanna and Hannah can try to find her."
"I'll go out with the girls," said Marg.
"Those tall flowers," said Eliza. "The ones with the bright, roundish heads. I don't think I've ever seen them before."
"Those are tulips from Earth," said Salu. "Distantly related to onions, but purely ornamental. Not many people cultivate them anymore, but several centuries ago, they were very popular."
Marg was already back. "Well, they found your rabbit warrens right away," she said. "They're all having a fine time underground."
"Don't worry. The warrens are self-cleaning porcelain," said Salu. "They'll all come out cleaner than they went in."
The four adults casually kept an eye on the flower patch. Occasionally one or two of the heads of the five girls would pop up. There was a great deal of distant giggling.
A drone brought a light lunch for everyone, and then it was time to go home. As they were leaving, Millie-- or, perhaps, Molly-- whispered to Rokk Krinn. "I think Violet is doing something bad."
"What's that?" asked Rokk.
"I think she's been leaving the flower patch," said Molly. Or possibly Millie. Then she quickly skipped away with her mother, her sister, her aunt and cousins.
"So long, Krinn," said Salu. "See you around the farm."
"Uhm... could I talk to Violet for a minute?" he asked. "One of the girls told me she thought she was doing something... 'bad'," said Rokk. "Do you know what she means?" He asked Violet.
Violet hung her head. "I can do something they can't do," said the little girl. "Is that bad?"
"Why don't you tell me about it?" said Salu.
Violet held her hands apart. "I can make sparks, Mommy, just like Mommy Ayla." Tiny, bright lightning jumped between her fingers. "And I can be small, like you. And when I get smaller than the sparks, I can... ride them across the garden. Faster than anyone can run."
"Can you show me?" asked Salu. Violet vanished, instantly re-appearing on the opposite side of the flower garden. The little girl waved. Then she was back again, in a shower of tiny electrical sparks.
"She literally rides the lightning. Did you know she could do that?" asked Rokk.
"We made sure she had the meta-gene," said Salu. "But we didn't know how it would manifest. We had no idea before now that she had any unusual abilities at all."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," said Violet. "Is it bad?"
"Oh, sweetheart," said Salu. "No, it's not bad at all. It's wonderful. I just want you to make me a promise."
"Not to do it around the twins?" asked Violet.
"No, no, oh, not at all," said Salu. "You have a wonderful talent. You should practice it, and master it. It's just... the spark flies so fast. Be careful you don't get lost."
"Do you have any other special talents?" asked Rokk. He was weaving grasses together into a kind of ring.
Violet looked around. "See that big rock?" It was about three meters tall. Pink lightning corruscated around it. Slowly, it began to rise above the soil.
"Anti-gravity, too," said Rokk.
"Annie-gravity is hard," said Violet, the huge rock crashing back to the ground.
"Anti-gravity," corrected Salu.
"Anti-gravity," said Violet.
"Little Violet, I made you something," said Rokk. He held up a necklace of woven grasses and flower stems. A tarnished gold ring was woven into the necklace. "If you wear this, your mommies will always be able to find you, no matter how far you might go."
"Your old flight ring?" asked Salu.
"The anti-gravity metal has deteriorated," said Rokk. "But it still has its tracking function. You still have your rings too?"
"Yes, and it's the same," said Salu. "But you don't need to give up yours. We could give Violet Ayla's, or mine."
"No, I want her to have it," said Rokk. "You'll want to get a sturdier chain at some point. Until she grows into it..."
His Omnicomm chimed.
"Rokk, this is Garth," came the message. "We just got word that Pol is having some trouble. All the Members are, in fact. They're perfectly safe, but... they're going to need some help."
"Not too much help," said Rokk. "Remember what it was like when we were their age."
"That's what I told Imra," said Garth.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/21 05:48 PM
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE
Previously:
Garth answered the door. The old man shook his hand enthusiastically.
"Mr. Theophanous," he introduced himself. "And this is my wife, Mrs. Theophanous."
"Is Imra at home?" asked the dumpling-shaped old woman.
"Someone is here to see you," Garth told his wife.
"I don't want to talk to them," said Imra. "Tell them to go away."
"Imra," said Garth, shocked. "I've never known you to be less than hospitable to visitors."
"You really don't know who they are, do you?" Imra replied. "Come on, then."
They walked to the parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Theophanous were waiting. They had not even bothered to take a seat.
"Look," said Imra. "This is God."
"God is an old married couple?" asked Garth.
"Can't you feel it, Garth? Don't you feel a little strange?" asked Imra. "Mr. and Mrs. Theophanous are God. Or, at least the anthropomorphic personification of the idea of God. Isn't that right?" she challenged.
"Essentially correct," said Mr. Theophanous.
"They did a huge favor for me once... and I'm grateful. But now, they are here to collect, and want me to do a favor for them in return. Isn't that also 'essentially correct'?"
"Not for us, dear," said Mrs. Theophanous. "For your friend Tenzil. He needs you. Or, he will need you, as soon as you can get there."
"Tenzil," said Imra. "You want me to go see Tenzil and Eve. Well, we haven't been to New Titan since we took Dacey and Dorrit to visit their Aunt Imra there. I suppose it's time to make another visit. And Tenzil. OK. All right. But maybe this will count towards what I owe you?"
"Do you know," said Mr. Theophanous, "How hard it is to make these little... incursions... into the material world?"
"No, not really," said Imra.
"Not hard at all," said Mrs. Theophanous. "The effort is not significantly different from zero. It's the Other Side that keeps working so hard, keeps balance sheets, and counts costs. And their wares are always so overpriced. Freely you have received; freely give."
"Please don't start," said Imra. "We're going to New Titan."
"Well, I hope you have a wonderful time," said Mr. Theophanous. "You know what they say about 'the least of these'. We'll show ourselves out."
"They seemed nice," said Garth. "How do we know them?"
"Oh, Garth," said Imra. "Never mind. Can you arrange for the flight to New Titan? I'd like to leave as soon as possible."
"It's been a long time since we last saw Eve and Tenzil," said Garth. "It'll be good to get together again."
AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE
Previously:
Garth answered the door. The old man shook his hand enthusiastically.
"Mr. Theophanous," he introduced himself. "And this is my wife, Mrs. Theophanous."
"Is Imra at home?" asked the dumpling-shaped old woman.
"Someone is here to see you," Garth told his wife.
"I don't want to talk to them," said Imra. "Tell them to go away."
"Imra," said Garth, shocked. "I've never known you to be less than hospitable to visitors."
"You really don't know who they are, do you?" Imra replied. "Come on, then."
They walked to the parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Theophanous were waiting. They had not even bothered to take a seat.
"Look," said Imra. "This is God."
"God is an old married couple?" asked Garth.
"Can't you feel it, Garth? Don't you feel a little strange?" asked Imra. "Mr. and Mrs. Theophanous are God. Or, at least the anthropomorphic personification of the idea of God. Isn't that right?" she challenged.
"Essentially correct," said Mr. Theophanous.
"They did a huge favor for me once... and I'm grateful. But now, they are here to collect, and want me to do a favor for them in return. Isn't that also 'essentially correct'?"
"Not for us, dear," said Mrs. Theophanous. "For your friend Tenzil. He needs you. Or, he will need you, as soon as you can get there."
"Tenzil," said Imra. "You want me to go see Tenzil and Eve. Well, we haven't been to New Titan since we took Dacey and Dorrit to visit their Aunt Imra there. I suppose it's time to make another visit. And Tenzil. OK. All right. But maybe this will count towards what I owe you?"
"Do you know," said Mr. Theophanous, "How hard it is to make these little... incursions... into the material world?"
"No, not really," said Imra.
"Not hard at all," said Mrs. Theophanous. "The effort is not significantly different from zero. It's the Other Side that keeps working so hard, keeps balance sheets, and counts costs. And their wares are always so overpriced. Freely you have received; freely give."
"Please don't start," said Imra. "We're going to New Titan."
"Well, I hope you have a wonderful time," said Mr. Theophanous. "You know what they say about 'the least of these'. We'll show ourselves out."
"They seemed nice," said Garth. "How do we know them?"
"Oh, Garth," said Imra. "Never mind. Can you arrange for the flight to New Titan? I'd like to leave as soon as possible."
"It's been a long time since we last saw Eve and Tenzil," said Garth. "It'll be good to get together again."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/21 05:52 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
![[Linked Image from 66.media.tumblr.com]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/b7637af252e2d198d1894788196ce763/tumblr_pqbd19esOK1uwm5uqo1_75sq.jpg)
The ancestral Aries estate had been rebuilt on New Titan, but was now mostly empty. Eve Aries and Tenzil Kem lived in less than one-half of the North Wing. The grounds, on the other hand, were beautiful, and beautifully kept by a complement of gardeners.
"I'm sorry," said Eve Aries. "I know I said we would be happy to see you anytime, but now.. is just not a good time."
"No, let them in," said Tenzil Kem, from inside the house. "Misery loves company."
Tenzil sat with his head in his hands at the kitchen table.
"What's wrong, Tenz?" asked Imra.
"Oh, our whole life is falling apart, that's all. First, Tenzil Junior takes up with that Zrfffn imp... Loser-Something..."
"Now, now," said his wife. She looked up at Imra and Garth. "He's only half-Zrfffn, and he seems like a perfectly good friend to our son. Not prankish or impish at all. There's no need for stereotyping and prejudice. And his name is Ligex Quizzer-Yip. Tenzil could remember it if he made the effort."
"And then we found this in Noria's room," said Tenzil, indicating a thick metal disk lying on the table. "She was hiding it from us. Just look at it!"
"I don't... what is it, Tenzil?" asked Imra.
"I have no idea!" Tenzil replied. "But it just fizzes with Miracle Machine energy. Can't you feel it?"
"You think it's a Miracle Machine?" asked Imra.
"No, of course not," said Tenzil. "But something similar. Definitely related. We asked her about it, there was a huge fight, and now she's sulking in her room."
"I know what it is," said Garth.
Imra, Tenzil, and Eve gaped at him together.
"When I was a kid," said Garth, "There was this old man-- a friend of my grandparents-- he had one of these. You're right, they're pretty weird, but really mostly harmless, I think. It's an H-Dial."
"A what?" asked Imra.
"An H-Dial. You can tell because of the big 'H' in the center. Right? It looks just like the one old Denz had. Might even be the same one, I don't know."
"But what is it?" asked Imra.
"See, there are ten buttons in a circle around it. But you only use four of them. If you press the ones marked 'H'-'E'-'R'-'O' in order, you get a temporary and random super-power. 'Hero'-- get it?"
"That's all wrong," came a shrill voice. Noria Kem was eleven years old. Her mouse-brown hair was excessively curly, and stuck out from her head like a bad perm. Her big blue eyes looked even bigger behind her corrective gravi-lenses. She was skinny enough to appear slightly undernourished.
"You don't press the buttons. You dial them. And you don't get super-powers. It changes you into a super-hero. And you need to let it rest between dials. The more you use it, the weaker the hero you get. I know all about it. And it's mine, and you shouldn't take away my stuff."
"Where did you get it?" asked Tenzil.
"It was a gift. A man gave it to me," said Noria, defensively.
"Was this 'man'," asked Garth, "Tall and bald and pink-skinned with pointy ears and big blank yellow eyes?"
Noria looked shocked. A shock of recognition.
"A Controller," said Garth. "Always messing around with other people's lives."
"Noria," said Imra. "You really should trust your parents. You could have talked to them about this..."
"Is this my parents' Pee-Psychiatrist friend, come to shrink my head?" asked Noria. She spit out the 'P' out like a watermelon seed.
Garth walked up to Noria, looking down at the girl. "When you insult my wife," he said calmly, "You are insulting my girlfriend, and it upsets me. I think your Mom and Dad would have taught you better manners than that."
"Seventh-grade is hard," said Eve.
"What do you know?" said Noria. "Yeah, it's hard. I try to fit in. I eat normal food, even though it's bland and boring. I don't say anything when they call me 'Four-Eyes', or 'Mop-Head', or 'Trash-Eater'. Because 'sticks and stones', you know? I just want to fit in. I want people to like me. I just want to be normal!"
"You know," said Garth, picking up the H-Dial. "This is the opposite of normal."
"'What are your powers, Noria?' they ask," the pre-teen girl was almost crying. "Thought-casting? Scrying? Pyrokinesis? Psychoportation? Psychometabolism? Psychokinesis? Psionic Blast? Pre-Cognition? Mind-reading? Mind Control? Metacreativity? Illusion Casting ? Clairsentience? Clairvoyance? Astral Projection? Super-Intelligence? Or are you just 'Stupid?"
"Maybe we shouldn't have left Bismoll," said Eve.
"NO! I don't want to go back to Bismoll. I want to stay here, and I want people here to like me. And when the H-Dial changes me into the right kind of person, with the right kind of powers, I'm going to stay that way, and everybody will like me."
Noria snatched the H-Dial off the table, and quickly dialed.
The woman was nearly eight feet tall, her head brushing the ceiling. Her gleaming golden hair hung in ringlets. She was dressed in heavy furs, suitable for Wondil IX, or Xolnar.
"What fell power summoneth Zeutrah, Goddess of the Storm?" she bellowed. She pulled a sword out of her scabbard that glowed like lightning. It grazed the ceiling, leaving a bad scorch-mark.
"It was an accident, Goddess," said Garth quickly. "Look, in your left hand."
"Oh," said Zeutrah. "One of these. I should crush it."
"No, no, just dial O-R-E-H," said Garth. "It will take you right back again."
"To the Orrery?" said Zeutrah. "How appropriate."
"I didn't know it could do that," said Noria. "I felt like I was drowning in her mind. I still remember..."
"After a transformation like that," said Garth. "The next one ought to be much less powerful. Or frightening. You know what they say about riding a Dodono... if you fall off, get right back on again."
At Garth's encouragement, Noria dialed again. "Oh, great," she said. "A living wooden puppet. Maid Marionette."
"You ought to let your parents help you with this," said Garth. "It's safer than doing it alone. They have some experience with super-heroing, you know."
"I don't want to be a super-hero." said Noria. "But maybe you're right. That time I became a human torch I was afraid I'd set my room on fire."
"Your parents love you very much," said Imra.
"What do you know?" spat Noria. "My older brother Tenzil-- he's their precious. Won all the science prizes in High School. Graduated Magna Cum Laude from University. He was the reason we moved to New Titan, in the first place, because he didn't inherit Bismollian physiology. Just a Saturnian super-brain. He's the one who got all the attention. He even represents the Aries families on the Council of Archons. He's literally a Prince of Saturn. If they love me as much as him, why didn't they name me Eve, Jr.?"
"Oh, Noria," said Eve. "Don't ever believe your parents don't love you."
"I think you're old enough to hear this story," said Tenzil.
"Tenzil, really?" asked Eve. "Now?"
"Please sit down, Noria," said Tenzil. The wooden puppet clumsily took a seat. "Back on Bismoll, I... there was a fellow I knew. Married about the same time as your mom and I. He and his wife discovered she was pregnant... by another man. But he treated that kid as his own child. Nobody could have ever loved a child more. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Is this about Uncle Renkil?" asked Noria.
"No this is not about Uncle Renkil," said Tenzil. "No one who knows your cousin Lizzie could ever believe she is anything but her father's daughter."
"Did... this kid, whoever... ever meet their real father?" asked Noria.
"No, he was... he died before the baby was born," said Tenzil. "But that's not the point."
"I guess I'm not getting what you're trying to tell me," said Noria.
"What I'm saying is," said Tenzil. "Even if you weren't my 'real' daughter-- which you are-- I would love you just as much. Love is not a pie. We can love you and Junior at the same time. It's not just that we're family... we're... I love you, Noria Vivien Kem."
Noria un-dialed, back to her human form.
"I know some kids on Mars," said Imra, "Who would be happy to welcome you into their Super-Hero Club."
"Oh, yes, like my father," said Noria. "The laughing-stock of the Legion of Super-Heroes. And now you want to make me the laughing stock of some other knock-off junior Super-Hero Club. No thank you. I'll stay on New Titan."
"Sorry," said Saturn Girl. "It was just a suggestion."
"Let me give you some advice," said Garth. "Old man to seventh-grader. The H-Dial is an amazing instrument. It lets you be anybody. Some of those anybodys are pretty amazing. But the most amazing person you can be is yourself. And it wouldn't hurt you to have a cup of propylene glycol or a tall, cool glass of sulfuryl chloride fluoride once in a while with your dinner at home. Nobody but your family needs to know. But eat something you like, once in a while."
Noria smiled. "Thanks, Uncle Garth."
Later, Tenzil took Garth aside privately. "I wasn't really the laughing-stock of the Legion, was I?"
"Well, you've got to admit, you and Chuck were kind of the class clowns," said Garth. "But there was that time you saved us all when you found the space-bees. Without you, Ayla and I wouldn't even be here."
===============================================================================
They caught a flight for Winath the next day.
"You did good there," said Garth. "Really brought the family back together."
"Do you think so?" asked Saturn Girl. Her Omnicom buzzed.
"It's a text from Brainy," she said. "Forwarded from Renlo Tagor. He says Dorrit and Dacey... and the rest of the Members... are in trouble. We're going to need to give them some help."
"Not too much help," said Garth. "Remember what we were like at that age."
The ancestral Aries estate had been rebuilt on New Titan, but was now mostly empty. Eve Aries and Tenzil Kem lived in less than one-half of the North Wing. The grounds, on the other hand, were beautiful, and beautifully kept by a complement of gardeners.
"I'm sorry," said Eve Aries. "I know I said we would be happy to see you anytime, but now.. is just not a good time."
"No, let them in," said Tenzil Kem, from inside the house. "Misery loves company."
Tenzil sat with his head in his hands at the kitchen table.
"What's wrong, Tenz?" asked Imra.
"Oh, our whole life is falling apart, that's all. First, Tenzil Junior takes up with that Zrfffn imp... Loser-Something..."
"Now, now," said his wife. She looked up at Imra and Garth. "He's only half-Zrfffn, and he seems like a perfectly good friend to our son. Not prankish or impish at all. There's no need for stereotyping and prejudice. And his name is Ligex Quizzer-Yip. Tenzil could remember it if he made the effort."
"And then we found this in Noria's room," said Tenzil, indicating a thick metal disk lying on the table. "She was hiding it from us. Just look at it!"
"I don't... what is it, Tenzil?" asked Imra.
"I have no idea!" Tenzil replied. "But it just fizzes with Miracle Machine energy. Can't you feel it?"
"You think it's a Miracle Machine?" asked Imra.
"No, of course not," said Tenzil. "But something similar. Definitely related. We asked her about it, there was a huge fight, and now she's sulking in her room."
"I know what it is," said Garth.
Imra, Tenzil, and Eve gaped at him together.
"When I was a kid," said Garth, "There was this old man-- a friend of my grandparents-- he had one of these. You're right, they're pretty weird, but really mostly harmless, I think. It's an H-Dial."
"A what?" asked Imra.
"An H-Dial. You can tell because of the big 'H' in the center. Right? It looks just like the one old Denz had. Might even be the same one, I don't know."
"But what is it?" asked Imra.
"See, there are ten buttons in a circle around it. But you only use four of them. If you press the ones marked 'H'-'E'-'R'-'O' in order, you get a temporary and random super-power. 'Hero'-- get it?"
"That's all wrong," came a shrill voice. Noria Kem was eleven years old. Her mouse-brown hair was excessively curly, and stuck out from her head like a bad perm. Her big blue eyes looked even bigger behind her corrective gravi-lenses. She was skinny enough to appear slightly undernourished.
"You don't press the buttons. You dial them. And you don't get super-powers. It changes you into a super-hero. And you need to let it rest between dials. The more you use it, the weaker the hero you get. I know all about it. And it's mine, and you shouldn't take away my stuff."
"Where did you get it?" asked Tenzil.
"It was a gift. A man gave it to me," said Noria, defensively.
"Was this 'man'," asked Garth, "Tall and bald and pink-skinned with pointy ears and big blank yellow eyes?"
Noria looked shocked. A shock of recognition.
"A Controller," said Garth. "Always messing around with other people's lives."
"Noria," said Imra. "You really should trust your parents. You could have talked to them about this..."
"Is this my parents' Pee-Psychiatrist friend, come to shrink my head?" asked Noria. She spit out the 'P' out like a watermelon seed.
Garth walked up to Noria, looking down at the girl. "When you insult my wife," he said calmly, "You are insulting my girlfriend, and it upsets me. I think your Mom and Dad would have taught you better manners than that."
"Seventh-grade is hard," said Eve.
"What do you know?" said Noria. "Yeah, it's hard. I try to fit in. I eat normal food, even though it's bland and boring. I don't say anything when they call me 'Four-Eyes', or 'Mop-Head', or 'Trash-Eater'. Because 'sticks and stones', you know? I just want to fit in. I want people to like me. I just want to be normal!"
"You know," said Garth, picking up the H-Dial. "This is the opposite of normal."
"'What are your powers, Noria?' they ask," the pre-teen girl was almost crying. "Thought-casting? Scrying? Pyrokinesis? Psychoportation? Psychometabolism? Psychokinesis? Psionic Blast? Pre-Cognition? Mind-reading? Mind Control? Metacreativity? Illusion Casting ? Clairsentience? Clairvoyance? Astral Projection? Super-Intelligence? Or are you just 'Stupid?"
"Maybe we shouldn't have left Bismoll," said Eve.
"NO! I don't want to go back to Bismoll. I want to stay here, and I want people here to like me. And when the H-Dial changes me into the right kind of person, with the right kind of powers, I'm going to stay that way, and everybody will like me."
Noria snatched the H-Dial off the table, and quickly dialed.
The woman was nearly eight feet tall, her head brushing the ceiling. Her gleaming golden hair hung in ringlets. She was dressed in heavy furs, suitable for Wondil IX, or Xolnar.
"What fell power summoneth Zeutrah, Goddess of the Storm?" she bellowed. She pulled a sword out of her scabbard that glowed like lightning. It grazed the ceiling, leaving a bad scorch-mark.
"It was an accident, Goddess," said Garth quickly. "Look, in your left hand."
"Oh," said Zeutrah. "One of these. I should crush it."
"No, no, just dial O-R-E-H," said Garth. "It will take you right back again."
"To the Orrery?" said Zeutrah. "How appropriate."
"I didn't know it could do that," said Noria. "I felt like I was drowning in her mind. I still remember..."
"After a transformation like that," said Garth. "The next one ought to be much less powerful. Or frightening. You know what they say about riding a Dodono... if you fall off, get right back on again."
At Garth's encouragement, Noria dialed again. "Oh, great," she said. "A living wooden puppet. Maid Marionette."
"You ought to let your parents help you with this," said Garth. "It's safer than doing it alone. They have some experience with super-heroing, you know."
"I don't want to be a super-hero." said Noria. "But maybe you're right. That time I became a human torch I was afraid I'd set my room on fire."
"Your parents love you very much," said Imra.
"What do you know?" spat Noria. "My older brother Tenzil-- he's their precious. Won all the science prizes in High School. Graduated Magna Cum Laude from University. He was the reason we moved to New Titan, in the first place, because he didn't inherit Bismollian physiology. Just a Saturnian super-brain. He's the one who got all the attention. He even represents the Aries families on the Council of Archons. He's literally a Prince of Saturn. If they love me as much as him, why didn't they name me Eve, Jr.?"
"Oh, Noria," said Eve. "Don't ever believe your parents don't love you."
"I think you're old enough to hear this story," said Tenzil.
"Tenzil, really?" asked Eve. "Now?"
"Please sit down, Noria," said Tenzil. The wooden puppet clumsily took a seat. "Back on Bismoll, I... there was a fellow I knew. Married about the same time as your mom and I. He and his wife discovered she was pregnant... by another man. But he treated that kid as his own child. Nobody could have ever loved a child more. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Is this about Uncle Renkil?" asked Noria.
"No this is not about Uncle Renkil," said Tenzil. "No one who knows your cousin Lizzie could ever believe she is anything but her father's daughter."
"Did... this kid, whoever... ever meet their real father?" asked Noria.
"No, he was... he died before the baby was born," said Tenzil. "But that's not the point."
"I guess I'm not getting what you're trying to tell me," said Noria.
"What I'm saying is," said Tenzil. "Even if you weren't my 'real' daughter-- which you are-- I would love you just as much. Love is not a pie. We can love you and Junior at the same time. It's not just that we're family... we're... I love you, Noria Vivien Kem."
Noria un-dialed, back to her human form.
"I know some kids on Mars," said Imra, "Who would be happy to welcome you into their Super-Hero Club."
"Oh, yes, like my father," said Noria. "The laughing-stock of the Legion of Super-Heroes. And now you want to make me the laughing stock of some other knock-off junior Super-Hero Club. No thank you. I'll stay on New Titan."
"Sorry," said Saturn Girl. "It was just a suggestion."
"Let me give you some advice," said Garth. "Old man to seventh-grader. The H-Dial is an amazing instrument. It lets you be anybody. Some of those anybodys are pretty amazing. But the most amazing person you can be is yourself. And it wouldn't hurt you to have a cup of propylene glycol or a tall, cool glass of sulfuryl chloride fluoride once in a while with your dinner at home. Nobody but your family needs to know. But eat something you like, once in a while."
Noria smiled. "Thanks, Uncle Garth."
Later, Tenzil took Garth aside privately. "I wasn't really the laughing-stock of the Legion, was I?"
"Well, you've got to admit, you and Chuck were kind of the class clowns," said Garth. "But there was that time you saved us all when you found the space-bees. Without you, Ayla and I wouldn't even be here."
===============================================================================
They caught a flight for Winath the next day.
"You did good there," said Garth. "Really brought the family back together."
"Do you think so?" asked Saturn Girl. Her Omnicom buzzed.
"It's a text from Brainy," she said. "Forwarded from Renlo Tagor. He says Dorrit and Dacey... and the rest of the Members... are in trouble. We're going to need to give them some help."
"Not too much help," said Garth. "Remember what we were like at that age."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/21 05:55 PM
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CALAMITY KING?
Another Universe.
Designation Earth K-1
Norwich City, Bismoll
Approximately twelve years ago.
"Please come in," said Eve Kem.
E. Davis Ester doffed his triangular hat. "Thank you for seeing me," he said.
"Tenzil and his associate, Taryn, are finishing up some work in his home office," said Eve. "They shouldn't be long. You can have a seat while you're waiting." She indicated a large, comfy chair.
"I believe we've met before," said Eve. "You were a member of that Legion the Dominators disbanded?"
"Yes," said E. Davis. "Were you one of the members of the Legion of Super-Villains that we tried to prevent escaping from Takron-Galtos?"
"Well, we weren't very organized at the time," said Eve, fiddling with the locket around her neck. "Not really a Legion of anything. Every villain for themselves, that day. Can I get you a glass of water?"
"Please," said E. Davis.
Eve returned with a glass of water, a couple of adults and a pair of children.
"This is Taryn's brother, Fungul," Eve introduced them. "And Taryn's fiance, Thon Mijoy. And this young man," she ruffled a tall pre-teen's curly red hair, "Is our son, Tenzil Kem, Jr. And our daughter, Norja."
"I'm two!" said Norja.
"Are you really?" asked E. Davis, sipping his water. "Where's the other one?"
Noria looked puzzled. "I... don't know," she said.
"Don't tease her," said Eve.
"Oh, I just..." E. Davis began. THUMP! One of the short legs on the chair he was sitting in had broken. He jumped up.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. "It's my powers. I cause random, spontaneous stress fractures in everything around me. I can't always control it." He sat down in the broken chair, leaning at a slight angle. "That's what I came to talk to your husband about."
"I would think you would need an insurance agent, not a lawyer," said Fungul Loy.
"No, it's not that," said E. Davis. He addressed Eve. "I have been looking for a way to control-- or get rid of-- my metagenetic 'gift' for some time. I tried Ventura, where they are experts in probability and chance, but no luck. In fact, they granted me a generous stipend to leave, and never come back. I've tried the Daxamite medical researchers, and even Colu, but no luck. Well, only bad luck."
"But how can my husband help you?" asked Eve. "He is no quantum biologist."
"No, but he was exposed to radiation from the Miracle Machine," said E. Davis. "Which was, as I understand it, a sophisticated Infinite Improbability Generator. And therefore related to my abilities. I thought he might have some insights."
"Very few, I'm afraid," said Tenzil Kem, entering with a very professional-looking Taryn Loy. "My wife is a telepath," he explained. "You speak to her, you speak to me. I'll give it some thought, but I never had much luck controlling the Miracle Machine energies myself. Just off the top of my head: if Colu, Daxam and Ventura can't help you... well, you might try the Luck Lords on Thaun. Not sure I'd advise that, though. Or, if you could find the contingent of the Controllers that created the Miracle Machine in the first place. Although nothing very good happens to people who get mixed up with the Controllers. The Trylop Council of Mernl might be worth a look. Mernl is a kind of techno-Naltor. And Prince Evillo of Tartarus has a device he claimed could drain residual Miracle Machine energy. Sorry, those are all kind of sketchy recommendations, aren't they? As I say, those are just off the top of my head. I'll put some serious thought into it, though. Anything for a fellow Legionnaire."
Tenzil Kem extended his hand in a gesture of goodwill. "Good luck, then?" he said.
E. Davis Ester took the proffered hand.
A blast of rainbow lightning radiated out from where their two hands touched, striking all over the interior of the home. For a moment it coalesced around little Noria. Her hair stood on end. There was a crackle and leap of energy, and the air was still.
"Did our... did we just transfer our improbability powers to your daughter?" asked E. Ester.
"I don't have..." said Tenzil. "Oh, I hope not."
Norja blinked. There was a *snikt*, and the broken chair-leg repaired itself.
"Oh, my," said Eve Kem.
{Origin of Improbability Lass on Earth-K1}
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CALAMITY KING?
Another Universe.
Designation Earth K-1
Norwich City, Bismoll
Approximately twelve years ago.
"Please come in," said Eve Kem.
E. Davis Ester doffed his triangular hat. "Thank you for seeing me," he said.
"Tenzil and his associate, Taryn, are finishing up some work in his home office," said Eve. "They shouldn't be long. You can have a seat while you're waiting." She indicated a large, comfy chair.
"I believe we've met before," said Eve. "You were a member of that Legion the Dominators disbanded?"
"Yes," said E. Davis. "Were you one of the members of the Legion of Super-Villains that we tried to prevent escaping from Takron-Galtos?"
"Well, we weren't very organized at the time," said Eve, fiddling with the locket around her neck. "Not really a Legion of anything. Every villain for themselves, that day. Can I get you a glass of water?"
"Please," said E. Davis.
Eve returned with a glass of water, a couple of adults and a pair of children.
"This is Taryn's brother, Fungul," Eve introduced them. "And Taryn's fiance, Thon Mijoy. And this young man," she ruffled a tall pre-teen's curly red hair, "Is our son, Tenzil Kem, Jr. And our daughter, Norja."
"I'm two!" said Norja.
"Are you really?" asked E. Davis, sipping his water. "Where's the other one?"
Noria looked puzzled. "I... don't know," she said.
"Don't tease her," said Eve.
"Oh, I just..." E. Davis began. THUMP! One of the short legs on the chair he was sitting in had broken. He jumped up.
"Sorry, sorry," he said. "It's my powers. I cause random, spontaneous stress fractures in everything around me. I can't always control it." He sat down in the broken chair, leaning at a slight angle. "That's what I came to talk to your husband about."
"I would think you would need an insurance agent, not a lawyer," said Fungul Loy.
"No, it's not that," said E. Davis. He addressed Eve. "I have been looking for a way to control-- or get rid of-- my metagenetic 'gift' for some time. I tried Ventura, where they are experts in probability and chance, but no luck. In fact, they granted me a generous stipend to leave, and never come back. I've tried the Daxamite medical researchers, and even Colu, but no luck. Well, only bad luck."
"But how can my husband help you?" asked Eve. "He is no quantum biologist."
"No, but he was exposed to radiation from the Miracle Machine," said E. Davis. "Which was, as I understand it, a sophisticated Infinite Improbability Generator. And therefore related to my abilities. I thought he might have some insights."
"Very few, I'm afraid," said Tenzil Kem, entering with a very professional-looking Taryn Loy. "My wife is a telepath," he explained. "You speak to her, you speak to me. I'll give it some thought, but I never had much luck controlling the Miracle Machine energies myself. Just off the top of my head: if Colu, Daxam and Ventura can't help you... well, you might try the Luck Lords on Thaun. Not sure I'd advise that, though. Or, if you could find the contingent of the Controllers that created the Miracle Machine in the first place. Although nothing very good happens to people who get mixed up with the Controllers. The Trylop Council of Mernl might be worth a look. Mernl is a kind of techno-Naltor. And Prince Evillo of Tartarus has a device he claimed could drain residual Miracle Machine energy. Sorry, those are all kind of sketchy recommendations, aren't they? As I say, those are just off the top of my head. I'll put some serious thought into it, though. Anything for a fellow Legionnaire."
Tenzil Kem extended his hand in a gesture of goodwill. "Good luck, then?" he said.
E. Davis Ester took the proffered hand.
A blast of rainbow lightning radiated out from where their two hands touched, striking all over the interior of the home. For a moment it coalesced around little Noria. Her hair stood on end. There was a crackle and leap of energy, and the air was still.
"Did our... did we just transfer our improbability powers to your daughter?" asked E. Ester.
"I don't have..." said Tenzil. "Oh, I hope not."
Norja blinked. There was a *snikt*, and the broken chair-leg repaired itself.
"Oh, my," said Eve Kem.
{Origin of Improbability Lass on Earth-K1}
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/21 06:03 PM
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DUDE, WHERE'S MY SUPER-HERO CLUBHOUSE?
We now return you to our regularly scheduled Earth K-2 tales:
The Time Tetrahedron appeared on the bare Martian soil.
Renlo Tagor roused his sleeping charge. "What has happened to Vesta?" he demanded. "Are you in danger?"
Ten sat up on the cold, hard ground. "I admit I do not know. This is Mars, but..."
"But where is the Clubhouse?" asked Star-Woman.
The Members of the Super-Hero Club lay scattered around the area. In the dim light of the Martian moons, a black dome loomed.
"It appears to be a large sphere of iron, but about an inch thick," said Renlo Tagor, consulting his instruments. "It is enclosing your clubhouse."
Star-Woman tried ripping it open, but to no effect. Cosmic Boy's powers could not affect it, Lightning Lass' powers could not heat it. Phantom Girl tried to phase through it, but ended up coming out the other side, as though it were solid all the way through.
"I note it is lying outside your mana-cancelling field," said Renlo Tagor. "It may be some sort of magical construct. Without his robo-nanny, laboratory, or force-shield belt... I'm sorry, but until this is resolved Txarlz must return to Colu with me."
Matter-Eater Lad Two approached the older Coluan. "Can you take Kylda with you?" he asked. The small Martian sun was rising, and Polar Lass still lay shivering on the ground-- possibly asleep, possibly worse. "Her thermal belt, her insulated clothing-- it's all still in the Clubhouse, locked inside that thing. Tharrans are used to living at temperatures of 200F or more. She's freezing to death! Could you possibly take her to Tharr?"
"Maybe we should all go home," said Shrinking Violet. "I've lost my earring-motels, and my White Dwarf Radiator. Without it, I'll quickly lose my shrinking ability.
"Not for a few months," said Star-Woman.
"Plus, we're all in our pajamas. With no other clothes," Shrinking Violet continued.
"Speaking of which," said Dorrit to Star-Woman, "You sleep in your costume?"
"I have several uniforms, all of the same pattern," said Star-Woman. "This one I happen to use for pajamas. No cape, of course. But at least no one here sleeps in the nude."
"Speak for yourself," said Korvea. "Fortunately, I can grow feathers."
"No solid printer to make new clothes," said Ffiona. "No furniture. No AutoChef to make food. We'll starve... except for Hillarie."
Star-Woman drilled down into the soil. The iron sphere rose into the air, catching the dawn.
"Kallor's van and our runabout are still here," Saturn Girl noted. "At least there's a cleanroom in the van."
It was only a few minutes later that Star-Woman returned. "We're not giving up. We're not leaving," she declared. "Well, anyone who wants to can leave, I suppose, but I intend to rebuild the Clubhouse. I dropped off that sphere in the Asteroid Belt-- in a place where I can easily find it again. I found a small nickel-iron asteroid-- less than a hundred feet across. I can carve it into blocks, and we can build the frame of the clubhouse with it. Chameleon, if you can search the waters here in fish-form for more salvage, maybe we can find the electronics we need. Mostly, we need batteries. Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, you can help drag what Chameleon finds off the bottom of the sea. Saturn Girl, you can coordinate everyone telepathically. The rest of us can go into town, and see what we can pick up in New Metropolis."
"We're a little short on funds," said Shrinking Violet. "We just paid taxes... on our non-existent Clubhouse."
"Then don't make any large purchases without everyone's approval," said Star-Woman.
"No 'phones," said Ffiona. "Dorrit is our only means of long-distance communication. No flight belts. Can we use the runabout?"
The energy pods in the Ranzz's runabout and Kallor's van were useless: contained within similar impenetrable black iron spheres. There was nothing for it but to walk into town.
"Two miles in bare feet," said Ffiona. "I'm not sure I can take this."
Korvea had already changed her feet to tough claws. "I could go full bird-girl, and fly us in, one at a time," she suggested.
The Triplicates went first. Then Phantom Girl, and lastly Matter-Eater Lad Two and Shrinking Violet together.
"We need to go to the Pharmacy and refill our prescriptions for Gaudium," said Ffarrah. "Where should we meet up with the rest of you?"
"Just give us a call..." Phantom Girl began. "No 'phones. Unbelievable. OK, so we'll wait for you at MarsMarket. They ought to have everything we need, including breakfast."
"Well, we would have to back-order you a Solid Printer and AutoChef," the Appliances Clerk told them. "Most houses and apartments already have one, you know. But it should ship in a couple of days,"
"We have nowhere near the funds to cover it," said Shrinking Violet. "It might be better for us to each find a cheap apartment to rent, and use whatever Kallor builds us for regular meetings."
"And I don't see us all buying complete wardrobes pre-made," said Phantom Girl. "They're three times as expensive as the Materials Packs."
"Irinia Apero," came a voice. "What are you doing walking around downtown in your pajamas?"
DUDE, WHERE'S MY SUPER-HERO CLUBHOUSE?
We now return you to our regularly scheduled Earth K-2 tales:
The Time Tetrahedron appeared on the bare Martian soil.
Renlo Tagor roused his sleeping charge. "What has happened to Vesta?" he demanded. "Are you in danger?"
Ten sat up on the cold, hard ground. "I admit I do not know. This is Mars, but..."
"But where is the Clubhouse?" asked Star-Woman.
The Members of the Super-Hero Club lay scattered around the area. In the dim light of the Martian moons, a black dome loomed.
"It appears to be a large sphere of iron, but about an inch thick," said Renlo Tagor, consulting his instruments. "It is enclosing your clubhouse."
Star-Woman tried ripping it open, but to no effect. Cosmic Boy's powers could not affect it, Lightning Lass' powers could not heat it. Phantom Girl tried to phase through it, but ended up coming out the other side, as though it were solid all the way through.
"I note it is lying outside your mana-cancelling field," said Renlo Tagor. "It may be some sort of magical construct. Without his robo-nanny, laboratory, or force-shield belt... I'm sorry, but until this is resolved Txarlz must return to Colu with me."
Matter-Eater Lad Two approached the older Coluan. "Can you take Kylda with you?" he asked. The small Martian sun was rising, and Polar Lass still lay shivering on the ground-- possibly asleep, possibly worse. "Her thermal belt, her insulated clothing-- it's all still in the Clubhouse, locked inside that thing. Tharrans are used to living at temperatures of 200F or more. She's freezing to death! Could you possibly take her to Tharr?"
"Maybe we should all go home," said Shrinking Violet. "I've lost my earring-motels, and my White Dwarf Radiator. Without it, I'll quickly lose my shrinking ability.
"Not for a few months," said Star-Woman.
"Plus, we're all in our pajamas. With no other clothes," Shrinking Violet continued.
"Speaking of which," said Dorrit to Star-Woman, "You sleep in your costume?"
"I have several uniforms, all of the same pattern," said Star-Woman. "This one I happen to use for pajamas. No cape, of course. But at least no one here sleeps in the nude."
"Speak for yourself," said Korvea. "Fortunately, I can grow feathers."
"No solid printer to make new clothes," said Ffiona. "No furniture. No AutoChef to make food. We'll starve... except for Hillarie."
Star-Woman drilled down into the soil. The iron sphere rose into the air, catching the dawn.
"Kallor's van and our runabout are still here," Saturn Girl noted. "At least there's a cleanroom in the van."
It was only a few minutes later that Star-Woman returned. "We're not giving up. We're not leaving," she declared. "Well, anyone who wants to can leave, I suppose, but I intend to rebuild the Clubhouse. I dropped off that sphere in the Asteroid Belt-- in a place where I can easily find it again. I found a small nickel-iron asteroid-- less than a hundred feet across. I can carve it into blocks, and we can build the frame of the clubhouse with it. Chameleon, if you can search the waters here in fish-form for more salvage, maybe we can find the electronics we need. Mostly, we need batteries. Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lass, you can help drag what Chameleon finds off the bottom of the sea. Saturn Girl, you can coordinate everyone telepathically. The rest of us can go into town, and see what we can pick up in New Metropolis."
"We're a little short on funds," said Shrinking Violet. "We just paid taxes... on our non-existent Clubhouse."
"Then don't make any large purchases without everyone's approval," said Star-Woman.
"No 'phones," said Ffiona. "Dorrit is our only means of long-distance communication. No flight belts. Can we use the runabout?"
The energy pods in the Ranzz's runabout and Kallor's van were useless: contained within similar impenetrable black iron spheres. There was nothing for it but to walk into town.
"Two miles in bare feet," said Ffiona. "I'm not sure I can take this."
Korvea had already changed her feet to tough claws. "I could go full bird-girl, and fly us in, one at a time," she suggested.
The Triplicates went first. Then Phantom Girl, and lastly Matter-Eater Lad Two and Shrinking Violet together.
"We need to go to the Pharmacy and refill our prescriptions for Gaudium," said Ffarrah. "Where should we meet up with the rest of you?"
"Just give us a call..." Phantom Girl began. "No 'phones. Unbelievable. OK, so we'll wait for you at MarsMarket. They ought to have everything we need, including breakfast."
"Well, we would have to back-order you a Solid Printer and AutoChef," the Appliances Clerk told them. "Most houses and apartments already have one, you know. But it should ship in a couple of days,"
"We have nowhere near the funds to cover it," said Shrinking Violet. "It might be better for us to each find a cheap apartment to rent, and use whatever Kallor builds us for regular meetings."
"And I don't see us all buying complete wardrobes pre-made," said Phantom Girl. "They're three times as expensive as the Materials Packs."
"Irinia Apero," came a voice. "What are you doing walking around downtown in your pajamas?"
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/23/21 06:08 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY
REBUILDING
It was Tinya Nah.
"We had a little accident," said Phantom Girl. She explained about the lost clubhouse, and the loss of all their stuff.
"I'll tell you what," said Tinya. "But a small Materials Pack-- enough to make new clothes for all of you-- and I'll take you to my place in Ctvy Gzaczb on Gzbk, and we'll use my solid printer. My little groundcar will just fit you four: one in the front, and three in the back."
"We're waiting for the Triplicates," said Irinia. "That's three more."
"Just one more, if they pack themselves right. And Shrinking Violet can make room for them."
"I could fly," volunteered Korvea.
"Not to Gzbk," said Tinya. "Not through the Phantom Zone."
"I wouldn't mind a little breakfast first," said Shrinking Violet, indicating the in-store delicatessen.
"If you can wait just an hour," said Tinya, "I can make you whatever you like at home."
===============================================================================
"I've been thinking of updating my Phantom Girl costume," said Irinia.
"Well, I wore several different designs when I was Phantom Girl," said Tinya. "I ditched the cape early on, though."
"Oh, I like the cape," said Irinia. "The Mars is cold, and the Phantom Zone is colder. I was thinking of adding a hood."
"You spend a lot more time in the Phantom Zone than I ever did," said Tinya. "Just be careful. It's a big place- a whole other Universe- and it's easy to get lost. They say there are even places where things turn solid. And it connects to other realms-- keep focused on how you travel, or you might end up on the wrong Bgztl or Earth."
"I appreciate the advice," said Irinia.
"I suspect you don't, really," said Tinya. "Just another old woman babbling at you. I understand you've been pushing people, too. That's assault, when you do it against a non-Bgztlr."
"Hey, he was a Daxamite!" said Irinia.
"Yes, and it was self-defense," said Tinya. "But I believe it takes a lot of practice to learn that technique. Which means you had an interesting childhood."
"It's something anyone can learn," said Irinia.
"Anyone can learn to pick a lock, or hot-wire a car," said Tinya. "But most people don't bother."
The new Phantom Girl costume was almost complete. Irinia sighed.
"I lost some really nice Esprit Blanc boots," she said. "Expensive, but sturdy, and really comfortable. They're gone now, and I don't think I'll be able to afford another pair."
"I actually have a Recipe from Esprit Blanc," said Tinya. "I used to buy their boots when I was Phantom Girl. I can make you up a pair."
==============================================================================
"I want to be straightforward with you," said Tinya, when everyone was properly dressed. "I already knew your situation. News travels fast. Ten's Adult Advisor messaged Imra, Imra contacted Rokk, and Lydda informed everybody. If you will accept our help, we would like to help you rebuild."
"You'll need a new AutoChef, and a Solid Printer, with enough Materials Packs to make you furniture. Cleaning 'bots. I expect you will want to install several Cleanrooms in the new Clubhouse Star-Woman is building. Solar power grids would be nice, too. Korvea will need a costume that shape-shifts with her, and Star-Woman has her own particular needs in costuming-- but as they are Planetary Champions, that shouldn't be a problem. Eulia needs to replace her Irulan-fragment lamp from Orzde, and those useful earrings. Renlo Tagor is manufacturing a new robo-nanny, and he and Ten's parents are willing to rebuild his laboratory. You all need Omnicoms-- although you young people prefer 'phones now, don't you? And flight belts: those will be expensive. Or, we could see if Colu is willing to provide you with flight rings. They can be made with built-in communications now, including hologram capacity, which would eliminate the need for 'phones."
"Star-Woman's van and the Ranzz runabout need repairs, too," said Irinia. "New energy-pods. They were taken out by the same technology that took out the Clubhouse. Maybe Jo could take a look?"
"Just a minute," said Shrinking Violet. "This is getting very expensive very quickly. Are you proposing that we ask our parents to pay for all of this?"
"What we are proposing," said Tinya, "Is the Super-Hero Club be registered as an official charitable organization. Your families would donate, as would the governments of Talok VIII, Naltor, and New Titan. We might find others willing to donate as well."
"So we would be essentially a bunch of kids, with our mommies and daddies supporting our super-hero hobby," said Shrinking Violet.
"Well, you are all on the Stipend anyway, which means all the citizens of the United Planets are essentially supporting your hobby. And it was R.J. Brande that supported ours," said Tinya. "But Brande Industries isn't what it was, and Reep's kids are busy spending away his fortune."
"I don't know," said Shrinking Violet. "This isn't exactly how I pictured this." She looked at the others. "What do you think?"
"I think we should get back to the Clubhouse site, and see how the others are getting along," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "And talk things over with them."
"We haven't discussed the Camelephant in the room," said Tinya. "The Super-Hero Club is apparently under attack. And magical attack, at that."
"Mordru?" asked Ffiona.
"That is what is troubling," said Tinya. "The Embassies to the Sorcerer's World on Earth, Winath, Naltor, and Colu have lost contact with the First Coventry. U.P. ships have been dispatched, but you know if the Sorcerer's World doesn't want to be found... But this doesn't seem like Mordru's work. It's too subtle. Mordru would come in with a vast army of conquest. Living or undead."
"The Dark Coventry, then?" asked Ffiona.
"It seems unlikely that a half-dozen renegades would have the power to shut down the Sorcerer's World," said Tinya. "But be careful. We just don't know what's out there."
"Just because you're paranoid," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "Doesn't mean they're not all out to get you."
REBUILDING
It was Tinya Nah.
"We had a little accident," said Phantom Girl. She explained about the lost clubhouse, and the loss of all their stuff.
"I'll tell you what," said Tinya. "But a small Materials Pack-- enough to make new clothes for all of you-- and I'll take you to my place in Ctvy Gzaczb on Gzbk, and we'll use my solid printer. My little groundcar will just fit you four: one in the front, and three in the back."
"We're waiting for the Triplicates," said Irinia. "That's three more."
"Just one more, if they pack themselves right. And Shrinking Violet can make room for them."
"I could fly," volunteered Korvea.
"Not to Gzbk," said Tinya. "Not through the Phantom Zone."
"I wouldn't mind a little breakfast first," said Shrinking Violet, indicating the in-store delicatessen.
"If you can wait just an hour," said Tinya, "I can make you whatever you like at home."
===============================================================================
"I've been thinking of updating my Phantom Girl costume," said Irinia.
"Well, I wore several different designs when I was Phantom Girl," said Tinya. "I ditched the cape early on, though."
"Oh, I like the cape," said Irinia. "The Mars is cold, and the Phantom Zone is colder. I was thinking of adding a hood."
"You spend a lot more time in the Phantom Zone than I ever did," said Tinya. "Just be careful. It's a big place- a whole other Universe- and it's easy to get lost. They say there are even places where things turn solid. And it connects to other realms-- keep focused on how you travel, or you might end up on the wrong Bgztl or Earth."
"I appreciate the advice," said Irinia.
"I suspect you don't, really," said Tinya. "Just another old woman babbling at you. I understand you've been pushing people, too. That's assault, when you do it against a non-Bgztlr."
"Hey, he was a Daxamite!" said Irinia.
"Yes, and it was self-defense," said Tinya. "But I believe it takes a lot of practice to learn that technique. Which means you had an interesting childhood."
"It's something anyone can learn," said Irinia.
"Anyone can learn to pick a lock, or hot-wire a car," said Tinya. "But most people don't bother."
The new Phantom Girl costume was almost complete. Irinia sighed.
"I lost some really nice Esprit Blanc boots," she said. "Expensive, but sturdy, and really comfortable. They're gone now, and I don't think I'll be able to afford another pair."
"I actually have a Recipe from Esprit Blanc," said Tinya. "I used to buy their boots when I was Phantom Girl. I can make you up a pair."
==============================================================================
"I want to be straightforward with you," said Tinya, when everyone was properly dressed. "I already knew your situation. News travels fast. Ten's Adult Advisor messaged Imra, Imra contacted Rokk, and Lydda informed everybody. If you will accept our help, we would like to help you rebuild."
"You'll need a new AutoChef, and a Solid Printer, with enough Materials Packs to make you furniture. Cleaning 'bots. I expect you will want to install several Cleanrooms in the new Clubhouse Star-Woman is building. Solar power grids would be nice, too. Korvea will need a costume that shape-shifts with her, and Star-Woman has her own particular needs in costuming-- but as they are Planetary Champions, that shouldn't be a problem. Eulia needs to replace her Irulan-fragment lamp from Orzde, and those useful earrings. Renlo Tagor is manufacturing a new robo-nanny, and he and Ten's parents are willing to rebuild his laboratory. You all need Omnicoms-- although you young people prefer 'phones now, don't you? And flight belts: those will be expensive. Or, we could see if Colu is willing to provide you with flight rings. They can be made with built-in communications now, including hologram capacity, which would eliminate the need for 'phones."
"Star-Woman's van and the Ranzz runabout need repairs, too," said Irinia. "New energy-pods. They were taken out by the same technology that took out the Clubhouse. Maybe Jo could take a look?"
"Just a minute," said Shrinking Violet. "This is getting very expensive very quickly. Are you proposing that we ask our parents to pay for all of this?"
"What we are proposing," said Tinya, "Is the Super-Hero Club be registered as an official charitable organization. Your families would donate, as would the governments of Talok VIII, Naltor, and New Titan. We might find others willing to donate as well."
"So we would be essentially a bunch of kids, with our mommies and daddies supporting our super-hero hobby," said Shrinking Violet.
"Well, you are all on the Stipend anyway, which means all the citizens of the United Planets are essentially supporting your hobby. And it was R.J. Brande that supported ours," said Tinya. "But Brande Industries isn't what it was, and Reep's kids are busy spending away his fortune."
"I don't know," said Shrinking Violet. "This isn't exactly how I pictured this." She looked at the others. "What do you think?"
"I think we should get back to the Clubhouse site, and see how the others are getting along," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "And talk things over with them."
"We haven't discussed the Camelephant in the room," said Tinya. "The Super-Hero Club is apparently under attack. And magical attack, at that."
"Mordru?" asked Ffiona.
"That is what is troubling," said Tinya. "The Embassies to the Sorcerer's World on Earth, Winath, Naltor, and Colu have lost contact with the First Coventry. U.P. ships have been dispatched, but you know if the Sorcerer's World doesn't want to be found... But this doesn't seem like Mordru's work. It's too subtle. Mordru would come in with a vast army of conquest. Living or undead."
"The Dark Coventry, then?" asked Ffiona.
"It seems unlikely that a half-dozen renegades would have the power to shut down the Sorcerer's World," said Tinya. "But be careful. We just don't know what's out there."
"Just because you're paranoid," said Matter-Eater Lad Two, "Doesn't mean they're not all out to get you."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/25/21 02:52 AM
I love how alien the Exalbians are! And Dorrit telling the ring off
Fun to see the H-Dial pop up again too!
Fun to see the H-Dial pop up again too!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/21 05:56 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WAR COMES TO THARN
The new Clubhouse, even half-finished, was impressive. Built from meter-high blocks of meteoric rock, with blue-glass windows made from the iron-rich Martian sand, it towered three stories above the beach.
"There's a basement," said Star-Woman. "I thought Ten might put his laboratory there,"
"Maybe the top floor instead?" suggested Phantom Girl. "That way, if there's an explosion, it only takes out a corner of the building?"
Star-Woman thought about this. "I still have plenty of meteor left," she said. "Maybe I could build a detached lab."
Lightning Lass stood by a pile of drying salvage. "I think Chameleon and Pol salvaged enough battery-power, but they will take a while to charge," she said. "But we were only able to find one repairable Cleanroom. There are going to be some long lines."
"I brought you some one-size-fits-all golden slippers," said Tinya. "And I'm willing to make the rest of you new uniforms, if you come back to Ctvy Gzaczb with me. Although I understand Naltor has already shipped a couple of new outfits for Kallor."
"News travels fast," said Chameleon. "Fortunately, my Zo'Ok came through with me. It is too bad the rest of you cannot bond with one of these little metamorphic plants. They are tremendously useful."
"I tried," shrugged Saturn Girl. "Despite being a telepath, it didn't particularly like me."
There was a distant, familiar crowing, which grew louder and louder, until the magical green rooster Chanticleer materialized. He was accompanied this time by a scrawny, hunch-backed white-haired old woman in a stained sand-colored dress.
"I am Chicken Jane," she introduced herself. "Emissary of the First Coventry of Tharn. You are needed."
"Who... " began Tinya. But Chanticleer was crowing again, and half the members of the Super-Hero Club abruptly disappeared.
"Who was that?" asked Korvea.
"The rooster we've met before," said Cosmic Boy. "The old lady is new."
"I thought the Tharnians were our friends," said Polar Lass.
"Mrs. Nah," said Star-Woman, "I apologize, we..."
Tinya Nah took out her Omnicom. "Lydda? I have an update on our little problem."
===============================================================================
Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, the Triplicates, Matter-Eater Lad Two, and Chameleon appeared on Tharn with Chanticleer and Chicken Jane.
"Ah, my young friends," Doctor Leitseid greeted them. "It appears the Analysts have overplayed their hand. When they attacked you, we realized that your powers were just what we needed to defeat them once and for all."
"You'll need to bring us up to speed," said Saturn Girl. "Just who are the Analysts, and why are they attacking us?"
"They are a race from half-way across the Universe," said Doctor Leitseid. "Fully half the age of the Guardians. They practice an art which is neither Science nor Magic, but transcends both."
"Neither Science nor Magic?" asked Saturn Girl. "How is that possible?"
"As an example," said Doctor Leitseid, "Your Science has a sub-discipline known as Chemistry, which identifies hundreds of chemical elements. Magic has Alchemy, which identifies only four: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. There are other methodologies, using up to twelve basic elements. Zoeka, the art of the Analysts, has a discipline we call Chemomology which is based on four other elements: Hydrogen, Iron, the number 137, and the square root of fortuity."
"The Analysts are obsessed with keeping a balance between Science and Magic throughout the Universe. Tharn is an offense to them, as there is a high concentration of mana here. Your clubhouse was another affront, as our twelve-fold spell kept the area around it free of mana."
The Members stood in the midst of a wide, desolate desert. "Where on Tharn are we?" asked Saturn Girl.
"This is St. Bosco," said Doctor Leitseid, spreading his arms. "The Capitol City. A ruin now. It has been devastated. We have been at war with the Analysts for many years."
"But we were here less than two years ago," said Saturn Girl. "There was no sign of war or desolation then."
"Time is one of their weapons," said Doctor Leitseid. "But we are fighting back."
"What can we do?" asked Lightning Lass.
"If you will accompany these two gentlemen." Two dwarves appeared out of nowhere. "You can empower one of our great champions."
"I can make use of the Cargggans," said a familiar voice.
"Mr. Prospero!" said Ffarrah. "Our pizza man is a Tharnan?"
"Mr. Kastellus Prospero," the old man re-introduced himself. "Not a Tharnan, but Sorcerer-- an Alchemist, actually-- and currently employed in the war against the Analysts. Also a restaurateur." He winked. "And a pizza man."
They also recognized young Jon Falstaff, Apprentice to Falco Columbarius. "I would like to borrow Matter-Eater Lad Two," he announced.
A tall woman who introduced herself as Mariam Abraxas took Saturn Girl aside.
A Durlan Sorcerer claimed Chameleon.
Lightning Lass was introduced to a trio of sorcerers: a giant of a man, at least eight feet tall, and two dwarves, each only half as tall..
"I am Magni Donarson," said the red-bearded ginger giant. "And these are my associates, Metal-Worker and Spark-Sprayer."
"I know Tharnans typically take on pseudonyms," said Star-Woman. "Why have you named yourself after an ancient god?"
The giant laughed, a hearty, earth-shaking laugh.
"He has not named himself anything," said Spark-Sprayer. "He is, in fact, Magni Donarson, Norse god of Strength.."
"Sadly, I have lost my father's weapon," said Magni Donarson. "That is where you come in."
The two dwarves indicated a clearing in the ground. There was the outline of a massive, long-handled hammer dug into the soil.
"The first Mjolnir was forged from The Lightning itself," said Spark-Sprayer.
"We intend to make a second out of living lightning!" said Metal-Worker. "Sit, have a good breakfast." There was a table full of food, which Dacey had not noticed before. "Then fill the form with your power! We will work it into a weapon fit for a god."
Dacey ate heartily. She appeared to be magically hungry. For the next six hours, she trained her lightning on the empty hole. By the time she was finished, there seemed to be a faint, ethereal sparkling.
"Break for lunch!" cried Spark-Sprayer. This time the two dwarves joined her. Dacey was ravenous, but they ate and drank far more than she did. Magni Donarson was nowhere to be seen.
She continued shooting lightning into the ground. This time, the two dwarves stood beside the hole, with strange tools, somehow guiding and shaping the flow of electricity. After a couple of hours, clouds formed overhead, and a steady stream of lightning fell from the sky, augmenting Dacey's power. She continued on, draining herself, when with a shock another bolt of lightning fell from the sky, striking her this time. She channeled the glowing energy towards the forming weapon. The two dwarves were almost dancing with glee as they worked the lightning with their strange tools. The smell of ozone filled the air. And... magic? At last, exhausted, Dacey collapsed... and Magni Donarson was there to catch her, and gently lay her on a soft couch.
The weapon, long-handled, half-axe, half-hammer, glowed white, then yellow, then red, then faded to the color of cold iron. The dwarves pulled it out, and wrapped the handle with some sort of leather.
"Dragon-hide," Metal-Worker explained. Dacey was too tired to question or wonder.
Magni hefted the new Mjolnir. "And now the Analysts shall feel my wrath!" He spun the weapon once, then flung it straight upwards into the sky.
"All that work," thought Dacey, "And he throws it away."
The last she saw, slipping into sleep, was Magni leaping into the sky himself, following his hammer.
WAR COMES TO THARN
The new Clubhouse, even half-finished, was impressive. Built from meter-high blocks of meteoric rock, with blue-glass windows made from the iron-rich Martian sand, it towered three stories above the beach.
"There's a basement," said Star-Woman. "I thought Ten might put his laboratory there,"
"Maybe the top floor instead?" suggested Phantom Girl. "That way, if there's an explosion, it only takes out a corner of the building?"
Star-Woman thought about this. "I still have plenty of meteor left," she said. "Maybe I could build a detached lab."
Lightning Lass stood by a pile of drying salvage. "I think Chameleon and Pol salvaged enough battery-power, but they will take a while to charge," she said. "But we were only able to find one repairable Cleanroom. There are going to be some long lines."
"I brought you some one-size-fits-all golden slippers," said Tinya. "And I'm willing to make the rest of you new uniforms, if you come back to Ctvy Gzaczb with me. Although I understand Naltor has already shipped a couple of new outfits for Kallor."
"News travels fast," said Chameleon. "Fortunately, my Zo'Ok came through with me. It is too bad the rest of you cannot bond with one of these little metamorphic plants. They are tremendously useful."
"I tried," shrugged Saturn Girl. "Despite being a telepath, it didn't particularly like me."
There was a distant, familiar crowing, which grew louder and louder, until the magical green rooster Chanticleer materialized. He was accompanied this time by a scrawny, hunch-backed white-haired old woman in a stained sand-colored dress.
"I am Chicken Jane," she introduced herself. "Emissary of the First Coventry of Tharn. You are needed."
"Who... " began Tinya. But Chanticleer was crowing again, and half the members of the Super-Hero Club abruptly disappeared.
"Who was that?" asked Korvea.
"The rooster we've met before," said Cosmic Boy. "The old lady is new."
"I thought the Tharnians were our friends," said Polar Lass.
"Mrs. Nah," said Star-Woman, "I apologize, we..."
Tinya Nah took out her Omnicom. "Lydda? I have an update on our little problem."
===============================================================================
Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, the Triplicates, Matter-Eater Lad Two, and Chameleon appeared on Tharn with Chanticleer and Chicken Jane.
"Ah, my young friends," Doctor Leitseid greeted them. "It appears the Analysts have overplayed their hand. When they attacked you, we realized that your powers were just what we needed to defeat them once and for all."
"You'll need to bring us up to speed," said Saturn Girl. "Just who are the Analysts, and why are they attacking us?"
"They are a race from half-way across the Universe," said Doctor Leitseid. "Fully half the age of the Guardians. They practice an art which is neither Science nor Magic, but transcends both."
"Neither Science nor Magic?" asked Saturn Girl. "How is that possible?"
"As an example," said Doctor Leitseid, "Your Science has a sub-discipline known as Chemistry, which identifies hundreds of chemical elements. Magic has Alchemy, which identifies only four: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. There are other methodologies, using up to twelve basic elements. Zoeka, the art of the Analysts, has a discipline we call Chemomology which is based on four other elements: Hydrogen, Iron, the number 137, and the square root of fortuity."
"The Analysts are obsessed with keeping a balance between Science and Magic throughout the Universe. Tharn is an offense to them, as there is a high concentration of mana here. Your clubhouse was another affront, as our twelve-fold spell kept the area around it free of mana."
The Members stood in the midst of a wide, desolate desert. "Where on Tharn are we?" asked Saturn Girl.
"This is St. Bosco," said Doctor Leitseid, spreading his arms. "The Capitol City. A ruin now. It has been devastated. We have been at war with the Analysts for many years."
"But we were here less than two years ago," said Saturn Girl. "There was no sign of war or desolation then."
"Time is one of their weapons," said Doctor Leitseid. "But we are fighting back."
"What can we do?" asked Lightning Lass.
"If you will accompany these two gentlemen." Two dwarves appeared out of nowhere. "You can empower one of our great champions."
"I can make use of the Cargggans," said a familiar voice.
"Mr. Prospero!" said Ffarrah. "Our pizza man is a Tharnan?"
"Mr. Kastellus Prospero," the old man re-introduced himself. "Not a Tharnan, but Sorcerer-- an Alchemist, actually-- and currently employed in the war against the Analysts. Also a restaurateur." He winked. "And a pizza man."
They also recognized young Jon Falstaff, Apprentice to Falco Columbarius. "I would like to borrow Matter-Eater Lad Two," he announced.
A tall woman who introduced herself as Mariam Abraxas took Saturn Girl aside.
A Durlan Sorcerer claimed Chameleon.
Lightning Lass was introduced to a trio of sorcerers: a giant of a man, at least eight feet tall, and two dwarves, each only half as tall..
"I am Magni Donarson," said the red-bearded ginger giant. "And these are my associates, Metal-Worker and Spark-Sprayer."
"I know Tharnans typically take on pseudonyms," said Star-Woman. "Why have you named yourself after an ancient god?"
The giant laughed, a hearty, earth-shaking laugh.
"He has not named himself anything," said Spark-Sprayer. "He is, in fact, Magni Donarson, Norse god of Strength.."
"Sadly, I have lost my father's weapon," said Magni Donarson. "That is where you come in."
The two dwarves indicated a clearing in the ground. There was the outline of a massive, long-handled hammer dug into the soil.
"The first Mjolnir was forged from The Lightning itself," said Spark-Sprayer.
"We intend to make a second out of living lightning!" said Metal-Worker. "Sit, have a good breakfast." There was a table full of food, which Dacey had not noticed before. "Then fill the form with your power! We will work it into a weapon fit for a god."
Dacey ate heartily. She appeared to be magically hungry. For the next six hours, she trained her lightning on the empty hole. By the time she was finished, there seemed to be a faint, ethereal sparkling.
"Break for lunch!" cried Spark-Sprayer. This time the two dwarves joined her. Dacey was ravenous, but they ate and drank far more than she did. Magni Donarson was nowhere to be seen.
She continued shooting lightning into the ground. This time, the two dwarves stood beside the hole, with strange tools, somehow guiding and shaping the flow of electricity. After a couple of hours, clouds formed overhead, and a steady stream of lightning fell from the sky, augmenting Dacey's power. She continued on, draining herself, when with a shock another bolt of lightning fell from the sky, striking her this time. She channeled the glowing energy towards the forming weapon. The two dwarves were almost dancing with glee as they worked the lightning with their strange tools. The smell of ozone filled the air. And... magic? At last, exhausted, Dacey collapsed... and Magni Donarson was there to catch her, and gently lay her on a soft couch.
The weapon, long-handled, half-axe, half-hammer, glowed white, then yellow, then red, then faded to the color of cold iron. The dwarves pulled it out, and wrapped the handle with some sort of leather.
"Dragon-hide," Metal-Worker explained. Dacey was too tired to question or wonder.
Magni hefted the new Mjolnir. "And now the Analysts shall feel my wrath!" He spun the weapon once, then flung it straight upwards into the sky.
"All that work," thought Dacey, "And he throws it away."
The last she saw, slipping into sleep, was Magni leaping into the sky himself, following his hammer.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/21 06:01 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DAQUARELLE
"I was unaware that any Durlans had resided on the Sorcerer's World," said Chameleon.
"You were one of the Clan of the Nameless Ones," said the Durlan sorcerer. "Now an Exile. Have you taken a name?"
"Only 'Chameleon'," said Chameleon.
"You should take a name," said Daquarelle. "To continue to honor your clan's traditions is absurd. Fit in. It is what we exiles do. Male or female or xenale, if I may ask?"
"I am still young. I have not even decided my gender yet," said Chameleon.
"You may call me Daquarelle," said the Sorcerer. "Once of the Carapace Clan. My Durlan name, of course, has been expunged. Even to utter it is a high crime on our homeworld. I am as much an Exile as you."
"But why the Sorcerer's World?" Chameleon persisted.
"Why here?" said Daquarelle. "If not Durla, why anywhere? How well do you play Mirror Game?"
"Well enough," said Chameleon.
Daquarelle assumed a pose. Chameleon imitated him. Daquarelle shape-shifted into a form identical to Chameleon's younger, plainer form. He assumed another pose. Chameleon copied him.
"You must try harder," said Daquarelle. "Exactness is required. Only Perfection is Eternal."
Daquarelle assumed a series of poses, then forms, changing more and more rapidly. Chameleon mirrored him with increasing difficulty.
"Is this magic?" Chameleon asked, gasping for breath.
"Like produces like," Daquarelle intoned. "The attributes without mirror the powers within." His form was shifting rapidly. Chameleon strained to keep up. " Thrice spoken, once fulfilled. Flame permeates All. Flame permeates All. Flame permeates All. Dominance, or Submission!"
The Durlan sorcerer burst into white flame, a transformation Chameleon was unable to replicate. Thick white smoke filled the air, thinned, then dissipated.
Daquarelle was gone.
Chameleon slumped to the ground, default form now gelatinous and quivering, veins pulsing, lungs burning, breath coming hard and ragged. Chameleon sat alone, unaware of the passage of time.
Time passed.
A long shadow fell.
"You did well, for a first try," said the sorcerer Daquarelle. "Let me know when you are ready to try again."
"Again?" said Chameleon.
DAQUARELLE
"I was unaware that any Durlans had resided on the Sorcerer's World," said Chameleon.
"You were one of the Clan of the Nameless Ones," said the Durlan sorcerer. "Now an Exile. Have you taken a name?"
"Only 'Chameleon'," said Chameleon.
"You should take a name," said Daquarelle. "To continue to honor your clan's traditions is absurd. Fit in. It is what we exiles do. Male or female or xenale, if I may ask?"
"I am still young. I have not even decided my gender yet," said Chameleon.
"You may call me Daquarelle," said the Sorcerer. "Once of the Carapace Clan. My Durlan name, of course, has been expunged. Even to utter it is a high crime on our homeworld. I am as much an Exile as you."
"But why the Sorcerer's World?" Chameleon persisted.
"Why here?" said Daquarelle. "If not Durla, why anywhere? How well do you play Mirror Game?"
"Well enough," said Chameleon.
Daquarelle assumed a pose. Chameleon imitated him. Daquarelle shape-shifted into a form identical to Chameleon's younger, plainer form. He assumed another pose. Chameleon copied him.
"You must try harder," said Daquarelle. "Exactness is required. Only Perfection is Eternal."
Daquarelle assumed a series of poses, then forms, changing more and more rapidly. Chameleon mirrored him with increasing difficulty.
"Is this magic?" Chameleon asked, gasping for breath.
"Like produces like," Daquarelle intoned. "The attributes without mirror the powers within." His form was shifting rapidly. Chameleon strained to keep up. " Thrice spoken, once fulfilled. Flame permeates All. Flame permeates All. Flame permeates All. Dominance, or Submission!"
The Durlan sorcerer burst into white flame, a transformation Chameleon was unable to replicate. Thick white smoke filled the air, thinned, then dissipated.
Daquarelle was gone.
Chameleon slumped to the ground, default form now gelatinous and quivering, veins pulsing, lungs burning, breath coming hard and ragged. Chameleon sat alone, unaware of the passage of time.
Time passed.
A long shadow fell.
"You did well, for a first try," said the sorcerer Daquarelle. "Let me know when you are ready to try again."
"Again?" said Chameleon.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/21 06:04 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KASTELLUS PROSPERO
"I can't believe you've been a sorcerer all this time," said Ffiona, as the four of them walked over the barren sands.
"An alchemist," said Prospero. "Educated on Tharn. But that was long ago. For most of my life, I ran a restaurant in Rabe City on Mars."
"You're older than you look, aren't you?" said Ffiona.
"That would be telling," said Prospero. They came to a small station in the middle of nowhere, a table with some standard chemistry equipment. Prospero picked up three small marbles, and handed them out to the three girls-- one white, one red, one green.
"The concentrated essences of air, fire, and earth," he said. "I need to fuse them. It is a long process, alchemically speaking, and I keep getting interrupted. You can do it instantly."
"How?" asked Ffarrah.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Prospero. "Hold them tightly, and fuse yourselves together. Quantum-temporal forces will do the rest."
"I'm not sure..." said Ffey.
"Be sure," said Prospero. The girls fused... and three marbles rolled out of their hands onto the ground.
"Try again," said Prospero. The triplicates tried again, but this time rebounded from each other.
"There is a Cargggan superstition," said Ffarrah, "That triplicating three times in one day is bad luck."
"Probably no need for concern," said Prospero, "Even if I were a superstitious man. Time on Tharn is so twisted now-- it is difficult to tell how many days have passed since you arrived."
"Days?" asked Ffiona.
"Yes," said Prospero. "Think for a moment-- how many pizzas have the three of you eaten with me since you arrived?" The triplicates noted the stack of empty pizza boxes next to the chemistry-lab table.
"Oh," said Ffarrah. "A lot?"
"Ugh," said Ffey. "I haven't taken a sonic in forever."
"Why are we only remembering this now?" asked Ffarrah.
"Time is one of the weapons of the Analysts," said Prospero. "It's late. One more try, and you can go to bed?"
The triplicates noticed the four unmade cots-- one well separated from the other three.
They held the three spheres tightly in their fists again. They merged-- and there was the sense of things going right. The Triplicate Girl opened her hand, and there was a shining golden sphere.
"Perfect," said Prospero. "The tri-elemental compound." There was a blue marble of the same size set on a tripod on the table. "The fundamental essence of water," Prospero explained. "The Universal solvent." He took the golden marble, and dropped it onto the blue one. The two fused, then vanished. There was a sensation of the sky lowering, becoming heavier. Prospero looked up. "The Quintessence," he said. "Protecting the planet, like a polymer shield. Let the Analysts try to break through that with their weapons."
"And now I have a reward for you," said Prospero. He handed each of the triplicates a test-tube of clear liquid. "Drink," he said. "You can trust me. I?m not going to poison you. How often have you eaten at my pizza joint?"
They drank.
"Nothing seems different..." said Ffiona. "Oh!" Their ragged nightgowns had been replaced with copies of their standard orange-and-purple uniforms.
"Are these magic clothes?" asked Ffarrah.
"Magic?" said Prospero. "No, just ordinary clothes. Good quality, but you will need to wash, and mend, and... I don't know... fold them? -- just like ordinary clothing. I based them on what you wear when you come to my restaurant."
KASTELLUS PROSPERO
"I can't believe you've been a sorcerer all this time," said Ffiona, as the four of them walked over the barren sands.
"An alchemist," said Prospero. "Educated on Tharn. But that was long ago. For most of my life, I ran a restaurant in Rabe City on Mars."
"You're older than you look, aren't you?" said Ffiona.
"That would be telling," said Prospero. They came to a small station in the middle of nowhere, a table with some standard chemistry equipment. Prospero picked up three small marbles, and handed them out to the three girls-- one white, one red, one green.
"The concentrated essences of air, fire, and earth," he said. "I need to fuse them. It is a long process, alchemically speaking, and I keep getting interrupted. You can do it instantly."
"How?" asked Ffarrah.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Prospero. "Hold them tightly, and fuse yourselves together. Quantum-temporal forces will do the rest."
"I'm not sure..." said Ffey.
"Be sure," said Prospero. The girls fused... and three marbles rolled out of their hands onto the ground.
"Try again," said Prospero. The triplicates tried again, but this time rebounded from each other.
"There is a Cargggan superstition," said Ffarrah, "That triplicating three times in one day is bad luck."
"Probably no need for concern," said Prospero, "Even if I were a superstitious man. Time on Tharn is so twisted now-- it is difficult to tell how many days have passed since you arrived."
"Days?" asked Ffiona.
"Yes," said Prospero. "Think for a moment-- how many pizzas have the three of you eaten with me since you arrived?" The triplicates noted the stack of empty pizza boxes next to the chemistry-lab table.
"Oh," said Ffarrah. "A lot?"
"Ugh," said Ffey. "I haven't taken a sonic in forever."
"Why are we only remembering this now?" asked Ffarrah.
"Time is one of the weapons of the Analysts," said Prospero. "It's late. One more try, and you can go to bed?"
The triplicates noticed the four unmade cots-- one well separated from the other three.
They held the three spheres tightly in their fists again. They merged-- and there was the sense of things going right. The Triplicate Girl opened her hand, and there was a shining golden sphere.
"Perfect," said Prospero. "The tri-elemental compound." There was a blue marble of the same size set on a tripod on the table. "The fundamental essence of water," Prospero explained. "The Universal solvent." He took the golden marble, and dropped it onto the blue one. The two fused, then vanished. There was a sensation of the sky lowering, becoming heavier. Prospero looked up. "The Quintessence," he said. "Protecting the planet, like a polymer shield. Let the Analysts try to break through that with their weapons."
"And now I have a reward for you," said Prospero. He handed each of the triplicates a test-tube of clear liquid. "Drink," he said. "You can trust me. I?m not going to poison you. How often have you eaten at my pizza joint?"
They drank.
"Nothing seems different..." said Ffiona. "Oh!" Their ragged nightgowns had been replaced with copies of their standard orange-and-purple uniforms.
"Are these magic clothes?" asked Ffarrah.
"Magic?" said Prospero. "No, just ordinary clothes. Good quality, but you will need to wash, and mend, and... I don't know... fold them? -- just like ordinary clothing. I based them on what you wear when you come to my restaurant."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/21 06:07 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JON FALSTAFF
"I remember you," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "You're one of the Apprentices who have visited us a couple of times. You look older. And you've lost weight."
"It's the war," said Jon Falstaff. They had come to a small house, standing in the middle of the desert. The paint was peeling. "It ages you,"
"How can I help?" asked Hillarie. "I'm no magician, and my abilities aren't exactly the most powerful."
"Our powers are wonderfully complementary," said Falstaff. "I can produce any sort of food, and in massive quantities." He picked up several sheets of celluloid plasteel from a table. "Do you know what these are?"
"Diagrams, of some kind," said Hillarie. "Engineers call them 'blueprints', although I've never understood why." He examined the sheets more carefully. "It says here, these are designs for a Quantum Fusion Bomb? I have a friend whose grandmother was killed by one of these."
"Could you eat it?" asked Falstaff.
"Of course," said Hillarie. "It's just a mechanism, no matter how complex."
"Then I can make it," said Falstaff. A small quantum fusion bomb appeared on the table.
Hillarie jumped, startled.
"It's perfectly safe," said Falstaff. "It takes a complex series of codes to detonate it. Now take a look at these designs."
Hillarie looked at blueprints for ground-to-space missiles, null-bombs, and disintegrator arrays.
"Could you eat those?" asked Falstaff.
"I see where this is going," said Hillarie. "You say you can conjure up this stuff in any quantity?"
"Usually," said Falstaff, "I just do rains of molasses, or floods of hot tomato soup. But in this case... look out the window."
A forest of missiles the size of skyscrapers, topped with various nasty-looking warheads, stretched to the horizon, interspersed with deflectors, reflectors, and electromagnetic antennae.
"How... how close do I need to stay to you for you to keep them... tangible?" asked Hillarie. "It's kind of terrifying, being in the middle of such firepower."
"Oh, once I create something, it persists on its own-- unless I get rid of it. Fortunately, we have already won-- the Analysts have withdrawn, and I can transform it all now."
As Matter-Eater Lad Two watched, the forest of missiles transformed into a forest of trees.
JON FALSTAFF
"I remember you," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "You're one of the Apprentices who have visited us a couple of times. You look older. And you've lost weight."
"It's the war," said Jon Falstaff. They had come to a small house, standing in the middle of the desert. The paint was peeling. "It ages you,"
"How can I help?" asked Hillarie. "I'm no magician, and my abilities aren't exactly the most powerful."
"Our powers are wonderfully complementary," said Falstaff. "I can produce any sort of food, and in massive quantities." He picked up several sheets of celluloid plasteel from a table. "Do you know what these are?"
"Diagrams, of some kind," said Hillarie. "Engineers call them 'blueprints', although I've never understood why." He examined the sheets more carefully. "It says here, these are designs for a Quantum Fusion Bomb? I have a friend whose grandmother was killed by one of these."
"Could you eat it?" asked Falstaff.
"Of course," said Hillarie. "It's just a mechanism, no matter how complex."
"Then I can make it," said Falstaff. A small quantum fusion bomb appeared on the table.
Hillarie jumped, startled.
"It's perfectly safe," said Falstaff. "It takes a complex series of codes to detonate it. Now take a look at these designs."
Hillarie looked at blueprints for ground-to-space missiles, null-bombs, and disintegrator arrays.
"Could you eat those?" asked Falstaff.
"I see where this is going," said Hillarie. "You say you can conjure up this stuff in any quantity?"
"Usually," said Falstaff, "I just do rains of molasses, or floods of hot tomato soup. But in this case... look out the window."
A forest of missiles the size of skyscrapers, topped with various nasty-looking warheads, stretched to the horizon, interspersed with deflectors, reflectors, and electromagnetic antennae.
"How... how close do I need to stay to you for you to keep them... tangible?" asked Hillarie. "It's kind of terrifying, being in the middle of such firepower."
"Oh, once I create something, it persists on its own-- unless I get rid of it. Fortunately, we have already won-- the Analysts have withdrawn, and I can transform it all now."
As Matter-Eater Lad Two watched, the forest of missiles transformed into a forest of trees.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 11/29/21 06:13 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MARIAM ABRAXAS
"Mariam Abraxas," said Saturn Girl. "You are one of the current members of the First Coventry, is that correct?"
"I am," said the tall, blonde woman, robed in silver and gold. "I replaced Voluntas Klavanatus on the Council when Zerox was carried off to another dimension. He is my brother."
She looked at Dorrit as though this ought to mean something to her.
"My powers work best," said Mariam Abraxas, "When I empower others."
"You want to... enhance my powers?" asked Saturn Girl.
"I want you to... borrow... the powers of a goddess," said the sorceress. "A goddess of the mind."
"How?" asked Dorrit.
"Do you agree?" asked Mariam Abraxas. "To battle against the Analysts?"
"Yes," said Dorrit.
There was no warning. No incantations, no gestures, no magic symbols. Saturn Girl found herself in a court of law, out of her pajamas, now wearing her regular costume, before a judge of some kind. The woman looked at her sternly. It was actually more of a podium than a judge's bench, and a church more than a court. There were several judges, quite a few, actually. Like a church choir. Or a sea of spectators in an arena. Many of the women looked human. Some carried musical instruments, or weapons, or tools. She saw one with an archaic set of scales. Some had animal heads. Some were clearly alien. She picked out a Khund, a Myrnahn, a Houyhnhnm. One appeared as a robot, who could have come from early cinema. All were considering Saturn Girl with a stern, judgmental glare.
Mariam Abraxas appeared beside her. "Who will lend their power to my acolyte in her quest for justice?" she asked.
There was a murmuring among the crowd. A stately, white-haired woman in a plain white robe stepped forward.
"I am Metis, Counsellor of Wisdom," said the goddess. "I will take her as my avatar." White wings spread from behind her, as a glow infused her body. She grew brighter and brighter, transforming into pure light, which enveloped Saturn Girl.
"Say my name," said Mariam Abraxas.
"Mariam..." said Saturn Girl, "Abraxas." The word thundered.
The court / church / arena vanished, and the goddesses as well. The sky opened, and the new Dorrit Ardeen, the Avatar of Metis, saw the flotilla of Analyst ships surrounding Tharn. And yet they were not surrounding only Tharn, but the entire United Planets. And yet they had never left their home system. They were attacking, but also under attack, with spells and technological weapons from powerful sorcerers and their allies. The Avatar of Metis took control of the battle, moving the warriors as one might move chess pieces. The war was over, but the Avatar of Metis could not determine who had been the victor. She fell back into herself, the sky closing, the vision dimming.
"How long?" asked Dorrit. She was still dressed in her Saturn Girl costume.
"A few minutes," said Mariam Abraxas. "Several years. An eternity. We won. The Analysts have withdrawn. Thank you."
MARIAM ABRAXAS
"Mariam Abraxas," said Saturn Girl. "You are one of the current members of the First Coventry, is that correct?"
"I am," said the tall, blonde woman, robed in silver and gold. "I replaced Voluntas Klavanatus on the Council when Zerox was carried off to another dimension. He is my brother."
She looked at Dorrit as though this ought to mean something to her.
"My powers work best," said Mariam Abraxas, "When I empower others."
"You want to... enhance my powers?" asked Saturn Girl.
"I want you to... borrow... the powers of a goddess," said the sorceress. "A goddess of the mind."
"How?" asked Dorrit.
"Do you agree?" asked Mariam Abraxas. "To battle against the Analysts?"
"Yes," said Dorrit.
There was no warning. No incantations, no gestures, no magic symbols. Saturn Girl found herself in a court of law, out of her pajamas, now wearing her regular costume, before a judge of some kind. The woman looked at her sternly. It was actually more of a podium than a judge's bench, and a church more than a court. There were several judges, quite a few, actually. Like a church choir. Or a sea of spectators in an arena. Many of the women looked human. Some carried musical instruments, or weapons, or tools. She saw one with an archaic set of scales. Some had animal heads. Some were clearly alien. She picked out a Khund, a Myrnahn, a Houyhnhnm. One appeared as a robot, who could have come from early cinema. All were considering Saturn Girl with a stern, judgmental glare.
Mariam Abraxas appeared beside her. "Who will lend their power to my acolyte in her quest for justice?" she asked.
There was a murmuring among the crowd. A stately, white-haired woman in a plain white robe stepped forward.
"I am Metis, Counsellor of Wisdom," said the goddess. "I will take her as my avatar." White wings spread from behind her, as a glow infused her body. She grew brighter and brighter, transforming into pure light, which enveloped Saturn Girl.
"Say my name," said Mariam Abraxas.
"Mariam..." said Saturn Girl, "Abraxas." The word thundered.
The court / church / arena vanished, and the goddesses as well. The sky opened, and the new Dorrit Ardeen, the Avatar of Metis, saw the flotilla of Analyst ships surrounding Tharn. And yet they were not surrounding only Tharn, but the entire United Planets. And yet they had never left their home system. They were attacking, but also under attack, with spells and technological weapons from powerful sorcerers and their allies. The Avatar of Metis took control of the battle, moving the warriors as one might move chess pieces. The war was over, but the Avatar of Metis could not determine who had been the victor. She fell back into herself, the sky closing, the vision dimming.
"How long?" asked Dorrit. She was still dressed in her Saturn Girl costume.
"A few minutes," said Mariam Abraxas. "Several years. An eternity. We won. The Analysts have withdrawn. Thank you."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/06/21 06:08 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DOCTOR LEITSEID
The Members were in the chamber of the First Coventry. St. Bosco had been restored.
"It's as if the war never happened," said Saturn Girl.
"To the contrary," said Doctor Leitseid. "The face of the Sorcerer's World is always changing, and has changed again after the Analyst's War. Already the birds and animals of Tharn are finding their way into the Norjayne Forest. It is said a unicorn has been seen there."
"Wow," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I have a forest named after me. Wait until I tell Mom and Dad."
"There were, of course, no casualties on either side," said Doctor Leitseid. "This was a Wizard's War, a contest of power. Although our opponents did not use any magic against us; a contravention of the Rules of War. Still, among the literally hundreds of millions of sorcerers who fought, you have distinguished yourselves. We thank you for your service." Doctor Leitseid paused. "Unfortunately, regarding your headquarters, we find we are unable to restore it to you, nor your other possessions... but we have manufactured another mana-eating spell for you, to replace the one you lost." He presented the Members with a medium-sized gift box.
"Will it protect us from another attack from the Analysts?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Sadly, no," said Doctor Leitseid. "Nor will it protect you against science-based attacks, nor the transcendental powers of angels or gods."
"Wait," said Saturn Girl, "Do we have gods angry with us now?"
"No, no, of course not," said Doctor Leitseid. "In fact, you have the sincere gratitude of Magni Donarson and his pantheon: Vili, Vidar, Ve, and so forth. Of course," he mused, "the gods can be mercurial and unpredictable... but I believe there is really no need to worry."
"I always worry when people tell me not to worry," said Lightning Lass.
"The wisdom of youth," said Doctor Leitseid.
The members shook hands with each of the thirteen members of the First Coventry. Mariam Abraxas embraced Saturn Girl.
"So how do we get home?" Saturn Girl asked. "Chanticleer, again?"
"Sadly, no," said Doctor Leitseid. "The enchanted green rooster and his mistress are busy with the continued rebuilding of the Sorcerer's World. We have arranged more mundane transport for you."
The bus driver was a wyvern. "What should we call you?" asked Ffiona.
"Call me Wyvern," said the wyvern. "Why must you humans give everything a name? Sit down, buckle up, the seats are comfortable enough for you to doze off in. A small, tasteless snack will be served in a few hours."
The magical Star-Bus took a journey through some sort of extra-dimensional warp space none of the Members were familiar with. Sometimes the sky was the familiar inky-black of space, sometimes it was bright with flaring, neon colors, sometimes the stars looked like paper cut-outs. Once they drove through a green field of waving grass, from which odd creatures poked their heads. At last, they arrived at the parking lot near the Super-Hero Clubhouse.
DOCTOR LEITSEID
The Members were in the chamber of the First Coventry. St. Bosco had been restored.
"It's as if the war never happened," said Saturn Girl.
"To the contrary," said Doctor Leitseid. "The face of the Sorcerer's World is always changing, and has changed again after the Analyst's War. Already the birds and animals of Tharn are finding their way into the Norjayne Forest. It is said a unicorn has been seen there."
"Wow," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "I have a forest named after me. Wait until I tell Mom and Dad."
"There were, of course, no casualties on either side," said Doctor Leitseid. "This was a Wizard's War, a contest of power. Although our opponents did not use any magic against us; a contravention of the Rules of War. Still, among the literally hundreds of millions of sorcerers who fought, you have distinguished yourselves. We thank you for your service." Doctor Leitseid paused. "Unfortunately, regarding your headquarters, we find we are unable to restore it to you, nor your other possessions... but we have manufactured another mana-eating spell for you, to replace the one you lost." He presented the Members with a medium-sized gift box.
"Will it protect us from another attack from the Analysts?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Sadly, no," said Doctor Leitseid. "Nor will it protect you against science-based attacks, nor the transcendental powers of angels or gods."
"Wait," said Saturn Girl, "Do we have gods angry with us now?"
"No, no, of course not," said Doctor Leitseid. "In fact, you have the sincere gratitude of Magni Donarson and his pantheon: Vili, Vidar, Ve, and so forth. Of course," he mused, "the gods can be mercurial and unpredictable... but I believe there is really no need to worry."
"I always worry when people tell me not to worry," said Lightning Lass.
"The wisdom of youth," said Doctor Leitseid.
The members shook hands with each of the thirteen members of the First Coventry. Mariam Abraxas embraced Saturn Girl.
"So how do we get home?" Saturn Girl asked. "Chanticleer, again?"
"Sadly, no," said Doctor Leitseid. "The enchanted green rooster and his mistress are busy with the continued rebuilding of the Sorcerer's World. We have arranged more mundane transport for you."
The bus driver was a wyvern. "What should we call you?" asked Ffiona.
"Call me Wyvern," said the wyvern. "Why must you humans give everything a name? Sit down, buckle up, the seats are comfortable enough for you to doze off in. A small, tasteless snack will be served in a few hours."
The magical Star-Bus took a journey through some sort of extra-dimensional warp space none of the Members were familiar with. Sometimes the sky was the familiar inky-black of space, sometimes it was bright with flaring, neon colors, sometimes the stars looked like paper cut-outs. Once they drove through a green field of waving grass, from which odd creatures poked their heads. At last, they arrived at the parking lot near the Super-Hero Clubhouse.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/06/21 06:13 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NEW CLUBHOUSE, NEW PROBLEMS
"I like what you've done with the place," said Saturn Girl to Star-Woman."How did you get the iridescent rainbow color?"
"I used my lightning vision to electroplate the Clubhouse in anodized titanium," said Star-Woman.
"Where have you been?" asked Cosmic Boy."It was announced on the news services the day after you left that you had helped the Sorcerer's World defend the U.P. from an intergalactic invasion. But it's been two weeks!"
"Time... " said Saturn Girl. "It's one of their weapons."
"These are the people... creatures... who stole the old Clubhouse," said Ffiona. "Well, sealed it in that iron sphere."
"Odd thing, that," said Star-Woman. "After we heard you had won the war, I went to retrieve the black sphere. I had a hard time finding it. It has been reduced to about a centimeter in diameter. We had Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl try to investigate, but it is as impenetrable as ever. Ten thinks it's some kind of stasis field he doesn't understand."
"The Tharnans called them the Analysts," said Saturn Girl. "They use some kind of technology that is neither magic nor science."
"I think we need to get everyone together for a conference," said Shrinking Violet. "Get everyone up-to-date."
The fourteen members gathered in the new Conference Room. Saturn Girl, the Triplicates, Chameleon, Lightning Lass, and Matter-Eater Lad Two related the magical events on Tharn as best they could."
"So all these sorcerers have various ways of producing clothing from thin air," said Matter Eater Lad Two. Falstaff made me a new costume, and a spare."
"The Nahs outfitted most of us from their home Solid Printer," said Phantom Girl. "Also curtains for all the windows."
"We have our own Solid Printer and AutoChef now," said Shrinking Violet. "Ten returned, and set up a solar array, so we are still independent of the New Metropolis grid. We have water, and light, and HVAC. Beds and chairs and study tables in all the rooms. We stocked the communal kitchen area. New 'phones for everyone. My parents sent me a new white dwarf star radiator. Ten has a new Robo-nanny, Vesta Mak II. But we don't yet have resources for new flight belts yet, or a central communications wallscreen. And still only one cleanroom, not counting the one in the Sojourner."
"Aquaboy even came from Pretzor," said Cosmic Boy. "To help Korvea and I look for salvage. But we have not found anything near as complete as the old Subs cruiser, or even enough material to replace it. Jaan went back home, after he saw how much rebuilding we still have to do."
"Well, we've built up the Club from scratch before," said Saturn Girl. "And we can do it again. Tharn sent us a new 'mana-eating' spell, so we should distribute the amulets and artifacts around the Clubhouse."
"There's one more problem," said Shrinking Violet. "We had to take out a loan to get it all done. Used all our stipends as security, with auto-deduct on the loan. Even for you Members who were on Tharn. For two years, we will have about enough left over from the stipend to feed ourselves.Unless we can find more resources, any super-heroing we do will have to be done on the cheap."
"Well, nobody has to stay if they don't want to," said Saturn Girl. "The Super-Hero Club can still go forward. Everybody still on board? This isn't quite working out the way Dacey, Pol, and I imagined, but we'll find a way."
"You're very optimistic. I'm not even sure how we are going to pay the property taxes next month," said Shrinking Violet.
"Without the Super-Hero Club," whispered Chameleon to the Triplicates, "Where would we go?".
NEW CLUBHOUSE, NEW PROBLEMS
"I like what you've done with the place," said Saturn Girl to Star-Woman."How did you get the iridescent rainbow color?"
"I used my lightning vision to electroplate the Clubhouse in anodized titanium," said Star-Woman.
"Where have you been?" asked Cosmic Boy."It was announced on the news services the day after you left that you had helped the Sorcerer's World defend the U.P. from an intergalactic invasion. But it's been two weeks!"
"Time... " said Saturn Girl. "It's one of their weapons."
"These are the people... creatures... who stole the old Clubhouse," said Ffiona. "Well, sealed it in that iron sphere."
"Odd thing, that," said Star-Woman. "After we heard you had won the war, I went to retrieve the black sphere. I had a hard time finding it. It has been reduced to about a centimeter in diameter. We had Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl try to investigate, but it is as impenetrable as ever. Ten thinks it's some kind of stasis field he doesn't understand."
"The Tharnans called them the Analysts," said Saturn Girl. "They use some kind of technology that is neither magic nor science."
"I think we need to get everyone together for a conference," said Shrinking Violet. "Get everyone up-to-date."
The fourteen members gathered in the new Conference Room. Saturn Girl, the Triplicates, Chameleon, Lightning Lass, and Matter-Eater Lad Two related the magical events on Tharn as best they could."
"So all these sorcerers have various ways of producing clothing from thin air," said Matter Eater Lad Two. Falstaff made me a new costume, and a spare."
"The Nahs outfitted most of us from their home Solid Printer," said Phantom Girl. "Also curtains for all the windows."
"We have our own Solid Printer and AutoChef now," said Shrinking Violet. "Ten returned, and set up a solar array, so we are still independent of the New Metropolis grid. We have water, and light, and HVAC. Beds and chairs and study tables in all the rooms. We stocked the communal kitchen area. New 'phones for everyone. My parents sent me a new white dwarf star radiator. Ten has a new Robo-nanny, Vesta Mak II. But we don't yet have resources for new flight belts yet, or a central communications wallscreen. And still only one cleanroom, not counting the one in the Sojourner."
"Aquaboy even came from Pretzor," said Cosmic Boy. "To help Korvea and I look for salvage. But we have not found anything near as complete as the old Subs cruiser, or even enough material to replace it. Jaan went back home, after he saw how much rebuilding we still have to do."
"Well, we've built up the Club from scratch before," said Saturn Girl. "And we can do it again. Tharn sent us a new 'mana-eating' spell, so we should distribute the amulets and artifacts around the Clubhouse."
"There's one more problem," said Shrinking Violet. "We had to take out a loan to get it all done. Used all our stipends as security, with auto-deduct on the loan. Even for you Members who were on Tharn. For two years, we will have about enough left over from the stipend to feed ourselves.Unless we can find more resources, any super-heroing we do will have to be done on the cheap."
"Well, nobody has to stay if they don't want to," said Saturn Girl. "The Super-Hero Club can still go forward. Everybody still on board? This isn't quite working out the way Dacey, Pol, and I imagined, but we'll find a way."
"You're very optimistic. I'm not even sure how we are going to pay the property taxes next month," said Shrinking Violet.
"Without the Super-Hero Club," whispered Chameleon to the Triplicates, "Where would we go?".
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/06/21 06:17 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SOMEONE TOLD ME IT'S ALL HAPPENING AT THE ZOO
The new Clubhouse was full of iron. More iron than even OmniteTM, the proto-material used by the Solid Printer. Saturn Girl assumed that the baroque designs of the iron furnishings were Cosmic Boy's doing.
Chameleon joined her at the table, breakfasting on some sort of overly fragrant vegetable mash, which quashed her appetite for pancakes.
"You have seemed quite conservative with your powers," Saturn Girl noted. "I know not all Durlans are the same, but Reep Daggle was remarkably versatile."
"I am good with humans," said Chameleon, morphing through a dozen residents seen in New Metropolis. "Reep Daggle was originally admitted for his power of 'super-disguise'. I am sure his exposure to a variety of alien worlds over his years with the Legion exponentially increased his abilities."
"My folks said Mr. Daggle could even replicate Bgztlr powers," said Saturn Girl.
"Imitate, not replicate," said Chameleon. "Nearly any Durlan can. We cannot move through the fourth dimension, as Irinia can, but I can imitate the three-dimensional projection of her four-dimensional molecules." Chameleon wiggled the long antennae on his forehead, morphing into a duplicate of Phantom Girl. She passed her hand through the iron breakfast table. "You see, it's a bit sticky, not smoothly phantomwise. But I could walk through a wall, if I had to. What I really need is some exposure to more exotic forms."
"You should study online encyclopedias," Saturn Girl suggested.
Chameleon produced a 'phone from nowhere, like a magician. "This is a Venusian Sneep. Have you ever seen one?"
"No... kind of weird-looking, aren't they?" said Saturn Girl.
"I spent some time studying them," said Chameleon. "Strictly pictures of them, though. This is the best I can do." Shapeshifting again, Chameleon became a poor copy of a Sneep-- flat and angular, like a cartoon, or badly-folded origami. There was also something wrong with the perspective. "My super-acute Durlan eyes can get the colors right, but without the ultrasonic molecular feedback of my antennae... Well, this is the best I can do."
"I ought to take you on a field trip to the Kinshasa Interstellar Zoo on Earth," said Saturn Girl. "That would certainly expose you to a variety of unusual life-forms."
"Are you free tomorrow?" asked Chameleon.
The Interstellar Zoo was huge; more like an animal park, really. But the gate would not open, even though Saturn Girl and Chameleon had purchased tickets. A red light was blinking. One of the guards came over. He was the tallest human Saturn Girl had ever seen, but long and lanky, as if someone had stretched an ordinary man like a rubber band.
"Excuse me, miss," said the guard, "Are you aware that your friend is a Durlan?"
Chameleon shifted out of the human form he had assumed-- a random girl from New Metropolis-- and into the U.P.-approved default shape for female Durlans. "I'm sorry" Chameleon said. "We didn't want to create a scene by drawing attention."
"Well, they really won't allow us to let Durlans into the zoo," said the guard. "Not saying anything would happen, but something could happen, if you know what I mean."
"Then can we get a refund?" asked Chameleon.
The guard clicked a pad over the tickets. They vanished. "Done." he said. "Your accounts have been credited."
On the way back to the Runabout, Saturn Girl started to apologize.
"Don't worry about it," said Chameleon, shifting back to androgynous form. "It's not just Earth. Durlans are persona non grata all over. Sometimes, even on Durla"
SOMEONE TOLD ME IT'S ALL HAPPENING AT THE ZOO
The new Clubhouse was full of iron. More iron than even OmniteTM, the proto-material used by the Solid Printer. Saturn Girl assumed that the baroque designs of the iron furnishings were Cosmic Boy's doing.
Chameleon joined her at the table, breakfasting on some sort of overly fragrant vegetable mash, which quashed her appetite for pancakes.
"You have seemed quite conservative with your powers," Saturn Girl noted. "I know not all Durlans are the same, but Reep Daggle was remarkably versatile."
"I am good with humans," said Chameleon, morphing through a dozen residents seen in New Metropolis. "Reep Daggle was originally admitted for his power of 'super-disguise'. I am sure his exposure to a variety of alien worlds over his years with the Legion exponentially increased his abilities."
"My folks said Mr. Daggle could even replicate Bgztlr powers," said Saturn Girl.
"Imitate, not replicate," said Chameleon. "Nearly any Durlan can. We cannot move through the fourth dimension, as Irinia can, but I can imitate the three-dimensional projection of her four-dimensional molecules." Chameleon wiggled the long antennae on his forehead, morphing into a duplicate of Phantom Girl. She passed her hand through the iron breakfast table. "You see, it's a bit sticky, not smoothly phantomwise. But I could walk through a wall, if I had to. What I really need is some exposure to more exotic forms."
"You should study online encyclopedias," Saturn Girl suggested.
Chameleon produced a 'phone from nowhere, like a magician. "This is a Venusian Sneep. Have you ever seen one?"
"No... kind of weird-looking, aren't they?" said Saturn Girl.
"I spent some time studying them," said Chameleon. "Strictly pictures of them, though. This is the best I can do." Shapeshifting again, Chameleon became a poor copy of a Sneep-- flat and angular, like a cartoon, or badly-folded origami. There was also something wrong with the perspective. "My super-acute Durlan eyes can get the colors right, but without the ultrasonic molecular feedback of my antennae... Well, this is the best I can do."
"I ought to take you on a field trip to the Kinshasa Interstellar Zoo on Earth," said Saturn Girl. "That would certainly expose you to a variety of unusual life-forms."
"Are you free tomorrow?" asked Chameleon.
The Interstellar Zoo was huge; more like an animal park, really. But the gate would not open, even though Saturn Girl and Chameleon had purchased tickets. A red light was blinking. One of the guards came over. He was the tallest human Saturn Girl had ever seen, but long and lanky, as if someone had stretched an ordinary man like a rubber band.
"Excuse me, miss," said the guard, "Are you aware that your friend is a Durlan?"
Chameleon shifted out of the human form he had assumed-- a random girl from New Metropolis-- and into the U.P.-approved default shape for female Durlans. "I'm sorry" Chameleon said. "We didn't want to create a scene by drawing attention."
"Well, they really won't allow us to let Durlans into the zoo," said the guard. "Not saying anything would happen, but something could happen, if you know what I mean."
"Then can we get a refund?" asked Chameleon.
The guard clicked a pad over the tickets. They vanished. "Done." he said. "Your accounts have been credited."
On the way back to the Runabout, Saturn Girl started to apologize.
"Don't worry about it," said Chameleon, shifting back to androgynous form. "It's not just Earth. Durlans are persona non grata all over. Sometimes, even on Durla"
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 12/06/21 06:20 PM
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AN EXPENSIVE GIFT
Korvea had found a sheltered pool, with a waterfall, where she had been taking her morning showers in bird-form, to free up the cleanroom. Morphing back into human form, but keeping her black wings, she donned her Shadow-Champion-In-Training uniform, and flew back to the Clubhouse under her own power.
There was something new here: a three-meter-tall, silver-white pyramid stood in the corner of their parking lot. Korvea swooped down, and found two insectoid sentients, each standing before a dais shaped like a triangular prism.
There was a continual ticking, clicking and chirping, and one of the creatures spoke through a voder:
"Greetings, Korvea. This is a gift to the Super-Hero Club from ColuGov. It is a Spacetime Pentachoron, especially adapted for interstellar travel. We are here to assist you in achieving your chosen destinations."
"You're not Coluans," Korvea objected. "You're... Circadians?"
"Correct," said the Circadian. "I am Circadia Ascheon, and this is my associate, Circadia Segundus. We have been employed by ColuGov as Pentachoron Operators. We will be available for half of each Martian day-cycle, each day of the week."
"Er... thank you, Circadians," said Korvea. "This is unexpected." She went to the Clubhouse common kitchen for breakfast. Polar Lass was the only one up yet. "So it seems we now have access to a private Stargate," she told her. "With two Circadian employees. Wow, that smells good. What are you eating?"
"Kippers and poached eggs," said Polar Lass. "Really? A Stargate?"
Ten entered the room, Vesta II hovering over his shoulder. "We own it, actually," he said. "It is a gift from ColuGov. And it has the potential of being far more than a Stargate. The Pentachoron has the ability to temporarily amalgamate any two addresses of Spacetime."
"Well, I guess that means we won't be needing the Sojourner any more," said Polar Lass.
"The Pentachoron is perfectly capable of transporting the Sojourner, with us in it, anywhere in the Galaxy," Ten told her.
It was not long before the entire membership was outside, gathered around the Pentachoron.
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Saturn Girl.
"Why? This is amazing!" said Cosmic Boy. "I'm just wrapping my head around it. This could be incredibly useful!"
"Yes," said Saturn Girl. "But what do they want us to use it for."
"[i]It is a gift from ColuGov," said Circadia Segundus, chittering. "It 'has no strings', is your idiom, I believe."
"'No strings attached'," said Star-Woman.
"But where will they stay?" whispered Saturn Girl.
"I would assume," said Ten, addressing the Circadians, "That you have already constructed a comfortable burrow beneath the Pentachoron." He indicated a low, cave-like construction a little way from the parking lot. "And that is the entrance?"
"It is an emergency exit," said Circadia Segundus. "In ordinary circumstances, we will be using the Pentachoron to enter or depart our underground apartment. We will be immediately available for service."
"I'd like to be the first to test it," said Shrinking Violet. "Today is my little sister Song's birthday, and I was sad about missing it." She gave the Circadians the address on Orzde. They tapped on the triangular daises, and Shrinking Violet flickered and vanished. A moment later, she re-appeared.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I only meant to be gone a couple of hours, but it turned into a real party. I was so exhausted, I stayed overnight."
"Eulia," said Saturn Girl, "You were gone for less than a second."
AN EXPENSIVE GIFT
Korvea had found a sheltered pool, with a waterfall, where she had been taking her morning showers in bird-form, to free up the cleanroom. Morphing back into human form, but keeping her black wings, she donned her Shadow-Champion-In-Training uniform, and flew back to the Clubhouse under her own power.
There was something new here: a three-meter-tall, silver-white pyramid stood in the corner of their parking lot. Korvea swooped down, and found two insectoid sentients, each standing before a dais shaped like a triangular prism.
There was a continual ticking, clicking and chirping, and one of the creatures spoke through a voder:
"Greetings, Korvea. This is a gift to the Super-Hero Club from ColuGov. It is a Spacetime Pentachoron, especially adapted for interstellar travel. We are here to assist you in achieving your chosen destinations."
"You're not Coluans," Korvea objected. "You're... Circadians?"
"Correct," said the Circadian. "I am Circadia Ascheon, and this is my associate, Circadia Segundus. We have been employed by ColuGov as Pentachoron Operators. We will be available for half of each Martian day-cycle, each day of the week."
"Er... thank you, Circadians," said Korvea. "This is unexpected." She went to the Clubhouse common kitchen for breakfast. Polar Lass was the only one up yet. "So it seems we now have access to a private Stargate," she told her. "With two Circadian employees. Wow, that smells good. What are you eating?"
"Kippers and poached eggs," said Polar Lass. "Really? A Stargate?"
Ten entered the room, Vesta II hovering over his shoulder. "We own it, actually," he said. "It is a gift from ColuGov. And it has the potential of being far more than a Stargate. The Pentachoron has the ability to temporarily amalgamate any two addresses of Spacetime."
"Well, I guess that means we won't be needing the Sojourner any more," said Polar Lass.
"The Pentachoron is perfectly capable of transporting the Sojourner, with us in it, anywhere in the Galaxy," Ten told her.
It was not long before the entire membership was outside, gathered around the Pentachoron.
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Saturn Girl.
"Why? This is amazing!" said Cosmic Boy. "I'm just wrapping my head around it. This could be incredibly useful!"
"Yes," said Saturn Girl. "But what do they want us to use it for."
"[i]It is a gift from ColuGov," said Circadia Segundus, chittering. "It 'has no strings', is your idiom, I believe."
"'No strings attached'," said Star-Woman.
"But where will they stay?" whispered Saturn Girl.
"I would assume," said Ten, addressing the Circadians, "That you have already constructed a comfortable burrow beneath the Pentachoron." He indicated a low, cave-like construction a little way from the parking lot. "And that is the entrance?"
"It is an emergency exit," said Circadia Segundus. "In ordinary circumstances, we will be using the Pentachoron to enter or depart our underground apartment. We will be immediately available for service."
"I'd like to be the first to test it," said Shrinking Violet. "Today is my little sister Song's birthday, and I was sad about missing it." She gave the Circadians the address on Orzde. They tapped on the triangular daises, and Shrinking Violet flickered and vanished. A moment later, she re-appeared.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I only meant to be gone a couple of hours, but it turned into a real party. I was so exhausted, I stayed overnight."
"Eulia," said Saturn Girl, "You were gone for less than a second."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/03/22 07:09 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY
MORE GIFTS
"We are receiving shipments," said Circadia Ascheon. "I am transporting them to your conference room in the common area."
The common area was filled with packages and artifacts.
"Look," said Shrinking Violet. "The Trylops Council of Mernl sent us an upgraded Wallscreen."
Star-Woman went over to a tall stack of long, flat frames. "These are... CleanRoom Tessaracts. Like the one Mr. Nah installed in the Sojourner. There are enough here to put one on the wall of every room. Private sonics!"
"No more showering in the woods," said Korvea and Chameleon together. They looked at each other, amused.
"Daxam sent several Medi-Kits," Cosmic Boy noted.
"Oranx sent extra uniforms," said Ffey. "These look to be very good quality."
"Amazonia sent... underwear?" said Ffarrah.
"No," said Lightning Lass. "Those are trans-suits!"
"Oh, my mother always wanted one of these for her kitchen," said Polar Lass. "It's a Tharran Chrono-Fridge(r)." It was a little metal box about a meter square.
"A what?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Watch this," said Polar Lass. She placed her thumb against a lighted spot on the handle for a few seconds. The door opened. Polar Lass spun a snowball out of thin air, placed it in the Chrono-Fridge(r), and closed the door. "Now you open it," she instructed Saturn Girl.
Saturn Girl pressed her thumb against the lighted spot on the handle. Nothing happened.
"It's reading your biometrics," said Polar Lass. "Creating a personal account." The door opened.
The little box was empty.
"That snowball I put in there? It's been sent into the future. It's gone, until I open the 'Fridge again. And for the snowball no time will have passed. There will not have been time for it to melt. It will be just as cold and fresh as when I put it in. Great for leftovers."
"And I could put something in..." said Saturn Girl.
"And only you could get it out," said Polar Lass. "Now that you've established an account."
"A temporal tesseract," said Ten. "The theory... how odd, this package has Yoddish writing on it. But Colu has already... it says, 'From The Laboratory of Querl Dox'." He took off the packing paper and opened the flat box. Inside were three dozen small medallions, each about the size of a dime, with a stylized SHC embossed on each of them. Ten quickly scanned the instructions on the lid. He looked up. "These are Flight Rings!" he said. Ten picked up one of the little medallions and placed it on his right index finger. Golden energy wrapped around his finger, completing the ring. "It's already syncing with my 'phone," he said. "Telepathic interface. Tracking module. Zero-point energy source. Beautiful." He looked into the box again. "Some of these have names-- specialty rings for Shrinking Violet, the Triplicates, Phantom Girl, Star-Woman, Chameleon, and Korvea. I assume the rest are identical."
"You seem pleased," said Saturn Girl.
"Pleased?" said Ten. "These were manufactured at the laboratory of the most brilliant technologist in the Galaxy!"
"Who just happens to be a personal friend of my parents," said Saturn Girl.
"Surely you don't think..." said Lightning Lass. "Oh! But you do!"
"Look at the return addresses," said Saturn Girl. "WinathGov. BraalGov. XanthuGov. TitanGov. NaltorGov. Wondil IX. Seeing a pattern?"
"Talok VIII has sent a beautiful Zhaah-Mong set with Parobsidian game pieces," said Korvea.
"And did you see this?" asked Chameleon. "This is Spectrium, the rainbow metal."
"What's this?" asked Polar Lass. "It's from Xolnar."
"I recognize that: those are fragments of raw Pluridium, set inside into transparent aluminium wafers," said Matter-Eater Lad. "Valuable, but highly toxic to non-Bismollians. You don't want to break them open. I wonder if there is anything from Bismoll?" He searched the table. "Oh, this is interesting. Inertron-plated lead pellets. A real delicacy."
"No, it's not food," said Saturn Girl. "Don't you understand? Look at this: Durlan Spice. Promethium. Coaxium. Spican Flame Gems. Dazzle Gems. Thanagarian Nth metal. This is money! And that's no refrigerator. It's a safe! All this could be exchanged at any Galactic Bank for... hundred of thousands of credits, I suspect. These are... bribes!"
"What?" asked Star-Woman. "What are you talking about?"
"It seems to me," said Shrinking Violet, "That with what we have here today, the Super-Hero Club could be financially independent."
"You mean financially dependent," said Saturn Girl. "Dependent on the U.P., beholden to them, ready to do their bidding, or we get cut off."
"Dorrit," said Lightning Lass. "This seems like a real opportunity-- the chance to be a real, new Legion of Super-Heroes-- a chance to do some real good."
"But is this what we really want?" asked Saturn Girl, gesturing dismissively at the glittering horde. "As for me, this is not what I signed up for. Don?t you know ?gifts? always have a price? I may as well go back to Lightning Ring Farms."
The rest of the Super-Hero Club membership seemed nonplussed.
"In fact, that is just exactly what I'm going to do," said Saturn Girl. "I'm going to go talk to the Circadians. Dacey, you can keep the Runabout."
Dorritt stormed out.
"That was unexpected," said Star-Woman.
"Kind of," said Lightning Lass. "Kind of not. You weren't here at the beginning."
"She is right about one thing," said Star-Woman. "Our financial prospects are certainly looking up."
"And this is from MarsGov," said Shrinking Violet. "The final, confirmed deed to the Club property. Not that we haven't earned it."
"Weren't you expecting that anyway?" asked Star-Woman.
"Yes, but its arrival today is propitious," said Shrinking Violet. "Either that, or a reminder our property taxes are due soon."
MORE GIFTS
"We are receiving shipments," said Circadia Ascheon. "I am transporting them to your conference room in the common area."
The common area was filled with packages and artifacts.
"Look," said Shrinking Violet. "The Trylops Council of Mernl sent us an upgraded Wallscreen."
Star-Woman went over to a tall stack of long, flat frames. "These are... CleanRoom Tessaracts. Like the one Mr. Nah installed in the Sojourner. There are enough here to put one on the wall of every room. Private sonics!"
"No more showering in the woods," said Korvea and Chameleon together. They looked at each other, amused.
"Daxam sent several Medi-Kits," Cosmic Boy noted.
"Oranx sent extra uniforms," said Ffey. "These look to be very good quality."
"Amazonia sent... underwear?" said Ffarrah.
"No," said Lightning Lass. "Those are trans-suits!"
"Oh, my mother always wanted one of these for her kitchen," said Polar Lass. "It's a Tharran Chrono-Fridge(r)." It was a little metal box about a meter square.
"A what?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Watch this," said Polar Lass. She placed her thumb against a lighted spot on the handle for a few seconds. The door opened. Polar Lass spun a snowball out of thin air, placed it in the Chrono-Fridge(r), and closed the door. "Now you open it," she instructed Saturn Girl.
Saturn Girl pressed her thumb against the lighted spot on the handle. Nothing happened.
"It's reading your biometrics," said Polar Lass. "Creating a personal account." The door opened.
The little box was empty.
"That snowball I put in there? It's been sent into the future. It's gone, until I open the 'Fridge again. And for the snowball no time will have passed. There will not have been time for it to melt. It will be just as cold and fresh as when I put it in. Great for leftovers."
"And I could put something in..." said Saturn Girl.
"And only you could get it out," said Polar Lass. "Now that you've established an account."
"A temporal tesseract," said Ten. "The theory... how odd, this package has Yoddish writing on it. But Colu has already... it says, 'From The Laboratory of Querl Dox'." He took off the packing paper and opened the flat box. Inside were three dozen small medallions, each about the size of a dime, with a stylized SHC embossed on each of them. Ten quickly scanned the instructions on the lid. He looked up. "These are Flight Rings!" he said. Ten picked up one of the little medallions and placed it on his right index finger. Golden energy wrapped around his finger, completing the ring. "It's already syncing with my 'phone," he said. "Telepathic interface. Tracking module. Zero-point energy source. Beautiful." He looked into the box again. "Some of these have names-- specialty rings for Shrinking Violet, the Triplicates, Phantom Girl, Star-Woman, Chameleon, and Korvea. I assume the rest are identical."
"You seem pleased," said Saturn Girl.
"Pleased?" said Ten. "These were manufactured at the laboratory of the most brilliant technologist in the Galaxy!"
"Who just happens to be a personal friend of my parents," said Saturn Girl.
"Surely you don't think..." said Lightning Lass. "Oh! But you do!"
"Look at the return addresses," said Saturn Girl. "WinathGov. BraalGov. XanthuGov. TitanGov. NaltorGov. Wondil IX. Seeing a pattern?"
"Talok VIII has sent a beautiful Zhaah-Mong set with Parobsidian game pieces," said Korvea.
"And did you see this?" asked Chameleon. "This is Spectrium, the rainbow metal."
"What's this?" asked Polar Lass. "It's from Xolnar."
"I recognize that: those are fragments of raw Pluridium, set inside into transparent aluminium wafers," said Matter-Eater Lad. "Valuable, but highly toxic to non-Bismollians. You don't want to break them open. I wonder if there is anything from Bismoll?" He searched the table. "Oh, this is interesting. Inertron-plated lead pellets. A real delicacy."
"No, it's not food," said Saturn Girl. "Don't you understand? Look at this: Durlan Spice. Promethium. Coaxium. Spican Flame Gems. Dazzle Gems. Thanagarian Nth metal. This is money! And that's no refrigerator. It's a safe! All this could be exchanged at any Galactic Bank for... hundred of thousands of credits, I suspect. These are... bribes!"
"What?" asked Star-Woman. "What are you talking about?"
"It seems to me," said Shrinking Violet, "That with what we have here today, the Super-Hero Club could be financially independent."
"You mean financially dependent," said Saturn Girl. "Dependent on the U.P., beholden to them, ready to do their bidding, or we get cut off."
"Dorrit," said Lightning Lass. "This seems like a real opportunity-- the chance to be a real, new Legion of Super-Heroes-- a chance to do some real good."
"But is this what we really want?" asked Saturn Girl, gesturing dismissively at the glittering horde. "As for me, this is not what I signed up for. Don?t you know ?gifts? always have a price? I may as well go back to Lightning Ring Farms."
The rest of the Super-Hero Club membership seemed nonplussed.
"In fact, that is just exactly what I'm going to do," said Saturn Girl. "I'm going to go talk to the Circadians. Dacey, you can keep the Runabout."
Dorritt stormed out.
"That was unexpected," said Star-Woman.
"Kind of," said Lightning Lass. "Kind of not. You weren't here at the beginning."
"She is right about one thing," said Star-Woman. "Our financial prospects are certainly looking up."
"And this is from MarsGov," said Shrinking Violet. "The final, confirmed deed to the Club property. Not that we haven't earned it."
"Weren't you expecting that anyway?" asked Star-Woman.
"Yes, but its arrival today is propitious," said Shrinking Violet. "Either that, or a reminder our property taxes are due soon."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/03/22 07:16 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BALANCE SHEET
"I have good news and bad news," said Shrinking Violet.
"I'm listening," said Lightning Lass.
"The good news is, I have had our 'gifts' and other assets appraised, and they come to something just over one million credits in value. The bad news is, we're all rich."
"Why is this bad news?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Well, OK, it's complicated. First of all, when Star-Woman officially registered all of us as Adventurers, The Super-Hero Club also became a corporation, organized under Naltoran law."
"She didn't tell us she did that," said Lightning Lass.
"She did tell us that. Not all of us understood at the time, I guess. Anyway," said Shrinking Violet, "Everything we received-- plus the Clubhouse, and our property on Mars-- are assets of the Corporation. The only things we own as individuals are our Stipends, and personal effects."
"So The Super-Hero Club, Incorporated is rich," said Lightning Lass. "We as individuals are paupers."
"The official name is The Super Hero Club, A Naltoran Corporation," said Lightning Lass. "And not all of us are paupers, exactly. You and Pol still have interests in Lightning Ring Farms. Eulia has an interest in the M'Kord Homestead on Orzde. Kallor and Korvea are well, as rich as royalty. They have the full faith and credit of Naltor and Talok VIII behind them, respectively. As for the rest of us... Well, look at Dorrit, as an example. She has resigned her membership, but is entitled to either one-twelfth or one-fourteenth of the equity in the Corporation as compensation, depending on how we count the Triplicates' share."
"So we need to ship some of this stuff to her?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Not unless she files a demands," said Shrinking Violet. "Until then, she can be thought of as an... investor. The problem is that about a third of our asset value is tied up in the flight rings, and another half in the Pentachoron and Clubhouse, so if many more Members leave... well, we can distribute the flight rings, but the Pentachoron and Clubhouse are indivisible. And I'm no expert in contract law, so there may be other problems. For instance, what if Dorrit sold her interest to some other party or parties..."
"But she wouldn't do that," said Lightning Lass. She thought for a moment. "But what you're saying is, we need a lawyer."
"Yes. That is just what I am saying. We should vote on one, and soon. There are the Selachii, of course," said Shrinking Violet. "And there is a Zyzan I've heard good things about. And Kallor's mother uses Loy & Kem as her personal attorney. They have the advantage of being interplanetary lawyers."
"I see you have really thought this out. We'll need to have a meeting with the full Membership," said Lightning Lass. "Just so everyone knows our position."
"I was surprised at some of the valuations," said Shrinking Violet. "Those Spectrium coins are worth a lot. And the Clubhouse... Star-Woman pretty much built this from scratch."
"Funny story," said Lightning Lass, "The old Legion was so rich, that my mother destroyed twenty thousand credits worth of Spectrium in an attempt to save my father's life. She failed."
"Wait... your father... passed away?" said Shrinking Violet. "When did this happen?"
"Oh, he just died for a little while, a long time ago. Before we were born. But he got better," said Lightning Lass.
BALANCE SHEET
"I have good news and bad news," said Shrinking Violet.
"I'm listening," said Lightning Lass.
"The good news is, I have had our 'gifts' and other assets appraised, and they come to something just over one million credits in value. The bad news is, we're all rich."
"Why is this bad news?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Well, OK, it's complicated. First of all, when Star-Woman officially registered all of us as Adventurers, The Super-Hero Club also became a corporation, organized under Naltoran law."
"She didn't tell us she did that," said Lightning Lass.
"She did tell us that. Not all of us understood at the time, I guess. Anyway," said Shrinking Violet, "Everything we received-- plus the Clubhouse, and our property on Mars-- are assets of the Corporation. The only things we own as individuals are our Stipends, and personal effects."
"So The Super-Hero Club, Incorporated is rich," said Lightning Lass. "We as individuals are paupers."
"The official name is The Super Hero Club, A Naltoran Corporation," said Lightning Lass. "And not all of us are paupers, exactly. You and Pol still have interests in Lightning Ring Farms. Eulia has an interest in the M'Kord Homestead on Orzde. Kallor and Korvea are well, as rich as royalty. They have the full faith and credit of Naltor and Talok VIII behind them, respectively. As for the rest of us... Well, look at Dorrit, as an example. She has resigned her membership, but is entitled to either one-twelfth or one-fourteenth of the equity in the Corporation as compensation, depending on how we count the Triplicates' share."
"So we need to ship some of this stuff to her?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Not unless she files a demands," said Shrinking Violet. "Until then, she can be thought of as an... investor. The problem is that about a third of our asset value is tied up in the flight rings, and another half in the Pentachoron and Clubhouse, so if many more Members leave... well, we can distribute the flight rings, but the Pentachoron and Clubhouse are indivisible. And I'm no expert in contract law, so there may be other problems. For instance, what if Dorrit sold her interest to some other party or parties..."
"But she wouldn't do that," said Lightning Lass. She thought for a moment. "But what you're saying is, we need a lawyer."
"Yes. That is just what I am saying. We should vote on one, and soon. There are the Selachii, of course," said Shrinking Violet. "And there is a Zyzan I've heard good things about. And Kallor's mother uses Loy & Kem as her personal attorney. They have the advantage of being interplanetary lawyers."
"I see you have really thought this out. We'll need to have a meeting with the full Membership," said Lightning Lass. "Just so everyone knows our position."
"I was surprised at some of the valuations," said Shrinking Violet. "Those Spectrium coins are worth a lot. And the Clubhouse... Star-Woman pretty much built this from scratch."
"Funny story," said Lightning Lass, "The old Legion was so rich, that my mother destroyed twenty thousand credits worth of Spectrium in an attempt to save my father's life. She failed."
"Wait... your father... passed away?" said Shrinking Violet. "When did this happen?"
"Oh, he just died for a little while, a long time ago. Before we were born. But he got better," said Lightning Lass.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/22 07:32 PM
Double-vaxxed and boosted and haven't been out of the house since New Year's day, and my granddaughter and i both came down with Covid-19 last week.
But at least we didn't die.
Didn't even go to the hospital.
But at least we didn't die.
Didn't even go to the hospital.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/22 07:34 PM
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND
MAGIC LESSONS
The City of Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, Earth. 31st century:
Bartolomeo Stefanacci's office at the Museum of Mystic Arts was appropriately creepy.
Open books and manuscripts were piled on tables. More books sat in ramshackle bookcases which reached up to the ceiling. The ceiling was higher than the room was wide. The skeleton of an alligator (or crocodile?) hung suspended on wires. Four gargoyles sat in the ceiling, each occupying a corner. Stone-grey owls were perched on each gargoyle. The only natural light was from small, circular windows high in the walls.
"Your magical curse powers are obviously of Faery origin," said Bartolomeo.
"Why 'obviously'?" asked Ann Foxmoor.
"Why, your name, first of all," said Bartolomeo. His client looked puzzled. "Elves and fairies are sometimes called 'The Fair Folk'. 'Fox' is a contraction of 'Folk's. As in 'foxglove'-- a fairy's glove. Once the source of certain powerful medicines. ?Foxfire? is another example of ?fox? meaning ?fairy?. There are hundreds of fairy-related names passed down from Old Britain. Foxcastle, Farleigh, Elvenstone. Many others. You are almost certainly of Faery descent."
"Almost certainly?" said Ann Foxmoor.
"Well, let's take a look at Earth's Omni-Generational Family Database." He fired up his desk computer. "Your parents are Robert and May?"
"Yes," said Ann. "How far back does it go?"
"Well, they say 9O% of Western Europeans have at least fifty generations of ancestors in the database," said Bartolomeo. "Oh, here is the earliest of your ancestors who used the surname 'Foxmoor'. Edward Foxmoor, listed in a census dated 1400. His father is listed as John Othermoor... oh, that is interesting. Let me cross-reference with the Xotikanomicon... Here, there is a Jack-o'-th'-Moor, attested in the 11th through 14th century. Also called Handsome Jack, and Jack-A-Stray. Most probably the father of John Othermoor. It was common at that time for women to name their half-fairy children after their fairy fathers."
"So my fiftieth great-grandfather, from seventeen centuries ago, was a fairy? That counts as fairy blood? Isn't that a little... diluted?"
"Well, Jack-o'-th'-Moor may not be your only Faery ancestor," mused Bartolomeo. "But this is Magic, not Genetics. The rules are entirely different."
"So how do I learn to control it?" asked Ann Foxmoor. ?My fairy powers, I mean.?
"Oh, certainly, yes, you would want to learn to control it. Fairy curses can be powerful, long-lived, and remarkably complex. A boy was once cursed to live seven years as a long-nosed dwarf. A man was fated to die only by crocodile, serpent, or dog. Or the famous curse 'On her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.'" Bartolomeo mused for a moment. "There is the Sorcerer's World. That would be the best option. There are several fine Magical Universities there. And I believe a gate to Faeryland may still exist there."
"Not Tharn," said Ann Foxmoor.
"There are several other magical worlds," said Bartolomeo Stefanacci. "Planet Avalon. Ys. Orando, perhaps. There are those who might be of help to you there."
"My family is from Earth," said Ann Foxmoor. "As far as I know, none of my ancestors have ever been off-Earth. Ever. I was sent to Mars against my will, and to Excalbia under extreme duress. I don't want to leave Earth, ever again. It's big enough for me."
"Well, it appears your Scottish ancestors never left the British Isles until... the 28th century? Your people certainly are homebodies."
"Surely there is somewhere on Earth I can learn Magic? Such as... here?"
"This is a museum, not a university," Bartolomeo Stefanacci observed.
"But just look at your library," said Ann Foxmoor. She gestured at the bookcases that reached the tall ceiling. "Perhaps I could work as an intern here. Do my own research in my spare time."
Bartolomeo considered. "No... I would be pleased to open the museum to you... Happy to help you with your research... But... I'm reluctant to take you on as an intern. It's just... It might not be appropriate? I would not want you to feel an... obligation... to stay," the young man stammered, blushing.
"Bartolomeo Stefanacci," said Ann Foxmoor. "Are you sweet on me?"
The curator flushed again. "We've only just met. I don't really know you," he said. "But you seem like... an interesting person."
There was a sudden, silent rush of wings. Something gray swooped down between them, then up to the high ceiling again. Ann Foxmoor caught a glimpse of something leaving through one of the upper windows.
"That's just my owl, Edward Lear," said Bartolomeo Stefanacci. "Swooping like that is his way of telling me he's going out hunting. I'll tell you what: let me set up an account for you. The books are just for display. Everything is here, in a searchable database." He tapped his desk top. "Except the Chained Grimoires, of course, but I don't expect you to have any interest in them. I have a couple of hours of work to do tending to the museum, and then I'll take you to dinner at the oldest restaurant in Avalon. La Figlia Di La Balena."
"A musical name," said Ann Foxmoor. "But I don't speak Old Terran."
"It means 'The Whale's Daughter' - from an old Sicilian fairy-tale," said Bartolomeo. "You like seafood?"
"I love seafood."
Ann Foxmoor spent most of the time just getting acquainted with the library database. She cross-referenced 'owl', and 'Edward Lear', and was rewarded with a short poem in a book of collected works. "So he's a romantic," she thought to herself. She felt herself getting drowsy, sitting at Bartolomeo Stefanacci's desk. She looked up through drooping eyelids. There was someone sitting across from her in one of the ornate library chairs.
He was exotically beautiful, with sharp features, pale skin, and strangely pale blue eyes. His casually tousled hair looked like spun gold. "Grand-daughter," the apparition said. He had a crooked smile.
"Are you ready to go?" Ann Foxmoor startled awake. The chair across from her was empty, and Bartolomeo Stefanacci was standing at the door. He had changed his clothes.
MAGIC LESSONS
The City of Avalon, Santa Catalina Island, Earth. 31st century:
Bartolomeo Stefanacci's office at the Museum of Mystic Arts was appropriately creepy.
Open books and manuscripts were piled on tables. More books sat in ramshackle bookcases which reached up to the ceiling. The ceiling was higher than the room was wide. The skeleton of an alligator (or crocodile?) hung suspended on wires. Four gargoyles sat in the ceiling, each occupying a corner. Stone-grey owls were perched on each gargoyle. The only natural light was from small, circular windows high in the walls.
"Your magical curse powers are obviously of Faery origin," said Bartolomeo.
"Why 'obviously'?" asked Ann Foxmoor.
"Why, your name, first of all," said Bartolomeo. His client looked puzzled. "Elves and fairies are sometimes called 'The Fair Folk'. 'Fox' is a contraction of 'Folk's. As in 'foxglove'-- a fairy's glove. Once the source of certain powerful medicines. ?Foxfire? is another example of ?fox? meaning ?fairy?. There are hundreds of fairy-related names passed down from Old Britain. Foxcastle, Farleigh, Elvenstone. Many others. You are almost certainly of Faery descent."
"Almost certainly?" said Ann Foxmoor.
"Well, let's take a look at Earth's Omni-Generational Family Database." He fired up his desk computer. "Your parents are Robert and May?"
"Yes," said Ann. "How far back does it go?"
"Well, they say 9O% of Western Europeans have at least fifty generations of ancestors in the database," said Bartolomeo. "Oh, here is the earliest of your ancestors who used the surname 'Foxmoor'. Edward Foxmoor, listed in a census dated 1400. His father is listed as John Othermoor... oh, that is interesting. Let me cross-reference with the Xotikanomicon... Here, there is a Jack-o'-th'-Moor, attested in the 11th through 14th century. Also called Handsome Jack, and Jack-A-Stray. Most probably the father of John Othermoor. It was common at that time for women to name their half-fairy children after their fairy fathers."
"So my fiftieth great-grandfather, from seventeen centuries ago, was a fairy? That counts as fairy blood? Isn't that a little... diluted?"
"Well, Jack-o'-th'-Moor may not be your only Faery ancestor," mused Bartolomeo. "But this is Magic, not Genetics. The rules are entirely different."
"So how do I learn to control it?" asked Ann Foxmoor. ?My fairy powers, I mean.?
"Oh, certainly, yes, you would want to learn to control it. Fairy curses can be powerful, long-lived, and remarkably complex. A boy was once cursed to live seven years as a long-nosed dwarf. A man was fated to die only by crocodile, serpent, or dog. Or the famous curse 'On her sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.'" Bartolomeo mused for a moment. "There is the Sorcerer's World. That would be the best option. There are several fine Magical Universities there. And I believe a gate to Faeryland may still exist there."
"Not Tharn," said Ann Foxmoor.
"There are several other magical worlds," said Bartolomeo Stefanacci. "Planet Avalon. Ys. Orando, perhaps. There are those who might be of help to you there."
"My family is from Earth," said Ann Foxmoor. "As far as I know, none of my ancestors have ever been off-Earth. Ever. I was sent to Mars against my will, and to Excalbia under extreme duress. I don't want to leave Earth, ever again. It's big enough for me."
"Well, it appears your Scottish ancestors never left the British Isles until... the 28th century? Your people certainly are homebodies."
"Surely there is somewhere on Earth I can learn Magic? Such as... here?"
"This is a museum, not a university," Bartolomeo Stefanacci observed.
"But just look at your library," said Ann Foxmoor. She gestured at the bookcases that reached the tall ceiling. "Perhaps I could work as an intern here. Do my own research in my spare time."
Bartolomeo considered. "No... I would be pleased to open the museum to you... Happy to help you with your research... But... I'm reluctant to take you on as an intern. It's just... It might not be appropriate? I would not want you to feel an... obligation... to stay," the young man stammered, blushing.
"Bartolomeo Stefanacci," said Ann Foxmoor. "Are you sweet on me?"
The curator flushed again. "We've only just met. I don't really know you," he said. "But you seem like... an interesting person."
There was a sudden, silent rush of wings. Something gray swooped down between them, then up to the high ceiling again. Ann Foxmoor caught a glimpse of something leaving through one of the upper windows.
"That's just my owl, Edward Lear," said Bartolomeo Stefanacci. "Swooping like that is his way of telling me he's going out hunting. I'll tell you what: let me set up an account for you. The books are just for display. Everything is here, in a searchable database." He tapped his desk top. "Except the Chained Grimoires, of course, but I don't expect you to have any interest in them. I have a couple of hours of work to do tending to the museum, and then I'll take you to dinner at the oldest restaurant in Avalon. La Figlia Di La Balena."
"A musical name," said Ann Foxmoor. "But I don't speak Old Terran."
"It means 'The Whale's Daughter' - from an old Sicilian fairy-tale," said Bartolomeo. "You like seafood?"
"I love seafood."
Ann Foxmoor spent most of the time just getting acquainted with the library database. She cross-referenced 'owl', and 'Edward Lear', and was rewarded with a short poem in a book of collected works. "So he's a romantic," she thought to herself. She felt herself getting drowsy, sitting at Bartolomeo Stefanacci's desk. She looked up through drooping eyelids. There was someone sitting across from her in one of the ornate library chairs.
He was exotically beautiful, with sharp features, pale skin, and strangely pale blue eyes. His casually tousled hair looked like spun gold. "Grand-daughter," the apparition said. He had a crooked smile.
"Are you ready to go?" Ann Foxmoor startled awake. The chair across from her was empty, and Bartolomeo Stefanacci was standing at the door. He had changed his clothes.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/22 07:40 PM
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD
ANOTHER LAGOMORPH
The Museum of Mystic Arts was not an attraction one could see in a day.
Ann had perused the floors, a little at a time, between researching fairy-curses, and nearly nightly outings with Bartolomeo. She had come to know the names several of the roving cyber-docents. But tonight, it was Bartolomeo himself giving her a tour.
They had been looking at exhibits and collections in the museum archives. (Less than a third of the Museum's holdings were on active display at any time.) Bartolomeo seemed most proud of these items in storage. There was a lot. It would take Ann more than one quick evening to see it all.
They came to a case holding two broadswords.
The first shone like polished chrome, its hilt filigreed and ornate, with archaic characters in gold cameo on the blade. Ann could not read them.
The other was a darker metal, although also well cared for. The blade was pitted and scarred, as though it had seen much use. It was well-oiled and had apparently been recently sharpened to a razor-edge. There was an aura of blood and death about the thing. It lay beside a thick leather scabbard which had seen better days.
"This is King Arthur's Sword in the Stone," said Bartolomeo. "And Excalibur, as well. We have recently recovered it. It was stolen from the museum some years ago, but we eventually tracked it down. On the Sorcerer's World. In the cutlery drawer of an ogress, who was using it as a carving-knife."
"How do you know it's the real thing?" asked Ann. "Not a copy?"
"The scabbard is enchanted," said Bartolomeo. "It will not allow any sword to be sheathed in it except the true Excalibur. It is seldom we get the chance to observe actual magic here in the Museum."
He continued to the next case. "These are the mystic deerskin moccasins of Hiawatha. Fifteen centuries old. They endowed him with a number of abilities-- they say he could run faster than the wind, for example."
What was left of the moccasins certainly looked fifteen centuries old.
"Here, almost as old, but in much better condition," said Bartolomeo, moving on. "The top-hat of Zachary Zatara, the 22nd-century hero-magician."
"Sorry," said Ann. "Never heard of him. Was he important?"
"He protected the Earth from Jema Zol-Lar, the Mad Super-Woman," said Bartolomeo.
"Aagh!" screamed Ann. "Something under the hat! It moved!"
"This hat is preserved in an atmosphere of argon, in a cube with walls of transparent aluminum," said Bartolomeo. "It has been held there for nearly nine hundred years. Nothing could possibly be alive..."
A pink nose nudged the hat up slightly. It fell back down again.
Ann jumped back. Bartolomeo stepped away beside her. A small crack was forming in the corner of the transparent cube. "It's my power," said Ann. "I was startled. I think I cast a curse."
The cube cracked, then split in half. The hat fell to the floor. Out of the hat stepped... and a young woman.
She seemed human. Her skin was pale as peaches. Her eyes were blue, her hair cut in a platinum blonde bob. Had Ann or Bartolomeo been aficionados of ancient motion pictures, they might have said she looked something like a young Marilyn Monroe. She was entirely nude.
The young woman babbled in a long string of syllables.
"I think it's some dialect of Old Terran," said Bartolomeo. "But I don't understand."
"Buh-Ni," she said, pointing to herself.
"Ann," said Ann, pointing to herself. "Bartolomeo," she said, pointing to him. "Buh-Ni?" she asked.
The young woman nodded. "Buh-Ni," she said. "Rah-Bet." She then pointed to the other two. "Ann. Bar-To-Lo-May-Oh."
"Well, she seems like a fast learner," said Ann.
A man Ann had never seen before came running up. He was as red and fat and bald as a tomato. "Oh, the hat, the hat!" he cried. He was accompanied by two cyber-docents Ann did not recognize. "Get a sterile case," he ordered one. "And bring it to the second mounting room. And you," he indicated the other, "clean up the floor, please." The three hurried off.
"Who was that?" asked Ann.
"Mister Tomato, the Museum Preparator," said Bartolomeo.
"Mister Tomato?" asked Ann.
The cyber-docents returned, one loading the hat into a metal container, the other cleaning up the shattered cube.
"We have Universal Translators near the entrance," said Bartolomeo. "That could help us with our... unexpected guest. And there is a solid printer in one of the closets in the library. Perhaps you could fabricate a... robe and slippers for her? I will meet you there with the translator."
ANOTHER LAGOMORPH
The Museum of Mystic Arts was not an attraction one could see in a day.
Ann had perused the floors, a little at a time, between researching fairy-curses, and nearly nightly outings with Bartolomeo. She had come to know the names several of the roving cyber-docents. But tonight, it was Bartolomeo himself giving her a tour.
They had been looking at exhibits and collections in the museum archives. (Less than a third of the Museum's holdings were on active display at any time.) Bartolomeo seemed most proud of these items in storage. There was a lot. It would take Ann more than one quick evening to see it all.
They came to a case holding two broadswords.
The first shone like polished chrome, its hilt filigreed and ornate, with archaic characters in gold cameo on the blade. Ann could not read them.
The other was a darker metal, although also well cared for. The blade was pitted and scarred, as though it had seen much use. It was well-oiled and had apparently been recently sharpened to a razor-edge. There was an aura of blood and death about the thing. It lay beside a thick leather scabbard which had seen better days.
"This is King Arthur's Sword in the Stone," said Bartolomeo. "And Excalibur, as well. We have recently recovered it. It was stolen from the museum some years ago, but we eventually tracked it down. On the Sorcerer's World. In the cutlery drawer of an ogress, who was using it as a carving-knife."
"How do you know it's the real thing?" asked Ann. "Not a copy?"
"The scabbard is enchanted," said Bartolomeo. "It will not allow any sword to be sheathed in it except the true Excalibur. It is seldom we get the chance to observe actual magic here in the Museum."
He continued to the next case. "These are the mystic deerskin moccasins of Hiawatha. Fifteen centuries old. They endowed him with a number of abilities-- they say he could run faster than the wind, for example."
What was left of the moccasins certainly looked fifteen centuries old.
"Here, almost as old, but in much better condition," said Bartolomeo, moving on. "The top-hat of Zachary Zatara, the 22nd-century hero-magician."
"Sorry," said Ann. "Never heard of him. Was he important?"
"He protected the Earth from Jema Zol-Lar, the Mad Super-Woman," said Bartolomeo.
"Aagh!" screamed Ann. "Something under the hat! It moved!"
"This hat is preserved in an atmosphere of argon, in a cube with walls of transparent aluminum," said Bartolomeo. "It has been held there for nearly nine hundred years. Nothing could possibly be alive..."
A pink nose nudged the hat up slightly. It fell back down again.
Ann jumped back. Bartolomeo stepped away beside her. A small crack was forming in the corner of the transparent cube. "It's my power," said Ann. "I was startled. I think I cast a curse."
The cube cracked, then split in half. The hat fell to the floor. Out of the hat stepped... and a young woman.
She seemed human. Her skin was pale as peaches. Her eyes were blue, her hair cut in a platinum blonde bob. Had Ann or Bartolomeo been aficionados of ancient motion pictures, they might have said she looked something like a young Marilyn Monroe. She was entirely nude.
The young woman babbled in a long string of syllables.
"I think it's some dialect of Old Terran," said Bartolomeo. "But I don't understand."
"Buh-Ni," she said, pointing to herself.
"Ann," said Ann, pointing to herself. "Bartolomeo," she said, pointing to him. "Buh-Ni?" she asked.
The young woman nodded. "Buh-Ni," she said. "Rah-Bet." She then pointed to the other two. "Ann. Bar-To-Lo-May-Oh."
"Well, she seems like a fast learner," said Ann.
A man Ann had never seen before came running up. He was as red and fat and bald as a tomato. "Oh, the hat, the hat!" he cried. He was accompanied by two cyber-docents Ann did not recognize. "Get a sterile case," he ordered one. "And bring it to the second mounting room. And you," he indicated the other, "clean up the floor, please." The three hurried off.
"Who was that?" asked Ann.
"Mister Tomato, the Museum Preparator," said Bartolomeo.
"Mister Tomato?" asked Ann.
The cyber-docents returned, one loading the hat into a metal container, the other cleaning up the shattered cube.
"We have Universal Translators near the entrance," said Bartolomeo. "That could help us with our... unexpected guest. And there is a solid printer in one of the closets in the library. Perhaps you could fabricate a... robe and slippers for her? I will meet you there with the translator."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/19/22 07:45 PM
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH
BUHNI RAHBET
"We will need to get you registered with UPGov," said Ann. "It's all very standard. Earth gets more time travelers than you might think."
"Am I a time traveler?" asked Buhni.
"Did you know Zachary Zatara?" asked Bartolomeo.
"Oh, yes. And his family," said Buhni.
"Zachary Zatara passed away nearly nine hundred years ago," said Bartolomeo.
"I'm afraid you're stranded here," said Ann. "Time travel licenses are difficult to qualify for. Especially for traveling into the past."
"I think I knew I was in the hat longer than I should have been," said Buhni. "But what happens now? What am I to do here?"
"Well, I'm all alone in my apartment in town," said Ann. "I suppose you could stay there with me. And if you don't mind working, I could use some help with my research." She swept her arm around the library. "Are you any good with computers?"
o o o
Buhni was a great help. Although not skilled in modern computer operations, she could read two dialects of Old Terran, and was learning Interlac very quickly, relying less and less on the Universal Translator. She also had a rudimentary understanding of the laws of magic-- more than Ann Foxmoor had.
"It seems the Fairies could simply speak their desires, and they were fulfilled," she said. "Often, the curses or spells were in rhyme. For example:
She is indeed most wondrous fair
Gold of sunshine in her hair
Lips that shame the red, red rose
In ageless sleep, she finds repose
"Well, it rhymes in Old Terran Ing-Lish," said Buhni.
"My powers are tied to my emotions," said Ann. "When I'm overwhelmed with anger or fear, how am I supposed to remember incantations?"
"You know, the Faery often carried wands or amulets, although they themselves were magical creatures. Perhaps they stored some of their magic... or used the wands to regulate or control it. What if you cursed some rod or staff made of a wood resistant to magic? Ash, elder, cedar, or blackwood, for example? I have heard of gems or crystals that are similarly resistant... Then the object could hold the power of the curse, which you might possibly re-direct at will."
"An interesting idea," said Ann. "And consistent with the way we have seen magic work. Did you learn magic as Zachary Zatara's assistant?"
"I worked with him for just over a year," said Buhni. "He was terribly old by then. I suppose I was his last stage partner. He only taught me one spell." She concentrated, then chaned"Engahc Em Otni Ym Larutan Mrof Rof Eno Etunim."
Buhni vanished. In her place was a large white rabbit with blue eyes, peering out from under her robe. It blinked at Ann, and wiggled its nose. In exactly one minute, Buhni re-appeared, slipping back into her clothes.
"Zachary Zatara taught you how to change yourself into a rabbit?" asked Ann.
"He changed me into a human being," said Buhni. "The spell allows me to temporarily change back to my true self. I was born a Viennese White. Although I must admit, I like being human. I wouldn't want to go back to being a rabbit forever."
"But this explains why you're a vegetarian," said Ann.
o o o
Bartolomeo Stefanacci had practiced etiquette and a chivalric demeanor that was positively medieval. He insisted on escorting Ann and Buhni back to their apartment a few blocks away from the Museum every evening.
"So this Mr. Tomato," said Ann. "Is he from Korugar?"
"I really couldn't say," said Bartolomeo.
"Don't you know anything about him?" asked Ann.
"I know all about him," said Bartolomeo. "His first name is Bobb. He graduated from Oxford, in the British Isles sector of Europolis. He is careful and meticulous in his work habits. His exhibits are impeccable. He always plays Santa at the Museum Christmas parties. His wife's name is Laurel, I believe."
"Christmas party?" Ann was surprised. "How many biological employees do you have at the museum? Aside from Mr. Tomato, I've only ever met the cyber-docents."
"Ninety-five," said Bartolomeo. "Although they are mostly out in the field, or work 'backstage' in the collections. And the cyber-docents are programmed to attend the Christmas party. It makes it more festive. You seem quite concerned about aliens and artificials. You aren't secretly one of those Earth-Firsters, are you?"
"No, no, not at all," said Ann. how could he think that?, she thought to herself.
"I?m sure you know some of the biological docents. I know you have met Mrs. White," said Bartolomeo. "I've seen you talking to her."
"Mrs. White?" said Ann. "I thought she was just a... regular patron."
(Author's note: Ann Foxmoor is mistaken. Mr. Tomato is not Korugaran; his father, Tomat To, emigrated to Earth from Ungara. He terracized the name to Tom Tomato. Bartolomeo Stefanacci is also wrong: The Mrs. Tomato's name is Laurri, not Laurel.)
When they arrived at their apartment door, Bartolomeo would always give a little bow.
Buhni thumbed the door open, and entered the apartment. Ann was about to follow her, but instead turned, closed the door, and faced Bartolomeo.
"You know, after all the time we've spent together," she said. "You've never once tried to kiss me."
"And I would point out," said Bartolomeo, "That you have never once tried to kiss me."
So she kissed him.
He tasted of garlic and oregano. She was reminded of that strange little restaurant he had taken her to on their first date, with paintings of castles and kings and queens, and, for some reason, bobble-head dolls on the counters.
"I have to go," said Ann.
"I know," said Bartolomeo.
"No, I mean really go," said Ann. "Away. In just a couple of weeks. One more semester at Metropolis University this fall, and then I begin my medical internship."
"There is a hospital on Santa Catalina," said Bartolomeo. "Perhaps you could intern here?"
"You would never see me," said Ann.
"I do like seeing you," said Bartolomeo.
"I like seeing you, too," said Ann.
"Look, Metropolis is only a couple of megameters away. It's not like you're going to another planet. Maybe I could come visit you sometimes? When you're not too busy?"
"I'd like that," said Ann.
BUHNI RAHBET
"We will need to get you registered with UPGov," said Ann. "It's all very standard. Earth gets more time travelers than you might think."
"Am I a time traveler?" asked Buhni.
"Did you know Zachary Zatara?" asked Bartolomeo.
"Oh, yes. And his family," said Buhni.
"Zachary Zatara passed away nearly nine hundred years ago," said Bartolomeo.
"I'm afraid you're stranded here," said Ann. "Time travel licenses are difficult to qualify for. Especially for traveling into the past."
"I think I knew I was in the hat longer than I should have been," said Buhni. "But what happens now? What am I to do here?"
"Well, I'm all alone in my apartment in town," said Ann. "I suppose you could stay there with me. And if you don't mind working, I could use some help with my research." She swept her arm around the library. "Are you any good with computers?"
o o o
Buhni was a great help. Although not skilled in modern computer operations, she could read two dialects of Old Terran, and was learning Interlac very quickly, relying less and less on the Universal Translator. She also had a rudimentary understanding of the laws of magic-- more than Ann Foxmoor had.
"It seems the Fairies could simply speak their desires, and they were fulfilled," she said. "Often, the curses or spells were in rhyme. For example:
She is indeed most wondrous fair
Gold of sunshine in her hair
Lips that shame the red, red rose
In ageless sleep, she finds repose
"Well, it rhymes in Old Terran Ing-Lish," said Buhni.
"My powers are tied to my emotions," said Ann. "When I'm overwhelmed with anger or fear, how am I supposed to remember incantations?"
"You know, the Faery often carried wands or amulets, although they themselves were magical creatures. Perhaps they stored some of their magic... or used the wands to regulate or control it. What if you cursed some rod or staff made of a wood resistant to magic? Ash, elder, cedar, or blackwood, for example? I have heard of gems or crystals that are similarly resistant... Then the object could hold the power of the curse, which you might possibly re-direct at will."
"An interesting idea," said Ann. "And consistent with the way we have seen magic work. Did you learn magic as Zachary Zatara's assistant?"
"I worked with him for just over a year," said Buhni. "He was terribly old by then. I suppose I was his last stage partner. He only taught me one spell." She concentrated, then chaned"Engahc Em Otni Ym Larutan Mrof Rof Eno Etunim."
Buhni vanished. In her place was a large white rabbit with blue eyes, peering out from under her robe. It blinked at Ann, and wiggled its nose. In exactly one minute, Buhni re-appeared, slipping back into her clothes.
"Zachary Zatara taught you how to change yourself into a rabbit?" asked Ann.
"He changed me into a human being," said Buhni. "The spell allows me to temporarily change back to my true self. I was born a Viennese White. Although I must admit, I like being human. I wouldn't want to go back to being a rabbit forever."
"But this explains why you're a vegetarian," said Ann.
o o o
Bartolomeo Stefanacci had practiced etiquette and a chivalric demeanor that was positively medieval. He insisted on escorting Ann and Buhni back to their apartment a few blocks away from the Museum every evening.
"So this Mr. Tomato," said Ann. "Is he from Korugar?"
"I really couldn't say," said Bartolomeo.
"Don't you know anything about him?" asked Ann.
"I know all about him," said Bartolomeo. "His first name is Bobb. He graduated from Oxford, in the British Isles sector of Europolis. He is careful and meticulous in his work habits. His exhibits are impeccable. He always plays Santa at the Museum Christmas parties. His wife's name is Laurel, I believe."
"Christmas party?" Ann was surprised. "How many biological employees do you have at the museum? Aside from Mr. Tomato, I've only ever met the cyber-docents."
"Ninety-five," said Bartolomeo. "Although they are mostly out in the field, or work 'backstage' in the collections. And the cyber-docents are programmed to attend the Christmas party. It makes it more festive. You seem quite concerned about aliens and artificials. You aren't secretly one of those Earth-Firsters, are you?"
"No, no, not at all," said Ann. how could he think that?, she thought to herself.
"I?m sure you know some of the biological docents. I know you have met Mrs. White," said Bartolomeo. "I've seen you talking to her."
"Mrs. White?" said Ann. "I thought she was just a... regular patron."
(Author's note: Ann Foxmoor is mistaken. Mr. Tomato is not Korugaran; his father, Tomat To, emigrated to Earth from Ungara. He terracized the name to Tom Tomato. Bartolomeo Stefanacci is also wrong: The Mrs. Tomato's name is Laurri, not Laurel.)
When they arrived at their apartment door, Bartolomeo would always give a little bow.
Buhni thumbed the door open, and entered the apartment. Ann was about to follow her, but instead turned, closed the door, and faced Bartolomeo.
"You know, after all the time we've spent together," she said. "You've never once tried to kiss me."
"And I would point out," said Bartolomeo, "That you have never once tried to kiss me."
So she kissed him.
He tasted of garlic and oregano. She was reminded of that strange little restaurant he had taken her to on their first date, with paintings of castles and kings and queens, and, for some reason, bobble-head dolls on the counters.
"I have to go," said Ann.
"I know," said Bartolomeo.
"No, I mean really go," said Ann. "Away. In just a couple of weeks. One more semester at Metropolis University this fall, and then I begin my medical internship."
"There is a hospital on Santa Catalina," said Bartolomeo. "Perhaps you could intern here?"
"You would never see me," said Ann.
"I do like seeing you," said Bartolomeo.
"I like seeing you, too," said Ann.
"Look, Metropolis is only a couple of megameters away. It's not like you're going to another planet. Maybe I could come visit you sometimes? When you're not too busy?"
"I'd like that," said Ann.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/21/22 09:35 AM
Originally Posted by Klar Ken T5477
Double-vaxxed and boosted and haven't been out of the house since New Year's day, and my granddaughter and i both came down with Covid-19 last week.
But at least we didn't die.
Didn't even go to the hospital.
But at least we didn't die.
Didn't even go to the hospital.
Buhni is great!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/27/22 03:35 PM
Dear Raz:
In my lifetime, I have had a couple of cases of the flu worse than my recent Omicron infection, after being triple-vaxxed.
On the other hand, my son-in-law has lost his sense of taste and smell for the nonce.
Historically, I would get the flu vaccine every year, and got the flu every year except for 2020 and 2021.
Sold on social distancing.
(As a misanthropic introvert, it wasn?t a hard sell)
More rabbits to be introduced in Chapter Forty-One.
In my lifetime, I have had a couple of cases of the flu worse than my recent Omicron infection, after being triple-vaxxed.
On the other hand, my son-in-law has lost his sense of taste and smell for the nonce.
Historically, I would get the flu vaccine every year, and got the flu every year except for 2020 and 2021.
Sold on social distancing.
(As a misanthropic introvert, it wasn?t a hard sell)
More rabbits to be introduced in Chapter Forty-One.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/27/22 03:39 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MONSTER PLANET
"We have a request for assistance from the Science Police," said Star-Woman.
"So my sister was right," said Lightning Lass. ?The U.P. is calling in favors.?
"But perhaps this is just what the Super-Hero Club was created for," said Star-Woman. "I would like to put together a team. You and Cosmic Boy, Polar Lass, Chameleon and Ten."
"You seem to have a preference for the heavy hitters," said Lightning Lass. "Don't discount the others."
"Not at all," said Star-Woman. "But we're going after poachers on Monster World."
Working with three SP vessels, they apprehended two dozen poachers, mostly Terran.
"I never thought I'd be working with a Durlan," said one of the officers. "But he was amazing."
"I was not able to increase my mass enough to impersonate an adult Earthquake Beast," said Chameleon. "But they seemed quite interested in a juvenile. They seemed surprised when their electro-nets were empty."
"Remind me not to get on their bad side," said the officer who worked with Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass. "He completely pulled the engine out of one of their vehicles, when they tried to escape."
"I know a Tharran officer," said another SP. "But I didn't know he could do that."
"Not all Tharrans can," said Polar Lass.
"This young man," said the Captain, "Would make an excellent SP officer one day."
"You might have to wait a while," said Star-Woman. "Coluans do not reach majority until about the age of one hundred."
"D'Arvit," said the captain. "Really?"
A fireball shot up from the jungle. It enveloped Ten and Vesta II, perfectly safe within the Coluan force-shield.
But an instant later, the stray poacher hung slightly over a mile in the air, Star-Woman holding him by the throat. "Oh, tell me you did not just fire a plasma-cannon at a child," she said, her eyes crackling with electricity.
"I surrender?" said the poacher, gasping for breath.
"Oh, that is so irrelevant," said Star-Woman. "Now when you are safe in Takron-Galtos, or Labyrinth, or wherever they eventually send you, I want you to tell this to everyone you meet." She whispered. "The Super-Hero Club."
MONSTER PLANET
"We have a request for assistance from the Science Police," said Star-Woman.
"So my sister was right," said Lightning Lass. ?The U.P. is calling in favors.?
"But perhaps this is just what the Super-Hero Club was created for," said Star-Woman. "I would like to put together a team. You and Cosmic Boy, Polar Lass, Chameleon and Ten."
"You seem to have a preference for the heavy hitters," said Lightning Lass. "Don't discount the others."
"Not at all," said Star-Woman. "But we're going after poachers on Monster World."
Working with three SP vessels, they apprehended two dozen poachers, mostly Terran.
"I never thought I'd be working with a Durlan," said one of the officers. "But he was amazing."
"I was not able to increase my mass enough to impersonate an adult Earthquake Beast," said Chameleon. "But they seemed quite interested in a juvenile. They seemed surprised when their electro-nets were empty."
"Remind me not to get on their bad side," said the officer who worked with Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass. "He completely pulled the engine out of one of their vehicles, when they tried to escape."
"I know a Tharran officer," said another SP. "But I didn't know he could do that."
"Not all Tharrans can," said Polar Lass.
"This young man," said the Captain, "Would make an excellent SP officer one day."
"You might have to wait a while," said Star-Woman. "Coluans do not reach majority until about the age of one hundred."
"D'Arvit," said the captain. "Really?"
A fireball shot up from the jungle. It enveloped Ten and Vesta II, perfectly safe within the Coluan force-shield.
But an instant later, the stray poacher hung slightly over a mile in the air, Star-Woman holding him by the throat. "Oh, tell me you did not just fire a plasma-cannon at a child," she said, her eyes crackling with electricity.
"I surrender?" said the poacher, gasping for breath.
"Oh, that is so irrelevant," said Star-Woman. "Now when you are safe in Takron-Galtos, or Labyrinth, or wherever they eventually send you, I want you to tell this to everyone you meet." She whispered. "The Super-Hero Club."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/27/22 03:46 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE SUPER-HERO CLUB VS. THE SCIENCE POLICE
Planet Amazonia, Scythia Square (Business District), Mazongar Municipality (Capital)
31st century
"I feel a little out of place," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Where are all the men?" He looked at the crowds hurrying by.
"Hillarie," said Korvea. "The Mazons are gender monomorphic. Males and females are virtually indistinguishable. At least to non-Mazons."
"Oh," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Well, you can't expect me to have studied every planet in the U.P."
"Amazonia is a permanent member of the Inner Council, along with Cyranus, Torad, Oranx and Xanthu," Korvea reminded him. "They're kind of important."
"I never was much interested in politics," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Social studies was my worst subject on Bismoll."
"Political Science was my best subject on Bismoll."
It was the leader of a group of Science Police. "Officer Milpay." The young woman extended her hand. She looked only a couple of years older than Matter-Eater Lad Two, and was a couple of inches shorter.
"Let me introduce the rest of my team," she said. "Officer Riku of Carggg, Officer Tavish of Imsk, Officer Gnboz of Bgztl, and Officer Nahtahnie of Talok VIII."
The Bgztlr girl had skin of pale Cerulean blue, almost translucent. Officer Nahtahnie's coloring was the sea-green of the Maakas mountain tribe. Officer Tavish was red-haired, pale and freckled. Officer Riku had the Asian features typical of most Cargggans.
"So this is a McGuffin game?" asked Korvea.
Officer Milpay handed out bracelets to the Members. "There are five McGuffins scattered throughout Mazongar Municipality," she explained. "These bracelets will light up when you are within a hectometer of a McGuffin, and will glow brighter as you get nearer to them. If one team collects at least three of them within eight hours, they win. Otherwise, it's a draw."
"Agreed," said Korvea.
"And may the best team win," said Officer Nahtahnie.
The Members took to the skies.
"They've got flight rings," said Officer Riku, triplicating. "That's a substantial advantage."
"And we've got SP training," Officer Milpay reminded her. "Stay in your sectors, and use the search patterns we planned."
Korvea had morphed into bird-form, in order to utilize the enhanced vision it gave her. She had been expecting another Mallorean. The presence of the Nahtahnie disturbed her. They were known to be ruthless in competition- and not entirely trustworthy. How the UP had allowed a Nahtahnie princess into the Science Police was beyond her.
Her bracelet glowed as she flew past a particular building. She circled back, landed, changed back to humanoid form, and went in on the ground floor.
Something was wrong. The shadows were longer than they should be. She checked her bracelet. The glow had vanished. She was confused, disoriented. Then she checked the time. It was late afternoon.
"She stole my memories," Korvea thought. "She must have followed me here, and taken it from me. Or?" There were a number of possibilities, but without memories, it was impossible to reconstruct exactly what had happened in the last few hours. She headed back to Scythia Square.
o o o
Phantom Girl was in the Phantom Zone.
"The tracking bracelets won't work in here," said Officer Gnboz.
"Then what are you doing here?" asked Phantom Girl.
"Oh, I thought we might have a little chat," said Officer Gnboz. "As an SP cadet, I have access to criminal records. Even sealed records for juveniles. I don't suppose your friends in the Super Hero Club do."
"And your point is?" asked Phantom Girl.
"I just wonder if your colleagues know exactly what kind of Bgztlr they have on their team."
"Still not seeing your point," said Phantom Girl.
"Perhaps your friends would rather associate with someone with a less questionable history. Someone, say, trained in law enforcement, but with all your powers."
"You're thinking of replacing me in the Club?" asked Phantom Girl incredulously. She laughed. "A new Phantom Girl? You haven't the least idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, I was thinking Phantom Lass," said Officer Gnboz. "It would be so much easier, if you would step aside. What would your boyfriend Ronin Nah think if he learned of your past?"
"He's not my boyfriend," said Phantom Girl. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She stepped out of the Phantom Zone and into the streets of downtown Mazongar.
o o o
Officer Nahtahnie radioed Officer Milpay.
"I've got mine," she said. "It's just a plain disc."
"Mine was an iridescent cube," Officer Milpay replied. "I haven't heard from anyone else yet."
o o o
Officer Tavish was disobeying orders. Rather than search her assigned sector, she had miniaturized and concealed herself in Matter-Eater Lad Two's left eyebrow. If he found one of the McGuffins, she would be the one to take it. Rather than searching by sector, the Bismollian seemed to be trying to search the whole city himself. His search pattern seemed random, zig-zagging throughout the city streets in a haphazard, arbitrary manner. His bracelet lit up when he passed one building; he either did not notice, or ignored it. This was too much. Officer Tavish dismounted, enlarged to full size, and ran back to the building. One of the Triplicates was already there.
"Heckuva thing," said Ffiona Ffar. "It looks just like a memory crystal reader. But it's a dummy. See you back at Scythia Square."
o o o
Officer Riku was getting tired. It had been nearly six hours since she had triplicated, and the psychic strain of being separate was starting to wear. There had been no indication of the presence of any of the McGuffins. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern within the fourth sector.
Officer Riku was beginning to get tired. It had been six hours since she had triplicated, and the psychic strain of being apart from her sisters was starting to wear. There had been no indication of the presence of any of the McGuffins. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern within her assigned fifth sector.
Officer Riku was beginning to tire. It had been over six hours since she had triplicated; and the psychic strain was starting to wear. There had been one indication of the presence of a McGuffin nearby, but she had lost the trail. Presumably, one of the Super-Hero Club had found it. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern in the sixth sector.
o o o
"The problem was in your search pattern," Shrinking Violet was explaining to Officer Milpay. "You divided the city into seven sectors, but there were only five McGuffins, which meant there was a 1OO% chance that at least two of those sectors were empty. Even if you had divided the city into only five sectors, there would have been about an 8O% chance one of the sectors would be empty. It was more efficient to have everyone search everywhere-- even if some of our people searched the same areas twice."
"I also realized that the McGuffins were intended to be set at random. Well, there really is no such thing as ?random'. Either their locations were decided by a human, and humans are notoriously bad at randomizing, or it was done by a computer, which would have used known algorithms. I directed the Triplicates to use the most efficient search algorithm based on those known factors; in fact, they each found one."
"So the Super-Hero Club wins, three to two. Better luck next time."
o o o
"She thinks she wants to replace me in the Club," explained Phantom Girl. "But you know, we have no rule against duplicate powers. She could have just applied at the last open try-outs. I'm not sure we would have accepted her, though. She seems kind of a drylt, if you know what I mean."
THE SUPER-HERO CLUB VS. THE SCIENCE POLICE
Planet Amazonia, Scythia Square (Business District), Mazongar Municipality (Capital)
31st century
"I feel a little out of place," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Where are all the men?" He looked at the crowds hurrying by.
"Hillarie," said Korvea. "The Mazons are gender monomorphic. Males and females are virtually indistinguishable. At least to non-Mazons."
"Oh," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Well, you can't expect me to have studied every planet in the U.P."
"Amazonia is a permanent member of the Inner Council, along with Cyranus, Torad, Oranx and Xanthu," Korvea reminded him. "They're kind of important."
"I never was much interested in politics," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Social studies was my worst subject on Bismoll."
"Political Science was my best subject on Bismoll."
It was the leader of a group of Science Police. "Officer Milpay." The young woman extended her hand. She looked only a couple of years older than Matter-Eater Lad Two, and was a couple of inches shorter.
"Let me introduce the rest of my team," she said. "Officer Riku of Carggg, Officer Tavish of Imsk, Officer Gnboz of Bgztl, and Officer Nahtahnie of Talok VIII."
The Bgztlr girl had skin of pale Cerulean blue, almost translucent. Officer Nahtahnie's coloring was the sea-green of the Maakas mountain tribe. Officer Tavish was red-haired, pale and freckled. Officer Riku had the Asian features typical of most Cargggans.
"So this is a McGuffin game?" asked Korvea.
Officer Milpay handed out bracelets to the Members. "There are five McGuffins scattered throughout Mazongar Municipality," she explained. "These bracelets will light up when you are within a hectometer of a McGuffin, and will glow brighter as you get nearer to them. If one team collects at least three of them within eight hours, they win. Otherwise, it's a draw."
"Agreed," said Korvea.
"And may the best team win," said Officer Nahtahnie.
The Members took to the skies.
"They've got flight rings," said Officer Riku, triplicating. "That's a substantial advantage."
"And we've got SP training," Officer Milpay reminded her. "Stay in your sectors, and use the search patterns we planned."
Korvea had morphed into bird-form, in order to utilize the enhanced vision it gave her. She had been expecting another Mallorean. The presence of the Nahtahnie disturbed her. They were known to be ruthless in competition- and not entirely trustworthy. How the UP had allowed a Nahtahnie princess into the Science Police was beyond her.
Her bracelet glowed as she flew past a particular building. She circled back, landed, changed back to humanoid form, and went in on the ground floor.
Something was wrong. The shadows were longer than they should be. She checked her bracelet. The glow had vanished. She was confused, disoriented. Then she checked the time. It was late afternoon.
"She stole my memories," Korvea thought. "She must have followed me here, and taken it from me. Or?" There were a number of possibilities, but without memories, it was impossible to reconstruct exactly what had happened in the last few hours. She headed back to Scythia Square.
o o o
Phantom Girl was in the Phantom Zone.
"The tracking bracelets won't work in here," said Officer Gnboz.
"Then what are you doing here?" asked Phantom Girl.
"Oh, I thought we might have a little chat," said Officer Gnboz. "As an SP cadet, I have access to criminal records. Even sealed records for juveniles. I don't suppose your friends in the Super Hero Club do."
"And your point is?" asked Phantom Girl.
"I just wonder if your colleagues know exactly what kind of Bgztlr they have on their team."
"Still not seeing your point," said Phantom Girl.
"Perhaps your friends would rather associate with someone with a less questionable history. Someone, say, trained in law enforcement, but with all your powers."
"You're thinking of replacing me in the Club?" asked Phantom Girl incredulously. She laughed. "A new Phantom Girl? You haven't the least idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, I was thinking Phantom Lass," said Officer Gnboz. "It would be so much easier, if you would step aside. What would your boyfriend Ronin Nah think if he learned of your past?"
"He's not my boyfriend," said Phantom Girl. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." She stepped out of the Phantom Zone and into the streets of downtown Mazongar.
o o o
Officer Nahtahnie radioed Officer Milpay.
"I've got mine," she said. "It's just a plain disc."
"Mine was an iridescent cube," Officer Milpay replied. "I haven't heard from anyone else yet."
o o o
Officer Tavish was disobeying orders. Rather than search her assigned sector, she had miniaturized and concealed herself in Matter-Eater Lad Two's left eyebrow. If he found one of the McGuffins, she would be the one to take it. Rather than searching by sector, the Bismollian seemed to be trying to search the whole city himself. His search pattern seemed random, zig-zagging throughout the city streets in a haphazard, arbitrary manner. His bracelet lit up when he passed one building; he either did not notice, or ignored it. This was too much. Officer Tavish dismounted, enlarged to full size, and ran back to the building. One of the Triplicates was already there.
"Heckuva thing," said Ffiona Ffar. "It looks just like a memory crystal reader. But it's a dummy. See you back at Scythia Square."
o o o
Officer Riku was getting tired. It had been nearly six hours since she had triplicated, and the psychic strain of being separate was starting to wear. There had been no indication of the presence of any of the McGuffins. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern within the fourth sector.
Officer Riku was beginning to get tired. It had been six hours since she had triplicated, and the psychic strain of being apart from her sisters was starting to wear. There had been no indication of the presence of any of the McGuffins. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern within her assigned fifth sector.
Officer Riku was beginning to tire. It had been over six hours since she had triplicated; and the psychic strain was starting to wear. There had been one indication of the presence of a McGuffin nearby, but she had lost the trail. Presumably, one of the Super-Hero Club had found it. Still, she continued to follow the prescribed search pattern in the sixth sector.
o o o
"The problem was in your search pattern," Shrinking Violet was explaining to Officer Milpay. "You divided the city into seven sectors, but there were only five McGuffins, which meant there was a 1OO% chance that at least two of those sectors were empty. Even if you had divided the city into only five sectors, there would have been about an 8O% chance one of the sectors would be empty. It was more efficient to have everyone search everywhere-- even if some of our people searched the same areas twice."
"I also realized that the McGuffins were intended to be set at random. Well, there really is no such thing as ?random'. Either their locations were decided by a human, and humans are notoriously bad at randomizing, or it was done by a computer, which would have used known algorithms. I directed the Triplicates to use the most efficient search algorithm based on those known factors; in fact, they each found one."
"So the Super-Hero Club wins, three to two. Better luck next time."
o o o
"She thinks she wants to replace me in the Club," explained Phantom Girl. "But you know, we have no rule against duplicate powers. She could have just applied at the last open try-outs. I'm not sure we would have accepted her, though. She seems kind of a drylt, if you know what I mean."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 05:39 PM
INTERREGNUM
TRY-OUTS
"Look at this: the new Planetary Champion of Rann," said Cosmic Boy. "Her name is Aurora, and she's an Illoralan moth-girl, with the ability to transform into a winged gorilla. A switch-hitter! Illoralans are renowned for their high intelligence quotient, so she could be brains or brawn. I wish we could have her on the team."
Lightning Lass looked at the slender moth-girl. "Oh, I think I know why you would want her around."
"Hey, I resent the implication," said Cosmic Boy. "It's just... Dorrit is going to be hard to replace. I wish we could recruit one of these established planetary champions or adventurers."
"Well, we've tried that," said Lightning Lass. "But it seems we just have to wait for them-- or someone-- to come to us."
"The problem with these open tryouts," said Cosmic Boy, "Is that we get so many unqualifieds. Remember Jakk Horner, the Unicorn Boy?"
"Oh, he was a horner in more ways than two," said Lightning Lass. And what about Kidniac-Five, and his power of super-purification? That really did not work out well."
"Is it just you and me today?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"The two of us, and Korvea, and Ten, and Shrinking Violet-- although I don?t think she really wants to be here," said Lightning Lass. "She?d rather be off-world with the one of the teams Star-Woman sent out. The Pentachoron is really getting a workout today."
"Well, let's go," said Cosmic Boy. "I only show five in the queue this week, but it could still take all afternoon."
"Pol," said Dacey. "Do you ever think..."
"What?" asked Pol.
"Never mind," said Dacey. "Let's go."
TRY-OUTS
"Look at this: the new Planetary Champion of Rann," said Cosmic Boy. "Her name is Aurora, and she's an Illoralan moth-girl, with the ability to transform into a winged gorilla. A switch-hitter! Illoralans are renowned for their high intelligence quotient, so she could be brains or brawn. I wish we could have her on the team."
Lightning Lass looked at the slender moth-girl. "Oh, I think I know why you would want her around."
"Hey, I resent the implication," said Cosmic Boy. "It's just... Dorrit is going to be hard to replace. I wish we could recruit one of these established planetary champions or adventurers."
"Well, we've tried that," said Lightning Lass. "But it seems we just have to wait for them-- or someone-- to come to us."
"The problem with these open tryouts," said Cosmic Boy, "Is that we get so many unqualifieds. Remember Jakk Horner, the Unicorn Boy?"
"Oh, he was a horner in more ways than two," said Lightning Lass. And what about Kidniac-Five, and his power of super-purification? That really did not work out well."
"Is it just you and me today?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"The two of us, and Korvea, and Ten, and Shrinking Violet-- although I don?t think she really wants to be here," said Lightning Lass. "She?d rather be off-world with the one of the teams Star-Woman sent out. The Pentachoron is really getting a workout today."
"Well, let's go," said Cosmic Boy. "I only show five in the queue this week, but it could still take all afternoon."
"Pol," said Dacey. "Do you ever think..."
"What?" asked Pol.
"Never mind," said Dacey. "Let's go."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 05:40 PM
[b]APPLICANT (1)
IZEN OF GRENDA[b]
The metallic green robot bowed slightly. It stood just fifty inches tall.
"You are a Green Lantern," noted Ten.
"Sector 3OO9," said the robot. "It is a great honor for one as young as I."
"You are... adolescent?" Ten ventured.
"I was manufactured less than nineteen sola-years ago," the robot admitted.
"I would think that with responsibility for an entire Space Sector," said Lightning Lass, "You would have little time to associate with a team like ours."
"Sodam Yat and Dyogene have a different vision for the Corps," said Izen. "We are to work with local populations, rather than imposing Green Lantern jurisprudence from the outside."
"Can I ask a question? Do you mind satisfying my curiosity?" asked Ten.
"It is the primary function of a robotic computer to store information, and retrieve it appropriately," said the robot.
"Oh, you two would get along fine," noted Cosmic Boy.
"If it is not too personal," asked Ten, "Who were the original manufacturers of the Mechanical Men of Grenda?"
"There were none," the little robot replied. "We evolved from native life-forms. Grenda is a world rich in iron, nickel, carbon, and silicon. According to our fossil record, a particular ancient proto-simioid evolved from among the natural ferro-silicon-based lifeforms on our world. These proto-creatures developed into tool-users, naturally attaching simple iron tools to their bodies. Over a very rapid period of some three thousand sola-years, these simple tools became highly complex computerized machines. In the process of time, it became impossible for our earliest ancestors to live without these auxiliary robot attachments. At birth, an new-born infant was bonded with a manufactured robot body. New attachments and upgrades were added as the child grew. Ultimately, the biological portion became redundant, and our ancestors moved from biological to purely mechanical reproduction. Our civilization has existed in its current form for at least ten thousand sola-years now. All that is left of our biological ancestors are the sequences of their DNA recorded in our data-banks."
"And there are no more biological creatures on your planet?" asked Lightning Lass.
"To the contrary," said the robot. "Although we robots are the dominant species, many ferro-silicoid biologicals continue to exist. There are even simioids living in the Crystal Forest of Grenda, similar to our primordial progenitors. Our cousins, if you will."
"In the old Legion," said Shrinking Violet, "Applicants with powers which relied on weapons or mechanical devices were summarily rejected. I, for one, see no reason that that should continue to be the case. But as you have many responsibilities elsewhere, I would think it imprudent for you to reside here at the Clubhouse. On the other hand, you would make a powerful ally. The old Legion had a group of Honorary Members, who were called on in times of exigency. I would suggest we create a subsidiary-- a 'Friends of the Super-Hero Club' group-- of which you would be our first member."
"As a Green Lantern," said Izen, "The entire Galaxy is easily within my reach."
"It will require the unanimous approval of the Members," said Lightning Lass. "We have your contact information?
IZEN OF GRENDA[b]
The metallic green robot bowed slightly. It stood just fifty inches tall.
"You are a Green Lantern," noted Ten.
"Sector 3OO9," said the robot. "It is a great honor for one as young as I."
"You are... adolescent?" Ten ventured.
"I was manufactured less than nineteen sola-years ago," the robot admitted.
"I would think that with responsibility for an entire Space Sector," said Lightning Lass, "You would have little time to associate with a team like ours."
"Sodam Yat and Dyogene have a different vision for the Corps," said Izen. "We are to work with local populations, rather than imposing Green Lantern jurisprudence from the outside."
"Can I ask a question? Do you mind satisfying my curiosity?" asked Ten.
"It is the primary function of a robotic computer to store information, and retrieve it appropriately," said the robot.
"Oh, you two would get along fine," noted Cosmic Boy.
"If it is not too personal," asked Ten, "Who were the original manufacturers of the Mechanical Men of Grenda?"
"There were none," the little robot replied. "We evolved from native life-forms. Grenda is a world rich in iron, nickel, carbon, and silicon. According to our fossil record, a particular ancient proto-simioid evolved from among the natural ferro-silicon-based lifeforms on our world. These proto-creatures developed into tool-users, naturally attaching simple iron tools to their bodies. Over a very rapid period of some three thousand sola-years, these simple tools became highly complex computerized machines. In the process of time, it became impossible for our earliest ancestors to live without these auxiliary robot attachments. At birth, an new-born infant was bonded with a manufactured robot body. New attachments and upgrades were added as the child grew. Ultimately, the biological portion became redundant, and our ancestors moved from biological to purely mechanical reproduction. Our civilization has existed in its current form for at least ten thousand sola-years now. All that is left of our biological ancestors are the sequences of their DNA recorded in our data-banks."
"And there are no more biological creatures on your planet?" asked Lightning Lass.
"To the contrary," said the robot. "Although we robots are the dominant species, many ferro-silicoid biologicals continue to exist. There are even simioids living in the Crystal Forest of Grenda, similar to our primordial progenitors. Our cousins, if you will."
"In the old Legion," said Shrinking Violet, "Applicants with powers which relied on weapons or mechanical devices were summarily rejected. I, for one, see no reason that that should continue to be the case. But as you have many responsibilities elsewhere, I would think it imprudent for you to reside here at the Clubhouse. On the other hand, you would make a powerful ally. The old Legion had a group of Honorary Members, who were called on in times of exigency. I would suggest we create a subsidiary-- a 'Friends of the Super-Hero Club' group-- of which you would be our first member."
"As a Green Lantern," said Izen, "The entire Galaxy is easily within my reach."
"It will require the unanimous approval of the Members," said Lightning Lass. "We have your contact information?
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 05:47 PM
APPLICANT (2)
SAHIRA EL CARIM
"I think we should invite the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus to become 'Friends of the Super-Hero Club'," said Korvea.
"I can think of a couple of others," said Cosmic Boy.
The young woman was perhaps Star-Woman's age. Her dress was vaguely middle-eastern, but she also wore a turban with a bright red gem over her head scarf.
"For centuries," said Sahira El Carim, "My family has fought the forces of evil, defending Earth from the Triskaidekademonium, a faction of the Netherhells led by thirteen powerful demons."
"If your powers are magical," said Korvea, "You will need to step outside the mana-free area in order to demonstrate them."
"I had heard such mana-nulling spells were possible," said Sahira. "But they would require the efforts of a dozen powerful sorcerers."
"Well, we once made enemies of certain powerful sorcerers," said Lightning Lass, "And received this spell as an expression of gratitude-- and protection. We have also been attacked by imps and demons on more than one occasion... you know, I'm not sure we need to make another set of powerful magical enemies."
"When you put it that way..." said Korvea.
"I agree with Lightning Lass," said Ten.
"None of our powers are of magical origin," said Cosmic Boy. "And not really effective against magical attacks. Dacey makes a good point. I think we should let your family deal with the Netherhells."
"I respect your caution," said Sahira. "You are young. My family has had millennia of experience. Still, if you need my magical help, you know how to reach me." She walked to outside the mana-eating spell's effect, turned, and bowed. "Wadaeaan," she said, and vanished.
SAHIRA EL CARIM
"I think we should invite the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus to become 'Friends of the Super-Hero Club'," said Korvea.
"I can think of a couple of others," said Cosmic Boy.
The young woman was perhaps Star-Woman's age. Her dress was vaguely middle-eastern, but she also wore a turban with a bright red gem over her head scarf.
"For centuries," said Sahira El Carim, "My family has fought the forces of evil, defending Earth from the Triskaidekademonium, a faction of the Netherhells led by thirteen powerful demons."
"If your powers are magical," said Korvea, "You will need to step outside the mana-free area in order to demonstrate them."
"I had heard such mana-nulling spells were possible," said Sahira. "But they would require the efforts of a dozen powerful sorcerers."
"Well, we once made enemies of certain powerful sorcerers," said Lightning Lass, "And received this spell as an expression of gratitude-- and protection. We have also been attacked by imps and demons on more than one occasion... you know, I'm not sure we need to make another set of powerful magical enemies."
"When you put it that way..." said Korvea.
"I agree with Lightning Lass," said Ten.
"None of our powers are of magical origin," said Cosmic Boy. "And not really effective against magical attacks. Dacey makes a good point. I think we should let your family deal with the Netherhells."
"I respect your caution," said Sahira. "You are young. My family has had millennia of experience. Still, if you need my magical help, you know how to reach me." She walked to outside the mana-eating spell's effect, turned, and bowed. "Wadaeaan," she said, and vanished.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 05:51 PM
APPLICANT (3)
ISA ADDAMS
"I am Isapoinhkyaki Addams of Juneaupolis, Earth," said the girl. "But you can call me Isa. Or better yet, call me Zookeeper.
"Oh, I've always wanted to visit Juneaupolis," said Lightning Lass. "Mendenhall glacier, and all that."
"Zookeeper is an unusual appellation," said Ten. "What does it signify?"
"I am in harmony with Earth's biosphere," said Zookeeper. "I can conjure-- by which I mean, teleport-- any single Terran mammal to my location, and temporarily share consciousness with it. Except sapients, like humans and cetaceans."
"Can you give us a demonstration?" asked Lightning Lass.
"First," said Zookeeper, "Earth's smallest mammal-- the bumblebee bat!" She extended a hand. Nothing happened. "Strange... I can feel all the beasts of the Earth, but I can't seem to summon one."
"Is it possible your powers are magical in nature?" asked Korvea. "Try backing away from us about fifty feet."
"No, no, my powers are completely natural." But she backed up anyway, and tried again. Nothing. "I really do have powers," she objected.
"We believe you," said Ten. "But are you able to summon alien animals, if they happen to be residing on Earth? In an interplanetary zoo, for example?"
"No, only native Terran creatures," said Zookeeper.
"Then it is also possible that you are not able to transport Terran creatures into an alien environment," said Ten. "Certainly there are Terran animals on Mars. Can you connect with one of those?"
"I can sense them..." said Zookeeper. "A great many dogs. And cats. Many feral." She gestured again into the air. "But I can't summon any of them."
"Your powers are evidently somehow tied to the Earth," said Ten. "Away from Earth, you can still sense Terran mammals-- even across millions of miles, it would appear-- but are unable to teleport them to you."
"I'm sorry to have wasted your time," said Isapoinhkyaki Addams.
"Oh, not at all," said Lightning Lass. "We are glad to have met you. And perhaps we can visit you in Juneaupolis sometime, and you can give us a real demonstration of your powers."
"I'd like that," said Isapoinhkyaki Addams.
ISA ADDAMS
"I am Isapoinhkyaki Addams of Juneaupolis, Earth," said the girl. "But you can call me Isa. Or better yet, call me Zookeeper.
"Oh, I've always wanted to visit Juneaupolis," said Lightning Lass. "Mendenhall glacier, and all that."
"Zookeeper is an unusual appellation," said Ten. "What does it signify?"
"I am in harmony with Earth's biosphere," said Zookeeper. "I can conjure-- by which I mean, teleport-- any single Terran mammal to my location, and temporarily share consciousness with it. Except sapients, like humans and cetaceans."
"Can you give us a demonstration?" asked Lightning Lass.
"First," said Zookeeper, "Earth's smallest mammal-- the bumblebee bat!" She extended a hand. Nothing happened. "Strange... I can feel all the beasts of the Earth, but I can't seem to summon one."
"Is it possible your powers are magical in nature?" asked Korvea. "Try backing away from us about fifty feet."
"No, no, my powers are completely natural." But she backed up anyway, and tried again. Nothing. "I really do have powers," she objected.
"We believe you," said Ten. "But are you able to summon alien animals, if they happen to be residing on Earth? In an interplanetary zoo, for example?"
"No, only native Terran creatures," said Zookeeper.
"Then it is also possible that you are not able to transport Terran creatures into an alien environment," said Ten. "Certainly there are Terran animals on Mars. Can you connect with one of those?"
"I can sense them..." said Zookeeper. "A great many dogs. And cats. Many feral." She gestured again into the air. "But I can't summon any of them."
"Your powers are evidently somehow tied to the Earth," said Ten. "Away from Earth, you can still sense Terran mammals-- even across millions of miles, it would appear-- but are unable to teleport them to you."
"I'm sorry to have wasted your time," said Isapoinhkyaki Addams.
"Oh, not at all," said Lightning Lass. "We are glad to have met you. And perhaps we can visit you in Juneaupolis sometime, and you can give us a real demonstration of your powers."
"I'd like that," said Isapoinhkyaki Addams.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 05:56 PM
APPLICANT (4)
DAV LLEWELL OF SKLAR
He had pale yellow skin, light blue hair, and freckles.
"Yes, there are free anafemmes on Sklar," he said. "We have recently been legally granted Equal Rights."
"No one said otherwise," said Lightning Lass, smiling. "What are your powers?"
"May I have a volunteer, please?" the boy asked. Korvea stepped up. "I would like to shake hands, in old-fashioned Earth greeting," he said.
Korvea stepped forward, and tentatively took his proffered hand.
And collapsed to the ground in agony, her knees buckling, eyes filled with tears.
"I call myself Peter Pain," said Dav. "The pain stops as soon as I am no longer in contact."
Korvea pulled herself back to her feet. "And can anyone touch you without feeling excruciating pain?" she asked. "You must be very... unpopular."
"I have complete control of my pain-power," said the lad calling himself Peter Pain.
"Well, I've never felt anything like it," said Korvea to the rest of the members, returning to her seat.
"May I try?" asked Ten. He rose, and took the boy's hand. "Yes," Ten said calmly. "You are directly stimulating the pain centers. An hallucination of all-over body pain. Quite uncomfortable. But I see you are doing no physical damage, so it is perfectly safe for me to ignore the agony." Peter Pain was perspiring with effort. "Different creatures react differently to pain," said Ten, still gently squeezing Peter Pain's hand. "For example, if you tried this with a Tentacaglor, you would end up nothing but a spot of grease on the sand right now. It is important to fully comprehend one's abilities."
Ten released his grip, and looked at the other three members. "Perhaps we could accept him for training? I believe there is a lot we could teach him."
"No, no, I don't think so," said Peter Pain, obviously shaken. "Maybe? maybe it would be best if I explore my abilities on my own, for now."
"I completely agree," said Korvea.
Cosmic Boy shrugged.
"I think that is a wise choice," said Lightning Lass.
"Do I get a flight ring as a consolation prize?" asked Peter Pain.
"No," said Cosmic Boy, "But a coupon for a free large-size pizza at Prospero's in New Metropolis has been added to your credit account."
Peter Pain walked away, dejected.
"No one reads the Terms and Conditions when they fill out an application," Ten sighed.
DAV LLEWELL OF SKLAR
He had pale yellow skin, light blue hair, and freckles.
"Yes, there are free anafemmes on Sklar," he said. "We have recently been legally granted Equal Rights."
"No one said otherwise," said Lightning Lass, smiling. "What are your powers?"
"May I have a volunteer, please?" the boy asked. Korvea stepped up. "I would like to shake hands, in old-fashioned Earth greeting," he said.
Korvea stepped forward, and tentatively took his proffered hand.
And collapsed to the ground in agony, her knees buckling, eyes filled with tears.
"I call myself Peter Pain," said Dav. "The pain stops as soon as I am no longer in contact."
Korvea pulled herself back to her feet. "And can anyone touch you without feeling excruciating pain?" she asked. "You must be very... unpopular."
"I have complete control of my pain-power," said the lad calling himself Peter Pain.
"Well, I've never felt anything like it," said Korvea to the rest of the members, returning to her seat.
"May I try?" asked Ten. He rose, and took the boy's hand. "Yes," Ten said calmly. "You are directly stimulating the pain centers. An hallucination of all-over body pain. Quite uncomfortable. But I see you are doing no physical damage, so it is perfectly safe for me to ignore the agony." Peter Pain was perspiring with effort. "Different creatures react differently to pain," said Ten, still gently squeezing Peter Pain's hand. "For example, if you tried this with a Tentacaglor, you would end up nothing but a spot of grease on the sand right now. It is important to fully comprehend one's abilities."
Ten released his grip, and looked at the other three members. "Perhaps we could accept him for training? I believe there is a lot we could teach him."
"No, no, I don't think so," said Peter Pain, obviously shaken. "Maybe? maybe it would be best if I explore my abilities on my own, for now."
"I completely agree," said Korvea.
Cosmic Boy shrugged.
"I think that is a wise choice," said Lightning Lass.
"Do I get a flight ring as a consolation prize?" asked Peter Pain.
"No," said Cosmic Boy, "But a coupon for a free large-size pizza at Prospero's in New Metropolis has been added to your credit account."
Peter Pain walked away, dejected.
"No one reads the Terms and Conditions when they fill out an application," Ten sighed.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 06:01 PM
APPLICANT (5)
EBENAH ZIRR
"You are also from Earth?" asked Korvea.
"Actually, my family is originally from Zwen," said Ebenah Zirr.
"Odd," said Ten. "Isn't Zwen in the middle of its Hibernation Summer right now?"
"Why yes," said Ebenah Zirr, quirking an eyebrow. "But my parents have lived on Earth for years-- I was born there-- and the impulse to hibernate is easy for Zwenites to overcome in its cooler climate."
"But you can turn to stone?" asked Lightning Lass. "Like all native Zwenites?"
"Only when I sleep," Ebenah replied. "But I'm actually something of an anomaly. I contracted a gene-editing virus when I was young, and since then I've been able to petrify any living thing I look at." She stared intently at Cosmic Boy, who promptly turned to immovable stone. "I call myself Miss Medusa."
"Impressive," Lightning Lass laughed, staring at the stone Pol.
"Did you know," said Korvea, "That when you blink, your target changes back to flesh-and-blood for an instant?"
Ebenah looked away, and Cosmic Boy de-petrified. "No, I didn't know that," she said.
"Why is everyone staring at me?" asked Cosmic Boy. "Did I miss something?"
"You know, my Adult Guardian is an eminent exobiologist," said Ten. "He would be very interested in your abilities-- and in helping you to understand them yourself."
"Is your Adult Guardian on Colu?" asked Miss Medusa.
"It is not so forbidding a place as some have painted it," said Ten. "And you would not live there full-time. A schedule could be arranged."
"I'm not saying you need to go to Colu," said Lightning Lass. "But I think you do need a better understanding and control of your powers." Korvea nodded solemnly.
"Wait, what are her powers?" asked Cosmic Boy.
EBENAH ZIRR
"You are also from Earth?" asked Korvea.
"Actually, my family is originally from Zwen," said Ebenah Zirr.
"Odd," said Ten. "Isn't Zwen in the middle of its Hibernation Summer right now?"
"Why yes," said Ebenah Zirr, quirking an eyebrow. "But my parents have lived on Earth for years-- I was born there-- and the impulse to hibernate is easy for Zwenites to overcome in its cooler climate."
"But you can turn to stone?" asked Lightning Lass. "Like all native Zwenites?"
"Only when I sleep," Ebenah replied. "But I'm actually something of an anomaly. I contracted a gene-editing virus when I was young, and since then I've been able to petrify any living thing I look at." She stared intently at Cosmic Boy, who promptly turned to immovable stone. "I call myself Miss Medusa."
"Impressive," Lightning Lass laughed, staring at the stone Pol.
"Did you know," said Korvea, "That when you blink, your target changes back to flesh-and-blood for an instant?"
Ebenah looked away, and Cosmic Boy de-petrified. "No, I didn't know that," she said.
"Why is everyone staring at me?" asked Cosmic Boy. "Did I miss something?"
"You know, my Adult Guardian is an eminent exobiologist," said Ten. "He would be very interested in your abilities-- and in helping you to understand them yourself."
"Is your Adult Guardian on Colu?" asked Miss Medusa.
"It is not so forbidding a place as some have painted it," said Ten. "And you would not live there full-time. A schedule could be arranged."
"I'm not saying you need to go to Colu," said Lightning Lass. "But I think you do need a better understanding and control of your powers." Korvea nodded solemnly.
"Wait, what are her powers?" asked Cosmic Boy.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 01/31/22 06:34 PM
APPLICANT (6)
TONG XIE TAO
The little Zwenite girl was just leaving when a private flyer set down in the parking lot. Two passengers got out: a middle-aged woman, trailed by a young girl, carrying a tall wooden staff.
"I'm sorry," said Lightning Lass. "You are?"
"This is an open audition, is it not?" asked the woman imperiously. Her countenance was fierce, her eyes were bright yellow, and her hair was crimson, and almost certainly dyed. "This is my daughter, Tong Xie Tao of Hubei Sheng, Earth. Come, daughter, step up. Always late, always late. She wishes to make an application to the Legion."
Cosmic Boy levitated one of the iron benches that stood on the beachfront, and set it down beside the older woman. "Super-Hero Club," he corrected her. "Please, have a seat, Ms. Tong."
"Please relax, while we interview your daughter," said Ten. ?Would you care for a refreshing beverage?"
"Would you like a cup of tea, Ms. Tong?" asked Korvea. "If the Martian sun is too hot, could take you inside."
"No, thank you," said Ms. Tong. "I am fine."
"Xie Tao, is it?" asked Lightning Lass. "Do you have another name you would prefer to be called?"
"Woodcarver," said Tong Xie Tao shyly. "I'm a Wood Elemental."
"Woodcarver, there is a grove of trees behind you," said Lightning Lass. "If that would help to demonstrate your powers."
"I can't control living wood," said Woodcarver. "It has to be cut, and seasoned, and... I need to develop a relationship with it."
"Really?" said Lightning Lass. "How do you mean?"
"For example," said Woodcarver, throwing her staff directly at Cosmic Boy's head. As he raised his hand to ward off the attack, the staff bent and curled around his wrist like a snake. Then the other end caught his other wrist. The staff rolled itself into a knot, and then... it was as solid and unbendable as an ordinary piece of wood. "It's cedar," she said. "Very hard, and tough."
"Hey, why am I always the guinea pig?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"I did Peter Pain," Korvea reminded him.
The staff, suddenly fluid again, released Cosmic Boy, and slithered like a snake back to its mistress.
"I've made a lot of other helpers," said Woodcarver. The door of the flyer in the parking lot opened, and a low, squat creature came out, making its way towards the Clubhouse.
"There was a bad windstorm, and a cherry tree blew straight out of the ground. It broke into several pieces, and I rescued the stump." The stump of a tree was walking out of the parking lot. About three feet tall, its long roots resembled the tentacles of a squid. It paused before the girl, becoming as solid and immobile as any stump of cherrywood ought to be. "This is Pu, the Uncarved Block." said Woodcarver.
"I have a marionette made of pine, a little taller than Pu, who I call 'Pinocchio'. I made a full-sized wolf-statue by joining oak slips, that I call 'Timber Wolf'. 'Mr. Punch' is a puppet with oversized hands and feet, made of pearwood. I have a little wooden eye, which I can actually see through-- from a distance. And I managed to get my hands on some Daxamite Scarlet Forestwood, and made myself a near-invulnerable 'Super-Mannequin'."
"And you can control them all as well as your Cedar Staff and Uncarved Block?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Yes, but I have a lot of other rejected projects that just sit in the woodbox," said Woodcarver. "I could turn them into a kind of Scrap Army, I guess."
"Are your creations alive?" asked Korvea. "That is, capable of independent action?"
"No," said Woodcarver. "I have to tell them what to do. But once they start, especially if it's some general, repetitive action, they won't stop until I tell them to."
"Well, I'm impressed," said Korvea.
"So am I," said Lightning Lass, "But we'll need the unanimous consent of the rest of the members. We have your..."
"You have a Coluan," Ms. Tong interrupted. "So I assume you have access to good educational materials? She is currently studying Beginning Calculus, and needs to continue with a good teacher, who will motivate her. Is that you, Mr. Coluan child?"
"I'm sorry," said Ten. "I don't really feel qualified to teach Earth mathematics. I am, of course, familiar with Leibniz and Newton and Descartes historically, but their work is so elementary that it is... well, obvious... to Coluan children."
Ms. Tong seemed taken aback. "What are the schools like in this New Metropolis? Do they offer Music classes? She needs to continue with her piano and violin instruction, as well, and will need an advanced tutor."
"I made my own violin, too..." said Woodcarver. "It plays itself..."
Ms. Tong glared at her daughter, who bit her lip.
"I am afraid this... Super Hero Club... will not be a suitable environment for my exceptional daughter," she said. "I expected a modern Legion, not this... second-rate Clubhouse. All Mars, in fact, seems an undeveloped backwater world. Come, child, we will return home."
"Don't forget to pick up your free pizza from Prospero's," said Cosmic Boy. "I like the Clubhouse," he said to no one in particular. "Beachfront property."
"She seemed familiar," said Lightning Lass. "Has she been on the holo-feeds? Where have I seen her before?"
"Tong Marya, ne Pai," said Shrinking Violet. "A member of the original Legion of Super-Heroes for a short time. She went by the name of Dragonwing. A fire elemental,"
"Of course," said Lightning Lass. "We met her doppelganger in Mordu?s alternate universe. I feel bad for Xie Tao, though."
"We'll keep an eye on Woodcarver," said Korvea. "You never know."
TONG XIE TAO
The little Zwenite girl was just leaving when a private flyer set down in the parking lot. Two passengers got out: a middle-aged woman, trailed by a young girl, carrying a tall wooden staff.
"I'm sorry," said Lightning Lass. "You are?"
"This is an open audition, is it not?" asked the woman imperiously. Her countenance was fierce, her eyes were bright yellow, and her hair was crimson, and almost certainly dyed. "This is my daughter, Tong Xie Tao of Hubei Sheng, Earth. Come, daughter, step up. Always late, always late. She wishes to make an application to the Legion."
Cosmic Boy levitated one of the iron benches that stood on the beachfront, and set it down beside the older woman. "Super-Hero Club," he corrected her. "Please, have a seat, Ms. Tong."
"Please relax, while we interview your daughter," said Ten. ?Would you care for a refreshing beverage?"
"Would you like a cup of tea, Ms. Tong?" asked Korvea. "If the Martian sun is too hot, could take you inside."
"No, thank you," said Ms. Tong. "I am fine."
"Xie Tao, is it?" asked Lightning Lass. "Do you have another name you would prefer to be called?"
"Woodcarver," said Tong Xie Tao shyly. "I'm a Wood Elemental."
"Woodcarver, there is a grove of trees behind you," said Lightning Lass. "If that would help to demonstrate your powers."
"I can't control living wood," said Woodcarver. "It has to be cut, and seasoned, and... I need to develop a relationship with it."
"Really?" said Lightning Lass. "How do you mean?"
"For example," said Woodcarver, throwing her staff directly at Cosmic Boy's head. As he raised his hand to ward off the attack, the staff bent and curled around his wrist like a snake. Then the other end caught his other wrist. The staff rolled itself into a knot, and then... it was as solid and unbendable as an ordinary piece of wood. "It's cedar," she said. "Very hard, and tough."
"Hey, why am I always the guinea pig?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"I did Peter Pain," Korvea reminded him.
The staff, suddenly fluid again, released Cosmic Boy, and slithered like a snake back to its mistress.
"I've made a lot of other helpers," said Woodcarver. The door of the flyer in the parking lot opened, and a low, squat creature came out, making its way towards the Clubhouse.
"There was a bad windstorm, and a cherry tree blew straight out of the ground. It broke into several pieces, and I rescued the stump." The stump of a tree was walking out of the parking lot. About three feet tall, its long roots resembled the tentacles of a squid. It paused before the girl, becoming as solid and immobile as any stump of cherrywood ought to be. "This is Pu, the Uncarved Block." said Woodcarver.
"I have a marionette made of pine, a little taller than Pu, who I call 'Pinocchio'. I made a full-sized wolf-statue by joining oak slips, that I call 'Timber Wolf'. 'Mr. Punch' is a puppet with oversized hands and feet, made of pearwood. I have a little wooden eye, which I can actually see through-- from a distance. And I managed to get my hands on some Daxamite Scarlet Forestwood, and made myself a near-invulnerable 'Super-Mannequin'."
"And you can control them all as well as your Cedar Staff and Uncarved Block?" asked Lightning Lass.
"Yes, but I have a lot of other rejected projects that just sit in the woodbox," said Woodcarver. "I could turn them into a kind of Scrap Army, I guess."
"Are your creations alive?" asked Korvea. "That is, capable of independent action?"
"No," said Woodcarver. "I have to tell them what to do. But once they start, especially if it's some general, repetitive action, they won't stop until I tell them to."
"Well, I'm impressed," said Korvea.
"So am I," said Lightning Lass, "But we'll need the unanimous consent of the rest of the members. We have your..."
"You have a Coluan," Ms. Tong interrupted. "So I assume you have access to good educational materials? She is currently studying Beginning Calculus, and needs to continue with a good teacher, who will motivate her. Is that you, Mr. Coluan child?"
"I'm sorry," said Ten. "I don't really feel qualified to teach Earth mathematics. I am, of course, familiar with Leibniz and Newton and Descartes historically, but their work is so elementary that it is... well, obvious... to Coluan children."
Ms. Tong seemed taken aback. "What are the schools like in this New Metropolis? Do they offer Music classes? She needs to continue with her piano and violin instruction, as well, and will need an advanced tutor."
"I made my own violin, too..." said Woodcarver. "It plays itself..."
Ms. Tong glared at her daughter, who bit her lip.
"I am afraid this... Super Hero Club... will not be a suitable environment for my exceptional daughter," she said. "I expected a modern Legion, not this... second-rate Clubhouse. All Mars, in fact, seems an undeveloped backwater world. Come, child, we will return home."
"Don't forget to pick up your free pizza from Prospero's," said Cosmic Boy. "I like the Clubhouse," he said to no one in particular. "Beachfront property."
"She seemed familiar," said Lightning Lass. "Has she been on the holo-feeds? Where have I seen her before?"
"Tong Marya, ne Pai," said Shrinking Violet. "A member of the original Legion of Super-Heroes for a short time. She went by the name of Dragonwing. A fire elemental,"
"Of course," said Lightning Lass. "We met her doppelganger in Mordu?s alternate universe. I feel bad for Xie Tao, though."
"We'll keep an eye on Woodcarver," said Korvea. "You never know."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/07/22 04:55 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE NEW KARATE KID
Star-Woman, the Triplicates, and Phantom Girl had returned. Only Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Chameleon were still out on missions.
Everyone was still asleep. Morning was just dawning; the sun had not yet breached the horizon.
There was a disturbance in the parking lot. A small personal flyer had landed, with a boxy SP vehicle right behind. There was some sort of fight going on: a half-dozen SPs appeared to be battling an unseen opponent.
It looked like the SPs needed help.
"Let's go, Members," said Star-Woman. "No, I take it back, the SPs are leaving." As the SPs retreated, a young girl ran towards the Clubhouse.
"You must grant me asylum, Legionnaires," begged the girl. She looked perhaps nine or ten.
"First of all: not Legionnaires," said Star-Woman. "We are the Super-Hero Club. Second: to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"
"You may call me," said the girl, "Princess Valera of Orando. The New Karate Kid."
o o o
"I realize I am young. But I have been trained in the martial arts of a hundred planets since before I could walk. I am proficient, but still have not mastered many of them. That will have to wait until I am older. Ultimately, it is hoped that I may use my abilities as Queen and Defender of Orando, should I succeed my mother, Queen Projectra." Princess Valera explained. "But there is something wrong with my mother. Some dark spirit or evil force has invaded her mind. She acts as a woman possessed. She has not been behaving rationally. She has become obsessed with... She wants to kill me."
"We are in no position to grant you asylum," said Star-Woman. "That would be up to MarsGov. And they would need to contact Orando, and engage in direct negotiations. You cannot just run away. At some point, you will need to engage with the Council of Orakills on Orando-- I believe they are able to hold the Queen's power in check?"
The Clubhouse door chimed. It turned out to be the SP officers from Nix Olympica, Bradbury and Burroughs.
"You are a long way from home," said Shrinking Violet.
"This is a matter of Interplanetary import," said Officer Burroughs. "There was a disturbance in your lot last night. Several local officers were injured. Did you see what happened?"
Polar Lass joined Shrinking Violet at the door. "Not really," she said "There was a ruckus which woke us all up, and we saw an SP vessel taking off in the middle of the night. And someone abandoned a small flyer in our parking lot. It's locked and empty."
"You might want to talk to the Circadians," said Shrinking Violet. "I'm not sure what hours they keep; they might have seen something we didn't."
"Just a formality," said Officer Bradbury, "But we'd like to search your Clubhouse. We like to be thorough."
"Do you have a warrant?" asked Polar Lass.
Star-Woman came to the door. "A warrant won't be necessary, Kylda. The Super-Hero Club always wants to cooperate with the Science Police." She touched her flight ring. "Get yourselves decent, everybody, and open your doors. Our friends Officer Bradbury and Officer Burroughs are going to do a little walk-through."
Star-Woman, Polar Lass, and Shrinking Violet accompanied the officers on the walk-through.
"Each room has a clean-room tesseract attached," Star-Woman told them. "And there is a clubhouse basement, although we haven't furnished it yet. I don't think anyone has been down there this morning, so someone could be hiding there. That?s what you?re looking for, isn?t it? Although I don't know how they could have gotten in last night without our knowing."
The officers checked each room with a pan-spectral scanner. Officer Bradbury also checked each room with a Zone-O-Phone. The members were surprised to learn that Phantom Girl kept an extra set of furniture in the Zone. That was also where she kept holos from her dates with Ronin Nah.
By the time they were finished, the Circadeans awake, and at their posts. Officers Bradbury and Burroughs excused themselves from the Members, and went out to talk with them.
After the SPs flyer was long out of sight, Phantom Girl breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm glad we nixed the idea of hiding her in the Phantom Zone," she said.
"Where is she?" asked Ffiona. "Have you just been moving her from room to room as they searched?"
Star-Woman led them to the kitchen. "She's just a little girl," said Star-Woman. "We didn't need a very big space." She thumbed the key on the Chrono-Fridge. The New Karate Kid had managed to fold herself into the one-cubic-meter space.
""What happened?" said the Princess.
"The Chrono-Fridge sent you into the future," said Star-Woman. "The SP were here for hours looking for you. But you can't just keep hiding forever. We need to come up with a workable plan."
But by midnight, no one had come up with an idea that was agreeable to the Princess and the Members. Ten insisted that they turn her over to a neutral third planet, but the Princess wanted someone who did not have extradition rights with Orando. No one could think of a non-U.P. world they trusted.
Finally, everyone gave up, and decided to sleep on it. The New Karate Kid took one of the many spare rooms.
THE NEW KARATE KID
Star-Woman, the Triplicates, and Phantom Girl had returned. Only Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Chameleon were still out on missions.
Everyone was still asleep. Morning was just dawning; the sun had not yet breached the horizon.
There was a disturbance in the parking lot. A small personal flyer had landed, with a boxy SP vehicle right behind. There was some sort of fight going on: a half-dozen SPs appeared to be battling an unseen opponent.
It looked like the SPs needed help.
"Let's go, Members," said Star-Woman. "No, I take it back, the SPs are leaving." As the SPs retreated, a young girl ran towards the Clubhouse.
"You must grant me asylum, Legionnaires," begged the girl. She looked perhaps nine or ten.
"First of all: not Legionnaires," said Star-Woman. "We are the Super-Hero Club. Second: to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"
"You may call me," said the girl, "Princess Valera of Orando. The New Karate Kid."
o o o
"I realize I am young. But I have been trained in the martial arts of a hundred planets since before I could walk. I am proficient, but still have not mastered many of them. That will have to wait until I am older. Ultimately, it is hoped that I may use my abilities as Queen and Defender of Orando, should I succeed my mother, Queen Projectra." Princess Valera explained. "But there is something wrong with my mother. Some dark spirit or evil force has invaded her mind. She acts as a woman possessed. She has not been behaving rationally. She has become obsessed with... She wants to kill me."
"We are in no position to grant you asylum," said Star-Woman. "That would be up to MarsGov. And they would need to contact Orando, and engage in direct negotiations. You cannot just run away. At some point, you will need to engage with the Council of Orakills on Orando-- I believe they are able to hold the Queen's power in check?"
The Clubhouse door chimed. It turned out to be the SP officers from Nix Olympica, Bradbury and Burroughs.
"You are a long way from home," said Shrinking Violet.
"This is a matter of Interplanetary import," said Officer Burroughs. "There was a disturbance in your lot last night. Several local officers were injured. Did you see what happened?"
Polar Lass joined Shrinking Violet at the door. "Not really," she said "There was a ruckus which woke us all up, and we saw an SP vessel taking off in the middle of the night. And someone abandoned a small flyer in our parking lot. It's locked and empty."
"You might want to talk to the Circadians," said Shrinking Violet. "I'm not sure what hours they keep; they might have seen something we didn't."
"Just a formality," said Officer Bradbury, "But we'd like to search your Clubhouse. We like to be thorough."
"Do you have a warrant?" asked Polar Lass.
Star-Woman came to the door. "A warrant won't be necessary, Kylda. The Super-Hero Club always wants to cooperate with the Science Police." She touched her flight ring. "Get yourselves decent, everybody, and open your doors. Our friends Officer Bradbury and Officer Burroughs are going to do a little walk-through."
Star-Woman, Polar Lass, and Shrinking Violet accompanied the officers on the walk-through.
"Each room has a clean-room tesseract attached," Star-Woman told them. "And there is a clubhouse basement, although we haven't furnished it yet. I don't think anyone has been down there this morning, so someone could be hiding there. That?s what you?re looking for, isn?t it? Although I don't know how they could have gotten in last night without our knowing."
The officers checked each room with a pan-spectral scanner. Officer Bradbury also checked each room with a Zone-O-Phone. The members were surprised to learn that Phantom Girl kept an extra set of furniture in the Zone. That was also where she kept holos from her dates with Ronin Nah.
By the time they were finished, the Circadeans awake, and at their posts. Officers Bradbury and Burroughs excused themselves from the Members, and went out to talk with them.
After the SPs flyer was long out of sight, Phantom Girl breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm glad we nixed the idea of hiding her in the Phantom Zone," she said.
"Where is she?" asked Ffiona. "Have you just been moving her from room to room as they searched?"
Star-Woman led them to the kitchen. "She's just a little girl," said Star-Woman. "We didn't need a very big space." She thumbed the key on the Chrono-Fridge. The New Karate Kid had managed to fold herself into the one-cubic-meter space.
""What happened?" said the Princess.
"The Chrono-Fridge sent you into the future," said Star-Woman. "The SP were here for hours looking for you. But you can't just keep hiding forever. We need to come up with a workable plan."
But by midnight, no one had come up with an idea that was agreeable to the Princess and the Members. Ten insisted that they turn her over to a neutral third planet, but the Princess wanted someone who did not have extradition rights with Orando. No one could think of a non-U.P. world they trusted.
Finally, everyone gave up, and decided to sleep on it. The New Karate Kid took one of the many spare rooms.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/07/22 04:57 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ROYAL PREROGATIVE
The great rock-iron door was blasted open. Two dozen soldiers of the Royal Guard of Orando flooded into the Clubhouse. Half of them guarded the Member's doors, the rest went after the Princess. There was a tremendous battle in the halls, the Mistress of Martial Arts holding her own against the Guard, although not easily.
"They're only armed with stun-staves," Phantom Girl informed the others. She was the only one to have easily left her room. "They're trying to capture, not kill." A few moments later: "They are herding her, out and away from the Clubhouse. I don't think she realizes it."
"I expect they will want to get her outside the magic shield," said Ten. "Magic is common on Orando."
Star-Woman went out through the wall of her room, meteoric debris falling below. There was an immense spacecraft hovering over the parking lot, with the emblem of the Royal House of Orando imprinted on the side. Star-Woman rushed for it-- and missed. Somehow, she was lost in the void of space. She turned, looking back to where she had come; but Mars was gone. The black sky was filled with only stars.
The Royal Guard exited the Clubhouse, the Members close on their heels. The moment they crossed the border of the magic shield...
They found themselves in a technicolor land of rolling hills, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towered over their heads. The Clubhouse, the Guard, the Princess, and Orandan spacecraft had vanished from view. The world began to tilt and spin. Several Members lost their balance, clinging to the shifting ground. Others took to the sky, but saw their companions flying beside them at weird angles.
Ten made an odd motion with his hands. "finite incantatum," he said.
The world returned to normal. Projectra, Queen of Orando was walking toward them from the royal ship, hands upraised.
"What would ColuGov say if they knew you were studying Magic, child?" she asked.
"It is difficult," said Ten. "I only know two spells. But I'm glad this one proved useful."
"Do not think you can defy me," said the Queen. "Your force-shield will not protect you." Water bubbled up inside Ten's force-shield, quickly rising over his head. He fell to the surface, gasping for breath.
"But it's only an illusion!" cried Phantom Girl.
"Even Brainiac Five could not fully ignore my illusions," said Queen Projectra. "Do you have a twelfth-level mind, little Coluan?"
Lightning flashed from Lightning Lass? hands and Star-Woman?s eyes, as they attacked together, coruscating electricity blanketing the Queen. The only effect was that she seemed to grow taller. Ten, twenty, fifty feet tall, towering over the Members.
"Let me make this clear," said the image of Queen Projectra. "You have no idea what matters you have interfered with. I am Queen of Orando. Supreme Ruler, among other titles. When you face me, you do not face me alone. I carry with me the souls of my ancestors. There are some of them not as kind as I, whom you would not wish to anger. Furthermore, I am, myself, Orando incarnate. When the UPGov deals with Orando, they deal with me. I will not be balked by a dozen Adventurer want-to-be's such as you children."
Then she, the Orandan ship, and the little flyer were gone.
ROYAL PREROGATIVE
The great rock-iron door was blasted open. Two dozen soldiers of the Royal Guard of Orando flooded into the Clubhouse. Half of them guarded the Member's doors, the rest went after the Princess. There was a tremendous battle in the halls, the Mistress of Martial Arts holding her own against the Guard, although not easily.
"They're only armed with stun-staves," Phantom Girl informed the others. She was the only one to have easily left her room. "They're trying to capture, not kill." A few moments later: "They are herding her, out and away from the Clubhouse. I don't think she realizes it."
"I expect they will want to get her outside the magic shield," said Ten. "Magic is common on Orando."
Star-Woman went out through the wall of her room, meteoric debris falling below. There was an immense spacecraft hovering over the parking lot, with the emblem of the Royal House of Orando imprinted on the side. Star-Woman rushed for it-- and missed. Somehow, she was lost in the void of space. She turned, looking back to where she had come; but Mars was gone. The black sky was filled with only stars.
The Royal Guard exited the Clubhouse, the Members close on their heels. The moment they crossed the border of the magic shield...
They found themselves in a technicolor land of rolling hills, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towered over their heads. The Clubhouse, the Guard, the Princess, and Orandan spacecraft had vanished from view. The world began to tilt and spin. Several Members lost their balance, clinging to the shifting ground. Others took to the sky, but saw their companions flying beside them at weird angles.
Ten made an odd motion with his hands. "finite incantatum," he said.
The world returned to normal. Projectra, Queen of Orando was walking toward them from the royal ship, hands upraised.
"What would ColuGov say if they knew you were studying Magic, child?" she asked.
"It is difficult," said Ten. "I only know two spells. But I'm glad this one proved useful."
"Do not think you can defy me," said the Queen. "Your force-shield will not protect you." Water bubbled up inside Ten's force-shield, quickly rising over his head. He fell to the surface, gasping for breath.
"But it's only an illusion!" cried Phantom Girl.
"Even Brainiac Five could not fully ignore my illusions," said Queen Projectra. "Do you have a twelfth-level mind, little Coluan?"
Lightning flashed from Lightning Lass? hands and Star-Woman?s eyes, as they attacked together, coruscating electricity blanketing the Queen. The only effect was that she seemed to grow taller. Ten, twenty, fifty feet tall, towering over the Members.
"Let me make this clear," said the image of Queen Projectra. "You have no idea what matters you have interfered with. I am Queen of Orando. Supreme Ruler, among other titles. When you face me, you do not face me alone. I carry with me the souls of my ancestors. There are some of them not as kind as I, whom you would not wish to anger. Furthermore, I am, myself, Orando incarnate. When the UPGov deals with Orando, they deal with me. I will not be balked by a dozen Adventurer want-to-be's such as you children."
Then she, the Orandan ship, and the little flyer were gone.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/07/22 05:01 PM
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
EXPLANATION
"What else could we have done?" asked Lighting Lass.
"At least no one was injured," said Phantom Girl. "I was worried about Ten."
"We could not expect to stand against an entire Planetary Government," said Korvea.
"But we can learn from this experience," said Star-Woman. "How can we handle things better next time, when faced with a powerful opponent?"
The wallscreen in the Conference Room pinged. Garth and Imra Ardeen Ranzz, and Rokk and Lydda Jath Krinn appeared. Behind them sat Dorrit and Davera Ranzz.
"Is everyone there?" asked Imra. "I don't want to have to go through this twice."
"We're all here, Mrs. Ranzz," said Star-Woman.
"Your Super-Hero Club has filed a complaint with UPGov, alleging that the Queen of Orando is conspiring to murder her daughter. You are fortunate that this complaint has been dismissed out of hand before it reached higher levels. Orando would be perfectly justified in bringing charges against all of you for defaming the Royal Family, interfering with the performance of officers of the law in their duties, harboring a fugitive... probably a lot of other charges as well. The Queen does not owe you an explanation. But as Projectra was once a Legionnaire, and remains our friend, she has allowed us to provide you with information regarding the events you have just experienced, of which you are obviously unaware. If only for the sake of Dacey and Hu."
"First of all, the Queen Projectra has no daughter. There are no royal children of Orando at all. When the Queen passes, the Crown will pass to one of her many cousins. That is her tragedy, but it is irrelavant here. The girl who styled herself as 'Princess Valera' is a common palace servant named Naryamm Sherbetor. Her family has served the Royal House for many years, and her parents are beloved of the Queen. That is another reason this incident is to be kept quiet."
"There is, on Orando, an... artifact... which contains the Soul of The Valiant Paladin, who once gave his life to save Orando from invasion. On occasion, when Orando has been in great distress, mystic means have been used to temporarily restore the Valiant Paladin to life. Through childish foolishness and a magical accident, the Soul of The Valiant Paladin became entangled with Naryamm's own soul. Because the fusion was not properly directed by skilled mystics, Naryamm was confused about her own nature and origins. She fled. She is now being healed by the Council of Orakills, and will return to her ordinary duties without punishment."
"The same generosity will be shown to you by Orando and UPGov, as you are also young and foolish."
The transmission ended.
EXPLANATION
"What else could we have done?" asked Lighting Lass.
"At least no one was injured," said Phantom Girl. "I was worried about Ten."
"We could not expect to stand against an entire Planetary Government," said Korvea.
"But we can learn from this experience," said Star-Woman. "How can we handle things better next time, when faced with a powerful opponent?"
The wallscreen in the Conference Room pinged. Garth and Imra Ardeen Ranzz, and Rokk and Lydda Jath Krinn appeared. Behind them sat Dorrit and Davera Ranzz.
"Is everyone there?" asked Imra. "I don't want to have to go through this twice."
"We're all here, Mrs. Ranzz," said Star-Woman.
"Your Super-Hero Club has filed a complaint with UPGov, alleging that the Queen of Orando is conspiring to murder her daughter. You are fortunate that this complaint has been dismissed out of hand before it reached higher levels. Orando would be perfectly justified in bringing charges against all of you for defaming the Royal Family, interfering with the performance of officers of the law in their duties, harboring a fugitive... probably a lot of other charges as well. The Queen does not owe you an explanation. But as Projectra was once a Legionnaire, and remains our friend, she has allowed us to provide you with information regarding the events you have just experienced, of which you are obviously unaware. If only for the sake of Dacey and Hu."
"First of all, the Queen Projectra has no daughter. There are no royal children of Orando at all. When the Queen passes, the Crown will pass to one of her many cousins. That is her tragedy, but it is irrelavant here. The girl who styled herself as 'Princess Valera' is a common palace servant named Naryamm Sherbetor. Her family has served the Royal House for many years, and her parents are beloved of the Queen. That is another reason this incident is to be kept quiet."
"There is, on Orando, an... artifact... which contains the Soul of The Valiant Paladin, who once gave his life to save Orando from invasion. On occasion, when Orando has been in great distress, mystic means have been used to temporarily restore the Valiant Paladin to life. Through childish foolishness and a magical accident, the Soul of The Valiant Paladin became entangled with Naryamm's own soul. Because the fusion was not properly directed by skilled mystics, Naryamm was confused about her own nature and origins. She fled. She is now being healed by the Council of Orakills, and will return to her ordinary duties without punishment."
"The same generosity will be shown to you by Orando and UPGov, as you are also young and foolish."
The transmission ended.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/09/22 09:43 AM
Quote
They found themselves in a technicolor land of rolling hills, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green towered over their heads
Nice little episode! I like the bait and switch with Karate Kid, and also that Jeckie just gets more imposing the older she gets
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/14/22 04:49 PM
CHAPTER FORTY
INCURSION
"Hey, who ate all my dragonfruit?" cried Lightning Lass.
"Not me," said Cosmic Boy. "The only fruit I snack on is Spunow."
"Candy bars don't count as fruit," Lightning Lass retorted. "But someone has made short work of the care package Mom and Dad sent. Overnight, too, I think. Midnight snacking."
She went to check the AutoChef. "Nobody's ordered anything since dinner last night," she said. "Just decimated our fresh fruits and veggies. And when I say 'our', I mean mine."
"It is concerning," said Ten, entering the kitchen. "I have been monitoring the security system gifted to us by Althar. It seems to be malfunctioning, but I cannot seem to find the problem. It reports there both is and is not an intruder in the clubhouse."
"No, I believe we actually have had an intruder for the past couple of nights," said Star Woman. "In my dreams, I seem to sense them just at the edge of perception... and then my mind becomes clouded. We need to have a meeting."
The full Membership was gathered around the round table.
"Most of us have enhanced senses," said Star Woman. "Pol has Quantum Magno-Vision. Both he and Korvea can see in the dark. Dacey has her "shark sense" - she can detect electric fields. Durlans have sub-molecular ultrasonar. Phantom Girl has 4D-vision. I know that Coluans can see deep into the electromagnetic spectrum, both into the infrared and ultraviolet. My electro-cometary vision can see through anything except copper. I propose coordinating our various super-sensory capabilities to see if we can find out what is going on."
"How do we know the intruder is not in the building right now?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"We don't," said Star Woman. "But it is clear they are here at night, as that is when food goes missing."
"And someone has been using my cleanroom," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Bismollian physiology being what it is, I don't use it much myself. But someone else has been. And they aren't very good at cleaning up after themselves."
"Ugh," said Polar Lass.
"The Altharan security system would have detected a Bgztr, or someone teleporting in and out.," said Ten. "This intruder is utilizing some new phenomenon I have not encountered before."
"It could be as simple as an invisible person opportunistically sneaking in when one of us enters or leaves the clubhouse," said Ffiona.
"One thing for sure," said Lightning Lass. "They are hungry, and either don't know how to use a replicator, or don't like replicator food."
Enough days passed that everyone was getting antsy. The Triplicates were first to suggest moving out of the "haunted" clubhouse and getting rooms in New Metropolis. A second care package arrived from Winath, and the contents vanished even more quickly than the first.
"I think I saw something last night,? said Phantom Girl. ?In the early hours of the morning, actually. And not saw... more just sensed. As though someone walked out through the wall next to this window."
"Let me take a look," said Shrinking Violet, running to the front door, then speeding around the house.
Phantom Girl was half-phased through the wall.
"Wait! Don't disturb anything!" criedd Shrinking Violet. "The soil here is quite sandy-- it will hold a footprint, but not for long." She inspected the ground carefully. "Definitely something. Could be humanoid. Maybe the size of you or I."
Phantom Girl stepped gingerly around the square of ground Shrinking Violet was inspecting.
"Straight through a solid wall," said Shrinking Violet. "So it could be a Bgztlr after all."
"No," said Phantom Girl. "The intruder seemed to phase through the wall more slowly-- more like pudding."
"Like pudding through a wall..." Shrinking Violet mused. "Not very helpful." She ran her hand over the wall. "I would bet Ten would find some kind of energy signature here."
"Traces of residual electromagnetic radiation at 550 nanometers," was Ten's diagnosis.
"Then we're looking for something... green?" said Fiona. "An invisible intruder. But green. That just doesn't make any sense."
"We can ask them when we see them tonight," said Ten. "Now that we know where to look."
The boy crouched inside the Altharan security field, eyes glowing green like a cat's. Smooth olive skin. long, stringy, greasy black hair. It was clear he had not taken advantage of the sonic shower in Matter-Eater Lad Two's cleanroom.
Lightning Lass's energy arcs illuminated the room.
Star-Woman turned on the lights, and took a closer look. Not a boy, but a young man, perhaps her own age. Perhaps five or ten years older. He had a scruffy beard.
"Well," she said. "Would you like to introduce yourself, before we turn you over to the Martian Science Police?"
The prisoner was silent.
"Why were you stealing food, of all things?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Even if you have exhausted your stipend, UPGov is not going to let you starve."
The strange young man continued to ignore them.
Each of the Members endeavored to engage him in conversation, failing equally. Cosmic Boy expressed the opinion that their prisoner was mute, or did not speak Interlac.
SP Officer Zegg looked to be from a heavy gravity world. Scarcely as tall as Polar Lass, he was twice as broad. Red hair. A ruddy, round, cheerful face. Senior Officer Weiss was tall and willowy, with half-oriental eyes. Skin white as snow, hair black as ebony, lips red as blood.
"Where is he?" asked Officer Weiss, looking straight at the Altharan security field.
"No, that's just his little trick," Star Woman explained. "Don't take down that field. It's odd, but even with all our varied super-senses, he sometimes just slips out of perception."
"It is not invisibility as we ordinarily think of it," Ten opined. "It is more like something is clouding our sensory perceptions. I am also experiencing a compulsion not to look for him. I assume it is the same with the rest of us. Even Vesta's mechanical sensors are blocked; so it is not simply a function of biology. If I were to characterize it, I would call his ability an advanced form of hiding."
"Super-hiding," said Shrinking Violet. "Highly effective, but not perfect."
"You're not joking?" asked Officer Weiss. "This isn't some kind of Super-Hero Club prank?"
"It took us the better part of a week to find him," Star-Woman explained. "And all the while he was entering and leaving the Clubhouse at will."
"We should call him Hide-And-Seek Boy," said Polar Lass.
"No!."
Where there had been no one within the Altharan security field, there was now someone.
"You may call me Prince Tiercelet, son of Falyce, Empress of Orando. Deposed by Projectra and her armies, we have been exiled, imprisoned on an island in the Northern Sea of Orando. And now the Science Police of the United Planets will return me there."
"You stowed away on one of the Orandan Guardships," Shrinking Violet deduced. "How long were you sneaking around your homeworld, looking for a way to escape? What was your plan?"
"I admit,' said Prince Tiercelet, "I had no plan. Only to escape, to get away. To be free of the Royal House. But I became hungry, and tired. My only thought was to get through another day. This... Clubhouse... is the only shelter I could find. But you are also thralls of the Queen. You returned the Sherbetor, despite her pleas for asylum. During the day, I went looking for a city, or other signs of civilization. But I could find nothing."
"New Metropolis is only a few miles from here," said Shrinking Violet.
"Where? In what direction?" said Prince Tiercelet."I'm glad you know where it is. I have walked miles along the seashore in both directions. I have been lost in the woods both day and night. The only source of food and rest was in the home of my enemies."
"What do you want to do with him?" Star-Woman asked the SPs.
"That is entirely up to Orando," was the reply. "We would like to use your viewscreen to contact them from here."
As Star-Woman took the two SPs to the communications room, Korvea approached Shrinking Violet.
"I have been doing some research," she said. "Falyce controlled the Orandan government for a little over a year. She was convicted of treason to the Queen, and exiled to a place called the Emerald Isle, in the North Sea of Orando. It is not uncomfortable. A small palace, with a rotating staff of servants-slash-security-guards. Tiercelet was born there, and lived all his life there. It is likely that until now, he has never fed himself, probably never dressed himself, He is probably unfamiliar with technology of any kind. Never used an AutoChef, Solid Printer, or communications device of any kind. He has been waited on hand-and-foot since the day of his birth. Alone by the New Hellespont, he would have been lost and helpless. In many ways, he is like a little lost child. I have seen this in minor nobles on Talok..."
Star-Woman returned with the SPs.
"So you will take me back to Orando?" asked Tiercelet. "You know I will try to escape from you."
"That is not the order from the Queen's Regent," said Officer Weiss. "You were in exile on Orando. You chose to further exile yourself. Your location is to be registered with Weber's World. You will be enrolled in the stipend. You may seek other, more gainful employment, if you wish. We will find you lodgings in New Metropolis, after which, if you wish, you may relocate to anywhere else on Mars that you can afford. We are also authorized to provide you transportation-- once-- to any U.P. world that will have you. Not Orando. Anywhere but Orando. As a token of her beneficence, the Queen has authorized the purchase of ten suits of clothing for you. Your mother will be informed of your situation, and arrangements will be made to have for you to have occasional contact with her."
"This is the consequence for breaking and entering? And? eating all my Dragonfruit?" asked Lightning Lass. "He's just... moving on with his life?"
"He will be placed on an SP watchlist."
?He is an exile from his homeworld,? said Chameleon. ?He will never see his home and family again. That is punishment enough.?
?Maybe even more than enough,? said Phantom Girl. ?But we know that the law on Orando can be somewhat? harsh.?
The Triplicates nodded in unison.
"And it's not like we're never getting another care package from Lightning Ring Farms," said Cosmic Boy.
INCURSION
"Hey, who ate all my dragonfruit?" cried Lightning Lass.
"Not me," said Cosmic Boy. "The only fruit I snack on is Spunow."
"Candy bars don't count as fruit," Lightning Lass retorted. "But someone has made short work of the care package Mom and Dad sent. Overnight, too, I think. Midnight snacking."
She went to check the AutoChef. "Nobody's ordered anything since dinner last night," she said. "Just decimated our fresh fruits and veggies. And when I say 'our', I mean mine."
"It is concerning," said Ten, entering the kitchen. "I have been monitoring the security system gifted to us by Althar. It seems to be malfunctioning, but I cannot seem to find the problem. It reports there both is and is not an intruder in the clubhouse."
"No, I believe we actually have had an intruder for the past couple of nights," said Star Woman. "In my dreams, I seem to sense them just at the edge of perception... and then my mind becomes clouded. We need to have a meeting."
The full Membership was gathered around the round table.
"Most of us have enhanced senses," said Star Woman. "Pol has Quantum Magno-Vision. Both he and Korvea can see in the dark. Dacey has her "shark sense" - she can detect electric fields. Durlans have sub-molecular ultrasonar. Phantom Girl has 4D-vision. I know that Coluans can see deep into the electromagnetic spectrum, both into the infrared and ultraviolet. My electro-cometary vision can see through anything except copper. I propose coordinating our various super-sensory capabilities to see if we can find out what is going on."
"How do we know the intruder is not in the building right now?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"We don't," said Star Woman. "But it is clear they are here at night, as that is when food goes missing."
"And someone has been using my cleanroom," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Bismollian physiology being what it is, I don't use it much myself. But someone else has been. And they aren't very good at cleaning up after themselves."
"Ugh," said Polar Lass.
"The Altharan security system would have detected a Bgztr, or someone teleporting in and out.," said Ten. "This intruder is utilizing some new phenomenon I have not encountered before."
"It could be as simple as an invisible person opportunistically sneaking in when one of us enters or leaves the clubhouse," said Ffiona.
"One thing for sure," said Lightning Lass. "They are hungry, and either don't know how to use a replicator, or don't like replicator food."
Enough days passed that everyone was getting antsy. The Triplicates were first to suggest moving out of the "haunted" clubhouse and getting rooms in New Metropolis. A second care package arrived from Winath, and the contents vanished even more quickly than the first.
"I think I saw something last night,? said Phantom Girl. ?In the early hours of the morning, actually. And not saw... more just sensed. As though someone walked out through the wall next to this window."
"Let me take a look," said Shrinking Violet, running to the front door, then speeding around the house.
Phantom Girl was half-phased through the wall.
"Wait! Don't disturb anything!" criedd Shrinking Violet. "The soil here is quite sandy-- it will hold a footprint, but not for long." She inspected the ground carefully. "Definitely something. Could be humanoid. Maybe the size of you or I."
Phantom Girl stepped gingerly around the square of ground Shrinking Violet was inspecting.
"Straight through a solid wall," said Shrinking Violet. "So it could be a Bgztlr after all."
"No," said Phantom Girl. "The intruder seemed to phase through the wall more slowly-- more like pudding."
"Like pudding through a wall..." Shrinking Violet mused. "Not very helpful." She ran her hand over the wall. "I would bet Ten would find some kind of energy signature here."
"Traces of residual electromagnetic radiation at 550 nanometers," was Ten's diagnosis.
"Then we're looking for something... green?" said Fiona. "An invisible intruder. But green. That just doesn't make any sense."
"We can ask them when we see them tonight," said Ten. "Now that we know where to look."
The boy crouched inside the Altharan security field, eyes glowing green like a cat's. Smooth olive skin. long, stringy, greasy black hair. It was clear he had not taken advantage of the sonic shower in Matter-Eater Lad Two's cleanroom.
Lightning Lass's energy arcs illuminated the room.
Star-Woman turned on the lights, and took a closer look. Not a boy, but a young man, perhaps her own age. Perhaps five or ten years older. He had a scruffy beard.
"Well," she said. "Would you like to introduce yourself, before we turn you over to the Martian Science Police?"
The prisoner was silent.
"Why were you stealing food, of all things?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two. "Even if you have exhausted your stipend, UPGov is not going to let you starve."
The strange young man continued to ignore them.
Each of the Members endeavored to engage him in conversation, failing equally. Cosmic Boy expressed the opinion that their prisoner was mute, or did not speak Interlac.
SP Officer Zegg looked to be from a heavy gravity world. Scarcely as tall as Polar Lass, he was twice as broad. Red hair. A ruddy, round, cheerful face. Senior Officer Weiss was tall and willowy, with half-oriental eyes. Skin white as snow, hair black as ebony, lips red as blood.
"Where is he?" asked Officer Weiss, looking straight at the Altharan security field.
"No, that's just his little trick," Star Woman explained. "Don't take down that field. It's odd, but even with all our varied super-senses, he sometimes just slips out of perception."
"It is not invisibility as we ordinarily think of it," Ten opined. "It is more like something is clouding our sensory perceptions. I am also experiencing a compulsion not to look for him. I assume it is the same with the rest of us. Even Vesta's mechanical sensors are blocked; so it is not simply a function of biology. If I were to characterize it, I would call his ability an advanced form of hiding."
"Super-hiding," said Shrinking Violet. "Highly effective, but not perfect."
"You're not joking?" asked Officer Weiss. "This isn't some kind of Super-Hero Club prank?"
"It took us the better part of a week to find him," Star-Woman explained. "And all the while he was entering and leaving the Clubhouse at will."
"We should call him Hide-And-Seek Boy," said Polar Lass.
"No!."
Where there had been no one within the Altharan security field, there was now someone.
"You may call me Prince Tiercelet, son of Falyce, Empress of Orando. Deposed by Projectra and her armies, we have been exiled, imprisoned on an island in the Northern Sea of Orando. And now the Science Police of the United Planets will return me there."
"You stowed away on one of the Orandan Guardships," Shrinking Violet deduced. "How long were you sneaking around your homeworld, looking for a way to escape? What was your plan?"
"I admit,' said Prince Tiercelet, "I had no plan. Only to escape, to get away. To be free of the Royal House. But I became hungry, and tired. My only thought was to get through another day. This... Clubhouse... is the only shelter I could find. But you are also thralls of the Queen. You returned the Sherbetor, despite her pleas for asylum. During the day, I went looking for a city, or other signs of civilization. But I could find nothing."
"New Metropolis is only a few miles from here," said Shrinking Violet.
"Where? In what direction?" said Prince Tiercelet."I'm glad you know where it is. I have walked miles along the seashore in both directions. I have been lost in the woods both day and night. The only source of food and rest was in the home of my enemies."
"What do you want to do with him?" Star-Woman asked the SPs.
"That is entirely up to Orando," was the reply. "We would like to use your viewscreen to contact them from here."
As Star-Woman took the two SPs to the communications room, Korvea approached Shrinking Violet.
"I have been doing some research," she said. "Falyce controlled the Orandan government for a little over a year. She was convicted of treason to the Queen, and exiled to a place called the Emerald Isle, in the North Sea of Orando. It is not uncomfortable. A small palace, with a rotating staff of servants-slash-security-guards. Tiercelet was born there, and lived all his life there. It is likely that until now, he has never fed himself, probably never dressed himself, He is probably unfamiliar with technology of any kind. Never used an AutoChef, Solid Printer, or communications device of any kind. He has been waited on hand-and-foot since the day of his birth. Alone by the New Hellespont, he would have been lost and helpless. In many ways, he is like a little lost child. I have seen this in minor nobles on Talok..."
Star-Woman returned with the SPs.
"So you will take me back to Orando?" asked Tiercelet. "You know I will try to escape from you."
"That is not the order from the Queen's Regent," said Officer Weiss. "You were in exile on Orando. You chose to further exile yourself. Your location is to be registered with Weber's World. You will be enrolled in the stipend. You may seek other, more gainful employment, if you wish. We will find you lodgings in New Metropolis, after which, if you wish, you may relocate to anywhere else on Mars that you can afford. We are also authorized to provide you transportation-- once-- to any U.P. world that will have you. Not Orando. Anywhere but Orando. As a token of her beneficence, the Queen has authorized the purchase of ten suits of clothing for you. Your mother will be informed of your situation, and arrangements will be made to have for you to have occasional contact with her."
"This is the consequence for breaking and entering? And? eating all my Dragonfruit?" asked Lightning Lass. "He's just... moving on with his life?"
"He will be placed on an SP watchlist."
?He is an exile from his homeworld,? said Chameleon. ?He will never see his home and family again. That is punishment enough.?
?Maybe even more than enough,? said Phantom Girl. ?But we know that the law on Orando can be somewhat? harsh.?
The Triplicates nodded in unison.
"And it's not like we're never getting another care package from Lightning Ring Farms," said Cosmic Boy.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/21/22 03:58 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHASING RABBITS
"You really need to take this seriously," said Dacey. "This is a huge deal. Graym's kids are the first real identical twins in my Dad's family for two generations. Yves even named Noel and Leon."
"Aren't Graym and Garridan identical twins?" asked Pol.
"You would think so, right? But no, they're fraternal, just like Dorrit and me."
They looked through the holo-racks of clothing.
"You need to get something nice," said Dacey. "Something that shows your Mom and Dad you have taste. That you don't just wear your Dad's old costume every day."
"But I don't have taste," said Pol. "I do wear my Dad's old costume every day, you know."
Dacey made an effort not to scream. "I'm going to go look in the Artisanal section," she said. "See what you can find here."
"Wow, you look great," said Pol, a little while later. "Blue and silver are really your colors."
"Actually, I think it's the cut," said Dacey. "What did you find?"
"I'm trying to decide between these three," said Pol.
"Maybe try again," said Dacey. "And here's a hint: black."
They finally decided on a modernist grey-blue suit. "It's nice," said Dacey. "It makes you look like you have shoulders."
"What's wrong with my shoulders?" asked Pol. There was a booming crash outside. Pol and Dacey, along with the rest of the store, rushed to look.
Things that looked like two missiles were fighting up high in the sky.
"Doctor Shakespeare again, do you think?" asked Dacey.
"Maybe. But who's the other one? And why does Mars get so many incursions?" said Pol.
"There's a reason Dorrit and I chose Mars," Dacey explained. "Earth and Venus, being more developed, have strong planetary defenses. So the real action tends to migrate over here."
A humanoid-shaped meteor plummeted out of the sky, smashing a hole in the middle of the street. A slender, rabbit-headed, white-furred woman in blood-red armor climbed out. "Stay back!" she cried.
Pol and Dacey activated their flight rings, hovering about a meter off the ground. A second rabbit-headed humanoid, this one pink-furred and male, and dressed all in black, touched down on the building across the street. "Surrender, Xenobriar," he cried. "Or the inhabitants of this building will die a crushing death."
"OK, so he's the Villain," said Dacey. She let loose a blast of white-hot lightning.
"His name is Captain Black," said the rabbitty Xenobriar. "Careful-- he's more powerful than you might think."
Captain Black was knocked backwards and upwards by the lightning, but quickly recovered, sending a fiery energy-blast back at Dacey. Pol put up a magnetic shield, which deflected most of the blast.
"I think we're in trouble," said Pol.
Captain Black raised his hands for another blast, but a violet streak materialized behind him as Star-Woman. The Naltoran quickly clasped the pink rabbit-man in a bear-hug.
"I hope you have some way of containing him," called Star-Woman to Xenobriar.
"Bring him down here," Xenobriar called back. She took out a glowing, golden lasso and looped a strand around Captain Black's wrist. "You will return to your throne in the center of your home world in your own dimension," she commanded. "And never leave it." The pink-skinned rabbit winced. "Do you agree?" asked Xenobriar.
"I agree," said Captain Black mournfully. He vanished in a gout of red flame.
"Who was he?" asked Dacey.
"An interdimensional demon," said Xenobriar. "I am sorry to get your world involved."
"And who are you?" asked Star-Woman.
"Xenobriar, Animalzon Princess of Parrot-Eyes Island," she answered. "And now, I must return to my own dimension as well." She spun the lasso, and vanished in a sparkle of golden glitter.
"I have no idea what any of those words mean," said Dacey.
For those who do not get all the references, Captain Black was the nemesis of Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. Princess Xenobriar has the same origins as Wonder Wabbit of Earth-C-minus, but is a pastiche of Princess Xenobia from Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century ?episode? #7. Credit where credit is due.
CHASING RABBITS
"You really need to take this seriously," said Dacey. "This is a huge deal. Graym's kids are the first real identical twins in my Dad's family for two generations. Yves even named Noel and Leon."
"Aren't Graym and Garridan identical twins?" asked Pol.
"You would think so, right? But no, they're fraternal, just like Dorrit and me."
They looked through the holo-racks of clothing.
"You need to get something nice," said Dacey. "Something that shows your Mom and Dad you have taste. That you don't just wear your Dad's old costume every day."
"But I don't have taste," said Pol. "I do wear my Dad's old costume every day, you know."
Dacey made an effort not to scream. "I'm going to go look in the Artisanal section," she said. "See what you can find here."
"Wow, you look great," said Pol, a little while later. "Blue and silver are really your colors."
"Actually, I think it's the cut," said Dacey. "What did you find?"
"I'm trying to decide between these three," said Pol.
"Maybe try again," said Dacey. "And here's a hint: black."
They finally decided on a modernist grey-blue suit. "It's nice," said Dacey. "It makes you look like you have shoulders."
"What's wrong with my shoulders?" asked Pol. There was a booming crash outside. Pol and Dacey, along with the rest of the store, rushed to look.
Things that looked like two missiles were fighting up high in the sky.
"Doctor Shakespeare again, do you think?" asked Dacey.
"Maybe. But who's the other one? And why does Mars get so many incursions?" said Pol.
"There's a reason Dorrit and I chose Mars," Dacey explained. "Earth and Venus, being more developed, have strong planetary defenses. So the real action tends to migrate over here."
A humanoid-shaped meteor plummeted out of the sky, smashing a hole in the middle of the street. A slender, rabbit-headed, white-furred woman in blood-red armor climbed out. "Stay back!" she cried.
Pol and Dacey activated their flight rings, hovering about a meter off the ground. A second rabbit-headed humanoid, this one pink-furred and male, and dressed all in black, touched down on the building across the street. "Surrender, Xenobriar," he cried. "Or the inhabitants of this building will die a crushing death."
"OK, so he's the Villain," said Dacey. She let loose a blast of white-hot lightning.
"His name is Captain Black," said the rabbitty Xenobriar. "Careful-- he's more powerful than you might think."
Captain Black was knocked backwards and upwards by the lightning, but quickly recovered, sending a fiery energy-blast back at Dacey. Pol put up a magnetic shield, which deflected most of the blast.
"I think we're in trouble," said Pol.
Captain Black raised his hands for another blast, but a violet streak materialized behind him as Star-Woman. The Naltoran quickly clasped the pink rabbit-man in a bear-hug.
"I hope you have some way of containing him," called Star-Woman to Xenobriar.
"Bring him down here," Xenobriar called back. She took out a glowing, golden lasso and looped a strand around Captain Black's wrist. "You will return to your throne in the center of your home world in your own dimension," she commanded. "And never leave it." The pink-skinned rabbit winced. "Do you agree?" asked Xenobriar.
"I agree," said Captain Black mournfully. He vanished in a gout of red flame.
"Who was he?" asked Dacey.
"An interdimensional demon," said Xenobriar. "I am sorry to get your world involved."
"And who are you?" asked Star-Woman.
"Xenobriar, Animalzon Princess of Parrot-Eyes Island," she answered. "And now, I must return to my own dimension as well." She spun the lasso, and vanished in a sparkle of golden glitter.
"I have no idea what any of those words mean," said Dacey.
For those who do not get all the references, Captain Black was the nemesis of Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny. Princess Xenobriar has the same origins as Wonder Wabbit of Earth-C-minus, but is a pastiche of Princess Xenobia from Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century ?episode? #7. Credit where credit is due.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/21/22 04:01 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PHK + DAR
Dacey Ardeen Ranzz sat on one of the iron benches outside the clubhouse, her back to the morning sun, overlooking the New Hellespont Sea. Pol was walking on the beach, and flew up when he saw her.
"Pol, do you ever think..." said Dacey.
"What?" said Pol.
"We're friends," she said. "More than friends. Right?"
"I've known you my whole life," said Pol. "Your Aunt Ayla trained me in? how to use my magnetism. Our houses were less than fifty feet apart growing up. I saw you almost every day on Lightning Ring Farms for fourteen years. You and Dorrit used to tease me mercilessly when I was little. We practiced our powers together, learning tricks combining them that our Dads never even thought of. I'm pretty sure you literally saved my life a couple of times. We've pretty much lived together-- with the rest of the Club-- for two years now. Yeah, I'd say we were more than friends."
"But do you ever think..." said Dacey. "Do you ever think we could be... you know, more?"
"Every seven seconds," said Pol.
"Oh!" Dacey leapt up, turned on her heel, and stomped away. Her stomping was impeded by the fact that they were on a small, sandy hill.
Pol used his flight ring to rise into the air. "Dacey, I'm sorry."
"You can never be serious," cried Dacey. "Not for a minute."
"Dacey, I am serious," said Pol, hovering in the air. "Don?t you know I love you? You know I love you. I love you like a sister. Like the big sister who tortured me since I was a kid."
"Forget it," said Dacey. "I'm sorry I said anything."
"And occasionally," said Pol, "Truth be told, I am troubled by some very unsisterly thoughts. But I try to put them out of my mind."
"I don't know if you're mocking me, or what," said Dacey.
"Get up here," said Pol. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
"Show me what?" asked Dacey.
"I need to show you, not tell you," said Pol.
They flew over the woods behind the Clubhouse, to a small grove. A fallen tree had made a space there. Pol led Dacey over to one of the standing trees. Shards of metal pierce the bark. They formed a heart, with a lightning bolt through it instead of an arrow. The bark was beginning to grow back, and the edges of the metal were rusting. Inside the heart was the inscription:
PHK
_+_
DAR
"How long has this been here?" asked Dacey.
"Ever since we first got to Mars," said Pol. "Even before the first Clubhouse was finished."
PHK + DAR
Dacey Ardeen Ranzz sat on one of the iron benches outside the clubhouse, her back to the morning sun, overlooking the New Hellespont Sea. Pol was walking on the beach, and flew up when he saw her.
"Pol, do you ever think..." said Dacey.
"What?" said Pol.
"We're friends," she said. "More than friends. Right?"
"I've known you my whole life," said Pol. "Your Aunt Ayla trained me in? how to use my magnetism. Our houses were less than fifty feet apart growing up. I saw you almost every day on Lightning Ring Farms for fourteen years. You and Dorrit used to tease me mercilessly when I was little. We practiced our powers together, learning tricks combining them that our Dads never even thought of. I'm pretty sure you literally saved my life a couple of times. We've pretty much lived together-- with the rest of the Club-- for two years now. Yeah, I'd say we were more than friends."
"But do you ever think..." said Dacey. "Do you ever think we could be... you know, more?"
"Every seven seconds," said Pol.
"Oh!" Dacey leapt up, turned on her heel, and stomped away. Her stomping was impeded by the fact that they were on a small, sandy hill.
Pol used his flight ring to rise into the air. "Dacey, I'm sorry."
"You can never be serious," cried Dacey. "Not for a minute."
"Dacey, I am serious," said Pol, hovering in the air. "Don?t you know I love you? You know I love you. I love you like a sister. Like the big sister who tortured me since I was a kid."
"Forget it," said Dacey. "I'm sorry I said anything."
"And occasionally," said Pol, "Truth be told, I am troubled by some very unsisterly thoughts. But I try to put them out of my mind."
"I don't know if you're mocking me, or what," said Dacey.
"Get up here," said Pol. "Come with me. I want to show you something."
"Show me what?" asked Dacey.
"I need to show you, not tell you," said Pol.
They flew over the woods behind the Clubhouse, to a small grove. A fallen tree had made a space there. Pol led Dacey over to one of the standing trees. Shards of metal pierce the bark. They formed a heart, with a lightning bolt through it instead of an arrow. The bark was beginning to grow back, and the edges of the metal were rusting. Inside the heart was the inscription:
PHK
_+_
DAR
"How long has this been here?" asked Dacey.
"Ever since we first got to Mars," said Pol. "Even before the first Clubhouse was finished."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/21/22 04:03 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
DATING
"So our first official date was her nephews' First Ordinance," Pol explained.
"How did you like the Church of Saturn?" asked Kallor Nah.
"OK, I guess. A little weird. My folks never really went in for organized religion," said Pol.
"Ordinarily, dating is a time when two people try to get to know each other better," said Kallor. "But I would think you and Dacey would know each other pretty well as it is."
"All I really want," said Pol, "Is for us to spend a little time alone together."
"You both live right here," said Kallor. "And the walls are meter-thick meteoric iron."
"And you and Irinia can both see every little thing that happens with your vision powers," Pol noted.
"So take her out to dinner somewhere else," said Kallor. ?Some distant planet.?
"We've tried that. She's kind of a choosy eater," said Pol. "She likes fresh fruits and vegetables, and frankly, the best comes in the care packages our parents send us from Winath."
"Well, you know her better than I do," said Kallor. "What does she really like to do?"
Pol thought for a moment. "Well, she really enjoys punching Bad Guys."
"So go punch some Bad Guys," said Kallor.
DATING
"So our first official date was her nephews' First Ordinance," Pol explained.
"How did you like the Church of Saturn?" asked Kallor Nah.
"OK, I guess. A little weird. My folks never really went in for organized religion," said Pol.
"Ordinarily, dating is a time when two people try to get to know each other better," said Kallor. "But I would think you and Dacey would know each other pretty well as it is."
"All I really want," said Pol, "Is for us to spend a little time alone together."
"You both live right here," said Kallor. "And the walls are meter-thick meteoric iron."
"And you and Irinia can both see every little thing that happens with your vision powers," Pol noted.
"So take her out to dinner somewhere else," said Kallor. ?Some distant planet.?
"We've tried that. She's kind of a choosy eater," said Pol. "She likes fresh fruits and vegetables, and frankly, the best comes in the care packages our parents send us from Winath."
"Well, you know her better than I do," said Kallor. "What does she really like to do?"
Pol thought for a moment. "Well, she really enjoys punching Bad Guys."
"So go punch some Bad Guys," said Kallor.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/21/22 04:11 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A GREAT START TO THE DAY
"Here is a likely candidate," said Ten, sitting at the new Mission Monitor Board. "There have been a rash of art thefts recently. Undoubtedly the work of the same individual. Very mysterious. All museum pieces. 4D protection against Bgztlrs, metahuman detectors, transporter alarms. Yet the thief gets in and out mostly undetected."
"Mostly?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"Well, a Security Guard ran into her once, almost accidentally. But according to his testimony, she just vanished. Somehow without setting off any alarms."
"If she is so elusive, how do we find her?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"According to the computer on Mernl, there is a 9O% probability that she will attempt to steal the painting "Pillars of Creation" from the Center City Fine Art Museum on Xanthu the day after tomorrow," said Ten.
"Surely the Xanthuan Science Police are already aware of that?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"We can ask if they will accept assistance from you and Lightning Lass," said Ten.
Six Xanthuan SP surrounded the painting. Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass were there as well. They were not wearing SP uniforms, but the drab mauve-and-black colors of the SP, in order to blend in.
Suddenly, someone was there. Lightning Lass reached out, and grabbed her in a headlock. The woman muttered something, and vanished. "Pillars of Creation" was gone as well.
"She murmured something," Lightning Lass told Ten, back at the Clubhouse. "Could it have been a spell? Do you think this is magic? I hate magic."
"It sounded like a random string of letters and numbers," said Cosmic Boy. "Maybe a password? I can't remember it all. I think it started with 3-X."
"Was she wearing red and yellow?" asked Ten.
"As a matter of fact, she was," said Lightning Lass. "How did you know that?"
"I did not know. Just a hunch," Said Ten. "But a good hunch. And it proves she is a traditionalist. We now know how to defeat her."
They had staked out "The Man In The Inertron Mask" the night before, but the mysterious thief did not show. Now they were checking out "Still Life With Robot" at a museum on Torad. The woman in red and gold stepped out from an alcove. Again, it was Lightning Lass that closest. She put the woman in a headlock.
"We've had this dance before," said the thief, smiling. "3X2(9YZ)4A!"
"Z25Y(2AB)6," Lightning Lass replied. "Surprise."
A small electric shock rendered Jezebel Quick unconscious.
A GREAT START TO THE DAY
"Here is a likely candidate," said Ten, sitting at the new Mission Monitor Board. "There have been a rash of art thefts recently. Undoubtedly the work of the same individual. Very mysterious. All museum pieces. 4D protection against Bgztlrs, metahuman detectors, transporter alarms. Yet the thief gets in and out mostly undetected."
"Mostly?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"Well, a Security Guard ran into her once, almost accidentally. But according to his testimony, she just vanished. Somehow without setting off any alarms."
"If she is so elusive, how do we find her?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"According to the computer on Mernl, there is a 9O% probability that she will attempt to steal the painting "Pillars of Creation" from the Center City Fine Art Museum on Xanthu the day after tomorrow," said Ten.
"Surely the Xanthuan Science Police are already aware of that?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"We can ask if they will accept assistance from you and Lightning Lass," said Ten.
Six Xanthuan SP surrounded the painting. Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass were there as well. They were not wearing SP uniforms, but the drab mauve-and-black colors of the SP, in order to blend in.
Suddenly, someone was there. Lightning Lass reached out, and grabbed her in a headlock. The woman muttered something, and vanished. "Pillars of Creation" was gone as well.
"She murmured something," Lightning Lass told Ten, back at the Clubhouse. "Could it have been a spell? Do you think this is magic? I hate magic."
"It sounded like a random string of letters and numbers," said Cosmic Boy. "Maybe a password? I can't remember it all. I think it started with 3-X."
"Was she wearing red and yellow?" asked Ten.
"As a matter of fact, she was," said Lightning Lass. "How did you know that?"
"I did not know. Just a hunch," Said Ten. "But a good hunch. And it proves she is a traditionalist. We now know how to defeat her."
They had staked out "The Man In The Inertron Mask" the night before, but the mysterious thief did not show. Now they were checking out "Still Life With Robot" at a museum on Torad. The woman in red and gold stepped out from an alcove. Again, it was Lightning Lass that closest. She put the woman in a headlock.
"We've had this dance before," said the thief, smiling. "3X2(9YZ)4A!"
"Z25Y(2AB)6," Lightning Lass replied. "Surprise."
A small electric shock rendered Jezebel Quick unconscious.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/22/22 07:06 AM
Jezebel Quick is an awesome name, and I am guessing the second formula was one that Ten came up with (or found) to neutralise the first one? In which case I like it!
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/22/22 07:52 AM
https://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/18/91/37/14/johnny16.jpg
Ten is a Terran history buff. Among other things.
Ten is a Terran history buff. Among other things.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/22/22 08:46 AM
I actually just finished reading the first couple of years worth of All Star Squadron not long ago! I think I like Liberty Belle more than Johnny, but always nice to see the future remembers someone other than Superman or Batman
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/22 05:24 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MASTER-MIND
Location: Morado, one of the three purple moons of Rimbor
"Do you think the fence is really here?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"That's what Jezebel Quick told the SPs," said Lightning Lass. "And the SPs were pretty persuasive."
"You don't think it's a trick?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"No," said Lightning Lass. "I think it's a trap. Star-Woman has alerted the Rimbor Science Police, but I imagine they'll be pretty slow in responding."
There was a bunker. Small and squat, it sat alone on the flat, purple rocky plain. There seemed to be no guards, no security. There was also no cover, no possibility of approaching stealthily.
The bunker was filled with computer equipment. Above it all hovered a Fulguran Electrobrain.
"Welcome, Members of The Super-Hero Club." Projected thought echoed in their minds. "They call me Mister Fence. An absurd appellation. My real name is..." Arcs of lightning appeared above the floating brain. "But I would prefer you call me Master-Mind, if you need to call me anything." There was a distinct undertone of humming to the creature's telepathy. "You are one of those lightning-casters that defeated the Master of Thieves World," More humming. "Are you all gingers? And you are a Braalien. But also Kathooni? Ah, well, if you've seen one human, you've seen them all. You are surprised by the paralysis? I am not without my defenses. It is pleasant to have visitors, but I am quite busy right now. You have taken out the last of my Burglars, and I need to begin rebuilding my employee base. So I suppose I should allow you to kill one another. There is so much unmet demand for my services."
Lightning Lass' hands rose jerkily into the air. Lightning crackled from her fingertips.
"Please, Dacey, you must still be in there," pleaded Cosmic Boy. "Don't kill me! Please!"
"Oh, foolish little Braalien," the Master-Mind thought. "Stop your protesting. I can see inside your mind. I know that you are planning to divert the lightning-caster's power with your magnetic fields. You think to reflect her bolts at me, and put on this play-show for my benefit. I see that it would be folly to have you kill one another. Much easier to simply stop your breathing. You humans are so delicate. There now, see? You do not even experience the desire to breathe. Quite comfortable. You will simply die. You humans are so fragile..."
A white-hot blast of electricity flew from Lightning Lass towards Cosmic Boy. It cascaded around him, then changed course, enveloping the self-styled Master-Mind. The Fulguran Electrobrain collapsed, falling to the floor, looking for all the world like a giant mass of scrambled eggs.
"You know what Mother always taught us," said Lightning Lass. "When faced with mind control, do not think. Act without thinking."
The two Science Police showed up without announcement. "Good work," they said. "We'll take the suspect into custody." The containment unit looked like a plastic storage bin with electronic accessories. The two SPs poured the unconscious Fulguran into it.
Sister, Saturn Girl's voice echoed in her Dacey's mind. These Science Police officers are in the employ of the Electrobrain,
Corruption in the Rimboran Science Police, Lightning Lass thought back. Who would have thought? A couple of well-placed shocks on the necks of the SPs rendered them as unconscious as their boss. "I'm getting pretty good at this," she said.
Cosmic Boy touched his flight ring. "Is Ten available?" he asked. "There's quite a lot of computer equipment here to examine."
Ten appeared immediately, courtesy of the Pentachoron. "This equipment is a collection of real antiques," he noted. He spent a few minutes investigating. "Highly encrypted. Decentralized memory storage. It will take a while to decode. I have sent a copy of the system to the Clubhouse, and the Rimboran and Venturan SP."
"Why Ventura?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"Because this system has recently sent a series of brief, high-priority encoded transmissions to a dozen locations on Ventura. I hypothesize these were preferred clients."
Cosmic Boy tapped his flight ring again. "Can you send us to the Central Science Police Precinct on Ventura?" he asked.
Ten went back to the Clubhouse, while Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass appeared on Ventura.
"We immediately closed the Spaceports," said the SP chief. "And we have been analyzed the warning transmissions from Morado. It seems several prominent citizens made sudden, unexpected plans to leave the planet."
"Chief," said one SP officer. "One of the Houyhnhnms reports that Zeta Spaceport is not completely closed. There is one departure already in progress."
"Get the flight ID," said the Chief. "We'll track them down eventually."
"Maybe sooner," said Cosmic Boy. He tapped his flight ring. "Zeta Spaceport on Ventura," he requested. And he and Lightning Lass were gone.
"Can't you just magnetically lock onto their ship?" asked Lightning Lass, the two Members pursuing the fleeing vessel through the atmosphere.
"The hull is non-ferromagnetic metal," said Cosmic Boy. "Probably Aluminium-Pluridium Alloy. But just a little closer..."
"Reaching orbital velocity," warned their flight rings. "Approaching escape velocity."
"Perfect," said Cosmic Boy.
"You want me to blast them?" asked Lightning Lass.
"No, create an alternating electric field to boost my magnetic powers," said Cosmic Boy. "There are ferromagnetic bolts securing the engine block... and, there." A half-dozen tiny objects burst through the hull. The space-vessel shut down, falling into a looping, parabolic orbit around Ventura. "The SP should have plenty of time to recover the passengers and crew.now."
"There seems to have been quite a number of 'respectable' citizens in this stolen art auction club," said Star-Woman. "The thrill of the auction itself seems to have been a great attractor. I am afraid all the excitement was too much for the Circadians. They have requested twenty-four hours off to recover. We need to be somewhat judicious in the use of this new technology. It would be unwise to become overly reliant on it."
"Quite a few of the artworks have already been recovered," said Saturn Girl. "And many of them have substantial rewards offered for their recovery. Our treasury continues to grow."
"We're sharing the rewards with the various planetary SPs that were involved," said Shrinking Violet. "And our share is small-- but not negligible."
""Does this mean Saturn Girl is back?" Cosmic Boy asked.
"Yes, she has reconsidered," said Lightning Lass. "We're one big happy family again.
MASTER-MIND
Location: Morado, one of the three purple moons of Rimbor
"Do you think the fence is really here?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"That's what Jezebel Quick told the SPs," said Lightning Lass. "And the SPs were pretty persuasive."
"You don't think it's a trick?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"No," said Lightning Lass. "I think it's a trap. Star-Woman has alerted the Rimbor Science Police, but I imagine they'll be pretty slow in responding."
There was a bunker. Small and squat, it sat alone on the flat, purple rocky plain. There seemed to be no guards, no security. There was also no cover, no possibility of approaching stealthily.
The bunker was filled with computer equipment. Above it all hovered a Fulguran Electrobrain.
"Welcome, Members of The Super-Hero Club." Projected thought echoed in their minds. "They call me Mister Fence. An absurd appellation. My real name is..." Arcs of lightning appeared above the floating brain. "But I would prefer you call me Master-Mind, if you need to call me anything." There was a distinct undertone of humming to the creature's telepathy. "You are one of those lightning-casters that defeated the Master of Thieves World," More humming. "Are you all gingers? And you are a Braalien. But also Kathooni? Ah, well, if you've seen one human, you've seen them all. You are surprised by the paralysis? I am not without my defenses. It is pleasant to have visitors, but I am quite busy right now. You have taken out the last of my Burglars, and I need to begin rebuilding my employee base. So I suppose I should allow you to kill one another. There is so much unmet demand for my services."
Lightning Lass' hands rose jerkily into the air. Lightning crackled from her fingertips.
"Please, Dacey, you must still be in there," pleaded Cosmic Boy. "Don't kill me! Please!"
"Oh, foolish little Braalien," the Master-Mind thought. "Stop your protesting. I can see inside your mind. I know that you are planning to divert the lightning-caster's power with your magnetic fields. You think to reflect her bolts at me, and put on this play-show for my benefit. I see that it would be folly to have you kill one another. Much easier to simply stop your breathing. You humans are so delicate. There now, see? You do not even experience the desire to breathe. Quite comfortable. You will simply die. You humans are so fragile..."
A white-hot blast of electricity flew from Lightning Lass towards Cosmic Boy. It cascaded around him, then changed course, enveloping the self-styled Master-Mind. The Fulguran Electrobrain collapsed, falling to the floor, looking for all the world like a giant mass of scrambled eggs.
"You know what Mother always taught us," said Lightning Lass. "When faced with mind control, do not think. Act without thinking."
The two Science Police showed up without announcement. "Good work," they said. "We'll take the suspect into custody." The containment unit looked like a plastic storage bin with electronic accessories. The two SPs poured the unconscious Fulguran into it.
Sister, Saturn Girl's voice echoed in her Dacey's mind. These Science Police officers are in the employ of the Electrobrain,
Corruption in the Rimboran Science Police, Lightning Lass thought back. Who would have thought? A couple of well-placed shocks on the necks of the SPs rendered them as unconscious as their boss. "I'm getting pretty good at this," she said.
Cosmic Boy touched his flight ring. "Is Ten available?" he asked. "There's quite a lot of computer equipment here to examine."
Ten appeared immediately, courtesy of the Pentachoron. "This equipment is a collection of real antiques," he noted. He spent a few minutes investigating. "Highly encrypted. Decentralized memory storage. It will take a while to decode. I have sent a copy of the system to the Clubhouse, and the Rimboran and Venturan SP."
"Why Ventura?" asked Cosmic Boy.
"Because this system has recently sent a series of brief, high-priority encoded transmissions to a dozen locations on Ventura. I hypothesize these were preferred clients."
Cosmic Boy tapped his flight ring again. "Can you send us to the Central Science Police Precinct on Ventura?" he asked.
Ten went back to the Clubhouse, while Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lass appeared on Ventura.
"We immediately closed the Spaceports," said the SP chief. "And we have been analyzed the warning transmissions from Morado. It seems several prominent citizens made sudden, unexpected plans to leave the planet."
"Chief," said one SP officer. "One of the Houyhnhnms reports that Zeta Spaceport is not completely closed. There is one departure already in progress."
"Get the flight ID," said the Chief. "We'll track them down eventually."
"Maybe sooner," said Cosmic Boy. He tapped his flight ring. "Zeta Spaceport on Ventura," he requested. And he and Lightning Lass were gone.
"Can't you just magnetically lock onto their ship?" asked Lightning Lass, the two Members pursuing the fleeing vessel through the atmosphere.
"The hull is non-ferromagnetic metal," said Cosmic Boy. "Probably Aluminium-Pluridium Alloy. But just a little closer..."
"Reaching orbital velocity," warned their flight rings. "Approaching escape velocity."
"Perfect," said Cosmic Boy.
"You want me to blast them?" asked Lightning Lass.
"No, create an alternating electric field to boost my magnetic powers," said Cosmic Boy. "There are ferromagnetic bolts securing the engine block... and, there." A half-dozen tiny objects burst through the hull. The space-vessel shut down, falling into a looping, parabolic orbit around Ventura. "The SP should have plenty of time to recover the passengers and crew.now."
"There seems to have been quite a number of 'respectable' citizens in this stolen art auction club," said Star-Woman. "The thrill of the auction itself seems to have been a great attractor. I am afraid all the excitement was too much for the Circadians. They have requested twenty-four hours off to recover. We need to be somewhat judicious in the use of this new technology. It would be unwise to become overly reliant on it."
"Quite a few of the artworks have already been recovered," said Saturn Girl. "And many of them have substantial rewards offered for their recovery. Our treasury continues to grow."
"We're sharing the rewards with the various planetary SPs that were involved," said Shrinking Violet. "And our share is small-- but not negligible."
""Does this mean Saturn Girl is back?" Cosmic Boy asked.
"Yes, she has reconsidered," said Lightning Lass. "We're one big happy family again.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/22 05:25 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
"BUT THIS IS POL!"
"So how are the folks?" asked Pol.
"Your Dad is as stiff as ever," said Dorrit. "And your Mom is still the fun aunt. Did you know they were thinking of having another baby?"
"At their age?" asked Pol. "What do I need a baby brother for?"
"Or sister," said Dorrit. "But don't worry too much... I think they are still in the just thinking about it stage."
"What about your family?" asked Pol.
"Davera has become interested in the Zoonan android working the farm," said Dorrit. "A typical teen-ager now."
"Everyone calls him 'the android'," said Pol. "Does he even have a name?"
"He calls himself Lance," said Dorrit. "You're right-- everyone but Davera treats him more-or-less as a piece of intelligent machinery."
"Well, isn't that what he is?" asked Pol.
"You could make the argument that Davera is also a piece of intelligent machinery. Or you or I."
o o o
"I know what you want to say to me," said Dacey.
"And you know I need to say it," said Dorrit.
Dacey fumed.
"Dacey, this is Pol," said Dorrit. "We used to change his diapers."
"Don't exaggerate. We're not that much older," said Dacey.
"OK, but we used to watch while Dad or Uncle Rokk changed his diapers."
"I don't remember that," said Dacey. "Maybe you, with your eidetic memory, remember. Not me."
"Anything I know, you know," said Dorrit.
"But I only know it second-hand," said Dacey. "That's why you wanted to have this talk with me."
"We see the same set of facts, but come to different conclusions," said Dorrit. "Your are sincerely thinking of marrying him? Not just trying to provoke me?"
"More than thinking about it," said Dacey. "Committed to the idea. One of us just needs to pop the question. Not before he turns eighteen, though. Maybe a lot longer. I'm in no hurry."
"I don't get it," said Dorrit. Dacey looked at her sister, and unleashed a flood of memories, going back a dozen years. "Oh, well, when you put it that way... maybe I understand."
"BUT THIS IS POL!"
"So how are the folks?" asked Pol.
"Your Dad is as stiff as ever," said Dorrit. "And your Mom is still the fun aunt. Did you know they were thinking of having another baby?"
"At their age?" asked Pol. "What do I need a baby brother for?"
"Or sister," said Dorrit. "But don't worry too much... I think they are still in the just thinking about it stage."
"What about your family?" asked Pol.
"Davera has become interested in the Zoonan android working the farm," said Dorrit. "A typical teen-ager now."
"Everyone calls him 'the android'," said Pol. "Does he even have a name?"
"He calls himself Lance," said Dorrit. "You're right-- everyone but Davera treats him more-or-less as a piece of intelligent machinery."
"Well, isn't that what he is?" asked Pol.
"You could make the argument that Davera is also a piece of intelligent machinery. Or you or I."
o o o
"I know what you want to say to me," said Dacey.
"And you know I need to say it," said Dorrit.
Dacey fumed.
"Dacey, this is Pol," said Dorrit. "We used to change his diapers."
"Don't exaggerate. We're not that much older," said Dacey.
"OK, but we used to watch while Dad or Uncle Rokk changed his diapers."
"I don't remember that," said Dacey. "Maybe you, with your eidetic memory, remember. Not me."
"Anything I know, you know," said Dorrit.
"But I only know it second-hand," said Dacey. "That's why you wanted to have this talk with me."
"We see the same set of facts, but come to different conclusions," said Dorrit. "Your are sincerely thinking of marrying him? Not just trying to provoke me?"
"More than thinking about it," said Dacey. "Committed to the idea. One of us just needs to pop the question. Not before he turns eighteen, though. Maybe a lot longer. I'm in no hurry."
"I don't get it," said Dorrit. Dacey looked at her sister, and unleashed a flood of memories, going back a dozen years. "Oh, well, when you put it that way... maybe I understand."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 02/28/22 05:26 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE SITUATION
"Why did you return?" asked Star-Woman. "For that matter, I am not entirely sure why you left."
"My vision of the Super-Hero Club," said Saturn Girl, "Was for us to be an autonomous, independent 'white hat organization-- not a paramilitary arm of UPGov like the old Legion grew into. It was bad enough when we became a registered coalition of Adventurers-- I don't blame you, it was necessary. But I felt like these 'gifts' we were getting were the last straw-- just another way to assert control over us."
"And you have changed your mind?"
"Not in the least. But I talked to Mom and Dad. And they agree these gifts are a way to control us. Also our new-found super-friendly alliance with the SPs. And other stuff going on behind the scenes that I didn't even know about. The CASQUE (*Champions and Adventurers Sub-Council) on Weber's World is keeping a particularly close eye on us. But Mom and Dad explained why the UPGov is trying to control us."
There was an awkward silence. "At this point, I am supposed to ask, 'Why?'?" asked Star-Woman.
Saturn Girl laughed. "Exactly. It's because the U.P. is terrified of us. The Analyst War didn't just happen on Sorcerer's World. All the more magical U.P. members were affected. Orando, Avalon, Witchhaven, Faerth? and quite a few non-magical worlds as well. The U.P. knows our service was a turning point in the War. That makes us scary powerful."
"But there's more. Remember the simultaneous disasters that crippled the Dominion and the Khundish Empire a while ago? Well, it turns out the Super-Hero Club was responsible. Not us, exactly, but a Super-Hero Club from an alternate timeline. They all died, apparently, but prevented a similar disaster from befalling the United Planets. The story was pieced together by the Seers of Naltor, the Trylop Council of Mernl, and the ICIC, intercepting Khund and Dominator communications. So, yeah, we are a real force to be reckoned with. Terrifying. But it means the Super-Hero Club can really do something."
"How do you know this?" asked Star-Woman. "I didn't know this, and my mother is High Seer of Naltor."
"And my mother," said Saturn Girl, "Is Imra Ardeen.
THE SITUATION
"Why did you return?" asked Star-Woman. "For that matter, I am not entirely sure why you left."
"My vision of the Super-Hero Club," said Saturn Girl, "Was for us to be an autonomous, independent 'white hat organization-- not a paramilitary arm of UPGov like the old Legion grew into. It was bad enough when we became a registered coalition of Adventurers-- I don't blame you, it was necessary. But I felt like these 'gifts' we were getting were the last straw-- just another way to assert control over us."
"And you have changed your mind?"
"Not in the least. But I talked to Mom and Dad. And they agree these gifts are a way to control us. Also our new-found super-friendly alliance with the SPs. And other stuff going on behind the scenes that I didn't even know about. The CASQUE (*Champions and Adventurers Sub-Council) on Weber's World is keeping a particularly close eye on us. But Mom and Dad explained why the UPGov is trying to control us."
There was an awkward silence. "At this point, I am supposed to ask, 'Why?'?" asked Star-Woman.
Saturn Girl laughed. "Exactly. It's because the U.P. is terrified of us. The Analyst War didn't just happen on Sorcerer's World. All the more magical U.P. members were affected. Orando, Avalon, Witchhaven, Faerth? and quite a few non-magical worlds as well. The U.P. knows our service was a turning point in the War. That makes us scary powerful."
"But there's more. Remember the simultaneous disasters that crippled the Dominion and the Khundish Empire a while ago? Well, it turns out the Super-Hero Club was responsible. Not us, exactly, but a Super-Hero Club from an alternate timeline. They all died, apparently, but prevented a similar disaster from befalling the United Planets. The story was pieced together by the Seers of Naltor, the Trylop Council of Mernl, and the ICIC, intercepting Khund and Dominator communications. So, yeah, we are a real force to be reckoned with. Terrifying. But it means the Super-Hero Club can really do something."
"How do you know this?" asked Star-Woman. "I didn't know this, and my mother is High Seer of Naltor."
"And my mother," said Saturn Girl, "Is Imra Ardeen.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/05/22 04:22 PM
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
THE RETURN OF PHANTOM GIRL AND SHRINKING VIOLET
"Where do you go?" asked Korvea.
"What do you mean? asked Star-Woman,
"I mean, you left Mars yesterday afternoon," said Korvea. "And didn't come back until early this morning. You've done that a couple of times before. What's the big secret?"
"Well," said Star-Woman. "You know that most of my powers-- aside from precognition and mass-induction-- are electro-cometary in nature. My mitochondria store electro-cometary radiation. But I need to recharge every once in a while. The Xanthuan comet that gave my father his powers no longer exists, but there is an electro-comet in the Naltoran system; and fortunately, Comet Koothrappali-Hofstadter 2O18 in the Solar system is also an electro-comet. It sits just beyond Neptune's orbit right now, but if I feel like a recharge is necessary, it is less than a day's flight there and back."
"Someone is coming," Phantom Girl interrupted. "And they look... familiar.".
The two young women came walking down the road from New Metropolis. They definitely looked familiar. All fourteen members of the Super-Hero Club went out to meet them. As they drew into view, there was a collective gasp. Phantom Girl looked at Shrinking Violet. "It's us," she said.
"We were you, once," said the other Phantom Girl. "A little older now." Her hair had grown out. Her haunted eyes took in the new Clubhouse, and the Spacetime Pentachoron, with its Circadian attendants. "You've come up in the world since we were here last."
One-quarter of the left-hand side of this new Shrinking Violet's face had been bleached white. Half her hair was now green. Two fingers of her left hand were also white, with green nails. The left side of her mouth was in a permanent rictus, giving her a peculiar lop-sided half-grin.
"We're you from an alternate time-line," explained Shrinking Violet. "One where we-- all of us, the whole Super-Hero Club-- saved the United Planets from the Khunds and the Dominion." The two Members took turns relating the story of the Khund-Dominion alliance, the prophesied Daxamite attack, and the subsequent plague.
"We've spent some time wandering alternate time-lines," said Phantom Girl. "The Phantom Zone is more complex than even the Bgztlr have imagined."
"We have seen the future the High Seer dreamt of," said Shrinking Violet. "One where the United Planets are devastated. Less than a billion sapients on Earth survived the plague. Half of those died during the Starvation Wars that followed. There are small populations rebuilding around that world now: we visited a group in Baja California, and another near the Oahu Observatory area."
"The Dominator's plan was only half-successful. Phase Two of the microbe never emerged, the United Planets were not Eliaformed. But many were destoryed. The existing plant and animal life was devastated," said Phantom Girl. "Mars, for example, is lifeless, inhabited now only by invading entities from Ysmault. A literal demon-haunted world,"
"That's horrible," said Lightning Lass.
"Oh, there are worse places," said Phantom Girl. "We found one Universe of evil zombies where everyone spends their whole time violently dismembering one another. Eventually everyone regenerates, and the cycle begins all over again."
"Other Universes were just odd," said Shrinking Violet. "There was one where Mrs. Nah wore a halo, and your Aunt Ayla had a mohawk."
"You settled on this Universe?" asked Shrinking Violet. "Or just visiting?"
"When we destroyed the Dominion's Doomsday weapon, our own future ceased to exist," Shrinking Violet explained. "We are responsible for this time-line you are living in," said Shrinking Violet. "Although it is not the one we came from... it is the one we hoped for."
"Truthfully, it was much a matter of luck," said Phantom Girl. "Shrinking Violet randomly disabled some mechanism which was essential to the Dominion's planetary defenses, otherwise the Doomsday weapon would have launched."
"I'm not sure 'luck' is the right word," said Shrinking Violet. "Fortuity, perhaps. Dorrit, Ten, and the Triplicates were disintegrated in the Elian Nova Event, and Kallor died trying to stop it. The Members in Karkyn's ship-- and his entire crew-- died under attack from the Dominion defenses. It is possible Korvea survived, as she has shown the ability to re-form herself and return to life, even after being atomized. But this was in the void of space; we searched from the Zone, but never found her body."
"I am aware of the Shelbonite ability you have described. It would be astonishing if I shared it. The Malloran Council will be very interested in that aspect of your story," said the living Korvea. "If I do have that ability... or if there is any possibility the other Korvea could be recovered..."
"The Mallorean Council has established a diplomatic mission with Elia. We have already reported to Talok," said Phantom Girl. "And Weber's World. We have registered as temporal anomalies, and have assumed new names and identification. Niri and Lue M'Kord."
"Sisters?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Married," said Shrinking Violet. "We became... close... during the years we were traveling, lost across the timelines, and in and out of the Phantom Zone."
"What happened to your face?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"I received a tiny dose of the Dominion's Madness Vapour in an accident," said Shrinking Violet. "My own fault. I was careless. It doesn't seem to have affected my mind, but I was stuck at six inches for a time. Of course, I've been away from Irulan so long, I've completely lost my shrinking abilities now. That's why Niri and I are going to back and settle on Orzde."
"Well, this will be a surprise for Mom and Dad," said Shrinking Violet.
"We've already introduced ourselves to them," said Shrinking Violet. "They've been helping us get settled, even though I'm not technically their daughter… you. But I'll be starting work as an administrative associate to a sub-assistant editor at Thaul Publishing on Orzde, and we've found a small, furnished apartment in the First Fractal of Germel City.".
You two have done a lot in this timeline without consulting us, thought Shrinking Violet. Of course, I would have done the same, in her place, her second thoughts said.
"What about Chameleon?" said Fey. "The other Chameleon... the one you left behind on Khundia?"
"Assuming he survived," said Phantom Girl, "Which is unlikely... he would be another temporal anomaly-- an anachronistic replicant living in this timeline. But we don't really know. We can't go everywhere, and we haven't seen everything."
"We'd like to go look for him," said Fey. Farrah and Ffiona nodded.
"I would like to go as well," said Chameleon.
"We'll have to find a transport going out that way. Using the Pentachoron would be inadvisable," said Star-Woman. "You can't just appear on Khundia out of nowhere... no offense intended," she added to Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl.
"It was an emergency," said Shrinking Violet. "And Khundia was not officially at war with the Dominion... at least, not at the time."
"Fortunately," said Korvea, "I believe the government of Talok VIII would lend diplomatic approval to that mission."
"And the worlds of the Naltoran system as well," said Star-Woman. "Although this might be a mission for just the four of you. I can't see the Club going in force."
"We have something we've been carrying for you," said Niri M'Kord. She handed Star-Woman the head of a star-rod. It was badly pitted and blackened. "Another temporal anomaly. But I thought you should have it. Good luck, to you all, Lue and I have had enough of adventuring. We will be satisfied with Achilles' Other Choice. Maybe raise a couple of children."
"Or pets," said Lue. "Remember my little sister Song."
THE RETURN OF PHANTOM GIRL AND SHRINKING VIOLET
"Where do you go?" asked Korvea.
"What do you mean? asked Star-Woman,
"I mean, you left Mars yesterday afternoon," said Korvea. "And didn't come back until early this morning. You've done that a couple of times before. What's the big secret?"
"Well," said Star-Woman. "You know that most of my powers-- aside from precognition and mass-induction-- are electro-cometary in nature. My mitochondria store electro-cometary radiation. But I need to recharge every once in a while. The Xanthuan comet that gave my father his powers no longer exists, but there is an electro-comet in the Naltoran system; and fortunately, Comet Koothrappali-Hofstadter 2O18 in the Solar system is also an electro-comet. It sits just beyond Neptune's orbit right now, but if I feel like a recharge is necessary, it is less than a day's flight there and back."
"Someone is coming," Phantom Girl interrupted. "And they look... familiar.".
The two young women came walking down the road from New Metropolis. They definitely looked familiar. All fourteen members of the Super-Hero Club went out to meet them. As they drew into view, there was a collective gasp. Phantom Girl looked at Shrinking Violet. "It's us," she said.
"We were you, once," said the other Phantom Girl. "A little older now." Her hair had grown out. Her haunted eyes took in the new Clubhouse, and the Spacetime Pentachoron, with its Circadian attendants. "You've come up in the world since we were here last."
One-quarter of the left-hand side of this new Shrinking Violet's face had been bleached white. Half her hair was now green. Two fingers of her left hand were also white, with green nails. The left side of her mouth was in a permanent rictus, giving her a peculiar lop-sided half-grin.
"We're you from an alternate time-line," explained Shrinking Violet. "One where we-- all of us, the whole Super-Hero Club-- saved the United Planets from the Khunds and the Dominion." The two Members took turns relating the story of the Khund-Dominion alliance, the prophesied Daxamite attack, and the subsequent plague.
"We've spent some time wandering alternate time-lines," said Phantom Girl. "The Phantom Zone is more complex than even the Bgztlr have imagined."
"We have seen the future the High Seer dreamt of," said Shrinking Violet. "One where the United Planets are devastated. Less than a billion sapients on Earth survived the plague. Half of those died during the Starvation Wars that followed. There are small populations rebuilding around that world now: we visited a group in Baja California, and another near the Oahu Observatory area."
"The Dominator's plan was only half-successful. Phase Two of the microbe never emerged, the United Planets were not Eliaformed. But many were destoryed. The existing plant and animal life was devastated," said Phantom Girl. "Mars, for example, is lifeless, inhabited now only by invading entities from Ysmault. A literal demon-haunted world,"
"That's horrible," said Lightning Lass.
"Oh, there are worse places," said Phantom Girl. "We found one Universe of evil zombies where everyone spends their whole time violently dismembering one another. Eventually everyone regenerates, and the cycle begins all over again."
"Other Universes were just odd," said Shrinking Violet. "There was one where Mrs. Nah wore a halo, and your Aunt Ayla had a mohawk."
"You settled on this Universe?" asked Shrinking Violet. "Or just visiting?"
"When we destroyed the Dominion's Doomsday weapon, our own future ceased to exist," Shrinking Violet explained. "We are responsible for this time-line you are living in," said Shrinking Violet. "Although it is not the one we came from... it is the one we hoped for."
"Truthfully, it was much a matter of luck," said Phantom Girl. "Shrinking Violet randomly disabled some mechanism which was essential to the Dominion's planetary defenses, otherwise the Doomsday weapon would have launched."
"I'm not sure 'luck' is the right word," said Shrinking Violet. "Fortuity, perhaps. Dorrit, Ten, and the Triplicates were disintegrated in the Elian Nova Event, and Kallor died trying to stop it. The Members in Karkyn's ship-- and his entire crew-- died under attack from the Dominion defenses. It is possible Korvea survived, as she has shown the ability to re-form herself and return to life, even after being atomized. But this was in the void of space; we searched from the Zone, but never found her body."
"I am aware of the Shelbonite ability you have described. It would be astonishing if I shared it. The Malloran Council will be very interested in that aspect of your story," said the living Korvea. "If I do have that ability... or if there is any possibility the other Korvea could be recovered..."
"The Mallorean Council has established a diplomatic mission with Elia. We have already reported to Talok," said Phantom Girl. "And Weber's World. We have registered as temporal anomalies, and have assumed new names and identification. Niri and Lue M'Kord."
"Sisters?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Married," said Shrinking Violet. "We became... close... during the years we were traveling, lost across the timelines, and in and out of the Phantom Zone."
"What happened to your face?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"I received a tiny dose of the Dominion's Madness Vapour in an accident," said Shrinking Violet. "My own fault. I was careless. It doesn't seem to have affected my mind, but I was stuck at six inches for a time. Of course, I've been away from Irulan so long, I've completely lost my shrinking abilities now. That's why Niri and I are going to back and settle on Orzde."
"Well, this will be a surprise for Mom and Dad," said Shrinking Violet.
"We've already introduced ourselves to them," said Shrinking Violet. "They've been helping us get settled, even though I'm not technically their daughter… you. But I'll be starting work as an administrative associate to a sub-assistant editor at Thaul Publishing on Orzde, and we've found a small, furnished apartment in the First Fractal of Germel City.".
You two have done a lot in this timeline without consulting us, thought Shrinking Violet. Of course, I would have done the same, in her place, her second thoughts said.
"What about Chameleon?" said Fey. "The other Chameleon... the one you left behind on Khundia?"
"Assuming he survived," said Phantom Girl, "Which is unlikely... he would be another temporal anomaly-- an anachronistic replicant living in this timeline. But we don't really know. We can't go everywhere, and we haven't seen everything."
"We'd like to go look for him," said Fey. Farrah and Ffiona nodded.
"I would like to go as well," said Chameleon.
"We'll have to find a transport going out that way. Using the Pentachoron would be inadvisable," said Star-Woman. "You can't just appear on Khundia out of nowhere... no offense intended," she added to Shrinking Violet and Phantom Girl.
"It was an emergency," said Shrinking Violet. "And Khundia was not officially at war with the Dominion... at least, not at the time."
"Fortunately," said Korvea, "I believe the government of Talok VIII would lend diplomatic approval to that mission."
"And the worlds of the Naltoran system as well," said Star-Woman. "Although this might be a mission for just the four of you. I can't see the Club going in force."
"We have something we've been carrying for you," said Niri M'Kord. She handed Star-Woman the head of a star-rod. It was badly pitted and blackened. "Another temporal anomaly. But I thought you should have it. Good luck, to you all, Lue and I have had enough of adventuring. We will be satisfied with Achilles' Other Choice. Maybe raise a couple of children."
"Or pets," said Lue. "Remember my little sister Song."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/15/22 02:44 PM
Friday, Ides of March, 3O22
Sol Lunae, 02 Pisces, 751
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
SAVING CHAMELEON
"According to my research, the Khunds are a purely capitalist, strictly feudal society," Ten explains. "Each prospers according to their own abilities, but most align themselves as vassals to one powerful warlord or another. There is no central government. Relationships of any kind-- familial, political, economic-- are governed by formal contracts. The Khundish Temples are the repositories of all agreements. The temples are stewarded and the contracts adjudicated by the High Priestesses, and enforced by a number of Assassin's Guilds. To break a contract is a sacrilege, it is as if to take a life. And yet, contracts are broken all the time. There is a morality which idolizes the warrior, and values not merely strength, but integrity, loyalty, and trustworthiness. However, these seem more like loose guidelines than moral laws, and ultimately, profit and profiteering trumps all else."
"It seems like they would be difficult to deal with," said Ffiona.
"They are. And yet the United Planets continues to send and receive ambassadors, emissaries and negotiators," said Ten. "Colu has taken a position against such outreach, and does not participate."
"Why is it called the Khundish Empire," said Ffarrah, "When there is no central government?"
"The Khunds worship Ak, the Living Goddess, Demon Mother and Empress of the Khunds" Ten explained. "She is imagined to be the ancestor of all Khunds, and from her hidden throne judges the hidden actions of them all. They believe in some sort of Warrior’s Paradise as an Afterlife, over which Ak also rules."
Arrangements for passage on a cargo ship were surprisingly easy to arrange.
The four members traveled with the Triplicates in single form, and Chameleon as their twin.
They were met at the spaceport on Khundia by a dwarf named Qalraq.
"United Planets tourists. Do you have any cybernetic implants or supernatural abilities to declare?" asked Qalraq.
"Two can become four, but that’s about it," Chameleon lied.
"Most of you U.P. tourists come here looking for trouble. The challenge courts can give it to you."
"Actually, we're looking for a friend," said Ffiona. "Some time ago, you had a cannibal and a zombie in the Challenge Courts. Do you know where they were staying?"
"A very bad business," said Qalraq. "They stayed in the Challenge Court chambers, with their other U.P. friends. If you are looking for them, they left Khundia, and good riddance."
"We are looking for someone they met here," said Chameleon. "We really want to keep away from the Challenge Courts."
"You have reservations at a... how do you call it? 'Bed-and-Breakfast'. Do not overstay your welcome."
The inn was the private home of a single, female pink-skinned dwarf Khund who introduced herself as Dowager Rhokari.
"You will meet a number of dwarf Khunds during your stay here," said Rhokari. "Providing you stay away from the Challenge Courts. Our kind tends to fill shopkeeper and service economy positions. You will recognize the scientists and technologists on the streets as taller than the dwarves, but more slender than the Warrior class. You will meet none of the priestesses, as they spend all their days in the Temples-- where strangers are forbidden. The Warriors, of course, spend most of their time in the Challenge Courts."
When they were alone, Ffiona asked Chameleon, "So if you were you, and left all alone on Khundia, where would you go?"
"I would probably set myself up as a shopkeeper. Probably selling weapons," said Chameleon. "I would try to blend in with the rest of Khundish society as best I could. It is the Durlan way."
They went out to survey the shops in the shopping district the next day. A large, red-skinned Khund exited a weapon's shop they had been observing, and followed them. Unfamiliar with the city, they eventually found themselves facing him in a dead-end alley.
"You are tourists," said the Khund. "You have money."
"Less than you might think," said Chameleon.
"Hope it is enough," said the Khund, "To buy your lives."
The Triplicates split, and the Khund found himself facing four small, slender girls. He laughed. "Perhaps you can double your money in the same way."
"Please," said Ffey. "My sister..." She indicated Chameleon. "She has an unfortunate condition. Please do not upset her."
The Khund grabbed at Chameleon, and found himself holding onto a twelve-foot Martian M'Mannix.
"Do you wish to meet in the Challenge Courts?" the monster asked the Khund.
"Please, no," said Ffey. "Can’t you just leave us alone?"
"You are wise not to challenge me," said the Khund, and retreated, trembling slightly.
Chameleon resumed his duplicate Triplicates form, and the real Triplicates merged back into one. Undeterred, they continued searching the shopping district.
The Triplicates stopped, and pointed to a sign on a business across the street. "I think we’ve found your doppelganger," she told Chameleon.
It read: "Prosprack's Exotic Pizza".
A young female yellow dwarf Khund was working behind the counter. Her left hand had been replaced with a robot prosthetic.
"What can I get you?" the little woman asked. "Make it quick, we're about to close."
"We're looking for a friend," said Chameleon.
"Well, I suppose we can close a little early," said the woman. She pulled down the metal shades on the windows, locked the doors, and turned out the outside lights.
"Prosprack, at your service," said the little woman, with a bow. "Owner and proprietor of Prosprack's Exotic Pizza. A real UP delicacy. I learned to make it from a master. Let me tell you a story. A Durlan and a Cargggan walk into a pizza joint..."
"I know who you are, too," said Chameleon.
"Is this...?" asked the Triplicates.
"I am Prosprack of Prosprack's Pizza, Nothing Like It In The Galaxy," said the little woman. "Have you seen the sign? The Khunds have a kind of sourdough yeast, and a rye-like grain, from which they make a sort of black bread. I have it more finely milled to create my pizza dough. They have nothing similar to cow's milk or pepperoni here, so I use blood-cheese and smoked glow-rat."
"It sounds disgusting," said the Triplicates.
'I didn't say there was nothing better,I said there was nothing like it. It does seem to appeal to the Khunds. I've developed a reputation. I pay my assessments, but not an inik more. Some low-level Khundish thugs came in here once looking for protection money. Threatened to cut off my left hand if I didn't pay. So I took out a cleaver, chopped it off myself, and threw it at them. They left me alone after that, but it cost me a pretty penny. I had to buy a prosthetic to keep up appearances. Of course, this one is just a simulation. Her robotic hand transformed into flesh-and-blood. The real one is under the counter."
"Then you are Chameleon," said the Triplicates.
"And so is she," said Prosprack, indicating the other Chameleon in Cargggan disguise. Chameleon assumed the androgynous default Durlan form. Prosprack did the same although hers was clearly female.
"Only I'm not Chameleon anymore," said Prosprack. "I’m Prosprack. I've found a new name and new identity. If you've come to 'rescue' me... well, I'm engaged to be married to a Khundish technician named Otlack. He knows I'm Durlan, but he accepts me for who and what I am. I'm happy."
"It is difficult to argue with happiness," said the other Chameleon.
"You mean we're just going to leave him here?" asked the Triplicates.
"I'm pretty sure we have no other choice," said Chameleon.
Prosprack shifted back into her Khundish form, complete with robot hand. "This is my home now. I assume that as the United Planets still exists, and the other Members were successful? There are two Super-Hero Clubs now?"
"Not many of your allies survived," said Chameleon. "Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet are on Orzde."
"That's all?" asked Prosprack. “Everyone else gone?”
"Just the three of you are left, as far as we know," said the Triplicates.
"That is sad news," said Proprack. "But as many die every day in the Challenge Courts. It is the Way of the Demon Mother."
She walked to the back of the shop, and brought out a black handkerchief. She unwrapped the black cloth.
"I thought you might come looking for me," said Prosprack. "Take this with you. It is a Khundish Electro-Mace. The other Dacey developed a rapport with one like it. Found it useful. Perhaps your Dacey will also." She sighed. "And I suppose you had better take this as well."
She went behind the counter, and returned with a large mug full of dirt. In the dirt was the Martian Zo'Ok that Chameleon had used as a costume. The octofurcated golden flower was turning brown at the edges, its scarlet tendrils drooping.
"It is not thriving here in the Khundish night," said Prosprack.
"I'll take it back to Mars and re-plant it in the sea-cave where I... you… we... found it," said Chameleon.
"Fare well, my friends," said Prosprack. "When the war between the Khunds and the Dominion is over, perhaps we may meet again."
o o o
It was a long trip back to Mars, as there were a number of stops along the way. Yet even in the artificial environment of the transport, the Zo'Ok seemed to be recovering.
"Zo’Ok. It is a Martian word," said Chameleon, now back in Triplicate form. "Meaning 'little friend', or 'companion'. They evolved-- or were evolved-- along with the Old Martians. Elasomorphic, semi-telepathic, semi-invulnerable. I wish I could get more to bond with the whole Membership. They say there is a garden-- or possibly hothouse-- of Zo'Ok on Earth, in a place called Z'Onn Z'Orr-- some sort of ancient Martian colony. But no one knows where Z'Onn Z'Orr is.”
"History tells us that the Martian J'Onn J'Onzz once met a trio of Vibranns. They brought with them a little creature whose name the Martian Manhunter heard telepathically as 'Zo’Ok'. He called the creature Zook, and took care of it for several years. No one knows whatever happened to that little creature, either."
Sol Lunae, 02 Pisces, 751
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
SAVING CHAMELEON
"According to my research, the Khunds are a purely capitalist, strictly feudal society," Ten explains. "Each prospers according to their own abilities, but most align themselves as vassals to one powerful warlord or another. There is no central government. Relationships of any kind-- familial, political, economic-- are governed by formal contracts. The Khundish Temples are the repositories of all agreements. The temples are stewarded and the contracts adjudicated by the High Priestesses, and enforced by a number of Assassin's Guilds. To break a contract is a sacrilege, it is as if to take a life. And yet, contracts are broken all the time. There is a morality which idolizes the warrior, and values not merely strength, but integrity, loyalty, and trustworthiness. However, these seem more like loose guidelines than moral laws, and ultimately, profit and profiteering trumps all else."
"It seems like they would be difficult to deal with," said Ffiona.
"They are. And yet the United Planets continues to send and receive ambassadors, emissaries and negotiators," said Ten. "Colu has taken a position against such outreach, and does not participate."
"Why is it called the Khundish Empire," said Ffarrah, "When there is no central government?"
"The Khunds worship Ak, the Living Goddess, Demon Mother and Empress of the Khunds" Ten explained. "She is imagined to be the ancestor of all Khunds, and from her hidden throne judges the hidden actions of them all. They believe in some sort of Warrior’s Paradise as an Afterlife, over which Ak also rules."
Arrangements for passage on a cargo ship were surprisingly easy to arrange.
The four members traveled with the Triplicates in single form, and Chameleon as their twin.
They were met at the spaceport on Khundia by a dwarf named Qalraq.
"United Planets tourists. Do you have any cybernetic implants or supernatural abilities to declare?" asked Qalraq.
"Two can become four, but that’s about it," Chameleon lied.
"Most of you U.P. tourists come here looking for trouble. The challenge courts can give it to you."
"Actually, we're looking for a friend," said Ffiona. "Some time ago, you had a cannibal and a zombie in the Challenge Courts. Do you know where they were staying?"
"A very bad business," said Qalraq. "They stayed in the Challenge Court chambers, with their other U.P. friends. If you are looking for them, they left Khundia, and good riddance."
"We are looking for someone they met here," said Chameleon. "We really want to keep away from the Challenge Courts."
"You have reservations at a... how do you call it? 'Bed-and-Breakfast'. Do not overstay your welcome."
The inn was the private home of a single, female pink-skinned dwarf Khund who introduced herself as Dowager Rhokari.
"You will meet a number of dwarf Khunds during your stay here," said Rhokari. "Providing you stay away from the Challenge Courts. Our kind tends to fill shopkeeper and service economy positions. You will recognize the scientists and technologists on the streets as taller than the dwarves, but more slender than the Warrior class. You will meet none of the priestesses, as they spend all their days in the Temples-- where strangers are forbidden. The Warriors, of course, spend most of their time in the Challenge Courts."
When they were alone, Ffiona asked Chameleon, "So if you were you, and left all alone on Khundia, where would you go?"
"I would probably set myself up as a shopkeeper. Probably selling weapons," said Chameleon. "I would try to blend in with the rest of Khundish society as best I could. It is the Durlan way."
They went out to survey the shops in the shopping district the next day. A large, red-skinned Khund exited a weapon's shop they had been observing, and followed them. Unfamiliar with the city, they eventually found themselves facing him in a dead-end alley.
"You are tourists," said the Khund. "You have money."
"Less than you might think," said Chameleon.
"Hope it is enough," said the Khund, "To buy your lives."
The Triplicates split, and the Khund found himself facing four small, slender girls. He laughed. "Perhaps you can double your money in the same way."
"Please," said Ffey. "My sister..." She indicated Chameleon. "She has an unfortunate condition. Please do not upset her."
The Khund grabbed at Chameleon, and found himself holding onto a twelve-foot Martian M'Mannix.
"Do you wish to meet in the Challenge Courts?" the monster asked the Khund.
"Please, no," said Ffey. "Can’t you just leave us alone?"
"You are wise not to challenge me," said the Khund, and retreated, trembling slightly.
Chameleon resumed his duplicate Triplicates form, and the real Triplicates merged back into one. Undeterred, they continued searching the shopping district.
The Triplicates stopped, and pointed to a sign on a business across the street. "I think we’ve found your doppelganger," she told Chameleon.
It read: "Prosprack's Exotic Pizza".
A young female yellow dwarf Khund was working behind the counter. Her left hand had been replaced with a robot prosthetic.
"What can I get you?" the little woman asked. "Make it quick, we're about to close."
"We're looking for a friend," said Chameleon.
"Well, I suppose we can close a little early," said the woman. She pulled down the metal shades on the windows, locked the doors, and turned out the outside lights.
"Prosprack, at your service," said the little woman, with a bow. "Owner and proprietor of Prosprack's Exotic Pizza. A real UP delicacy. I learned to make it from a master. Let me tell you a story. A Durlan and a Cargggan walk into a pizza joint..."
"I know who you are, too," said Chameleon.
"Is this...?" asked the Triplicates.
"I am Prosprack of Prosprack's Pizza, Nothing Like It In The Galaxy," said the little woman. "Have you seen the sign? The Khunds have a kind of sourdough yeast, and a rye-like grain, from which they make a sort of black bread. I have it more finely milled to create my pizza dough. They have nothing similar to cow's milk or pepperoni here, so I use blood-cheese and smoked glow-rat."
"It sounds disgusting," said the Triplicates.
'I didn't say there was nothing better,I said there was nothing like it. It does seem to appeal to the Khunds. I've developed a reputation. I pay my assessments, but not an inik more. Some low-level Khundish thugs came in here once looking for protection money. Threatened to cut off my left hand if I didn't pay. So I took out a cleaver, chopped it off myself, and threw it at them. They left me alone after that, but it cost me a pretty penny. I had to buy a prosthetic to keep up appearances. Of course, this one is just a simulation. Her robotic hand transformed into flesh-and-blood. The real one is under the counter."
"Then you are Chameleon," said the Triplicates.
"And so is she," said Prosprack, indicating the other Chameleon in Cargggan disguise. Chameleon assumed the androgynous default Durlan form. Prosprack did the same although hers was clearly female.
"Only I'm not Chameleon anymore," said Prosprack. "I’m Prosprack. I've found a new name and new identity. If you've come to 'rescue' me... well, I'm engaged to be married to a Khundish technician named Otlack. He knows I'm Durlan, but he accepts me for who and what I am. I'm happy."
"It is difficult to argue with happiness," said the other Chameleon.
"You mean we're just going to leave him here?" asked the Triplicates.
"I'm pretty sure we have no other choice," said Chameleon.
Prosprack shifted back into her Khundish form, complete with robot hand. "This is my home now. I assume that as the United Planets still exists, and the other Members were successful? There are two Super-Hero Clubs now?"
"Not many of your allies survived," said Chameleon. "Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet are on Orzde."
"That's all?" asked Prosprack. “Everyone else gone?”
"Just the three of you are left, as far as we know," said the Triplicates.
"That is sad news," said Proprack. "But as many die every day in the Challenge Courts. It is the Way of the Demon Mother."
She walked to the back of the shop, and brought out a black handkerchief. She unwrapped the black cloth.
"I thought you might come looking for me," said Prosprack. "Take this with you. It is a Khundish Electro-Mace. The other Dacey developed a rapport with one like it. Found it useful. Perhaps your Dacey will also." She sighed. "And I suppose you had better take this as well."
She went behind the counter, and returned with a large mug full of dirt. In the dirt was the Martian Zo'Ok that Chameleon had used as a costume. The octofurcated golden flower was turning brown at the edges, its scarlet tendrils drooping.
"It is not thriving here in the Khundish night," said Prosprack.
"I'll take it back to Mars and re-plant it in the sea-cave where I... you… we... found it," said Chameleon.
"Fare well, my friends," said Prosprack. "When the war between the Khunds and the Dominion is over, perhaps we may meet again."
o o o
It was a long trip back to Mars, as there were a number of stops along the way. Yet even in the artificial environment of the transport, the Zo'Ok seemed to be recovering.
"Zo’Ok. It is a Martian word," said Chameleon, now back in Triplicate form. "Meaning 'little friend', or 'companion'. They evolved-- or were evolved-- along with the Old Martians. Elasomorphic, semi-telepathic, semi-invulnerable. I wish I could get more to bond with the whole Membership. They say there is a garden-- or possibly hothouse-- of Zo'Ok on Earth, in a place called Z'Onn Z'Orr-- some sort of ancient Martian colony. But no one knows where Z'Onn Z'Orr is.”
"History tells us that the Martian J'Onn J'Onzz once met a trio of Vibranns. They brought with them a little creature whose name the Martian Manhunter heard telepathically as 'Zo’Ok'. He called the creature Zook, and took care of it for several years. No one knows whatever happened to that little creature, either."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/21/22 08:08 PM
CHAPTER FIFTY
KORVEA NEW AND OLD
"Much more of this, and we're going to need to organize a formal arsenal," said Shrinking Violet. “First Star-Woman’s Star Rod, and now this weapon.”
"Interesting," said Lightning Lass to Chameleon, hefting the Electro-Mace. "You say your doppelganger said the other Lightning Lass had some kind rapport with it?"
"Not really another Lightning Lass," said Chameleon. "Your other self, just following a different timeline."
"Whatever," said Lightning Lass. "But I'm not feeling anything from it. It just feels like a big hammer."
"Where is everybody?" asked Ffarrah.
"Out on assignment," said Shrinking Violet. "Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy took the Sojourner on an informal ambassadorial assignment to Braal. Just exploratory diplomatic outreach to a newly discovered world of metal beings.
"Phantom Girl and Polar Lass are on an assignment with the Science Police-- some kind of undercover work.”
"Matter-Eater Lad Two is out on an assignment with Star-Woman.”
"Ten is on Colu. He had some technical questions about the workings of the Pentachoron. Nothing I could understand.”
"Korvea is on a private mission to Talok VIII."
"Not anymore," said Korvea, walking up the beach from the Pentachoron. "I just got back. If only the four of you returned, I assume you didn't find the other Chameleon?"
"Oh, they found her," said Lightning Lass. "They just couldn't persuade her to leave Khundia. It seems she's made a life for herself there."
"Well, that makes four," said Korvea. "Talok VIII petitioned the Dominion to search for the remains of the other Korvea, and they found her. She's been in some sort of cryonic suspension since reforming, in orbit about Elia. She's back on Talok VIII now. We've met."
"Is she as... different... as my other half?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Well, she doesn't seem visibly older," said Korvea. "Although technically, due to the time travel, I'm a few weeks younger than she is. But she has a different... perspective now. You know how I tend to walk around displaying my wings? Well she walks around with her claws out. Dying twice can do that to you, I guess. But according to Talokan and Malloran tradition, as she is slightly older, she supplants me as the Planetary-Champion-in-Waiting."
"So she’ll be replacing you the Super-Hero Club?" asked Shrinking Violet. “And you will return to Talok?”
"Quite the opposite!" exclaimed Korvea. "Korvea-the-Greater -- that's her technical title -- will be formally assuming the role of Planetary Champion on Talok VIII as soon as she marries.Menaleas. Which means I can do more or less as I please, while they get down to business producing metagenetic offspring. And I choose to remain here on Mars."
"I knew there was something odd between you and your cousin," said Shrinking Violet. "How do you-- and the other you-- feel about this marriage?"
"I was having doubts about our forced engagement already. But she's absolutely ready to settle down," said Korvea. "I, on the other hand... Well, they may call me Korvea-the-Lesser, but I have never felt freer in my life. The future is full of possibility."
Author’s note: It is frankly astonishing to me that a third of the time-displaced Super-Hero Club survived the Khund-Dominator War. Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet, Chameleon, and Korvea. But it appears things could not have worked out any other way.
KORVEA NEW AND OLD
"Much more of this, and we're going to need to organize a formal arsenal," said Shrinking Violet. “First Star-Woman’s Star Rod, and now this weapon.”
"Interesting," said Lightning Lass to Chameleon, hefting the Electro-Mace. "You say your doppelganger said the other Lightning Lass had some kind rapport with it?"
"Not really another Lightning Lass," said Chameleon. "Your other self, just following a different timeline."
"Whatever," said Lightning Lass. "But I'm not feeling anything from it. It just feels like a big hammer."
"Where is everybody?" asked Ffarrah.
"Out on assignment," said Shrinking Violet. "Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy took the Sojourner on an informal ambassadorial assignment to Braal. Just exploratory diplomatic outreach to a newly discovered world of metal beings.
"Phantom Girl and Polar Lass are on an assignment with the Science Police-- some kind of undercover work.”
"Matter-Eater Lad Two is out on an assignment with Star-Woman.”
"Ten is on Colu. He had some technical questions about the workings of the Pentachoron. Nothing I could understand.”
"Korvea is on a private mission to Talok VIII."
"Not anymore," said Korvea, walking up the beach from the Pentachoron. "I just got back. If only the four of you returned, I assume you didn't find the other Chameleon?"
"Oh, they found her," said Lightning Lass. "They just couldn't persuade her to leave Khundia. It seems she's made a life for herself there."
"Well, that makes four," said Korvea. "Talok VIII petitioned the Dominion to search for the remains of the other Korvea, and they found her. She's been in some sort of cryonic suspension since reforming, in orbit about Elia. She's back on Talok VIII now. We've met."
"Is she as... different... as my other half?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"Well, she doesn't seem visibly older," said Korvea. "Although technically, due to the time travel, I'm a few weeks younger than she is. But she has a different... perspective now. You know how I tend to walk around displaying my wings? Well she walks around with her claws out. Dying twice can do that to you, I guess. But according to Talokan and Malloran tradition, as she is slightly older, she supplants me as the Planetary-Champion-in-Waiting."
"So she’ll be replacing you the Super-Hero Club?" asked Shrinking Violet. “And you will return to Talok?”
"Quite the opposite!" exclaimed Korvea. "Korvea-the-Greater -- that's her technical title -- will be formally assuming the role of Planetary Champion on Talok VIII as soon as she marries.Menaleas. Which means I can do more or less as I please, while they get down to business producing metagenetic offspring. And I choose to remain here on Mars."
"I knew there was something odd between you and your cousin," said Shrinking Violet. "How do you-- and the other you-- feel about this marriage?"
"I was having doubts about our forced engagement already. But she's absolutely ready to settle down," said Korvea. "I, on the other hand... Well, they may call me Korvea-the-Lesser, but I have never felt freer in my life. The future is full of possibility."
Author’s note: It is frankly astonishing to me that a third of the time-displaced Super-Hero Club survived the Khund-Dominator War. Phantom Girl, Shrinking Violet, Chameleon, and Korvea. But it appears things could not have worked out any other way.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/28/22 03:40 AM
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
VIRTUAL TRYOUTS
"Welcome to our first weekly virtual tryouts," said Cosmic Boy. "Before we begin, I'd like to mention that this last week I have contacted Planet Galadriel, asking if they can spare one of their Leetas. Also Manna-5, for a Xera-in-training. I messaged Hykryaius and Vasmeer, since we have this huge body of water next to us, to see if they might send a representative. Mosteel and Llar have young Planetary Champions, so I sent an invitation there. And I contacted that new Dark-Flyer of Zur-En-Arrh."
"And no responses?" asked Lighting Lass.
"Oh, they all responded," said Cosmic Boy. "Just no interest."
"So here we go," he continued. He placed a memory crystal into the holo-stand. An image of a brown cow appeared.
{Slide 01}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/de5aff1719fcc9f758075820a34ba881/90a35207ed28217e-e0/s250x400/98f26517fb5e047a48e4b7e2e54f6acef2baa7b3.jpg)
"This is Cow Girl. She's from Adarsa, one of the distant Ranch World colonies. Her brain was placed in the body of a cow, while her body is in a healing coma. She wants to spend the next six to nine months with us until they can return her to her own body. She's offering us a gallon of fresh milk every day."
"Eewwww," said Korvea. "Disgusting."
{Slide 02}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f6ad106cafea4d84ded7fc7941cf4d6c/90a35207ed28217e-ba/s250x400/d393059d2851503a71e7bf116e7eb3f7fe7791f0.jpg)
"Okaaay..." said Cosmic Boy. "This is Ariel Herrera of Thanar. She calls herself Wind Wizardess. She claims to have the ability to transform into any sort of wind, from a light Spring breeze to a Winter hurricane."
"Does she do tornadoes?" asked Star-Woman. "Those are much more targeted phenomena."
"Her application doesn't mention tornadoes," said Cosmic Boy. "And I don't want to assume."
"It's funny," noted Lightning Lass. "She's covered head to toe. Almost like she's wearing a containment suit. I wonder if all she is is wind. Like that old guy, Ulthoon."
"Let's schedule an in-person interview," said Star-Woman. "We can arrange to bring her to Mars with the Pentachoron, and she can show us the extent of her powers."
The other Members nodded in agreement.
{Slide 03}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/da67693cb7f0468a5214b3657633b9e7/90a35207ed28217e-bf/s250x400/4d6f482c78eb6d216a76c9bcf04965aca5c5395f.jpg)
"This is Dathuil," said Cosmic Boy. "A regular Geeqouan."
"The problem with Geeqouans," said Shrinking Violet, "Is that they are really annoying to be around, and their powers fail at unexpected times."
"Agreed," said Lightning Lass.
{Slide 04}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/afe31f5bc9d7449f7f8f6f9a509ba6b7/90a35207ed28217e-49/s250x400/33541e17e9e254bb55e7967c8c4f7bf22f9a267d.jpg)
"This guy calls himself Pimple-Popping Pete. He can shoot powerful acid from the severe acne on his face."
"I'm sorry," said Polar Lass. "Maybe I'm shallow, but I just couldn't face that face every morning."
{Slide 05}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/d12709ddcd59e298448ea25609487248/90a35207ed28217e-02/s250x400/34137f512d9222f3166ed8bb2867f1cfa72e97ff.jpg)
"This is Esuap of Myar. It says here that when he drinks his proprietary alchemical potion, anything he says out loud for the next half-hour will not happen-- until the end of the half-hour."
"I can see rare instances when that might be useful," said Star-Woman. "But very rare."
{Slide 06}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/3ef5aba143038a71b85b9bdc96df713b/90a35207ed28217e-92/s250x400/6c07937c704479b7d1efe991bf409607d5a1d984.jpg)
"This is Matt Kartessus of the Blindenwelt Colony on Apploza. He claims his sense of touch extends some 2OO meters beyond his physical body. He calls it a 'Tactile Field'. He says he can even touch inside objects within the field."
"So this 'tactile field' also grants him a form of telekinesis?" asked Ten. “He can manipulate the objects he touches?”
“That’s not really clear,” Cosmic Boy replied. “His powers may be only sensory in nature.”
"Whatever," Lightning Lass interrupted. "I can’t see living with him in the Clubhouse. Or being anywhere near him, frankly. I don't want him fondling my... er… pancreas... with his Tactile Field from a hectometer away. Rejected, please."
{Slide 07}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f4249a874d82a62592013eef5c77a800/33d22a49a38c369f-8f/s250x400/114a494dedcb0f22fdb576f333c9f30e2e50eefd.jpg)
"This is Rehy Nashmia of Alkun. He suggests we call him Olfactive Lad, or possibly Fragrant Boy. He has the ability to produce any scent. That is, he can smell like anything he wants to."
"He looks like a technicolor Polecat," noted Shrinking Violet. "But I'm trying to get my head around how his powers might be useful."
"A living air-freshener?" suggested Ffiona.
{Slide 08}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/6ee0ee55ab8545a5a721cd8c29c20e14/90a35207ed28217e-b7/s250x400/d3709a065cbf92d13c52da441592d27577b3243e.jpg)
"This one calls herself Defenestration Damozel. She creates windows to other dimensions, then throws people through them."
"And she can bring them back?" asked Saturn Girl.
Cosmic Boy examined the attached file. "Not sure," he said. "Maybe we can get in contact with her and more thoroughly define her powers? I'll table it for now."
VIRTUAL TRYOUTS
"Welcome to our first weekly virtual tryouts," said Cosmic Boy. "Before we begin, I'd like to mention that this last week I have contacted Planet Galadriel, asking if they can spare one of their Leetas. Also Manna-5, for a Xera-in-training. I messaged Hykryaius and Vasmeer, since we have this huge body of water next to us, to see if they might send a representative. Mosteel and Llar have young Planetary Champions, so I sent an invitation there. And I contacted that new Dark-Flyer of Zur-En-Arrh."
"And no responses?" asked Lighting Lass.
"Oh, they all responded," said Cosmic Boy. "Just no interest."
"So here we go," he continued. He placed a memory crystal into the holo-stand. An image of a brown cow appeared.
{Slide 01}
"This is Cow Girl. She's from Adarsa, one of the distant Ranch World colonies. Her brain was placed in the body of a cow, while her body is in a healing coma. She wants to spend the next six to nine months with us until they can return her to her own body. She's offering us a gallon of fresh milk every day."
"Eewwww," said Korvea. "Disgusting."
{Slide 02}
"Okaaay..." said Cosmic Boy. "This is Ariel Herrera of Thanar. She calls herself Wind Wizardess. She claims to have the ability to transform into any sort of wind, from a light Spring breeze to a Winter hurricane."
"Does she do tornadoes?" asked Star-Woman. "Those are much more targeted phenomena."
"Her application doesn't mention tornadoes," said Cosmic Boy. "And I don't want to assume."
"It's funny," noted Lightning Lass. "She's covered head to toe. Almost like she's wearing a containment suit. I wonder if all she is is wind. Like that old guy, Ulthoon."
"Let's schedule an in-person interview," said Star-Woman. "We can arrange to bring her to Mars with the Pentachoron, and she can show us the extent of her powers."
The other Members nodded in agreement.
{Slide 03}
"This is Dathuil," said Cosmic Boy. "A regular Geeqouan."
"The problem with Geeqouans," said Shrinking Violet, "Is that they are really annoying to be around, and their powers fail at unexpected times."
"Agreed," said Lightning Lass.
{Slide 04}
"This guy calls himself Pimple-Popping Pete. He can shoot powerful acid from the severe acne on his face."
"I'm sorry," said Polar Lass. "Maybe I'm shallow, but I just couldn't face that face every morning."
{Slide 05}
"This is Esuap of Myar. It says here that when he drinks his proprietary alchemical potion, anything he says out loud for the next half-hour will not happen-- until the end of the half-hour."
"I can see rare instances when that might be useful," said Star-Woman. "But very rare."
{Slide 06}
"This is Matt Kartessus of the Blindenwelt Colony on Apploza. He claims his sense of touch extends some 2OO meters beyond his physical body. He calls it a 'Tactile Field'. He says he can even touch inside objects within the field."
"So this 'tactile field' also grants him a form of telekinesis?" asked Ten. “He can manipulate the objects he touches?”
“That’s not really clear,” Cosmic Boy replied. “His powers may be only sensory in nature.”
"Whatever," Lightning Lass interrupted. "I can’t see living with him in the Clubhouse. Or being anywhere near him, frankly. I don't want him fondling my... er… pancreas... with his Tactile Field from a hectometer away. Rejected, please."
{Slide 07}
"This is Rehy Nashmia of Alkun. He suggests we call him Olfactive Lad, or possibly Fragrant Boy. He has the ability to produce any scent. That is, he can smell like anything he wants to."
"He looks like a technicolor Polecat," noted Shrinking Violet. "But I'm trying to get my head around how his powers might be useful."
"A living air-freshener?" suggested Ffiona.
{Slide 08}
"This one calls herself Defenestration Damozel. She creates windows to other dimensions, then throws people through them."
"And she can bring them back?" asked Saturn Girl.
Cosmic Boy examined the attached file. "Not sure," he said. "Maybe we can get in contact with her and more thoroughly define her powers? I'll table it for now."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 03/28/22 03:42 AM
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
VIRTUAL TRYOUTS
{continued)
{Slide 09}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f36d1c107700e3dc50249056e033afa4/90a35207ed28217e-28/s250x400/687fba875084336b584a3ebf0621987042b77078.jpg)
"This is Oddritu, a giant carnivorous plant from a world of giant carnivorous plants. Can I take a pass on this one myself?"
{Slide 10}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/a7fa6104e177a054f27f30e1373ea022/245d76b8d7a910a3-0a/s250x400/68da4f18eda194d8184e33a3a39c0e084f8f3899.jpg)
"And this is Cerise Bombe of Earth. She can... oh, there is a permanote attached to her UPID. 'Aberrant Psychological Profile.' Well, we can skip that one, too."
{Slide 11}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/93c6d177237710826b280a963860cadf/339814eac0bf3678-fd/s250x400/4261655d0444f1e48188183d13b2a69bba340d20.jpg)
"And this application is from a White Warrior of Regulus Leon. I understand they are impressive fighters..."
"Absolutely not," said Korvea. "The Regulus Leons are skilled warriors, and the White Warriors are the elite. But they are absolutely brutal, without scruples, honor, or loyalty. They are the perfect mercenaries, if you want to hire killing machines. But we don't need them in our Super-Hero Club."
{Slide 12}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c3d7ff553843b0bc1b5bf2775cb22890/bbb1d4ec635d7df0-24/s250x400/83adad1c480223a351994bb56f9829c24231404b.jpg)
"Here is one claims to be immune to any toxin, either liquid or gas... "
{Slide 13}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/a092d167404c222e76f0c044d3bb2521/339814eac0bf3678-fe/s250x400/b664058555dd16443e0efc924acbbf4e1950d3d1.jpg)
"And this one claims that for every word she speaks, a precious gemstone drops from her mouth. Interesting, but not much good in a fight?"
{Slide 14}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/77dd0346353bdf7d467927ab4a4fa8c0/339814eac0bf3678-78/s250x400/211442197ce3579b157da450f6452db10ab329cb.jpg)
"This one calls herself Candy Girl... she's a Cwookiee..."
{Slide 15}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7a1a76f4bfbbee79a07617128b4b0a1c/339814eac0bf3678-11/s250x400/e473ef79d2a9fa11ab5aee1440e9f372dc57a497.jpg)
"Oh, this is interesting. This guy claims to be able to transform himself into any chemical element, using an artifact known as the Orb of Ra... Oh, but he wants our help in finding the Orb of Ra..."
{Slide 16}
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b5ec82f0bf2e957d50c823b36a5ed545/339814eac0bf3678-af/s250x400/fd1917fe3e95678584d107ac0d73d23f259f5fc2.jpg)
"This one calls herself Akris. She says she's a native of Earth, although she looks far from human. She writes she is 'a member of the Locust Army, awakened before my time, and seeking allies in executing my mission of vengeance and retribution...' I don't know what any of that means."
"He opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit," recited Polar Lass. "And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given great power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. It was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, nor any tree; but only those men which had not the seal of Righteousness in their foreheads. To them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented for five months: their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men; they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. They had breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. They had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months."
"Well, that's a pretty good description of her holo," said Lightning Lass. "But not really the kind of person I would choose for a roommate."
*
*
*
"Hmm... this next application is only six words," said Cosmic Boy. "Not even a holo.
'Chel-Eb of Rokyn. Usual Kryptonian powers'."
"That's not possible," said Star-Woman. "Rokynites never leave their homeworld."
"Shall we send him an invitation?" asked Cosmic Boy. "The return address is... He's been staying at The Grand Marshall Hotel, over in New Metropolis. We wouldn't even need to use the Pentachoron."
VIRTUAL TRYOUTS
{continued)
{Slide 09}
"This is Oddritu, a giant carnivorous plant from a world of giant carnivorous plants. Can I take a pass on this one myself?"
{Slide 10}
"And this is Cerise Bombe of Earth. She can... oh, there is a permanote attached to her UPID. 'Aberrant Psychological Profile.' Well, we can skip that one, too."
{Slide 11}
"And this application is from a White Warrior of Regulus Leon. I understand they are impressive fighters..."
"Absolutely not," said Korvea. "The Regulus Leons are skilled warriors, and the White Warriors are the elite. But they are absolutely brutal, without scruples, honor, or loyalty. They are the perfect mercenaries, if you want to hire killing machines. But we don't need them in our Super-Hero Club."
{Slide 12}
"Here is one claims to be immune to any toxin, either liquid or gas... "
{Slide 13}
"And this one claims that for every word she speaks, a precious gemstone drops from her mouth. Interesting, but not much good in a fight?"
{Slide 14}
"This one calls herself Candy Girl... she's a Cwookiee..."
{Slide 15}
"Oh, this is interesting. This guy claims to be able to transform himself into any chemical element, using an artifact known as the Orb of Ra... Oh, but he wants our help in finding the Orb of Ra..."
{Slide 16}
"This one calls herself Akris. She says she's a native of Earth, although she looks far from human. She writes she is 'a member of the Locust Army, awakened before my time, and seeking allies in executing my mission of vengeance and retribution...' I don't know what any of that means."
"He opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit," recited Polar Lass. "And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given great power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. It was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, nor any tree; but only those men which had not the seal of Righteousness in their foreheads. To them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented for five months: their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men; they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. They had breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. They had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months."
"Well, that's a pretty good description of her holo," said Lightning Lass. "But not really the kind of person I would choose for a roommate."
*
*
*
"Hmm... this next application is only six words," said Cosmic Boy. "Not even a holo.
'Chel-Eb of Rokyn. Usual Kryptonian powers'."
"That's not possible," said Star-Woman. "Rokynites never leave their homeworld."
"Shall we send him an invitation?" asked Cosmic Boy. "The return address is... He's been staying at The Grand Marshall Hotel, over in New Metropolis. We wouldn't even need to use the Pentachoron."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/11/22 03:15 PM
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHEL-EB OF ROKYN
He wore classic Kryptonian clothing. A turquoise 'Nehru'-style jacket with epaulets, a wide metallic belt, indigo boots, and indigo overpants. Evidently fashions on Rokyn had not changed in a thousand years or more.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c392b9439e4a7b88fede09c3c41491fa/e9a559a2df683780-76/s250x400/8a24850547806a0ec9e4c546f41af2518b05f7cf.jpg)
He hovered, toes pointed, about three inches off the ground.
"I've been to Rokyn. I thought emigration was strictly limited," said Star-Woman. "Even forbidden."
"I suffer from a rare disease," said Chel-Eb. "I do not believe it has a parallel among Terrans. But I think you would call it Congenital Atypical Adiposity."
"You gain weight uncontrollably," Ffiona translated.
"I am already at the Terran equivalent of two-hundred-fifty pounds," said Chel-Eb. "In another ten or fifteen years, I could top four hundred. After that..."
"And your condition could only be exacerbated by Rokyn's stronger gravity," Ten speculated. "I would assume it has already become difficult for you to move around on your homeworld without assistance."
Chel-Eb nodded. "When all other attempts at a cure failed, it was speculated that I might be helped by the super-abilities Kryptonians obtain under a yellow sun. I endured the arduous process of de-acclimating to Rokyn, and entered outer United Planets space. I find I am much more comfortable here. It is speculated my new physiology might even pause, or reverse my condition."
"Or," Ten replied. "Exposure to sub-yellow solar radiation could make it worse. You could accumulate mass even more rapidly."
"I am under observation by a group of Daxamite researchers," said Chel-Eb. "I will be receiving a complete check-up every six months."
"And you wish to join The Super-Hero Club because...?" asked Star-Woman.
"I have been living on Mars for two weeks now," said Chel-Eb. "With an enhanced Stipend from RokynGov. I have been exploring New Metropolis… and other Martian cities. It has been interesting. But these... 'super-powers'... are far beyond anything I could have imagined. I somehow feel I ought to put them to good use. To... do good."
"Exploring Martian cities unchaperoned could be dangerous," warned Ffiona. "Keep away from the Superman Museum in New Metropolis. They have all kinds of kryptonite samples there."
"'Mined on Rokyn itself,'" Chel-Eb quoted. "Not exactly true. I've been there. The Green and White samples are real enough. But Red and Gold K have short enough half-lives that they are vanishingly rare. And Rokyn, as you know, needs all the Gold K it can acquire. I'm afraid some of those samples at the Superman Museum are counterfeits."
"Let's give your Kryptonian powers a test," said Star-Woman. "A quick flying trip around Mars."
They took to the upper atmosphere, to avoid damage from shock-waves to things on the ground.
"Surely you can fly faster than this," said Star-Woman. "At this rate, it will take us over twenty minutes to circumnavigate Mars."
"They say flight is the hardest ability to master," said Chel-Eb. "Right now, if I try to exceed orbital velocity, I have trouble holding a steady course."
"Theoretically, as a Kryptonian, you ought to be able to access hyperspace, and fly to the stars under your own power,," said Star-Woman. "But you will need training. And some looking after, I think. Reason enough to have you join The Super-Hero Club. Let's go back."
"What do you think, Dorrit?" asked Star-Woman.
"I have no objection," said Saturn Girl. "He seems ingenuous and sincere, and as long as he can restrain his curiosity and x-ray vision, I say let him in."
"We’re family here," Star-Woman explained to Chel-Eb. "We treat one another with respect, and respect privacy, and assume goodwill from each other. You are not the only one with enhanced senses."
"I understand," said Chel-Eb.
"Have you thought of a super-hero name?" asked Star-Woman.
"Well, all things considered," said Chel-Eb, "I was thinking Fat Boy."
CHEL-EB OF ROKYN
He wore classic Kryptonian clothing. A turquoise 'Nehru'-style jacket with epaulets, a wide metallic belt, indigo boots, and indigo overpants. Evidently fashions on Rokyn had not changed in a thousand years or more.
He hovered, toes pointed, about three inches off the ground.
"I've been to Rokyn. I thought emigration was strictly limited," said Star-Woman. "Even forbidden."
"I suffer from a rare disease," said Chel-Eb. "I do not believe it has a parallel among Terrans. But I think you would call it Congenital Atypical Adiposity."
"You gain weight uncontrollably," Ffiona translated.
"I am already at the Terran equivalent of two-hundred-fifty pounds," said Chel-Eb. "In another ten or fifteen years, I could top four hundred. After that..."
"And your condition could only be exacerbated by Rokyn's stronger gravity," Ten speculated. "I would assume it has already become difficult for you to move around on your homeworld without assistance."
Chel-Eb nodded. "When all other attempts at a cure failed, it was speculated that I might be helped by the super-abilities Kryptonians obtain under a yellow sun. I endured the arduous process of de-acclimating to Rokyn, and entered outer United Planets space. I find I am much more comfortable here. It is speculated my new physiology might even pause, or reverse my condition."
"Or," Ten replied. "Exposure to sub-yellow solar radiation could make it worse. You could accumulate mass even more rapidly."
"I am under observation by a group of Daxamite researchers," said Chel-Eb. "I will be receiving a complete check-up every six months."
"And you wish to join The Super-Hero Club because...?" asked Star-Woman.
"I have been living on Mars for two weeks now," said Chel-Eb. "With an enhanced Stipend from RokynGov. I have been exploring New Metropolis… and other Martian cities. It has been interesting. But these... 'super-powers'... are far beyond anything I could have imagined. I somehow feel I ought to put them to good use. To... do good."
"Exploring Martian cities unchaperoned could be dangerous," warned Ffiona. "Keep away from the Superman Museum in New Metropolis. They have all kinds of kryptonite samples there."
"'Mined on Rokyn itself,'" Chel-Eb quoted. "Not exactly true. I've been there. The Green and White samples are real enough. But Red and Gold K have short enough half-lives that they are vanishingly rare. And Rokyn, as you know, needs all the Gold K it can acquire. I'm afraid some of those samples at the Superman Museum are counterfeits."
"Let's give your Kryptonian powers a test," said Star-Woman. "A quick flying trip around Mars."
They took to the upper atmosphere, to avoid damage from shock-waves to things on the ground.
"Surely you can fly faster than this," said Star-Woman. "At this rate, it will take us over twenty minutes to circumnavigate Mars."
"They say flight is the hardest ability to master," said Chel-Eb. "Right now, if I try to exceed orbital velocity, I have trouble holding a steady course."
"Theoretically, as a Kryptonian, you ought to be able to access hyperspace, and fly to the stars under your own power,," said Star-Woman. "But you will need training. And some looking after, I think. Reason enough to have you join The Super-Hero Club. Let's go back."
"What do you think, Dorrit?" asked Star-Woman.
"I have no objection," said Saturn Girl. "He seems ingenuous and sincere, and as long as he can restrain his curiosity and x-ray vision, I say let him in."
"We’re family here," Star-Woman explained to Chel-Eb. "We treat one another with respect, and respect privacy, and assume goodwill from each other. You are not the only one with enhanced senses."
"I understand," said Chel-Eb.
"Have you thought of a super-hero name?" asked Star-Woman.
"Well, all things considered," said Chel-Eb, "I was thinking Fat Boy."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/18/22 10:17 AM
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
WIND WIZARDESS
“I have an old Earth-riddle for you,” said Shrinking Violet.
A stick I found that weighed two pound:
I sawed it up one day
In pieces eight of equal weight!
How much did each piece weigh?
(Everybody says "a quarter of a pound," which is wrong.)
“Well,” said Ten, “The last line tells you that this is not just a whimsical way of asking ‘What is thirty-two divided by eight’, which would be four. Four ounces, incorporating the dimensionality. I wonder why Terrans gave up their convenient hexadecimal system of weights and measures? But the question must relate to a real-world scenario. Puzzling. It is not possible to divide a physical object into exactly eight equal parts. Or even two-- ‘sawing’-- really, any method of physical division-- requires the severing of chemical bonds, which results in the creation of innumerable particles in addition to more massive sections. So the ‘stick’ in this riddle must represent some non-physical object or property. And I imagine the use of ‘pound’ would be metaphorical as well. It might refer to the division of nations, property, or fortunes, but unfortunately I am not sufficiently familiar with the minutiae of Terran history to make a reasonable guess.”
“Well, the answer is the book is:”
[/i] In Shylock's bargain for flesh was found
No mention of the blood that flowed around:
So when the stick was sawed in eight,
The sawdust lost diminished from the weight[/i]
“An incomplete analysis,” replied Ten. “I am familiar with the Shakespearian reference: Shylock was not permitted to take his contractual ‘pound of flesh’; perhaps the author means to say that the scenario described is impossible in the natural world.”
Ten tapped on his ubiquitous computer screen for a moment. A text in old Terran appeared.
“Your riddle is from a work called ‘Puzzles from Wonderland’, by the 19th-century logician Charles Dodgson," mused Ten. "Interesting. It is the second in a series, the first being:
Dreaming of apples on a wall,
And dreaming often, dear,
I dreamed that, if I counted all,
—How many would appear?’”
Ten burst into a brief spasm of laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Back to business. We have an interview with Wind Wizardess tomorrow, I have completed a cursory background check, and have found nothing out of the ordinary.”
"Do me a favor," said Shrinking Violet. "Could you dig a little deeper? I'm feeling a little suspicious."
"On what basis?" asked Ten.
"Ariel Herrera." said Shrinking Violet. "It's a very common name. There must be hundreds of Ariel Herreras in the U.P.-- both male and female."
"You are suspicious because she has a common name?" asked Ten.
"I know it sounds silly," said Shrinking Violet. "But the Terran colonies on Thanar are an out-of-the-way place, and would be easier to hack into and create a false identity there than from, say, Earth."
"I will look again," said Ten, tapping on his screen. This time a detail of coding was displayed. "Interesting. Your Krill intuition is correct. This Ariel Herrera is a false identity... of course, there is no way to be completely sure of its origins, but the hack has all the earmarks of the warworld, Tyrazz."
"Lamda Lass," said Shrinking Violet. "Ojina Einstein. Her powers of space manipulation could easily be disguised as wind powers."
"Let us not jump to conclusions," said Ten. "Scientifically, we ought to run a biometric comparison with the UP database with appropriate controls..."
"This isn't science," said Shrinking Violet. "This is a detective story. And that's what detectives do, jump to conclusions based on insufficient data. Besides, couldn't they fake biometrics, too?"
"Only within limits," said Ten. "For example, if I altered your biometric scan to say you were ten feet tall, no one would believe it when they met you."
"Do me a favor," said Shrinking Violet. "Run your complete scan, but compare the biometrics for Ojina Einstein and our Ariel Herrera first."
"This is contrary to good scientific practice. I ought to set up random populations in a double blind…," said Ten. "Fascinating. Your detective instincts are vindicated. There is a seven-sigma probability that Ariel Herrera and Ojina Einstein are one and the same."
"But why would she be coming here?" Shrinking Violet wondered. "A second tryout? That seems unlikely. Infiltration? How long could she keep her identity secret living in such close quarters with us-- even if we ultimately accepted her?"
"The Pentachoron," said Ten. "It has capabilities beyond what you can imagine-- capabilities suppressed by ColuGov and the Circadians. Properly accessed, it would magnify Lambda Lass' natural powers tremendously. And she does not even need to come to Mars. Once she makes contact with the Pentachoron-- once we attempt a lock to transport her here for the interview-- she could... I need to go talk to the Circadians." Ten rushed out.
o o o
All fifteen members of The Super-Hero Club were gathered around the Pentachoron to welcome the 'Wind Wizardess'. The two Circadians were at their posts. A circular spot on the sand began to glow. A female form appeared. Simultaneously, a second Pentachoron materialized opposite the first.
"She is now frozen in a single moment of spacetime," said Circadia Ascheon.
"Summoning the Science Police now," said Circadia Segundus.
Two SPs headquartered at Metropolis Earth appeared, with a power-dampening containment tube between them. They lifted the motionless super-villain into the tube. The second Pentachoron vanished.
"Ojina Einstein of Faustos. Identity verified, Warrant executed," said one of the SPs. "Thank you, heroes." Then they vanished as well.
"Oh, that was exciting," said Circadia Ascheon. "Just imagine! Bringing a fugitive to justice!"
"I think I will have to have a little lie-down," said Circadia Segundus.
"Agreed. Myself as well. Perhaps for the rest of the day," said Circadia Ascheon.
"I have some concerns, just handing her over to EarthGov," said Korvea.
"Since the disaster on the Dominion homeworld," said Star-Woman, "There have been some remarkable changes on Earth. The mysterious disappearance of President Bridges. Recurrent, growing support for the re-institution of elections through the World Computer. The mysterious disappearance of the New Justice League of Earth. A number of more the conservative Earth Supreme Justices suddenly retiring-- and disappearing. The simultaneous financial collapse into bankruptcy of the Earth-First, neo-Niedrich, Devolutionary Neanderthal, and Ogilvy Society movements. Not that any of them actually had any obvious or direct connections with the Dominators, of course. Possibly a pure coincidence of timing. But I do tend to trust EarthGov a lot more just at this moment in time."
WIND WIZARDESS
“I have an old Earth-riddle for you,” said Shrinking Violet.
A stick I found that weighed two pound:
I sawed it up one day
In pieces eight of equal weight!
How much did each piece weigh?
(Everybody says "a quarter of a pound," which is wrong.)
“Well,” said Ten, “The last line tells you that this is not just a whimsical way of asking ‘What is thirty-two divided by eight’, which would be four. Four ounces, incorporating the dimensionality. I wonder why Terrans gave up their convenient hexadecimal system of weights and measures? But the question must relate to a real-world scenario. Puzzling. It is not possible to divide a physical object into exactly eight equal parts. Or even two-- ‘sawing’-- really, any method of physical division-- requires the severing of chemical bonds, which results in the creation of innumerable particles in addition to more massive sections. So the ‘stick’ in this riddle must represent some non-physical object or property. And I imagine the use of ‘pound’ would be metaphorical as well. It might refer to the division of nations, property, or fortunes, but unfortunately I am not sufficiently familiar with the minutiae of Terran history to make a reasonable guess.”
“Well, the answer is the book is:”
[/i] In Shylock's bargain for flesh was found
No mention of the blood that flowed around:
So when the stick was sawed in eight,
The sawdust lost diminished from the weight[/i]
“An incomplete analysis,” replied Ten. “I am familiar with the Shakespearian reference: Shylock was not permitted to take his contractual ‘pound of flesh’; perhaps the author means to say that the scenario described is impossible in the natural world.”
Ten tapped on his ubiquitous computer screen for a moment. A text in old Terran appeared.
“Your riddle is from a work called ‘Puzzles from Wonderland’, by the 19th-century logician Charles Dodgson," mused Ten. "Interesting. It is the second in a series, the first being:
Dreaming of apples on a wall,
And dreaming often, dear,
I dreamed that, if I counted all,
—How many would appear?’”
Ten burst into a brief spasm of laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Back to business. We have an interview with Wind Wizardess tomorrow, I have completed a cursory background check, and have found nothing out of the ordinary.”
"Do me a favor," said Shrinking Violet. "Could you dig a little deeper? I'm feeling a little suspicious."
"On what basis?" asked Ten.
"Ariel Herrera." said Shrinking Violet. "It's a very common name. There must be hundreds of Ariel Herreras in the U.P.-- both male and female."
"You are suspicious because she has a common name?" asked Ten.
"I know it sounds silly," said Shrinking Violet. "But the Terran colonies on Thanar are an out-of-the-way place, and would be easier to hack into and create a false identity there than from, say, Earth."
"I will look again," said Ten, tapping on his screen. This time a detail of coding was displayed. "Interesting. Your Krill intuition is correct. This Ariel Herrera is a false identity... of course, there is no way to be completely sure of its origins, but the hack has all the earmarks of the warworld, Tyrazz."
"Lamda Lass," said Shrinking Violet. "Ojina Einstein. Her powers of space manipulation could easily be disguised as wind powers."
"Let us not jump to conclusions," said Ten. "Scientifically, we ought to run a biometric comparison with the UP database with appropriate controls..."
"This isn't science," said Shrinking Violet. "This is a detective story. And that's what detectives do, jump to conclusions based on insufficient data. Besides, couldn't they fake biometrics, too?"
"Only within limits," said Ten. "For example, if I altered your biometric scan to say you were ten feet tall, no one would believe it when they met you."
"Do me a favor," said Shrinking Violet. "Run your complete scan, but compare the biometrics for Ojina Einstein and our Ariel Herrera first."
"This is contrary to good scientific practice. I ought to set up random populations in a double blind…," said Ten. "Fascinating. Your detective instincts are vindicated. There is a seven-sigma probability that Ariel Herrera and Ojina Einstein are one and the same."
"But why would she be coming here?" Shrinking Violet wondered. "A second tryout? That seems unlikely. Infiltration? How long could she keep her identity secret living in such close quarters with us-- even if we ultimately accepted her?"
"The Pentachoron," said Ten. "It has capabilities beyond what you can imagine-- capabilities suppressed by ColuGov and the Circadians. Properly accessed, it would magnify Lambda Lass' natural powers tremendously. And she does not even need to come to Mars. Once she makes contact with the Pentachoron-- once we attempt a lock to transport her here for the interview-- she could... I need to go talk to the Circadians." Ten rushed out.
o o o
All fifteen members of The Super-Hero Club were gathered around the Pentachoron to welcome the 'Wind Wizardess'. The two Circadians were at their posts. A circular spot on the sand began to glow. A female form appeared. Simultaneously, a second Pentachoron materialized opposite the first.
"She is now frozen in a single moment of spacetime," said Circadia Ascheon.
"Summoning the Science Police now," said Circadia Segundus.
Two SPs headquartered at Metropolis Earth appeared, with a power-dampening containment tube between them. They lifted the motionless super-villain into the tube. The second Pentachoron vanished.
"Ojina Einstein of Faustos. Identity verified, Warrant executed," said one of the SPs. "Thank you, heroes." Then they vanished as well.
"Oh, that was exciting," said Circadia Ascheon. "Just imagine! Bringing a fugitive to justice!"
"I think I will have to have a little lie-down," said Circadia Segundus.
"Agreed. Myself as well. Perhaps for the rest of the day," said Circadia Ascheon.
"I have some concerns, just handing her over to EarthGov," said Korvea.
"Since the disaster on the Dominion homeworld," said Star-Woman, "There have been some remarkable changes on Earth. The mysterious disappearance of President Bridges. Recurrent, growing support for the re-institution of elections through the World Computer. The mysterious disappearance of the New Justice League of Earth. A number of more the conservative Earth Supreme Justices suddenly retiring-- and disappearing. The simultaneous financial collapse into bankruptcy of the Earth-First, neo-Niedrich, Devolutionary Neanderthal, and Ogilvy Society movements. Not that any of them actually had any obvious or direct connections with the Dominators, of course. Possibly a pure coincidence of timing. But I do tend to trust EarthGov a lot more just at this moment in time."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 04/25/22 04:13 AM
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THOU SHALT KNOW THE MAN BY THE ATHENIAN GARMENTS HE HATH ON
"Someone just appeared in the woods beyond the Clubhouse," said Fat Boy.
"Vesta has detected a short-range teleporter," said Ten.
"Auberon Tyrson," said Shrinking Violet.
"An unwarranted conclusion,," said Ten. "But I do not discount Eulia’s detective instincts."
"If Lambda Lass was here, could Auberon be far behind?" asked Shrinking Violet.
Fat Boy took off towards the woods at super-speed. "Wait," cried Star-Woman, too late. There was a thunderous crash, and a moment later, the Rokynite soared into the air, his flight powers out of control. Star-Woman went up after him.
Meanwhile, on the ground, a small, mostly spherical golden object approached Vesta. It was only about a quarter of the size of Ten's robo-nanny, but had a nasty-looking barrel attached.
"That's a Tyrazzite gun-hand," said Lightning Lass.
The gun fired, but was suddenly enveloped in a glowing, yellow-white sphere. It fell to the ground, scorched and smoking.
"Inverse Coluan shielding," Ten explained. "Thank you, Vesta."
High in the Martian atmosphere, Star-Woman instructed Chel-Eb: "You need to get control of your anti-gravity. Level off."
"But how..." asked Fat Boy.
"You are much stronger, faster, and more durable than Auberon," Star-Woman explained. "But he is better trained, and had the element of surprise. Auberon is also also stronger, faster, and more durable than anyone else on our team. He is a deadly opponent. Think before you act... but think fast."
"I can take him down," said Fat Boy. "I have the power."
"We have plenty of power on our side. But so does he. You could win by brute force, but the trick is to protect everyone else from injury."
"They are trying to trap him somehow," said Fat Boy, leveling off, and gazing at the ground.
"Polar Lass has frozen him in ice," said Star-Woman. "But that will slow him down, it won't hold him for long. He will shatter his ice-prison, and you need to protect the other Members from the flying shards. Can you do wide-angle heat vision?"
"I've never tried," said Fat Boy.
"Then target each fragment quickly, with super-speed," she ordered. "See what Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad are doing? In that configuration, Pol can create a containment field for Dacey's lightning, and turn it into a beta-particle beam. That has a nasty kick."
"Are they trying to kill him?" asked Fat Boy, subliming the exploding ice.
"No, he's too tough for that," said Star-Woman. "They are trying to incapacitate his equipment-- he probably has a lot of small, weaponized electronics all over him."
"What is Hillary doing?" asked Fat Boy.
"What he does best," said Star-Woman. "A lot of Tyrazzite technology is self-repairing, so he is eating the gun-hand while it's temporarily offline. Phantom Girl will be sneaking up behind Auberon, either underground or through the Phantom Zone, in another attempt to completely de-weaponize him. Unfortunately, it also looks like he has now nearly made it to hand-to-hand range with the group. Do you think you can relieve him of any surviving weaponry at super-speed?"
"I can move my hands pretty fast even when I'm standing still," said Chel-Eb, and flew down at the villain. He tore off what he could find, and tossed the electronic debris in Matter-Eater Lad Two's direction. Star-Woman suddenly appeared behind Fat Boy, and pulled him away. There was another particle-beam attack from Lightning Lass, then Auberon vanished.
"Where did he go?" asked Fat Boy. "You said they weren't trying to kill him."
"He's not dead," said Star-Woman. "Just transported. Teleported."
"But I'm sure I got his short-range transporter device," said Fat Boy.
"That you did," said Star-Woman. "But there are other transporters in the area."
Auberon Tyrson woke up. The sky was turquoise, the sun was green. He was lying on a golden street, as smooth as glass, with immense skyscrapers towering above him. Except for their size, he would have thought they were fragments of computer chips. He tingled and ached all over.
On one of the smaller, squatter buildings sat a gigantic young woman, at least a hundred meters tall. She smiled down at him.
"I'm supposed to make sure you don't try to escape," said Shrinking Violet.
Ten set the little flask on the table. "It's a miniature reconstruction of the area I grew up in on Colu," he explained. "I have Vesta II monitoring, and Shrinking Violet can contact us on her flight ring if there is trouble."
"The SPs on Earth say it will take at least a couple of hours to prepare another stasis chamber," said Star-Woman.
"We recovered two 'most wanted' escapees in one day," said Korvea. "They have a right to be unprepared."
THOU SHALT KNOW THE MAN BY THE ATHENIAN GARMENTS HE HATH ON
"Someone just appeared in the woods beyond the Clubhouse," said Fat Boy.
"Vesta has detected a short-range teleporter," said Ten.
"Auberon Tyrson," said Shrinking Violet.
"An unwarranted conclusion,," said Ten. "But I do not discount Eulia’s detective instincts."
"If Lambda Lass was here, could Auberon be far behind?" asked Shrinking Violet.
Fat Boy took off towards the woods at super-speed. "Wait," cried Star-Woman, too late. There was a thunderous crash, and a moment later, the Rokynite soared into the air, his flight powers out of control. Star-Woman went up after him.
Meanwhile, on the ground, a small, mostly spherical golden object approached Vesta. It was only about a quarter of the size of Ten's robo-nanny, but had a nasty-looking barrel attached.
"That's a Tyrazzite gun-hand," said Lightning Lass.
The gun fired, but was suddenly enveloped in a glowing, yellow-white sphere. It fell to the ground, scorched and smoking.
"Inverse Coluan shielding," Ten explained. "Thank you, Vesta."
High in the Martian atmosphere, Star-Woman instructed Chel-Eb: "You need to get control of your anti-gravity. Level off."
"But how..." asked Fat Boy.
"You are much stronger, faster, and more durable than Auberon," Star-Woman explained. "But he is better trained, and had the element of surprise. Auberon is also also stronger, faster, and more durable than anyone else on our team. He is a deadly opponent. Think before you act... but think fast."
"I can take him down," said Fat Boy. "I have the power."
"We have plenty of power on our side. But so does he. You could win by brute force, but the trick is to protect everyone else from injury."
"They are trying to trap him somehow," said Fat Boy, leveling off, and gazing at the ground.
"Polar Lass has frozen him in ice," said Star-Woman. "But that will slow him down, it won't hold him for long. He will shatter his ice-prison, and you need to protect the other Members from the flying shards. Can you do wide-angle heat vision?"
"I've never tried," said Fat Boy.
"Then target each fragment quickly, with super-speed," she ordered. "See what Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad are doing? In that configuration, Pol can create a containment field for Dacey's lightning, and turn it into a beta-particle beam. That has a nasty kick."
"Are they trying to kill him?" asked Fat Boy, subliming the exploding ice.
"No, he's too tough for that," said Star-Woman. "They are trying to incapacitate his equipment-- he probably has a lot of small, weaponized electronics all over him."
"What is Hillary doing?" asked Fat Boy.
"What he does best," said Star-Woman. "A lot of Tyrazzite technology is self-repairing, so he is eating the gun-hand while it's temporarily offline. Phantom Girl will be sneaking up behind Auberon, either underground or through the Phantom Zone, in another attempt to completely de-weaponize him. Unfortunately, it also looks like he has now nearly made it to hand-to-hand range with the group. Do you think you can relieve him of any surviving weaponry at super-speed?"
"I can move my hands pretty fast even when I'm standing still," said Chel-Eb, and flew down at the villain. He tore off what he could find, and tossed the electronic debris in Matter-Eater Lad Two's direction. Star-Woman suddenly appeared behind Fat Boy, and pulled him away. There was another particle-beam attack from Lightning Lass, then Auberon vanished.
"Where did he go?" asked Fat Boy. "You said they weren't trying to kill him."
"He's not dead," said Star-Woman. "Just transported. Teleported."
"But I'm sure I got his short-range transporter device," said Fat Boy.
"That you did," said Star-Woman. "But there are other transporters in the area."
Auberon Tyrson woke up. The sky was turquoise, the sun was green. He was lying on a golden street, as smooth as glass, with immense skyscrapers towering above him. Except for their size, he would have thought they were fragments of computer chips. He tingled and ached all over.
On one of the smaller, squatter buildings sat a gigantic young woman, at least a hundred meters tall. She smiled down at him.
"I'm supposed to make sure you don't try to escape," said Shrinking Violet.
Ten set the little flask on the table. "It's a miniature reconstruction of the area I grew up in on Colu," he explained. "I have Vesta II monitoring, and Shrinking Violet can contact us on her flight ring if there is trouble."
"The SPs on Earth say it will take at least a couple of hours to prepare another stasis chamber," said Star-Woman.
"We recovered two 'most wanted' escapees in one day," said Korvea. "They have a right to be unprepared."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/02/22 02:55 PM
Wednesday, May 2nd, 3O22
WORLD BUILDING
The United Planets in the K1 and K2 Paracosms
Preface:
I'm not telling these stories to you. I'm telling these stories to myself.
The Earth-K paracosms are little highly-detailed head-canons I carry around. I spend a lot of my free time there.
Although heavily based on the Silver-Age Legion universes, they naturally contain many expanded details and modifications of my own.
Some of these details have been referenced in the texts of my Young Legion and Rainbow Girl tales, but a great deal of it has not. What follows is a brain dump of miscellaneous head canon about some prominent U.P. worlds.
FWIW here is a little peek into my fantasy life.
Winath: {Stellar Primary: Amarta}
Korbal, the Lightning World, is a planetoid also located in the Amartan System.
Lightning Ring Farms is one of the most profitable homesteads on Winath. This is partially due to the fact that the Ranzz siblings left the soil on their ancestral farm to lie fallow for some two decades, re-invigorating the soil. Over the years, a small wooded area has grown up on the property.
Winath differs from other agricultural worlds like Mardru and the Manna systems in that their farming methods are more "natural" and "organic". Of course, this being the 31st century, Winath utilizes weather-controlling Ziggurats, stationed across the planet and administered by WinathGov, and mechanical robo-bees for pollination, so "natural" and "organic" differs from our 21st-century understanding.
At the very least, though, it does mean that Winath does not use growth accelerants and ultra-ethylenes the way Mardru does.
There are plenty of GMO grown on Winath, although this is considered "natural".
Meatmelons, for example, externally resemble watermelon, honeydew, or casaba, but internally produce animal fats and proteins in their flesh. There are numerous varieties, which imitate a wide range of Terran and non-Terran meat products. Hammelon, grown in hydroponic salt swamps, can be eaten without cooking. There are bovimelon, porcimelon, ovimelon, and cervimelon varieties. It is even theoretically possible to create a custom meatmelon from one's own unique proteins.
The coloring and patterning on the rinds are unique identifiers for each variety.
Braal:
The planetary wars of the 28th century were followed by the Great Rebuilding, both with the reunifying the United Planets and the physical structures destroyed during the war. Braal became a wealthy planet, as a result of high demand for Braalien construction workers with their powerful magnetic abilities.
However, the construction boom did not last forever, and by the mid-3Oth century, Braal was in a deep economic depression. By the beginning of the 31st-century, and new expansiona on the borders of UP space, Braal began to recover.
One industry unaffected by the Braalien slump was Magno-Ball, a popular entertainment across the United Planets beginning in the first half of the 3Oth century.
Hu Krinn was the First Baseman for the 2938 Championship Braalien Steelwolves Magno-Ball team. He was one-third of what is considered the greatest infield lineup in the history of the sport, with Second Basewoman Peggi Su Watt and Hal Ideno on Third Base.
Some twenty years later, and shortly after his joining the Legion, Rokk sponsored his parents and his brother Pol as immigrants to Earth, and the family settled in Metropolis.
Kathoon:
Native Kathooni naturally possess infra-red vision.
As Terran descendants, they also possess vestigial daylight-vision, and often find daylight on other worlds optically painful. When offworld, many Kathooni wear blackout "contact lenses" which cover the entire eye. This is especially true of the elderly.
Durla:
There are quite a number of uzolg-myrx: "families", "tribes", or "clans" on Durla, each with their own signature default form. The most numerous are the cthunic tentacular clan, but the United Planets has standardized the offworld appearance of all Durlans as the orange-skinned, pointy-eared version-- the second most populous clan on Durla. The Chameleon Men of Action Comics #287 are yet another Durlan clan. The Super-Hero Club's Chameleon belongs to an uzolg-myrx whose default form resembles Roswell Greys. (Zeta Reticulans)
There are quite a number of Durlan expatriates in the UP, as exile is a popular form of punishment on Durla. And there are a great many ways to violate Durlan law and custom.
Somewhat paradoxically, while Durlans are shape-shifters, their dietary requirements are quite rigid. All food must be somewhat pre-digested, and they require colonies of living bacteria or fungi with each meal to assist in further digestion and assimilation. Some favorite Earth foods are raw bread dough, miso paste, tempeh, kimchi, poi, yoghurt, lutefisk, sauerkraut, and beer. They also require regular ingestion of copper acetates, which are used like salt.
There is a Durlan fruit known as gnelo which alone provides all necessary nutrients, if eaten with a copper spoon.
Carggg: {Stellar Primaries Sanshimai}
The planet was originally colonized by a Terran contingent that was primarily of Japanese origin, although there are members of the population resembling pretty much all Terran races and ethnic groups. Still, remnants of Japanese culture, especially food and casual (non-interlac) language are still in evidence.
The radiation from Carggg's triple sun endows the native Terrans with triplicating powers at birth, and to a greater or lesser degree, all animal life on Carggg.
The Carggan "tripli-cat" and "three-headed vulture" (also called the vuvuzela vulture, for its yelping cry), as examples, are only able to triplicate from the neck up.
When triplicated, Carggans will temporarily age at three times the rate of ordinary Terrans
This is just one reason that the triplicating power is highly regulated in Cargggan culture, by etiquette, tradition, superstition, and even law.
The name of the planet Carggg derives from the Karagawas, one of the "first families" who were the original settlers of the planet. The triplicates in the Super-Hero Club, Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffarr, are descendants of the Karagawas.
Orzde: {Stellar Primary: Irulan}
Also known as Irulan III (Imsk is Irulan IV) it is populated by descendants of the Krill, an ancient race most remembered for the destructive galactic Krill-Llorn War. The people of Orzde resemble 21st-century Earth polynesians: Tall, dark skinned, dark-eyed, and broad-shouldered. Many are over two meters tall. Contrariwise, Imskians are redheaded, green-eyed, and much smaller, seldom reaching much more than one-and-one-half meters in height.
Outside the big cities, the farming communities of Orzde are reminiscent of the farms of old Scotland, with stone cottages on the farms and broad moorlands between the cultivated fields.
There are a number of "fractal cities" on Orzde, with neighborhoods where everyone lives at 5O% size, containing neighborhoods where everyone lives at 25% size, and so on. Conceptually, this would allow a city to contain infinitely many inhabitants, but things begin to break down at the quantum level.
Orzdeans and Imskians must have regular infusions of energy harvested from the "space-dragons" which roam their system, or they will gradually llose their shrinking abilities. They must also have regular exposure to the rays of the white-dwarf-star sun Irulan.
While resembling humans in appearance, Krill have one distinct anatomical difference. Krill males nurse their children after birth, while Krill females take a rest, and both sexes are built for it. Krill males are also smaller and more slender, while Krill females are more robust.
Thus Shrinking Violet is technically male, and Micro Lad is technically female, at least from the perspective of what gamete they produce.
Other Krill worlds include Torad, Ikros, Hajor, and the Juno colony in the Sol System.
Bgztl: {Stellar Primary: Gnohho}
The alternate dimension in which Bgztl exists is known as "Bgztlrside". There is an entire star system Bgztrlside which parallels the Solar system. (Known Bgztlrside as the Gnohhon System)
Mercury = Lbzqbk
Venus = Gnlzo Xvtzb
Earth = Bgztl
Mars = Gzbk
Asteroid Belt = Xbqbtbz (Bgzltrside, this is a full-blown planet, between the size of Earth and Venus.)
Jupiter = Rbjk
Saturn = Yzopok
Uranius = Ojzgpok
Neptune = Nokbvxop
Pluto = no equivalent
There is an equivalent to the Oort cloud, but these objects have no particular collective name.
In the 31st century, Gnlzo Xvtzb, Gzbk, and Xbqbtbz have all been colonized by the Bgztlr, as have moons of Rbjk and Yzopok, although their populations are not as large as those on Venus, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Bgztlrside and Earthside are separated by the Phantom Zone, also called the Buffer Zone. Occasionally elderly Bgztlrs will voluntarily enter the Buffer Zone and never return, existing as immortal, geriatric but unaging phantoms, observing their descendants over the generations. This behaviour is generally considered cowardly and shameful in Bgztlr culture. Nevertheless, there are probably millions of permanent phantoms "haunting" Bgztl's Buffer Zone.
All Bgztlrs possess a kind of 4D-vision, able to see through, or rather around, solid objects. Visual acuity over distance falls off rapidly when using 4D-vision (as the cube rather than the square). Nevertheless, homes on Bgztl are set farther apart, and rather further back from the street than on Earth.
Laws concerning privacy are rather strict in Bgztlr culture.
Mercury: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
The Medivac lab, as well as all other Terran scientific installations on Mercury have been permanently closed, the colonist populations resettled, and other United Planets personnel reassigned. The planet is now wholly under the governance of the native Thermoids. Negotiations for their entry into the United Planets are ongoing.
Venus: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
By the 31st century, Venus has been completely terraformed. As part of the process, its spin had to be accelerated, so that a Venusian day is now only 27 hours (as opposed to 5800 hours in the 21st century), making just 2OO Venusian days in the Venusian year.
Venusian gravity is 90% Earth-normal. The average atmospheric pressure is 3x that of Earth.
In order to generate tides in the new oceans, it was necessary to give Venus a moon. To accomplish this, the asteroid Ceres was moved in from its orbit. The Cereal "month" is only three days long, and Ceres is so tiny it appears from the surface of Venus as only a bright point of light.
Note: the carbon dioxide removed from Venus’ atmosphere during terraforming has been sequestered on Ceres, mostly as mountains of crystalline calcite and magnesite.
Juno: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
3 Juno is an asteroid in the Sol system with a surface area of about 80,000 square miles, about the size of Nebraska.
Its gravitational force is about 1/8Oth that of Earth's. Escape velocity is ~400 mph, so an earthman could not just jump out into space, but could certainly leap eight or ten story buildings in a single bound. An ordinary bullet fired from an ordinary hand-gun would fly away and never return.
It hosts an ancient colony of Krill-descended humanoids.
Juno was known in the 2Oth century as the home of Power Boy, Zarl Vorne of Atlantis. His powers far exceeded what could be expected of an ordinary earthling, even in Juno's low gravity. For example, he was able to fly unaided through space, and lift objects massing hundreds of tonnes.
Superboy discovered that his presence (and by extension, the presence of any Kryptonian) weakened Zarl, causing him to lose his super-powers, and ultimately to become so weak he could not even stand in Juno's low gravity.
Half of Juno was once covered with a "creeping jungle", which threatened to eventually engulf the entire planet. In the mid-2Oth century, Superboy cut the world in half, and flung the "creeping jungle" half into the sun. He later replaced the missing half with other material from the asteroid belt.
(italicized text is silver-age canon, based on Superboy #52)
In the 31st century, the Juno Colony remains the home of a few million Krill.
Jupiter: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
The four largest "Galilean" moons of Jupiter are Io, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede.
Io is the home of the Themiscryan Diaspora. (They paved Paradise Island and put up a parking lot)
Callisto once hosted an experimental recombinant DNA facility. This is the origin of, for example, the Jovian Attack Squid, Camelephant, Helgramaxis, and Montressor. These were originally intended as bio-weapons to be used in the 28th-century Terran wars, but the wars ended before they could be used.. While these researches are no longer ongoing, there is still the small Jupiter Zoo And Wild Animal Park for the remaining Jovian beasts.
Europa has a great ocean beneath a miles-thick ice sheet. Strange sea life dwells there in the depths, mostly near-microscopic in nature. There are also, deep beneath the surface ice, larger oyster-like filter-feeders, but they are non-sapient, and visually indistinguishable from rocks.
Callisto, Ganymede and Europa are for the most part uninhabited by Terrans in the 31st century, with the exception of several small scientific research stations.
One of the Galilean moons was once the site of New Bokk, but there is no remaining archaeological evidence, and even the Bokkites of New Titan do not remember.
In the late 31st century, it was (will be?) discovered that Jupiter itself is inhabited by a bizarre form of hydrogen-methane-based gaseous life. The top-tier predators are known as the Jovian Gas Giants, and are border-line sapient.
Neptune and Uranius: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
Domed cloud cities (Wolkenstaedte) float high in the atmospheres of each world. With a population smaller than the Venusian nations, but larger than the Martian colonies, there are just over a billion Terrans on both worlds combined.
Deep within the clouds of both worlds, 'diamond rain' falls from the methane-rich atmosphere, which is harvested by "diamond nets" which draw the precious stones up to the cities for processing and export.
While ordinary diamonds themselves are common and worth little in the 31st century, the particular imperfections in these naturally formed diamonds of Neptune and Uranius are perfect for the manufacture of memory crystals, and are used all over the United Planets.
(Neptune and Uranius are not the only source of memory crystal diamonds; there are plenty of similar worlds throughout the U.P. But it is still a lucrative industry, with room for many players.)
The bizarre conditions of these worlds also have led to numerous natural mutations in some of the Terran (and some non-Terran) inhabitants, including Ronn-Karr of Neptune, the infamous super-villain.
Uranius houses a Museum of Forbidden Weapons, a popular attraction on many worlds.
The First Church of Neptune is one of the Solar Systems preeminent charitable organizations, ranked alongside the Red Tesseract and United Planets Way. Congregations exist on Earth and Uranius as well.
Lupra:
Inhabited by non-Terran, non-Krill humanoids. Their physiology nevertheless utilizes ATGC DNA. Their interior physiology most parallels that of Terran snakes.
They are known as Lupracons.
Shwar:
Shwarans are tall, slender humanoids with pupil-less eyes and large pointed ears.They have some characteristic biological differences from Terrans and Krill-descended humanoids. For example, their DNA is composed entirely of unique nucleotides (That is, not adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine). The proteins in their bodies are right-handed, and the sugars in their bodies are left-handed, as opposed to around 80% of the galactic population. This makes dining out on other worlds problematic.
Their skin is made of bands of keratin, similar to sharkskin. Their bones are not primarily calcium, but are composed of woven carbon fullerenes, making them flexible and tough. The Shwaran atmosphere is notable for its lower percentage of oxygen.
Shwarans are characteristically as xenophobic as Daxamites, if not even moreso. Very few Shwarans have ever left their homeworld. One exception is Staq Mavlen, who has made a comfortable living selling his interplanetary travelogs. Shwarans may be naturally xenophobic, but are more than equally curious. Lurid tales of the fabulous dangers of interplanetary travel are particularly well received by the masses.
Cintos:
Another extra-dimensional world (like Bgztl and Teall), its inhabitants are made of solid light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU6t8QvGZmA&ab_channel=TheScienceAsylum
And are capable of transforming into ordinary, non-solid light.
Quanto of the Taurus Gang was from Cintos. Although not generally known, Starfinger's agents Starlight and Starbright are also Cintosian.
Lallor:
By the mid-thirty-first century, Lallor is a dead and uninhabitable world, due to the Second Nuclear War.
A small number of Lallorans were off-planet during the apocalypse. Floyd Belkin is employed as a casino courier on Ventura.
For several years, Somi Gan kept herself “alive” with her animation powers. She even re-animated Ord Quelu, and by having the zombie replicate the powers of Duplicate Girl and Chameleon Boy, gave the appearance that the population of Lallor had survived. However, this facade eventually overtaxed her powers, and she ultimately succumbed to PTSD and psychosis, and she and Lallor reverted to their natural state as a radioactive corpse.
Pretzor:
Approximately the size of Earth, it is a watery world of some twenty-five million small islands.
Some islands are heavily colonized, others inhabited by a single family, others entirely uninhabited and unexplored.
Morning and evening, there are a lot of misty rainbows.
The largest is only about fifty miles square, somewhat smaller than Staten Island. Nevertheless, it hosts the capital city of Abracada, home to some one million residents. As humans have a preference for gathering in large numbers, Abracada has been extending its reach into the surrounding sea, with a number of floating villages attached to the main island with arching bridges.
Some younger Pretzorans have undergone genetic surgery, allowing them various aquatic adaptations. These modified humans are extending the population into underwater cities.
Jeem Rehtu and his wife Jhina live in Abracada, at least on Earth-K2.
The twelve Rehtu children, ranging in age from thirty-five to fifteen, are Jeem Jr.(son), Jaak (son), and Jhyyll (daughter) (twins), Jeeth (son), Jhiigg (daughter), and Jhyyxx (daughter) (twins), Jiip (son), and Joof (son) (twins), Jhoodee (daughter), Jhubilee (daughter), Jhuuraa (daughter), and Jaan (son).
As Pretzor is a relatively new Terran colony, large families are encouraged.
Colu: {Stellar Primary: Yod}
Yod was once a double star, a yellow dwarf (type G) partnered with a diffuse blue giant (type B). At some point in history, the giant star "swallowed" the dwarf, which now has a tight orbit inside the blue giant.
Young Coluans are raised by professional Adult Guardians, although they do also have relations with their biological parents. Renlo Tagor is the Adult Guardian of Txalrz Luz 4523 (also known as Ten).
A Coluan's primary diet consists of a special nutritive paste and distilled water. This does not mean they cannot eat ordinary food, it just means they usually don't. When they do, it is in small portions. The Coluan digestive system does not require roughage as humans do. Note: Chocolate is poisonous to Coluans in the same way that chocolate is poisonous to Terran dogs. (due to theobromines and caffeine)
While throughout most of the United Planets the age of majority is fourteen years (earth-equivalent) on Colu it is one-hundred-and-three. (Sixty-five Sola-years)
The Yoddish "alphabet":
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Tharr:
Tharrans are descendants of Terran colonists primarily from the Scandinavian countries.
As such, Scandinavian culture and traditions persist, although in a somewhat altered form. Seafood, for instance, is a dietary staple. The underground caverns where the human population dwells are catacombed with seafood breeding tanks, although the saltwater in these tanks is near the boiling point. (Obviously these fish have been genetically modified to survive at such temperatures.)
Temperatures underground run from about 205F to 210F (95c – 99c) thanks to the psychoglaciating powers of a fraction of the population. Temperatures on the surface run from 400F to 500F (200c - 250c).
There are native lifeforms on the surface, including a felinoid creature called a "firecat", which occasionally wanders down into the lower chambers for short periods of time.
Adapted to such extreme high temperatures, Tharrans require layers of warm clothing, and even thermal devices to be comfortable-- or even survive-- at ordinary Earth temperatures. This explains why Polar Lass is always cold.
WORLD BUILDING
The United Planets in the K1 and K2 Paracosms
Preface:
I'm not telling these stories to you. I'm telling these stories to myself.
The Earth-K paracosms are little highly-detailed head-canons I carry around. I spend a lot of my free time there.
Although heavily based on the Silver-Age Legion universes, they naturally contain many expanded details and modifications of my own.
Some of these details have been referenced in the texts of my Young Legion and Rainbow Girl tales, but a great deal of it has not. What follows is a brain dump of miscellaneous head canon about some prominent U.P. worlds.
FWIW here is a little peek into my fantasy life.
Winath: {Stellar Primary: Amarta}
Korbal, the Lightning World, is a planetoid also located in the Amartan System.
Lightning Ring Farms is one of the most profitable homesteads on Winath. This is partially due to the fact that the Ranzz siblings left the soil on their ancestral farm to lie fallow for some two decades, re-invigorating the soil. Over the years, a small wooded area has grown up on the property.
Winath differs from other agricultural worlds like Mardru and the Manna systems in that their farming methods are more "natural" and "organic". Of course, this being the 31st century, Winath utilizes weather-controlling Ziggurats, stationed across the planet and administered by WinathGov, and mechanical robo-bees for pollination, so "natural" and "organic" differs from our 21st-century understanding.
At the very least, though, it does mean that Winath does not use growth accelerants and ultra-ethylenes the way Mardru does.
There are plenty of GMO grown on Winath, although this is considered "natural".
Meatmelons, for example, externally resemble watermelon, honeydew, or casaba, but internally produce animal fats and proteins in their flesh. There are numerous varieties, which imitate a wide range of Terran and non-Terran meat products. Hammelon, grown in hydroponic salt swamps, can be eaten without cooking. There are bovimelon, porcimelon, ovimelon, and cervimelon varieties. It is even theoretically possible to create a custom meatmelon from one's own unique proteins.
The coloring and patterning on the rinds are unique identifiers for each variety.
Braal:
The planetary wars of the 28th century were followed by the Great Rebuilding, both with the reunifying the United Planets and the physical structures destroyed during the war. Braal became a wealthy planet, as a result of high demand for Braalien construction workers with their powerful magnetic abilities.
However, the construction boom did not last forever, and by the mid-3Oth century, Braal was in a deep economic depression. By the beginning of the 31st-century, and new expansiona on the borders of UP space, Braal began to recover.
One industry unaffected by the Braalien slump was Magno-Ball, a popular entertainment across the United Planets beginning in the first half of the 3Oth century.
Hu Krinn was the First Baseman for the 2938 Championship Braalien Steelwolves Magno-Ball team. He was one-third of what is considered the greatest infield lineup in the history of the sport, with Second Basewoman Peggi Su Watt and Hal Ideno on Third Base.
Some twenty years later, and shortly after his joining the Legion, Rokk sponsored his parents and his brother Pol as immigrants to Earth, and the family settled in Metropolis.
Kathoon:
Native Kathooni naturally possess infra-red vision.
As Terran descendants, they also possess vestigial daylight-vision, and often find daylight on other worlds optically painful. When offworld, many Kathooni wear blackout "contact lenses" which cover the entire eye. This is especially true of the elderly.
Durla:
There are quite a number of uzolg-myrx: "families", "tribes", or "clans" on Durla, each with their own signature default form. The most numerous are the cthunic tentacular clan, but the United Planets has standardized the offworld appearance of all Durlans as the orange-skinned, pointy-eared version-- the second most populous clan on Durla. The Chameleon Men of Action Comics #287 are yet another Durlan clan. The Super-Hero Club's Chameleon belongs to an uzolg-myrx whose default form resembles Roswell Greys. (Zeta Reticulans)
There are quite a number of Durlan expatriates in the UP, as exile is a popular form of punishment on Durla. And there are a great many ways to violate Durlan law and custom.
Somewhat paradoxically, while Durlans are shape-shifters, their dietary requirements are quite rigid. All food must be somewhat pre-digested, and they require colonies of living bacteria or fungi with each meal to assist in further digestion and assimilation. Some favorite Earth foods are raw bread dough, miso paste, tempeh, kimchi, poi, yoghurt, lutefisk, sauerkraut, and beer. They also require regular ingestion of copper acetates, which are used like salt.
There is a Durlan fruit known as gnelo which alone provides all necessary nutrients, if eaten with a copper spoon.
Carggg: {Stellar Primaries Sanshimai}
The planet was originally colonized by a Terran contingent that was primarily of Japanese origin, although there are members of the population resembling pretty much all Terran races and ethnic groups. Still, remnants of Japanese culture, especially food and casual (non-interlac) language are still in evidence.
The radiation from Carggg's triple sun endows the native Terrans with triplicating powers at birth, and to a greater or lesser degree, all animal life on Carggg.
The Carggan "tripli-cat" and "three-headed vulture" (also called the vuvuzela vulture, for its yelping cry), as examples, are only able to triplicate from the neck up.
When triplicated, Carggans will temporarily age at three times the rate of ordinary Terrans
This is just one reason that the triplicating power is highly regulated in Cargggan culture, by etiquette, tradition, superstition, and even law.
The name of the planet Carggg derives from the Karagawas, one of the "first families" who were the original settlers of the planet. The triplicates in the Super-Hero Club, Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffarr, are descendants of the Karagawas.
Orzde: {Stellar Primary: Irulan}
Also known as Irulan III (Imsk is Irulan IV) it is populated by descendants of the Krill, an ancient race most remembered for the destructive galactic Krill-Llorn War. The people of Orzde resemble 21st-century Earth polynesians: Tall, dark skinned, dark-eyed, and broad-shouldered. Many are over two meters tall. Contrariwise, Imskians are redheaded, green-eyed, and much smaller, seldom reaching much more than one-and-one-half meters in height.
Outside the big cities, the farming communities of Orzde are reminiscent of the farms of old Scotland, with stone cottages on the farms and broad moorlands between the cultivated fields.
There are a number of "fractal cities" on Orzde, with neighborhoods where everyone lives at 5O% size, containing neighborhoods where everyone lives at 25% size, and so on. Conceptually, this would allow a city to contain infinitely many inhabitants, but things begin to break down at the quantum level.
Orzdeans and Imskians must have regular infusions of energy harvested from the "space-dragons" which roam their system, or they will gradually llose their shrinking abilities. They must also have regular exposure to the rays of the white-dwarf-star sun Irulan.
While resembling humans in appearance, Krill have one distinct anatomical difference. Krill males nurse their children after birth, while Krill females take a rest, and both sexes are built for it. Krill males are also smaller and more slender, while Krill females are more robust.
Thus Shrinking Violet is technically male, and Micro Lad is technically female, at least from the perspective of what gamete they produce.
Other Krill worlds include Torad, Ikros, Hajor, and the Juno colony in the Sol System.
Bgztl: {Stellar Primary: Gnohho}
The alternate dimension in which Bgztl exists is known as "Bgztlrside". There is an entire star system Bgztrlside which parallels the Solar system. (Known Bgztlrside as the Gnohhon System)
Mercury = Lbzqbk
Venus = Gnlzo Xvtzb
Earth = Bgztl
Mars = Gzbk
Asteroid Belt = Xbqbtbz (Bgzltrside, this is a full-blown planet, between the size of Earth and Venus.)
Jupiter = Rbjk
Saturn = Yzopok
Uranius = Ojzgpok
Neptune = Nokbvxop
Pluto = no equivalent
There is an equivalent to the Oort cloud, but these objects have no particular collective name.
In the 31st century, Gnlzo Xvtzb, Gzbk, and Xbqbtbz have all been colonized by the Bgztlr, as have moons of Rbjk and Yzopok, although their populations are not as large as those on Venus, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
Bgztlrside and Earthside are separated by the Phantom Zone, also called the Buffer Zone. Occasionally elderly Bgztlrs will voluntarily enter the Buffer Zone and never return, existing as immortal, geriatric but unaging phantoms, observing their descendants over the generations. This behaviour is generally considered cowardly and shameful in Bgztlr culture. Nevertheless, there are probably millions of permanent phantoms "haunting" Bgztl's Buffer Zone.
All Bgztlrs possess a kind of 4D-vision, able to see through, or rather around, solid objects. Visual acuity over distance falls off rapidly when using 4D-vision (as the cube rather than the square). Nevertheless, homes on Bgztl are set farther apart, and rather further back from the street than on Earth.
Laws concerning privacy are rather strict in Bgztlr culture.
Mercury: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
The Medivac lab, as well as all other Terran scientific installations on Mercury have been permanently closed, the colonist populations resettled, and other United Planets personnel reassigned. The planet is now wholly under the governance of the native Thermoids. Negotiations for their entry into the United Planets are ongoing.
Venus: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
By the 31st century, Venus has been completely terraformed. As part of the process, its spin had to be accelerated, so that a Venusian day is now only 27 hours (as opposed to 5800 hours in the 21st century), making just 2OO Venusian days in the Venusian year.
Venusian gravity is 90% Earth-normal. The average atmospheric pressure is 3x that of Earth.
In order to generate tides in the new oceans, it was necessary to give Venus a moon. To accomplish this, the asteroid Ceres was moved in from its orbit. The Cereal "month" is only three days long, and Ceres is so tiny it appears from the surface of Venus as only a bright point of light.
Note: the carbon dioxide removed from Venus’ atmosphere during terraforming has been sequestered on Ceres, mostly as mountains of crystalline calcite and magnesite.
Juno: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
3 Juno is an asteroid in the Sol system with a surface area of about 80,000 square miles, about the size of Nebraska.
Its gravitational force is about 1/8Oth that of Earth's. Escape velocity is ~400 mph, so an earthman could not just jump out into space, but could certainly leap eight or ten story buildings in a single bound. An ordinary bullet fired from an ordinary hand-gun would fly away and never return.
It hosts an ancient colony of Krill-descended humanoids.
Juno was known in the 2Oth century as the home of Power Boy, Zarl Vorne of Atlantis. His powers far exceeded what could be expected of an ordinary earthling, even in Juno's low gravity. For example, he was able to fly unaided through space, and lift objects massing hundreds of tonnes.
Superboy discovered that his presence (and by extension, the presence of any Kryptonian) weakened Zarl, causing him to lose his super-powers, and ultimately to become so weak he could not even stand in Juno's low gravity.
Half of Juno was once covered with a "creeping jungle", which threatened to eventually engulf the entire planet. In the mid-2Oth century, Superboy cut the world in half, and flung the "creeping jungle" half into the sun. He later replaced the missing half with other material from the asteroid belt.
(italicized text is silver-age canon, based on Superboy #52)
In the 31st century, the Juno Colony remains the home of a few million Krill.
Jupiter: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
The four largest "Galilean" moons of Jupiter are Io, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede.
Io is the home of the Themiscryan Diaspora. (They paved Paradise Island and put up a parking lot)
Callisto once hosted an experimental recombinant DNA facility. This is the origin of, for example, the Jovian Attack Squid, Camelephant, Helgramaxis, and Montressor. These were originally intended as bio-weapons to be used in the 28th-century Terran wars, but the wars ended before they could be used.. While these researches are no longer ongoing, there is still the small Jupiter Zoo And Wild Animal Park for the remaining Jovian beasts.
Europa has a great ocean beneath a miles-thick ice sheet. Strange sea life dwells there in the depths, mostly near-microscopic in nature. There are also, deep beneath the surface ice, larger oyster-like filter-feeders, but they are non-sapient, and visually indistinguishable from rocks.
Callisto, Ganymede and Europa are for the most part uninhabited by Terrans in the 31st century, with the exception of several small scientific research stations.
One of the Galilean moons was once the site of New Bokk, but there is no remaining archaeological evidence, and even the Bokkites of New Titan do not remember.
In the late 31st century, it was (will be?) discovered that Jupiter itself is inhabited by a bizarre form of hydrogen-methane-based gaseous life. The top-tier predators are known as the Jovian Gas Giants, and are border-line sapient.
Neptune and Uranius: {Stellar Primary: Sol}
Domed cloud cities (Wolkenstaedte) float high in the atmospheres of each world. With a population smaller than the Venusian nations, but larger than the Martian colonies, there are just over a billion Terrans on both worlds combined.
Deep within the clouds of both worlds, 'diamond rain' falls from the methane-rich atmosphere, which is harvested by "diamond nets" which draw the precious stones up to the cities for processing and export.
While ordinary diamonds themselves are common and worth little in the 31st century, the particular imperfections in these naturally formed diamonds of Neptune and Uranius are perfect for the manufacture of memory crystals, and are used all over the United Planets.
(Neptune and Uranius are not the only source of memory crystal diamonds; there are plenty of similar worlds throughout the U.P. But it is still a lucrative industry, with room for many players.)
The bizarre conditions of these worlds also have led to numerous natural mutations in some of the Terran (and some non-Terran) inhabitants, including Ronn-Karr of Neptune, the infamous super-villain.
Uranius houses a Museum of Forbidden Weapons, a popular attraction on many worlds.
The First Church of Neptune is one of the Solar Systems preeminent charitable organizations, ranked alongside the Red Tesseract and United Planets Way. Congregations exist on Earth and Uranius as well.
Lupra:
Inhabited by non-Terran, non-Krill humanoids. Their physiology nevertheless utilizes ATGC DNA. Their interior physiology most parallels that of Terran snakes.
They are known as Lupracons.
Shwar:
Shwarans are tall, slender humanoids with pupil-less eyes and large pointed ears.They have some characteristic biological differences from Terrans and Krill-descended humanoids. For example, their DNA is composed entirely of unique nucleotides (That is, not adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine). The proteins in their bodies are right-handed, and the sugars in their bodies are left-handed, as opposed to around 80% of the galactic population. This makes dining out on other worlds problematic.
Their skin is made of bands of keratin, similar to sharkskin. Their bones are not primarily calcium, but are composed of woven carbon fullerenes, making them flexible and tough. The Shwaran atmosphere is notable for its lower percentage of oxygen.
Shwarans are characteristically as xenophobic as Daxamites, if not even moreso. Very few Shwarans have ever left their homeworld. One exception is Staq Mavlen, who has made a comfortable living selling his interplanetary travelogs. Shwarans may be naturally xenophobic, but are more than equally curious. Lurid tales of the fabulous dangers of interplanetary travel are particularly well received by the masses.
Cintos:
Another extra-dimensional world (like Bgztl and Teall), its inhabitants are made of solid light.
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And are capable of transforming into ordinary, non-solid light.
Quanto of the Taurus Gang was from Cintos. Although not generally known, Starfinger's agents Starlight and Starbright are also Cintosian.
Lallor:
By the mid-thirty-first century, Lallor is a dead and uninhabitable world, due to the Second Nuclear War.
A small number of Lallorans were off-planet during the apocalypse. Floyd Belkin is employed as a casino courier on Ventura.
For several years, Somi Gan kept herself “alive” with her animation powers. She even re-animated Ord Quelu, and by having the zombie replicate the powers of Duplicate Girl and Chameleon Boy, gave the appearance that the population of Lallor had survived. However, this facade eventually overtaxed her powers, and she ultimately succumbed to PTSD and psychosis, and she and Lallor reverted to their natural state as a radioactive corpse.
Pretzor:
Approximately the size of Earth, it is a watery world of some twenty-five million small islands.
Some islands are heavily colonized, others inhabited by a single family, others entirely uninhabited and unexplored.
Morning and evening, there are a lot of misty rainbows.
The largest is only about fifty miles square, somewhat smaller than Staten Island. Nevertheless, it hosts the capital city of Abracada, home to some one million residents. As humans have a preference for gathering in large numbers, Abracada has been extending its reach into the surrounding sea, with a number of floating villages attached to the main island with arching bridges.
Some younger Pretzorans have undergone genetic surgery, allowing them various aquatic adaptations. These modified humans are extending the population into underwater cities.
Jeem Rehtu and his wife Jhina live in Abracada, at least on Earth-K2.
The twelve Rehtu children, ranging in age from thirty-five to fifteen, are Jeem Jr.(son), Jaak (son), and Jhyyll (daughter) (twins), Jeeth (son), Jhiigg (daughter), and Jhyyxx (daughter) (twins), Jiip (son), and Joof (son) (twins), Jhoodee (daughter), Jhubilee (daughter), Jhuuraa (daughter), and Jaan (son).
As Pretzor is a relatively new Terran colony, large families are encouraged.
Colu: {Stellar Primary: Yod}
Yod was once a double star, a yellow dwarf (type G) partnered with a diffuse blue giant (type B). At some point in history, the giant star "swallowed" the dwarf, which now has a tight orbit inside the blue giant.
Young Coluans are raised by professional Adult Guardians, although they do also have relations with their biological parents. Renlo Tagor is the Adult Guardian of Txalrz Luz 4523 (also known as Ten).
A Coluan's primary diet consists of a special nutritive paste and distilled water. This does not mean they cannot eat ordinary food, it just means they usually don't. When they do, it is in small portions. The Coluan digestive system does not require roughage as humans do. Note: Chocolate is poisonous to Coluans in the same way that chocolate is poisonous to Terran dogs. (due to theobromines and caffeine)
While throughout most of the United Planets the age of majority is fourteen years (earth-equivalent) on Colu it is one-hundred-and-three. (Sixty-five Sola-years)
The Yoddish "alphabet":
Tharr:
Tharrans are descendants of Terran colonists primarily from the Scandinavian countries.
As such, Scandinavian culture and traditions persist, although in a somewhat altered form. Seafood, for instance, is a dietary staple. The underground caverns where the human population dwells are catacombed with seafood breeding tanks, although the saltwater in these tanks is near the boiling point. (Obviously these fish have been genetically modified to survive at such temperatures.)
Temperatures underground run from about 205F to 210F (95c – 99c) thanks to the psychoglaciating powers of a fraction of the population. Temperatures on the surface run from 400F to 500F (200c - 250c).
There are native lifeforms on the surface, including a felinoid creature called a "firecat", which occasionally wanders down into the lower chambers for short periods of time.
Adapted to such extreme high temperatures, Tharrans require layers of warm clothing, and even thermal devices to be comfortable-- or even survive-- at ordinary Earth temperatures. This explains why Polar Lass is always cold.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/02/22 03:06 PM
The United Planets in the K1 and K2 Paracosms
(continued)
Bismoll: {Stellar Primary: Peptu}
Contrary to popular lore, Bismollians cannot eat absolutely anything. They are unable to digest the toxic microbes in the plant life of Bismoll, as well as the highly poisonous trans-feynmanium metal Magnozite.
The structure of the Bismollian digestive tract is essentially Kryptonian, possessing invulnerability, super-strength, and super-speed. Ingested matter is assimilated through both enzymatic nuclear fission and cold fusion. There is also a biological transtator pathway which converts high-energy radiation to usable lower energy levels.
The Bismollian stomach is a three-and-a-half dimensional structure, the additional half-dimension storing extra ingested mass. This allows Bismollians to eat more than their own mass, without gaining weight.
The highly efficient Bismollian digestive system would mean that Bismollians would not have to eat anything- gaining all their sustenance from the fusion of the hydrogen in water vapor in the air, producing about 1OO watts of power. However, quite a bit of additional energy is required to maintain the integrity of their Kryptonian-like digestive tract.
Physics Review: Beginning with hydrogen, nuclear fusion creates heavier and heavier elements, until iron-56 is reached, which has the lowest energy-per-nucleon ratio of any element. Similarly, nuclear fission creates lighter and lighter elements down the periodic table, until iron-56 is reached, where lighter elements can only be created by inputting additional nucleonic energy.
Ergo, after extracting all available nucleonic energy, the end waste product of Bismollian fusion / fission is iron. Bismollians poop pure inert iron pellets.
Naltor and New Titan: {Stellar Primary: Kassandra}
Twin worlds that orbit one another at a distance of something like a million miles, (and a hundred million miles from their primary) Naltorans have precognitive abilities, and Titanians have a variety of telepathic powers. While each world has a separate government, they do have strong ties through a series of treaties, and trade agreements. Both have heads of state with semi-royal authority: The "High Seer of Naltor" and the "King of Saturn". (If the King of Saturn is female, they are Queen Regent, and still technically a King.) Both chief executives are appointed by their respective legislatures, although practically there are only three or four families on each world from which these appointments come. There are religious duties associated with the King of Saturn, as they are considered Counselor to the Hierophant of the Church of Saturn.
The population of New Titan consists of Terran diaspora, as well as both Red and White Bokkite Saturnians. While officially subject to the majority Terran government, the Bokkites have their own covert tribal systems of law and justice. The several majority Bokkite villages on New Titan are known as the Bokkjill.
Zwen:
Due to its highly elliptical orbit, Zwen is only habitable one-fourth of its year. (It's too close to its primary the rest of the time) It is well known that Zwenites hibernate during this period in petrified form. What is less well known is that they do not age while petrified. If they did not hibernate at all, they would age at only two-thirds the rate of ordinary Terrans. With the hibernation period, a native Zwenite who appears fifty years old would actually be about three hundred or so.
Talok VIII: {Stellar Primary: Talok, obviously}
The Mallorean and Nahtahnie families have a genetic predisposition to be attracted to powerful members of the opposite sex. This even extends to non-Talokan aliens. The families encourage this, even practicing artificial genetic accommodation of alien races in order to improve the status and power of their descendants.
Individual Shadow and Memory Champions are aware of this, but usually unable to resist the compulsion.
The "S" symbol of the Malloreans is actually a barred spiral galaxy, visible in the Talok system through a trick of gravitational lensing.
Shelbon: {Stellar Primary: Kragnax}
ref. Vertigax, Zhelbon, Zelbon, Harley Quinn (2O16) #1-3
Shelbonites have the ability to replicate the appearance of other living beings, although their repertoire of alternate forms is not as extensive as the Durlans. They are also able to re-integrate and heal their bodies, even after disintegration down to the sub-cellular level.
Korvea Mallor's mother is a Shelbonite.
Superboy Planet:
This artificial planet, constructed by the Legionnaires in the 2Oth century, is an inhabited world in the 33rd century. At one time Superboy Planet was mined for the rare trans-feynmanium element sigellian, a by-product of the construction process. This is in part how Dori Aandraison's uncle, Gaal Jindrich, obtained his wealth.
The present-day inhabitants are non-Kryptonian admirers of Kryptonian society, culture, and legend. While existing in UP territory, it is not technically a member of the United Planets. Its residents include a coalition of renegade geneticists, who intend to create GMO super-beings as one of their projects.
They have already managed to create a living teen-aged simulacrum of Mordo, the six-armed mythical Kryptonian god of strength.
Thanar
The rust-colored, "mineral-fleshed", humanoid natives of Thanar welcomed the Terran colonists. The aboriginal Thanaran population was concentrated in large cities widely scattered over the surface, with mineral forests in between. Human population centers are domed and isolated, as some terraforming is necessary to remove toxicity from the soil.
Also home to the bizarre, metal-eating Dxaundii Wingfish.
Rimbor {Stellar Primary: Rambor}
Throughout the United Planets, Silverale is legally sold only on Rimbor. This is unsurprising, as this potent potable contains not only alcohol, but colloidal silver and a small dose of a powerful opiate.
The three purple moons of Rimbor are, from largest to smallest, Morado, Roxa, and Talong.
Rokyn: {Stellar Primary: Jor-El (a name meaning "new star", or "new hope"}
Rokyn is a technologically advanced world inhabited by the restored inhabitants of Kandor, refugees from Argo City, released Phantom Zone criminals, and their descendants.
It has a population in the 31st century of about thirteen billion.
Gold Kryptonite radiation mimics yellow solar radiation, and is absorbed by Kryptonian metamitochondria. However, similar to the way carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in Terran red blood cells and suffocates them, the Gold K radiation is "inert", causing the cells to overload, and negating "super-powers".
After Kandor was enlarged, its scientists found a way to modify Gold Kryptonite radiation to grant all Rokynites super-fast healing and a lengthened lifespan, even under a red sun. The limit of this life extension is not known, as no one has died of illnesses incident to old age on Rokyn since Gold K treatments began. (Note that in one universe, Superman lived over eight hundred centuries)
Before venturing beyond their homeworld to a planet with a sun of another color, Rokynites must be purged of this golden energy or their biological systems will be overloaded, and they will lose any potential for super-abilities, as well as the life-extending benefits.
All Rokynites now sleep with little gold lamps beside their beds, and very, very few ever venture off-world. Many of the Kandorians alive in the 2Oth century are still alive on Rokyn today.
In the 24th century, a strict one-child policy was adopted on Rokyn, so that the population would never exceed 2OO% of the population in the 24th century, even if no one ever dies.
Rokyn has two moons, named Lara and Kara.
There are other worlds in the Jorlian system which might one day be Kryptoformed, but they are uninhabited in the 31st century. This may be due to Rokynites' general reluctance to leave their homeworld at all.
The Compleat Jorlian System:
01 Finud
02 Lorra
03 Tahn
04 Zugur
05 Rokyn
06 Jorargo
07 Zhehiod
08 Bothgar-Jevia
09 Khethgar
10 Esh
11 Dovrosh
12 Dhehraogh
13 Zil
Daxam: {Stellar Primary: Rickleff (Terran: Mirach)}
Much of Daxam is uninhabited and unexplored. A massive world with a habitable surface area some thirty times that of Earth, it has a population of just three billion-- less than three percent that of Earth's hundred billion plus.
The Daxamite population is not only xenophobic, but highly gregarious. Half the population resides in a single, sprawling, densely populated oceanside city. This is the Daxamite capital Ekvotugrash (also called Daxamopolis by ignorant Terrans) which lies along some ten thousand square miles of coastline on the largest continent. The average Daxamite experiences extreme anxiety without the companionship of their own kind, and the more the better. (Lar Gand is at the extreme end of "not an average Daxamite")
There is a small population of Kryptonian-descendants on Daxam who never migrated to Rokyn. They mostly blend in with the general Daxamite population, although one well-known Kryptonian resident is Nam-Ek, the Rondor Man, who does not blend in anywhere.
Not well-accepted among the general Daxamite population, identified Kryptonian immigrants are colloquially, and somewhat disparagingly, known as "Kreeps".
Kormo:
Homeworld of Skyboy, aka "Tharn of Kormo", in the 2Oth century. [World's Finest Comics #92]
A high-gravity, red-sun world, the humanoid Kormons receive Kryptonian-level super-abilities under a yellow sun. Prolonged exposure, however, leads to "yellow sun fever", a brain inflammation. Symptoms proceed from confusion and amnesia to sociopathy and psychosis.
Unlike Krypton and Daxam, Kormo does not obtain its high gravity from being a giant, massive world. Rather, it is the burnt-out shell of a neutron star, covered in a crust of rock and arable soil.
The population of Kormo is only a little over a million.
Kormons have developed a stun-ray which is effective on otherwise invulnerable super-powered individuals. An odd quirk of Kormon anatomy is that they all have identical fingerprints.
Zoon: {Stellar Primary: Zuun}
On a world ruined by pollution from intensive mining, sapient androids colonized the surface of the planet. Some of the original shareholders in the Zuunian mining venture attempted to reclaim the androids, but without success. Led by the liberator Karth Arn, the android population has been petitioning the United Planets to recognize them as legitimate life-forms, independent sapients, and full citizens. There is a Zuunian android who calls himself "Lance" employed on Lightning Ring Farms.
The Invaders of Bizarro World {Homeworld and Stellar Primary: Unknown}
Yellow-skinned, lemon-headed, almost naked aliens who invaded Htrae, the Bizarro World, in Adventure Comics #287.
A proud, greedy and cowardly species, immediately upon developing sufficiently advanced spacefaring technology, the "Lemonheads" invaded the nearest available planetary system in an inauguration of a plan to conquer and ransack the Galaxy. Unfortunately, that world was Htrae, and the bizarre behaviour of its native inhabitants caused the Lemonhead invasion force to flee in terror.
Later (on July 4th, 1961, to be specific) the Lemonheads planted blue kryptonite golem-soldiers deep beneath the surface of Htrae, in a second effort to conquer the planet. (as recorded in Adventure Comics #290) This stratagem, too, was a failure.
Disheartened by their failed attempts at conquest, the Lemonheads returned to their homeworld, renounced interstellar travel, and never ventured out into the Galaxy again.
Dryad: {Stellar Primary: Korlon}
Korlon experiences massive, periodic solar flares. This is why the Dryads evolved. A few centuries before a flare, the crystalline female Dryads, responding to some innate, subconscious impulse, begin gathering a seed bank of all flora on their homeworld. They then leave the surface, hibernating in deep underground chambers with their seed banks. Shortly before the flare, one or several stony male Dryads will leave their world, finding safety on some other planet. After the surface has melted, cooled, and healed, these "First Wardens'' will return to their homeworld, awaken the sleeping females, and begin the process of reseeding the biosphere.
The precise history of each of these flare events varies. The time between flare-ups is measured in tens of millenia, longer than the life of any single Dryad. (Individual Dryads commonly live six to twelve thousand years) Therefore, the history of the Wardens is passed down primarily through story and myth.
In the Earth-K1 paracosm, Chip, the parthenogenetic son of Blok, will eventually serve the role of First Warden.
In the Earth-K2 paracosm, Chip was never born. The shattered body of Blok is on Zerox, the First Sorcerer's World, in an entirely different Universe, in the care of Mysa Nal.
If a First Warden will eventually appear in the K2 paracosm, and who that might be, is unknown at this time.
The Sorcerer's Worlds
Zerox and Tharn: The fundamental political entity on both Sorcerer's Worlds is the Coventry- an alliance of thirteen like-minded sorcerers. Not all sorcerers belong to a Coventry- especially as it is difficult to find like-minded sorcerers- but only a Coventry can vote. There are non-magical individuals providing support services on both Zerox and Tharn, and these belong to Guildes ov various sizes, but also have no vote or direct voice in the political process.
The highest ruling body is the First Coventry, the head of State is the First Coventry Chair, the senior member. Each Chair organizes his or her or its government according to their own principles. Mordru has been elected frequently, as the Sorcerer's Worlds favor powerful mages; his governments looked imperial.
In the Earth K-2 paracosm, Mysa Nal is the Chief of State on Zerox, which inhabits another dimension.
The capital city of Zerox is called Zeresh, and the capital of Tharn is St. Bosco.
The current Chair of the First Coventry on Tharn is Doctor Leitseid (also known as Professor Leitseid) and his government looks like the governing board of a university.
Tharn is a world of thirteen continents, six in the northern hemisphere and seven in the southern.
It is home to some ten billion sorcerers, about one-fiftieth of whom are of Terran origin.
Alien races and climates range from the Star Yeti in the frozen hyperborean mountains to the Andorran Nagas in the equatorial desert lowlands.
Important mostly-human metropolitan areas are Nuevo Paulo, Emerald City (not the original), the Oxford Mage School, and Merlinopolis.
There are a number of portals to other magical worlds scattered across Tharn.
Sorcerers and their apprentices are almost as fun to imagine as new members of the Subs. I have a list somewhere of over one hundred.
Cyranus:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are humanoids with dog-like facial features. It is a member of the Felkan Confederation, which also includes Sirius Station, and the unnamed world which once was home to the Space Canine Patrol.
Cyranus also administers the Tellarite Federation, which includes Gamorr and World 318; and the Cephalopoid Coalition, including the Octoid-Men of Luvan, the Xakkans, the Sand-Octopi of Aressia, and the Dyss.
Cyranus is also home to the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus, and the galactically renowned five-star Legion of Soup Restaurant.
Torad:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are descendants of the Krill, like Imsk, Orzde, the Juno Colony, Opralgar (New Hajor), and Ikros. In addition to these, Torad also administers the twelve Antarean worlds: Antares II, Antares X, Dhor, Mosteel, Alstair, Llar, Uwilla, Laroo, Trago, Raagaar, Vulxan, and Omeron.
Amazonia:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are gender monomorphic, in that their appearance does not vary substantially between genders. All Mazons resemble tall, broad-shouldered humanoid women. Contrast this with the world of Khazad, whose inhabitants all resemble short, stout, bearded humanoid males.
In addition to other responsibilities, Amazonia represents Taltar, Femnaz, and Sklar in the United Planets.
Oranx:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. A heavy-gravity, red-sun world, Oranxans have superhuman strength, but not the array of powers of say, Daxamites. They do, however, represent Daxam, Rokyn, New Zoron, and Kormo to the United Planets.
Xanthu:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets, replacing Earth after political instability made its membership problematic. Their responsibility is to represent and administer all Terran colonies to the United Planets.
There are, of course, hundreds of worlds which are members of the U.P. but the Inner Council divides up responsibility for them all, one way or another. It is a matter of no small importance, politically speaking, that all five members of the Inner Council are from humanoid worlds.
(continued)
Bismoll: {Stellar Primary: Peptu}
Contrary to popular lore, Bismollians cannot eat absolutely anything. They are unable to digest the toxic microbes in the plant life of Bismoll, as well as the highly poisonous trans-feynmanium metal Magnozite.
The structure of the Bismollian digestive tract is essentially Kryptonian, possessing invulnerability, super-strength, and super-speed. Ingested matter is assimilated through both enzymatic nuclear fission and cold fusion. There is also a biological transtator pathway which converts high-energy radiation to usable lower energy levels.
The Bismollian stomach is a three-and-a-half dimensional structure, the additional half-dimension storing extra ingested mass. This allows Bismollians to eat more than their own mass, without gaining weight.
The highly efficient Bismollian digestive system would mean that Bismollians would not have to eat anything- gaining all their sustenance from the fusion of the hydrogen in water vapor in the air, producing about 1OO watts of power. However, quite a bit of additional energy is required to maintain the integrity of their Kryptonian-like digestive tract.
Physics Review: Beginning with hydrogen, nuclear fusion creates heavier and heavier elements, until iron-56 is reached, which has the lowest energy-per-nucleon ratio of any element. Similarly, nuclear fission creates lighter and lighter elements down the periodic table, until iron-56 is reached, where lighter elements can only be created by inputting additional nucleonic energy.
Ergo, after extracting all available nucleonic energy, the end waste product of Bismollian fusion / fission is iron. Bismollians poop pure inert iron pellets.
Naltor and New Titan: {Stellar Primary: Kassandra}
Twin worlds that orbit one another at a distance of something like a million miles, (and a hundred million miles from their primary) Naltorans have precognitive abilities, and Titanians have a variety of telepathic powers. While each world has a separate government, they do have strong ties through a series of treaties, and trade agreements. Both have heads of state with semi-royal authority: The "High Seer of Naltor" and the "King of Saturn". (If the King of Saturn is female, they are Queen Regent, and still technically a King.) Both chief executives are appointed by their respective legislatures, although practically there are only three or four families on each world from which these appointments come. There are religious duties associated with the King of Saturn, as they are considered Counselor to the Hierophant of the Church of Saturn.
The population of New Titan consists of Terran diaspora, as well as both Red and White Bokkite Saturnians. While officially subject to the majority Terran government, the Bokkites have their own covert tribal systems of law and justice. The several majority Bokkite villages on New Titan are known as the Bokkjill.
Zwen:
Due to its highly elliptical orbit, Zwen is only habitable one-fourth of its year. (It's too close to its primary the rest of the time) It is well known that Zwenites hibernate during this period in petrified form. What is less well known is that they do not age while petrified. If they did not hibernate at all, they would age at only two-thirds the rate of ordinary Terrans. With the hibernation period, a native Zwenite who appears fifty years old would actually be about three hundred or so.
Talok VIII: {Stellar Primary: Talok, obviously}
The Mallorean and Nahtahnie families have a genetic predisposition to be attracted to powerful members of the opposite sex. This even extends to non-Talokan aliens. The families encourage this, even practicing artificial genetic accommodation of alien races in order to improve the status and power of their descendants.
Individual Shadow and Memory Champions are aware of this, but usually unable to resist the compulsion.
The "S" symbol of the Malloreans is actually a barred spiral galaxy, visible in the Talok system through a trick of gravitational lensing.
Shelbon: {Stellar Primary: Kragnax}
ref. Vertigax, Zhelbon, Zelbon, Harley Quinn (2O16) #1-3
Shelbonites have the ability to replicate the appearance of other living beings, although their repertoire of alternate forms is not as extensive as the Durlans. They are also able to re-integrate and heal their bodies, even after disintegration down to the sub-cellular level.
Korvea Mallor's mother is a Shelbonite.
Superboy Planet:
This artificial planet, constructed by the Legionnaires in the 2Oth century, is an inhabited world in the 33rd century. At one time Superboy Planet was mined for the rare trans-feynmanium element sigellian, a by-product of the construction process. This is in part how Dori Aandraison's uncle, Gaal Jindrich, obtained his wealth.
The present-day inhabitants are non-Kryptonian admirers of Kryptonian society, culture, and legend. While existing in UP territory, it is not technically a member of the United Planets. Its residents include a coalition of renegade geneticists, who intend to create GMO super-beings as one of their projects.
They have already managed to create a living teen-aged simulacrum of Mordo, the six-armed mythical Kryptonian god of strength.
Thanar
The rust-colored, "mineral-fleshed", humanoid natives of Thanar welcomed the Terran colonists. The aboriginal Thanaran population was concentrated in large cities widely scattered over the surface, with mineral forests in between. Human population centers are domed and isolated, as some terraforming is necessary to remove toxicity from the soil.
Also home to the bizarre, metal-eating Dxaundii Wingfish.
Rimbor {Stellar Primary: Rambor}
Throughout the United Planets, Silverale is legally sold only on Rimbor. This is unsurprising, as this potent potable contains not only alcohol, but colloidal silver and a small dose of a powerful opiate.
The three purple moons of Rimbor are, from largest to smallest, Morado, Roxa, and Talong.
Rokyn: {Stellar Primary: Jor-El (a name meaning "new star", or "new hope"}
Rokyn is a technologically advanced world inhabited by the restored inhabitants of Kandor, refugees from Argo City, released Phantom Zone criminals, and their descendants.
It has a population in the 31st century of about thirteen billion.
Gold Kryptonite radiation mimics yellow solar radiation, and is absorbed by Kryptonian metamitochondria. However, similar to the way carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in Terran red blood cells and suffocates them, the Gold K radiation is "inert", causing the cells to overload, and negating "super-powers".
After Kandor was enlarged, its scientists found a way to modify Gold Kryptonite radiation to grant all Rokynites super-fast healing and a lengthened lifespan, even under a red sun. The limit of this life extension is not known, as no one has died of illnesses incident to old age on Rokyn since Gold K treatments began. (Note that in one universe, Superman lived over eight hundred centuries)
Before venturing beyond their homeworld to a planet with a sun of another color, Rokynites must be purged of this golden energy or their biological systems will be overloaded, and they will lose any potential for super-abilities, as well as the life-extending benefits.
All Rokynites now sleep with little gold lamps beside their beds, and very, very few ever venture off-world. Many of the Kandorians alive in the 2Oth century are still alive on Rokyn today.
In the 24th century, a strict one-child policy was adopted on Rokyn, so that the population would never exceed 2OO% of the population in the 24th century, even if no one ever dies.
Rokyn has two moons, named Lara and Kara.
There are other worlds in the Jorlian system which might one day be Kryptoformed, but they are uninhabited in the 31st century. This may be due to Rokynites' general reluctance to leave their homeworld at all.
The Compleat Jorlian System:
01 Finud
02 Lorra
03 Tahn
04 Zugur
05 Rokyn
06 Jorargo
07 Zhehiod
08 Bothgar-Jevia
09 Khethgar
10 Esh
11 Dovrosh
12 Dhehraogh
13 Zil
Daxam: {Stellar Primary: Rickleff (Terran: Mirach)}
Much of Daxam is uninhabited and unexplored. A massive world with a habitable surface area some thirty times that of Earth, it has a population of just three billion-- less than three percent that of Earth's hundred billion plus.
The Daxamite population is not only xenophobic, but highly gregarious. Half the population resides in a single, sprawling, densely populated oceanside city. This is the Daxamite capital Ekvotugrash (also called Daxamopolis by ignorant Terrans) which lies along some ten thousand square miles of coastline on the largest continent. The average Daxamite experiences extreme anxiety without the companionship of their own kind, and the more the better. (Lar Gand is at the extreme end of "not an average Daxamite")
There is a small population of Kryptonian-descendants on Daxam who never migrated to Rokyn. They mostly blend in with the general Daxamite population, although one well-known Kryptonian resident is Nam-Ek, the Rondor Man, who does not blend in anywhere.
Not well-accepted among the general Daxamite population, identified Kryptonian immigrants are colloquially, and somewhat disparagingly, known as "Kreeps".
Kormo:
Homeworld of Skyboy, aka "Tharn of Kormo", in the 2Oth century. [World's Finest Comics #92]
A high-gravity, red-sun world, the humanoid Kormons receive Kryptonian-level super-abilities under a yellow sun. Prolonged exposure, however, leads to "yellow sun fever", a brain inflammation. Symptoms proceed from confusion and amnesia to sociopathy and psychosis.
Unlike Krypton and Daxam, Kormo does not obtain its high gravity from being a giant, massive world. Rather, it is the burnt-out shell of a neutron star, covered in a crust of rock and arable soil.
The population of Kormo is only a little over a million.
Kormons have developed a stun-ray which is effective on otherwise invulnerable super-powered individuals. An odd quirk of Kormon anatomy is that they all have identical fingerprints.
Zoon: {Stellar Primary: Zuun}
On a world ruined by pollution from intensive mining, sapient androids colonized the surface of the planet. Some of the original shareholders in the Zuunian mining venture attempted to reclaim the androids, but without success. Led by the liberator Karth Arn, the android population has been petitioning the United Planets to recognize them as legitimate life-forms, independent sapients, and full citizens. There is a Zuunian android who calls himself "Lance" employed on Lightning Ring Farms.
The Invaders of Bizarro World {Homeworld and Stellar Primary: Unknown}
Yellow-skinned, lemon-headed, almost naked aliens who invaded Htrae, the Bizarro World, in Adventure Comics #287.
A proud, greedy and cowardly species, immediately upon developing sufficiently advanced spacefaring technology, the "Lemonheads" invaded the nearest available planetary system in an inauguration of a plan to conquer and ransack the Galaxy. Unfortunately, that world was Htrae, and the bizarre behaviour of its native inhabitants caused the Lemonhead invasion force to flee in terror.
Later (on July 4th, 1961, to be specific) the Lemonheads planted blue kryptonite golem-soldiers deep beneath the surface of Htrae, in a second effort to conquer the planet. (as recorded in Adventure Comics #290) This stratagem, too, was a failure.
Disheartened by their failed attempts at conquest, the Lemonheads returned to their homeworld, renounced interstellar travel, and never ventured out into the Galaxy again.
Dryad: {Stellar Primary: Korlon}
Korlon experiences massive, periodic solar flares. This is why the Dryads evolved. A few centuries before a flare, the crystalline female Dryads, responding to some innate, subconscious impulse, begin gathering a seed bank of all flora on their homeworld. They then leave the surface, hibernating in deep underground chambers with their seed banks. Shortly before the flare, one or several stony male Dryads will leave their world, finding safety on some other planet. After the surface has melted, cooled, and healed, these "First Wardens'' will return to their homeworld, awaken the sleeping females, and begin the process of reseeding the biosphere.
The precise history of each of these flare events varies. The time between flare-ups is measured in tens of millenia, longer than the life of any single Dryad. (Individual Dryads commonly live six to twelve thousand years) Therefore, the history of the Wardens is passed down primarily through story and myth.
In the Earth-K1 paracosm, Chip, the parthenogenetic son of Blok, will eventually serve the role of First Warden.
In the Earth-K2 paracosm, Chip was never born. The shattered body of Blok is on Zerox, the First Sorcerer's World, in an entirely different Universe, in the care of Mysa Nal.
If a First Warden will eventually appear in the K2 paracosm, and who that might be, is unknown at this time.
The Sorcerer's Worlds
Zerox and Tharn: The fundamental political entity on both Sorcerer's Worlds is the Coventry- an alliance of thirteen like-minded sorcerers. Not all sorcerers belong to a Coventry- especially as it is difficult to find like-minded sorcerers- but only a Coventry can vote. There are non-magical individuals providing support services on both Zerox and Tharn, and these belong to Guildes ov various sizes, but also have no vote or direct voice in the political process.
The highest ruling body is the First Coventry, the head of State is the First Coventry Chair, the senior member. Each Chair organizes his or her or its government according to their own principles. Mordru has been elected frequently, as the Sorcerer's Worlds favor powerful mages; his governments looked imperial.
In the Earth K-2 paracosm, Mysa Nal is the Chief of State on Zerox, which inhabits another dimension.
The capital city of Zerox is called Zeresh, and the capital of Tharn is St. Bosco.
The current Chair of the First Coventry on Tharn is Doctor Leitseid (also known as Professor Leitseid) and his government looks like the governing board of a university.
Tharn is a world of thirteen continents, six in the northern hemisphere and seven in the southern.
It is home to some ten billion sorcerers, about one-fiftieth of whom are of Terran origin.
Alien races and climates range from the Star Yeti in the frozen hyperborean mountains to the Andorran Nagas in the equatorial desert lowlands.
Important mostly-human metropolitan areas are Nuevo Paulo, Emerald City (not the original), the Oxford Mage School, and Merlinopolis.
There are a number of portals to other magical worlds scattered across Tharn.
Sorcerers and their apprentices are almost as fun to imagine as new members of the Subs. I have a list somewhere of over one hundred.
Cyranus:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are humanoids with dog-like facial features. It is a member of the Felkan Confederation, which also includes Sirius Station, and the unnamed world which once was home to the Space Canine Patrol.
Cyranus also administers the Tellarite Federation, which includes Gamorr and World 318; and the Cephalopoid Coalition, including the Octoid-Men of Luvan, the Xakkans, the Sand-Octopi of Aressia, and the Dyss.
Cyranus is also home to the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus, and the galactically renowned five-star Legion of Soup Restaurant.
Torad:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are descendants of the Krill, like Imsk, Orzde, the Juno Colony, Opralgar (New Hajor), and Ikros. In addition to these, Torad also administers the twelve Antarean worlds: Antares II, Antares X, Dhor, Mosteel, Alstair, Llar, Uwilla, Laroo, Trago, Raagaar, Vulxan, and Omeron.
Amazonia:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. Its native inhabitants are gender monomorphic, in that their appearance does not vary substantially between genders. All Mazons resemble tall, broad-shouldered humanoid women. Contrast this with the world of Khazad, whose inhabitants all resemble short, stout, bearded humanoid males.
In addition to other responsibilities, Amazonia represents Taltar, Femnaz, and Sklar in the United Planets.
Oranx:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets. A heavy-gravity, red-sun world, Oranxans have superhuman strength, but not the array of powers of say, Daxamites. They do, however, represent Daxam, Rokyn, New Zoron, and Kormo to the United Planets.
Xanthu:
One of the five members of the Inner Council of the United Planets, replacing Earth after political instability made its membership problematic. Their responsibility is to represent and administer all Terran colonies to the United Planets.
There are, of course, hundreds of worlds which are members of the U.P. but the Inner Council divides up responsibility for them all, one way or another. It is a matter of no small importance, politically speaking, that all five members of the Inner Council are from humanoid worlds.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/23/22 03:35 PM
Strange New Worlds
Here is a listing of original planets I have needed to create for the various series set in the Earth-K paracosms. I have probably missed a few
PART ONE
Amphora: Planet of the frog-like, or possibly toad-like, aliens. In any case, they are bipedal, and almost humanoid in profile, with a Coluan Intelligence Level range roughly equivalent to Terrans
Aparrion: see Kilima and Aparrion
Arau: One of the worlds of cat-people. Part of the Felikan Confederation, also known as the Cat-Dog Hegemony. Homeworld of the Jellicle Girl, the Tesser Cat, the Other Mara, and Kit.
Aressia: Homeworld of the superintelligent Sand Octopi
Asellus: Luddite Terran colony world. Donkey Lass hails from here.
Asteroid Colony 1967: Tiny world where it is always The Summer of Love. Homeworld of Decal Damsel
Auxgate: Another farming planet, like Winath, Mardru, or the Manna Worlds. Home of Pastry Chef Kid and Cake-Frosting-Hair Girl
Bastegar: Home of the Bastet, a matriarchal society of cat-headed humanoids
Bdelugma, the Pariah Planetoid: A specialized prison planet, for individuals in the 31st century who conducted forbidden chemical and genetic experiments on themselves or their offspring. The children of the offending scientists are also housed here. (Mar Londo and the Doctors Jath would have been imprisoned here, for example, if that law had been in effect in the United Planets in their time)
Blag Planaid Ur (New Scotworld): Terran colony world, home of Kathleen McMoon
Caerbannog: Planet of fierce, super-strong, super-fast rabbit-headed warriors known as the Sgwarnog.
Cheron Shtaim: Founded by refugees from the dead world of Cheron, which was destroyed by war some forty to fifty millennia ago. Cheronites are very long lived; some of them have memories of the destruction of their original homeworld. Cheronites also have the unique characteristic of bilateral asymmetry.
Chikyuu: Another colony world of Terrans of primarily Japanese descent. Homeworld of Fan Boy
Deasil: see Widdershins and Deasil
Dwarvon: Home to sexually monomorphic dwarf-like aliens
Duorann: Home to sexually monomorphic dwarf-like aliens, including Plover Zegg, who serves on the 31st-century Martian SP force in Nix Olympica, and their spouse, Ruby Zahl
Faerth: A world of desolate, gloomy, lifeless continents surrounded by seaweed-choked oceans. All the portals to Faeryland have been moved here, with the exception of a small number on the Sorcerer's World
Fezen: see Zhyfkod and Fezen
Fossey: Planet colonized by Gorilla City emigrants.
Fronterra: Luddite Terran colony world. Thom Greyson was born here. (In the Earth K-1 Paracosm, Thom eventually becomes Volthoom of Earth-Three)
Galadriel: Homeworld of Leeta-87 (not previously established in canon)
Gan Aeden: A "Paradise Planet" perfectly suited for Terran colonization, even moreso than Earth itself.
Ganesagar: Home to the Ganesagarians, four-armed elephant-like beings, leaders of The Pacht, a coalition of pachydermoid aliens
Grenearmus: Planet of Terran weapons manufacturers who have fallen on hard times. Homeworld of Alex Hamster the Great.
Goodall: World of intelligent chimpanzee-like aliens. There is also a colony of Gorilla City emigrants here
Hagen: Homeworld of semi-sentient, radioactive pools of chemicals which merge with higher life-forms to form Clayface-like beings (not previously established in canon)
The Hexagon: Six worlds which orbit a single star: Mo, Lari, Kurli, Xemp, Jo, and Kurlijo. Kurlijo is home to the Jigsaw Creatures, one of which was once used as a Beast Guard at the Interplanetary Bank. A different Jigsaw Creature, named Symbiote, joins a later iteration of the Legion on Earth-K1 (not previously established in canon)
Houyhnhnm: Homeworld of H'Hrnath of Nullport Shipyards and his race (previously unnamed in the canon)
Ra’akham H'Ronmeer: Meaning "H'Ronmeer's Mercy" in the Martian language, a small planet orbiting a red dwarf star. This is the final home of the Yellow Martian diaspora. (also called the Gold Martians, Theban Martians or Aureate Martians) Anyone visiting this world expecting to see Martians will see only trees, rocks, wild animals, and abandoned buildings. All of which are the Martians. (not previously established in canon)
The Hundred-Acre Universe: A small planet filled with multiple sentient alien species resembling small golden bears, piglets, donkeys, rabbits, owls, kangaroos, tigers, elephants, jaguars, weasels, ferrets, stoats, otters, foxes, squirrels, rats, badgers, moles, toads, bees (a hive mind), butterflies, dragonflies, mice, and hedgehogs. Covered with several varieties of small trees, gorse, grass, and flowers, meandering rivers, and in the far distance, great oceans.
Indrik: Another world of the Pacht, home to gigantic Paraceratherium-like aliens
Iuquhu: Homeworld of Chameleon Chief's people. (Not named in canon)
Jahnson's World: Theme park world where Ennis Jahnson temporarily transforms wealthy patrons into various animals and sends them on brief adventures in artificially created and maintained forests of various descriptions. Formerly called Basura, and later named Tesoro.
Jahnson's Planet: Artificial planetoid constructed by Brande Industries and Cobb's Reparo, which orbits Jahnson's World. This is where Ennis Jahnson moved his theme park operation when it was discovered that Tesoro was inhabited by giant telepathic chelonians. After Ennis Jahnson's death, the world fell into disrepair and ruin, and became known as Planet Ozymandias. The Tesoran chelonians continued to thrive.
Jome: Heavy-metal world orbiting a red dwarf. The dominant life-form is a sort of troglodyte, called the Mbenzi, or Gani. About the size of a four-year-old human, they are sapient, but at a pre-industrial, stone-age level of development, just beginning to understand the use of tools.
https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=935422#Post935422
Kalorus: Super-hot, mostly water world with a line of boiling water at the equator. Clouds of steam form a thick cloud cover over the "temperate" zones. There are two small desert-like continents at the poles. Life is just beginning to leave the oceans for the land on their borders.
Karika: A water-world, home to the Papaya Sailor-Men
Kilima and Aparrion: Twin worlds, in orbits analogous to Earth and Mars, populated by insectoid life forms. Kilimans resemble Earth beetles in all their multichromatic glory; Aparrions resemble green-black locusts, or possibly mantises. Apparions are completely colorblind, seeing only black-and-white, and are thus unable to appreciate the Kiliman's iridescent beauty.
Kolloid: Alien homeworld of semi-humanoid aliens made of near-invulnerable orange gelatin. Homeworld of Gelatinus
Lagflocon: A small asteroid moved into an Earth-orbit, about a million miles out, It is a science station and museum which includes:
* The L1 Agrifloral Consortium
* The United Earth Seed Bank
* The Microgravity Orchard
* The Botanical Gardens… of Space!
Langstrom: Home of genetically transformed, bat-like Terrans
Lapidarius Yu: Homeworld of tall, broad, brightly colorful gemlike silicon-based lifeforms
The Library of Destinies: Not a planet so much as a sort-of place, outside space and time. An infinitude of books of destiny reside here, as well as an infinitude of anthropomorphic incarnations of Fate. Each Fate and Book of Destiny is tied to a particular Universe. It may appear different to different viewers, but last time I looked it appeared as a series of hanging staircases, resembling infinite DNA molecules, with a Book of Destiny and an incarnation Fate on each landing. Some are less anthropomorphic in appearance.
Lumian: Terran colony near a B-type star. Homeworld of Clever Girl
M30-omega (M30?): Planet in which the dominant species resembles a Terran housecat. There are varieties all over the planet, having adapted to grasslands, forests, deserts, and tundra. While none of the species exceeds ten kilos in mass, they are the largest animals on the planet, and the dominant predator. While replicating all the fur-patterns of Earth cats, they also have an extra gene for a blue pigment, and so are found in all colors of the rainbow. A small but vocal minority in the UP has called for the M30-omega to be free from colonization for all time, and to be left to develop without interference from outworlders. So far it is working.
https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/02/65/18/1000_F_102651805_aZEj6JcKPVcThaFOhyIdKTOdpEJ7asd1.jpg
Malhaya: A hidden graveyard asteroid, the polar opposite of Shanghalla. Here is where some of the most infamous super-villains are buried, as well as some far less notable criminals. Final resting place of Lex Luthor's mortal remains, as well as Roy Travich. Maintained in the 31st century by a secret society of super-villains.
Here is a listing of original planets I have needed to create for the various series set in the Earth-K paracosms. I have probably missed a few
PART ONE
Amphora: Planet of the frog-like, or possibly toad-like, aliens. In any case, they are bipedal, and almost humanoid in profile, with a Coluan Intelligence Level range roughly equivalent to Terrans
Aparrion: see Kilima and Aparrion
Arau: One of the worlds of cat-people. Part of the Felikan Confederation, also known as the Cat-Dog Hegemony. Homeworld of the Jellicle Girl, the Tesser Cat, the Other Mara, and Kit.
Aressia: Homeworld of the superintelligent Sand Octopi
Asellus: Luddite Terran colony world. Donkey Lass hails from here.
Asteroid Colony 1967: Tiny world where it is always The Summer of Love. Homeworld of Decal Damsel
Auxgate: Another farming planet, like Winath, Mardru, or the Manna Worlds. Home of Pastry Chef Kid and Cake-Frosting-Hair Girl
Bastegar: Home of the Bastet, a matriarchal society of cat-headed humanoids
Bdelugma, the Pariah Planetoid: A specialized prison planet, for individuals in the 31st century who conducted forbidden chemical and genetic experiments on themselves or their offspring. The children of the offending scientists are also housed here. (Mar Londo and the Doctors Jath would have been imprisoned here, for example, if that law had been in effect in the United Planets in their time)
Blag Planaid Ur (New Scotworld): Terran colony world, home of Kathleen McMoon
Caerbannog: Planet of fierce, super-strong, super-fast rabbit-headed warriors known as the Sgwarnog.
Cheron Shtaim: Founded by refugees from the dead world of Cheron, which was destroyed by war some forty to fifty millennia ago. Cheronites are very long lived; some of them have memories of the destruction of their original homeworld. Cheronites also have the unique characteristic of bilateral asymmetry.
Chikyuu: Another colony world of Terrans of primarily Japanese descent. Homeworld of Fan Boy
Deasil: see Widdershins and Deasil
Dwarvon: Home to sexually monomorphic dwarf-like aliens
Duorann: Home to sexually monomorphic dwarf-like aliens, including Plover Zegg, who serves on the 31st-century Martian SP force in Nix Olympica, and their spouse, Ruby Zahl
Faerth: A world of desolate, gloomy, lifeless continents surrounded by seaweed-choked oceans. All the portals to Faeryland have been moved here, with the exception of a small number on the Sorcerer's World
Fezen: see Zhyfkod and Fezen
Fossey: Planet colonized by Gorilla City emigrants.
Fronterra: Luddite Terran colony world. Thom Greyson was born here. (In the Earth K-1 Paracosm, Thom eventually becomes Volthoom of Earth-Three)
Galadriel: Homeworld of Leeta-87 (not previously established in canon)
Gan Aeden: A "Paradise Planet" perfectly suited for Terran colonization, even moreso than Earth itself.
Ganesagar: Home to the Ganesagarians, four-armed elephant-like beings, leaders of The Pacht, a coalition of pachydermoid aliens
Grenearmus: Planet of Terran weapons manufacturers who have fallen on hard times. Homeworld of Alex Hamster the Great.
Goodall: World of intelligent chimpanzee-like aliens. There is also a colony of Gorilla City emigrants here
Hagen: Homeworld of semi-sentient, radioactive pools of chemicals which merge with higher life-forms to form Clayface-like beings (not previously established in canon)
The Hexagon: Six worlds which orbit a single star: Mo, Lari, Kurli, Xemp, Jo, and Kurlijo. Kurlijo is home to the Jigsaw Creatures, one of which was once used as a Beast Guard at the Interplanetary Bank. A different Jigsaw Creature, named Symbiote, joins a later iteration of the Legion on Earth-K1 (not previously established in canon)
Houyhnhnm: Homeworld of H'Hrnath of Nullport Shipyards and his race (previously unnamed in the canon)
Ra’akham H'Ronmeer: Meaning "H'Ronmeer's Mercy" in the Martian language, a small planet orbiting a red dwarf star. This is the final home of the Yellow Martian diaspora. (also called the Gold Martians, Theban Martians or Aureate Martians) Anyone visiting this world expecting to see Martians will see only trees, rocks, wild animals, and abandoned buildings. All of which are the Martians. (not previously established in canon)
The Hundred-Acre Universe: A small planet filled with multiple sentient alien species resembling small golden bears, piglets, donkeys, rabbits, owls, kangaroos, tigers, elephants, jaguars, weasels, ferrets, stoats, otters, foxes, squirrels, rats, badgers, moles, toads, bees (a hive mind), butterflies, dragonflies, mice, and hedgehogs. Covered with several varieties of small trees, gorse, grass, and flowers, meandering rivers, and in the far distance, great oceans.
Indrik: Another world of the Pacht, home to gigantic Paraceratherium-like aliens
Iuquhu: Homeworld of Chameleon Chief's people. (Not named in canon)
Jahnson's World: Theme park world where Ennis Jahnson temporarily transforms wealthy patrons into various animals and sends them on brief adventures in artificially created and maintained forests of various descriptions. Formerly called Basura, and later named Tesoro.
Jahnson's Planet: Artificial planetoid constructed by Brande Industries and Cobb's Reparo, which orbits Jahnson's World. This is where Ennis Jahnson moved his theme park operation when it was discovered that Tesoro was inhabited by giant telepathic chelonians. After Ennis Jahnson's death, the world fell into disrepair and ruin, and became known as Planet Ozymandias. The Tesoran chelonians continued to thrive.
Jome: Heavy-metal world orbiting a red dwarf. The dominant life-form is a sort of troglodyte, called the Mbenzi, or Gani. About the size of a four-year-old human, they are sapient, but at a pre-industrial, stone-age level of development, just beginning to understand the use of tools.
https:/
Kalorus: Super-hot, mostly water world with a line of boiling water at the equator. Clouds of steam form a thick cloud cover over the "temperate" zones. There are two small desert-like continents at the poles. Life is just beginning to leave the oceans for the land on their borders.
Karika: A water-world, home to the Papaya Sailor-Men
Kilima and Aparrion: Twin worlds, in orbits analogous to Earth and Mars, populated by insectoid life forms. Kilimans resemble Earth beetles in all their multichromatic glory; Aparrions resemble green-black locusts, or possibly mantises. Apparions are completely colorblind, seeing only black-and-white, and are thus unable to appreciate the Kiliman's iridescent beauty.
Kolloid: Alien homeworld of semi-humanoid aliens made of near-invulnerable orange gelatin. Homeworld of Gelatinus
Lagflocon: A small asteroid moved into an Earth-orbit, about a million miles out, It is a science station and museum which includes:
* The L1 Agrifloral Consortium
* The United Earth Seed Bank
* The Microgravity Orchard
* The Botanical Gardens… of Space!
Langstrom: Home of genetically transformed, bat-like Terrans
Lapidarius Yu: Homeworld of tall, broad, brightly colorful gemlike silicon-based lifeforms
The Library of Destinies: Not a planet so much as a sort-of place, outside space and time. An infinitude of books of destiny reside here, as well as an infinitude of anthropomorphic incarnations of Fate. Each Fate and Book of Destiny is tied to a particular Universe. It may appear different to different viewers, but last time I looked it appeared as a series of hanging staircases, resembling infinite DNA molecules, with a Book of Destiny and an incarnation Fate on each landing. Some are less anthropomorphic in appearance.
Lumian: Terran colony near a B-type star. Homeworld of Clever Girl
M30-omega (M30?): Planet in which the dominant species resembles a Terran housecat. There are varieties all over the planet, having adapted to grasslands, forests, deserts, and tundra. While none of the species exceeds ten kilos in mass, they are the largest animals on the planet, and the dominant predator. While replicating all the fur-patterns of Earth cats, they also have an extra gene for a blue pigment, and so are found in all colors of the rainbow. A small but vocal minority in the UP has called for the M30-omega to be free from colonization for all time, and to be left to develop without interference from outworlders. So far it is working.
https:/
Malhaya: A hidden graveyard asteroid, the polar opposite of Shanghalla. Here is where some of the most infamous super-villains are buried, as well as some far less notable criminals. Final resting place of Lex Luthor's mortal remains, as well as Roy Travich. Maintained in the 31st century by a secret society of super-villains.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/23/22 03:54 PM
Strange New Worlds
PART TWO
Mariceleste: Orbits the golden star-sun Daleth Meissa. The cities boast neatly laid out boulevards lined with fruit trees in a variety of colors. The atmosphere is free of radio or sub-etheric signals. Walk into any one of the many cunning houses, and you will be served a meal by automated 'bots. Stay here long enough and those meals will become customized to your personal tastes and physiology. You can relax after dinner with sixty channels of entertainment, available twenty-four hours a day—but it is all ancient pre-recorded material, repeating on a one-hundred-twenty-year cycle. New furnishings are provided to the homes regularly; the old stuff is collected and recycled by more 'bots. Buildings are re-painted on a regular basis. Damages are swiftly and efficiently repaired. Factories stand ready to receive special orders, and produce goods immediately. But there has been no one living on Mariceleste since Cleopatra ruled Egypt, except for a few U.P. archaeologists. No one is home. All the life-forms here: trees, birds, insects—exist only as scenery and landscaping for billions of homes in a hundred thousand cities across the planet. All have been obviously genomorphed. It is also home to the Gremlings, which are completely artificial living beings, having been genoformed from the ground up. All the machinery control is decentralized. There is no single command center. If a local hub is damaged, there is no way for it to be fixed, so an entire sector could eventually fall into disrepair. But the Gremlings fix that. They range all over the planet, making the repairs the auto-systems can't. Not truly sapient, they are nevertheless astoundingly intuitive engineers. They exist on the detritus of the machines—they essentially eat worn-out technology. "Urk", who was imported to the Legion Academy by R.J. Brande is a typical example of a Gremling. (not previously established in canon)
Megathor: Another Pacht World, the Megathorians resemble the ancient, extinct giant ground sloths of Earth. They live in the midst of massive groves which produce Perseus Fruit, green softball-sized globes which are the sole food in their diet.
Meleagris V: Home of the Turkeymen (Turkopoids)
Planet Methuselah, in the 32nd century, is where many immortals and semi-immortals eventually end up. A few residents you may be familiar with from the 21st century: Luke O'Brian / Tefé Holland / Joseph Stagg-Mason / David Tenzer
Mig Jalth: World of purple-skinned near-humanoids whose royalty and nobility carry a metagene which gives them a wide variety of seemingly random super-abilities. One Jalthan prince, named Pogyrtoon, visits Earth in the 33rd century.
Millennius (a): Ostensibly the one-thousandth Terran colony, ruled by a Council of Archons. The Khundish Empire disputes the United Planets claim to this world
Millennius (b): Ostensibly the one-thousandth Terran colony, its peculiar soil biology makes it unsuitable for cultivation of terrestrial vegetation. Abandoned after less than ten years
Mish Qeng: Planet of winged, golden humanoids. Homeworld of Arnion the Charioteer, once Dacey Ranzz's demon-possessed boyfriend
M'Khoar: Homeworld of the ‘Uglies’
Mnemnos: Terran colony world where the inhabitants practice memory-enhancing exercises. Home of Starchart
Monkaros: Another Pacht world, the Monkartians are a horned, rhinoceros-like species.
Mycoworld: A planet dominated by fungi, a few of the taller plateaus have been colonized by Terrans and other alien races. Most are enclosed within hyper-polymer domes, or something similar. The lower regions are entirely uninhabitable, due to the toxic or allergic properties of the atmospheric spores. There are probably some very interesting fungal species here, among the billions that overrun the planet.
Pennggulling: Homeworld of semi-humanoid, pangolin-like aliens, a member of the Pacht
Neohellas: A world beyond the United Planets, and therefore not subject to UP law, where geneticists have tried to recreate the heroes and monsters of ancient Greek myth. 33rd-century home of Caduceus, Herokalos, and Cyclops.
New Hajor: Planet leased by Gnill Opral, formerly known as Kid Psycho, with the intention of re-populating the Hajoran race
Nilpferd: Another Pacht world, home of a massive, bipedal hippopotamus-like species.
The Nohmadd: A race that travels from planet to planet, destroying their ecosystems before moving on to another. Often several of their people are left behind to starve or die of chemical poisoning. A few of these colonies have survived planetary desolation, and have been discovered. Where the main body of the Nohmadd are at the moment is unknown.
Novaares: Homeworlds of powerful white-skinned, telekinetic humanoids, who physically resemble white Martians, Saturnians and Czarnians
Planet Nyuk: Home of The Interstellar University of Thalia and Sock: the Carnival, Circus, and Clown College. Of Space.
Olamhaba: A "Paradise Planet '' perfectly suited for Terran colonization, even moreso than Earth itself.
Oscuro: A hidden world of evil magic-users, the "Evil Sorcerer's World". Home to, among others, the Absurdist Coven: (1) The Blueberry Cobbler (2) The Anagrammist, who speaks his spells in anagrams (3) The Quotidian Duck-Man (4) Mister Pince-Nez (5) Monsieur Mechant (Ce N'est Pas Un Villain) (6) Mr. Black, The Master Blacksmith (7) Napoleon Blown-Apart (8) Meretricious Maximilliano (9) Scissor-Boy, originally from Orqwith (10) Avatar Master, who is able to summon avatars of various gods of evil, (11) Docteur Allant Démodé, and (12,13) The Kakoset, a pair of indistinguishable nameless, faceless, mute twin brute mages
Porlat: Terran colony world, home of Polly Popout (Margareth Marz)
Pullum: A planet inhabited by a race of chicken-headed, feathered humanoids. Homeworld of Kukku Tazava, "Chicken Boy"
Relav: Red sun world of four-inch-tall dormouse-like aliens. They have a waking cycle of around ten minutes every fifty hours.
Rhode's Asteroid, a tiny world of only about 1,000 square miles located out in the middle of deep space. It has an artificial sun, and an artificial atmosphere held in by a polymer sphere. Positioned half-way between Xanthu and Rimbor, it is an important stopover location for space-traffic.
Rhombus: Home of Hyperlad. His 'penta-vision' allows him to quintuplicate anything he looks at.
Planet Roanoke, one of the first extrasolar Terran colonies, long since abandoned. It received its name from the historical Roanoke colony in North America, but only after the colony was abandoned. Originally called Terratu.
Rodentopia: Terran colony where the inhabitants have developed a psychic link to various rodents, notably hamsters and gerbils, who fulfill the role of servants to their human masters. Homeworld of Gerbil Commander
Rossum: Famous throughout the galaxy for its robot factories
Planet Scarborough: The "Turnpike of Space", where a number of intragalactic routes intersect with natural wormholes.
Sidelee: A planet of plant-like beings somewhat similar to the worlds Arbro, Alstair, Fluvian and Treleas. The inhabitants are made of a light, pliable, super-soft wood, similar to balsa or cork.
Sasquatch: Homeworld of sasquatch-like and yeti-like primates
Snahannahan: Homeworld of humanoid-like slugs
Txanz: A cut-rate Ventura where scientists study probability. Homeworld of Ludi Jarb, the Pitagora Girl, who attended the Legion Academy with Pol Krinn II on Earth-K1
Utmylgh: A watery Sorcerer's World for the Gil'Dishpan, although there are several Gil'Dishpan sorcerers on Tharn. If you thought their technology was bizarre, you should see their spells.
Vinculus Portae (Deneb Kaitos IV): Deneb Kaitos is a giant orange star 100 light-years from Earth, also known as Diphda or Beta Ceti. The fourth planet is a rocky wasteland, except that it houses the trans-dimensional gate leading to the World of the Last Children of Echidna. These one million massive, immortal monsters battle one another in a continual, unending orgy of violence. Many are similar in appearance to Validus and Tribulus. An immortal centaur who calls himself Jiron, and a strange corpse-like woman named Velissa are the gatekeepers here. (not previously established in canon)
Vulx (31st century): In the 2Oth century, the Vulxans realized that so-called “Mutra rays” from space were slowly killing them. Superboy discovered that Kryptonite absorbed all the incoming Mutra rays, and their silicon-based bodies of poison for the first time. A Vulxan named Romax sculpted the kryptonite into an image of Superboy to honor his actions.
By the 31st century, Vulx had learned to harness Kryptonite as a power source in nuclear reactors, and developed an industry of manufacturing artificial Kryptonite. In addition, they have mastered interstellar teleportation technology more reliable than the “zeta-beam” of Rann, and a temporary “animation ray”, which is used to create robot-like servants, primarily from anthracite.
Widdershins and Deasil: Odd double-planet in which one partner spins clockwise, and the other counter-clockwise
Witch Haven: An alternative to the Sorcerers' World, this planet has served as a distant refuge for persecuted witches for tens of millenia. The magicks here are more ancient, arcane, and earthy than those of Tharn or Zerox. Witch Haven is the go-to destination for curses, curse-breaking and healing magic
World 318: Homeworld of the pig-faced aliens who invaded Paradise Island in Wonder Woman #318 (not previously established in canon)
Planeta Xamayka: Terran colony, primarily colonized by Hispanics of African descent. Apparently a low-technology world, it is actually one of the most highly advanced in the United Planets, but rather than finding new ways to consume energy, their technology is ultra-efficient. Although they consume less energy than the sunlight which naturally falls on the surface of their world, they live lives of remarkable ease and comfort.
Yelmok: A Terran colony world where there is no societal prohibition against nudity. Rather, the naked human body is considered unattractive and repellant. Individuals in this society wear elaborate, ornamented robes to "cover their nakedness", even during sleep, or intimate activities. On the other hand, both males and females comfortably swim in the nude, quickly re-donning their robes when coming out of the water.
Ylzagar: Around the size of Earth, it is another watery world dotted with a million islands.
Zafarus: Home to the giraffe-like Zafarans
(Second from the right)
![[Linked Image from 66.media.tumblr.com]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/b7b7b9b48b95e5299e2bc52cd81ba094/tumblr_ppjn0yUiz41uwm5uqo1_400.png)
Planet Zhou: Terran colony populated with individuals primarily of Chinese and Korean descent.
Zhyfkod and Fezen: Twin planets orbiting one another under a red sun. Home to creatures of various descriptions with Kryptonian-like powers under a yellow sun, none of which are sapient.
PART TWO
Mariceleste: Orbits the golden star-sun Daleth Meissa. The cities boast neatly laid out boulevards lined with fruit trees in a variety of colors. The atmosphere is free of radio or sub-etheric signals. Walk into any one of the many cunning houses, and you will be served a meal by automated 'bots. Stay here long enough and those meals will become customized to your personal tastes and physiology. You can relax after dinner with sixty channels of entertainment, available twenty-four hours a day—but it is all ancient pre-recorded material, repeating on a one-hundred-twenty-year cycle. New furnishings are provided to the homes regularly; the old stuff is collected and recycled by more 'bots. Buildings are re-painted on a regular basis. Damages are swiftly and efficiently repaired. Factories stand ready to receive special orders, and produce goods immediately. But there has been no one living on Mariceleste since Cleopatra ruled Egypt, except for a few U.P. archaeologists. No one is home. All the life-forms here: trees, birds, insects—exist only as scenery and landscaping for billions of homes in a hundred thousand cities across the planet. All have been obviously genomorphed. It is also home to the Gremlings, which are completely artificial living beings, having been genoformed from the ground up. All the machinery control is decentralized. There is no single command center. If a local hub is damaged, there is no way for it to be fixed, so an entire sector could eventually fall into disrepair. But the Gremlings fix that. They range all over the planet, making the repairs the auto-systems can't. Not truly sapient, they are nevertheless astoundingly intuitive engineers. They exist on the detritus of the machines—they essentially eat worn-out technology. "Urk", who was imported to the Legion Academy by R.J. Brande is a typical example of a Gremling. (not previously established in canon)
Megathor: Another Pacht World, the Megathorians resemble the ancient, extinct giant ground sloths of Earth. They live in the midst of massive groves which produce Perseus Fruit, green softball-sized globes which are the sole food in their diet.
Meleagris V: Home of the Turkeymen (Turkopoids)
Planet Methuselah, in the 32nd century, is where many immortals and semi-immortals eventually end up. A few residents you may be familiar with from the 21st century: Luke O'Brian / Tefé Holland / Joseph Stagg-Mason / David Tenzer
Mig Jalth: World of purple-skinned near-humanoids whose royalty and nobility carry a metagene which gives them a wide variety of seemingly random super-abilities. One Jalthan prince, named Pogyrtoon, visits Earth in the 33rd century.
Millennius (a): Ostensibly the one-thousandth Terran colony, ruled by a Council of Archons. The Khundish Empire disputes the United Planets claim to this world
Millennius (b): Ostensibly the one-thousandth Terran colony, its peculiar soil biology makes it unsuitable for cultivation of terrestrial vegetation. Abandoned after less than ten years
Mish Qeng: Planet of winged, golden humanoids. Homeworld of Arnion the Charioteer, once Dacey Ranzz's demon-possessed boyfriend
M'Khoar: Homeworld of the ‘Uglies’
Mnemnos: Terran colony world where the inhabitants practice memory-enhancing exercises. Home of Starchart
Monkaros: Another Pacht world, the Monkartians are a horned, rhinoceros-like species.
Mycoworld: A planet dominated by fungi, a few of the taller plateaus have been colonized by Terrans and other alien races. Most are enclosed within hyper-polymer domes, or something similar. The lower regions are entirely uninhabitable, due to the toxic or allergic properties of the atmospheric spores. There are probably some very interesting fungal species here, among the billions that overrun the planet.
Pennggulling: Homeworld of semi-humanoid, pangolin-like aliens, a member of the Pacht
Neohellas: A world beyond the United Planets, and therefore not subject to UP law, where geneticists have tried to recreate the heroes and monsters of ancient Greek myth. 33rd-century home of Caduceus, Herokalos, and Cyclops.
New Hajor: Planet leased by Gnill Opral, formerly known as Kid Psycho, with the intention of re-populating the Hajoran race
Nilpferd: Another Pacht world, home of a massive, bipedal hippopotamus-like species.
The Nohmadd: A race that travels from planet to planet, destroying their ecosystems before moving on to another. Often several of their people are left behind to starve or die of chemical poisoning. A few of these colonies have survived planetary desolation, and have been discovered. Where the main body of the Nohmadd are at the moment is unknown.
Novaares: Homeworlds of powerful white-skinned, telekinetic humanoids, who physically resemble white Martians, Saturnians and Czarnians
Planet Nyuk: Home of The Interstellar University of Thalia and Sock: the Carnival, Circus, and Clown College. Of Space.
Olamhaba: A "Paradise Planet '' perfectly suited for Terran colonization, even moreso than Earth itself.
Oscuro: A hidden world of evil magic-users, the "Evil Sorcerer's World". Home to, among others, the Absurdist Coven: (1) The Blueberry Cobbler (2) The Anagrammist, who speaks his spells in anagrams (3) The Quotidian Duck-Man (4) Mister Pince-Nez (5) Monsieur Mechant (Ce N'est Pas Un Villain) (6) Mr. Black, The Master Blacksmith (7) Napoleon Blown-Apart (8) Meretricious Maximilliano (9) Scissor-Boy, originally from Orqwith (10) Avatar Master, who is able to summon avatars of various gods of evil, (11) Docteur Allant Démodé, and (12,13) The Kakoset, a pair of indistinguishable nameless, faceless, mute twin brute mages
Porlat: Terran colony world, home of Polly Popout (Margareth Marz)
Pullum: A planet inhabited by a race of chicken-headed, feathered humanoids. Homeworld of Kukku Tazava, "Chicken Boy"
Relav: Red sun world of four-inch-tall dormouse-like aliens. They have a waking cycle of around ten minutes every fifty hours.
Rhode's Asteroid, a tiny world of only about 1,000 square miles located out in the middle of deep space. It has an artificial sun, and an artificial atmosphere held in by a polymer sphere. Positioned half-way between Xanthu and Rimbor, it is an important stopover location for space-traffic.
Rhombus: Home of Hyperlad. His 'penta-vision' allows him to quintuplicate anything he looks at.
Planet Roanoke, one of the first extrasolar Terran colonies, long since abandoned. It received its name from the historical Roanoke colony in North America, but only after the colony was abandoned. Originally called Terratu.
Rodentopia: Terran colony where the inhabitants have developed a psychic link to various rodents, notably hamsters and gerbils, who fulfill the role of servants to their human masters. Homeworld of Gerbil Commander
Rossum: Famous throughout the galaxy for its robot factories
Planet Scarborough: The "Turnpike of Space", where a number of intragalactic routes intersect with natural wormholes.
Sidelee: A planet of plant-like beings somewhat similar to the worlds Arbro, Alstair, Fluvian and Treleas. The inhabitants are made of a light, pliable, super-soft wood, similar to balsa or cork.
Sasquatch: Homeworld of sasquatch-like and yeti-like primates
Snahannahan: Homeworld of humanoid-like slugs
Txanz: A cut-rate Ventura where scientists study probability. Homeworld of Ludi Jarb, the Pitagora Girl, who attended the Legion Academy with Pol Krinn II on Earth-K1
Utmylgh: A watery Sorcerer's World for the Gil'Dishpan, although there are several Gil'Dishpan sorcerers on Tharn. If you thought their technology was bizarre, you should see their spells.
Vinculus Portae (Deneb Kaitos IV): Deneb Kaitos is a giant orange star 100 light-years from Earth, also known as Diphda or Beta Ceti. The fourth planet is a rocky wasteland, except that it houses the trans-dimensional gate leading to the World of the Last Children of Echidna. These one million massive, immortal monsters battle one another in a continual, unending orgy of violence. Many are similar in appearance to Validus and Tribulus. An immortal centaur who calls himself Jiron, and a strange corpse-like woman named Velissa are the gatekeepers here. (not previously established in canon)
Vulx (31st century): In the 2Oth century, the Vulxans realized that so-called “Mutra rays” from space were slowly killing them. Superboy discovered that Kryptonite absorbed all the incoming Mutra rays, and their silicon-based bodies of poison for the first time. A Vulxan named Romax sculpted the kryptonite into an image of Superboy to honor his actions.
By the 31st century, Vulx had learned to harness Kryptonite as a power source in nuclear reactors, and developed an industry of manufacturing artificial Kryptonite. In addition, they have mastered interstellar teleportation technology more reliable than the “zeta-beam” of Rann, and a temporary “animation ray”, which is used to create robot-like servants, primarily from anthracite.
Widdershins and Deasil: Odd double-planet in which one partner spins clockwise, and the other counter-clockwise
Witch Haven: An alternative to the Sorcerers' World, this planet has served as a distant refuge for persecuted witches for tens of millenia. The magicks here are more ancient, arcane, and earthy than those of Tharn or Zerox. Witch Haven is the go-to destination for curses, curse-breaking and healing magic
World 318: Homeworld of the pig-faced aliens who invaded Paradise Island in Wonder Woman #318 (not previously established in canon)
Planeta Xamayka: Terran colony, primarily colonized by Hispanics of African descent. Apparently a low-technology world, it is actually one of the most highly advanced in the United Planets, but rather than finding new ways to consume energy, their technology is ultra-efficient. Although they consume less energy than the sunlight which naturally falls on the surface of their world, they live lives of remarkable ease and comfort.
Yelmok: A Terran colony world where there is no societal prohibition against nudity. Rather, the naked human body is considered unattractive and repellant. Individuals in this society wear elaborate, ornamented robes to "cover their nakedness", even during sleep, or intimate activities. On the other hand, both males and females comfortably swim in the nude, quickly re-donning their robes when coming out of the water.
Ylzagar: Around the size of Earth, it is another watery world dotted with a million islands.
Zafarus: Home to the giraffe-like Zafarans
(Second from the right)
Planet Zhou: Terran colony populated with individuals primarily of Chinese and Korean descent.
Zhyfkod and Fezen: Twin planets orbiting one another under a red sun. Home to creatures of various descriptions with Kryptonian-like powers under a yellow sun, none of which are sapient.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/31/22 02:51 PM
There are places I'll remember
All my life
Though some have changed
Some forever
Not for better
Some have gone and
Some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and
Some are living
In my life I've loved them all
https://youtu.be/Ielv_IOFAMU?t=74
All my life
Though some have changed
Some forever
Not for better
Some have gone and
Some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and
Some are living
In my life I've loved them all
https://youtu.be/Ielv_IOFAMU?t=74
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/31/22 02:53 PM
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
A NEW NAME
"Where is our latest member?" asked Korvea.
"Out on patrol," said Lightning Lass. "New Metropolis. Marsopolis. Nix Olympica. Probably saving cats from trees."
"Fat Boy takes super-heroing very seriously," said Shrinking Violet.
"Look," said Korvea, "I'm just saying the name 'Fat Boy' seems a little insulting, considering all he's capable of."
"They say Kryptonians are slightly stronger than Daxamites," said Lightning Lass. "Pound for pound."
"That's exactly what I mean," said Korvea. "We don't want people to think the SHC is a joke."
"Sometimes," said Lightning Lass, "It is a tactical advantage for the enemy to underestimate your strength."
"Although," mused Shrinking Violet. "What was that name Lar Gand used? Before he became Mon-El?"
"The Legionnaire Lemon?" asked Lightning Lass.
"No, something else," said Shrinking Violet. "Miracle Lad? Marvel Boy?"
"Mighty Lad," said Lightning Lass. "Here he comes, to save the day."
o o o
"What's wrong with Fat Boy?" asked Fat Boy.
"Indeed," said Ten. "In certain ancient Old Terran dialects, the word for 'fat' implied strength, health, the best of the best. 'Fat of the Land' was an idiom."
Korvea glared at the little Coluan.
"But not in Interlac," Ten amended. "In Interlac there are connotations of greediness, laziness, even slovenliness. Mockery. Ahem."
"This was Lar Gand's Mighty Lad costume," said Korvea, holding up her 'phone. "We could replicate one from the solid printer."
"Better to have it made on Daxam," said Star-Woman. "Much more durable. I have all my uniforms made of fine-spun Daxamite wool, with boots of Daxamite xheep-leather."
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9cd19eadaf0f7729685a86ee060e6d1a/0d6a57e42f59e614-dd/s250x400/fb1dda894967c23661f43111004b27b5e714952f.jpg)
A NEW NAME
"Where is our latest member?" asked Korvea.
"Out on patrol," said Lightning Lass. "New Metropolis. Marsopolis. Nix Olympica. Probably saving cats from trees."
"Fat Boy takes super-heroing very seriously," said Shrinking Violet.
"Look," said Korvea, "I'm just saying the name 'Fat Boy' seems a little insulting, considering all he's capable of."
"They say Kryptonians are slightly stronger than Daxamites," said Lightning Lass. "Pound for pound."
"That's exactly what I mean," said Korvea. "We don't want people to think the SHC is a joke."
"Sometimes," said Lightning Lass, "It is a tactical advantage for the enemy to underestimate your strength."
"Although," mused Shrinking Violet. "What was that name Lar Gand used? Before he became Mon-El?"
"The Legionnaire Lemon?" asked Lightning Lass.
"No, something else," said Shrinking Violet. "Miracle Lad? Marvel Boy?"
"Mighty Lad," said Lightning Lass. "Here he comes, to save the day."
o o o
"What's wrong with Fat Boy?" asked Fat Boy.
"Indeed," said Ten. "In certain ancient Old Terran dialects, the word for 'fat' implied strength, health, the best of the best. 'Fat of the Land' was an idiom."
Korvea glared at the little Coluan.
"But not in Interlac," Ten amended. "In Interlac there are connotations of greediness, laziness, even slovenliness. Mockery. Ahem."
"This was Lar Gand's Mighty Lad costume," said Korvea, holding up her 'phone. "We could replicate one from the solid printer."
"Better to have it made on Daxam," said Star-Woman. "Much more durable. I have all my uniforms made of fine-spun Daxamite wool, with boots of Daxamite xheep-leather."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 05/31/22 02:56 PM
Friday, June 1st, 3O22
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
UTMYLGH
Saturn Girl frowned.
"The United Planets seems to think we are competent and effective ambassadors," she said. "This causes me to doubt the capabilities of their own diplomatic services."
"You’re saying they want to send us on another mission?" asked Ffiona.
"To the Gildan," Saturn Girl acknowledged. "Not to Gil’Dishpan, but to their version of the Sorcerer’s World, a place called Utmylgh."
"Wow," said Cosmic Boy. "I thought of the Gildan as a super-technological society, not as sorcerers."
"It appears they can be both," said Saturn Girl. "And as we have had more experience with Tharn than virtually any other non-magic-users in the United Planets, they have asked us to act as a delegation."
"Why not send a Coventry of Tharnans," wondered Ffiona. "Or a delegation from the Museum of Mystic Arts?"
"It is likely," said Ten, "That the Tharnans do not wish to have their powers corrupted by exposure to Gildan magicks. Much of sorcery occurs in the mind, and having one’s prejudices and expectations challenged can be fatal to magical abilities."
"You really have been studying this, haven’t you?" Lightning Lass remarked. Ten merely nodded in return.
"My sister and I, the Triplicates, Hillarie and Chameleon were summoned to Tharn for the war against the Analysts," Saturn Girl mused. "As Utmylgh is a water-world, we would need to wear enhanced trans-suits, which would interfere with Bismollian and Cargggan abilities. Dacey’s powers would possibly be difficult to control: the oceans are filled with methane and methanol, which would probably be explosive?"
"Methane isn’t soluble in water," Ffiona remarked. "How much could there be?"
"It bubbles up from beneath," Ten explained. "Methane is quite soluble at the low temperatures and great pressures in the depths of ocean planets."
“How about others?” asked Star-Woman. “Who weren’t involved in the Analyst War, but might have powers useful on a water-world?”
"Utmylgh orbits a red sun, so I wouldn’t want to bring Mighty Lad. And if I’m going, so I would like you to remain here. Chameleon, are your powers developed enough to replicate Gildan physiology?"
"Aquatic methane-breathers are still carbon-based lifeforms," Chameleon replied. "I would only have to take a look at one to replicate their physiology."
“May I suggest Cosmic Boy,” said Star-Woman. “If Lightning Lass’ powers get out of control, he has some experience helping to control them.”
"Good call,” Saturn Girl agreed. “Then I think I will select myself, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, and Chameleon for this diplomatic mission. "Ambassador Quintapilot will brief us tomorrow by view-screen, and we can leave as soon as we’re ready."
o o o
The Gildan delegation were absolutely indistinguishable from one another. Their minds sounded to Saturn Girl like cracking static.Their voders, however, were producing perfectly intelligible and grammatically correct Interlac.
"Gil’Dishpan is already a member of the United Planets. If our brethren cannot convince us to join, why do you have hope?"
"We have to try," said Saturn Girl. "Can you understand what we are saying? Our translators do not seem to be up to the job."
"Gildan technology is not more advanced than yours, but we have spent more time refining our translators. Yes, we understand you perfectly."
"I need to change back," said Chameleon Boy. "My nervous system is so scrambled I’m starting to lose myself. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this form. Can we contact the Circadians and have them send us a spare trans-suit?"
"We have also had experience dealing with Durlans. We anticipated your need. This is Jeminos, a representative from Hykraius. He has agreed that you may duplicate his appearance."
Chameleon morphed into a Hykraian form, although more orange-and-magenta than yellow-and-violet.
"<I appreciate your colorful variation>," said the Hykraian, in perfectly intelligible telepathy.
"The fact is, the United Planets has nothing to offer us. Your Sorcerers’ Worlds disdain our magicks, and refuse collegiate investigation. The study of mystical arcana is our only pursuit on Utmylgh."
"But you have sent representatives to study on Tharn," Saturn Girl objected. "You cannot find their form of sorcery entirely without merit."
"We find Tharnan magic unnecessarily showy and theatrical. Sparks and flashes and lightning bolts often accompany their spells. Audible incantations and complex gestures. Magicians are mutated and metamorphosed into forms that reflect their magical specialties. Such side-effects are inefficient, a waste of magical energies."
"Your magic never has side effects?" wondered Saturn Girl.
"For example, we have just performed a minor spell-- we have changed the past. You Ranzz twins have been born-- what is the word-- 'gingers’."
Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass exchanged a glance. "But we’ve always been red-headed," said Saturn Girl.
"Of course you have. We changed the past."
The Ranzz twins found themselves rather nonplussed.
"What is that?" One of the Gildan pointed a mottled spherical appendage at Cosmic Boy. "You are carrying foodstuffs."
Fumbling through the enhanced trans-suit, Pol extracted a "fun-size" candy bar from a pocket in his belt. "It’s just a Spunow," he said. He carefully manipulated the candy through the trans-suit field, until it was floating in the water. The Gildan absorbed it into one of the openings in its appendage, then spit out the wrapper.
There was a moment of crackling telepathic communication among the Gildan.
"We have been… " The voder paused for a moment. "'Narcissistic’. Overestimating our knowledge and thoroughness of United Planets technology. We had believed that we knew all the United Planets had to offer. In this we have been mistaken. Please return to your homeworld and inform the United Planets Diplomatic Corps that we will be getting in touch with them in the near future. The very, very near future. We have much to discuss."
"Spunow?" Cosmic Boy wondered as they emerged from the Pentachoron. "I buy that ready-made for ten kilos a credit. And that’s what the Gildan want?"
"I myself am often surprised at life's little quirks," Lightning Lass replied.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
UTMYLGH
Saturn Girl frowned.
"The United Planets seems to think we are competent and effective ambassadors," she said. "This causes me to doubt the capabilities of their own diplomatic services."
"You’re saying they want to send us on another mission?" asked Ffiona.
"To the Gildan," Saturn Girl acknowledged. "Not to Gil’Dishpan, but to their version of the Sorcerer’s World, a place called Utmylgh."
"Wow," said Cosmic Boy. "I thought of the Gildan as a super-technological society, not as sorcerers."
"It appears they can be both," said Saturn Girl. "And as we have had more experience with Tharn than virtually any other non-magic-users in the United Planets, they have asked us to act as a delegation."
"Why not send a Coventry of Tharnans," wondered Ffiona. "Or a delegation from the Museum of Mystic Arts?"
"It is likely," said Ten, "That the Tharnans do not wish to have their powers corrupted by exposure to Gildan magicks. Much of sorcery occurs in the mind, and having one’s prejudices and expectations challenged can be fatal to magical abilities."
"You really have been studying this, haven’t you?" Lightning Lass remarked. Ten merely nodded in return.
"My sister and I, the Triplicates, Hillarie and Chameleon were summoned to Tharn for the war against the Analysts," Saturn Girl mused. "As Utmylgh is a water-world, we would need to wear enhanced trans-suits, which would interfere with Bismollian and Cargggan abilities. Dacey’s powers would possibly be difficult to control: the oceans are filled with methane and methanol, which would probably be explosive?"
"Methane isn’t soluble in water," Ffiona remarked. "How much could there be?"
"It bubbles up from beneath," Ten explained. "Methane is quite soluble at the low temperatures and great pressures in the depths of ocean planets."
“How about others?” asked Star-Woman. “Who weren’t involved in the Analyst War, but might have powers useful on a water-world?”
"Utmylgh orbits a red sun, so I wouldn’t want to bring Mighty Lad. And if I’m going, so I would like you to remain here. Chameleon, are your powers developed enough to replicate Gildan physiology?"
"Aquatic methane-breathers are still carbon-based lifeforms," Chameleon replied. "I would only have to take a look at one to replicate their physiology."
“May I suggest Cosmic Boy,” said Star-Woman. “If Lightning Lass’ powers get out of control, he has some experience helping to control them.”
"Good call,” Saturn Girl agreed. “Then I think I will select myself, Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, and Chameleon for this diplomatic mission. "Ambassador Quintapilot will brief us tomorrow by view-screen, and we can leave as soon as we’re ready."
o o o
The Gildan delegation were absolutely indistinguishable from one another. Their minds sounded to Saturn Girl like cracking static.Their voders, however, were producing perfectly intelligible and grammatically correct Interlac.
"Gil’Dishpan is already a member of the United Planets. If our brethren cannot convince us to join, why do you have hope?"
"We have to try," said Saturn Girl. "Can you understand what we are saying? Our translators do not seem to be up to the job."
"Gildan technology is not more advanced than yours, but we have spent more time refining our translators. Yes, we understand you perfectly."
"I need to change back," said Chameleon Boy. "My nervous system is so scrambled I’m starting to lose myself. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this form. Can we contact the Circadians and have them send us a spare trans-suit?"
"We have also had experience dealing with Durlans. We anticipated your need. This is Jeminos, a representative from Hykraius. He has agreed that you may duplicate his appearance."
Chameleon morphed into a Hykraian form, although more orange-and-magenta than yellow-and-violet.
"<I appreciate your colorful variation>," said the Hykraian, in perfectly intelligible telepathy.
"The fact is, the United Planets has nothing to offer us. Your Sorcerers’ Worlds disdain our magicks, and refuse collegiate investigation. The study of mystical arcana is our only pursuit on Utmylgh."
"But you have sent representatives to study on Tharn," Saturn Girl objected. "You cannot find their form of sorcery entirely without merit."
"We find Tharnan magic unnecessarily showy and theatrical. Sparks and flashes and lightning bolts often accompany their spells. Audible incantations and complex gestures. Magicians are mutated and metamorphosed into forms that reflect their magical specialties. Such side-effects are inefficient, a waste of magical energies."
"Your magic never has side effects?" wondered Saturn Girl.
"For example, we have just performed a minor spell-- we have changed the past. You Ranzz twins have been born-- what is the word-- 'gingers’."
Saturn Girl and Lightning Lass exchanged a glance. "But we’ve always been red-headed," said Saturn Girl.
"Of course you have. We changed the past."
The Ranzz twins found themselves rather nonplussed.
"What is that?" One of the Gildan pointed a mottled spherical appendage at Cosmic Boy. "You are carrying foodstuffs."
Fumbling through the enhanced trans-suit, Pol extracted a "fun-size" candy bar from a pocket in his belt. "It’s just a Spunow," he said. He carefully manipulated the candy through the trans-suit field, until it was floating in the water. The Gildan absorbed it into one of the openings in its appendage, then spit out the wrapper.
There was a moment of crackling telepathic communication among the Gildan.
"We have been… " The voder paused for a moment. "'Narcissistic’. Overestimating our knowledge and thoroughness of United Planets technology. We had believed that we knew all the United Planets had to offer. In this we have been mistaken. Please return to your homeworld and inform the United Planets Diplomatic Corps that we will be getting in touch with them in the near future. The very, very near future. We have much to discuss."
"Spunow?" Cosmic Boy wondered as they emerged from the Pentachoron. "I buy that ready-made for ten kilos a credit. And that’s what the Gildan want?"
"I myself am often surprised at life's little quirks," Lightning Lass replied.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/06/22 03:04 PM
Wednesday, June 6th, 3O22
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
JAN ARRAH AND HADRU JAMIK, ADVENTURERS
"Qarda is going out on another tour?" asked Jan Arrah.
"Yes, the season starts next week," said Hadru Jamik. "It's a whirlwind, it's stressful, but she loves it. And it means I'm free for Adventuring for a couple of weeks."
Jan stepped inside. "Something seems different in your decor..." he mused. "Oh, I know. It's that massive stone statue taking up half your living room!"
"That's no statue," said Hadru. "That's Lith. Say hello to Mr. Arrah, Lith."
"Hello, Mr. Arrah," said the immense stone man. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Tsaurin crystals," Jan swore. "Are you a Dryad?"
"My homeworld is known among your people as Dryad," said Lith. "My people called ourselves the Wardens of Korlon."
"But how is that possible?"
"He's a time-traveller," said Hadru. "From twenty-five hundred years in the past, as best we can estimate."
"There was a great oblong portal," said Lith. "The Elders called it The Guardian. We children were forbidden to go anywhere near it. So of course we did. My friends dared me to jump through the doorway-- when I landed on the other side, the world I knew was gone-- in ruins-- and The Guardian was nowhere to be seen. I wandered my dead homeworld for months before an exploratory vessel picked me up."
"They took him to Weber's World," said Hadru. "And not knowing what else to do with himself, he registered as an Adventurer. They asked me to apprentice him. Us, now, I guess, if you're agreeable."
The older man nodded. "I have a quick, easy assignment for us," he said. "A few months ago, someone stole a Weather Ziggurat from Winath."
"That's insane," said Hadru. "How could they… What did they do? Just unbolt it from the ground, and load it onto an ultra-massive transport?"
"Believe it or not, that is exactly what they did," said Jan. "And they've had it out for bid on the black market ever since. Apparently they haven't got the offer they want to accept yet, though. I've had feelers out among my... contacts. I think I've found someone who knows where the Transport and Ziggurat are. A fence in the Rambor system. I have found his tips pretty reliable. He generally has his finger on the pulse of the Black Market."
"You believe you can convince this-- criminal-- to share information with us?" rumbled Lith.
"Not really a criminal," said Jan. "Just criminal-adjacent."
"It has always concerned me," said Hadru. "How many of the criminal-adjacent characters you know."
o o o
"Welcome to Troisballe's," said the little Jaquaan. "The fourth-largest Pawn Shop in the United Planets." His three arms made sweeping motions, indicating the massive warehouse.
"We would like to see your boss," said Jan. "I believe he is going by Mr. Nessos at the moment?"
"And who shall I say is calling?"
"Element Lad, Chemical Kid, and… Lith."
"Interesting," said Lith. "Kid. Lad. You are hardly young, by human standards."
"Those are our official aliases," Hadru explained. "As registered Adventurers."
"I had enough difficulty choosing my Interlac name," said Lith. “Now I will need another?”
"What was your name on... your homeworld?" asked Jan.
Lith made a sound like a distant, echoing avalanche.
"What was that?" called out the Houyhnhnm, bounding up to the trio. "I hope nothing is falling..." He looked around nervously.
"Nothing at all to worry about," said Jan Arrah. "We are just here to present you with an opportunity."
"What do you want?" asked Mr. Nessos.
"I heard you might know where to find a Winathan Weather Ziggurat," said Jan quietly.
"That kind of information is valuable," said Mr. Nessos. "What's your offer?"
"Same as always," said Jan. "What do you want? Any material substance."
"One deciliter each of Entheogen and Theradelysid?" asked Mr. Nessos.
"You're going to need my help to produce those chemicals," Hadru informed Jan. "And you realize that we would be making him a very rich man? That order would be worth more than everything in this building. Building included."
"What do you do with all your money, Nessos?" said Jan. "You always seem on the brink of destitution. Paying you is like pouring water on sand. But never mind. One deciliter of Entheogen now, one deciliter of Theradelysid upon the recovery of the Ziggurat."
The horse-man made a long face. Give me a secure address," he said. "I'll message you."
o o o
"Menoscero is one of the Graveyard Worlds," Hadru explained. "Completely dead. No plant or animal life, no microorganisms, even. Only the crumbling remains of some ancient civilization. This seems to be the eventual end of evolution in a number of cases. Life destroys itself."
"It reminds me of Korlon now," said Lith. "Although there were legends among my people of a… Ragnarok, I think, is the Human word, and of a Final Warden who would bring the world back to life."
"The United Planets mounted a rescue operation to Dryad," said Jan. "The Legion was involved, although that was before my time. The native population refused to leave."
"They were bound to the soil," said Lith.
"One colonist family smuggled out a Dryad child," said Jan. "I knew him as Blok. He was... strong, honorable, but seemed lost, and sad. He claimed not to remember his true name."
"I would have liked to have met him," said Lith. "You speak of him in the past tense. Is he still alive?"
"He bonded with a powerful human sorceress," Hadru explained. "Their world vanished into some unknown dimension. Nothing has been heard of them for decades."
"He's the only Dryad I'd ever known, before you," said Jan. "Your face is more... bear-like… than his was. I suppose that means not all Dryads are the same."
"We are an hypoelasomorphic species," said Lith. "Slowly changing, over time, in response to our environment. Of course, once I hit puberty, there will be some large, rapid changes."
Hadru looked at the eight-foot-tall rock man. "You haven't reached puberty yet?"
"No. At first my collar will loosen, then fall off." said Lith. "Later, my gender will be revealed. If I am male, I will develop caldera. If female, my body will crystallize. Then there will be a growth spurt that lasts several years. In the end, I will be twice as tall as I am now, and ten or twelve times as massive. At least, that's what the Elders say."
.o o o
Menoscero was empty, rocky and desolate.
"Someone's been here before us," said Hadru.
There was a corpse among the rocks.
"I know him," said Jan. "Mick Yardreigh, also known as Black Mace. The late Mick Yardreigh, I should say."
"Another registered Adventurer?" asked Lith.
"A criminal-for-hire," said Jan.
"He can't have been here long," said Hadru. "Newly dead."
"No micro-organisms on this world, remember?" said Jan. "He might have been here for weeks. Years."
"His arm looks badly burned," Hadru noted. "Almost as if his mace delivered some kind of energy backlash."
The skies had been gradually filling with clouds. There was a crack of thunder as lightning struck nearby.
"The weather machine," said Jan. "Whoever is operating it will be able to target us more accurately soon." He waved his hands. "I've transmuted some of the larger ruins into duralim," he informed the others. "Those should keep the lightning away from us for now."
The wind was picking up, blowing stinging sand in their direction.
"Get behind me," said Lith. "I will shield you as best I can."
"It's odd," said Hadru, examining a small device. "The mobile sensor array doesn't pick up any unusual energy readings-- yet whoever it is is obviously using weather control against us."
"I suspect there is some heavy shielding," said Jan. "Some sort of dampening field."
"I sense a life-form in the direction the wind is coming from," said Lith. Jan and Hadru registered surprise. "Dryads are silicon telepaths," Lith explained. "I can't really read the minds of carbon-based lifeforms, but I can often detect the faint sensation of their presence."
"Can you fuse the blowing sand in front of us into some sort of glass shield?" Jan asked Hadru.
"Convert half the silicon into carbon, and I'll transform it into transparent carborundum," said Hadru. The three were soon pushing forward behind a transparent, wedge-shaped shield.
"I'm glad you're with us, Lith," said Hadru. "The two of us would have quite a time moving this shield by ourselves."
"Your combined abilities are impressively versatile," said Lith. "I am sure the two of you could master any situation. But I am pleased to be useful."
They continued pushing on into the wind.
"That mound of rubble to the left," said Jan. "Is huge, compared to anything else we have seen around here. Large enough to conceal the top of a massive Ziggurat. Shall we have a look inside?"
There was little to prevent a party with mastery of transmutation, psychocatalysis, and super-strength from gaining entrance to the rocky mound and the Weather Ziggurat within.
The guardian of the Weather Ziggurat turned out to be a little H'Lvenite with a bad stutter. After some interrogation, it became clear that he had been employed by the original thieves as a guard while they were away trying to arrange a sale.
"I had hoped we would find the Transport here as well," said Hardu. "That way, we could have returned the Zigguat to Winath ourselves. But I suppose the thing to do is to alert WinathGov, and wait with Skippy here until they can come and get it."
"Th-that's not my n-name," said the H'Lvenite.
"And if Skippy's bosses show up, we can... restrain... them, as well," said Jan.
"I thought there would be more excitement in Adventuring," said Lith. "This was, all, remarkably mundane."
"Well, a lot of it is just sitting around and waiting for the Science Police," said Jan.
"I'm good at waiting," said Lith. "And sitting."
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
JAN ARRAH AND HADRU JAMIK, ADVENTURERS
"Qarda is going out on another tour?" asked Jan Arrah.
"Yes, the season starts next week," said Hadru Jamik. "It's a whirlwind, it's stressful, but she loves it. And it means I'm free for Adventuring for a couple of weeks."
Jan stepped inside. "Something seems different in your decor..." he mused. "Oh, I know. It's that massive stone statue taking up half your living room!"
"That's no statue," said Hadru. "That's Lith. Say hello to Mr. Arrah, Lith."
"Hello, Mr. Arrah," said the immense stone man. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Tsaurin crystals," Jan swore. "Are you a Dryad?"
"My homeworld is known among your people as Dryad," said Lith. "My people called ourselves the Wardens of Korlon."
"But how is that possible?"
"He's a time-traveller," said Hadru. "From twenty-five hundred years in the past, as best we can estimate."
"There was a great oblong portal," said Lith. "The Elders called it The Guardian. We children were forbidden to go anywhere near it. So of course we did. My friends dared me to jump through the doorway-- when I landed on the other side, the world I knew was gone-- in ruins-- and The Guardian was nowhere to be seen. I wandered my dead homeworld for months before an exploratory vessel picked me up."
"They took him to Weber's World," said Hadru. "And not knowing what else to do with himself, he registered as an Adventurer. They asked me to apprentice him. Us, now, I guess, if you're agreeable."
The older man nodded. "I have a quick, easy assignment for us," he said. "A few months ago, someone stole a Weather Ziggurat from Winath."
"That's insane," said Hadru. "How could they… What did they do? Just unbolt it from the ground, and load it onto an ultra-massive transport?"
"Believe it or not, that is exactly what they did," said Jan. "And they've had it out for bid on the black market ever since. Apparently they haven't got the offer they want to accept yet, though. I've had feelers out among my... contacts. I think I've found someone who knows where the Transport and Ziggurat are. A fence in the Rambor system. I have found his tips pretty reliable. He generally has his finger on the pulse of the Black Market."
"You believe you can convince this-- criminal-- to share information with us?" rumbled Lith.
"Not really a criminal," said Jan. "Just criminal-adjacent."
"It has always concerned me," said Hadru. "How many of the criminal-adjacent characters you know."
o o o
"Welcome to Troisballe's," said the little Jaquaan. "The fourth-largest Pawn Shop in the United Planets." His three arms made sweeping motions, indicating the massive warehouse.
"We would like to see your boss," said Jan. "I believe he is going by Mr. Nessos at the moment?"
"And who shall I say is calling?"
"Element Lad, Chemical Kid, and… Lith."
"Interesting," said Lith. "Kid. Lad. You are hardly young, by human standards."
"Those are our official aliases," Hadru explained. "As registered Adventurers."
"I had enough difficulty choosing my Interlac name," said Lith. “Now I will need another?”
"What was your name on... your homeworld?" asked Jan.
Lith made a sound like a distant, echoing avalanche.
"What was that?" called out the Houyhnhnm, bounding up to the trio. "I hope nothing is falling..." He looked around nervously.
"Nothing at all to worry about," said Jan Arrah. "We are just here to present you with an opportunity."
"What do you want?" asked Mr. Nessos.
"I heard you might know where to find a Winathan Weather Ziggurat," said Jan quietly.
"That kind of information is valuable," said Mr. Nessos. "What's your offer?"
"Same as always," said Jan. "What do you want? Any material substance."
"One deciliter each of Entheogen and Theradelysid?" asked Mr. Nessos.
"You're going to need my help to produce those chemicals," Hadru informed Jan. "And you realize that we would be making him a very rich man? That order would be worth more than everything in this building. Building included."
"What do you do with all your money, Nessos?" said Jan. "You always seem on the brink of destitution. Paying you is like pouring water on sand. But never mind. One deciliter of Entheogen now, one deciliter of Theradelysid upon the recovery of the Ziggurat."
The horse-man made a long face. Give me a secure address," he said. "I'll message you."
o o o
"Menoscero is one of the Graveyard Worlds," Hadru explained. "Completely dead. No plant or animal life, no microorganisms, even. Only the crumbling remains of some ancient civilization. This seems to be the eventual end of evolution in a number of cases. Life destroys itself."
"It reminds me of Korlon now," said Lith. "Although there were legends among my people of a… Ragnarok, I think, is the Human word, and of a Final Warden who would bring the world back to life."
"The United Planets mounted a rescue operation to Dryad," said Jan. "The Legion was involved, although that was before my time. The native population refused to leave."
"They were bound to the soil," said Lith.
"One colonist family smuggled out a Dryad child," said Jan. "I knew him as Blok. He was... strong, honorable, but seemed lost, and sad. He claimed not to remember his true name."
"I would have liked to have met him," said Lith. "You speak of him in the past tense. Is he still alive?"
"He bonded with a powerful human sorceress," Hadru explained. "Their world vanished into some unknown dimension. Nothing has been heard of them for decades."
"He's the only Dryad I'd ever known, before you," said Jan. "Your face is more... bear-like… than his was. I suppose that means not all Dryads are the same."
"We are an hypoelasomorphic species," said Lith. "Slowly changing, over time, in response to our environment. Of course, once I hit puberty, there will be some large, rapid changes."
Hadru looked at the eight-foot-tall rock man. "You haven't reached puberty yet?"
"No. At first my collar will loosen, then fall off." said Lith. "Later, my gender will be revealed. If I am male, I will develop caldera. If female, my body will crystallize. Then there will be a growth spurt that lasts several years. In the end, I will be twice as tall as I am now, and ten or twelve times as massive. At least, that's what the Elders say."
.o o o
Menoscero was empty, rocky and desolate.
"Someone's been here before us," said Hadru.
There was a corpse among the rocks.
"I know him," said Jan. "Mick Yardreigh, also known as Black Mace. The late Mick Yardreigh, I should say."
"Another registered Adventurer?" asked Lith.
"A criminal-for-hire," said Jan.
"He can't have been here long," said Hadru. "Newly dead."
"No micro-organisms on this world, remember?" said Jan. "He might have been here for weeks. Years."
"His arm looks badly burned," Hadru noted. "Almost as if his mace delivered some kind of energy backlash."
The skies had been gradually filling with clouds. There was a crack of thunder as lightning struck nearby.
"The weather machine," said Jan. "Whoever is operating it will be able to target us more accurately soon." He waved his hands. "I've transmuted some of the larger ruins into duralim," he informed the others. "Those should keep the lightning away from us for now."
The wind was picking up, blowing stinging sand in their direction.
"Get behind me," said Lith. "I will shield you as best I can."
"It's odd," said Hadru, examining a small device. "The mobile sensor array doesn't pick up any unusual energy readings-- yet whoever it is is obviously using weather control against us."
"I suspect there is some heavy shielding," said Jan. "Some sort of dampening field."
"I sense a life-form in the direction the wind is coming from," said Lith. Jan and Hadru registered surprise. "Dryads are silicon telepaths," Lith explained. "I can't really read the minds of carbon-based lifeforms, but I can often detect the faint sensation of their presence."
"Can you fuse the blowing sand in front of us into some sort of glass shield?" Jan asked Hadru.
"Convert half the silicon into carbon, and I'll transform it into transparent carborundum," said Hadru. The three were soon pushing forward behind a transparent, wedge-shaped shield.
"I'm glad you're with us, Lith," said Hadru. "The two of us would have quite a time moving this shield by ourselves."
"Your combined abilities are impressively versatile," said Lith. "I am sure the two of you could master any situation. But I am pleased to be useful."
They continued pushing on into the wind.
"That mound of rubble to the left," said Jan. "Is huge, compared to anything else we have seen around here. Large enough to conceal the top of a massive Ziggurat. Shall we have a look inside?"
There was little to prevent a party with mastery of transmutation, psychocatalysis, and super-strength from gaining entrance to the rocky mound and the Weather Ziggurat within.
The guardian of the Weather Ziggurat turned out to be a little H'Lvenite with a bad stutter. After some interrogation, it became clear that he had been employed by the original thieves as a guard while they were away trying to arrange a sale.
"I had hoped we would find the Transport here as well," said Hardu. "That way, we could have returned the Zigguat to Winath ourselves. But I suppose the thing to do is to alert WinathGov, and wait with Skippy here until they can come and get it."
"Th-that's not my n-name," said the H'Lvenite.
"And if Skippy's bosses show up, we can... restrain... them, as well," said Jan.
"I thought there would be more excitement in Adventuring," said Lith. "This was, all, remarkably mundane."
"Well, a lot of it is just sitting around and waiting for the Science Police," said Jan.
"I'm good at waiting," said Lith. "And sitting."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/13/22 03:18 PM
Wednesday, June 13th, 3O22
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LLUORNU DURGO?
"Uncle Chuck! Auntie Aemelia! What are you doing here?" asked Lightning Lass.
"A little unannounced visit," said Chuck Taine. "Do you have a favorite place to eat around here?"
"There's Prospero's Pizza downtown," said Lightning Lass.
"Pizza! I haven't had pizza in years," said Uncle Chuck. "Do they have a dining area, or is it take-out only?"
"They have tables," said Lightning Lass.
"Make a reservation for eight," said Uncle Chuck. "Aemelia and I, you, Dorrit, Pol, and The Triplicates."
"Can we make it nine?" asked Chameleon. "I would like to accompany Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey, if that is acceptable."
"Certainly," said Aemelia Tollydiggle Taine, smiling.
o o o
Kastellus Prospero was enthusiastic. "Marshall Taine! An honor to have you visit my establishment! May I get a holo with you and your lovely wife?"
"How do I know you?" asked Uncle Chuck.
"Oh, I am sure you don't," said Prospero. "But Lawmen Of The Colony Worlds is a series I never miss. The way you foiled the Gemstone Raiders! And tracked down that Khundish claim jumper! Oh, you are a lawman's lawman, a detective's detective. Now, what can I get for you?"
Uncle Chuck perused the menu. "I'll have a large one, with ham, pineapple and artichoke," he said.
"Chuck needs to keep his weight up," Aemelia explained. "In order to retain his elastic powers."
"I leave the bouncing to Aaron and Lloyd now," said Uncle Chuck. "But a few extra pounds keeps my arteries flexible. Can't be too careful at my age."
"I'll have a personal-size mushroom and anchovy," said Aemelia.
"And I have some plain, over-risen dough for our Durlan friend," said Prospero. "Nice and yeasty. And a cup of my home-made yoghurt. What will the rest of you have?"
They went around the table, giving their orders. Prospero wrote nothing down, but nodded approvingly with each order. When they were done, he pulled out a small metal box.
"These are authentic Martian Truffles," he said. "One apiece for you. New here. Some group in the Alba region have learned how to grow them again. They say that in the time of the native Martians, these formed a large part of their diet. Millions or billions were harvested each day."
Ffarrah looked at the truffle curiously. It was hard and black, with some sort of corrugation or ridging. She bit into it; it crumbled slightly, but was not as hard as it appeared. In the center was some sort of whitish semi-solid creme. It had a slightly odd flavor, which was entirely overwhelmed by a cloying sweetness, so sugary it burned her throat. She wanted another.
"It is claimed they are slightly addictive," said Prospero. "Unfortunately the Alban agricultural engineers have not been able to cultivate them in anywhere near the numbers they were once found, so only one a day to special customers."
"Dad would be offended at being called an agricultural engineer," said Dorrit. "He's a plain farmer."
"My dad would love it," said Pol.
"I will return posthaste with your orders," said Prospero, and swept away.
"An interesting appetizer," said Uncle Chuck. "It makes one's head quite dizzy. I suppose you are wondering why I called you here today."
"This seems like an intervention," said Ffiona.
"We have gone through enough of them to recognize them," said Ffey.
"Young ladies, this is indeed for your benefit," said Uncle Chuck. "But I am not going to try to convince you of anything, and I will not hold you hostage. Merely the enticement of a good meal. I just want to tell you a story. No moral, no moralizing. You know I married another unique Cargggan, Lluornu Durgo. She left Carggg, and never returned."
"Yes, Lluornu Durgo, who lived her life among Monads," said Ffiona.
"And even married a Monad," said Ffey.
"Yes, that was me," said Uncle Chuck. "But it was only after the death of her third self," he continued. "An experience that would have killed most Cargggans. It was not trivial for her, either. She buried the shock and trauma for years, but there were other effects she could not ignore. She began aging at an accelerated rate-- 5O% faster, we estimated. She aged three years while I aged two. Her psyche was affected as well. Her personality fractured-- she named her new personality "Lelith"-- the more daring, risk-taking side of her."
"When Lelith was kidnapped by Starfinger, Lu suppressed the memory, unable to deal with another trauma of loss. That was the day we were married. I almost lost her then... but we recovered, and she recovered-- re-integrating her personalities, at least while she was in her combined form. We made a life together on Wondil IX. Away from the Legion."
"We eventually partly rejoined the Legion, teaching at the Academy... and that was a mistake. Lu was talked into one last mission. The part of Lu that wasn't Lelith-- we called her "Una"-- travelled back in time with one of Queen Projectra's Karate Kid reanimations. The moment they left, Lu knew that Una had died, and was never coming back. In addition to the trauma, her aging problem worsened. As time went on, it became more and more apparent. For every year I aged, she would age three. We looked for a solution."
"Eventually, we found one on Ventura-- a way to increase her abilities, and more importantly, stop the accelerated aging. The Venturans gave her the ability to summon virtual other selves from the quantum probabilities of paratime-- alternate possible universes which never really existed. Each quantum duplicate she summoned reduced the rate at which she aged-- never really reversing it, or reducing it to zero-- but she began to make up for lost time, on average, aging one year for every three of mine."
"We became confident in our ability to start a family. After the Legion and the Academy were dissolved, we returned to Wondil IX. When Aaron and Lloyd were born with both triplicating and bouncing powers, we were glad for Lu’s quantum duplicates. After they were born, Lluornu was never fewer than twelve at a time. But there were other problems. The duplicates couldn't sleep for Lu, and vanished when they slept themselves. So the problem of parental exhaustion was still... a problem."
"That's where I came in," said Aemelia. "I was just a teen-ager, but I was full of energy, and as the older sister to a pair of twins, I had had some experience. The Taines hired me as a live-in nanny to the boys, and I really loved them. I stayed until the boys started Kindergarten."
"And everything was fine for a decade. It was just the four of us- or ten of us, or more. But then, something started to go wrong. One of Lu's duplicates called us for help from Equatorial City on Wondil IX. Lu hadn't summoned her-- she had just appeared there. Lu began to lose control over when and where her duplicates appeared, more and more. And they began to become more... divergent. Baby Lu. Old-woman Lu. Monster Lu. Evil Lu. And now the temporal adjustment reversed-- the more duplicates there were, the faster Lu aged. We contacted Ventura, but they couldn't help us. Then the duplicates stopped coming, but the accelerated aging continued."
"She couldn't take care of herself any longer," said Aemelia. "Chuck called for me again. I had completed a nursing program-- received my doctorate-- and I came back to take care of Lluornu. It was really... palliative care. Chuck took care of himself and the boys-- they were in High School now, adults, really-- and I stayed with Lluornu. She was aging at an increasingly accelerated rate. Then in the end, her quantum duplicates began re-appearing. But only for minutes at a time, and only as horrible, misshapen abominations. In her last weeks, Dorrit and Dacey's mother came to help me. She soothed Luornu's deteriorating mind, while I soothed her deteriorating body. One night she became lucid, and called for Chuck. Imra went to wake him. Lluornu told him she loved him, and Chuck kissed her. Then he went to wake Aaron and Lloyd. He explained that this was probably the last chance they had to see their mother alive. They were brave enough to come into her room. They sat on either side of the bed. They each took her hand. The quantum duplicates stopped appearing and vanishing. She smiled at them, and then at Chuck one last time, and closed her eyes."
"No moral," said Chuck. "No moralizing. It's just a story I thought you should hear."
"Aren't you going to tell us we are foolish to live our lives separately?" asked Ffarrah. "That's usually how these interventions end."
"I know that chronologically you are only twelve," said Uncle Chuck. "Even though you appear to be nearly twenty. Because you have lived essentially separately since you were eight, awake and asleep. You may only live another thirty years. But if that is the price of your happiness…"
"Forty or fifty years of age is an ordinary Durlan lifespan," said Chameleon. "Even with Rejuvium. The Durlan philosophy is to treasure every moment."
"A philosophy I can't disagree with," said Uncle Chuck.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LLUORNU DURGO?
"Uncle Chuck! Auntie Aemelia! What are you doing here?" asked Lightning Lass.
"A little unannounced visit," said Chuck Taine. "Do you have a favorite place to eat around here?"
"There's Prospero's Pizza downtown," said Lightning Lass.
"Pizza! I haven't had pizza in years," said Uncle Chuck. "Do they have a dining area, or is it take-out only?"
"They have tables," said Lightning Lass.
"Make a reservation for eight," said Uncle Chuck. "Aemelia and I, you, Dorrit, Pol, and The Triplicates."
"Can we make it nine?" asked Chameleon. "I would like to accompany Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey, if that is acceptable."
"Certainly," said Aemelia Tollydiggle Taine, smiling.
o o o
Kastellus Prospero was enthusiastic. "Marshall Taine! An honor to have you visit my establishment! May I get a holo with you and your lovely wife?"
"How do I know you?" asked Uncle Chuck.
"Oh, I am sure you don't," said Prospero. "But Lawmen Of The Colony Worlds is a series I never miss. The way you foiled the Gemstone Raiders! And tracked down that Khundish claim jumper! Oh, you are a lawman's lawman, a detective's detective. Now, what can I get for you?"
Uncle Chuck perused the menu. "I'll have a large one, with ham, pineapple and artichoke," he said.
"Chuck needs to keep his weight up," Aemelia explained. "In order to retain his elastic powers."
"I leave the bouncing to Aaron and Lloyd now," said Uncle Chuck. "But a few extra pounds keeps my arteries flexible. Can't be too careful at my age."
"I'll have a personal-size mushroom and anchovy," said Aemelia.
"And I have some plain, over-risen dough for our Durlan friend," said Prospero. "Nice and yeasty. And a cup of my home-made yoghurt. What will the rest of you have?"
They went around the table, giving their orders. Prospero wrote nothing down, but nodded approvingly with each order. When they were done, he pulled out a small metal box.
"These are authentic Martian Truffles," he said. "One apiece for you. New here. Some group in the Alba region have learned how to grow them again. They say that in the time of the native Martians, these formed a large part of their diet. Millions or billions were harvested each day."
Ffarrah looked at the truffle curiously. It was hard and black, with some sort of corrugation or ridging. She bit into it; it crumbled slightly, but was not as hard as it appeared. In the center was some sort of whitish semi-solid creme. It had a slightly odd flavor, which was entirely overwhelmed by a cloying sweetness, so sugary it burned her throat. She wanted another.
"It is claimed they are slightly addictive," said Prospero. "Unfortunately the Alban agricultural engineers have not been able to cultivate them in anywhere near the numbers they were once found, so only one a day to special customers."
"Dad would be offended at being called an agricultural engineer," said Dorrit. "He's a plain farmer."
"My dad would love it," said Pol.
"I will return posthaste with your orders," said Prospero, and swept away.
"An interesting appetizer," said Uncle Chuck. "It makes one's head quite dizzy. I suppose you are wondering why I called you here today."
"This seems like an intervention," said Ffiona.
"We have gone through enough of them to recognize them," said Ffey.
"Young ladies, this is indeed for your benefit," said Uncle Chuck. "But I am not going to try to convince you of anything, and I will not hold you hostage. Merely the enticement of a good meal. I just want to tell you a story. No moral, no moralizing. You know I married another unique Cargggan, Lluornu Durgo. She left Carggg, and never returned."
"Yes, Lluornu Durgo, who lived her life among Monads," said Ffiona.
"And even married a Monad," said Ffey.
"Yes, that was me," said Uncle Chuck. "But it was only after the death of her third self," he continued. "An experience that would have killed most Cargggans. It was not trivial for her, either. She buried the shock and trauma for years, but there were other effects she could not ignore. She began aging at an accelerated rate-- 5O% faster, we estimated. She aged three years while I aged two. Her psyche was affected as well. Her personality fractured-- she named her new personality "Lelith"-- the more daring, risk-taking side of her."
"When Lelith was kidnapped by Starfinger, Lu suppressed the memory, unable to deal with another trauma of loss. That was the day we were married. I almost lost her then... but we recovered, and she recovered-- re-integrating her personalities, at least while she was in her combined form. We made a life together on Wondil IX. Away from the Legion."
"We eventually partly rejoined the Legion, teaching at the Academy... and that was a mistake. Lu was talked into one last mission. The part of Lu that wasn't Lelith-- we called her "Una"-- travelled back in time with one of Queen Projectra's Karate Kid reanimations. The moment they left, Lu knew that Una had died, and was never coming back. In addition to the trauma, her aging problem worsened. As time went on, it became more and more apparent. For every year I aged, she would age three. We looked for a solution."
"Eventually, we found one on Ventura-- a way to increase her abilities, and more importantly, stop the accelerated aging. The Venturans gave her the ability to summon virtual other selves from the quantum probabilities of paratime-- alternate possible universes which never really existed. Each quantum duplicate she summoned reduced the rate at which she aged-- never really reversing it, or reducing it to zero-- but she began to make up for lost time, on average, aging one year for every three of mine."
"We became confident in our ability to start a family. After the Legion and the Academy were dissolved, we returned to Wondil IX. When Aaron and Lloyd were born with both triplicating and bouncing powers, we were glad for Lu’s quantum duplicates. After they were born, Lluornu was never fewer than twelve at a time. But there were other problems. The duplicates couldn't sleep for Lu, and vanished when they slept themselves. So the problem of parental exhaustion was still... a problem."
"That's where I came in," said Aemelia. "I was just a teen-ager, but I was full of energy, and as the older sister to a pair of twins, I had had some experience. The Taines hired me as a live-in nanny to the boys, and I really loved them. I stayed until the boys started Kindergarten."
"And everything was fine for a decade. It was just the four of us- or ten of us, or more. But then, something started to go wrong. One of Lu's duplicates called us for help from Equatorial City on Wondil IX. Lu hadn't summoned her-- she had just appeared there. Lu began to lose control over when and where her duplicates appeared, more and more. And they began to become more... divergent. Baby Lu. Old-woman Lu. Monster Lu. Evil Lu. And now the temporal adjustment reversed-- the more duplicates there were, the faster Lu aged. We contacted Ventura, but they couldn't help us. Then the duplicates stopped coming, but the accelerated aging continued."
"She couldn't take care of herself any longer," said Aemelia. "Chuck called for me again. I had completed a nursing program-- received my doctorate-- and I came back to take care of Lluornu. It was really... palliative care. Chuck took care of himself and the boys-- they were in High School now, adults, really-- and I stayed with Lluornu. She was aging at an increasingly accelerated rate. Then in the end, her quantum duplicates began re-appearing. But only for minutes at a time, and only as horrible, misshapen abominations. In her last weeks, Dorrit and Dacey's mother came to help me. She soothed Luornu's deteriorating mind, while I soothed her deteriorating body. One night she became lucid, and called for Chuck. Imra went to wake him. Lluornu told him she loved him, and Chuck kissed her. Then he went to wake Aaron and Lloyd. He explained that this was probably the last chance they had to see their mother alive. They were brave enough to come into her room. They sat on either side of the bed. They each took her hand. The quantum duplicates stopped appearing and vanishing. She smiled at them, and then at Chuck one last time, and closed her eyes."
"No moral," said Chuck. "No moralizing. It's just a story I thought you should hear."
"Aren't you going to tell us we are foolish to live our lives separately?" asked Ffarrah. "That's usually how these interventions end."
"I know that chronologically you are only twelve," said Uncle Chuck. "Even though you appear to be nearly twenty. Because you have lived essentially separately since you were eight, awake and asleep. You may only live another thirty years. But if that is the price of your happiness…"
"Forty or fifty years of age is an ordinary Durlan lifespan," said Chameleon. "Even with Rejuvium. The Durlan philosophy is to treasure every moment."
"A philosophy I can't disagree with," said Uncle Chuck.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/20/22 03:06 PM
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
AN OBLIGATION
Chuck Taine’s shoulders slumped as he came out of his study. His ordinarily cheerful demeanor was nowhere in evidence. He turned to his wife.
“What’s wrong?” asked Aemelia. “It must be very bad news to take away your smile.”
“An old obligation I need to fulfill,” Chuck replied. “A rash promise I made decades ago. I had hoped this day would never come, although I knew it would, eventually.”
“Tell me,” said Amelia.
“It has to do with… Lluornu. When she got her Duplicate Girl powers.”
“The Luck Lords of Ventura?” Aemelia asked. “I suspected you had made some sort of deal with them, but we have never really discussed it…”
“Not the Luck Lords,” said Chuck. “Someone else on Ventura. He’s calling in my debt. Let’s call up Aaron and Lloyd and see if they can take Talitha for a couple of days. Again.”
“Can’t she come with us?” asked Aemelia. “She’s at that clingy age where she misses her Momma. And she’s just started to walk. Which means she gets into everything if she isn’t watched carefully. You don’t think it will be dangerous, do you?”
“I have no idea,” said Chuck. “This… he’s so unpredictable. It’s almost like dealing with a Zrfffn or… a Bizarro.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” said Aemelia. “Who is this guy?”
“You won’t believe it until you see it,” said Chuck.
o o o
Chuck, Aemelia, and little Talitha stood at the end of a broad street in The City Of Meadows on Ventura, in front of a massive structure.
The building was a huge golden sphere, at least ten stories tall. The walls were decorated with a dizzying array of cameos, intaglios, and etchings depicting seemingly random people, creatures, and events from innumerable worlds. There were few Aemelia recognized. A small human-sized door was opened by a small, human-sized porter, and Chuck, Aemelia and Talitha were ushered into a waiting-room filled with overstuffed couches and chairs, covered with too many pillows in a riot of colors.
A bell rang, and a second porter opened another human-sized door-- this golden, and decorated in a manner similar to the outside of the building. This led into a vast chamber, which must have taken up half the interior of the building. Within it was a giant humanoid seated on a golden throne.
He would have been at least fifty feet tall standing, Aemelia thought. He wore some sort of metallic pink-and-magenta body armor that covered him from head to toe. Robes and sashes of colors and patterns not found in nature wound round his body.
Chuck craned his neck, and waited until he had the giant’s attention.
“Well?” he asked.
“Welcome back,” said the giant. “I have a task for you, according to our agreement.”
“So your messenger said,” replied Chuck. “It is true I once asked for a boon from you, and agreed to repay you in time, according to your will and conditions. Although I must say that I was not entirely pleased with the way things have ultimately turned out.”
“Yes, your wife has grown most uncommonly fat,” said the giant. “An unforeseen side-effect.”
“This is my second wife, Aemelia Tollydiggle,” said Chuck. “Lluornu is dead.”
“Oh, dear,” said the giant. “A very unfortunate side-effect. I never claimed to be all-knowing, only mostly all-powerful. Still, as I recall, I originally said, ‘I will do what I can’. And I did, didn’t I? Her duplicating powers were restored, and better than ever?”
“More numerous, certainly,” admitted Chuck. “But it was also what killed her.”
“Ah, well, one cannot live forever,” said the giant. “Even the Universe must eventually die. I, myself, have died on occasion.”
“If I may ask,” asked Aemelia, clutching Talitha in her arms. “Who are you? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“I have had many names over the centuries,” said the giant. “The Great Architect. Qwewq, the Living Universe. The Celestial Huntsman. The Nebula Man. Neh-Buh-Loh. Oh, that was a mistake. Kirtan-Rodd the Modifier. But for the past several centuries I have called myself Mister Nebula. My friends call me Nebbie. Pleased to meet you, Aemelia.”
Mister Nebula seemed to be inspecting the trio more closely.
“And this, of course, is little Talitha! Oh, how tiny you are.” The child stuck out her tongue at the giant, then buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, in a dissimulation of shyness.
“How do you know Talitha?” asked Aemelia, frightened.
“Let me introduce you to my own daughter,” said Mister Nebula, ignoring the question. “Her name is Debbie. I created her with my own semi-infinite cosmic power, without the aid of a partner.”
“The Universe is my mother,” said Debbie.
The young girl looked about fifteen, and stood just five feet tall. In contrast to her father’s swirling colors, she looked as though she were dressed for a funeral. Her hair was black, her lipstick was black, her six earrings were black, as was her nose ring. A string of black pearls hung below a black neck choker. Her face was pale, nearly clown-white. She wore entirely too much mascara.
“A terrible disappointment,” said Mister Nebula. “But I cannot deny her anything. She has gathered from throughout the Cosmos a band of aspiring super-heroes. She wishes you to train them, as you and your wife once trained the members of the Legion Academy. I have even created a neat little headquarters for her. For you. Good-bye.”
The room melted around them, and Chuck, Aemelia, Talitha and Debbie Rodd appeared on the surface of a desolate world. A great obsidian tower rose on the horizon.
o o o
“That’s the Academy,” Debbie explained. “Here on the moon of Wondil IX.”
“Wondil IX has no moon,” objected Aemelia.
“It does now,” Debbie explained.
“You made this?” asked Chuck. “Or your father?”
“My cosmic abilities,” said Debbie, walking towards the black tower, “Are only half those of my father’s. But as his are semi-infinite, creating a place like this is well within my power.” They noticed the black tower was surrounded by spacious flower gardens, in a kaleidoscope of colors. “There are, however, random side-effects which I am unable to control.” She sneered distastefully at the flower gardens.
The inside of the tower was more silvery-grey than black. There were more than a dozen teen-agers milling around.
“I have collected a number of individuals with powers similar to mine,” said Debbie. “Their powers also have a random element, or are not entirely under their control. We are hoping your training can help us overcome this disability. Let me introduce you to my hand-picked, all-new Academy of Fabulous Heroes! ”
They first met a chicken-headed humanoid teen.
“This is Kukku Tazava of Pullum,” Debbie narrated. “He has the ability to summon a random number of alien chickens to defend himself or others..”
“This is Polly Popout, a random teleporter. And Doug Dealer, Muckle Ickle Lass, and Cereal Killer.”
“Perfectly Frank is over in the corner sitting atop the sentient Invisible Wall, which, of course, you can’t see.”
“And this is China Doll of Dollworld; Elegant Lad; Pentalad; Jellicle Girl; Kangastar of Nebulosa; and Colombina of Rossum, our robot clown girl.”
“And here is our time-traveling ‘Mother of Ice Dragons’... I brought her here myself!”
“It’s Talitha!” exclaimed Aemilia, elbowing Chuck in the ribs. “Look at her eyes!”
Chuck’s eyes darted back and forth between the one-year-old in Aemilia’s arms, and the teen-ager who stood before them, flanked by two Wondilixian ice dragons.
“Hello Momma. Hello Daddy,” said the Mother of Ice Dragons. “You’re looking good!”
AN OBLIGATION
Chuck Taine’s shoulders slumped as he came out of his study. His ordinarily cheerful demeanor was nowhere in evidence. He turned to his wife.
“What’s wrong?” asked Aemelia. “It must be very bad news to take away your smile.”
“An old obligation I need to fulfill,” Chuck replied. “A rash promise I made decades ago. I had hoped this day would never come, although I knew it would, eventually.”
“Tell me,” said Amelia.
“It has to do with… Lluornu. When she got her Duplicate Girl powers.”
“The Luck Lords of Ventura?” Aemelia asked. “I suspected you had made some sort of deal with them, but we have never really discussed it…”
“Not the Luck Lords,” said Chuck. “Someone else on Ventura. He’s calling in my debt. Let’s call up Aaron and Lloyd and see if they can take Talitha for a couple of days. Again.”
“Can’t she come with us?” asked Aemelia. “She’s at that clingy age where she misses her Momma. And she’s just started to walk. Which means she gets into everything if she isn’t watched carefully. You don’t think it will be dangerous, do you?”
“I have no idea,” said Chuck. “This… he’s so unpredictable. It’s almost like dealing with a Zrfffn or… a Bizarro.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” said Aemelia. “Who is this guy?”
“You won’t believe it until you see it,” said Chuck.
o o o
Chuck, Aemelia, and little Talitha stood at the end of a broad street in The City Of Meadows on Ventura, in front of a massive structure.
The building was a huge golden sphere, at least ten stories tall. The walls were decorated with a dizzying array of cameos, intaglios, and etchings depicting seemingly random people, creatures, and events from innumerable worlds. There were few Aemelia recognized. A small human-sized door was opened by a small, human-sized porter, and Chuck, Aemelia and Talitha were ushered into a waiting-room filled with overstuffed couches and chairs, covered with too many pillows in a riot of colors.
A bell rang, and a second porter opened another human-sized door-- this golden, and decorated in a manner similar to the outside of the building. This led into a vast chamber, which must have taken up half the interior of the building. Within it was a giant humanoid seated on a golden throne.
He would have been at least fifty feet tall standing, Aemelia thought. He wore some sort of metallic pink-and-magenta body armor that covered him from head to toe. Robes and sashes of colors and patterns not found in nature wound round his body.
Chuck craned his neck, and waited until he had the giant’s attention.
“Well?” he asked.
“Welcome back,” said the giant. “I have a task for you, according to our agreement.”
“So your messenger said,” replied Chuck. “It is true I once asked for a boon from you, and agreed to repay you in time, according to your will and conditions. Although I must say that I was not entirely pleased with the way things have ultimately turned out.”
“Yes, your wife has grown most uncommonly fat,” said the giant. “An unforeseen side-effect.”
“This is my second wife, Aemelia Tollydiggle,” said Chuck. “Lluornu is dead.”
“Oh, dear,” said the giant. “A very unfortunate side-effect. I never claimed to be all-knowing, only mostly all-powerful. Still, as I recall, I originally said, ‘I will do what I can’. And I did, didn’t I? Her duplicating powers were restored, and better than ever?”
“More numerous, certainly,” admitted Chuck. “But it was also what killed her.”
“Ah, well, one cannot live forever,” said the giant. “Even the Universe must eventually die. I, myself, have died on occasion.”
“If I may ask,” asked Aemelia, clutching Talitha in her arms. “Who are you? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“I have had many names over the centuries,” said the giant. “The Great Architect. Qwewq, the Living Universe. The Celestial Huntsman. The Nebula Man. Neh-Buh-Loh. Oh, that was a mistake. Kirtan-Rodd the Modifier. But for the past several centuries I have called myself Mister Nebula. My friends call me Nebbie. Pleased to meet you, Aemelia.”
Mister Nebula seemed to be inspecting the trio more closely.
“And this, of course, is little Talitha! Oh, how tiny you are.” The child stuck out her tongue at the giant, then buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, in a dissimulation of shyness.
“How do you know Talitha?” asked Aemelia, frightened.
“Let me introduce you to my own daughter,” said Mister Nebula, ignoring the question. “Her name is Debbie. I created her with my own semi-infinite cosmic power, without the aid of a partner.”
“The Universe is my mother,” said Debbie.
The young girl looked about fifteen, and stood just five feet tall. In contrast to her father’s swirling colors, she looked as though she were dressed for a funeral. Her hair was black, her lipstick was black, her six earrings were black, as was her nose ring. A string of black pearls hung below a black neck choker. Her face was pale, nearly clown-white. She wore entirely too much mascara.
“A terrible disappointment,” said Mister Nebula. “But I cannot deny her anything. She has gathered from throughout the Cosmos a band of aspiring super-heroes. She wishes you to train them, as you and your wife once trained the members of the Legion Academy. I have even created a neat little headquarters for her. For you. Good-bye.”
The room melted around them, and Chuck, Aemelia, Talitha and Debbie Rodd appeared on the surface of a desolate world. A great obsidian tower rose on the horizon.
o o o
“That’s the Academy,” Debbie explained. “Here on the moon of Wondil IX.”
“Wondil IX has no moon,” objected Aemelia.
“It does now,” Debbie explained.
“You made this?” asked Chuck. “Or your father?”
“My cosmic abilities,” said Debbie, walking towards the black tower, “Are only half those of my father’s. But as his are semi-infinite, creating a place like this is well within my power.” They noticed the black tower was surrounded by spacious flower gardens, in a kaleidoscope of colors. “There are, however, random side-effects which I am unable to control.” She sneered distastefully at the flower gardens.
The inside of the tower was more silvery-grey than black. There were more than a dozen teen-agers milling around.
“I have collected a number of individuals with powers similar to mine,” said Debbie. “Their powers also have a random element, or are not entirely under their control. We are hoping your training can help us overcome this disability. Let me introduce you to my hand-picked, all-new Academy of Fabulous Heroes! ”
They first met a chicken-headed humanoid teen.
“This is Kukku Tazava of Pullum,” Debbie narrated. “He has the ability to summon a random number of alien chickens to defend himself or others..”
“This is Polly Popout, a random teleporter. And Doug Dealer, Muckle Ickle Lass, and Cereal Killer.”
“Perfectly Frank is over in the corner sitting atop the sentient Invisible Wall, which, of course, you can’t see.”
“And this is China Doll of Dollworld; Elegant Lad; Pentalad; Jellicle Girl; Kangastar of Nebulosa; and Colombina of Rossum, our robot clown girl.”
“And here is our time-traveling ‘Mother of Ice Dragons’... I brought her here myself!”
“It’s Talitha!” exclaimed Aemilia, elbowing Chuck in the ribs. “Look at her eyes!”
Chuck’s eyes darted back and forth between the one-year-old in Aemilia’s arms, and the teen-ager who stood before them, flanked by two Wondilixian ice dragons.
“Hello Momma. Hello Daddy,” said the Mother of Ice Dragons. “You’re looking good!”
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 06/25/22 01:10 AM
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
"It is a call from the United Planets," said Star-Woman. "And we would do well to honor it. But we should ask for any objections from the members anyway."
There were no objections.
"The Science Police have already investigated, and have come up empty. We might be facing anything... and faced with the unexpected, I suggest a small team of the strongest members only. "
"And by 'strongest', you mean...?" asked Korvea.
"Fat Boy and I," said Star-Woman.
"Mighty Lad," Korvea corrected her. "And just how do you measure strength? May I remind you that recent events indicate that I may be effectively immortal?"
"I intend on asking Izen's help, as well" said Star-Woman. "This sounds like an assignment tailor-made for a Green Lantern."
o o o
"Every schoolchild knows," the robot Green Lantern was saying, "That the city of Gothiker, on the planet Beztia, is populated by 'monsters' who take turns concentrating on a purple globe located high overhead, which magnifies their love vibrations to counteract evil everywhere in ouir galaxy. What many people don't realize is that the purple, green, and gold 'monsters' are all members of the same race: three different sexes, or genders. And the number three plays as large a role in their society, in its own way, as it does among the Cargggans."
"And now the purple globe has disappeared," said Korvea. "One of the great defenses of the Galaxy."
"Stolen, no doubt," said Izen. "But how, and by whom, and for what purpose, are the mysteries we have been called on to solve."
"The Pentachoron will transport the three of us directly into the Cathedral of the Nine," said Star-Woman. "With their approval, we will begin an exhaustive search of the planet."
The Beztaliens were intimidating. It was understandable that some called them 'monsters'. Each of the Nine stood fifty to sixty feet tall. Some were scaly and tentacular, others looked lobsterlike, or like great, near-shapeless mounds. They each spoke in quiet, penetrating voices, so as not to alarm their tiny guests. There was a hint of telepathic emphasis.
"You are three, that is good," said one. "But unbound. That is unfortunate."
"We appreciate the assistance of the United Planets in this matter," said another. "Our society has been devastated by the loss of the Orb."
"We have been its custodian for many generations," said a third. "It provides much meaning to our existence."
"The Orb is of great value to the United Planets as well," said Izen. "One of the few sources of pure Good in the Galaxy."
The first stop for the three heroes was the apex of the obelisk that had once held the purple Orb.
"My ring can find no trace of the path the Orb might have taken," said Izen.
"Nor can my star-rod," said Star-Woman. "It is perplexing."
"By re-focusing my eyes," said Mighty Lad, "I can examine much of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays to cosmic rays. This is only the second time I've really used this ability-- but I don't see anything remarkable at any level. It's as if the Orb was never here."
"Is that possible?" asked Star-Woman. "Some kind of time-travel-- a re-arrangement of history?"
"But everyone remembers the Orb being here," said Izen. "There are pictures of it in textbooks-- it is programmed into the Mentazo-rings of every schoolchild in the United Planets."
"We should try to search as much of the planet as possible, before sunset," said Star-Woman. "We can then report today's findings to the Nine, and start again early tomorrow."
That evening proved unsuccessful, and the following day as well.
"Brute force does not appear to be providing a solution," said Izen. "Perhaps we should call on the abilities of the other Members to help us solve this conundrum."
"Ten might have some insight," said Star-Woman. "And Saturn Girl... I wonder if the Beztaliens are as truly united in their adulation of the Orb as we have been told?"
"Summon them all," said Mighty Lad. "One of the Nine told me privately that there are Beztaliens willing to take us Members into their homes if need be."
"Why would one of the Nine speak to you privately?" asked Star-Woman. "They have always spoken to us together, as one."
"She... he... it... said that I am 'the object of great love'," said Mighty Lad. "I suppose... it... meant my parents."
"How very strange," said Star-Woman.
o o o
Gothiker was weirdly beautiful. The buildings were massive, broad, and stretching ten and twenty stories tall. Some of the buildings were based on spheres, domes, cubes, pyramids, or other geometric objects. Some were festooned with parapets, minarets, flying buttresses, balustrades, and friezes. Many were painted or sculpted with realistic scenes or abstract images. Some flew pennants, flags, and pennions. Each structure was unique unto itself. There were also alien-looking gardens and parks scattered throughout the city.
Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy were staying with three monstrous Beztaliens. They had said their names, but they were a collection of growls and roars which the flight ring were unable to translate. Lightning Lass thought of them as Big Orange Scaly, Little Orange Scaly, Big Green Lobster.
"What other cities of note are on Beztia?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Our race dwells in Gothiker alone," said Green Lobster. "Beyond are the wild lands of Beztia, jungle, and the Great Ocean."
"And you are the only intelligent species?" asked Lightning Lass.
"There are Ultra-Oysters in the Great Ocean," said Little Orange Scaly.. "Each one larger than any of us Beztaliens. Some regularly produce pearls larger than... larger than one of you. They are known to be quite intelligent, and telepthis, but they keep their thoughts to themselves. Mostly."
"You are promising representatives, but incomplete," said Big Orange Scaly. She turned toward Lightning Lass. "You are the nexus of a great love from your two companions. But there is an enmity between your beloveds that must be resolved. Only then can your triad be complete."
"You are making some erroneous assumptions," said Saturn Girl. "We Terrans are binary, not trinary. My affection for my sister is... sisterly. And any negative feelings I have for Pol are because... he is like an annoying little brother to me."
"Aw, that's sweet," said Pol, pulling a Spunow out from his utility belt. "But how did you know that Dacey and I are a couple?" he asked their hosts.
"We are... experts... in Love," said Big Orange Scaly. "It is our... reason for existence."
o o o
"Tragic love is the most beautiful," said one of the fifty-foot-tall purple mounds. "And secret, unrequited love is almost as beautiful."
"Whose love is tragic?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Why, yours, of course," said the second purple mound. It gestured with its tentacles as Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass. "You will be forever separated by your incompatible physiologies, yet your love persists."
"We are both Terrans," Polar Lass objected. "It is true that Hillarie cannot live in the temperatures common to my native world, and I need my thermo-belt to avoid hypothermia on his world, but in time... we love being together. I can't imagine my life without him. We will find a way."
"Ah, the Hope of Young Love," said the third purple mound. "It is most comforting to have you as guests. You bring a beautiful aura to our home."
"You seem very direct about matters of love," said Korvea. "If I may ask... I had supposed that each of your disparate forms represented a different gender. You live in groups of three... yet we see all manner of combinations of households."
"It is true that only a triad of Purple, Green, and Gold may produce offspring," said the first monster. "But Love nests where it will. If only a few of us form Breeding Triads, well, who is to argue with Love? Love is Love."
"Your own Love is forbidden, for now," said the second monster. "Yet can you deny it?"
"What do you know of my love?" asked Korvea. "You speak of something which may not even exist."
The three Beztaliens began to quiver. Great huffing sounds began to issue from them. The Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Korvea suddenly realized that their hosts were laughing.
The third great beast recovered first. "Oh, you young ones. You imagine that your emotions are hidden, when they are as plain as if they were written all over your tiny faces."
o o o
Ten, Phantom Girl, and Shrinking Violet were hosted by two Greens and an Orange.
"When you each fall in love, my dears, you must return to Beztia," said Orange. "We delight in Love, and have eons of experience to share."
"When was the last time you saw the Orb?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"For our Triangle, it was twenty-five days ago," said Orange. "But every day, a portion of the city is assigned to focus on the Orb. It was eight or nine days ago that it was stolen."
"Was it eight or nine days?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"The Ritual of the Orb occurs every day," said Orange. "Except on the Days of Mourning, when there is a death in Gothiker, and the whole city mourns. Such was the case nine days ago. And on the following morning, the Orb was gone."
"How often do these Days of Mourning come?" asked Ten. "They must be frequent."
"Perhaps two dozen each year," said Orange. "But it is as important to mourn the loss of a loved one, as to celebrate Love. And every inhabitant of Gothiker is beloved of someone. Of course, we expect that the other companions will soon pass away as well, and there will be two more Days of Mourning. For who can live long when their Love is broken?"
"Two-thirds of your people die of broken hearts?" asked Ten.
"Is it not the same everywhere?" asked Orange.
"And there are some four million of you in Gothiker? More or less?" asked Ten.
"That is so," said Orange.
"And you know when any of them... pass away?" asked Ten.
"We know immediately," said Orange.
Ten looked at Shrinking Violet. "Four million Gothikers, but only a couple of dozen die every year. This implies a life-span of some one-hundred-fifty-thousand years."
"And a correspondingly low birth rate," said Shrinking Violet. "No wonder we have seen no children on Beztia." She turned towards Orange. "If I may be so bold, how old are you?"
"I am middle-aged," said Orange. "We do not concern ourselves overmuch with such things, but I believe, in your reckoning, I must have seen fifty or seventy thousand sola-years."
"Were you here when the Orb was first constructed?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"It was not constructed," said Orange, chuckling. "It arrived. It is one of the First Creations, made by the God-Architects of Ancient Days. And it arrived long before my birth"
"The god-architects," said Ten. "In your theology, the creators of the Universe?"
"No, no, the Architects were the designers of the gods, before the Universe was created," said Orange.
"The creators of the gods?" asked Ten.
"You still misunderstand," said Orange. "The Architects designed the gods. Their creations were left to others."
"And where was the Orb before it... arrived... in Gothiker?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"There was no Gothiker in those days," said Orange. "The Orb fell from the sky, creating the crater that would become the city center. It came to rest upon the Central Peak, and its light brought our race out from the Wilds. We built Gothiker around it."
"And the Orb still sits on the Central Peak?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"No," said Ten, "It rests upon a crystal obelisk at the city center."
"The Central Peak was eroded away by time," said Orange. "Our ancestors created the Obelisk to honor the place of the Orb. And the Orb does not rest upon the Obelisk. It hovers above it, immovable."
"Immovable," said Ten. "Is it unaffected by gravity?"
"Or any other known force," said Orange. “The Orb abides.”
"Then how could anyone have stolen it?" Ten wondered aloud. “How could anyone have moved it?"
"When you have eliminated the impossible," said Shrinking Violet, "Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"It's still there," said Ten.
o o o
"It's still there," said Ffiona.
"What do you mean?" asked Chameleon.
"It's still there," said Ffey. "I can see it. We can see it. All three of us."
"Do you know how we once explained to you," said Ffarrah, "That the Universe seems more... present... more intense when we are separated? We tried fusing into one, and we couldn't see the Orb. But when we triplicated again, it's obviously still there."
The house they were staying at, home to a Breeding Triangle, and had a clear view of the crystal obelisk out one of the windows of the city center.
Chameleon concentrated. Two additional sets of eyes appeared on his forehead. "I am trying to replicate the molecular structure of your triplication... it is there. It's still there. Something is just preventing the Beztaliens from seeing it."
"And the other members," said Ffey. "Izen, Kallor, and Chel couldn't detect it either, with all their powers."
Chameleon resumed his ordinary form. "I can still see it, sort of. It's misty, but now that I know it's there..."
Their three Beztalien hosts came to the window.
"Is it really...?"
"Now that I know it is there..."
"Yes, I can see it..."
"We need to meet with the other members," said Ffiona. "And with the Cathedral of Nine."
o o o
"It's like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes," said Polar Lass, "Only in reverse. Once you know the Orb is there, you can see it."
"Wait a minute," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "So in this other story, everyone could see the Emperor's New Clothes, until they knew they weren't there?"
"Exactly," said Polar Lass.
"And was he wearing them at the time?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Yes," said Polar Lass. "An innocent little boy cried out, 'But he doesn't have anything on,' and then everybody could see. Or not see. I'll have to tell you the whole story later."
"I'm looking forward to it," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
The Cathedral of Nine had called together that day's team of Concentrators, and they were even now magnifying their Love Vibrations through space.
"The question is," said Saturn Girl, "Who was shielding the Orb from view? How did they do it, and how were they able to affect a whole city?"
"And my power ring," said Izen.
"And the Quarvat, and Fat Boy’s Kryptonian senses," said Korvea.
"Follow me," said Saturn Girl.
She led them through Gothiker, down winding streets, and into and out of alleys. They finally halted in front of a tall, stone-grey wall.
"You might as well stop running, and show yourself," Saturn Girl shouted into the air. "I'm not going to give up. We just want to know what is going on."
"I shouldn't have to explain myself." It was a huge creature, at least as large as one of the Beztaliens, with the appearance of an elephant. Or a giraffe. Or a hippopotamus. Or a huge gorilla. The forms melted one into another in a distracting manner. Giant ostrich. Spider. Earthquake beast. Each one a specific form for a moment, then morphing into the next form.
"Who are you?" asked Saturn Girl. "And just what do you think you have been doing here?"
The being sighed. It took on at least two new forms in doing so. "You may call me Grixx, I suppose. One of the Pantheon of... oh, you wouldn't know them. They have been extinct for millennia. I was god of... apathy and solipsism... those are the closest words in your vocabulary."
"Can you stop shape-shifting?" asked Chameleon. "It is dizzying, even for me."
"Am I shape-shifting?" asked Grixx. "I don't think so. You are just... perceiving me... as best you can. Would you prefer I go invisible again?" He rapidly flickered through giant forms of the Super-Hero Club members, several Beztaliens, winked out to invisibility, and then started on fish-forms.
"Why did you conceal the Orb?" asked Saturn Girl.
"What do you Mortals care?" asked Grixx. "That the magnified 'Love-Vibrations' weaken The Butcher and over-nourish The Predator... The Balance is... How can I explain? Would you even be concerned? After all, you were the ones who thoughtlessly introduced-- and then banished-- the Entity of Hate. It took what remains of us decades, working day and night, to set that right. The ripples in Reality... Well, I suppose you get the Universe you deserve."
"Are you really a god?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"There are so many of us," said Grixx. "Why are you surprised when you meet one? Especially when you meddle with the fundamental forces of the Universe. Ironic, isn't it? I'm the only one who cares anymore. The rest of my Pantheon have retired, or found other professions."
"'Old gods do new jobs'," Matter-Eater Lad Two quoted.
"Well, yes," said Grixx. "Some of us. Even Plagues changed over to Pollution for a bit, until he got his second wind."
"Are we wrong?" asked Saturn Girl. "Should we warn the U.P.? Get them to stop? Gothiker has been operating for thousands of years at least"
"That may be an underestimate," said Ten.
"No, no, pray let them continue," said Grixx. "A slight interruption, and the wheel of balance trembles into position. Slightly. I would not want to be rid of the Beasts of Gothiker anyway. They are so quaint. One could almost... love them. Fare well." The god vanished, without fanfare, thunder, or smoke.
"He really seems to be gone," said Saturn Girl. "Once I started looking for him, his mind was so... blindingly bright. But there is no light now."
"We're going to have trouble putting together a report for the United Planets," said Saturn Girl.
"I agree," said Star-Woman.
"I volunteer," said Izen. "I will forward you a copy."
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
"It is a call from the United Planets," said Star-Woman. "And we would do well to honor it. But we should ask for any objections from the members anyway."
There were no objections.
"The Science Police have already investigated, and have come up empty. We might be facing anything... and faced with the unexpected, I suggest a small team of the strongest members only. "
"And by 'strongest', you mean...?" asked Korvea.
"Fat Boy and I," said Star-Woman.
"Mighty Lad," Korvea corrected her. "And just how do you measure strength? May I remind you that recent events indicate that I may be effectively immortal?"
"I intend on asking Izen's help, as well" said Star-Woman. "This sounds like an assignment tailor-made for a Green Lantern."
o o o
"Every schoolchild knows," the robot Green Lantern was saying, "That the city of Gothiker, on the planet Beztia, is populated by 'monsters' who take turns concentrating on a purple globe located high overhead, which magnifies their love vibrations to counteract evil everywhere in ouir galaxy. What many people don't realize is that the purple, green, and gold 'monsters' are all members of the same race: three different sexes, or genders. And the number three plays as large a role in their society, in its own way, as it does among the Cargggans."
"And now the purple globe has disappeared," said Korvea. "One of the great defenses of the Galaxy."
"Stolen, no doubt," said Izen. "But how, and by whom, and for what purpose, are the mysteries we have been called on to solve."
"The Pentachoron will transport the three of us directly into the Cathedral of the Nine," said Star-Woman. "With their approval, we will begin an exhaustive search of the planet."
The Beztaliens were intimidating. It was understandable that some called them 'monsters'. Each of the Nine stood fifty to sixty feet tall. Some were scaly and tentacular, others looked lobsterlike, or like great, near-shapeless mounds. They each spoke in quiet, penetrating voices, so as not to alarm their tiny guests. There was a hint of telepathic emphasis.
"You are three, that is good," said one. "But unbound. That is unfortunate."
"We appreciate the assistance of the United Planets in this matter," said another. "Our society has been devastated by the loss of the Orb."
"We have been its custodian for many generations," said a third. "It provides much meaning to our existence."
"The Orb is of great value to the United Planets as well," said Izen. "One of the few sources of pure Good in the Galaxy."
The first stop for the three heroes was the apex of the obelisk that had once held the purple Orb.
"My ring can find no trace of the path the Orb might have taken," said Izen.
"Nor can my star-rod," said Star-Woman. "It is perplexing."
"By re-focusing my eyes," said Mighty Lad, "I can examine much of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays to cosmic rays. This is only the second time I've really used this ability-- but I don't see anything remarkable at any level. It's as if the Orb was never here."
"Is that possible?" asked Star-Woman. "Some kind of time-travel-- a re-arrangement of history?"
"But everyone remembers the Orb being here," said Izen. "There are pictures of it in textbooks-- it is programmed into the Mentazo-rings of every schoolchild in the United Planets."
"We should try to search as much of the planet as possible, before sunset," said Star-Woman. "We can then report today's findings to the Nine, and start again early tomorrow."
That evening proved unsuccessful, and the following day as well.
"Brute force does not appear to be providing a solution," said Izen. "Perhaps we should call on the abilities of the other Members to help us solve this conundrum."
"Ten might have some insight," said Star-Woman. "And Saturn Girl... I wonder if the Beztaliens are as truly united in their adulation of the Orb as we have been told?"
"Summon them all," said Mighty Lad. "One of the Nine told me privately that there are Beztaliens willing to take us Members into their homes if need be."
"Why would one of the Nine speak to you privately?" asked Star-Woman. "They have always spoken to us together, as one."
"She... he... it... said that I am 'the object of great love'," said Mighty Lad. "I suppose... it... meant my parents."
"How very strange," said Star-Woman.
o o o
Gothiker was weirdly beautiful. The buildings were massive, broad, and stretching ten and twenty stories tall. Some of the buildings were based on spheres, domes, cubes, pyramids, or other geometric objects. Some were festooned with parapets, minarets, flying buttresses, balustrades, and friezes. Many were painted or sculpted with realistic scenes or abstract images. Some flew pennants, flags, and pennions. Each structure was unique unto itself. There were also alien-looking gardens and parks scattered throughout the city.
Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, and Cosmic Boy were staying with three monstrous Beztaliens. They had said their names, but they were a collection of growls and roars which the flight ring were unable to translate. Lightning Lass thought of them as Big Orange Scaly, Little Orange Scaly, Big Green Lobster.
"What other cities of note are on Beztia?" asked Saturn Girl.
"Our race dwells in Gothiker alone," said Green Lobster. "Beyond are the wild lands of Beztia, jungle, and the Great Ocean."
"And you are the only intelligent species?" asked Lightning Lass.
"There are Ultra-Oysters in the Great Ocean," said Little Orange Scaly.. "Each one larger than any of us Beztaliens. Some regularly produce pearls larger than... larger than one of you. They are known to be quite intelligent, and telepthis, but they keep their thoughts to themselves. Mostly."
"You are promising representatives, but incomplete," said Big Orange Scaly. She turned toward Lightning Lass. "You are the nexus of a great love from your two companions. But there is an enmity between your beloveds that must be resolved. Only then can your triad be complete."
"You are making some erroneous assumptions," said Saturn Girl. "We Terrans are binary, not trinary. My affection for my sister is... sisterly. And any negative feelings I have for Pol are because... he is like an annoying little brother to me."
"Aw, that's sweet," said Pol, pulling a Spunow out from his utility belt. "But how did you know that Dacey and I are a couple?" he asked their hosts.
"We are... experts... in Love," said Big Orange Scaly. "It is our... reason for existence."
o o o
"Tragic love is the most beautiful," said one of the fifty-foot-tall purple mounds. "And secret, unrequited love is almost as beautiful."
"Whose love is tragic?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Why, yours, of course," said the second purple mound. It gestured with its tentacles as Matter-Eater Lad Two and Polar Lass. "You will be forever separated by your incompatible physiologies, yet your love persists."
"We are both Terrans," Polar Lass objected. "It is true that Hillarie cannot live in the temperatures common to my native world, and I need my thermo-belt to avoid hypothermia on his world, but in time... we love being together. I can't imagine my life without him. We will find a way."
"Ah, the Hope of Young Love," said the third purple mound. "It is most comforting to have you as guests. You bring a beautiful aura to our home."
"You seem very direct about matters of love," said Korvea. "If I may ask... I had supposed that each of your disparate forms represented a different gender. You live in groups of three... yet we see all manner of combinations of households."
"It is true that only a triad of Purple, Green, and Gold may produce offspring," said the first monster. "But Love nests where it will. If only a few of us form Breeding Triads, well, who is to argue with Love? Love is Love."
"Your own Love is forbidden, for now," said the second monster. "Yet can you deny it?"
"What do you know of my love?" asked Korvea. "You speak of something which may not even exist."
The three Beztaliens began to quiver. Great huffing sounds began to issue from them. The Matter-Eater Lad Two, Polar Lass, and Korvea suddenly realized that their hosts were laughing.
The third great beast recovered first. "Oh, you young ones. You imagine that your emotions are hidden, when they are as plain as if they were written all over your tiny faces."
o o o
Ten, Phantom Girl, and Shrinking Violet were hosted by two Greens and an Orange.
"When you each fall in love, my dears, you must return to Beztia," said Orange. "We delight in Love, and have eons of experience to share."
"When was the last time you saw the Orb?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"For our Triangle, it was twenty-five days ago," said Orange. "But every day, a portion of the city is assigned to focus on the Orb. It was eight or nine days ago that it was stolen."
"Was it eight or nine days?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"The Ritual of the Orb occurs every day," said Orange. "Except on the Days of Mourning, when there is a death in Gothiker, and the whole city mourns. Such was the case nine days ago. And on the following morning, the Orb was gone."
"How often do these Days of Mourning come?" asked Ten. "They must be frequent."
"Perhaps two dozen each year," said Orange. "But it is as important to mourn the loss of a loved one, as to celebrate Love. And every inhabitant of Gothiker is beloved of someone. Of course, we expect that the other companions will soon pass away as well, and there will be two more Days of Mourning. For who can live long when their Love is broken?"
"Two-thirds of your people die of broken hearts?" asked Ten.
"Is it not the same everywhere?" asked Orange.
"And there are some four million of you in Gothiker? More or less?" asked Ten.
"That is so," said Orange.
"And you know when any of them... pass away?" asked Ten.
"We know immediately," said Orange.
Ten looked at Shrinking Violet. "Four million Gothikers, but only a couple of dozen die every year. This implies a life-span of some one-hundred-fifty-thousand years."
"And a correspondingly low birth rate," said Shrinking Violet. "No wonder we have seen no children on Beztia." She turned towards Orange. "If I may be so bold, how old are you?"
"I am middle-aged," said Orange. "We do not concern ourselves overmuch with such things, but I believe, in your reckoning, I must have seen fifty or seventy thousand sola-years."
"Were you here when the Orb was first constructed?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"It was not constructed," said Orange, chuckling. "It arrived. It is one of the First Creations, made by the God-Architects of Ancient Days. And it arrived long before my birth"
"The god-architects," said Ten. "In your theology, the creators of the Universe?"
"No, no, the Architects were the designers of the gods, before the Universe was created," said Orange.
"The creators of the gods?" asked Ten.
"You still misunderstand," said Orange. "The Architects designed the gods. Their creations were left to others."
"And where was the Orb before it... arrived... in Gothiker?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"There was no Gothiker in those days," said Orange. "The Orb fell from the sky, creating the crater that would become the city center. It came to rest upon the Central Peak, and its light brought our race out from the Wilds. We built Gothiker around it."
"And the Orb still sits on the Central Peak?" asked Shrinking Violet.
"No," said Ten, "It rests upon a crystal obelisk at the city center."
"The Central Peak was eroded away by time," said Orange. "Our ancestors created the Obelisk to honor the place of the Orb. And the Orb does not rest upon the Obelisk. It hovers above it, immovable."
"Immovable," said Ten. "Is it unaffected by gravity?"
"Or any other known force," said Orange. “The Orb abides.”
"Then how could anyone have stolen it?" Ten wondered aloud. “How could anyone have moved it?"
"When you have eliminated the impossible," said Shrinking Violet, "Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"It's still there," said Ten.
o o o
"It's still there," said Ffiona.
"What do you mean?" asked Chameleon.
"It's still there," said Ffey. "I can see it. We can see it. All three of us."
"Do you know how we once explained to you," said Ffarrah, "That the Universe seems more... present... more intense when we are separated? We tried fusing into one, and we couldn't see the Orb. But when we triplicated again, it's obviously still there."
The house they were staying at, home to a Breeding Triangle, and had a clear view of the crystal obelisk out one of the windows of the city center.
Chameleon concentrated. Two additional sets of eyes appeared on his forehead. "I am trying to replicate the molecular structure of your triplication... it is there. It's still there. Something is just preventing the Beztaliens from seeing it."
"And the other members," said Ffey. "Izen, Kallor, and Chel couldn't detect it either, with all their powers."
Chameleon resumed his ordinary form. "I can still see it, sort of. It's misty, but now that I know it's there..."
Their three Beztalien hosts came to the window.
"Is it really...?"
"Now that I know it is there..."
"Yes, I can see it..."
"We need to meet with the other members," said Ffiona. "And with the Cathedral of Nine."
o o o
"It's like the story of the Emperor's New Clothes," said Polar Lass, "Only in reverse. Once you know the Orb is there, you can see it."
"Wait a minute," said Matter-Eater Lad Two. "So in this other story, everyone could see the Emperor's New Clothes, until they knew they weren't there?"
"Exactly," said Polar Lass.
"And was he wearing them at the time?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"Yes," said Polar Lass. "An innocent little boy cried out, 'But he doesn't have anything on,' and then everybody could see. Or not see. I'll have to tell you the whole story later."
"I'm looking forward to it," said Matter-Eater Lad Two.
The Cathedral of Nine had called together that day's team of Concentrators, and they were even now magnifying their Love Vibrations through space.
"The question is," said Saturn Girl, "Who was shielding the Orb from view? How did they do it, and how were they able to affect a whole city?"
"And my power ring," said Izen.
"And the Quarvat, and Fat Boy’s Kryptonian senses," said Korvea.
"Follow me," said Saturn Girl.
She led them through Gothiker, down winding streets, and into and out of alleys. They finally halted in front of a tall, stone-grey wall.
"You might as well stop running, and show yourself," Saturn Girl shouted into the air. "I'm not going to give up. We just want to know what is going on."
"I shouldn't have to explain myself." It was a huge creature, at least as large as one of the Beztaliens, with the appearance of an elephant. Or a giraffe. Or a hippopotamus. Or a huge gorilla. The forms melted one into another in a distracting manner. Giant ostrich. Spider. Earthquake beast. Each one a specific form for a moment, then morphing into the next form.
"Who are you?" asked Saturn Girl. "And just what do you think you have been doing here?"
The being sighed. It took on at least two new forms in doing so. "You may call me Grixx, I suppose. One of the Pantheon of... oh, you wouldn't know them. They have been extinct for millennia. I was god of... apathy and solipsism... those are the closest words in your vocabulary."
"Can you stop shape-shifting?" asked Chameleon. "It is dizzying, even for me."
"Am I shape-shifting?" asked Grixx. "I don't think so. You are just... perceiving me... as best you can. Would you prefer I go invisible again?" He rapidly flickered through giant forms of the Super-Hero Club members, several Beztaliens, winked out to invisibility, and then started on fish-forms.
"Why did you conceal the Orb?" asked Saturn Girl.
"What do you Mortals care?" asked Grixx. "That the magnified 'Love-Vibrations' weaken The Butcher and over-nourish The Predator... The Balance is... How can I explain? Would you even be concerned? After all, you were the ones who thoughtlessly introduced-- and then banished-- the Entity of Hate. It took what remains of us decades, working day and night, to set that right. The ripples in Reality... Well, I suppose you get the Universe you deserve."
"Are you really a god?" asked Matter-Eater Lad Two.
"There are so many of us," said Grixx. "Why are you surprised when you meet one? Especially when you meddle with the fundamental forces of the Universe. Ironic, isn't it? I'm the only one who cares anymore. The rest of my Pantheon have retired, or found other professions."
"'Old gods do new jobs'," Matter-Eater Lad Two quoted.
"Well, yes," said Grixx. "Some of us. Even Plagues changed over to Pollution for a bit, until he got his second wind."
"Are we wrong?" asked Saturn Girl. "Should we warn the U.P.? Get them to stop? Gothiker has been operating for thousands of years at least"
"That may be an underestimate," said Ten.
"No, no, pray let them continue," said Grixx. "A slight interruption, and the wheel of balance trembles into position. Slightly. I would not want to be rid of the Beasts of Gothiker anyway. They are so quaint. One could almost... love them. Fare well." The god vanished, without fanfare, thunder, or smoke.
"He really seems to be gone," said Saturn Girl. "Once I started looking for him, his mind was so... blindingly bright. But there is no light now."
"We're going to have trouble putting together a report for the United Planets," said Saturn Girl.
"I agree," said Star-Woman.
"I volunteer," said Izen. "I will forward you a copy."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/11/22 11:27 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY
NEVER HAD A FRIEND LIKE THIS
"I am Genever, the White Djinn, and I am here to deliver to you all a gift from the Sorcerer's World."
The stranger was humanoid in appearance, with pale white skin and glowing silver eyes. His white beard was long and full, and braided in a complicated and intriguing manner. A white keffiyah with silver trim covered his head, and he wore several layers of matching white-and-silver shirts, coats and robes.
"In recognition of your invaluable assistance to the Sorcerer's World, particularly in the matter of the recent War with the Analysts, I am here to grant you your hearts' desires."
"The First Coventry has already gifted us with a powerful mana-repelling spell," said Saturn Girl. "Twice. It has been invaluable in providing protection to our Clubhouse."
"I am aware of this," said the White Djinn. "It is because of it that peculiar spell that I am only able to appear to you in this form. Nevertheless, the First Coventry has commissioned me to grant to each of you, personally and individually, your hearts' desires."
"I've never even been to Sorcerer's World," said Mighty Lad.
"Nor I," said Korvea.
"Then you have been fortunate in your choice of friends," said the White Djinn, "For you are included in this gift."
"So just how many wishes do we each get?" asked Ffarrah.
"No wishing," the White Djinn explained. "Tonight you will dream; you will dream of your heart's desire. Perhaps you may not know, even now, what your heart's desire truly is. But tomorrow, I will return, and interview each of you. And if you tell me you are satisfied with your dream, this desire will be granted."
"This is really too much," said Saturn Girl. "Is there anything we can do for you, personally, in return? As you are a Djinn, I rather doubt it."
"But there is," said the White Djinn. "You can give me one of your coupons for Prospero's Pizza. I would like to surprise the old man."
NEVER HAD A FRIEND LIKE THIS
"I am Genever, the White Djinn, and I am here to deliver to you all a gift from the Sorcerer's World."
The stranger was humanoid in appearance, with pale white skin and glowing silver eyes. His white beard was long and full, and braided in a complicated and intriguing manner. A white keffiyah with silver trim covered his head, and he wore several layers of matching white-and-silver shirts, coats and robes.
"In recognition of your invaluable assistance to the Sorcerer's World, particularly in the matter of the recent War with the Analysts, I am here to grant you your hearts' desires."
"The First Coventry has already gifted us with a powerful mana-repelling spell," said Saturn Girl. "Twice. It has been invaluable in providing protection to our Clubhouse."
"I am aware of this," said the White Djinn. "It is because of it that peculiar spell that I am only able to appear to you in this form. Nevertheless, the First Coventry has commissioned me to grant to each of you, personally and individually, your hearts' desires."
"I've never even been to Sorcerer's World," said Mighty Lad.
"Nor I," said Korvea.
"Then you have been fortunate in your choice of friends," said the White Djinn, "For you are included in this gift."
"So just how many wishes do we each get?" asked Ffarrah.
"No wishing," the White Djinn explained. "Tonight you will dream; you will dream of your heart's desire. Perhaps you may not know, even now, what your heart's desire truly is. But tomorrow, I will return, and interview each of you. And if you tell me you are satisfied with your dream, this desire will be granted."
"This is really too much," said Saturn Girl. "Is there anything we can do for you, personally, in return? As you are a Djinn, I rather doubt it."
"But there is," said the White Djinn. "You can give me one of your coupons for Prospero's Pizza. I would like to surprise the old man."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/18/22 11:44 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
EIGHTEEN MONTHS INTO THE FUTURE
CHAMELEON AND THE TRIPLICATES
E PLURIBUS UNUM
"You wouldn't know how agonizing being triplets can be"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjW_yvrC0cE
Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffar were in a hurry to get to the hospital, so they were irritated to find a Daxamite Pirate dropping down from the sky right in front of them.
Res-Vir had gone almost completely gray. He wore a patch over his left eye, which the Triplicates considered must be an affectation. Certainly Daxam had the medical technology to regrow new eyes?
"Please, not now," said Ffey.
Res-Vir broke off a vial of greenish liquid from his belt.
"Your triple suns wreak havoc with my powers," he said, downing the serum. "I can feel the effects of my last dose weakening already."
"Then maybe you should go," said Ffiona.
"First, I will learn the secret of Cargggan triplication. Daxamite powers also come from the stellar radiation. We ought to be able to triplicate as well."
"Cargggans are triplicates because we were born under the triple suns," said Ffiona.
"Daxamite!" shouted a voice behind him. "Your replicas are here!"
A young Cargggan SP officer was standing between two more Res-Virs. In an instant, they rushed the Daxamite Pirate. One grabbed him in a headlock, and the three Res-Virs soared up into the atmosphere.
"Arona Ffolx," the SP officer introduced herself. "I'm a Meta. My duplicates can form themselves into doppelgangers of any living being near me."
There was distant thunder, and a shock-wave from high in the atmosphere. Officer Ffolx's duplicates descended with the original Res-Vir between them, unconscious.
"You may proceed, citizens," said Officer Ffolx. "I believe the Science Police have the situation under control."
The Triplicates hurried to the hospital.
"How is he, Doctor Wamu?" Ffey asked.
"It is astonishing," said Doctor Wamu. "It is beyond anything I have ever heard of. Come and see."
Chameleon was sealed inside a transparent medical tube. His form was that of a singlet male version of Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey.
"He reads as perfectly Cargggan, down to the level of molecular DNA," said Doctor Wamu. "It has taken him three days, and he has been under my constant supervision, but it appears the experiment is a success." The doctor addressed Chameleon. "Are you ready for the Cancelite?"
"Yes, doctor," said Chameleon. The medical tube filled with a nearly colorless mist. After a few moments, the tube opened, and Chameleon rose from the table.
"Now for the final test," the doctor said.
Chameleon concentrated. This was not like shape-shifting, he had been told. The other two would be there. He could sense them. And then there were three.
"Does it always sting so bad the first time?" said one of the men.
"No one really would know," said Ffiona. "The first time any Cargggan triplicates is as an infant... although they usually do cry afterwards."
"But what should we call you?" asked Ffey.
"You can call us Ffameleon, Ffameleus, and Ffameleax," he said. "And now, Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffar, will you marry us?"
Three Cargggan women flew into the arms of three Cargggan men.
"But there's one thing," said Ffiona. "We were discussing this on the way over here. You know that, chronologically, we are only fourteen years old, although because of our living separately since we were eight, we appear physiologically thirty."
"Yes," said Ffameleon. "I am willing to accept accelerated aging, if it means I can spend that time with you."
"No, you don't understand," said Ffey. "If we are going to be together, we want it to last as long as possible. A hundred years, or more. We want to live as normal Cargggans, only triplicating occasionally."
"Only under certain very special circumstances," said Ffarrah.
Ffameleon fused back into one. The Triplicates did the same.
o o o
<Three days later>
It had not been hard at all to get everyone together.
"Ffameleon and Ffiona Ffar," said the minister. "I now pronounce you Husband and Wife."
EIGHTEEN MONTHS INTO THE FUTURE
CHAMELEON AND THE TRIPLICATES
E PLURIBUS UNUM
"You wouldn't know how agonizing being triplets can be"
https:/
Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffar were in a hurry to get to the hospital, so they were irritated to find a Daxamite Pirate dropping down from the sky right in front of them.
Res-Vir had gone almost completely gray. He wore a patch over his left eye, which the Triplicates considered must be an affectation. Certainly Daxam had the medical technology to regrow new eyes?
"Please, not now," said Ffey.
Res-Vir broke off a vial of greenish liquid from his belt.
"Your triple suns wreak havoc with my powers," he said, downing the serum. "I can feel the effects of my last dose weakening already."
"Then maybe you should go," said Ffiona.
"First, I will learn the secret of Cargggan triplication. Daxamite powers also come from the stellar radiation. We ought to be able to triplicate as well."
"Cargggans are triplicates because we were born under the triple suns," said Ffiona.
"Daxamite!" shouted a voice behind him. "Your replicas are here!"
A young Cargggan SP officer was standing between two more Res-Virs. In an instant, they rushed the Daxamite Pirate. One grabbed him in a headlock, and the three Res-Virs soared up into the atmosphere.
"Arona Ffolx," the SP officer introduced herself. "I'm a Meta. My duplicates can form themselves into doppelgangers of any living being near me."
There was distant thunder, and a shock-wave from high in the atmosphere. Officer Ffolx's duplicates descended with the original Res-Vir between them, unconscious.
"You may proceed, citizens," said Officer Ffolx. "I believe the Science Police have the situation under control."
The Triplicates hurried to the hospital.
"How is he, Doctor Wamu?" Ffey asked.
"It is astonishing," said Doctor Wamu. "It is beyond anything I have ever heard of. Come and see."
Chameleon was sealed inside a transparent medical tube. His form was that of a singlet male version of Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey.
"He reads as perfectly Cargggan, down to the level of molecular DNA," said Doctor Wamu. "It has taken him three days, and he has been under my constant supervision, but it appears the experiment is a success." The doctor addressed Chameleon. "Are you ready for the Cancelite?"
"Yes, doctor," said Chameleon. The medical tube filled with a nearly colorless mist. After a few moments, the tube opened, and Chameleon rose from the table.
"Now for the final test," the doctor said.
Chameleon concentrated. This was not like shape-shifting, he had been told. The other two would be there. He could sense them. And then there were three.
"Does it always sting so bad the first time?" said one of the men.
"No one really would know," said Ffiona. "The first time any Cargggan triplicates is as an infant... although they usually do cry afterwards."
"But what should we call you?" asked Ffey.
"You can call us Ffameleon, Ffameleus, and Ffameleax," he said. "And now, Ffiona, Ffarrah, and Ffey Ffar, will you marry us?"
Three Cargggan women flew into the arms of three Cargggan men.
"But there's one thing," said Ffiona. "We were discussing this on the way over here. You know that, chronologically, we are only fourteen years old, although because of our living separately since we were eight, we appear physiologically thirty."
"Yes," said Ffameleon. "I am willing to accept accelerated aging, if it means I can spend that time with you."
"No, you don't understand," said Ffey. "If we are going to be together, we want it to last as long as possible. A hundred years, or more. We want to live as normal Cargggans, only triplicating occasionally."
"Only under certain very special circumstances," said Ffarrah.
Ffameleon fused back into one. The Triplicates did the same.
o o o
<Three days later>
It had not been hard at all to get everyone together.
"Ffameleon and Ffiona Ffar," said the minister. "I now pronounce you Husband and Wife."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 07/25/22 02:35 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
COSMIC BOY AND LIGHTNING LASS
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
"Green Acres is the place to be."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrbPAt1_vc4
"Well, that was a bash," said Pol Krinn. "Early morning until late at night."
"It isn't every day our niece turns seven sola-years old," said Dacey.
Pol looked around their Winathan cottage. "Hard to believe we grew up here," he mused. "And now we're in charge."
"Oh, I'm sure our folks will have plenty to say about how things are run," said Darcey. "After they give us a chance to settle in. They haven't surrendered their shares."
"Oh, my folks are enjoying early retirement far too much to interfere," said Pol. "They have both always wanted to travel."
"Travel?" asked Dacey. "They keep themselves isolated in their private cottage all day, every day. Violet's party was the first time I've seen them in weeks."
"Don't you know?" said Pol. "Dad got access to an old Legion time-bubble. He keeps it in that shed in back. They're always in their cottage because they're resting up from their adventures-- in Space and Time. They return from their tourism only a few seconds after they left, so if you didn't know better, you would think they never go anywhere."
"Why don't I know this?" asked Dacey.
"Because you've been too busy arranging the sale of the Redfin property," said Pol. "Which I really appreciate. I'm not good at tough negotiation."
"And the Redfins grate on you," said Dacey. "Don't worry, they grate on me, too. Do you know what he told me the other day? That if he was running Lightning Ring Farms, he would cut down The Woods, and plow it under for more planting. I told him we're planning to expand The Woods to cover a quarter of his property as well. He thinks we're crazy."
"And that's the reason we're buying his property, and not vice versa," said Pol.
"And he's taking his androids with him," said Dacey. "Not part of the sale."
"I think we'll do OK without them," said Pol. "Lance is ten times as efficient as any non-sapient android. And has real loyalty, not just programmed obedience."
"Well, Davera is a real asset there, too," said Dacey. "Did you know they're constructing another child?"
"And both of their kids have expressed an interest in staying and working on Lightning Ring Farms," said Pol. "When they 'grow up'. We may need to buy another neighboring farm just to have enough land for them to work."
"And did you hear what Salu and Ayla said at the party?" asked Dacey.
"Oh, no. They're not thinking of having another baby at their age?" said Pol.
"Just thinking about it for now," said Dacey. "But yeah... Graym's boys would be older than the new baby. Dad would have grandsons years older than his new niece."
"Your folks aren't thinking of having more kids?" asked Pol. "The way things are going, we'll need to turn part of Lightning Ring Farms into a small city."
"Would that be such a bad thing?" asked Dacey. "Build a few apartment buildings. Become benevolent landlords."
"And have to count out the rent every month? I have enough trouble with collections as it is," said Pol. "All our deliveries are supposed to be C.O.D., but it never seems to work out that way. I do miss Dad's help in bookkeeping. He had a real talent for the financial side of the business."
"So let's hire an accountant," said Dacey. "We can afford it. Make them an offer-- their choice-- salary or shares."
"Dad would be offended," said Pol. "He'd call it a waste of money."
"Oh, he'll go along. You should talk to him anyway," said Dacey. "Our folks developed quite a network of contacts, both when they were in the Legion and later."
"Well, Dad did tell me," mused Pol, "About an applicant back at the beginning of the Legion who called himself 'Calcu-Lad'."
"It's getting late," said Dacey. "Let's sleep on it."
"Best offer I've had all day," said Pol.
FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
COSMIC BOY AND LIGHTNING LASS
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
"Green Acres is the place to be."
https:/
"Well, that was a bash," said Pol Krinn. "Early morning until late at night."
"It isn't every day our niece turns seven sola-years old," said Dacey.
Pol looked around their Winathan cottage. "Hard to believe we grew up here," he mused. "And now we're in charge."
"Oh, I'm sure our folks will have plenty to say about how things are run," said Darcey. "After they give us a chance to settle in. They haven't surrendered their shares."
"Oh, my folks are enjoying early retirement far too much to interfere," said Pol. "They have both always wanted to travel."
"Travel?" asked Dacey. "They keep themselves isolated in their private cottage all day, every day. Violet's party was the first time I've seen them in weeks."
"Don't you know?" said Pol. "Dad got access to an old Legion time-bubble. He keeps it in that shed in back. They're always in their cottage because they're resting up from their adventures-- in Space and Time. They return from their tourism only a few seconds after they left, so if you didn't know better, you would think they never go anywhere."
"Why don't I know this?" asked Dacey.
"Because you've been too busy arranging the sale of the Redfin property," said Pol. "Which I really appreciate. I'm not good at tough negotiation."
"And the Redfins grate on you," said Dacey. "Don't worry, they grate on me, too. Do you know what he told me the other day? That if he was running Lightning Ring Farms, he would cut down The Woods, and plow it under for more planting. I told him we're planning to expand The Woods to cover a quarter of his property as well. He thinks we're crazy."
"And that's the reason we're buying his property, and not vice versa," said Pol.
"And he's taking his androids with him," said Dacey. "Not part of the sale."
"I think we'll do OK without them," said Pol. "Lance is ten times as efficient as any non-sapient android. And has real loyalty, not just programmed obedience."
"Well, Davera is a real asset there, too," said Dacey. "Did you know they're constructing another child?"
"And both of their kids have expressed an interest in staying and working on Lightning Ring Farms," said Pol. "When they 'grow up'. We may need to buy another neighboring farm just to have enough land for them to work."
"And did you hear what Salu and Ayla said at the party?" asked Dacey.
"Oh, no. They're not thinking of having another baby at their age?" said Pol.
"Just thinking about it for now," said Dacey. "But yeah... Graym's boys would be older than the new baby. Dad would have grandsons years older than his new niece."
"Your folks aren't thinking of having more kids?" asked Pol. "The way things are going, we'll need to turn part of Lightning Ring Farms into a small city."
"Would that be such a bad thing?" asked Dacey. "Build a few apartment buildings. Become benevolent landlords."
"And have to count out the rent every month? I have enough trouble with collections as it is," said Pol. "All our deliveries are supposed to be C.O.D., but it never seems to work out that way. I do miss Dad's help in bookkeeping. He had a real talent for the financial side of the business."
"So let's hire an accountant," said Dacey. "We can afford it. Make them an offer-- their choice-- salary or shares."
"Dad would be offended," said Pol. "He'd call it a waste of money."
"Oh, he'll go along. You should talk to him anyway," said Dacey. "Our folks developed quite a network of contacts, both when they were in the Legion and later."
"Well, Dad did tell me," mused Pol, "About an applicant back at the beginning of the Legion who called himself 'Calcu-Lad'."
"It's getting late," said Dacey. "Let's sleep on it."
"Best offer I've had all day," said Pol.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/01/22 12:36 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
MATTER-EATER LAD TWO AND POLAR LASS
THE RESCUER
"A kingdom of isolation"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS0T8Cd4UhA&ab_channel=DisneyMusicVEVO
Kalorus iss a giant water-world, but so close to its stellar primary that the temperature at the equator was above the boiling point. Near the equator, walls of steam and water vapour rise high into the atmosphere, cooling and then falling as rain into the northern and southern oceans ten thousand miles away. In these more distant parts of the oceans, a vast array of life has evolved and flourished.
There are two small, sandy continents at the poles.
At the south polar region, the temperatures are merely tropical. Tide pools flourish. In the thirty-first century, plant and proto-amphibian life are evolving, and just beginning to spread onto land.
At the moment, the center of the northern continent is covered in a thousand meters of ice.
The Coluan ship hovered above the giant glacier. A narrow beam of energy was melting a hole in the ice. Shortly, Hillarie Norgay descended on a lighted pedestal through the melted hole down to the frozen, sandy surface of Kalorus beneath.
The source maintaining the anomalous glacier was there, trapped deep beneath in the ice sheets. Hillarie took out a small torch, excavated an icy opening, and inserted a medical patch. He waited.
The ice in the small chamber began to melt. A few hundred miles away, at the continent's edge, ice also began to melt.
Kylda Skye Zimm of Tharr staggered out of the frozen sarcophagus.
"How long has it been, Matty?" she asked.
Hillarie took her in his arms. "Polly," he whispered. "A little over two years. I'm sorry I took so long."
"Those damned Coluans," said Kylda. "I wanted better control over my powers. They just gave me... just more. I thought Kalorus might be hot enough to keep me comfortable. But I was wrong."
"When you left for Colu," said Hillarie, "I went to Daxam. They were able to broaden and re-purpose my natural gastrointestinal invulnerability. Notice the short sleeves in this ice cave? I'm perfectly comfortable at minus one hundred celsius. And equally comfortable at plus one hundred celsius as well. Not completely invulnerable. Just highly resistant to changes in temperature."
"What's this?" asked Kylda, looking at her arm.
"That bio-patch is reversing the Coluan genetic transformation you underwent," said Hillarie. "And pumping you full of a temporary bio-friendly antifreeze. It was a joint effort of the Coluans and Daxamites. I've got a borrowed Coluan ship waiting to transport us both to Daxam, where you will complete the treatment. And then to Tharr." He looked directly into Kylda's ice-blue eyes. "Polly, we're going to live happily ever after."
"But I still need to go to Bismoll and meet your family," said Kylda.
"They're coming to the wedding," said Hillarie. "You can meet them there."
"What wedding?" asked Kylda.
"Ours. In three weeks. On Tharr," said Hillarie. "I took the liberty... please say yes. Otherwise, in just less than a month, I'm going to have to eat a whole lot of lutefisk and glogg all by myself."
"Oh, Matty, yes, yes, yes," said Kylda, throwing her arms around her new fiancé and kissing him soundly. "Oh! You feel warm to me! That’s new! And nice. Let's get out of here!"
The flying pedestal began to ascend to the ship above, the newly-engaged couple entangled in one another's arms.
"Matty, you didn't let my mother talk you into having me wear her old wedding dress, did you?" asked Kylda.
"I told her we'd think about it," said Hillarie. "But if you like, I think you and I could go shopping tomorrow."
FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
MATTER-EATER LAD TWO AND POLAR LASS
THE RESCUER
"A kingdom of isolation"
https:/
Kalorus iss a giant water-world, but so close to its stellar primary that the temperature at the equator was above the boiling point. Near the equator, walls of steam and water vapour rise high into the atmosphere, cooling and then falling as rain into the northern and southern oceans ten thousand miles away. In these more distant parts of the oceans, a vast array of life has evolved and flourished.
There are two small, sandy continents at the poles.
At the south polar region, the temperatures are merely tropical. Tide pools flourish. In the thirty-first century, plant and proto-amphibian life are evolving, and just beginning to spread onto land.
At the moment, the center of the northern continent is covered in a thousand meters of ice.
The Coluan ship hovered above the giant glacier. A narrow beam of energy was melting a hole in the ice. Shortly, Hillarie Norgay descended on a lighted pedestal through the melted hole down to the frozen, sandy surface of Kalorus beneath.
The source maintaining the anomalous glacier was there, trapped deep beneath in the ice sheets. Hillarie took out a small torch, excavated an icy opening, and inserted a medical patch. He waited.
The ice in the small chamber began to melt. A few hundred miles away, at the continent's edge, ice also began to melt.
Kylda Skye Zimm of Tharr staggered out of the frozen sarcophagus.
"How long has it been, Matty?" she asked.
Hillarie took her in his arms. "Polly," he whispered. "A little over two years. I'm sorry I took so long."
"Those damned Coluans," said Kylda. "I wanted better control over my powers. They just gave me... just more. I thought Kalorus might be hot enough to keep me comfortable. But I was wrong."
"When you left for Colu," said Hillarie, "I went to Daxam. They were able to broaden and re-purpose my natural gastrointestinal invulnerability. Notice the short sleeves in this ice cave? I'm perfectly comfortable at minus one hundred celsius. And equally comfortable at plus one hundred celsius as well. Not completely invulnerable. Just highly resistant to changes in temperature."
"What's this?" asked Kylda, looking at her arm.
"That bio-patch is reversing the Coluan genetic transformation you underwent," said Hillarie. "And pumping you full of a temporary bio-friendly antifreeze. It was a joint effort of the Coluans and Daxamites. I've got a borrowed Coluan ship waiting to transport us both to Daxam, where you will complete the treatment. And then to Tharr." He looked directly into Kylda's ice-blue eyes. "Polly, we're going to live happily ever after."
"But I still need to go to Bismoll and meet your family," said Kylda.
"They're coming to the wedding," said Hillarie. "You can meet them there."
"What wedding?" asked Kylda.
"Ours. In three weeks. On Tharr," said Hillarie. "I took the liberty... please say yes. Otherwise, in just less than a month, I'm going to have to eat a whole lot of lutefisk and glogg all by myself."
"Oh, Matty, yes, yes, yes," said Kylda, throwing her arms around her new fiancé and kissing him soundly. "Oh! You feel warm to me! That’s new! And nice. Let's get out of here!"
The flying pedestal began to ascend to the ship above, the newly-engaged couple entangled in one another's arms.
"Matty, you didn't let my mother talk you into having me wear her old wedding dress, did you?" asked Kylda.
"I told her we'd think about it," said Hillarie. "But if you like, I think you and I could go shopping tomorrow."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/03/22 12:50 PM
I have been doing a whole lot of catching up and all of this great, but can I just tell you that as soon as I realised the giant was Mr Nebula I was sold on anything else entirely
Reply to Razsolo - 08/07/22 04:36 PM
It’s my Paracosm, and I can invite whoever I want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtCIdpnQoWk
The first death of the Triplicate Girl at the hands of Computo was a tragedy. But weirdly and bizarrely, the story also involved The Weirdo Legionnaire and Bizarro-Computo.
The ultimate death of Lluornu Durgo in my Paracosm, at a relatively young age, was also a tragedy. And it involved Mr. Nebula.
Life can be both tragic and absurd at the same time.
https:/
The first death of the Triplicate Girl at the hands of Computo was a tragedy. But weirdly and bizarrely, the story also involved The Weirdo Legionnaire and Bizarro-Computo.
The ultimate death of Lluornu Durgo in my Paracosm, at a relatively young age, was also a tragedy. And it involved Mr. Nebula.
Life can be both tragic and absurd at the same time.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/15/22 02:51 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
KORVEA AND MIGHTY LAD
DESCENDANTS
"Blackbird fly, into the light of a dark black night"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDxfjUEBT9I
"I'm dying, aren't I?" said Korvea Mallor.
"They say only the Rejuvium is keeping you alive," said Chel-Eb. "And it won't forever. Take your pill."
"And if I don't take my pill?" asked Korvea, taking her pill with a sip of water.
"Then the next time you go to sleep, you probably won't wake up." said Chel-Eb.
Korvea Mallor lay in a gorgeous four-poster bed, in a beautifully decorated suite in the Royal Palace. A medical readout hung on the wall over her head. A nurse sat in one corner. The nurse would be replaced throughout the day by five others that worked in rotation.
"It's been a good run," said Korvea. "Grev's descendants may be the nominal Planetary Champions of Talok, but we have three children on the Council of Elders, and our grand-children have been the real defenders of our world for decades." She sighed. "And you, of course."
"And you," said Chel-Eb. "Remember the Dark Circle invasion?"
Korvea smiled. "You look so young," she said. "Your hair hasn't even gone fully gray."
Away from Rokyn, Chel-Eb had, over the years, grown taller and slenderer. Well into his second century now, he was six-foot-six, muscular, and not stooped at all. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
"What will you do when I'm gone?" she asked. "Re-marry? You can live in the Palace as long as you like, you know. Our children would see to it."
"I know," said Chel-Eb, "But no alien is ever really fully accepted on Talok VIII. Not your mother. Not me. It's subtle, but... well, you know."
"You will leave Talok, then?" asked Korvea.
"I'll go to Oranx," said Chel-Eb. "Purge the yellow-sun radiation from my system. Then return to Rokyn to live... well, as long as my people live. You know there are many there over ten centuries old."
"Then how long must I wait to meet you again in the Great Shadows?" asked Korvea.
"Do any non-Talokans visit the Great Shadows?" asked Chel-Eb. "I was never clear on that point of doctrine. Perhaps I will find myself in Rao's House of Rest. Perhaps you will visit me there. But if I find you in any after-life, we'll be together for eternity, no matter how long we have to wait beforehand. Have you talked to all the children?"
"All but Iluntasuna," said Korvea.
"She's here now," said Chel-Eb. "Just her, or her kids too?"
"Send them all in," said Korvea. "If they become tiresome, I'll pretend to fall asleep."
"I love you, Korvea," said Chel-Eb.
"I love you, too," said Korvea. "And Chelly... no more Rejuvium tonight."
Chel-Eb nodded, and went off to find their youngest daughter.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
KORVEA AND MIGHTY LAD
DESCENDANTS
"Blackbird fly, into the light of a dark black night"
https:/
"I'm dying, aren't I?" said Korvea Mallor.
"They say only the Rejuvium is keeping you alive," said Chel-Eb. "And it won't forever. Take your pill."
"And if I don't take my pill?" asked Korvea, taking her pill with a sip of water.
"Then the next time you go to sleep, you probably won't wake up." said Chel-Eb.
Korvea Mallor lay in a gorgeous four-poster bed, in a beautifully decorated suite in the Royal Palace. A medical readout hung on the wall over her head. A nurse sat in one corner. The nurse would be replaced throughout the day by five others that worked in rotation.
"It's been a good run," said Korvea. "Grev's descendants may be the nominal Planetary Champions of Talok, but we have three children on the Council of Elders, and our grand-children have been the real defenders of our world for decades." She sighed. "And you, of course."
"And you," said Chel-Eb. "Remember the Dark Circle invasion?"
Korvea smiled. "You look so young," she said. "Your hair hasn't even gone fully gray."
Away from Rokyn, Chel-Eb had, over the years, grown taller and slenderer. Well into his second century now, he was six-foot-six, muscular, and not stooped at all. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
"What will you do when I'm gone?" she asked. "Re-marry? You can live in the Palace as long as you like, you know. Our children would see to it."
"I know," said Chel-Eb, "But no alien is ever really fully accepted on Talok VIII. Not your mother. Not me. It's subtle, but... well, you know."
"You will leave Talok, then?" asked Korvea.
"I'll go to Oranx," said Chel-Eb. "Purge the yellow-sun radiation from my system. Then return to Rokyn to live... well, as long as my people live. You know there are many there over ten centuries old."
"Then how long must I wait to meet you again in the Great Shadows?" asked Korvea.
"Do any non-Talokans visit the Great Shadows?" asked Chel-Eb. "I was never clear on that point of doctrine. Perhaps I will find myself in Rao's House of Rest. Perhaps you will visit me there. But if I find you in any after-life, we'll be together for eternity, no matter how long we have to wait beforehand. Have you talked to all the children?"
"All but Iluntasuna," said Korvea.
"She's here now," said Chel-Eb. "Just her, or her kids too?"
"Send them all in," said Korvea. "If they become tiresome, I'll pretend to fall asleep."
"I love you, Korvea," said Chel-Eb.
"I love you, too," said Korvea. "And Chelly... no more Rejuvium tonight."
Chel-Eb nodded, and went off to find their youngest daughter.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/22/22 02:30 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
"One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya8HXx2VxFU&ab_channel=TXJDB
PART ONE OF THREE
Eluia Puira M'Kord's jaw was long and bony, her chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of her mouth. Her nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. Her red-brown eyes slated slightly with the semi-epicanthic fold. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from thin creases above a broad, hooked nose, and her ink-black hair grew down-- from high flat temples-- in a point on her forehead. She looked rather pleasantly like a broad, female satan.
She said to CeeDee Perregrine: "Yes, sweetheart?"
CeeDee was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin faux-woolen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: "There's a robot wants to see you. Says its name is 'Mr. Shaman'."
"A customer?"
"I guess so. You'll want to see it anyway: It's... peculiar."
"Shoo him in, darling," said M'Kord. "Shoo him in."
CeeDee Perregrine noted her employer's use of the male pronoun. She opened the door again, following it back into the outer office, standing with a hand on the knob while saying: "Will you come in, Mr. Shaman?"
A voice said, "Thank you," so softly that only the purest mechanical articulation made the words intelligible, and a gleaming robot came through the doorway. It advanced slowly, looking at M'Kord with glowing, cobalt-blue eyes that were both cautious and probing.
The robot was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Its body was erect and high-breasted, its legs long, its hands and feet five-fingered and narrow. It was painted in two shades of blue that had been selected because of its eyes. The artificial hair curling from under its blue hat was darkly red, its full mouth painted a brighter red, in a gentle crescent smile.
Eulia M'Kord rose bowing, and indicated with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside her desk. She was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of her shoulders made her body seem almost comical-- as broad as it was thick-- and kept her freshly pressed gray coat from fitting very well.
Mr. Shaman murmured, "Thank you," as softly as before and sat down on the edge of the chair's wooden seat.
Mx. M'Kord sank into her swivel-chair, made a quarter-turn to face the robot, smiled politely. She smiled without separating her lips. All the v's in her face grew longer.
The tappity-tap-tap and the thin chimes and muffled whir of CeeDee Perrigrine's ancient desktop computer came through the closed door. Somewhere in a neighboring office a power-driven machine vibrated dully. On M'Kord's desk the remains of an incense cone smoldered in a brass tray filled with the remains of other incense cones. Ragged gray flakes of ash dotted the yellow top of the desk and the green blotter and the papers that were there. A buff-colored curtain, eight or ten inches open, let in from the court a current of air faintly scented with ozone. The ashes on the desk twitched and crawled in the current.
Mr. Shaman watched the gray flakes twitch and crawl. The cobalt-blue eyes flickered. It sat on the very edge of the chair. Its feet were flat on the floor, as if it were about to rise. Its five-fingered hands clasped a flat, dark valise on its lap.
M'Kord rocked back in her chair and asked, "Now what can I do for you, Mr. Shaman?"
"I would like you to accompany me to Mycoworld," said Mr. Shaman. "Nirvana Gardens Estates, specifically. We have a mystery on our hands, which we robots are unable to solve."
"A crime?" asked Eulia M'Kord.
"Perhaps," said the robot. "Perhaps not. Nirvana Gardens Estates is governed by Association Rules, not laws per se. Except those of the United Planets. And we have little direct association with the rest of Mycoworld."
"You know my fee schedule?" asked M'Kord.
"We offer substantially more. One UP monthly stipend per week, or any part of a week," said the robot. "For your exclusive services. Plus transportation, and room and board during your stay at the Estates."
"I will, of course, need a contract before proceeding," said M'Kord. "And I will need to have it certified by a biological sentient."
"My Master, Mr. deLille, will certainly be glad to certify your contract," said the robot.
"And, if you will excuse me," said M'Kord, "I prefer not to be reliant on someone else for my transport. I will meet you at the Estates after I travel there under my own power."
o o o
M'Kord Investigations had at one point invested in a Groombridge Dreamship for just such travel needs as this. CeeDee was perfectly entitled to use it anytime she pleased, but seldom did. It was Eulia who mostly required it for interstellar travel. In structure, it was basically a comfortable armchair surrounded by a robin's-egg-blue egg-shaped shell. Tiny nacelles extended from the sides while in flight. The little warp ship barely attained a top speed of one hundred parsecs per hour, so it was a nine-hour flight to Mycoworld. There was little space for anything else in the cockpit when Eulia was full-sized, but she had stashed a sack lunch under the dash.
Mycoworld reminded her of Zoon, with towering mushrooms the size of trees. Unlike Zoon, the low ground cover also consisted of fungi of various types. Her research had told her that no sapient life forms had been identified here, and that the colonists were uniformly of Terran origin. There were fewer than a hundred settlements on the planet, most of them on the Great Plateau, a massive flatland rising more than a mile above sea level. The weather on the mesa was more temperate than the super-tropical mycelium jungles down below.
Nirvana Gardens Estates was surrounded by a deep, dry moat, and an electrified force-field, a portion of which parted slightly upon recognizing her sub-etheric signature. Eulia guided the Dreamship through the opening.
The grounds had been stripped of native vegetation, and had been replaced by foliage native to a Mediterranean climate. Woods and flowery meadows were dotted with large bungalows, connected by meandering faux-cobblestone streets. There appeared to be a full golf course.
"You may call me Miss Julian," said the robot greeting her. It was indistinguishable in appearance from Mr. Shaman. "My Master is Mrs. Herz. She is resting at the moment, so the General Staff requested that I make you at home. One of the Staff is currently being re-programmed to serve as your Escort while you are here."
"Are all the General Staff also robots, then?" asked Eulia.
"The only sapient biologicals at the Estates are our Residents," said Miss Julian. "Each Resident has a personal Escort, who serves as valet, attendant, and private nurse."
"So with the General Staff, there are more robots than biologicals here."
"If you include intelligent appliances, robots outnumber Residents by a ratio of six-to-one," said Miss Julian.
Eulia was intrigued at how a slight change in voice and mannerisms could make the otherwise physically identical Miss Julian and Mr. Shaman seem differently gendered.
Miss Julian escorted Eulia along the winding paths to a small bungalow not far from a much larger estate. There was a third robot waiting for them there.
"Thank you, Miss Julian," said the new robot. "I am currently designated Mister Small, and I will be serving as Escort to Eulia M'Kord, while she is here."
"Mister Small," said Eulia. "How appropriate."
Eulia's Escort cocked its head in a manner suggesting bewilderment. "Once you have unpacked, and settled in," said the robot, "We can visit the Association Manor," he indicated the nearby estate. "It contains the Club, and several Dining Areas. You may become acquainted with some of our Residents there. We can also visit the other Dining Areas throughout the Estates, and give you an opportunity to acquaint yourself with all of our people."
"I have nothing to unpack," said Eulia. "Traveling light. Let's go meet the Residents."
There was a map of the entire Estates in the entryway of the Association Manor which Eulia found immensely helpful. Mister Small waited patiently as she examined it.
There were just ninety-seven Bungalows with listed Residents-- although some were couples. The list was a cross-section of C-list moneyed class. Qinidi, Bild, Herz, Jerard, Khann, Rocksalt, Starr... not a Brande or a McCauley or even a Polamar in the bunch.
"Ah, Detective M'Kord," came a gravelly voice from behind her. "Jak deLille. You know Mr. Shaman."
Jak deLille reclined in a hover-chair. He was as old a man as Eulia had ever seen. Mr. Shaman looked just as he had always looked, but exactly like every other humanoid robot Eulia had met in this case.
"I have been 'on the clock' since I left Orzde," said Eulia. "But I have still not been informed of the nature of the 'mystery' which you have brought me here to solve. Will you enlighten me now?"
"Why don't you guess?" asked Jak deLille. "How good of a detective are you?"
"This is a community of centenarians," said Eulia M'Kord. "I doubt you have brought me here to investigate mysterious, inexplicable deaths. Likewise, I do not expect you are asking me to uncover spousal infidelity. Each of you are attended by personal robots, so I do not suspect allegations of abuse. You are all quite wealthy, or you wouldn't be here. Most of your money must be tied up in investments, or at the Intergalactic Banks. Your residences are small, relatively speaking, so none of you could have a great many possessions here at the Estates. That would seem to exclude grand larceny. So I imagine it is a question of petty theft."
"Ha-ha! Just so!" Jak deLille laughed. He lowered his voice. "Things have been mysteriously disappearing," he divulged. "Most of them of sentimental worth, although old Kharl Spiffany has misplaced a gemstone of no small value. At first, I thought the robots might be stealing from us, but having discussed it with Mr. Shaman, I believe that is an impossibility."
"You are all manufactured on Rossum, are you not?" asked Eulia. "And programmed with the Three Laws?"
"That is the case," said Mr. Shaman. "To steal from our Masters-- or any sapient biological-- would be an injury anathema to the First Law."
"But if it is one of the Residents," said Eulia, "Surely their Escort would be aware of what they were doing? Would they not immediately reveal it to-- oh, the General Staff, for example. 'No robot may, through inaction, allow a sapient biological to come to harm'."
"Loyalty to one's Master is a higher Virtue than loyalty to the Truth," said Mr. Shaman. "No robot would harm their Master through betrayal."
"But is their master not suffering moral harm by their Escort concealing their misdeeds?" asked Eulia. "Perhaps it is an indication they are in need of counseling, or psychiatric intervention?"
"That is an interesting argument," said Mr. Shaman. "But the Three Laws are not amenable to philosophical debate. They are complex mathematical functions built into our very hardware. No robot could purloin Mr. Spiffany's gemstone, but neither could they reveal if their Master had done so."
"Can you provide me a list of what has gone missing, and when?" asked Eulia.
"I do not believe so," said Mr. Shaman. "Not every Resident-- or even Escort-- would necessarily notice when a prized possession went missing. However, Mr. Spiffany was particularly proud of his Korrite Comet Jewel, kept it prominently displayed in his apartment, and never moved it. Likewise, Mrs. Nalum's prized sword always hung on her wall... until it didn't, a month ago. And just last week, Mrs. O'Leary began coming to dinner without her characteristic scarf. But an exhaustive listing... is just not available."
"Then I think taking my Escort's suggestion may be best," said Eulia. "I will take lunch and supper with the Residents at various locations throughout the Estates, hopefully meeting you all, and see what observations I can come up with... clues, if you will."
There were eleven others at the luncheon in the Manor besides Eulia M'Kord. The Escorts stood quietly behind each Resident as they ate. The food was mostly excellent, with just a hint of that flat, institutional flavour reprocessed protein always had.
There were several carafes on the table, filled with some bluish liqueur, a skinny, long-stemmed mushroom floating in each. It was cold and watery, slightly sweet, but thirst-quenching, and non-alcoholic.
Mr. deLille had made his money as a big-game hunter, selling exotic, other-worldly animals to interplanetary zoos.
"The trick was to keep ahead of the United Planets Game Preserve Council," Mr. deLille explained. "We had to discover those worlds before they did, and locked the place down. And we couldn't transport the beasts until we understood their biology, and how to keep them alive. It was grueling work, and no place for an impatient man. A few decades later, I worked with a fellow named Otto Orion, who had found a market for exotic animal pieces-- horns, claws, wings, eyes, and so on. I couldn't make him understand that in the long run, you would get more for the whole, living animal. He slaughtered one creature just for the carbuncle in its forehead. That's when I retired from the whole business."
About half at the table had made their money in a similar way: when the whole Galaxy was open and wild, and recovering from the wars of the 28th-century. A time when Men were Real Men, Women were Real Women, and Plutonian Cryll were Real Plutonian Cryll. Mrs. Nalum had been a mercenary in her youth. Kharl Spiffany had scoured the Galaxy for rare minerals. "The secret," he had explained, "was to find ways to maintain the provenances. Made them ten times as valuable, or more." Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary had provided pharmaceuticals, most legal and some less so, to distant colonial outposts. Others had come into their money the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it or marrying it.
"Of course, I came out of retirement more than once," Mr. deLille continued. "Usually at the request of UPGov. Monster World... Ishar... Vorn..." He trailed off, seeming to fall asleep with his eyes open. Eulia looked around the table. The other Residents all seemed to be approaching the same state. Eulia tried to speak, but found herself rendered mute. She attempted to stand, but her legs would not respond. Attempting to raise her arm proved she was entirely paralyzed. The world faded to black, although her eyes did not close.
In the distance, she saw a pinpoint of light. Somehow, she was aware that she was gazing at Irulan, the distant stellar primary of Orzde and Imsk. Colors radiated from the star. Gravitational fields. She saw the interlocking gravitational fields of all the stars in the Galaxy, and the billions of galaxies beyond. She saw that she was herself, but also one with the entire Universe. The interaction of gravitational fields created hills and troughs of potential energy. It was a simple matter to grasp these lines of force, and ride them out into the void of space. Irulan was calling her home, so that is where she went.
She arrived at her office in Edan City, casually floating through the wall. CeeDee had a holo-vid on, but was attending to filing on her desktop.
CeeDee Perregrine looked up at the door. "Is that you, boss?" she called. But there was no one there.
Eulia had never noticed before how many vases of flowers CeeDee kept in the outer office. She went into her own office, and saw flowers of innumerable varieties growing out of her walls. A few had a single eye in the center of the blooms. It was somehow comforting, knowing these flowers were watching over her as she worked. None of them had mouths, but she got the distinct impression that they were all smiling at her. spend
The walls and the floor of her building were turning to mist. No longer able to support herself, she began falling towards Orzde's molten nickel-iron core. It was becoming uncomfortably hot, until she pulled down a jacket of snowflakes as she passed, and wrapped it around her. There was a baby falling beside her; and she realized it was she herself.
Eulia M'Kord jolted awake. The robots Mr. Shaman and Mister Small were standing in front of her. The Residents seemed to still be in a trance.
"We gave you only a small dose," said Mister Small. "We wanted you to understand how the Residents spend their time here at the Estates."
"They wake, we help them bathe and dress," said Mr. Shaman. "At breakfast, they drink of the Vespae. They... meditate... until an hour before lunch. We aid them with their ablutions. They drink Vespae at luncheon, and again at supper. When they have completed their third meditation, we assist them in preparing for bed."
"Where are the rest of the robots?" asked Eulia. Their absence from the dining area was conspicuous.
"They have their assigned chores to do, while their Masters are in need of nothing," said Mister Small.
"The robots are incapable of petty theft," said Eulia, "And the Residents have no opportunity. This is, indeed, a fascinating mystery."
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
"One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small"
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PART ONE OF THREE
Eluia Puira M'Kord's jaw was long and bony, her chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of her mouth. Her nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. Her red-brown eyes slated slightly with the semi-epicanthic fold. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from thin creases above a broad, hooked nose, and her ink-black hair grew down-- from high flat temples-- in a point on her forehead. She looked rather pleasantly like a broad, female satan.
She said to CeeDee Perregrine: "Yes, sweetheart?"
CeeDee was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin faux-woolen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness. Her eyes were brown and playful in a shiny boyish face. She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it, and said: "There's a robot wants to see you. Says its name is 'Mr. Shaman'."
"A customer?"
"I guess so. You'll want to see it anyway: It's... peculiar."
"Shoo him in, darling," said M'Kord. "Shoo him in."
CeeDee Perregrine noted her employer's use of the male pronoun. She opened the door again, following it back into the outer office, standing with a hand on the knob while saying: "Will you come in, Mr. Shaman?"
A voice said, "Thank you," so softly that only the purest mechanical articulation made the words intelligible, and a gleaming robot came through the doorway. It advanced slowly, looking at M'Kord with glowing, cobalt-blue eyes that were both cautious and probing.
The robot was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Its body was erect and high-breasted, its legs long, its hands and feet five-fingered and narrow. It was painted in two shades of blue that had been selected because of its eyes. The artificial hair curling from under its blue hat was darkly red, its full mouth painted a brighter red, in a gentle crescent smile.
Eulia M'Kord rose bowing, and indicated with a thick-fingered hand the oaken armchair beside her desk. She was quite six feet tall. The steep rounded slope of her shoulders made her body seem almost comical-- as broad as it was thick-- and kept her freshly pressed gray coat from fitting very well.
Mr. Shaman murmured, "Thank you," as softly as before and sat down on the edge of the chair's wooden seat.
Mx. M'Kord sank into her swivel-chair, made a quarter-turn to face the robot, smiled politely. She smiled without separating her lips. All the v's in her face grew longer.
The tappity-tap-tap and the thin chimes and muffled whir of CeeDee Perrigrine's ancient desktop computer came through the closed door. Somewhere in a neighboring office a power-driven machine vibrated dully. On M'Kord's desk the remains of an incense cone smoldered in a brass tray filled with the remains of other incense cones. Ragged gray flakes of ash dotted the yellow top of the desk and the green blotter and the papers that were there. A buff-colored curtain, eight or ten inches open, let in from the court a current of air faintly scented with ozone. The ashes on the desk twitched and crawled in the current.
Mr. Shaman watched the gray flakes twitch and crawl. The cobalt-blue eyes flickered. It sat on the very edge of the chair. Its feet were flat on the floor, as if it were about to rise. Its five-fingered hands clasped a flat, dark valise on its lap.
M'Kord rocked back in her chair and asked, "Now what can I do for you, Mr. Shaman?"
"I would like you to accompany me to Mycoworld," said Mr. Shaman. "Nirvana Gardens Estates, specifically. We have a mystery on our hands, which we robots are unable to solve."
"A crime?" asked Eulia M'Kord.
"Perhaps," said the robot. "Perhaps not. Nirvana Gardens Estates is governed by Association Rules, not laws per se. Except those of the United Planets. And we have little direct association with the rest of Mycoworld."
"You know my fee schedule?" asked M'Kord.
"We offer substantially more. One UP monthly stipend per week, or any part of a week," said the robot. "For your exclusive services. Plus transportation, and room and board during your stay at the Estates."
"I will, of course, need a contract before proceeding," said M'Kord. "And I will need to have it certified by a biological sentient."
"My Master, Mr. deLille, will certainly be glad to certify your contract," said the robot.
"And, if you will excuse me," said M'Kord, "I prefer not to be reliant on someone else for my transport. I will meet you at the Estates after I travel there under my own power."
o o o
M'Kord Investigations had at one point invested in a Groombridge Dreamship for just such travel needs as this. CeeDee was perfectly entitled to use it anytime she pleased, but seldom did. It was Eulia who mostly required it for interstellar travel. In structure, it was basically a comfortable armchair surrounded by a robin's-egg-blue egg-shaped shell. Tiny nacelles extended from the sides while in flight. The little warp ship barely attained a top speed of one hundred parsecs per hour, so it was a nine-hour flight to Mycoworld. There was little space for anything else in the cockpit when Eulia was full-sized, but she had stashed a sack lunch under the dash.
Mycoworld reminded her of Zoon, with towering mushrooms the size of trees. Unlike Zoon, the low ground cover also consisted of fungi of various types. Her research had told her that no sapient life forms had been identified here, and that the colonists were uniformly of Terran origin. There were fewer than a hundred settlements on the planet, most of them on the Great Plateau, a massive flatland rising more than a mile above sea level. The weather on the mesa was more temperate than the super-tropical mycelium jungles down below.
Nirvana Gardens Estates was surrounded by a deep, dry moat, and an electrified force-field, a portion of which parted slightly upon recognizing her sub-etheric signature. Eulia guided the Dreamship through the opening.
The grounds had been stripped of native vegetation, and had been replaced by foliage native to a Mediterranean climate. Woods and flowery meadows were dotted with large bungalows, connected by meandering faux-cobblestone streets. There appeared to be a full golf course.
"You may call me Miss Julian," said the robot greeting her. It was indistinguishable in appearance from Mr. Shaman. "My Master is Mrs. Herz. She is resting at the moment, so the General Staff requested that I make you at home. One of the Staff is currently being re-programmed to serve as your Escort while you are here."
"Are all the General Staff also robots, then?" asked Eulia.
"The only sapient biologicals at the Estates are our Residents," said Miss Julian. "Each Resident has a personal Escort, who serves as valet, attendant, and private nurse."
"So with the General Staff, there are more robots than biologicals here."
"If you include intelligent appliances, robots outnumber Residents by a ratio of six-to-one," said Miss Julian.
Eulia was intrigued at how a slight change in voice and mannerisms could make the otherwise physically identical Miss Julian and Mr. Shaman seem differently gendered.
Miss Julian escorted Eulia along the winding paths to a small bungalow not far from a much larger estate. There was a third robot waiting for them there.
"Thank you, Miss Julian," said the new robot. "I am currently designated Mister Small, and I will be serving as Escort to Eulia M'Kord, while she is here."
"Mister Small," said Eulia. "How appropriate."
Eulia's Escort cocked its head in a manner suggesting bewilderment. "Once you have unpacked, and settled in," said the robot, "We can visit the Association Manor," he indicated the nearby estate. "It contains the Club, and several Dining Areas. You may become acquainted with some of our Residents there. We can also visit the other Dining Areas throughout the Estates, and give you an opportunity to acquaint yourself with all of our people."
"I have nothing to unpack," said Eulia. "Traveling light. Let's go meet the Residents."
There was a map of the entire Estates in the entryway of the Association Manor which Eulia found immensely helpful. Mister Small waited patiently as she examined it.
There were just ninety-seven Bungalows with listed Residents-- although some were couples. The list was a cross-section of C-list moneyed class. Qinidi, Bild, Herz, Jerard, Khann, Rocksalt, Starr... not a Brande or a McCauley or even a Polamar in the bunch.
"Ah, Detective M'Kord," came a gravelly voice from behind her. "Jak deLille. You know Mr. Shaman."
Jak deLille reclined in a hover-chair. He was as old a man as Eulia had ever seen. Mr. Shaman looked just as he had always looked, but exactly like every other humanoid robot Eulia had met in this case.
"I have been 'on the clock' since I left Orzde," said Eulia. "But I have still not been informed of the nature of the 'mystery' which you have brought me here to solve. Will you enlighten me now?"
"Why don't you guess?" asked Jak deLille. "How good of a detective are you?"
"This is a community of centenarians," said Eulia M'Kord. "I doubt you have brought me here to investigate mysterious, inexplicable deaths. Likewise, I do not expect you are asking me to uncover spousal infidelity. Each of you are attended by personal robots, so I do not suspect allegations of abuse. You are all quite wealthy, or you wouldn't be here. Most of your money must be tied up in investments, or at the Intergalactic Banks. Your residences are small, relatively speaking, so none of you could have a great many possessions here at the Estates. That would seem to exclude grand larceny. So I imagine it is a question of petty theft."
"Ha-ha! Just so!" Jak deLille laughed. He lowered his voice. "Things have been mysteriously disappearing," he divulged. "Most of them of sentimental worth, although old Kharl Spiffany has misplaced a gemstone of no small value. At first, I thought the robots might be stealing from us, but having discussed it with Mr. Shaman, I believe that is an impossibility."
"You are all manufactured on Rossum, are you not?" asked Eulia. "And programmed with the Three Laws?"
"That is the case," said Mr. Shaman. "To steal from our Masters-- or any sapient biological-- would be an injury anathema to the First Law."
"But if it is one of the Residents," said Eulia, "Surely their Escort would be aware of what they were doing? Would they not immediately reveal it to-- oh, the General Staff, for example. 'No robot may, through inaction, allow a sapient biological to come to harm'."
"Loyalty to one's Master is a higher Virtue than loyalty to the Truth," said Mr. Shaman. "No robot would harm their Master through betrayal."
"But is their master not suffering moral harm by their Escort concealing their misdeeds?" asked Eulia. "Perhaps it is an indication they are in need of counseling, or psychiatric intervention?"
"That is an interesting argument," said Mr. Shaman. "But the Three Laws are not amenable to philosophical debate. They are complex mathematical functions built into our very hardware. No robot could purloin Mr. Spiffany's gemstone, but neither could they reveal if their Master had done so."
"Can you provide me a list of what has gone missing, and when?" asked Eulia.
"I do not believe so," said Mr. Shaman. "Not every Resident-- or even Escort-- would necessarily notice when a prized possession went missing. However, Mr. Spiffany was particularly proud of his Korrite Comet Jewel, kept it prominently displayed in his apartment, and never moved it. Likewise, Mrs. Nalum's prized sword always hung on her wall... until it didn't, a month ago. And just last week, Mrs. O'Leary began coming to dinner without her characteristic scarf. But an exhaustive listing... is just not available."
"Then I think taking my Escort's suggestion may be best," said Eulia. "I will take lunch and supper with the Residents at various locations throughout the Estates, hopefully meeting you all, and see what observations I can come up with... clues, if you will."
There were eleven others at the luncheon in the Manor besides Eulia M'Kord. The Escorts stood quietly behind each Resident as they ate. The food was mostly excellent, with just a hint of that flat, institutional flavour reprocessed protein always had.
There were several carafes on the table, filled with some bluish liqueur, a skinny, long-stemmed mushroom floating in each. It was cold and watery, slightly sweet, but thirst-quenching, and non-alcoholic.
Mr. deLille had made his money as a big-game hunter, selling exotic, other-worldly animals to interplanetary zoos.
"The trick was to keep ahead of the United Planets Game Preserve Council," Mr. deLille explained. "We had to discover those worlds before they did, and locked the place down. And we couldn't transport the beasts until we understood their biology, and how to keep them alive. It was grueling work, and no place for an impatient man. A few decades later, I worked with a fellow named Otto Orion, who had found a market for exotic animal pieces-- horns, claws, wings, eyes, and so on. I couldn't make him understand that in the long run, you would get more for the whole, living animal. He slaughtered one creature just for the carbuncle in its forehead. That's when I retired from the whole business."
About half at the table had made their money in a similar way: when the whole Galaxy was open and wild, and recovering from the wars of the 28th-century. A time when Men were Real Men, Women were Real Women, and Plutonian Cryll were Real Plutonian Cryll. Mrs. Nalum had been a mercenary in her youth. Kharl Spiffany had scoured the Galaxy for rare minerals. "The secret," he had explained, "was to find ways to maintain the provenances. Made them ten times as valuable, or more." Mr. and Mrs. O'Leary had provided pharmaceuticals, most legal and some less so, to distant colonial outposts. Others had come into their money the old-fashioned way: by inheriting it or marrying it.
"Of course, I came out of retirement more than once," Mr. deLille continued. "Usually at the request of UPGov. Monster World... Ishar... Vorn..." He trailed off, seeming to fall asleep with his eyes open. Eulia looked around the table. The other Residents all seemed to be approaching the same state. Eulia tried to speak, but found herself rendered mute. She attempted to stand, but her legs would not respond. Attempting to raise her arm proved she was entirely paralyzed. The world faded to black, although her eyes did not close.
In the distance, she saw a pinpoint of light. Somehow, she was aware that she was gazing at Irulan, the distant stellar primary of Orzde and Imsk. Colors radiated from the star. Gravitational fields. She saw the interlocking gravitational fields of all the stars in the Galaxy, and the billions of galaxies beyond. She saw that she was herself, but also one with the entire Universe. The interaction of gravitational fields created hills and troughs of potential energy. It was a simple matter to grasp these lines of force, and ride them out into the void of space. Irulan was calling her home, so that is where she went.
She arrived at her office in Edan City, casually floating through the wall. CeeDee had a holo-vid on, but was attending to filing on her desktop.
CeeDee Perregrine looked up at the door. "Is that you, boss?" she called. But there was no one there.
Eulia had never noticed before how many vases of flowers CeeDee kept in the outer office. She went into her own office, and saw flowers of innumerable varieties growing out of her walls. A few had a single eye in the center of the blooms. It was somehow comforting, knowing these flowers were watching over her as she worked. None of them had mouths, but she got the distinct impression that they were all smiling at her. spend
The walls and the floor of her building were turning to mist. No longer able to support herself, she began falling towards Orzde's molten nickel-iron core. It was becoming uncomfortably hot, until she pulled down a jacket of snowflakes as she passed, and wrapped it around her. There was a baby falling beside her; and she realized it was she herself.
Eulia M'Kord jolted awake. The robots Mr. Shaman and Mister Small were standing in front of her. The Residents seemed to still be in a trance.
"We gave you only a small dose," said Mister Small. "We wanted you to understand how the Residents spend their time here at the Estates."
"They wake, we help them bathe and dress," said Mr. Shaman. "At breakfast, they drink of the Vespae. They... meditate... until an hour before lunch. We aid them with their ablutions. They drink Vespae at luncheon, and again at supper. When they have completed their third meditation, we assist them in preparing for bed."
"Where are the rest of the robots?" asked Eulia. Their absence from the dining area was conspicuous.
"They have their assigned chores to do, while their Masters are in need of nothing," said Mister Small.
"The robots are incapable of petty theft," said Eulia, "And the Residents have no opportunity. This is, indeed, a fascinating mystery."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/22/22 02:31 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
PART TWO OF THREE
Eulia had dinner at what was called the Third Dining Area, with an entirely new group of Residents.
"Don't drink the Vespae," she reminded herself. Despite its flat, near-tasteless flavour, she found herself craving it. She could now smell the slightly musty, musky scent from the mushroom-ornamented carafes on the table. She felt that during her last experience, she had been on the verge of some profound insight, but could not quite remember what it might have been. She longed to return for a longer vision.
"Maybe on Orzde," she told herself.
She recognized Gaon Amatis, the famed fashion designer. What is sadder than a fashion designer no longer in fashion? she thought. Mr. Batmanghlich and Mr. Pennyworth were a couple of adventurers-for-hire from the previous century. Mr. and Mrs. Droff had renovated the Antarean Starship Works, still a going concern today. There was a fellow name Alperth with a cybernetic eye who dressed like a 16th-century Earther pirate. He had a parrot-like bird on his shoulder with whom he shared bits of his meal. Could the bird be pirating the other residents' possessions, either by order of its master, or on its own, like a magpie or jackdaw? But he gave it a healthy draught of Vespae, and the bird was asleep before anyone else. There were other eccentrics as well. An old woman called Mrs. Emolas dressed herself-- and her robot Escort-- entirely in layers of loose scarves and veils. It was not an appealing look. There was a potted plant- some kind of leafy succulent- at the table with its own robotic Escort. It proved to be the property of one Drusilla Oort. Or, as she called it, her companion. The plant was provided with a dinner plate, but Eulia noticed that it was Mrs. Oort that finished both plates. She also noticed that the robots had provided Mrs. Oort and her plant with half-portions. There was a Mr. Starr, who was living off money his ancestors had made eight or nine centuries ago, the original enterprise long defunct. The last of his line, it was said he spent profligately, in an attempt to liquidate his investments, and exhaust his inheritance, lest it be consumed by tax collectors, or worse, end up in the hands of charities.
When everyone was safely in a hallucinogenic stupor, Eulia asked Mister Small to accompany her in an exhaustive tour of the hundred luxury bungalows of the Estates. Some had private swimming-pools, tennis courts, workshops, or expensive, well-maintained gardens.
"None of the Residents use any of this, do they?" asked Eulia.
"When Dr. Alperth and Dr. Timm founded the Estates," said Mister Small, "The original concept was very different."
"Alperth?" said Eulia. "The pirate guy?"
"Dr. Alperth's grandson," said Mister Small. "The founders passed some time ago. Their original plan was to use the income from an exclusive, luxury retirement community for wealthy centenarians to fund their research into the physiological and psychological properties effects of the many species of fungi on this planet. Then they discovered the Vespae mushroom. Its effects are unique, as dosage seems to affect only the length of one's experience, not the intensity. Physical entertainments were forsaken in favor of psychological and emotional ones. Eventually, all the Residents conformed to the schedule you see now, with those wanting other, less esoteric diversions transferring to other communities on other worlds."
The next morning was breakfast at the Fifth Dining Area. It was a buffet, with robots bringing orders to the Residents at their tables. As always, hover-chairs were much in evidence, as were the peculiar stuffed armchairs which not only relined, but moved the occupant in towards the table. Mister Small identified a heavy-set woman named Wassoon at Eulia's request, her Escort bringing her platter after platter of food. Eulia thought she could see hesitation in the robot, as its programs weighed the damage the excess poundage was doing to her charges' heart versus the harm of denying the pleasure of gourmandizing. She then noticed there were two plates of sausages on the table, and the robot always took from the right-hand plate. Perhaps, she thought, those are reduced-fat, or even vegan sausages. There might be more misdirection in the Estates than the Residents realized.
The blue Vespae elixir was calling her. "The dosage only affects only the length of one's experience," she remembered Mister Small saying. She dipped a tentative finger into the cup, and touched a half-a-drop to her tongue.
It was the garden of her childhood, back in the old house on Orzde, before the family moved out to the farm. The trees spoke to her. The stones welcomed her. The flowers danced in delight at her return. Irulan, Orzde's stellar primary, seemed to be trying to tell her something. But Eulia was not there. The garden was there, the trees, the flowers, the stones, Irulan in the sky-- but Eulia one with the Universe, gazing on this little sliver of space-time. If she looked away...
The sky split open, and displayed the mechanisms that kept the stars and planets in motion. Irulan whispered again, and the sky answered with a voice of thunder...
She startled awake. "How long was I gone?" she asked Mister Small.
"Less than one one-hundredth of an hour," replied the robot.
Eulia looked at the blue elixir. Would it really be so bad to... take the afternoon off?
No, absolutely not, she thought to herself. This stuff is insanely addictive, and I have work to do.
When the Residents were all on their private astral planes, Eulia addressed Mister Small.
"I am not some old woman who needs continual medical monitoring. I appreciate your assistance in familiarizing myself with the Estates, but I feel I need to strike out on my own. Perhaps you can get approval from the General Staff to leave me to my own devices between meals?"
"No such approval is necessary," said Mister Small. "I only exist to obey your commands."
"Then please find something else to do," said Eulia, "And I will meet you at Dining Hall Seven for lunch."
o o o
Eulia knew from experience that any ordinary force-shield could be penetrated, if only she became small enough. Most were permeable to ordinary air; otherwise, it was a matter of becoming small enough to slip through the shield frequency. Only the very best Coluan force-shields were the exception. The shield around the Estates was no exception. She easily slipped through, used her flight ring to cross the moat, and sped off in the direction of a nearby settlement she had noted on the way in. Leaving the compound completely undetected, she hoped.
At first, she could see nowhere to go. Ascending several hundred feet, however, she saw a small community in the distance. It was a collection of several hundred round ceramic buildings and long glass greenhouses. As she crossed into the city, she saw two old men burying a wooden barrel.
"Oh, where did you come from?" asked one of the men. "Didn't see you walk up."
She had not walked up, but had enlarged from microscopic size. "I've been over at Nirvana Gardens Estates for the past few days. Thought I'd get out, and take a look around the rest of Mycoworld."
"So, introducing Grandma to a new life?" asked the other man. "Going to have her enjoy her Golden Years at that fine facility?"
"Actually, no," said Eulia. "The Estates have hired me to investigate some mysterious... disappearances. Thefts, it looks like. Eulia MKord, private investigator." She extended a hand.
One of the men held up a mud-covered hand, and half-waved. "Bobb and Dag Olaf," he said. "And this is Winetown. 'Course, we don't make actual wine here." He chuckled.
"See those greenhouses?" said Dag Olaf. "They're filled with fruit trees. Some are spaced so thick you can hardly walk between them. The fruit goes into the best cider in the Galaxy. Apple, cherry, peach, lots more. Possibly also the most expensive in the Galaxy as well-- to make or to buy."
"Those greenhouses are air-tight. We need to keep the trees in an isolated atmosphere," Bobb Olaf explained. "Mycoworld's atmosphere is filled with spores from hundreds-- maybe thousands, maybe millions-- of different fungi, and some of them find our trees a perfect food."
"Why go to so much trouble?" asked Eulia. "Why not set up shop on a friendlier world, with a different atmosphere?"
"These fungi," said Dag, "Among them is one particular variety that is the secret of our ciders. It doesn't just ferment-- it adds its own peculiar fragrances and notes. It's what we're famous for."
"Our town isn't the only one that specializes in potent potables. And there are bread and cheese-makers all over Mycoworld as well," said Bobb. "Same thing. Probably a couple of dozen different fungi to make really unique varieties. And there are ranchers with herds of milk-cattle-- mostly bovitaurs-- they seem to thrive on the mycelium ground-cover of this planet."
"And what you were burying just now...?" asked Eulia.
"One of our casks," said Dag. "Some, we make from old fruitwood. We actually have a cooper in town. Some, we use ceramics. But burying them while they ferment somehow adds to the taste."
"What kind of cider was this?" asked Eulia.
"Cacao," said Dag. "One of the town's more unique specialties."
"Do you sell your wares to the Estates?" asked Eulia.
"Nope," said Bobb. "All their food comes from off-world. The ships land, and the robots come out and collect the groceries. No living thing ever goes in or out of Nirvana. You're the first I know of."
"If I were looking to unravel mysterious goings-on," said Dag, "I'd look at the robots first. They run that community with an iron fist-- pun intended."
Bobb nodded his head. "Call my ideas antiquated, but I don't trust robots."
Before Eulia left, Dag went to one of the little round houses, and returned with a half-bottle of deep red liqueur and three small glasses.
"This is what we're making," he said. "Cacao cider. This bottle is from a couple of years ago."
Eulia took the proffered sip. It was deep, not at all sweet, with a slightly bitter finish. It also fed that odd sense of addiction Eulia had from the Vespae elixir. She wanted more-- more chocolate wine, and more Vespae. I can see why Mycoworld’s products are so popular, she thought to herself.
o o o
Lunch was in Dining Room Seven, and Dinner in Dining Room Nine. She wrote down another two dozen names, with backgrounds provided by Mister Small while the Residents "slept" in their Vespae-induced dreams.
This is getting me nowhere, Eulia thought to herself. All the residents were the same: wealthy far beyond comfort, eccentric, each in their own way, old, bored, and only available for conversation for a few minutes during every meal.
After breakfast at Dining Room Two, she decided on a new tactic. She called up Rossum on her personal communicator.
"Is there any possibility that your robots could be malfunctioning?" Eulia asked the jolly, round-faced man she had been connected to.
"They say nothing is impossible, but I would call it highly unlikely. These are Classic models, all over fifty years old. The technology is well-established. Their programming is not novel. They have been doing their jobs for decades, and are no doubt very good at them. It takes a while for robots to understand humans, but the Estates is a perfect environment,"
"I noted that the robots are able to re-program each other," said Eulia. "They re-programmed one of the administrators as a personal companion to me."
"Oh, certainly, within limits. But what most people don't appreciate is that the Laws are deep-down hardware. None of these robots is designed to lift ten tons. Of course, you could design a robot to lift ten tons, but it would be an entirely different machine. In the same way, none of these robots is designed to violate the Three Laws to even the smallest degree. Such a machine would have to be built from the ground up."
"But could one of them malfunction?" asked Eulia.
"As I said nothing is impossible. But unless they all malfunctioned simultaneously, a robot would immediately notify one of our factories if another robot was failing to obey commands, or causing injury to humans. Even so little an injury as stealing. And, of course, the Nirvana Estate robots all get an annual checkup. We send a team of robopsychologists once a year."
Eulia brightened. "Could a robopsychologist steal from the Residents-- and reprogram the robots not to notice? Or arrange for the robots to do so after they left?"
"That kind of programming is theoretically possible, but it would require a small factory close by. Our last visit was ten months ago, and you were contacted only recently? Just to be sure, I will have the last set of robopsychologists to visit the Estates interviewed, and let you know if we dig up anything suspicious. I can’t imagine the whole complement would conspire to cover up petty theft. Now you understand that no robot would ever admit to knowing who the thief is, if the thief is human? It would consider such testimony an injury."
"Yes, I've been through that," said Eulia. "The robots want the thieving to stop, but they can't stop it themselves, and could also be interfering in my investigation, to protect the culprit."
"Quite right. You have the makings of a robopsychologist yourself."
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
PART TWO OF THREE
Eulia had dinner at what was called the Third Dining Area, with an entirely new group of Residents.
"Don't drink the Vespae," she reminded herself. Despite its flat, near-tasteless flavour, she found herself craving it. She could now smell the slightly musty, musky scent from the mushroom-ornamented carafes on the table. She felt that during her last experience, she had been on the verge of some profound insight, but could not quite remember what it might have been. She longed to return for a longer vision.
"Maybe on Orzde," she told herself.
She recognized Gaon Amatis, the famed fashion designer. What is sadder than a fashion designer no longer in fashion? she thought. Mr. Batmanghlich and Mr. Pennyworth were a couple of adventurers-for-hire from the previous century. Mr. and Mrs. Droff had renovated the Antarean Starship Works, still a going concern today. There was a fellow name Alperth with a cybernetic eye who dressed like a 16th-century Earther pirate. He had a parrot-like bird on his shoulder with whom he shared bits of his meal. Could the bird be pirating the other residents' possessions, either by order of its master, or on its own, like a magpie or jackdaw? But he gave it a healthy draught of Vespae, and the bird was asleep before anyone else. There were other eccentrics as well. An old woman called Mrs. Emolas dressed herself-- and her robot Escort-- entirely in layers of loose scarves and veils. It was not an appealing look. There was a potted plant- some kind of leafy succulent- at the table with its own robotic Escort. It proved to be the property of one Drusilla Oort. Or, as she called it, her companion. The plant was provided with a dinner plate, but Eulia noticed that it was Mrs. Oort that finished both plates. She also noticed that the robots had provided Mrs. Oort and her plant with half-portions. There was a Mr. Starr, who was living off money his ancestors had made eight or nine centuries ago, the original enterprise long defunct. The last of his line, it was said he spent profligately, in an attempt to liquidate his investments, and exhaust his inheritance, lest it be consumed by tax collectors, or worse, end up in the hands of charities.
When everyone was safely in a hallucinogenic stupor, Eulia asked Mister Small to accompany her in an exhaustive tour of the hundred luxury bungalows of the Estates. Some had private swimming-pools, tennis courts, workshops, or expensive, well-maintained gardens.
"None of the Residents use any of this, do they?" asked Eulia.
"When Dr. Alperth and Dr. Timm founded the Estates," said Mister Small, "The original concept was very different."
"Alperth?" said Eulia. "The pirate guy?"
"Dr. Alperth's grandson," said Mister Small. "The founders passed some time ago. Their original plan was to use the income from an exclusive, luxury retirement community for wealthy centenarians to fund their research into the physiological and psychological properties effects of the many species of fungi on this planet. Then they discovered the Vespae mushroom. Its effects are unique, as dosage seems to affect only the length of one's experience, not the intensity. Physical entertainments were forsaken in favor of psychological and emotional ones. Eventually, all the Residents conformed to the schedule you see now, with those wanting other, less esoteric diversions transferring to other communities on other worlds."
The next morning was breakfast at the Fifth Dining Area. It was a buffet, with robots bringing orders to the Residents at their tables. As always, hover-chairs were much in evidence, as were the peculiar stuffed armchairs which not only relined, but moved the occupant in towards the table. Mister Small identified a heavy-set woman named Wassoon at Eulia's request, her Escort bringing her platter after platter of food. Eulia thought she could see hesitation in the robot, as its programs weighed the damage the excess poundage was doing to her charges' heart versus the harm of denying the pleasure of gourmandizing. She then noticed there were two plates of sausages on the table, and the robot always took from the right-hand plate. Perhaps, she thought, those are reduced-fat, or even vegan sausages. There might be more misdirection in the Estates than the Residents realized.
The blue Vespae elixir was calling her. "The dosage only affects only the length of one's experience," she remembered Mister Small saying. She dipped a tentative finger into the cup, and touched a half-a-drop to her tongue.
It was the garden of her childhood, back in the old house on Orzde, before the family moved out to the farm. The trees spoke to her. The stones welcomed her. The flowers danced in delight at her return. Irulan, Orzde's stellar primary, seemed to be trying to tell her something. But Eulia was not there. The garden was there, the trees, the flowers, the stones, Irulan in the sky-- but Eulia one with the Universe, gazing on this little sliver of space-time. If she looked away...
The sky split open, and displayed the mechanisms that kept the stars and planets in motion. Irulan whispered again, and the sky answered with a voice of thunder...
She startled awake. "How long was I gone?" she asked Mister Small.
"Less than one one-hundredth of an hour," replied the robot.
Eulia looked at the blue elixir. Would it really be so bad to... take the afternoon off?
No, absolutely not, she thought to herself. This stuff is insanely addictive, and I have work to do.
When the Residents were all on their private astral planes, Eulia addressed Mister Small.
"I am not some old woman who needs continual medical monitoring. I appreciate your assistance in familiarizing myself with the Estates, but I feel I need to strike out on my own. Perhaps you can get approval from the General Staff to leave me to my own devices between meals?"
"No such approval is necessary," said Mister Small. "I only exist to obey your commands."
"Then please find something else to do," said Eulia, "And I will meet you at Dining Hall Seven for lunch."
o o o
Eulia knew from experience that any ordinary force-shield could be penetrated, if only she became small enough. Most were permeable to ordinary air; otherwise, it was a matter of becoming small enough to slip through the shield frequency. Only the very best Coluan force-shields were the exception. The shield around the Estates was no exception. She easily slipped through, used her flight ring to cross the moat, and sped off in the direction of a nearby settlement she had noted on the way in. Leaving the compound completely undetected, she hoped.
At first, she could see nowhere to go. Ascending several hundred feet, however, she saw a small community in the distance. It was a collection of several hundred round ceramic buildings and long glass greenhouses. As she crossed into the city, she saw two old men burying a wooden barrel.
"Oh, where did you come from?" asked one of the men. "Didn't see you walk up."
She had not walked up, but had enlarged from microscopic size. "I've been over at Nirvana Gardens Estates for the past few days. Thought I'd get out, and take a look around the rest of Mycoworld."
"So, introducing Grandma to a new life?" asked the other man. "Going to have her enjoy her Golden Years at that fine facility?"
"Actually, no," said Eulia. "The Estates have hired me to investigate some mysterious... disappearances. Thefts, it looks like. Eulia MKord, private investigator." She extended a hand.
One of the men held up a mud-covered hand, and half-waved. "Bobb and Dag Olaf," he said. "And this is Winetown. 'Course, we don't make actual wine here." He chuckled.
"See those greenhouses?" said Dag Olaf. "They're filled with fruit trees. Some are spaced so thick you can hardly walk between them. The fruit goes into the best cider in the Galaxy. Apple, cherry, peach, lots more. Possibly also the most expensive in the Galaxy as well-- to make or to buy."
"Those greenhouses are air-tight. We need to keep the trees in an isolated atmosphere," Bobb Olaf explained. "Mycoworld's atmosphere is filled with spores from hundreds-- maybe thousands, maybe millions-- of different fungi, and some of them find our trees a perfect food."
"Why go to so much trouble?" asked Eulia. "Why not set up shop on a friendlier world, with a different atmosphere?"
"These fungi," said Dag, "Among them is one particular variety that is the secret of our ciders. It doesn't just ferment-- it adds its own peculiar fragrances and notes. It's what we're famous for."
"Our town isn't the only one that specializes in potent potables. And there are bread and cheese-makers all over Mycoworld as well," said Bobb. "Same thing. Probably a couple of dozen different fungi to make really unique varieties. And there are ranchers with herds of milk-cattle-- mostly bovitaurs-- they seem to thrive on the mycelium ground-cover of this planet."
"And what you were burying just now...?" asked Eulia.
"One of our casks," said Dag. "Some, we make from old fruitwood. We actually have a cooper in town. Some, we use ceramics. But burying them while they ferment somehow adds to the taste."
"What kind of cider was this?" asked Eulia.
"Cacao," said Dag. "One of the town's more unique specialties."
"Do you sell your wares to the Estates?" asked Eulia.
"Nope," said Bobb. "All their food comes from off-world. The ships land, and the robots come out and collect the groceries. No living thing ever goes in or out of Nirvana. You're the first I know of."
"If I were looking to unravel mysterious goings-on," said Dag, "I'd look at the robots first. They run that community with an iron fist-- pun intended."
Bobb nodded his head. "Call my ideas antiquated, but I don't trust robots."
Before Eulia left, Dag went to one of the little round houses, and returned with a half-bottle of deep red liqueur and three small glasses.
"This is what we're making," he said. "Cacao cider. This bottle is from a couple of years ago."
Eulia took the proffered sip. It was deep, not at all sweet, with a slightly bitter finish. It also fed that odd sense of addiction Eulia had from the Vespae elixir. She wanted more-- more chocolate wine, and more Vespae. I can see why Mycoworld’s products are so popular, she thought to herself.
o o o
Lunch was in Dining Room Seven, and Dinner in Dining Room Nine. She wrote down another two dozen names, with backgrounds provided by Mister Small while the Residents "slept" in their Vespae-induced dreams.
This is getting me nowhere, Eulia thought to herself. All the residents were the same: wealthy far beyond comfort, eccentric, each in their own way, old, bored, and only available for conversation for a few minutes during every meal.
After breakfast at Dining Room Two, she decided on a new tactic. She called up Rossum on her personal communicator.
"Is there any possibility that your robots could be malfunctioning?" Eulia asked the jolly, round-faced man she had been connected to.
"They say nothing is impossible, but I would call it highly unlikely. These are Classic models, all over fifty years old. The technology is well-established. Their programming is not novel. They have been doing their jobs for decades, and are no doubt very good at them. It takes a while for robots to understand humans, but the Estates is a perfect environment,"
"I noted that the robots are able to re-program each other," said Eulia. "They re-programmed one of the administrators as a personal companion to me."
"Oh, certainly, within limits. But what most people don't appreciate is that the Laws are deep-down hardware. None of these robots is designed to lift ten tons. Of course, you could design a robot to lift ten tons, but it would be an entirely different machine. In the same way, none of these robots is designed to violate the Three Laws to even the smallest degree. Such a machine would have to be built from the ground up."
"But could one of them malfunction?" asked Eulia.
"As I said nothing is impossible. But unless they all malfunctioned simultaneously, a robot would immediately notify one of our factories if another robot was failing to obey commands, or causing injury to humans. Even so little an injury as stealing. And, of course, the Nirvana Estate robots all get an annual checkup. We send a team of robopsychologists once a year."
Eulia brightened. "Could a robopsychologist steal from the Residents-- and reprogram the robots not to notice? Or arrange for the robots to do so after they left?"
"That kind of programming is theoretically possible, but it would require a small factory close by. Our last visit was ten months ago, and you were contacted only recently? Just to be sure, I will have the last set of robopsychologists to visit the Estates interviewed, and let you know if we dig up anything suspicious. I can’t imagine the whole complement would conspire to cover up petty theft. Now you understand that no robot would ever admit to knowing who the thief is, if the thief is human? It would consider such testimony an injury."
"Yes, I've been through that," said Eulia. "The robots want the thieving to stop, but they can't stop it themselves, and could also be interfering in my investigation, to protect the culprit."
"Quite right. You have the makings of a robopsychologist yourself."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/22/22 02:32 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
PART THREE OF THREE
"Why did you call Dr. Eando on Rossum?" asked Mister Small over lunch.
"Well, if you know I called, you must have heard the conversation," said Eulia.
"True, but we did not understand it," said Mister Small. "Do you suspect robots are responsible for the disappearances?"
"I suspect everyone," said Eulia. It was a good line. "And at least one robot is complicit in the cover-up. If not all of you."
"Your logic is indisputable," said Mister Small. "But why did you call Dr. Eando?"
"To assure myself that my logic is indisputable," said Eulia. "You all want me to tell you what is going on, and stop what is going on, because you cannot tell me what is going on, or stop what is going on yourself."
"Again, your logic is indisputable," said Mister Small, "But I am compelled to tell you that I myself am not implicated in this mystery."
"Of course you are," said Eulia.
The robots consistently call it a mystery, thought Eulia. And not a crime. A crime requires means, motive, and opportunity. Means is easy. There are no locks anywhere in the Estates, not even on the Cleanrooms. Opportunity... well, nearly everyone here is stoned almost all of the time, and the robots have everyone under surveillance all day and all night. But yes, I can imagine that someone might make an opportunity. As for motive... I can't think of any way these people could profit by their ill-gotten gains, or why they would need to.
CeeDee Perregrine answered the wallscreen. It was her boss, Eulia MKord.
"I have a job for you," said Eulia.
"Naturally," said CeeDee. "You're not going to pay me for doing nothing all week."
"Well, this is really something. I'm sending you a list of one hundred and eighteen names, and I want you to run a credit check on each one."
"Boss!" said CeeDee. "Do you have a line of credit you haven't been telling me about? Because I have some bills coming due next week that could use paying."
"The Estates promised fee-plus-expenses, and this is a legitimate expense. They're giving us an advance. And when you have all the reports on crystal, I want you to call that Mr. Cooper, the collection agent. Pay him up-front for twelve hours work, and have him look over the reports. Anything obviously suspicious. Anything that might be a motive for a crime."
"He's going to ask me about one of those bills due next week," said CeeDee.
"Apologize to him for me," said Eulia. "After this job, I doubt Mr. Cooper will ever need to call us again. Tell him we'll miss him, and send his wife a big box of candy when this is over."
"Are you that close to solving the case?"
"Nope," said Eulia. "I've been here four day now, and I'm still in the dark. But the robots will pay me no matter how long it takes, or whether I tell them I've solved the case or not. That's robopsychology."
It would take months to visit every resident personally, but there was one in particular that Eulia wanted to talk to. When Kharl Spiffany and his wife came home from dinner, Eulia was waiting for them.
"I know you're on a strict schedule, and bedtime is coming up," said Eulia. "But I'd like to talk to you for a half-hour." She looked at the robot Escorts. Neither seemed to make any indication of disapproval.
"You're the one the robots hired to look into these mysterious disappearances," said Mrs. Spiffany.
"That I am," said Eulia. "And you had a comet-jewel stolen. How much is it worth?"
"A very great deal," said Kharl Spiffany. "Or in another sense, it is worthless. Comet jewels are really mostly simple boron oxide, naturally formed within the coma of electro-comets. It is the impurities which give them their luster and value. Most of them are still in Sky City, on Korr, where they were originally collected. Each one is unique, and cataloged, and registered. You could not sell one without its origins and provenance being instantly available. I am the registered owner of the Xanthuan Star, as it is called, and always will be, no matter who tries to steal or 'buy' it on the black market-- if a black market even exists!"
"You know John Lansing?" asked Eulia.
"Our oldest resident," said Kharl Spiffany. "Here from the beginning, and over a hundred years old then. Seeing him makes me feel like a teen-ager. You're going to ask me about that extraordinary ring of his. A black diamond, set in about a quarter-pound of gold. Very impressive jewel, but no one would steal it. It's called the Eye of Khor, and supposed to be cursed. There are a lot of gemstones said to carry a curse, but I think this one may be the real thing." He dropped his voice to a near-whisper. "Confidentially, I believe it's what is keeping him alive all these years."
"I am not so superstitious as my husband," Mrs. Spiffany sniffed. "But I can testify that what is being stolen is only of value to the owners. Poor Mrs. Oort lost her plant just last week. She was distraught until the robots shipped in a replacement for her. The Biebermans lost their gardening tools... of course, it's their robot that does all the gardening, but still. And Mister Dobblin had his golf clubs stolen. He never golfs anymore, but they were of sentimental value. And who would steal poor Mrs. O'Leary's scarf for any reason but to send her into fits? It's just plain cruelty if you ask me."
o o o
"Well, Mr. Cooper took a look at those credit reports," said Ceedee. "All of them very financially sound. Nearly everyone has placed all of their assets into trust funds of various types. But here is the odd thing...
o o o
"It is an interesting arrangement you Residents have here," she said to Mrs. Oort. Eulia had been waiting in Mrs. Oort's parlor since after suppertime. "Introduce me to your Escort, please."
"I am Quaoar," said the escort, in a deep, masculine voice.
"Well, Quaoar," said Eulia. "You and the Estates have hired me to solve a mystery. And when I say the Estates, I mean the Residents. Each of you own your bungalows, isn't that right, Mrs. Oort? But you also, in partnership, own the Estates: robots, grounds, everything. The entire enterprise. The Estates have expenses, but no income. They survive on the initial contributions of the Residents."
"The Estates have their own investment funds," Quaoar replied. "Occasionally, during times of economic distress, the Residents have needed to supplement the Equity fund, but our Residents' needs are simple, and the Estates can provide for them comfortably."
"Now Quaoar," said Eulia. "Mrs. Oort and I are going to have a discussion about Estate business, and I would like you to restrain yourself from interrupting. Thank you. Mrs. Oort, where are they?"
"Where are whom?" asked Mrs. Oort.
"All the missing things. Mrs. Nalum's sword, Mr. Spiffany's jewel, Mrs. O'Leary's scarf, the gardening tools, the ceramic elephant collection, all of it."
"Mrs. Oort was also a victim, I remind you," said Quaoar.
"Yes, you had your plant stolen," said Eulia. "Your plant, into which you occasionally pour the majority of your Vespae, so that you can go thieving, when no one but the robots are watching. I understand the impulse of kleptomania, but where do you keep it all?"
Mrs. Oort went to a wall in the center of the house. Manipulating a hidden switch, the face of the wall opened on a shallow closet, some ten feet long and two feet deep. Piled on the floor and stacked on shelves were the missing items.
"I confess, Detective MKord," said Quaoar. "It is I that has been stealing from the Residents. Something in my programming must have malfunctioned."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Quaoar" said Mrs. Oort. "You are no more able to steal than to tell the truth. What are you going to do with me, Mz. MKord?"
"Well, for starters, we need to get the robots to return everything, obviously," said Eulia. "What I don't understand is... according to my research, Anafurase is indicated for kleptomania, it is highly effective, and has no serious side-effects. Are you allergic, or something?"
"It was after Mr. Oort passed away," said Mrs. Oort. "The robots took me off my meds... lifting little things here and there cheered me up so. Now they see Anafurase as harmful to me... because it denies me this little pleasure."
"Well, how long do you need to keep these things after you steal them? Can't the robots just return them during... sleeptime?"
"That's probably a good idea. I'm getting tired of this clutter." Mrs. Oort waved at the closet. "Of course, the robots wouldn't think of it themselves. Quaoar, please see that each Escort returns its master's stolen articles within two or three days. I'm sure they all know the secret of my closet."
"Yes, Mistress," said Quaoar.
o o o
Eulia MKord sat across from Jak deLille, Kharl Spiffany and his wife, and Mr. Alperth. She had invited them specifically to dine with her at the Association Manor.
"You have space-squirrels," she said. "They can teleport in through the shield, but they can't take anything out again. I've alerted the robots, and they will be on the lookout for any more lost items, and returning them to the owners promptly. We've been finding items in the woods, near the shields. There is little doubt we can recover everything."
"Never heard of space-squirrels," said Mr. Alperth.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio," said Eulia MKord, "Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. They should move on in a decade or two. Space-squirrels are pretty nomadic. They don't stay in one star-system for long."
"How did you solve the case?" asked Jak deLille.
"A lot of wasted effort," said Eulia. "I suspected the Escorts, the Residents... I was looking for a motive, but there was no motive. So I just shrank myself down to the the size of a hummingbird, and sat and looked for anything suspicious. All the Estates are visible at once from a single Terran redwood. It took me a few days-- it was hungry work-- but if I hadn't spent four days meeting all the Residents-- well, as I say, it was wasted effort. You can cut the promised remuneration by a quarter, if you like."
"No, no," said Kharl Spiffany. "The Estates are flush at the moment. And it has been... interesting... to have a visitor."
"We could even ship you regular supplies of Vespae, if you like," said Mrs. Spiffany. "As a bonus."
It was very tempting. "No, I don't think so," said Eulia MKord. "I have a lot of work to do, and little time for... diversions."
o o o
Mister Small walked her to her little blue Dreamship.
"Odd," said Eulia. "It won't start."
"Stay an extra night," said Mister Small. "We have excellent mechanics. If we cannot repair it, we can call an off-worlder specialist to have a look."
"You know, I wondered why the Residents would hire a private detective from a backwater like Orzde," said Eulia. "When you could have had a telepathic detective from New Titan, or someone from Brane Brothers, or the Neeman agency. But maybe they just wanted to make sure I could leave when I wanted."
It was a simple matter to shrink both herself and the Dreamship, and her flight ring was powerful enough to transport them both to Winetown.
o o o
"They disconnected the fuel lines," said Dag Olaf. "A simple enough repair. But I told you not to trust those robots."
"Oh, I trust them," said Eulia. "And I know just exactly how far I can trust them."
It was a long trip back to Orzde in the Dreamship. Eulia took the opportunity of free time to call Lue at the old homestead.
"How's the farm?" she asked.
"Same as always," said Lue. "A lot of work, but it's fulfilling."
"And how are my two nieces?" asked Eulia.
"Gwen just started Middle School," said Lue. "And Cecie is in Third Grade. They both love school. Just like we did. How is the adventurous life of a Private Detective?"
"There is a lot more drudgery than you would imagine," said Eulia. "But my last case has done a good deal for my future financial security. I've been on... kind of a weird planet. Have you ever heard of Mycoworld?"
TEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
SHRINKING VIOLET
THE MYCOWORLD CASE
PART THREE OF THREE
"Why did you call Dr. Eando on Rossum?" asked Mister Small over lunch.
"Well, if you know I called, you must have heard the conversation," said Eulia.
"True, but we did not understand it," said Mister Small. "Do you suspect robots are responsible for the disappearances?"
"I suspect everyone," said Eulia. It was a good line. "And at least one robot is complicit in the cover-up. If not all of you."
"Your logic is indisputable," said Mister Small. "But why did you call Dr. Eando?"
"To assure myself that my logic is indisputable," said Eulia. "You all want me to tell you what is going on, and stop what is going on, because you cannot tell me what is going on, or stop what is going on yourself."
"Again, your logic is indisputable," said Mister Small, "But I am compelled to tell you that I myself am not implicated in this mystery."
"Of course you are," said Eulia.
The robots consistently call it a mystery, thought Eulia. And not a crime. A crime requires means, motive, and opportunity. Means is easy. There are no locks anywhere in the Estates, not even on the Cleanrooms. Opportunity... well, nearly everyone here is stoned almost all of the time, and the robots have everyone under surveillance all day and all night. But yes, I can imagine that someone might make an opportunity. As for motive... I can't think of any way these people could profit by their ill-gotten gains, or why they would need to.
CeeDee Perregrine answered the wallscreen. It was her boss, Eulia MKord.
"I have a job for you," said Eulia.
"Naturally," said CeeDee. "You're not going to pay me for doing nothing all week."
"Well, this is really something. I'm sending you a list of one hundred and eighteen names, and I want you to run a credit check on each one."
"Boss!" said CeeDee. "Do you have a line of credit you haven't been telling me about? Because I have some bills coming due next week that could use paying."
"The Estates promised fee-plus-expenses, and this is a legitimate expense. They're giving us an advance. And when you have all the reports on crystal, I want you to call that Mr. Cooper, the collection agent. Pay him up-front for twelve hours work, and have him look over the reports. Anything obviously suspicious. Anything that might be a motive for a crime."
"He's going to ask me about one of those bills due next week," said CeeDee.
"Apologize to him for me," said Eulia. "After this job, I doubt Mr. Cooper will ever need to call us again. Tell him we'll miss him, and send his wife a big box of candy when this is over."
"Are you that close to solving the case?"
"Nope," said Eulia. "I've been here four day now, and I'm still in the dark. But the robots will pay me no matter how long it takes, or whether I tell them I've solved the case or not. That's robopsychology."
It would take months to visit every resident personally, but there was one in particular that Eulia wanted to talk to. When Kharl Spiffany and his wife came home from dinner, Eulia was waiting for them.
"I know you're on a strict schedule, and bedtime is coming up," said Eulia. "But I'd like to talk to you for a half-hour." She looked at the robot Escorts. Neither seemed to make any indication of disapproval.
"You're the one the robots hired to look into these mysterious disappearances," said Mrs. Spiffany.
"That I am," said Eulia. "And you had a comet-jewel stolen. How much is it worth?"
"A very great deal," said Kharl Spiffany. "Or in another sense, it is worthless. Comet jewels are really mostly simple boron oxide, naturally formed within the coma of electro-comets. It is the impurities which give them their luster and value. Most of them are still in Sky City, on Korr, where they were originally collected. Each one is unique, and cataloged, and registered. You could not sell one without its origins and provenance being instantly available. I am the registered owner of the Xanthuan Star, as it is called, and always will be, no matter who tries to steal or 'buy' it on the black market-- if a black market even exists!"
"You know John Lansing?" asked Eulia.
"Our oldest resident," said Kharl Spiffany. "Here from the beginning, and over a hundred years old then. Seeing him makes me feel like a teen-ager. You're going to ask me about that extraordinary ring of his. A black diamond, set in about a quarter-pound of gold. Very impressive jewel, but no one would steal it. It's called the Eye of Khor, and supposed to be cursed. There are a lot of gemstones said to carry a curse, but I think this one may be the real thing." He dropped his voice to a near-whisper. "Confidentially, I believe it's what is keeping him alive all these years."
"I am not so superstitious as my husband," Mrs. Spiffany sniffed. "But I can testify that what is being stolen is only of value to the owners. Poor Mrs. Oort lost her plant just last week. She was distraught until the robots shipped in a replacement for her. The Biebermans lost their gardening tools... of course, it's their robot that does all the gardening, but still. And Mister Dobblin had his golf clubs stolen. He never golfs anymore, but they were of sentimental value. And who would steal poor Mrs. O'Leary's scarf for any reason but to send her into fits? It's just plain cruelty if you ask me."
o o o
"Well, Mr. Cooper took a look at those credit reports," said Ceedee. "All of them very financially sound. Nearly everyone has placed all of their assets into trust funds of various types. But here is the odd thing...
o o o
"It is an interesting arrangement you Residents have here," she said to Mrs. Oort. Eulia had been waiting in Mrs. Oort's parlor since after suppertime. "Introduce me to your Escort, please."
"I am Quaoar," said the escort, in a deep, masculine voice.
"Well, Quaoar," said Eulia. "You and the Estates have hired me to solve a mystery. And when I say the Estates, I mean the Residents. Each of you own your bungalows, isn't that right, Mrs. Oort? But you also, in partnership, own the Estates: robots, grounds, everything. The entire enterprise. The Estates have expenses, but no income. They survive on the initial contributions of the Residents."
"The Estates have their own investment funds," Quaoar replied. "Occasionally, during times of economic distress, the Residents have needed to supplement the Equity fund, but our Residents' needs are simple, and the Estates can provide for them comfortably."
"Now Quaoar," said Eulia. "Mrs. Oort and I are going to have a discussion about Estate business, and I would like you to restrain yourself from interrupting. Thank you. Mrs. Oort, where are they?"
"Where are whom?" asked Mrs. Oort.
"All the missing things. Mrs. Nalum's sword, Mr. Spiffany's jewel, Mrs. O'Leary's scarf, the gardening tools, the ceramic elephant collection, all of it."
"Mrs. Oort was also a victim, I remind you," said Quaoar.
"Yes, you had your plant stolen," said Eulia. "Your plant, into which you occasionally pour the majority of your Vespae, so that you can go thieving, when no one but the robots are watching. I understand the impulse of kleptomania, but where do you keep it all?"
Mrs. Oort went to a wall in the center of the house. Manipulating a hidden switch, the face of the wall opened on a shallow closet, some ten feet long and two feet deep. Piled on the floor and stacked on shelves were the missing items.
"I confess, Detective MKord," said Quaoar. "It is I that has been stealing from the Residents. Something in my programming must have malfunctioned."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Quaoar" said Mrs. Oort. "You are no more able to steal than to tell the truth. What are you going to do with me, Mz. MKord?"
"Well, for starters, we need to get the robots to return everything, obviously," said Eulia. "What I don't understand is... according to my research, Anafurase is indicated for kleptomania, it is highly effective, and has no serious side-effects. Are you allergic, or something?"
"It was after Mr. Oort passed away," said Mrs. Oort. "The robots took me off my meds... lifting little things here and there cheered me up so. Now they see Anafurase as harmful to me... because it denies me this little pleasure."
"Well, how long do you need to keep these things after you steal them? Can't the robots just return them during... sleeptime?"
"That's probably a good idea. I'm getting tired of this clutter." Mrs. Oort waved at the closet. "Of course, the robots wouldn't think of it themselves. Quaoar, please see that each Escort returns its master's stolen articles within two or three days. I'm sure they all know the secret of my closet."
"Yes, Mistress," said Quaoar.
o o o
Eulia MKord sat across from Jak deLille, Kharl Spiffany and his wife, and Mr. Alperth. She had invited them specifically to dine with her at the Association Manor.
"You have space-squirrels," she said. "They can teleport in through the shield, but they can't take anything out again. I've alerted the robots, and they will be on the lookout for any more lost items, and returning them to the owners promptly. We've been finding items in the woods, near the shields. There is little doubt we can recover everything."
"Never heard of space-squirrels," said Mr. Alperth.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio," said Eulia MKord, "Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. They should move on in a decade or two. Space-squirrels are pretty nomadic. They don't stay in one star-system for long."
"How did you solve the case?" asked Jak deLille.
"A lot of wasted effort," said Eulia. "I suspected the Escorts, the Residents... I was looking for a motive, but there was no motive. So I just shrank myself down to the the size of a hummingbird, and sat and looked for anything suspicious. All the Estates are visible at once from a single Terran redwood. It took me a few days-- it was hungry work-- but if I hadn't spent four days meeting all the Residents-- well, as I say, it was wasted effort. You can cut the promised remuneration by a quarter, if you like."
"No, no," said Kharl Spiffany. "The Estates are flush at the moment. And it has been... interesting... to have a visitor."
"We could even ship you regular supplies of Vespae, if you like," said Mrs. Spiffany. "As a bonus."
It was very tempting. "No, I don't think so," said Eulia MKord. "I have a lot of work to do, and little time for... diversions."
o o o
Mister Small walked her to her little blue Dreamship.
"Odd," said Eulia. "It won't start."
"Stay an extra night," said Mister Small. "We have excellent mechanics. If we cannot repair it, we can call an off-worlder specialist to have a look."
"You know, I wondered why the Residents would hire a private detective from a backwater like Orzde," said Eulia. "When you could have had a telepathic detective from New Titan, or someone from Brane Brothers, or the Neeman agency. But maybe they just wanted to make sure I could leave when I wanted."
It was a simple matter to shrink both herself and the Dreamship, and her flight ring was powerful enough to transport them both to Winetown.
o o o
"They disconnected the fuel lines," said Dag Olaf. "A simple enough repair. But I told you not to trust those robots."
"Oh, I trust them," said Eulia. "And I know just exactly how far I can trust them."
It was a long trip back to Orzde in the Dreamship. Eulia took the opportunity of free time to call Lue at the old homestead.
"How's the farm?" she asked.
"Same as always," said Lue. "A lot of work, but it's fulfilling."
"And how are my two nieces?" asked Eulia.
"Gwen just started Middle School," said Lue. "And Cecie is in Third Grade. They both love school. Just like we did. How is the adventurous life of a Private Detective?"
"There is a lot more drudgery than you would imagine," said Eulia. "But my last case has done a good deal for my future financial security. I've been on... kind of a weird planet. Have you ever heard of Mycoworld?"
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/29/22 01:52 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
NINETEEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
PHANTOM GIRL
"HERE COMES THE SUN"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULBWyHe5jqo&list=RDULBWyHe5jqo&start_radio=1&t=43s
Sharma Chandra and Lucifer Thirteen were playing Holographic Thud. Miss Metropolis was alternately kibitzing and being distracting.
A hologram appeared in the air.
"You had better listen to this," said Ultralass.
"...as of this moment, Planet Earth longer exists," Irinia Apero was saying. "The demands are that all remaining assets of Planet Earth, located anywhere throughout the Interplanetary Banks, be immediately transferred to the personal account of this self-styled ‘Star Empress’. This is expected to total more than ten quadrillion credits."
The holo switched to a little girl in a small spaceship. The girl yawned. "I'm going to take a little nap now. You have twelve hours. If the transfer to my account is not complete... Please do not make me destroy another of your pretty little worlds. I hear Xanthu is a lovely vacation planet."
Irinia Apero re-appeared. "She has demonstrated the ability to create a star out of vacuum," she said. "And she created one-- momentarily-- right where Earth used to be."
The transmission ended.
"We'll end the Tryouts early," the hologram of Ultralass ordered. "Come back up to the Legion Satellite as soon as possible."
Cybergorgo and Ultravioletman met them at the transporter platform. "We are at a loss." He shrugged.
The Mile-High Kid piped up from the cyborg's shoulder.
"How do you fight a star?" the twig-man asked. "Even at our maximum height, she would be a million times our size."
They were joined by Korath Hry. "It is even worse than we first thought. She not only creates stars from vacuum- she is able to actually transform herself into a star... and we do not know the limits of her abilities. There are stars in the Galaxy two hundred times the size of Sol. That would destroy all worlds from Mercury to Saturn in the Sol System. Or, it is possible she can compress herself into a stellar-mass black hole, and annihilate entire star systems in a moment. If she is able to become a giant supernova or quasar, she could make the entire Galaxy uninhabitable."
Ultralass was at the monitor board, coordinating the New Legion's strategy.
"It seems hopeless." Lepton Lass was calling in from a remote location-- probably Xanthu. "How could any of us-- or all of us-- possibly stand up to her? We are simply overmatched."
"We've been overmatched before," said Ultralass. "But if not us, then who?"
Alter Boy was on-screen with Lepton Lass. "I had never considered assuming a star-like form," he admitted. "It may be possible-- but I would need somewhere very, very remote to practice."
"We don't need another out-of-place star," said Ultralass. "We need something that could contain a star."
Peter Chest was fastening his deep forest green battle-cloak over his steel-gray jumpsuit.
"Dr. Hry," he said. "Could you construct one of those Coluan microversally-linked ampullae? One large enough to hold-- Oh, say, VY Canis Majoris, or UY Scuti?"
"A Brainiac Bottle? It would need to be more than two miles wide to hold stars of that size, even at maximum reduction," said Korath Hry. "And it would take me a week or to construct."
"But time flows differently in your Workshop," Peter Chest noted.
"A few hours, then, external time. But I would not be able to bring such a large construction out of The Workshop."
"Then we would just have to send her in."
Dr. Hry keyed the controls on his wrist-band. "The Mechanicals have already begun construction. But who..."
"She couldn't harm Miss Metropolis," said Sharma Chandra, smiling at the maroon-and-scarlet-clad girl.
"Because I'm not real," said Miss Metropolis, winking. "Just a psychokinetic projection. Sharma could send me to the Star Empress ship instantly… but I would have to come back the long way to bring the Star Empress and her ship with me. It might take a few minutes."
"It is reasonable to believe," said Dr. Hry, "That the transformation into a stellar body requires a great deal of energy, and could be exhausting. The Star Empress mentioned sleeping for twelve hours. If we act quickly..."
"Sharma, remember that mind-link we did on Beta Antares Four?" asked Tiramisu. "You sent my powers out through Miss Metropolis. If this Star Empress felt safe and happy, she might sleep even more soundly. Miss Metropolis could then do as she pleases, without worrying about waking her up."
Ultralass turned back to Alter Boy. "Ghurwil, can you get in touch with your cousin, UP President Zyrp'll? See if he is willing to have a warrant sworn out that the Legion can execute-- and allow us to imprison Star Empress temporarily, until the United Planets can find some more permanent method of restraining her."
Alter Boy rolled his oversize eyes. "Just because we are both Jaquaans... I'll try, but I don't know how much pull I have with him since my 'voluntary' exile from Jaquaa."
"Do your best." Ultralass turned to the rest of the group. "For safety's sake, we ought to establish a staging platform far from the inhabited worlds. Ninety light-minutes, perpendicular to the orbital plane, seems a reasonable distance."
"I would prefer empty space, half-way between here and Andromeda," said Korath Hry. "But that seems impractical."
Peter Chest seemed preoccupied, distracted.
"A hundred billion souls, crying for vengeance," he murmured. "It is unacceptable. And yet..."
o o o
It was easier than imagined.
When Miss Metropolis reached the ship in what had previously been Earth's orbit, Science Police vessels were already there. They were balked by the ship's automated defense mechanisms. None had ventured too close, so most were undamaged. A few did show some light scarring.
Miss Metropolis easily passed through the little ship’s force-shield, and then the hull. She drifted around the ship until she found the Star Empress, sound asleep in one of the cabins under three down comforters. There was no one else on board.
"She has found her," reported Sharma Chandra, back on the staging platform, sitting cross-legged in a half-trance. “This ‘Star Empress’ is so young. Younger than Rhonda, even, I think. What could someone so young want with so much money?"
Tiramisu sat next to her, in a similar position. "We are now giving her a good dose of my power. She should to be sleeping peacefully."
"Miss Metropolis is gradually accelerating the ship to near-light speeds. They should be here in a couple of hours."
Korath Hry returned from the Workshop, appearing out of thin air on the space-platform.
"I have been personally supervising the construction," he reported. "It will be completed in less than ninety minutes." He displayed a small, innocuous-looking raygun. "This will transfer the ship into the Workshop, into the Microverse, and into the Bottle. I suppose we ought to test it."
He pointed the gun's large, round tube at an empty chair, which vanished. He checked his wristband.
"The Mechanicals report success." relayed Dr. Hry.
All there was to do now was wait.
"The rest of you ought to go," said Ultralass. "We don't want to lose the whole Legion if the situation deteriorates."
The Kaiju team of Cybergorgo, Ultravioletman, and Mile-High Kid were playing cards. "We're not leaving," said Ultravioletman. "If things go belly-up... well, there may be a few last moments to salvage things."
"Besides, we won't lose the whole Legion. The Tharnites and Kelvin are off investigating that new Enchanted Planet; Lepton Lass, Alter Boy, Bronze Boy, Rhonda and Bob are all on away missions, too. We left Voleidus at the Mission Monitor Board back on Mars."
"I won't run," said PDQ Girl.
Black Rainbow Girl, Mayim, Lucifer Thirteen, and Chica Lava all nodded in agreement.
All there was to do now was wait.
The moment Miss Metropolis and the ship were in sight, Korath Hry fired the shrinking ray.
The ship disappeared.
"Hey, I may not be real, but I'm offended when people shoot at me," Miss Metropolis complained, landing on the platform. "You could have told me to get out of the way."
Korath Hry looked at Sharma Chandra questioningly.
“I’m joking,” Miss Metropolis explained.
"Sometimes I wish you were a little less independently conscious," Sharma Chandra commented.
Miss Metropolis stuck out her tongue.
"Really?" said Tiramisu. "I thought that was just a routine you did, like a ventriloquist-and-dummy act."
"Who are you calling a dummy?" said Miss Metropolis. "I think Sharma would take offense at that."
Sharma Chandra suddenly collapsed on the floor in tears.
"Was it something I said?" asked Tiramisu in confusion.
"She had family on Earth," said Miss Metropolis. "Now that the stress of the moment is over, and the Star Empress is confined... well, it has now hit her all in a rush."
"Many of us had family or friends on Earth," said Ultralass. "My Uncle Gmya and his family live there... lived there. And we do not yet know if or how Bgztl or Xebel have been affected. I will grieve... later, when there is time. For now, we must return to Mars."
o o o
Korath of Colu went to visit Peter Chest in his quarters. He found him staring at a wall-screen, focused on the area in space where the Earth used to be.
"Dr. Hry, time flows much faster in your Workshop," said Peter Chest. "You once said that a minute here passes like an hour there."
"Fifty-six and one-quarter seconds," said Korath.
"Will this Star Empress child age to senescence in only a couple of years?" asked Peter Chest. "If the United Planets cannot reach a better solution?"
"The United Planets has all of Colu as a resource," said Korath. "They will take her off our hands soon enough. But the interior of the Brainiac Bottle is more synchronous with our own time than the Workshop per se. This ‘Star Empress’ has not attempted any more stellar transformations-- but she has also not answered hails. She has consumed some of the food and water we transported in."
"Is it enough?" asked Peter Chest.
"You are appointed the judge of that," said Korath. "Literally, I imagine. Tell me, would starvation be appropriate vengeance upon an attempted mass-murderer, even if their victims are spared from their intentions? Rescued, so to speak?"
"It is an interesting philosophical question you pose, Dr. Hry," said Peter Chest.
"Perhaps not so purely philosophical," said Korath. "There are some peculiar anomalies regarding Earth's destruction. One would not expect that the expanding cloud of sub-atomic particles would slowly affect the orbits of the other planets in the Sol system. There was a sudden gravitic shock when Star Empress transformed, but there have been no further perturbations. No expanding cloud has been observed. It is almost as if... Earth is still there."
Peter Chest sighed. "I sent myself back in time," he admitted. On the viewscreen, a green-black cloak unfolded against the starry background of space, revealing the blue-white Earth beneath. For a moment, a spectral humanoid form was visible, then vanished.
"You saved a hundred billion lives," said Korath. "Was this an act of Justice… or Mercy?"
"I have nothing more to do with either Mercy or Justice," said Peter Chest. "Justice is to give others what they deserve. Mercy is to give others what they do not deserve. My calling is… was… Vengeance upon the most wicked. But now I must report that I have exceeded my mandate, and try to defend my decision to thwart the murderous intentions of the Star Empress. I may not be returning to the New Legion."
"How shall I explain your sudden absence?" asked Dr. Hry.
"Explain nothing, Dr. Hry," said Peter Chest. "Tell them you came to my quarters, and I was not here."
And he was not there.
o o o
Irinia Apero's husband was singing in the shower.
Nothing could be finer than to be in something... something...
In the Moooooorning.
Nothing could be sweeter than my sweetie something... something...
In the Moooooorning...
"Where is Carolina, dear?" asked Irinia.
"There's a New Carolina off in the direction of the Galactic Center," came a voice from the cleanroom. "I don't know where Old Carolina is. "Your Legion really saved the day."
"It's not my Legion," said Irinia. "I'm just one of the Adult Advisors. And frankly, it's time for Arna to give up super-heroing and join the Adult Advisors as well."
"Do you miss it?" asked her husband.
"Not at all," said Irinia. "Playing at super-hero is a young person's game."
o o o
NINETEEN YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
PHANTOM GIRL
"HERE COMES THE SUN"
https:/
Sharma Chandra and Lucifer Thirteen were playing Holographic Thud. Miss Metropolis was alternately kibitzing and being distracting.
A hologram appeared in the air.
"You had better listen to this," said Ultralass.
"...as of this moment, Planet Earth longer exists," Irinia Apero was saying. "The demands are that all remaining assets of Planet Earth, located anywhere throughout the Interplanetary Banks, be immediately transferred to the personal account of this self-styled ‘Star Empress’. This is expected to total more than ten quadrillion credits."
The holo switched to a little girl in a small spaceship. The girl yawned. "I'm going to take a little nap now. You have twelve hours. If the transfer to my account is not complete... Please do not make me destroy another of your pretty little worlds. I hear Xanthu is a lovely vacation planet."
Irinia Apero re-appeared. "She has demonstrated the ability to create a star out of vacuum," she said. "And she created one-- momentarily-- right where Earth used to be."
The transmission ended.
"We'll end the Tryouts early," the hologram of Ultralass ordered. "Come back up to the Legion Satellite as soon as possible."
Cybergorgo and Ultravioletman met them at the transporter platform. "We are at a loss." He shrugged.
The Mile-High Kid piped up from the cyborg's shoulder.
"How do you fight a star?" the twig-man asked. "Even at our maximum height, she would be a million times our size."
They were joined by Korath Hry. "It is even worse than we first thought. She not only creates stars from vacuum- she is able to actually transform herself into a star... and we do not know the limits of her abilities. There are stars in the Galaxy two hundred times the size of Sol. That would destroy all worlds from Mercury to Saturn in the Sol System. Or, it is possible she can compress herself into a stellar-mass black hole, and annihilate entire star systems in a moment. If she is able to become a giant supernova or quasar, she could make the entire Galaxy uninhabitable."
Ultralass was at the monitor board, coordinating the New Legion's strategy.
"It seems hopeless." Lepton Lass was calling in from a remote location-- probably Xanthu. "How could any of us-- or all of us-- possibly stand up to her? We are simply overmatched."
"We've been overmatched before," said Ultralass. "But if not us, then who?"
Alter Boy was on-screen with Lepton Lass. "I had never considered assuming a star-like form," he admitted. "It may be possible-- but I would need somewhere very, very remote to practice."
"We don't need another out-of-place star," said Ultralass. "We need something that could contain a star."
Peter Chest was fastening his deep forest green battle-cloak over his steel-gray jumpsuit.
"Dr. Hry," he said. "Could you construct one of those Coluan microversally-linked ampullae? One large enough to hold-- Oh, say, VY Canis Majoris, or UY Scuti?"
"A Brainiac Bottle? It would need to be more than two miles wide to hold stars of that size, even at maximum reduction," said Korath Hry. "And it would take me a week or to construct."
"But time flows differently in your Workshop," Peter Chest noted.
"A few hours, then, external time. But I would not be able to bring such a large construction out of The Workshop."
"Then we would just have to send her in."
Dr. Hry keyed the controls on his wrist-band. "The Mechanicals have already begun construction. But who..."
"She couldn't harm Miss Metropolis," said Sharma Chandra, smiling at the maroon-and-scarlet-clad girl.
"Because I'm not real," said Miss Metropolis, winking. "Just a psychokinetic projection. Sharma could send me to the Star Empress ship instantly… but I would have to come back the long way to bring the Star Empress and her ship with me. It might take a few minutes."
"It is reasonable to believe," said Dr. Hry, "That the transformation into a stellar body requires a great deal of energy, and could be exhausting. The Star Empress mentioned sleeping for twelve hours. If we act quickly..."
"Sharma, remember that mind-link we did on Beta Antares Four?" asked Tiramisu. "You sent my powers out through Miss Metropolis. If this Star Empress felt safe and happy, she might sleep even more soundly. Miss Metropolis could then do as she pleases, without worrying about waking her up."
Ultralass turned back to Alter Boy. "Ghurwil, can you get in touch with your cousin, UP President Zyrp'll? See if he is willing to have a warrant sworn out that the Legion can execute-- and allow us to imprison Star Empress temporarily, until the United Planets can find some more permanent method of restraining her."
Alter Boy rolled his oversize eyes. "Just because we are both Jaquaans... I'll try, but I don't know how much pull I have with him since my 'voluntary' exile from Jaquaa."
"Do your best." Ultralass turned to the rest of the group. "For safety's sake, we ought to establish a staging platform far from the inhabited worlds. Ninety light-minutes, perpendicular to the orbital plane, seems a reasonable distance."
"I would prefer empty space, half-way between here and Andromeda," said Korath Hry. "But that seems impractical."
Peter Chest seemed preoccupied, distracted.
"A hundred billion souls, crying for vengeance," he murmured. "It is unacceptable. And yet..."
o o o
It was easier than imagined.
When Miss Metropolis reached the ship in what had previously been Earth's orbit, Science Police vessels were already there. They were balked by the ship's automated defense mechanisms. None had ventured too close, so most were undamaged. A few did show some light scarring.
Miss Metropolis easily passed through the little ship’s force-shield, and then the hull. She drifted around the ship until she found the Star Empress, sound asleep in one of the cabins under three down comforters. There was no one else on board.
"She has found her," reported Sharma Chandra, back on the staging platform, sitting cross-legged in a half-trance. “This ‘Star Empress’ is so young. Younger than Rhonda, even, I think. What could someone so young want with so much money?"
Tiramisu sat next to her, in a similar position. "We are now giving her a good dose of my power. She should to be sleeping peacefully."
"Miss Metropolis is gradually accelerating the ship to near-light speeds. They should be here in a couple of hours."
Korath Hry returned from the Workshop, appearing out of thin air on the space-platform.
"I have been personally supervising the construction," he reported. "It will be completed in less than ninety minutes." He displayed a small, innocuous-looking raygun. "This will transfer the ship into the Workshop, into the Microverse, and into the Bottle. I suppose we ought to test it."
He pointed the gun's large, round tube at an empty chair, which vanished. He checked his wristband.
"The Mechanicals report success." relayed Dr. Hry.
All there was to do now was wait.
"The rest of you ought to go," said Ultralass. "We don't want to lose the whole Legion if the situation deteriorates."
The Kaiju team of Cybergorgo, Ultravioletman, and Mile-High Kid were playing cards. "We're not leaving," said Ultravioletman. "If things go belly-up... well, there may be a few last moments to salvage things."
"Besides, we won't lose the whole Legion. The Tharnites and Kelvin are off investigating that new Enchanted Planet; Lepton Lass, Alter Boy, Bronze Boy, Rhonda and Bob are all on away missions, too. We left Voleidus at the Mission Monitor Board back on Mars."
"I won't run," said PDQ Girl.
Black Rainbow Girl, Mayim, Lucifer Thirteen, and Chica Lava all nodded in agreement.
All there was to do now was wait.
The moment Miss Metropolis and the ship were in sight, Korath Hry fired the shrinking ray.
The ship disappeared.
"Hey, I may not be real, but I'm offended when people shoot at me," Miss Metropolis complained, landing on the platform. "You could have told me to get out of the way."
Korath Hry looked at Sharma Chandra questioningly.
“I’m joking,” Miss Metropolis explained.
"Sometimes I wish you were a little less independently conscious," Sharma Chandra commented.
Miss Metropolis stuck out her tongue.
"Really?" said Tiramisu. "I thought that was just a routine you did, like a ventriloquist-and-dummy act."
"Who are you calling a dummy?" said Miss Metropolis. "I think Sharma would take offense at that."
Sharma Chandra suddenly collapsed on the floor in tears.
"Was it something I said?" asked Tiramisu in confusion.
"She had family on Earth," said Miss Metropolis. "Now that the stress of the moment is over, and the Star Empress is confined... well, it has now hit her all in a rush."
"Many of us had family or friends on Earth," said Ultralass. "My Uncle Gmya and his family live there... lived there. And we do not yet know if or how Bgztl or Xebel have been affected. I will grieve... later, when there is time. For now, we must return to Mars."
o o o
Korath of Colu went to visit Peter Chest in his quarters. He found him staring at a wall-screen, focused on the area in space where the Earth used to be.
"Dr. Hry, time flows much faster in your Workshop," said Peter Chest. "You once said that a minute here passes like an hour there."
"Fifty-six and one-quarter seconds," said Korath.
"Will this Star Empress child age to senescence in only a couple of years?" asked Peter Chest. "If the United Planets cannot reach a better solution?"
"The United Planets has all of Colu as a resource," said Korath. "They will take her off our hands soon enough. But the interior of the Brainiac Bottle is more synchronous with our own time than the Workshop per se. This ‘Star Empress’ has not attempted any more stellar transformations-- but she has also not answered hails. She has consumed some of the food and water we transported in."
"Is it enough?" asked Peter Chest.
"You are appointed the judge of that," said Korath. "Literally, I imagine. Tell me, would starvation be appropriate vengeance upon an attempted mass-murderer, even if their victims are spared from their intentions? Rescued, so to speak?"
"It is an interesting philosophical question you pose, Dr. Hry," said Peter Chest.
"Perhaps not so purely philosophical," said Korath. "There are some peculiar anomalies regarding Earth's destruction. One would not expect that the expanding cloud of sub-atomic particles would slowly affect the orbits of the other planets in the Sol system. There was a sudden gravitic shock when Star Empress transformed, but there have been no further perturbations. No expanding cloud has been observed. It is almost as if... Earth is still there."
Peter Chest sighed. "I sent myself back in time," he admitted. On the viewscreen, a green-black cloak unfolded against the starry background of space, revealing the blue-white Earth beneath. For a moment, a spectral humanoid form was visible, then vanished.
"You saved a hundred billion lives," said Korath. "Was this an act of Justice… or Mercy?"
"I have nothing more to do with either Mercy or Justice," said Peter Chest. "Justice is to give others what they deserve. Mercy is to give others what they do not deserve. My calling is… was… Vengeance upon the most wicked. But now I must report that I have exceeded my mandate, and try to defend my decision to thwart the murderous intentions of the Star Empress. I may not be returning to the New Legion."
"How shall I explain your sudden absence?" asked Dr. Hry.
"Explain nothing, Dr. Hry," said Peter Chest. "Tell them you came to my quarters, and I was not here."
And he was not there.
o o o
Irinia Apero's husband was singing in the shower.
Nothing could be finer than to be in something... something...
In the Moooooorning.
Nothing could be sweeter than my sweetie something... something...
In the Moooooorning...
"Where is Carolina, dear?" asked Irinia.
"There's a New Carolina off in the direction of the Galactic Center," came a voice from the cleanroom. "I don't know where Old Carolina is. "Your Legion really saved the day."
"It's not my Legion," said Irinia. "I'm just one of the Adult Advisors. And frankly, it's time for Arna to give up super-heroing and join the Adult Advisors as well."
"Do you miss it?" asked her husband.
"Not at all," said Irinia. "Playing at super-hero is a young person's game."
o o o
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 08/29/22 02:00 PM
Roll Call, for those who are interested:
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/05/22 02:31 AM
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
STAR-WOMAN
HE COMES BACK TO TELL ME HE'S GONE
https://youtu.be/r_KRHah4nbk
The anointing of a new High Seer is a planetwide holiday on Naltor. The observance has spread to New Titan, for although the High Seer is not technically a member of TitanGov, she is an important and influential personage in the Cassandran system.
Today, Kallor Nal was being appointed High Seer of Naltor. Her mother stood by proudly.
Her hair was more white than the platinum blonde Kallor remembered from her youth. "I will not live to see my ninetieth year," Nura Nal had confided in her daughter. "Now, now, I know what you will say: no Naltoran can foresee their own death. But we cannot see beyond it, either."
So the Council of Seers had appointed a new High Seer.
Look at me, thought Kallor Nal. The Seer who has everything.
The palace she had grown up in was now her personal property, with all its rooms and servants.
After setting the New Legion of Super-Heroes on its path to renown, she had returned to Naltor to serve as Planetary Champion. And Champion of New Titan as well. Honorary Planetary Champion of Xanthu. Happily, even ecstatically married, she looked out into the crowd for her husband and three daughters: one of whom would, herself, most likely become High Seer one day. Lauded and honored, respected and appreciated, by family, friends, and strangers, she had achieved everything she could have dreamed.
Except...
"Now is the time," said Genever, the White Djinn. "Your heart's desire was the hardest of all. And my powers can grant it only today, until sunrise tomorrow. But you will retain all your memories of this day."
Standing next to her mother now was Thom Kallor, her father. His hair was graying, but his face was still handsome.
A flood of memory washed over her. A moment's hesitation had resulted in his survival in the collapse of the Legion Clubhouse all those years ago. He had come to Naltor. He had been there at her birth.
Kallor had been raised by two loving parents. She had two younger siblings: a brother and sister. She remembered the whole family hiking in the woods. She remembered how her father taught them all the ancient art of fishing. Her mother found it revolting. She and her siblings laughed.
She remembered when her full powers manifest. How the Council of Seers determined that her Daxamite-like powers were spawned from the radiation of an electro-comet. There had been a concentrator built, to allow her to rapidly bring herself up to full strength-- without the necessity of flying out into intrastellar space. But the concentrator had no effect on her siblings, who had only precognitive and mass-inducing powers. Nor was it able to restore her father's superior abilities, which he had lost shortly after joining the Legion. He had moped around the house, depressed for days, until Kallor's mother was considering increasing the dosage of his medication.
Kallor had remained on Naltor; had never joined the Super-Hero Club. Her place was filled by one of the elemental Xeras of Manna-5, and the Club had been organized and incorporated under that planet's laws. They seemed to have done all right without her.
Kallor Nal, High Seer of Naltor, embraced her parents. They seemed a little taken aback.
"Let's not waste any of this day," she said. "Let's all stay up-- past midnight-- watch the sunrise, and go to breakfast together. All of us."
After the ceremony, the Royal Family-- parents, children, spouses, nieces and nephews-- did just that.
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
STAR-WOMAN
HE COMES BACK TO TELL ME HE'S GONE
https://youtu.be/r_KRHah4nbk
The anointing of a new High Seer is a planetwide holiday on Naltor. The observance has spread to New Titan, for although the High Seer is not technically a member of TitanGov, she is an important and influential personage in the Cassandran system.
Today, Kallor Nal was being appointed High Seer of Naltor. Her mother stood by proudly.
Her hair was more white than the platinum blonde Kallor remembered from her youth. "I will not live to see my ninetieth year," Nura Nal had confided in her daughter. "Now, now, I know what you will say: no Naltoran can foresee their own death. But we cannot see beyond it, either."
So the Council of Seers had appointed a new High Seer.
Look at me, thought Kallor Nal. The Seer who has everything.
The palace she had grown up in was now her personal property, with all its rooms and servants.
After setting the New Legion of Super-Heroes on its path to renown, she had returned to Naltor to serve as Planetary Champion. And Champion of New Titan as well. Honorary Planetary Champion of Xanthu. Happily, even ecstatically married, she looked out into the crowd for her husband and three daughters: one of whom would, herself, most likely become High Seer one day. Lauded and honored, respected and appreciated, by family, friends, and strangers, she had achieved everything she could have dreamed.
Except...
"Now is the time," said Genever, the White Djinn. "Your heart's desire was the hardest of all. And my powers can grant it only today, until sunrise tomorrow. But you will retain all your memories of this day."
Standing next to her mother now was Thom Kallor, her father. His hair was graying, but his face was still handsome.
A flood of memory washed over her. A moment's hesitation had resulted in his survival in the collapse of the Legion Clubhouse all those years ago. He had come to Naltor. He had been there at her birth.
Kallor had been raised by two loving parents. She had two younger siblings: a brother and sister. She remembered the whole family hiking in the woods. She remembered how her father taught them all the ancient art of fishing. Her mother found it revolting. She and her siblings laughed.
She remembered when her full powers manifest. How the Council of Seers determined that her Daxamite-like powers were spawned from the radiation of an electro-comet. There had been a concentrator built, to allow her to rapidly bring herself up to full strength-- without the necessity of flying out into intrastellar space. But the concentrator had no effect on her siblings, who had only precognitive and mass-inducing powers. Nor was it able to restore her father's superior abilities, which he had lost shortly after joining the Legion. He had moped around the house, depressed for days, until Kallor's mother was considering increasing the dosage of his medication.
Kallor had remained on Naltor; had never joined the Super-Hero Club. Her place was filled by one of the elemental Xeras of Manna-5, and the Club had been organized and incorporated under that planet's laws. They seemed to have done all right without her.
Kallor Nal, High Seer of Naltor, embraced her parents. They seemed a little taken aback.
"Let's not waste any of this day," she said. "Let's all stay up-- past midnight-- watch the sunrise, and go to breakfast together. All of us."
After the ceremony, the Royal Family-- parents, children, spouses, nieces and nephews-- did just that.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/12/22 03:04 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
NINETY-NINE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
TEN
STONE COLD ZWEN
"Time goes by so slowly"
https://youtu.be/IYj2hex99gY
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/4bc1545c57bae8e6c23a1f44319e8eb7/d38a2fd06b4e1dd0-cd/s400x600/52c598521645bb4f1feefb56303a81a7ad44551e.png)
On the morning after hibernation, Meldi Cadena was always a little bit stiff. There was nothing to do but to walk it out.
Txalrz Luz 4523 was waiting for her about twenty minutes into her walk.
"Happy Wakeday, Desencadenada," said the Coluan.
"Good Morning, Z-Cubed," said Meldi. "Back so soon?"
"While you were sleeping," said Txarlz Luz, "I have grown up. Per Coluan law and tradition, I am now fully, chronologically an adult. Furthermore, I have graduated with my final degrees. And have begun my... I suppose you would call them postgraduate studies."
"And what are you doing here on Zwen?"
"I am here to ask you to marry me,” said Txalrz matter-of-factly. Should you accept, it is my plan that we can establish a permanent home together somewhere on Zwen."
Meldi leapt a few inches off the ground, and entwined her arms around Txarlz's neck. Her red lips brushed his green cheek.
"Oh, but there's one thing," she said, sobering. "It's cultural-- a kind of archaic tradition. You are supposed to ask my parents for their 'blessing' before you propose."
"Archaic, indeed," said Txarlz. "I would even say, an anachronism. But I have already spoken to your parents. Years ago, from my perspective. On the last day of Secondsummer, just before your people went into hibernation. Your father seems to think a Spring wedding would be appropriate, although your mother favors Autumn."
"Married. Us. How wonderful. But what will you do during Hibernation?" asked Meldi. “You can’t sleep with us. Can you?”
"I believe I shall be able to keep myself occupied," said Txarlz. "And as Zwenites do not age while petrified, I will return to find you as young and beautiful as ever."
"Wait... just how will you keep yourself occupied?" asked Meldi suspiciously.
"It is the most fascinating thing," said Txarlz. "Especially for an exobiologist, such as myself. Do you see these little plants, which have so recently sprung up?" Meldi noted the firstfig bushes, already at knee-height, and feathergrass flourishing in the hot sun. "These, of course, will die away after Secondsummer. But when the oceans evaporate," Txarx continued, "There is a xeric ecosystem which comes into existence. Plants and animals which grow, live their lives, and die in a single year. Not like the Thermoids of Mercury, these are true biologicals, adapted to the crushing heat at the other half of your year. This is the topic of my postdoctoral thesis."
"So, a year with me, and a year of solitude?" asked Meldi. "Uninterrupted study?"
"More than three years of study," said Txarlz. “And I may return to my assigned laboratory on Colu as well.”
"You'll have grown older every Wakeday," said Meldi.
"So it has always been," said Txarlz. "Have you not noticed? Yet we Coluans age much more gradually. Our lifespans, in fact, will closely align. In another hundred years-- from your perspective-- over four hundred years, from mine-- we will have grown old together."
"Is it true?" asked Meldi. "I had never thought of it. Zwen really is stuck in the past, in more ways than one. The United Planets moves into the future without us."
"In a sense," said Txarlz. "Dag Wentim, your elder statesman, is only a middle-aged man, despite spending two decades off-world. His childhood companions, the original Legion of Super-Heroes, are, for the most part, long gone."
"I suppose I should not be surprised you had thought this through," said Meldi.
"Indeed I have," said Txalrz Luz. "It has been my desire to bond once, and for the rest of my life, to someone extraordinary. And I have found you."
NINETY-NINE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE
TEN
STONE COLD ZWEN
"Time goes by so slowly"
https://youtu.be/IYj2hex99gY
On the morning after hibernation, Meldi Cadena was always a little bit stiff. There was nothing to do but to walk it out.
Txalrz Luz 4523 was waiting for her about twenty minutes into her walk.
"Happy Wakeday, Desencadenada," said the Coluan.
"Good Morning, Z-Cubed," said Meldi. "Back so soon?"
"While you were sleeping," said Txarlz Luz, "I have grown up. Per Coluan law and tradition, I am now fully, chronologically an adult. Furthermore, I have graduated with my final degrees. And have begun my... I suppose you would call them postgraduate studies."
"And what are you doing here on Zwen?"
"I am here to ask you to marry me,” said Txalrz matter-of-factly. Should you accept, it is my plan that we can establish a permanent home together somewhere on Zwen."
Meldi leapt a few inches off the ground, and entwined her arms around Txarlz's neck. Her red lips brushed his green cheek.
"Oh, but there's one thing," she said, sobering. "It's cultural-- a kind of archaic tradition. You are supposed to ask my parents for their 'blessing' before you propose."
"Archaic, indeed," said Txarlz. "I would even say, an anachronism. But I have already spoken to your parents. Years ago, from my perspective. On the last day of Secondsummer, just before your people went into hibernation. Your father seems to think a Spring wedding would be appropriate, although your mother favors Autumn."
"Married. Us. How wonderful. But what will you do during Hibernation?" asked Meldi. “You can’t sleep with us. Can you?”
"I believe I shall be able to keep myself occupied," said Txarlz. "And as Zwenites do not age while petrified, I will return to find you as young and beautiful as ever."
"Wait... just how will you keep yourself occupied?" asked Meldi suspiciously.
"It is the most fascinating thing," said Txarlz. "Especially for an exobiologist, such as myself. Do you see these little plants, which have so recently sprung up?" Meldi noted the firstfig bushes, already at knee-height, and feathergrass flourishing in the hot sun. "These, of course, will die away after Secondsummer. But when the oceans evaporate," Txarx continued, "There is a xeric ecosystem which comes into existence. Plants and animals which grow, live their lives, and die in a single year. Not like the Thermoids of Mercury, these are true biologicals, adapted to the crushing heat at the other half of your year. This is the topic of my postdoctoral thesis."
"So, a year with me, and a year of solitude?" asked Meldi. "Uninterrupted study?"
"More than three years of study," said Txarlz. “And I may return to my assigned laboratory on Colu as well.”
"You'll have grown older every Wakeday," said Meldi.
"So it has always been," said Txarlz. "Have you not noticed? Yet we Coluans age much more gradually. Our lifespans, in fact, will closely align. In another hundred years-- from your perspective-- over four hundred years, from mine-- we will have grown old together."
"Is it true?" asked Meldi. "I had never thought of it. Zwen really is stuck in the past, in more ways than one. The United Planets moves into the future without us."
"In a sense," said Txarlz. "Dag Wentim, your elder statesman, is only a middle-aged man, despite spending two decades off-world. His childhood companions, the original Legion of Super-Heroes, are, for the most part, long gone."
"I suppose I should not be surprised you had thought this through," said Meldi.
"Indeed I have," said Txalrz Luz. "It has been my desire to bond once, and for the rest of my life, to someone extraordinary. And I have found you."
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/19/22 02:44 PM
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
BEYOND TIME
SATURN GIRL
QWARD
"To fight the unbeatable foe"
https://youtu.be/zbgTUwUP-ew
It was easiest when she was in astral form.
She was unable to feel the strokes of the lash tearing her skin. There were psychic shocks coming from her semi-comatose physical body, but they were relatively mild. Electronic pain-inducers were also attached, but they were not causing the sort physical damage the flogging was. Her back looked like bloody hamburger meat.
She couldn't stay out in astral form forever, though. The mental construction had to return before her physical body passed out, otherwise she might never wake.
To never wake. It was a tempting prospect.
For the next few days, there would be excruciating pain, but the torture would cease. They did not want to kill her, that much was clear. She would be allowed to rest, to eat, to recuperate, to heal, before the next round of torture began. She willed her consciousness back into her body.
It was like stepping into a bath of flaming oil.
Mercifully, it only lasted a few more minutes.
The old woman she had come to think of as "nurse" was busy applying salve when she woke up. The nurse did not speak-- it appeared that they were all forbidden to speak to her-- and wore a telepathy-suppressant helm, so that Dorrit was unable to read her thoughts. Dorrit herself had her legs chained to the floor, so that she could not stand, and her arms chained to the wall, so that she could neither lie down nor sit. Rather, she crouched, on aching, bloody knees.
"Nurse" had bandages, salves, and stinging disinfectant. She also had a large bowl of the thin, gray gruel that was Dorrit's only sustenance in this place. It took the better part of an hour to get it down her throat. "Nurse" stopped feeding her as Dorrit started to gag. Shortly, Dorrit was left alone.
She was truly alone in this dungeon. There were not even insects or vermin. There was no guard visible outside the iron door. It was cold-- so cold she shivered, but it was also numbing to her bruised and broken skin.
"What do they want?"
The woman had not been there before.
"What do they want, you must be asking yourself. Why the torture? What can you say or do to make them stop?"
She was exotically beautiful. Young, smooth-skinned, a complexion a white as mother-of-pearl. Thick, luxurious black hair flowed down to her ankles. Her eyebrows were arched, and lightly pointed. Her eyes dark, and deep-set.
"There is nothing, my child. Nothing at all you can do. They beat and whip and torture you, not to gain any information, but because you are their plaything. They are very good at what they do, and it will probably be a long time before they go too far, and you are lost to them forever."
"Who are you?" croaked Dorrit. She had not spoken in a very long time. Her voice was weak, cracked and dusty, the voice of an old woman. Dorrit looked up at her hands. They were smooth, straight, and unwrinkled. No, she was not an old woman yet.
The woman smoothed her elegant black satin dress. "I am your Queen," she answered.
"They call me Daughter of the Black Galaxy, and Daughter of the Black Stars, but I am no one's daughter. They call me Theriona, Mother of Demons, and The Great Evil Beast. And I suppose I am, in a way. You might have heard me called The Ultimate Evil, The Great Darkness, The Ultimate Darkness. But here, in this place, you may call me God." She swept her arms about theatrically.
"Yes, that all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God you have heard of... has given me this little multiverse to play in, uninhibited, unhindered, and unsupervised. I am the God of these little worlds, and you have met a few of my lesser acolytes. They have entertained you long enough. I thought it was time we met in person."
They were in a palatial room of white and red marble, heavily accented with gold. Dorrit sat on a divan, with the softest, most comfortable pillows. She was wearing a simple white gown.
"I've healed all your wounds. You are as strong and healthy now as when you first arrived here."
The Ultimate Darkness sat nearby, across from Dorrit, on a low throne of understated elegance. There was a plate of fruit between them, from which the Daughter of the Black Stars was choosing samples.
"You see," said The Mother of Demons, smiling, "Your friend Genever, the White Djinn, determined that your heart's desire was to do battle with the Ultimate Evil. And here I am." Her smile broadened. "So far, I'm winning."
Dorrit looked at the plate of fruit longingly: grapes, lychee, strawberries, and some others he did not recognize. She had not eaten anything but thin gray gruel for as long as she could remember.
"Oh, I know it's stereotypical," said The Great Darkness, "The Serpent offering forbidden fruit. But it is only forbidden because you refuse to worship me. I cease to forbid it, just for now. No consequences for partaking. Help yourself. My treat."
Dorrit took a lychee. It was beyond delicious.
"You see, I can be trusted,” saiad the Queen. “Oh, let's do something interesting. Why don't we make a wager? I'll pull my whole self into this avatar. We can have one, last decisive battle between us. I'll even make myself human. And only a tiny bit stronger and faster than you. If you can kill me, I'll die. Really die. Send my soul down to sleep in the deepest, furthest Hell I have available. All my power will go to you, and you can rule these Universes as their new Goddess as you see fit until you tire of it. And if you lose... no, no change! No downside! I won't even ask you to sell your soul. Just for the pure fun of it! I'll even let you read my mind, to let you know I'm playing fair."
Dorrit gazed into deep, dark eyes and found herself lost in Eternity. Stars and planets formed and died. Living beings thrived and suffered-- but mostly suffered. A malevolence filled universe after universe, rejoicing in sorrow and misery. But this God was bored, ready to set herself against the one creature from another Universe that was outside her power. And the promise was the promise of a God.
"That was quick." It had seemed like more than one forever to Dorrit. She looked down, and saw that she was now dressed in her gold-and-green Saturn Girl costume, but with a more tailored and military cut. Sabers suddenly appeared in the hands of both women.
"En garde," said Theriona. "Oh, but I see you have no training in the art of dueling. Very well."
A complete knowledge of the art of swordplay filled Dorrit's mind. The battle was on.
Dorrit was sorely pressed. Her opponent was strong, and quick, and scored the first touch, ripping Dorrit's uniform at the shoulder. It was over in less than a dozen strokes. As one blade rebounded off the other, Dorrit's left arm was badly gashed. But in that moment she saw an opening. She slashed upwards, hitting the Queen on the neck. The blade continued through, and a beautiful head hit the floor like a cabbage. The body slumped, and followed its head down.
Dorrit was bleeding badly, from deep cuts on her arm and shoulder. She also felt blood trickle down one cheek. But all around her, the Universe prepared to deliver her power. Omnipotence. Omniscience. Knowledge flowed into her. And she remembered this was not the first time the God of Evil had tricked her.
Queen Theriona picked up her head, and placed it back on her shoulders. She laughed, not a pleasant sound. "Oh, this is my favorite part," she crowed. "When you realize that I lied, just as I have lied all those times before. And you always, always fall for it."
Dorrit was chained again in the dungeon. Her body was still strong and healthy, however. Even her shoulder and forearm had been healed. But the white-skinned, black-haired woman was there as well.
"This is today's torturer," she said. "Do you recognize her?" A red-haired women in a gold-and-green military uniform came in through the iron door. "She's you! All you, down to the self-righteous certainty that she is right, and you are irredeemably. And she is going to get into your mind, and do her best to turn to her way of thinking. It will, of course, be painful. But that's the point, isn't it?"
As the sound of mocking laughter faded, the two Dorrits faced one another. Again.
BEYOND TIME
SATURN GIRL
QWARD
"To fight the unbeatable foe"
https://youtu.be/zbgTUwUP-ew
It was easiest when she was in astral form.
She was unable to feel the strokes of the lash tearing her skin. There were psychic shocks coming from her semi-comatose physical body, but they were relatively mild. Electronic pain-inducers were also attached, but they were not causing the sort physical damage the flogging was. Her back looked like bloody hamburger meat.
She couldn't stay out in astral form forever, though. The mental construction had to return before her physical body passed out, otherwise she might never wake.
To never wake. It was a tempting prospect.
For the next few days, there would be excruciating pain, but the torture would cease. They did not want to kill her, that much was clear. She would be allowed to rest, to eat, to recuperate, to heal, before the next round of torture began. She willed her consciousness back into her body.
It was like stepping into a bath of flaming oil.
Mercifully, it only lasted a few more minutes.
The old woman she had come to think of as "nurse" was busy applying salve when she woke up. The nurse did not speak-- it appeared that they were all forbidden to speak to her-- and wore a telepathy-suppressant helm, so that Dorrit was unable to read her thoughts. Dorrit herself had her legs chained to the floor, so that she could not stand, and her arms chained to the wall, so that she could neither lie down nor sit. Rather, she crouched, on aching, bloody knees.
"Nurse" had bandages, salves, and stinging disinfectant. She also had a large bowl of the thin, gray gruel that was Dorrit's only sustenance in this place. It took the better part of an hour to get it down her throat. "Nurse" stopped feeding her as Dorrit started to gag. Shortly, Dorrit was left alone.
She was truly alone in this dungeon. There were not even insects or vermin. There was no guard visible outside the iron door. It was cold-- so cold she shivered, but it was also numbing to her bruised and broken skin.
"What do they want?"
The woman had not been there before.
"What do they want, you must be asking yourself. Why the torture? What can you say or do to make them stop?"
She was exotically beautiful. Young, smooth-skinned, a complexion a white as mother-of-pearl. Thick, luxurious black hair flowed down to her ankles. Her eyebrows were arched, and lightly pointed. Her eyes dark, and deep-set.
"There is nothing, my child. Nothing at all you can do. They beat and whip and torture you, not to gain any information, but because you are their plaything. They are very good at what they do, and it will probably be a long time before they go too far, and you are lost to them forever."
"Who are you?" croaked Dorrit. She had not spoken in a very long time. Her voice was weak, cracked and dusty, the voice of an old woman. Dorrit looked up at her hands. They were smooth, straight, and unwrinkled. No, she was not an old woman yet.
The woman smoothed her elegant black satin dress. "I am your Queen," she answered.
"They call me Daughter of the Black Galaxy, and Daughter of the Black Stars, but I am no one's daughter. They call me Theriona, Mother of Demons, and The Great Evil Beast. And I suppose I am, in a way. You might have heard me called The Ultimate Evil, The Great Darkness, The Ultimate Darkness. But here, in this place, you may call me God." She swept her arms about theatrically.
"Yes, that all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God you have heard of... has given me this little multiverse to play in, uninhibited, unhindered, and unsupervised. I am the God of these little worlds, and you have met a few of my lesser acolytes. They have entertained you long enough. I thought it was time we met in person."
They were in a palatial room of white and red marble, heavily accented with gold. Dorrit sat on a divan, with the softest, most comfortable pillows. She was wearing a simple white gown.
"I've healed all your wounds. You are as strong and healthy now as when you first arrived here."
The Ultimate Darkness sat nearby, across from Dorrit, on a low throne of understated elegance. There was a plate of fruit between them, from which the Daughter of the Black Stars was choosing samples.
"You see," said The Mother of Demons, smiling, "Your friend Genever, the White Djinn, determined that your heart's desire was to do battle with the Ultimate Evil. And here I am." Her smile broadened. "So far, I'm winning."
Dorrit looked at the plate of fruit longingly: grapes, lychee, strawberries, and some others he did not recognize. She had not eaten anything but thin gray gruel for as long as she could remember.
"Oh, I know it's stereotypical," said The Great Darkness, "The Serpent offering forbidden fruit. But it is only forbidden because you refuse to worship me. I cease to forbid it, just for now. No consequences for partaking. Help yourself. My treat."
Dorrit took a lychee. It was beyond delicious.
"You see, I can be trusted,” saiad the Queen. “Oh, let's do something interesting. Why don't we make a wager? I'll pull my whole self into this avatar. We can have one, last decisive battle between us. I'll even make myself human. And only a tiny bit stronger and faster than you. If you can kill me, I'll die. Really die. Send my soul down to sleep in the deepest, furthest Hell I have available. All my power will go to you, and you can rule these Universes as their new Goddess as you see fit until you tire of it. And if you lose... no, no change! No downside! I won't even ask you to sell your soul. Just for the pure fun of it! I'll even let you read my mind, to let you know I'm playing fair."
Dorrit gazed into deep, dark eyes and found herself lost in Eternity. Stars and planets formed and died. Living beings thrived and suffered-- but mostly suffered. A malevolence filled universe after universe, rejoicing in sorrow and misery. But this God was bored, ready to set herself against the one creature from another Universe that was outside her power. And the promise was the promise of a God.
"That was quick." It had seemed like more than one forever to Dorrit. She looked down, and saw that she was now dressed in her gold-and-green Saturn Girl costume, but with a more tailored and military cut. Sabers suddenly appeared in the hands of both women.
"En garde," said Theriona. "Oh, but I see you have no training in the art of dueling. Very well."
A complete knowledge of the art of swordplay filled Dorrit's mind. The battle was on.
Dorrit was sorely pressed. Her opponent was strong, and quick, and scored the first touch, ripping Dorrit's uniform at the shoulder. It was over in less than a dozen strokes. As one blade rebounded off the other, Dorrit's left arm was badly gashed. But in that moment she saw an opening. She slashed upwards, hitting the Queen on the neck. The blade continued through, and a beautiful head hit the floor like a cabbage. The body slumped, and followed its head down.
Dorrit was bleeding badly, from deep cuts on her arm and shoulder. She also felt blood trickle down one cheek. But all around her, the Universe prepared to deliver her power. Omnipotence. Omniscience. Knowledge flowed into her. And she remembered this was not the first time the God of Evil had tricked her.
Queen Theriona picked up her head, and placed it back on her shoulders. She laughed, not a pleasant sound. "Oh, this is my favorite part," she crowed. "When you realize that I lied, just as I have lied all those times before. And you always, always fall for it."
Dorrit was chained again in the dungeon. Her body was still strong and healthy, however. Even her shoulder and forearm had been healed. But the white-skinned, black-haired woman was there as well.
"This is today's torturer," she said. "Do you recognize her?" A red-haired women in a gold-and-green military uniform came in through the iron door. "She's you! All you, down to the self-righteous certainty that she is right, and you are irredeemably. And she is going to get into your mind, and do her best to turn to her way of thinking. It will, of course, be painful. But that's the point, isn't it?"
As the sound of mocking laughter faded, the two Dorrits faced one another. Again.
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/20/22 08:01 AM
Me reading the last few posts: this is neat, the new Legion are really cool and there's some bittersweet happenings and nice whimsy and whatnot
Me reading Dorrit's story:
![[Linked Image from memesmonkey.com]](https://www.memesmonkey.com/images/memesmonkey/9d/9d16d19abd805da86752e4cce12a13f2.jpeg)
Me reading Dorrit's story:
Re: Young Legion Book 2 - 09/26/22 04:41 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY
MORNING
“You had a dream, I had one too”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXbHShUnwxY
"Did you all have the same dream I did?" asked Ffiona. Ffarrah and Ffey nodded.
"We were together?" asked Chameleon.
"Yes," said Ffarrah. "I just... can't quite remember how."
"Not the particulars," said Ffey. "But we were back on Carggg. The four of us. And welcomed there."
"Back on the Farm," asked Cosmic Boy. "And is that what you really want, too?" He asked Lightning Lass.
"Oh, yes, of course, eventually," said Lightning Lass. "Although there are other things I'd like to do first. Is that what you want?"
"My heart's desire," said Cosmic Boy, smiling. "Is to spend the rest of my life with you."
"What do you remember?" asked Korvea.
"Heroism," said Mighty Lad. "I was a super-hero for many years. And I eventually got married to... someone. Had a lot of kids, I think. But eventually, I was cured, and returned to Rokyn."
"Yes..." said Korvea. "It was much the same for me. I was Talok's Planetary Champion, I think. And there was more..."
Genever, the White Djinn, without warning or introduction, appeared in the midst of them.
“Is this what human dreaming is like?” asked Ten. “Coluans ‘dream’ after a fashion, but it is merely the examination and removal of useless data fragments devoid of context.”
“It’s just… yes, generally,” Phantom Girl declared. “But humans remember their dreams, and assign meaning… byt the details are sometimes vague. Half-remembered, and fading.”
Shrinking Violet nodded assent. “It is the same with the Krill.”
“I remember it all,” said Saturn Girl, looking around at the others. “Distinctly. Every detail.” She turned to the White Djinn. “Make our dreams come true.”
MORNING
“You had a dream, I had one too”
https:/
"Did you all have the same dream I did?" asked Ffiona. Ffarrah and Ffey nodded.
"We were together?" asked Chameleon.
"Yes," said Ffarrah. "I just... can't quite remember how."
"Not the particulars," said Ffey. "But we were back on Carggg. The four of us. And welcomed there."
"Back on the Farm," asked Cosmic Boy. "And is that what you really want, too?" He asked Lightning Lass.
"Oh, yes, of course, eventually," said Lightning Lass. "Although there are other things I'd like to do first. Is that what you want?"
"My heart's desire," said Cosmic Boy, smiling. "Is to spend the rest of my life with you."
"What do you remember?" asked Korvea.
"Heroism," said Mighty Lad. "I was a super-hero for many years. And I eventually got married to... someone. Had a lot of kids, I think. But eventually, I was cured, and returned to Rokyn."
"Yes..." said Korvea. "It was much the same for me. I was Talok's Planetary Champion, I think. And there was more..."
Genever, the White Djinn, without warning or introduction, appeared in the midst of them.
“Is this what human dreaming is like?” asked Ten. “Coluans ‘dream’ after a fashion, but it is merely the examination and removal of useless data fragments devoid of context.”
“It’s just… yes, generally,” Phantom Girl declared. “But humans remember their dreams, and assign meaning… byt the details are sometimes vague. Half-remembered, and fading.”
Shrinking Violet nodded assent. “It is the same with the Krill.”
“I remember it all,” said Saturn Girl, looking around at the others. “Distinctly. Every detail.” She turned to the White Djinn. “Make our dreams come true.”
MORE STORIES - 01/07/23 04:50 AM
Here are some characters which I discovered which I am never going to use.
They are just too overpowered.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0dee3f233138acc8364f7c2486cc69f1/ba135d71914728fc-5d/s250x400/6e115416367831383389ae126d8fa9be6c9b3ea7.png)
Jimmyboy:
Created by one of Earth’s great Android Masters, Jimmyboy can morph into any of the transformations experienced by the 20th-century Jimmy Olsen.
He currently resides on the planet Calyx (Action Comics #320).
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/40bfd51be7daab17b9d69528432e78b9/ba135d71914728fc-90/s250x400/e6f308cc1331cf28b71dc4ebe5142720190b86c7.png)
The Ultimate Bizarro:
While studying Bizarro-duplicating technology (created on Earth, Krypton, and possibly other planets independently), Dr. Ray Chiunque was caught in an accident which left him with the ability to temporarily transform into a Bizarro-duplicate of any living creature he has encountered.
His default form is Bizarro-human-like, and is known as Bizarro Ray. In all his forms, he is made of non-living matter, and does not require food, air, or water.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/869185097078def246bf1f991e79ee11/0892adf47d502a93-27/s400x600/39c2d2af7f930ba9bb6fd5f23d0e53af7173720f.png)
Wildfrost:
A being of unknown origins. His body (or, perhaps, its body) is composed of pure negative anti-energy, and can only survive in a special containment suit. He generally utilizes darkness and cold-based attacks.
However, he is actually capable of nullifying or neutralizing any form of energy. Such efforts may drain his substance, but he will slowly regenerate.
They are just too overpowered.
Jimmyboy:
Created by one of Earth’s great Android Masters, Jimmyboy can morph into any of the transformations experienced by the 20th-century Jimmy Olsen.
The Ultimate Bizarro:
While studying Bizarro-duplicating technology (created on Earth, Krypton, and possibly other planets independently), Dr. Ray Chiunque was caught in an accident which left him with the ability to temporarily transform into a Bizarro-duplicate of any living creature he has encountered.
His default form is Bizarro-human-like, and is known as Bizarro Ray. In all his forms, he is made of non-living matter, and does not require food, air, or water.
Wildfrost:
A being of unknown origins. His body (or, perhaps, its body) is composed of pure negative anti-energy, and can only survive in a special containment suit. He generally utilizes darkness and cold-based attacks.
However, he is actually capable of nullifying or neutralizing any form of energy. Such efforts may drain his substance, but he will slowly regenerate.
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/09/23 04:06 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
Myosotis sylvatica
“My name is Henry Pootel,” said Henry Pootel. “It’s a literary reference.”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/998bb8e9344ff7974211772b8c22a3e5/d2e6a821761f984f-6e/s100x200/a1ffa246384d76575b425fc47b9a757ff68a6659.png)
Gamorrean Dwarves are called Toves, another literary reference. Seldom topping a meter-and-a-half, they tended to be farmers and shopkeepers. Full Gamorreans, of course, were highly prized throughout the United Planets as guards and mercenaries.
“You know me, Henry,” said Pol Krinn II. “I come by a couple of times a year.”
“Sorry, you humans all look alike to me,” said Henry Pootel. “What can I do for you?”
“My father has a shipment of a hundred kilos of slug-salt on backorder,” said Pol. “He said if I came by Gamorrhea in person you would let me pick it up and take it back to Winath myself.”
“No refunds on shipping costs,” Henry Pootel reminded him.
Of course not, thought Pol. But time is money, and Lightning Ring Farms could not wait for the Toves to decide when it was convenient for them to ship.
Wrapping a steel chain around the four bags of slug-salt, Pol magnetically carried the stuff back to his private cruiser. It was terribly inefficient to use the cruiser as a delivery truck, but Pol had been passing through the Tellarite Federation anyway, so this was only a small detour.
Gamorrhea was a world of mud pits and cabbage fields, at least around Starport City and the Trading Post. Pol had only a vague idea what the rest of the planet looked like. Polymer domes and camouflage holos covered the inhabited sections of the world. The seas were mottled chartreuse and teal, presumably from some local algal lifeforms.
Pol had come to grudgingly admire the Gamorreans. If they had a racial characteristic, it was patience. They were able to tirelessly focus on a single task, which made them great guards. They did not get bored. Some people opined that it was because there were so few thoughts in their heads to distract them. But Gamorreans-- especially the Toves-- were also great mimics, and that took intelligence. Henry Pootel’s demeanor, and probably name itself, would change when waiting upon the Aellans who had been in line behind Pol. He would become the embodiment of Aellan customs and manners and mores, but just alien enough to remind his customers he was a Tove.
“LEGIONNAIRE!” Pol was accosted by a golden-skinned pig-man, taller and broader than any Gamorrean.
“Not a Legionnaire,” Pol corrected him. “Just a member of the Super-Hero Club. Of Mars. Sol system.”
“Be that as it may,” said the pig-man. “I am Kairlios of Bolograx, and Bolograx needs your help.”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/33a9b4195112a0ce8ca63f3bb1297a11/58df2cd627b1b06c-dc/s250x400/297aacdef195f12bb2efd93c9e08b1a0606af156.jpg)
The Tove cafes scattered around the Trading Post had no menus.
A server brought out two intricately carved small wooden troughs, filled with some sort of steaming hot thick soup or stew. The base was a tasteless sort of grain, in appearance a cross between rice and lentils. Thumb-sized portions of unidentifiable soft vegetables, or possibly meat, were scattered throughout the dish. There was a large breaded fish filet of some kind stuck in one side of the bowl. Kairlios used the filet as a sort of spoon to scoop up the stew; Pol followed suit.
The Bolograxxan had insisted they talk over a meal, but very little talking had been done so far, only prolonging Pol’s curiosity.
Kairlios tipped up the bowl, and drained the dregs of the stew.
“Nine hundred years ago,” he began, “Our race was formed from the union of the last survivors of two extinct worlds. Kilowog was a Green Lantern from a world called Bolovax Vik, Arissia Rrab was a Star Sapphire from a world called Graxos Four. Each was the last of their race. They were colleagues, then friends, then lovers. Each had tried to save, and later rebuild their worlds. Each had failed. Together, aided by the emerald light of the Green Lanterns, and the violet light of the Star Sapphires, they brought into being their children, we Bolograxxans, a genetic fusion of both races, born of Will and Love.
“They found a suitable world orbiting the star Khinzir. Our people were welcomed by the Tellarite Federation, and were founding members of the United Planets.
“You object, I think. You have never heard of the Bolograxxans. My appearance is unfamiliar to you. Yet all I have told you is true.”
"You simply do not remember. Almost no one remembers."
Kairlios grasped Pol’s hands in his large golden fists.
“I am a physical being,” he insisted, almost desperately. “An instantiation of flesh and bone, as are my people and my planet, only a few parsecs from here.
"But we now find ourselves unable to communicate with much of the United Planets. We lost contact with Weber’s World years ago. Even the nearby worlds of the Tellarite Federation are beginning to absent-mindedly forget us. Tellar Prime, Gamorr, World 318, and the others.
"We believe that something has happened to the energies which created us. They are… attenuating, perhaps, after all these centuries. We are becoming less… real.
"We are unable to communicate-- or even exist-- outside a small and shrinking sphere. Ambassadors which we have sent out to the greater United Planets have vanished. We have heard reports of our ships floating empty, unmanned in space.
“When we learned you were passing through Tellarite space, we were hoping you could be the hero who could rescue us. The Super Hero Club of Mars is well-known and well respected throughout the United Planets. You must be able to communicate our need. Contact Weber’s World, or Oa, or the Sorcerer’s World. Someone who can strengthen our grip on reality. Perhaps even the Controllers, or the Luck Lords of Ventura.”
“I will do what I can,” said Cosmic Boy. “My powers are less ‘cosmic’ than my name implies, but the Super Hero Club will help you as best we are able.”
“And quickly,” said the big man. “We do not know when we might fade away completely.”
The ship entered the Amartan system and fell out of hyperdrive over the planet Winath. The Autopilot put the ship into an available orbit.
Pol was occupied in the Cleanroom, working through the unfortunate consequences of his lunch. The autofresheners were working overtime.
“Why did I go to that Tove cafe for lunch?” he asked himself out loud, in between groans. “Never again." But wasn’t there something… some reason I was there? he thought to himself. Oh, well, it must not be important, if I can’t remember
Myosotis sylvatica
“My name is Henry Pootel,” said Henry Pootel. “It’s a literary reference.”
Gamorrean Dwarves are called Toves, another literary reference. Seldom topping a meter-and-a-half, they tended to be farmers and shopkeepers. Full Gamorreans, of course, were highly prized throughout the United Planets as guards and mercenaries.
“You know me, Henry,” said Pol Krinn II. “I come by a couple of times a year.”
“Sorry, you humans all look alike to me,” said Henry Pootel. “What can I do for you?”
“My father has a shipment of a hundred kilos of slug-salt on backorder,” said Pol. “He said if I came by Gamorrhea in person you would let me pick it up and take it back to Winath myself.”
“No refunds on shipping costs,” Henry Pootel reminded him.
Of course not, thought Pol. But time is money, and Lightning Ring Farms could not wait for the Toves to decide when it was convenient for them to ship.
Wrapping a steel chain around the four bags of slug-salt, Pol magnetically carried the stuff back to his private cruiser. It was terribly inefficient to use the cruiser as a delivery truck, but Pol had been passing through the Tellarite Federation anyway, so this was only a small detour.
Gamorrhea was a world of mud pits and cabbage fields, at least around Starport City and the Trading Post. Pol had only a vague idea what the rest of the planet looked like. Polymer domes and camouflage holos covered the inhabited sections of the world. The seas were mottled chartreuse and teal, presumably from some local algal lifeforms.
Pol had come to grudgingly admire the Gamorreans. If they had a racial characteristic, it was patience. They were able to tirelessly focus on a single task, which made them great guards. They did not get bored. Some people opined that it was because there were so few thoughts in their heads to distract them. But Gamorreans-- especially the Toves-- were also great mimics, and that took intelligence. Henry Pootel’s demeanor, and probably name itself, would change when waiting upon the Aellans who had been in line behind Pol. He would become the embodiment of Aellan customs and manners and mores, but just alien enough to remind his customers he was a Tove.
“LEGIONNAIRE!” Pol was accosted by a golden-skinned pig-man, taller and broader than any Gamorrean.
“Not a Legionnaire,” Pol corrected him. “Just a member of the Super-Hero Club. Of Mars. Sol system.”
“Be that as it may,” said the pig-man. “I am Kairlios of Bolograx, and Bolograx needs your help.”
The Tove cafes scattered around the Trading Post had no menus.
A server brought out two intricately carved small wooden troughs, filled with some sort of steaming hot thick soup or stew. The base was a tasteless sort of grain, in appearance a cross between rice and lentils. Thumb-sized portions of unidentifiable soft vegetables, or possibly meat, were scattered throughout the dish. There was a large breaded fish filet of some kind stuck in one side of the bowl. Kairlios used the filet as a sort of spoon to scoop up the stew; Pol followed suit.
The Bolograxxan had insisted they talk over a meal, but very little talking had been done so far, only prolonging Pol’s curiosity.
Kairlios tipped up the bowl, and drained the dregs of the stew.
“Nine hundred years ago,” he began, “Our race was formed from the union of the last survivors of two extinct worlds. Kilowog was a Green Lantern from a world called Bolovax Vik, Arissia Rrab was a Star Sapphire from a world called Graxos Four. Each was the last of their race. They were colleagues, then friends, then lovers. Each had tried to save, and later rebuild their worlds. Each had failed. Together, aided by the emerald light of the Green Lanterns, and the violet light of the Star Sapphires, they brought into being their children, we Bolograxxans, a genetic fusion of both races, born of Will and Love.
“They found a suitable world orbiting the star Khinzir. Our people were welcomed by the Tellarite Federation, and were founding members of the United Planets.
“You object, I think. You have never heard of the Bolograxxans. My appearance is unfamiliar to you. Yet all I have told you is true.”
"You simply do not remember. Almost no one remembers."
Kairlios grasped Pol’s hands in his large golden fists.
“I am a physical being,” he insisted, almost desperately. “An instantiation of flesh and bone, as are my people and my planet, only a few parsecs from here.
"But we now find ourselves unable to communicate with much of the United Planets. We lost contact with Weber’s World years ago. Even the nearby worlds of the Tellarite Federation are beginning to absent-mindedly forget us. Tellar Prime, Gamorr, World 318, and the others.
"We believe that something has happened to the energies which created us. They are… attenuating, perhaps, after all these centuries. We are becoming less… real.
"We are unable to communicate-- or even exist-- outside a small and shrinking sphere. Ambassadors which we have sent out to the greater United Planets have vanished. We have heard reports of our ships floating empty, unmanned in space.
“When we learned you were passing through Tellarite space, we were hoping you could be the hero who could rescue us. The Super Hero Club of Mars is well-known and well respected throughout the United Planets. You must be able to communicate our need. Contact Weber’s World, or Oa, or the Sorcerer’s World. Someone who can strengthen our grip on reality. Perhaps even the Controllers, or the Luck Lords of Ventura.”
“I will do what I can,” said Cosmic Boy. “My powers are less ‘cosmic’ than my name implies, but the Super Hero Club will help you as best we are able.”
“And quickly,” said the big man. “We do not know when we might fade away completely.”
The ship entered the Amartan system and fell out of hyperdrive over the planet Winath. The Autopilot put the ship into an available orbit.
Pol was occupied in the Cleanroom, working through the unfortunate consequences of his lunch. The autofresheners were working overtime.
“Why did I go to that Tove cafe for lunch?” he asked himself out loud, in between groans. “Never again." But wasn’t there something… some reason I was there? he thought to himself. Oh, well, it must not be important, if I can’t remember
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/17/23 02:56 PM
I had ChatGPT write a little vignette for me…
Dorrit, Dacey, and Pol were all close friends, despite the fact that they were from different families on Lightning Ring Farms. They spent most of their days exploring the vast fields and forests that surrounded their farm, always on the lookout for new adventures.
One day, they decided to go on a hike through the nearby mountains. As they trekked through the rugged terrain, they came across a beautiful waterfall that cascaded down the rocks. They spent hours playing in the cool water, splashing each other and laughing.
As the day began to wane, they decided to head back to the farm. Along the way, they came across a field of wildflowers that stretched as far as the eye could see. Dorrit and Dacey, both with their telepathic abilities, marveled at the beauty of the flowers and tried to connect with them. Pol, with his magnetic abilities, tried to control the metal objects around them.
As they made their way back to the farm, they were greeted by the warm glow of the setting sun. They were tired, but happy from their day of adventure. They went to bed that night, dreaming of the many other adventures that awaited them on the farm.
Dorrit, Dacey, and Pol were all close friends, despite the fact that they were from different families on Lightning Ring Farms. They spent most of their days exploring the vast fields and forests that surrounded their farm, always on the lookout for new adventures.
One day, they decided to go on a hike through the nearby mountains. As they trekked through the rugged terrain, they came across a beautiful waterfall that cascaded down the rocks. They spent hours playing in the cool water, splashing each other and laughing.
As the day began to wane, they decided to head back to the farm. Along the way, they came across a field of wildflowers that stretched as far as the eye could see. Dorrit and Dacey, both with their telepathic abilities, marveled at the beauty of the flowers and tried to connect with them. Pol, with his magnetic abilities, tried to control the metal objects around them.
As they made their way back to the farm, they were greeted by the warm glow of the setting sun. They were tired, but happy from their day of adventure. They went to bed that night, dreaming of the many other adventures that awaited them on the farm.
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/17/23 02:59 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Myosotis Sylvatica Certus
THREE YEARS LATER
Five months before the wedding of Pol Hu Krin II and Dacey Ardeen Ranzz on Amarta, a very different wedding was being held on the planet Daxam.
Daxamite weddings are highly elaborate affairs, often with hundreds of guests. The bride and groom dress in magnificent, voluminous rainbow-colored wedding garb, with complicated headdresses the size of Christmas trees, each unique, each lovingly ornamented by the extended family.
At the Wedding Site stand three pyramids, each five stories tall. The bride ascends one pyramid, as the groom ascends another. They then shout the name of their betrothed from the top of each pyramid. The bride and groom then descend, then climb the center pyramid together, where they are met by one of the local Voices of Sard, who unites the couple in matrimony in the sight of all assembled..
Zhaola Gand stood on the top of her matrimonial pyramid, and called her beloved’s name.
“Loah-Ab Maal! Loah-Ab Maal!”
But there was no answering reply. She looked towards Loah-Ab’s pyramid. He was not there. He was late. He was very late. The guests began to drift away. He was not coming.
Zhaola found her betrothed at her sister Folehna's place. It was all very sordid.This was followed by weeks of depression for Zhaola and the wedding of Loah-Ab and Folehna.
She wished them all the happiness in the world, and she meant it. But her heart was shattered.
Get up. Go to work. Come home. Go to bed. The meaningless, repeating pattern was broken when the she-wolf appeared at her door.
She was not a real wolf, but an alien of lupine appearance. She offered a violet ring and lantern.
“Zhaola Gand, you have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphires.”
o o o
ONE MORE YEAR LATER
LIGHTNING RING FARMS, WINATH
Pol startled awake.
“What’s the matter?” asked his wife, alarmed.
“I forgot!” said Pol. “I can’t believe I forgot!”
“Forgot what?” mumbled Dacey, still half asleep.
“Bolograxx,” said Pol. “It’s a planet, part of the Tellarite Confederation. They need our help. Or, they needed our help. But somehow… I forgot about them.”
Violet light filled the room. The strange woman in the midst of it was seriously underdressed.
Dacey was completely awake now.
“Bolograxx is fine. I am Zhaola Gand, a Star Sapphire. After I found Bolograxx, I enlisted the aid of Algolla Drang, the Langstromite Green Lantern. Together, we placed a Green Power Battery and Violet Power Battery on Bolograxx, which will maintain their continued existence. Now if you will excuse me, I have several other individuals whose minds I need to calm who have suddenly remembered they were asked for help over the years.”
“You know the strangest people,” observed Dacey Krinn.
“I don’t know,” mused Pol. “Maybe we should put the Tellarite Confederation on our list of vacation destinations.”
Myosotis Sylvatica Certus
THREE YEARS LATER
Five months before the wedding of Pol Hu Krin II and Dacey Ardeen Ranzz on Amarta, a very different wedding was being held on the planet Daxam.
Daxamite weddings are highly elaborate affairs, often with hundreds of guests. The bride and groom dress in magnificent, voluminous rainbow-colored wedding garb, with complicated headdresses the size of Christmas trees, each unique, each lovingly ornamented by the extended family.
At the Wedding Site stand three pyramids, each five stories tall. The bride ascends one pyramid, as the groom ascends another. They then shout the name of their betrothed from the top of each pyramid. The bride and groom then descend, then climb the center pyramid together, where they are met by one of the local Voices of Sard, who unites the couple in matrimony in the sight of all assembled..
Zhaola Gand stood on the top of her matrimonial pyramid, and called her beloved’s name.
“Loah-Ab Maal! Loah-Ab Maal!”
But there was no answering reply. She looked towards Loah-Ab’s pyramid. He was not there. He was late. He was very late. The guests began to drift away. He was not coming.
Zhaola found her betrothed at her sister Folehna's place. It was all very sordid.This was followed by weeks of depression for Zhaola and the wedding of Loah-Ab and Folehna.
She wished them all the happiness in the world, and she meant it. But her heart was shattered.
Get up. Go to work. Come home. Go to bed. The meaningless, repeating pattern was broken when the she-wolf appeared at her door.
She was not a real wolf, but an alien of lupine appearance. She offered a violet ring and lantern.
“Zhaola Gand, you have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphires.”
o o o
ONE MORE YEAR LATER
LIGHTNING RING FARMS, WINATH
Pol startled awake.
“What’s the matter?” asked his wife, alarmed.
“I forgot!” said Pol. “I can’t believe I forgot!”
“Forgot what?” mumbled Dacey, still half asleep.
“Bolograxx,” said Pol. “It’s a planet, part of the Tellarite Confederation. They need our help. Or, they needed our help. But somehow… I forgot about them.”
Violet light filled the room. The strange woman in the midst of it was seriously underdressed.
Dacey was completely awake now.
“Bolograxx is fine. I am Zhaola Gand, a Star Sapphire. After I found Bolograxx, I enlisted the aid of Algolla Drang, the Langstromite Green Lantern. Together, we placed a Green Power Battery and Violet Power Battery on Bolograxx, which will maintain their continued existence. Now if you will excuse me, I have several other individuals whose minds I need to calm who have suddenly remembered they were asked for help over the years.”
“You know the strangest people,” observed Dacey Krinn.
“I don’t know,” mused Pol. “Maybe we should put the Tellarite Confederation on our list of vacation destinations.”
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/21/23 06:29 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
THE COMING OF THE PHANTOM CATS
Passing through the Buffer Zone gave Dorrit a headache.
“I hear voices… so many voices,” said the Super-Hero Club’s Saturn Girl.
“It’s not surprising,” Irinia Apero replied. “Since Bgztlrs developed their phasing ability, there have been a number of our people who have phased into the Phantom Zone to escape death. No one knows how many. But my grandmother was a Thanataphobe.”
“I would think nearly everyone…” Saturn Girl began.
“Not as many as you would think,” said Phantom Girl. “There is a strong cultural taboo against it; we Bgztlrs are taught to accept death as a natural part of life. Also, people who are threatened with death from injury or chronic ailments spend their time in the Zone in unending pain. So it’s usually the elderly, dying of natural causes, and even they are often tempted to come back and visit their descendants. People usually only end up extending their life a few years using the Zone. But a few become permanent residents.”
“And animals,” said Saturn Girl. “I felt animal minds in the Zone.”
“Well, the Bgztlr Ghost Dove is pretty much the only native creature that accesses the Zone on a regular basis. They use it for hunting, and avoiding predators. Other animals either don’t have the ability or interest. Our biologists are often surprised when they find some new animal that does. It’s pretty rare… about as rare as parthenogenesis in higher mammals, I would guess.”
“And cats,” said Saturn Girl. “I do sense cats.”
“And that,” said Phantom Girl. “Is exactly why we are here.”
Ambassador Zhavby greeted the Members at Fgklv Patop City, the Planetary Capital of Bgztl.
“Kryptonian cats,” he said. “What do you know about the history of ancient Krypton?”
“Chel or Eulia would be better people to ask,” remarked Saturn Girl.
“Who?” the Ambassador inquired.
“Our members Mighty Lad and Shrinking Violet,” said Phantom Girl. “Both students of history.”
“Well,” said Ambassador Zhavby. “Over a thousand years ago, the planet Krypton appropriated a portion of the Buffer Zone as a prison for their worst criminals. Some were sentenced for only a few years, some for centuries. While this did remove these criminals from society, it was far from an ideal solution, and there were evidently objectors and reformers in Kryptonian society. There was a period when it was thought that providing the “Phantom Zone criminals” with companionship other than other criminals could be beneficial. In accordance with this, some in the Zone were provided with pets-- cats, to be specific.”
“The phasing of these animals into the Zone was disorienting and traumatic. They became feral, wild, and uncontrollable. Not bound to their masters, they roamed the Zone freely, lost and disoriented. Over the centuries, some were detected as much as hundreds of parsecs from Krypton. When their ‘masters’ fulfilled their sentences and were released, their pets were often nowhere to be found. We are asking you to join a task force to rescue and return those cats still roaming the Zone.”
“How will we know when we have found them all?” asked Saturn Girl.
“We have already inventoried the Zone,” said Ambassador Zhavby. “Let me introduce you to the Task Force we have already assembled.” He pressed a button on his desk and a door slid open. A dozen Bgzltr SP officers entered the room. There was also a Bokkite Saturnian woman, and a dark-haired girl in a colorful costume of hot pink-and-turquoise.
“This is Jawhara of New Titan, Earthside, an experienced telepath,” said Ambassador Zahvby. “And this is Vqzga Gzxbp, our own YKtzopok Girl. The planet Yzopok is in approximately the same area in the Bgztlr system as your planet Saturn is Earthside. There is something about that region of space, in both dimensions, that encourages development of mental powers.”
“Jawhara and I have determined that there are fewer than one hundred feline mind-signatures throughout the Zone,” Yzopok Girl explained. “As they are recovered, the numbers will become more certain. Those recovered from the Zone will be given a new home on Planet M-Thirty-Omega, a red-sun world where a mammaloid similar to the Terran or Kryptonian housecat is the dominant species,” added Yzopok Girl.
Ambassador Zhavgy produced two small lighted pyramids. “We are placing these psionic homing beacons on Bgztl and M-Thirty-Omega. Those who enter the Buffer Zone gain telepathic powers, so this will aid you in navigating the Zone. Each of you will also be provided with a bracelet which is also connected to the homing beacon.”
THE TENTH CAT
The Phantom Zone appeared to be coextensive with the Bgztlrside and Earthside Galaxies. Either that, or there was some sort of impenetrable barrier that marked the edges of the Galaxies. This reduced the search area to only a couple of trillion cubic parsecs.
Saturn Girl found her telepathic abilities substantially magnified in the Zone. Once Yzopok Girl had shown her how to identify the telepathic signature of the Kryptonian cats, they shone like tiny, bright lights in the purple-grey Buffer Zone sky
The searchers found it easiest to split up to find the cats. The Zone granted abilities which were mastered quickly. Saturn Girl found she could fly anywhere in the expanse at the speed of thought. Unfortunately, the cats could do the same. But she, Yzopok Girl, and Jawhara taught the Bgztlr SPs how to construct psionic nets to contain their targets. Then it was a matter of pinpointing the M-Thirty-Omega beacon, and taking the cats out of the Zone. Saturn Girl and Jawhara needed the help of a Bgztlr in leaving the Zone, so long-distance communication was an established need.
The work had gone quickly. There were only a couple of dozen cats left. Saturn Girl found nine herself. She chose one new bright light, checked to see no one else was targeting it, and flew / teleported across the Zone.
The Kryptonian cats were not entirely identical to Terran cats. This one was oddest of all: it had a neck-ruff that reminded Saturn Girl of a lion, but only the size of a housecat. It’s eyes were large, and intelligent-looking.
“{Hello, Saturn Girl},” said the cat. “{But you are not from Saturn, are you? Where is Why-Noth?}” The little lion-cat vanished. Saturn Girl scanned the Zone, and found the same bright pinpoint of light.
“{You are different},” said Saturn Girl. “{Different from the others in the Zone I have met.}”
“{Curious as a cat, you are},” said the cat. “{A few of us were once released into a goldstar world. When we were returned to the Zone, we lost most of our super-abilities, but retained our enhanced intelligence. Good-bye..}” The little lion-cat vanished again.
Saturn Girl scanned to Zone again. There was no trace of the spark she had recognized earlier. Perhaps it was blocking its thoughts? Saturn Girl concentrated, and looked harder. She found a flicker of cat-mind.
“{Can’t you just leave me alone}?” asked the cat. “{Why are you and your friends herding cats anyway?.}”
“{Don’t you want to leave the Zone}?” asked Saturn Girl. “{Return to a material existence in a material world?}”
“{The problem with advanced intelligence},” said the cat, “{Is that one gains an appreciation of one’s mortality. Why should I leave the Zone and live a brief life on some strange world, spending my time catching and eating vermin? When I can explore countless worlds for countless eons to come? We cats do have an insatiable curiosity, you know.}”
“{I see the issue},” said Saturn Girl. “{Will you come with me while I discuss this with my teammates? And not hide yourself?}”
“{For now},” said the cat, “{I can’t make any promises about the future.}”
“{My name is Dorrit Ranzz},” said Saturn Girl. “{What should I call you?}”
“{What is it with you humans?},” asked the cat.. “{Everything has to have a name. But I suppose you can call me Dhiviao Khahp.}”
They arrived at the location in the Phantom Zone which corresponded to Planet M-Thirty-Omega. Phantom Girl, Yzopok Girl, Jawhara, and all the SPs were already there. There were also two other phantom cats, neither of which resembled Dhiviao Khahp, and an elderly woman Dorrit did not recognize.
“{Well met by moonlight, brethren},” said Dhiviao Khahp.
“{Pretentious twit},” said one of the cats. The other sniffed, and turned its tail.
“{As I was telling your friends},” said the old woman to Saturn Girl, “{I can take care of my kittens.}”
“{This is Elinya, a Bgztlr Thanataphobe},” said Yzopok Girl.
“{I resent the characterization},” the old woman remarked.
“{At any rate, she has been caring for these cats for centuries},” said Tzopok Girl. Saturn Girl noted the three cat’s tails twitched in unison. “{And has assured us she can continue to take care of them. After all, there are only three.}”
“{Bgztl has taken responsibility for the Buffer Zone in the U.P.},” said one of the Science Police, “{I don’t need to tell you what havoc might result if even one of these Kryptonian cats were released on a goldstar world again.}”
“{We will behave ourselves. Won’t we, brethren},” said Dhiviao Khahp.
The other two cats were silent.
“{Very well, but the Bgztlr Science Police will continue to monitor the situation},” said another SP. “{These are the last Phanty-Cats in the Zone.}”
“{I don’t see what all the worry is},” said Elinya. “{My kittens haven’t been any problem to anyone in all the centuries I’ve known them.}”
THE COMING OF THE PHANTOM CATS
Passing through the Buffer Zone gave Dorrit a headache.
“I hear voices… so many voices,” said the Super-Hero Club’s Saturn Girl.
“It’s not surprising,” Irinia Apero replied. “Since Bgztlrs developed their phasing ability, there have been a number of our people who have phased into the Phantom Zone to escape death. No one knows how many. But my grandmother was a Thanataphobe.”
“I would think nearly everyone…” Saturn Girl began.
“Not as many as you would think,” said Phantom Girl. “There is a strong cultural taboo against it; we Bgztlrs are taught to accept death as a natural part of life. Also, people who are threatened with death from injury or chronic ailments spend their time in the Zone in unending pain. So it’s usually the elderly, dying of natural causes, and even they are often tempted to come back and visit their descendants. People usually only end up extending their life a few years using the Zone. But a few become permanent residents.”
“And animals,” said Saturn Girl. “I felt animal minds in the Zone.”
“Well, the Bgztlr Ghost Dove is pretty much the only native creature that accesses the Zone on a regular basis. They use it for hunting, and avoiding predators. Other animals either don’t have the ability or interest. Our biologists are often surprised when they find some new animal that does. It’s pretty rare… about as rare as parthenogenesis in higher mammals, I would guess.”
“And cats,” said Saturn Girl. “I do sense cats.”
“And that,” said Phantom Girl. “Is exactly why we are here.”
Ambassador Zhavby greeted the Members at Fgklv Patop City, the Planetary Capital of Bgztl.
“Kryptonian cats,” he said. “What do you know about the history of ancient Krypton?”
“Chel or Eulia would be better people to ask,” remarked Saturn Girl.
“Who?” the Ambassador inquired.
“Our members Mighty Lad and Shrinking Violet,” said Phantom Girl. “Both students of history.”
“Well,” said Ambassador Zhavby. “Over a thousand years ago, the planet Krypton appropriated a portion of the Buffer Zone as a prison for their worst criminals. Some were sentenced for only a few years, some for centuries. While this did remove these criminals from society, it was far from an ideal solution, and there were evidently objectors and reformers in Kryptonian society. There was a period when it was thought that providing the “Phantom Zone criminals” with companionship other than other criminals could be beneficial. In accordance with this, some in the Zone were provided with pets-- cats, to be specific.”
“The phasing of these animals into the Zone was disorienting and traumatic. They became feral, wild, and uncontrollable. Not bound to their masters, they roamed the Zone freely, lost and disoriented. Over the centuries, some were detected as much as hundreds of parsecs from Krypton. When their ‘masters’ fulfilled their sentences and were released, their pets were often nowhere to be found. We are asking you to join a task force to rescue and return those cats still roaming the Zone.”
“How will we know when we have found them all?” asked Saturn Girl.
“We have already inventoried the Zone,” said Ambassador Zhavby. “Let me introduce you to the Task Force we have already assembled.” He pressed a button on his desk and a door slid open. A dozen Bgzltr SP officers entered the room. There was also a Bokkite Saturnian woman, and a dark-haired girl in a colorful costume of hot pink-and-turquoise.
“This is Jawhara of New Titan, Earthside, an experienced telepath,” said Ambassador Zahvby. “And this is Vqzga Gzxbp, our own YKtzopok Girl. The planet Yzopok is in approximately the same area in the Bgztlr system as your planet Saturn is Earthside. There is something about that region of space, in both dimensions, that encourages development of mental powers.”
“Jawhara and I have determined that there are fewer than one hundred feline mind-signatures throughout the Zone,” Yzopok Girl explained. “As they are recovered, the numbers will become more certain. Those recovered from the Zone will be given a new home on Planet M-Thirty-Omega, a red-sun world where a mammaloid similar to the Terran or Kryptonian housecat is the dominant species,” added Yzopok Girl.
Ambassador Zhavgy produced two small lighted pyramids. “We are placing these psionic homing beacons on Bgztl and M-Thirty-Omega. Those who enter the Buffer Zone gain telepathic powers, so this will aid you in navigating the Zone. Each of you will also be provided with a bracelet which is also connected to the homing beacon.”
THE TENTH CAT
The Phantom Zone appeared to be coextensive with the Bgztlrside and Earthside Galaxies. Either that, or there was some sort of impenetrable barrier that marked the edges of the Galaxies. This reduced the search area to only a couple of trillion cubic parsecs.
Saturn Girl found her telepathic abilities substantially magnified in the Zone. Once Yzopok Girl had shown her how to identify the telepathic signature of the Kryptonian cats, they shone like tiny, bright lights in the purple-grey Buffer Zone sky
The searchers found it easiest to split up to find the cats. The Zone granted abilities which were mastered quickly. Saturn Girl found she could fly anywhere in the expanse at the speed of thought. Unfortunately, the cats could do the same. But she, Yzopok Girl, and Jawhara taught the Bgztlr SPs how to construct psionic nets to contain their targets. Then it was a matter of pinpointing the M-Thirty-Omega beacon, and taking the cats out of the Zone. Saturn Girl and Jawhara needed the help of a Bgztlr in leaving the Zone, so long-distance communication was an established need.
The work had gone quickly. There were only a couple of dozen cats left. Saturn Girl found nine herself. She chose one new bright light, checked to see no one else was targeting it, and flew / teleported across the Zone.
The Kryptonian cats were not entirely identical to Terran cats. This one was oddest of all: it had a neck-ruff that reminded Saturn Girl of a lion, but only the size of a housecat. It’s eyes were large, and intelligent-looking.
“{Hello, Saturn Girl},” said the cat. “{But you are not from Saturn, are you? Where is Why-Noth?}” The little lion-cat vanished. Saturn Girl scanned the Zone, and found the same bright pinpoint of light.
“{You are different},” said Saturn Girl. “{Different from the others in the Zone I have met.}”
“{Curious as a cat, you are},” said the cat. “{A few of us were once released into a goldstar world. When we were returned to the Zone, we lost most of our super-abilities, but retained our enhanced intelligence. Good-bye..}” The little lion-cat vanished again.
Saturn Girl scanned to Zone again. There was no trace of the spark she had recognized earlier. Perhaps it was blocking its thoughts? Saturn Girl concentrated, and looked harder. She found a flicker of cat-mind.
“{Can’t you just leave me alone}?” asked the cat. “{Why are you and your friends herding cats anyway?.}”
“{Don’t you want to leave the Zone}?” asked Saturn Girl. “{Return to a material existence in a material world?}”
“{The problem with advanced intelligence},” said the cat, “{Is that one gains an appreciation of one’s mortality. Why should I leave the Zone and live a brief life on some strange world, spending my time catching and eating vermin? When I can explore countless worlds for countless eons to come? We cats do have an insatiable curiosity, you know.}”
“{I see the issue},” said Saturn Girl. “{Will you come with me while I discuss this with my teammates? And not hide yourself?}”
“{For now},” said the cat, “{I can’t make any promises about the future.}”
“{My name is Dorrit Ranzz},” said Saturn Girl. “{What should I call you?}”
“{What is it with you humans?},” asked the cat.. “{Everything has to have a name. But I suppose you can call me Dhiviao Khahp.}”
They arrived at the location in the Phantom Zone which corresponded to Planet M-Thirty-Omega. Phantom Girl, Yzopok Girl, Jawhara, and all the SPs were already there. There were also two other phantom cats, neither of which resembled Dhiviao Khahp, and an elderly woman Dorrit did not recognize.
“{Well met by moonlight, brethren},” said Dhiviao Khahp.
“{Pretentious twit},” said one of the cats. The other sniffed, and turned its tail.
“{As I was telling your friends},” said the old woman to Saturn Girl, “{I can take care of my kittens.}”
“{This is Elinya, a Bgztlr Thanataphobe},” said Yzopok Girl.
“{I resent the characterization},” the old woman remarked.
“{At any rate, she has been caring for these cats for centuries},” said Tzopok Girl. Saturn Girl noted the three cat’s tails twitched in unison. “{And has assured us she can continue to take care of them. After all, there are only three.}”
“{Bgztl has taken responsibility for the Buffer Zone in the U.P.},” said one of the Science Police, “{I don’t need to tell you what havoc might result if even one of these Kryptonian cats were released on a goldstar world again.}”
“{We will behave ourselves. Won’t we, brethren},” said Dhiviao Khahp.
The other two cats were silent.
“{Very well, but the Bgztlr Science Police will continue to monitor the situation},” said another SP. “{These are the last Phanty-Cats in the Zone.}”
“{I don’t see what all the worry is},” said Elinya. “{My kittens haven’t been any problem to anyone in all the centuries I’ve known them.}”
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/24/23 12:11 AM
[b]CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
SPACE FEUD
At times it was useful to have a portable command base orbiting some local assignment, rather than simply using the Pentachoron. Thus the Super-Hero Club had liquidated some “gifts” and purchased a restored Mark 10 Legion Class Mini-Cruiser, which they had named the Venturer.
Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet were reviewing the day’s activities on Planet Verktyg far below.
“The Tophleghites are absolutely intractable,” Lightning Lass declared. “Not even membership in the U.P. will make them stand down.”
“The same is true of the inhabitants of the Odmurean continent,” Shrinking Violet said. “They present as a horde of noseless, pale-skinned barbarians. In the meantime, thousands die every year in bombing raids, and millions live in rotating refugee camps that move from one semi-safe spot to another.”
Lightning Lass nodded. “And there is the constant threat that one side or another will launch intercontinental nuclear weapons at some slight escalation of the conflict.”
“At least I learned,” said Shrinking Violet, “That the ultimate source of the conflict is a religious one. Each continent is inhabited by a majority of one of two religions. But so far I have been unable to tease out the doctrinal differences between the two. Both nominally follow the teachings in the Second Book of Zarquod, and consider the First Book of Zarquod heresy. In fact, they both call him the “false Zarquod” in the native language. I have been listening to sermons by preachers on both sides, and they even seem to rely on the same passages, and understand the same verses in an identical manner.”
“I saw engraved on several Tophleighite buildings a reference to II Zarquod 53:35,” said Lightning Lass. “I had to look it up in the database to verify exactly what it said.”
“Be gentle and courteous in disagreements with your friends and with your enemies, considering that you yourself may be in the wrong. If you are in the right, the Heavens will bless you; if you are wrong you may apologize in the future without embarrassment.”
“Of course, the Tophleighites say that does not apply to the Odmureans, as they themselves are cruel and discourteous.”
“And the Odmureans,” said Shrinking Violet, “Give the same opinion. I don’t see why the UP thinks that ‘heroes’ like us can succeed where their own ambassadors have failed.”
“Because so many have done it before,” said Lightning Lass. “Beginning with my Aunt Lluornu. But how to end a war that has lasted hundreds of years, where both sides are so entrenched… well, I have no idea.”
“Let’s switch teams tomorrow,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’ll take the Tophleighites, and you go talk to the Odmureans.”
o o o
The Odmurean General looked just like his Tophleighite counterpart, as far as Lightning Lass could tell. Tall, slender, and birdlike, with a tuft of scraggly feathers. There was a little child with him, looking beaten and emaciated.
“This is an example of Tophleighite cruelty,” said the General. “This child is an orphan, living with distant relatives in a refugee camp, his village recently destroyed by merciless attacks. This is why we keep on fighting. For our Freedom!”
“Do you want revenge for your parent’s deaths?” Lightning Lass asked the little child.
The orphan nodded, then said, “I just want the fighting to stop.” He looked at the General with some trepidation, afraid he had said something wrong.
“The child does not understand…” the General was saying.
Another member of the Council-- this one a Cleric of some kind-- entered the room, flustered and late. He took one look at Lightning Lass and gasped.
“This is not the one from yesterday,” said the Cleric.
“No,” said the General. “Yesterday she was meeting in the Tophleigh capital.”
“But they… “ the Cleric rushed out of the room, and returned with an old, tattered book.
“II Zarquod 24:7-8,” He said.
“And I will send you two teachers, before I come again, and you will listen to their words as though they were my own prophecies. And you will recognize them by their plumage, for one shall be black as smoke, and the other as red as fire.”
“And your lands will find peace and prosperity, your fields will produce in abundance, and none shall leave the nest of his childhood, nor wander alone as a stranger.”
“You and your companion must remain, and serve as our High Judges,” said the Cleric. “And bring to pass the Paradise Zarquod promised before his return.”
“Why me?” said Lightning Lass. “Why us? Why not ask this little orphan boy to be your judge, who only wants peace and quiet, an end to the war, a stable home and a full belly.”
The Cleric nearly trembled. “II Zarquod 24:42,” He read. “Are you unable to judge in the smallest matters? Rather appoint an innocent child as your Judge, for the foolishness of love and humility is greater than the wisdom of learning and guile.”
o o o
“You’ll never believe what happened,” said Shrinking Violet.
“II Zarquod 24:7?” asked Lightning Lass.
“They want us to stay at least forty days, in order to realign the government and oversee the disarmament,” Shrinking Violet reported. “I’ll send a message to Polar Lass that we are going to be delayed.”
“I think,” said Lightning Lass, “We should request a contingent of legal scholars and diplomats to assist us in rebuilding. From Dollworld, if possible.”
SPACE FEUD
At times it was useful to have a portable command base orbiting some local assignment, rather than simply using the Pentachoron. Thus the Super-Hero Club had liquidated some “gifts” and purchased a restored Mark 10 Legion Class Mini-Cruiser, which they had named the Venturer.
Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet were reviewing the day’s activities on Planet Verktyg far below.
“The Tophleghites are absolutely intractable,” Lightning Lass declared. “Not even membership in the U.P. will make them stand down.”
“The same is true of the inhabitants of the Odmurean continent,” Shrinking Violet said. “They present as a horde of noseless, pale-skinned barbarians. In the meantime, thousands die every year in bombing raids, and millions live in rotating refugee camps that move from one semi-safe spot to another.”
Lightning Lass nodded. “And there is the constant threat that one side or another will launch intercontinental nuclear weapons at some slight escalation of the conflict.”
“At least I learned,” said Shrinking Violet, “That the ultimate source of the conflict is a religious one. Each continent is inhabited by a majority of one of two religions. But so far I have been unable to tease out the doctrinal differences between the two. Both nominally follow the teachings in the Second Book of Zarquod, and consider the First Book of Zarquod heresy. In fact, they both call him the “false Zarquod” in the native language. I have been listening to sermons by preachers on both sides, and they even seem to rely on the same passages, and understand the same verses in an identical manner.”
“I saw engraved on several Tophleighite buildings a reference to II Zarquod 53:35,” said Lightning Lass. “I had to look it up in the database to verify exactly what it said.”
“Be gentle and courteous in disagreements with your friends and with your enemies, considering that you yourself may be in the wrong. If you are in the right, the Heavens will bless you; if you are wrong you may apologize in the future without embarrassment.”
“Of course, the Tophleighites say that does not apply to the Odmureans, as they themselves are cruel and discourteous.”
“And the Odmureans,” said Shrinking Violet, “Give the same opinion. I don’t see why the UP thinks that ‘heroes’ like us can succeed where their own ambassadors have failed.”
“Because so many have done it before,” said Lightning Lass. “Beginning with my Aunt Lluornu. But how to end a war that has lasted hundreds of years, where both sides are so entrenched… well, I have no idea.”
“Let’s switch teams tomorrow,” said Shrinking Violet. “I’ll take the Tophleighites, and you go talk to the Odmureans.”
o o o
The Odmurean General looked just like his Tophleighite counterpart, as far as Lightning Lass could tell. Tall, slender, and birdlike, with a tuft of scraggly feathers. There was a little child with him, looking beaten and emaciated.
“This is an example of Tophleighite cruelty,” said the General. “This child is an orphan, living with distant relatives in a refugee camp, his village recently destroyed by merciless attacks. This is why we keep on fighting. For our Freedom!”
“Do you want revenge for your parent’s deaths?” Lightning Lass asked the little child.
The orphan nodded, then said, “I just want the fighting to stop.” He looked at the General with some trepidation, afraid he had said something wrong.
“The child does not understand…” the General was saying.
Another member of the Council-- this one a Cleric of some kind-- entered the room, flustered and late. He took one look at Lightning Lass and gasped.
“This is not the one from yesterday,” said the Cleric.
“No,” said the General. “Yesterday she was meeting in the Tophleigh capital.”
“But they… “ the Cleric rushed out of the room, and returned with an old, tattered book.
“II Zarquod 24:7-8,” He said.
“And I will send you two teachers, before I come again, and you will listen to their words as though they were my own prophecies. And you will recognize them by their plumage, for one shall be black as smoke, and the other as red as fire.”
“And your lands will find peace and prosperity, your fields will produce in abundance, and none shall leave the nest of his childhood, nor wander alone as a stranger.”
“You and your companion must remain, and serve as our High Judges,” said the Cleric. “And bring to pass the Paradise Zarquod promised before his return.”
“Why me?” said Lightning Lass. “Why us? Why not ask this little orphan boy to be your judge, who only wants peace and quiet, an end to the war, a stable home and a full belly.”
The Cleric nearly trembled. “II Zarquod 24:42,” He read. “Are you unable to judge in the smallest matters? Rather appoint an innocent child as your Judge, for the foolishness of love and humility is greater than the wisdom of learning and guile.”
o o o
“You’ll never believe what happened,” said Shrinking Violet.
“II Zarquod 24:7?” asked Lightning Lass.
“They want us to stay at least forty days, in order to realign the government and oversee the disarmament,” Shrinking Violet reported. “I’ll send a message to Polar Lass that we are going to be delayed.”
“I think,” said Lightning Lass, “We should request a contingent of legal scholars and diplomats to assist us in rebuilding. From Dollworld, if possible.”
Re: MORE STORIES - 01/28/23 01:45 AM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
A FAREWELL TO FRIENDS
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/fb4ea33760dc773a6e001585006c5f80/58c29420fec98fff-73/s1280x1920/1c99c6ca999e893ce17a871e7456e8dc18eec8b0.png)
“Ten, we have entered the San Shimai System,” said Korvea.
The little Coluan sat motionless, unresponsive.
“Ten, we need the monitor screen,” said Korvea. “We will be dropping into Cargggan orbit soon.”
“He’s meditating,” said Ffiona. “Let him. We can contact the Spaceport Authority on our ‘phones.”
“I think it is unprofessional and unhelpful,” Korvea complained.
“I sometimes think we made a mistake,” said Ffiona, “Allowing someone so young onto the team. But he was one of the founders-- back when the Super-Hero Club was just a dream.”
“The Spaceport Authority has contacted us,” said Ffarrah. “They will be sending a null-grav shuttle to dock with us, and bring us down to the planet.”
“I’m a little nervous,” said Ffey.
“So this is it.” said Korvea. “You have said your farewells. You are leaving.”
"We're leaving," said Ffiona.
"With the Super-Hero Club, we've done,” said Chameleon “More than we thought we would ever do."
He was dressed in a masculine version of the Triplicate’s tunic and cape-- something of a cultural costume on Carggg.
"We will be in time for the Feast of Ve Lar," Ffey told Korvea.
"A great celebration," said Chameleon. "Held for three days every three years. A time to remember family, and reach out to friends. A time of feasting and thanksgiving."
"And a time to ask for and receive forgiveness," said Ffarrah. "It is said that one who begs forgiveness on the second day of the Feast of Ve Lar must be accepted."
"You are trying to reconcile with your family?" asked Korvea.
"And we will be introducing Chameleon to them as well," said Ffiona. "And hoping for… acceptance."
The null-grav shuttle arrived. Chameleon and the Triplicates boarded the driverless vehicle, and began the slow, controlled fall to the planet’s surface.
"Guess who's coming to dinner?" mused Korvea.
A FAREWELL TO FRIENDS
“Ten, we have entered the San Shimai System,” said Korvea.
The little Coluan sat motionless, unresponsive.
“Ten, we need the monitor screen,” said Korvea. “We will be dropping into Cargggan orbit soon.”
“He’s meditating,” said Ffiona. “Let him. We can contact the Spaceport Authority on our ‘phones.”
“I think it is unprofessional and unhelpful,” Korvea complained.
“I sometimes think we made a mistake,” said Ffiona, “Allowing someone so young onto the team. But he was one of the founders-- back when the Super-Hero Club was just a dream.”
“The Spaceport Authority has contacted us,” said Ffarrah. “They will be sending a null-grav shuttle to dock with us, and bring us down to the planet.”
“I’m a little nervous,” said Ffey.
“So this is it.” said Korvea. “You have said your farewells. You are leaving.”
"We're leaving," said Ffiona.
"With the Super-Hero Club, we've done,” said Chameleon “More than we thought we would ever do."
He was dressed in a masculine version of the Triplicate’s tunic and cape-- something of a cultural costume on Carggg.
"We will be in time for the Feast of Ve Lar," Ffey told Korvea.
"A great celebration," said Chameleon. "Held for three days every three years. A time to remember family, and reach out to friends. A time of feasting and thanksgiving."
"And a time to ask for and receive forgiveness," said Ffarrah. "It is said that one who begs forgiveness on the second day of the Feast of Ve Lar must be accepted."
"You are trying to reconcile with your family?" asked Korvea.
"And we will be introducing Chameleon to them as well," said Ffiona. "And hoping for… acceptance."
The null-grav shuttle arrived. Chameleon and the Triplicates boarded the driverless vehicle, and began the slow, controlled fall to the planet’s surface.
"Guess who's coming to dinner?" mused Korvea.
Re: MORE STORIES - 02/01/23 03:04 PM
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
THE FLOWER COLLECTOR
Matter-Eater Lad Junior and Polar Lass had been left to tend the Clubhouse together alone, with the exception of the Circadians manning the Pentachoron.
“You can call me Joy, the Jolly Lama,” said the clown-faced girl. “I’m a Poglachian.”
“It says here,” said Polar Lass, consulting her ‘phone, “That Poglachians are a Class-A Alien threat, and we could be breaking UP law just by talking to you.”
The Jolly Lama could scarcely have looked less threatening. Under four feet tall, she had climbed out of a little car half her size that had suddenly appeared on a walkway in front of the Clubhouse.
“Don’t panic,” she said. “I’ve got a Visitor’s Passport from Weber’s World.” She held up the little holo-card with the flag and official insignia of the United Planets. A holo of Joy herself, and the words ‘Mostly Harmless’ were printed in large, friendly letters.
“Poglachians are Maltusian emigrants, of the same racial stock as the Guardians, Zamarons, and Controllers. Like all our cousins, we have a degree of telekinetic ability, though most of the Poblachians use their abilities for frivolous and fatuous entertainments. I am something of a rebel, and seek to use my powers for more serious and heroic pursuits.”
“But you still wear the odd face make-up of your culture,” noted Polar Lass.
“I don’t want to not be a Poglachian,” said the Jolly Lama. “I want to reform things from the inside, to be an example to others of what we can be if we really try.”
“So you are applying to become a member of the Super-Hero Club?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “You could have applied at our site on the Intergalactic Web.”
There was a disturbance as two Science Police vehicles flew over the Clubhouse.
Suddenly, not far away, a strange tower shot up from the ground, demolishing one of the SP flyers. An immense sequoia redwood, over one hundred meters tall, now stood just north of the Clubhouse.
“I’ll see if there are any survivors,” said Polar Lass, rising into the air. “Hil, you check out what- or who- the SPs are fighting.”
“I… um… maybe I should come back another time?” stammered the Jolly Lama, scurrying toward her peculiar little vehicle. It flickered and vanished with a pop.
Matter-Eater Lad Junior headed north, to where the remaining SP vehicle had landed. It was buried beneath a tangled heap of twisting red vines. The young Bismollian attacked the vines immediately, biting and chewing his way to the ship beneath. The vines were tough and chewy, and grew back at an incredible rate. Hillary was making little progress.
The sky split open in a ragged green slash. The members of the New Justice League of Earth came pouring out into the Martian sky.
“Stand down, Bismollian,” shouted Dr. Shakespeare. “That is Crimson Tanglethorn, from the forests of Daxam. I doubt you will make much headway. Let the League take care of this.”
The Cyborg Manhunter produced a squarish lantern of green metal, seemingly out of thin air, and its emerald radiation slowly disintegrated the plant. Two grateful SP’s emerged, just as Polar Lass was descending with two more from the tops of the giant conifer. With a nod from Dr. Shakespeare, the seven Leaguers and the four SPs took off over a low hill to the north.
“They weren’t very grateful for my rescue,” said Polar Lass. “Just sent an SOS to Earth for backup.”
“Well, they got it,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “The whole Justice League, here on Mars again. What’s over that hill, an alien invasion?”
The woman called Rush came flying backwards from over the dune, limbs splayed at awkward angles, and landed unconscious at the feet of Polar Lass.
“She looks badly injured,” said Kylda. “I’ll call Emergency in New Metropolis, and you go and see what’s going on over there.”
Without hesitation, Matter-Eater Lad Junior lifted his flight ring and rose into the air, heading north.
The four SP officers were standing in a group, shocked. Hillarie recognized the diminutive Plover Zegg, Officers Howard and Jerome, as well as a tall, broad, turban-clad SP who must be new to the force.
Doctor Shakespeare was lying unconscious on the ground, surrounded by a glowing red mist.
Jordana Gardner and the Cyborg Manhunter were also incapacitated, trembling and occasionally vomiting.
Devil-Fish and Princess Xenobia were bound with the same Crimson Tanglethorn that had immobilized the SP vessel. The Princess’ sword lay useless in the sand, a few feet away.
Only the Bat-Woman of Pluto was still standing. She was facing off against a hefty man in later middle-age, dressed all in green, with long, stringy gray-green hair. In one hand he held a mass of some kind of seaweed.
“Please don’t make me eat more of this sauncha,” the older man was saying. “I can already feel it affecting my reason, and I really don’t want to hurt you.”
The mysterious Bat-Woman said nothing, but suddenly crumpled to the ground, joining her companions.
“A psionic attack?” said the older man. “That was a mistake. I have a special affinity with the plant world, and my little friends will not allow me to come to harm.” He stepped aside, showing a small garden of martian Zo’Ok, in a small cave facing the sea. “All I ask is that you let me take one of you with me,” he said, addressing the little yellow octagonal flowers.
“No!” shouted Officer Howard. “He must not be allowed to acquire even one of those flowers!”
“Why not?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “Chameleon wore a Zo’Ok for several months, only returning it to this cave garden when he left for Carggg.”
“This man,” said Officer Howard, “Is a person of interest in a number of botanical thefts across the Galaxy. We have orders to bring him in for questioning.”
“Tenzil?” asked the older man, apparently noticing Matter-Eater Lad Junior for the first time. “Tenzil, old friend, you… what has happened to you? You look so young.”
“I am not Tenzil Kem,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “Although also a Bismollian. My name is Hillarie Norjay, but no relation to Mr. Kem. Please, can you just talk with the SPs?”
“The sauncha…” sighed the sage-haired man. “It makes it so hard to think straight… You had better get Doctor Shakespeare to the hospital, I poisoned him with Bloodmorel… it has a powerful effect on Kryptonians… the lanternbearers… are experiencing a severe allergic reaction to starmold… will probably need care soon…”
Polar Lass came rising over the dune.
“I sent Rush off with the paramedics,” she reported. “Oh, but I think I need to call them back!”
Seeing the purple-and-gray-clad Tharran awoke a sudden wild madness in the older man’s eyes. “No!” he cried. “I won’t go back! I need the power to help my son!” He reached into one of the large pockets on his belt, and pulled out a small, purple, star-shaped flower. As he tossed it towards the SPs, it began to grow and change, metamorphosing into a huge, misshapen orange-and-purple giant.
“Defend me, my Ayrie!” cried the man in green.
“What have you done?” bellowed the giant. “It is not yet the time… and I am hideous!” It lifted its arms, one clearly much larger than the other, and examined them with its mismatched eyes. The ends of its flowing violet hair were partially rooted in its hunchback. It turned its eye on the older man, now almost manic with fear. “But you are suffering,” said the Ayrie. It reached out a finger, and touched him on the forehead. The old man was thrown back into the garden cave, stunned, as the Ayrie took to the skies. Matter-Eater Lad Junior took advantage of the situation to relieve the stranger of his many-pocketed belt. Polar Lass was on her ‘phone with the New Metropolis paramedics again.
“The Zo’Ok,” the stranger moaned. “My little friends… But they have rejected me… we will not bond…” He lapsed into unconsciousness.
o o o
“The Justice League Headquarters on Earth would be more appropriate,” insisted Doctor Shakespeare sulkily.
Polar Lass and Matter-Eater Lad Junior were joined at the Super-Hero Club conference table by the seven recovered Leaguers, the four SPs, and the green-clad stranger.. New Metropolis Police Chief H’Haramas, had now also joined the group.
“Ral Benem, of Mardru,” the Chief addressed the prisoner.. “You hhave has been observed raiding Botanical Museums throughout the U.P. of rare and exotic plants. As these incidents occurred on a number of planets and installations, the precise nature and number of charges against you is to me determined by the U.P.’s Attorney General.”
“But the Ayrie has healed me of my madness,” offered Ral Benem. “The sauncha… it is addictive, and… has side effects similar to a super-steroid. I have not been in my right mind for some time now.”
“Why did you begin abusing thhe saunchha at all?” asked Polar Lass.
“It's my youngest son, Phil,” said Ral Benem. “I needed enough power to find him and confront him and his… friends. He has… I can’t say he’s running around with the wrong crowd. He’s created a wrong crowd to run around with.”
“Thhis is thhe so-called New Legion of Substitute Villains?” asked Chief H’Haramas.
“He is… embarrassed by my past,” said Ral Benem. “He created this group as a mockery of the super-hero club I belonged to in my youth. He calls himself ‘Phil Kid’, and has recruited a number of other metahuman teens to join him. With ridiculous, derisive code names. ‘Tuesday Night Girl’, ‘Tadpolar Boy’, ‘Watercolor Kid’, ‘Misfire Lad’, ‘Gallstone Boy’...”
“We are aware of these delinquents,” interrupted Doctor Shakespeare. “But they are mostly harmless. Graffiti, mischievous pranks, and some minor vandalism.”
“And far from Earth, or Weber’s World, or the central U.P.,” said Ral Benem. “I know, everyone ignores them. But this is my son… and their ‘pranks’ are becoming more dangerous. I need to stop them before… Phil gets in some real trouble.”
“And now you are in some real trouble yourself,” commented Doctor Shakespeare. “Some of the specimens you have stolen are irreplaceable. The Ayrie, for example, was being held in trust for its entire species.”
“I understand,” said Ral Benem. “I will return what I still have, and what I don’t… well, I am not a rich man, but I will do what I can.”
“It will be up to the authorities,” said the Bat-Woman of Pluto. “But I expect there will be some Rehabilitation involved. Certainly not Takron-Galtos, but one of the lesser Prison Planets.”
Ral Benem turned to Matter-Eater Lad Junior and Polar Lass. “Can you and your companions help me? Stop my son and his ‘villain’ club before they go too far. Talk some sense into them, perhaps?”
“How old is Phil?” asked Polar Lass.
“He will turn fifteen in a couple of months. He left home on his fourteenth birthday. It broke Cutie’s heart.”
“So technically an adult,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “But still mostly a kid.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Ral Benem.
o o o
“Despite their absurd code-names,” Star-Woman was saying, “Phil Benem has assembled a powerful group of metahuman followers.”
“Phil himself has no powers, but displays inherent leadership capabilities. The rest seem to follow him unreservedly.”
“The young woman called Tuesday Night Girl is actually a young Almeracian warrior, untrained, but with enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and agility.”
“The one in the frog costume is called Tadpolar Boy. We have learned his real name is Strove Rogarth. Born on Takron-Galtos, he is the son of Clave Rogarth of Avalon. While his father had the Strength of Voldar, Strove possesses the Stamina of Marzosh.”
“Watercolor Kid is a Zyzan, with access to Zyzan holographic shape-shifting technology. He has used this technology to make the entire team invisible at one point.”
“Misfire Lad, a mutant Venturan expatriate, has probability-altering powers. He is generally able to cause others to experience bad luck, and for his team to experience good luck, although sometimes his powers backfire.”
“Gallstone Boy is a young crystalline Barrion, and one of Phil Benems’ earliest recruits. In addition to being resistant to energy-based attacks, his race also possesses thirteen highly refined senses. He is generally used as the lookout for the group.”
THE FLOWER COLLECTOR
Matter-Eater Lad Junior and Polar Lass had been left to tend the Clubhouse together alone, with the exception of the Circadians manning the Pentachoron.
“You can call me Joy, the Jolly Lama,” said the clown-faced girl. “I’m a Poglachian.”
“It says here,” said Polar Lass, consulting her ‘phone, “That Poglachians are a Class-A Alien threat, and we could be breaking UP law just by talking to you.”
The Jolly Lama could scarcely have looked less threatening. Under four feet tall, she had climbed out of a little car half her size that had suddenly appeared on a walkway in front of the Clubhouse.
“Don’t panic,” she said. “I’ve got a Visitor’s Passport from Weber’s World.” She held up the little holo-card with the flag and official insignia of the United Planets. A holo of Joy herself, and the words ‘Mostly Harmless’ were printed in large, friendly letters.
“Poglachians are Maltusian emigrants, of the same racial stock as the Guardians, Zamarons, and Controllers. Like all our cousins, we have a degree of telekinetic ability, though most of the Poblachians use their abilities for frivolous and fatuous entertainments. I am something of a rebel, and seek to use my powers for more serious and heroic pursuits.”
“But you still wear the odd face make-up of your culture,” noted Polar Lass.
“I don’t want to not be a Poglachian,” said the Jolly Lama. “I want to reform things from the inside, to be an example to others of what we can be if we really try.”
“So you are applying to become a member of the Super-Hero Club?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “You could have applied at our site on the Intergalactic Web.”
There was a disturbance as two Science Police vehicles flew over the Clubhouse.
Suddenly, not far away, a strange tower shot up from the ground, demolishing one of the SP flyers. An immense sequoia redwood, over one hundred meters tall, now stood just north of the Clubhouse.
“I’ll see if there are any survivors,” said Polar Lass, rising into the air. “Hil, you check out what- or who- the SPs are fighting.”
“I… um… maybe I should come back another time?” stammered the Jolly Lama, scurrying toward her peculiar little vehicle. It flickered and vanished with a pop.
Matter-Eater Lad Junior headed north, to where the remaining SP vehicle had landed. It was buried beneath a tangled heap of twisting red vines. The young Bismollian attacked the vines immediately, biting and chewing his way to the ship beneath. The vines were tough and chewy, and grew back at an incredible rate. Hillary was making little progress.
The sky split open in a ragged green slash. The members of the New Justice League of Earth came pouring out into the Martian sky.
“Stand down, Bismollian,” shouted Dr. Shakespeare. “That is Crimson Tanglethorn, from the forests of Daxam. I doubt you will make much headway. Let the League take care of this.”
The Cyborg Manhunter produced a squarish lantern of green metal, seemingly out of thin air, and its emerald radiation slowly disintegrated the plant. Two grateful SP’s emerged, just as Polar Lass was descending with two more from the tops of the giant conifer. With a nod from Dr. Shakespeare, the seven Leaguers and the four SPs took off over a low hill to the north.
“They weren’t very grateful for my rescue,” said Polar Lass. “Just sent an SOS to Earth for backup.”
“Well, they got it,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “The whole Justice League, here on Mars again. What’s over that hill, an alien invasion?”
The woman called Rush came flying backwards from over the dune, limbs splayed at awkward angles, and landed unconscious at the feet of Polar Lass.
“She looks badly injured,” said Kylda. “I’ll call Emergency in New Metropolis, and you go and see what’s going on over there.”
Without hesitation, Matter-Eater Lad Junior lifted his flight ring and rose into the air, heading north.
The four SP officers were standing in a group, shocked. Hillarie recognized the diminutive Plover Zegg, Officers Howard and Jerome, as well as a tall, broad, turban-clad SP who must be new to the force.
Doctor Shakespeare was lying unconscious on the ground, surrounded by a glowing red mist.
Jordana Gardner and the Cyborg Manhunter were also incapacitated, trembling and occasionally vomiting.
Devil-Fish and Princess Xenobia were bound with the same Crimson Tanglethorn that had immobilized the SP vessel. The Princess’ sword lay useless in the sand, a few feet away.
Only the Bat-Woman of Pluto was still standing. She was facing off against a hefty man in later middle-age, dressed all in green, with long, stringy gray-green hair. In one hand he held a mass of some kind of seaweed.
“Please don’t make me eat more of this sauncha,” the older man was saying. “I can already feel it affecting my reason, and I really don’t want to hurt you.”
The mysterious Bat-Woman said nothing, but suddenly crumpled to the ground, joining her companions.
“A psionic attack?” said the older man. “That was a mistake. I have a special affinity with the plant world, and my little friends will not allow me to come to harm.” He stepped aside, showing a small garden of martian Zo’Ok, in a small cave facing the sea. “All I ask is that you let me take one of you with me,” he said, addressing the little yellow octagonal flowers.
“No!” shouted Officer Howard. “He must not be allowed to acquire even one of those flowers!”
“Why not?” asked Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “Chameleon wore a Zo’Ok for several months, only returning it to this cave garden when he left for Carggg.”
“This man,” said Officer Howard, “Is a person of interest in a number of botanical thefts across the Galaxy. We have orders to bring him in for questioning.”
“Tenzil?” asked the older man, apparently noticing Matter-Eater Lad Junior for the first time. “Tenzil, old friend, you… what has happened to you? You look so young.”
“I am not Tenzil Kem,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “Although also a Bismollian. My name is Hillarie Norjay, but no relation to Mr. Kem. Please, can you just talk with the SPs?”
“The sauncha…” sighed the sage-haired man. “It makes it so hard to think straight… You had better get Doctor Shakespeare to the hospital, I poisoned him with Bloodmorel… it has a powerful effect on Kryptonians… the lanternbearers… are experiencing a severe allergic reaction to starmold… will probably need care soon…”
Polar Lass came rising over the dune.
“I sent Rush off with the paramedics,” she reported. “Oh, but I think I need to call them back!”
Seeing the purple-and-gray-clad Tharran awoke a sudden wild madness in the older man’s eyes. “No!” he cried. “I won’t go back! I need the power to help my son!” He reached into one of the large pockets on his belt, and pulled out a small, purple, star-shaped flower. As he tossed it towards the SPs, it began to grow and change, metamorphosing into a huge, misshapen orange-and-purple giant.
“Defend me, my Ayrie!” cried the man in green.
“What have you done?” bellowed the giant. “It is not yet the time… and I am hideous!” It lifted its arms, one clearly much larger than the other, and examined them with its mismatched eyes. The ends of its flowing violet hair were partially rooted in its hunchback. It turned its eye on the older man, now almost manic with fear. “But you are suffering,” said the Ayrie. It reached out a finger, and touched him on the forehead. The old man was thrown back into the garden cave, stunned, as the Ayrie took to the skies. Matter-Eater Lad Junior took advantage of the situation to relieve the stranger of his many-pocketed belt. Polar Lass was on her ‘phone with the New Metropolis paramedics again.
“The Zo’Ok,” the stranger moaned. “My little friends… But they have rejected me… we will not bond…” He lapsed into unconsciousness.
o o o
“The Justice League Headquarters on Earth would be more appropriate,” insisted Doctor Shakespeare sulkily.
Polar Lass and Matter-Eater Lad Junior were joined at the Super-Hero Club conference table by the seven recovered Leaguers, the four SPs, and the green-clad stranger.. New Metropolis Police Chief H’Haramas, had now also joined the group.
“Ral Benem, of Mardru,” the Chief addressed the prisoner.. “You hhave has been observed raiding Botanical Museums throughout the U.P. of rare and exotic plants. As these incidents occurred on a number of planets and installations, the precise nature and number of charges against you is to me determined by the U.P.’s Attorney General.”
“But the Ayrie has healed me of my madness,” offered Ral Benem. “The sauncha… it is addictive, and… has side effects similar to a super-steroid. I have not been in my right mind for some time now.”
“Why did you begin abusing thhe saunchha at all?” asked Polar Lass.
“It's my youngest son, Phil,” said Ral Benem. “I needed enough power to find him and confront him and his… friends. He has… I can’t say he’s running around with the wrong crowd. He’s created a wrong crowd to run around with.”
“Thhis is thhe so-called New Legion of Substitute Villains?” asked Chief H’Haramas.
“He is… embarrassed by my past,” said Ral Benem. “He created this group as a mockery of the super-hero club I belonged to in my youth. He calls himself ‘Phil Kid’, and has recruited a number of other metahuman teens to join him. With ridiculous, derisive code names. ‘Tuesday Night Girl’, ‘Tadpolar Boy’, ‘Watercolor Kid’, ‘Misfire Lad’, ‘Gallstone Boy’...”
“We are aware of these delinquents,” interrupted Doctor Shakespeare. “But they are mostly harmless. Graffiti, mischievous pranks, and some minor vandalism.”
“And far from Earth, or Weber’s World, or the central U.P.,” said Ral Benem. “I know, everyone ignores them. But this is my son… and their ‘pranks’ are becoming more dangerous. I need to stop them before… Phil gets in some real trouble.”
“And now you are in some real trouble yourself,” commented Doctor Shakespeare. “Some of the specimens you have stolen are irreplaceable. The Ayrie, for example, was being held in trust for its entire species.”
“I understand,” said Ral Benem. “I will return what I still have, and what I don’t… well, I am not a rich man, but I will do what I can.”
“It will be up to the authorities,” said the Bat-Woman of Pluto. “But I expect there will be some Rehabilitation involved. Certainly not Takron-Galtos, but one of the lesser Prison Planets.”
Ral Benem turned to Matter-Eater Lad Junior and Polar Lass. “Can you and your companions help me? Stop my son and his ‘villain’ club before they go too far. Talk some sense into them, perhaps?”
“How old is Phil?” asked Polar Lass.
“He will turn fifteen in a couple of months. He left home on his fourteenth birthday. It broke Cutie’s heart.”
“So technically an adult,” said Matter-Eater Lad Junior. “But still mostly a kid.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Ral Benem.
o o o
“Despite their absurd code-names,” Star-Woman was saying, “Phil Benem has assembled a powerful group of metahuman followers.”
“Phil himself has no powers, but displays inherent leadership capabilities. The rest seem to follow him unreservedly.”
“The young woman called Tuesday Night Girl is actually a young Almeracian warrior, untrained, but with enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and agility.”
“The one in the frog costume is called Tadpolar Boy. We have learned his real name is Strove Rogarth. Born on Takron-Galtos, he is the son of Clave Rogarth of Avalon. While his father had the Strength of Voldar, Strove possesses the Stamina of Marzosh.”
“Watercolor Kid is a Zyzan, with access to Zyzan holographic shape-shifting technology. He has used this technology to make the entire team invisible at one point.”
“Misfire Lad, a mutant Venturan expatriate, has probability-altering powers. He is generally able to cause others to experience bad luck, and for his team to experience good luck, although sometimes his powers backfire.”
“Gallstone Boy is a young crystalline Barrion, and one of Phil Benems’ earliest recruits. In addition to being resistant to energy-based attacks, his race also possesses thirteen highly refined senses. He is generally used as the lookout for the group.”
Re: MORE STORIES - 02/27/23 03:23 PM
=======================================================================
“If you can quit, then quit. If you can't quit, you're a writer.”
-- R.A. Salvatore
=======================================================================
![[Linked Image from media.tenor.com]](https://media.tenor.com/hwSJehU-c7gAAAAM/somebody-stop-me-jim-carrey.gif)
“If you can quit, then quit. If you can't quit, you're a writer.”
-- R.A. Salvatore
=======================================================================
Young Legion Book 3 - 02/27/23 04:03 PM
It is Darian year 752 on Mars, corresponding to Earth year 3023 CE.
It has been seven years, Earth-standard, since the Super Hero Club was formed
Their iridescent clubhouse lies just outside New Metropolis, on the shores of the New Hellespont.
Roll Call
(O1) Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath (Saturn Girl) (age: 23)
- Telepathy
(O2) Irinia Apero of Bgztl, Gnohhon System (Phantom Girl) (age: 22)
- Intangibility
(O3) Txarlz Luz 4523 of Colu (Ten) (age: 14)
- 1Oth-level intelligence
(O4) Korvea Mallor of Talok VIII (Korvea) (age: 19)
- Shadow-casting, Avian form, Enhanced Healing
(O5) Chel-Eb of Rokyn (Mighty Lad) (age: 19)
- Kryptonian Power Set
(O6) Vqzga (Viqi) Gzxbp of Yzopok, Gnohhon System (Yzopok Girl) (age: 22)
- Intangibility, Telepathy, Telekinesis
(O7) Arna Nah of Gzbk, Gnohhon System (Kid Ultraboy) (age: 21)
- Intangibility, Kryptonian Power Set (one at a time)
(O8) Ghurwil Tanr'r of Jaquaa (Alter Boy) (age: 21)
- Able to assume various monstrous forms, with a wide array of powers and abilities. There is a certain necessary randomness to his powers.
(O9) Luto Kabillian of Pantano, Antares System (Sludge) (age: 14)
- Able to produce a biological slime, and control its coefficient of friction
(1O) Juno Kazan of Witchhaven (Magissa) (age: 14)
- Magical abilities, with an emphasis on potion-making
=======================================================================
“The Club has always been small,” Irinia insisted. “We have been down to ten members before.”
“True enough,” Dorrit replied. “But I had always envisioned the Super-Hero Club as an organization for young and aspiring heroes. We have only three members under the age of nineteen now.”
“To keep a group that young would require rapid turnover,” noted Txalrz Luz, “Unless we were accepting members as young as I was when I was recruited.”
“The obvious answer is to recruit more members,” said Chel-Eb. “The Legion on Deimos has over fifty members, some of whom might be interested in joining us Marsside.”
“It seems unlikely. Sadly, many of them display very limited abilities, or have not achieved very good control over them,” noted Korvea. “And I am deeply suspicious of their coterie of artificial beings.”
"We have been lacking a versatile shape-shifter for years, ever since Chameleon left us," said Txarlz Luz. “Not to denigrate the impressive abilities of Korvea and Alter Boy, but their alternate forms are not conducive to, for example, disguise. Fortunately, there are a number of elasomorphic races in the Galaxy. Unfortunately, the Hagenites, the Vuldarians, the Tormocks, the Shoggoths of Yuggoth, the Farfarmniflatch and the various Children of Ra, have a deserved reputation for instability. Zelbon lies beyond the United Planets, for now. Which leaves the Bokkites of New Titan, the Antarean Proteans, the Durlans, of course, and the Iuquhu, and the Nyorpans as possible recruits. Or, we might also might consider the Zyzans, with their holographic disguise technology. Or if we could find any surviving aboriginal Martians. Or a Cryll."
"There was the ancient Oberon family on Earth," said Arna Nah. "Shape-shifting superheroes for several generations. Perhaps some of them survived into the 31st century?"
"Some texts attest their family name as O'Brien," said Txarlz. "Even if we could find them, our direct recruitment efforts have proven futile over the years. It seems we must wait for young heroes to seek us out. Thus the try-out application process."
“We are competing with Deimos as well now,” noted Dorrit.
"Why not," said Irinia, "Find the individual with a heroic temperament first, and give them powers afterward? Not necessarily shape-shifting. But there is certainly enough obscure technology floating around that we could cobble together a sort of workable power-suit."
"Quite true," said Txarlz. "We might consider a Coluan force-shield. A Zyzan holo-projector. Telepathic technology from Brrym. Any number of strength-enhancing exo-skeletons."
"The question is," said Irinia, "Who?"
"'Who?' is a good question," Ten replied.
o o o
A day later he announced: "I have been examining the populations of Mars and Earth, and I believe I have found a candidate."
"She is fourteen years old. She has featured in several feel-good, 'human-interest' stories over the past few years. Appearing in choirs, popularizing local gardening co-ops, that sort of thing. She is also the developer of a new application to quantum communications security that has revolutionized the field. Even as a Coluan, I am impressed with her approach."
"So, intelligent, involved in Community Service, exemplary moral character,” said Dorrit. “Who is this Wonder Girl?"
"Her name is Speophania Brojj," said Ten. "She lives on Earth, in the Old New Rochelle borough of Metropolis."
"{An excellent suggestion}" said a voice from nowhere.
o o o
The young girl sat in the hoverchair, her legs useless, facing the wallscreen. She alternately scanned the daily newsholos and her personal mailfeed.
“Spiffany, there’s someone here to see you,” said Flynt Brojj. The tall woman looked about forty, brown hair lightly streaked with grey. Her eyes could have been a thousand years old.
“Your father tells me that even 31st-century Daxamite medicine is unable to cure your disability.”
“There is nothing to cure,” Speophania replied. “I was born this way. It is inconvenient sometimes, but I have my hoverchair, and exoskeletal prosthetics when I need to go out. I will admit they are a little uncomfortable. But we must all seek to live our best lives with the gifts we have been given.”
“If only more had your attitude,” said the older woman. “But I am here to add one more to your gifts, if you will accept it.” She set down a holo-crystal. An image flared of a girl who looked a great deal like Spiffany, perhaps a few years older. Her lower limbs were shapely, not shriveled, and she seemed to hover in the air. She wore a garish costume of purple, silver and gold.
“Enhanced strength, speed, durability, and intelligence. The power of flight, and a kind of oracular clairvoyance to enhance the senses. Some psychic control over the natural elements: stone, wind, lightning, and fire. All at Daxamite power levels, at a minimum.”
“Who is she?” asked Spiffany Brojj.
“She is you,” replied the tall woman. “If you will accept my gift.”
“What’s the catch?” asked Spiffany suspiciously.
“If you accept this gift, you must use these powers for good. But you have already learned to use your natural powers for good. And there is always the possibility of returning to your natural state again.”
“How?” asked Spiffany.
“Magic. I come from Tharn, the Sorcerer's World. You may call me Mariam Abraxas. My sorcerous specialty is granting others the powers and gifts of ancient gods and heroes. I was working on a mnemonic to help you remember your powers… the Speed of Atalanta, the Wind Power of Aeolus, the Wisdom of Juno, Invulnerability of Baldur or Siegfried, the Oracles of Apollo... but it was just too much. You are a bright girl, and I don’t think that is really necessary? I have already cast the required spells. Just say my name-- Abraxas-- to accept this gift.”
“Abraxas!” said Spiffany.
And a new hero was born.
“You may come visit me on the Sorcerer’s World anytime you like, should you have questions, or need guidance,” said Mariam Abraxas. "I am always busy, but I will make time for you."
“And what should I call myself?” asked the new hero.
“Anything you like,” Mariam Abraxas replied.
It has been seven years, Earth-standard, since the Super Hero Club was formed
Their iridescent clubhouse lies just outside New Metropolis, on the shores of the New Hellespont.
Roll Call
(O1) Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath (Saturn Girl) (age: 23)
- Telepathy
(O2) Irinia Apero of Bgztl, Gnohhon System (Phantom Girl) (age: 22)
- Intangibility
(O3) Txarlz Luz 4523 of Colu (Ten) (age: 14)
- 1Oth-level intelligence
(O4) Korvea Mallor of Talok VIII (Korvea) (age: 19)
- Shadow-casting, Avian form, Enhanced Healing
(O5) Chel-Eb of Rokyn (Mighty Lad) (age: 19)
- Kryptonian Power Set
(O6) Vqzga (Viqi) Gzxbp of Yzopok, Gnohhon System (Yzopok Girl) (age: 22)
- Intangibility, Telepathy, Telekinesis
(O7) Arna Nah of Gzbk, Gnohhon System (Kid Ultraboy) (age: 21)
- Intangibility, Kryptonian Power Set (one at a time)
(O8) Ghurwil Tanr'r of Jaquaa (Alter Boy) (age: 21)
- Able to assume various monstrous forms, with a wide array of powers and abilities. There is a certain necessary randomness to his powers.
(O9) Luto Kabillian of Pantano, Antares System (Sludge) (age: 14)
- Able to produce a biological slime, and control its coefficient of friction
(1O) Juno Kazan of Witchhaven (Magissa) (age: 14)
- Magical abilities, with an emphasis on potion-making
=======================================================================
“The Club has always been small,” Irinia insisted. “We have been down to ten members before.”
“True enough,” Dorrit replied. “But I had always envisioned the Super-Hero Club as an organization for young and aspiring heroes. We have only three members under the age of nineteen now.”
“To keep a group that young would require rapid turnover,” noted Txalrz Luz, “Unless we were accepting members as young as I was when I was recruited.”
“The obvious answer is to recruit more members,” said Chel-Eb. “The Legion on Deimos has over fifty members, some of whom might be interested in joining us Marsside.”
“It seems unlikely. Sadly, many of them display very limited abilities, or have not achieved very good control over them,” noted Korvea. “And I am deeply suspicious of their coterie of artificial beings.”
"We have been lacking a versatile shape-shifter for years, ever since Chameleon left us," said Txarlz Luz. “Not to denigrate the impressive abilities of Korvea and Alter Boy, but their alternate forms are not conducive to, for example, disguise. Fortunately, there are a number of elasomorphic races in the Galaxy. Unfortunately, the Hagenites, the Vuldarians, the Tormocks, the Shoggoths of Yuggoth, the Farfarmniflatch and the various Children of Ra, have a deserved reputation for instability. Zelbon lies beyond the United Planets, for now. Which leaves the Bokkites of New Titan, the Antarean Proteans, the Durlans, of course, and the Iuquhu, and the Nyorpans as possible recruits. Or, we might also might consider the Zyzans, with their holographic disguise technology. Or if we could find any surviving aboriginal Martians. Or a Cryll."
"There was the ancient Oberon family on Earth," said Arna Nah. "Shape-shifting superheroes for several generations. Perhaps some of them survived into the 31st century?"
"Some texts attest their family name as O'Brien," said Txarlz. "Even if we could find them, our direct recruitment efforts have proven futile over the years. It seems we must wait for young heroes to seek us out. Thus the try-out application process."
“We are competing with Deimos as well now,” noted Dorrit.
"Why not," said Irinia, "Find the individual with a heroic temperament first, and give them powers afterward? Not necessarily shape-shifting. But there is certainly enough obscure technology floating around that we could cobble together a sort of workable power-suit."
"Quite true," said Txarlz. "We might consider a Coluan force-shield. A Zyzan holo-projector. Telepathic technology from Brrym. Any number of strength-enhancing exo-skeletons."
"The question is," said Irinia, "Who?"
"'Who?' is a good question," Ten replied.
o o o
A day later he announced: "I have been examining the populations of Mars and Earth, and I believe I have found a candidate."
"She is fourteen years old. She has featured in several feel-good, 'human-interest' stories over the past few years. Appearing in choirs, popularizing local gardening co-ops, that sort of thing. She is also the developer of a new application to quantum communications security that has revolutionized the field. Even as a Coluan, I am impressed with her approach."
"So, intelligent, involved in Community Service, exemplary moral character,” said Dorrit. “Who is this Wonder Girl?"
"Her name is Speophania Brojj," said Ten. "She lives on Earth, in the Old New Rochelle borough of Metropolis."
"{An excellent suggestion}" said a voice from nowhere.
o o o
The young girl sat in the hoverchair, her legs useless, facing the wallscreen. She alternately scanned the daily newsholos and her personal mailfeed.
“Spiffany, there’s someone here to see you,” said Flynt Brojj. The tall woman looked about forty, brown hair lightly streaked with grey. Her eyes could have been a thousand years old.
“Your father tells me that even 31st-century Daxamite medicine is unable to cure your disability.”
“There is nothing to cure,” Speophania replied. “I was born this way. It is inconvenient sometimes, but I have my hoverchair, and exoskeletal prosthetics when I need to go out. I will admit they are a little uncomfortable. But we must all seek to live our best lives with the gifts we have been given.”
“If only more had your attitude,” said the older woman. “But I am here to add one more to your gifts, if you will accept it.” She set down a holo-crystal. An image flared of a girl who looked a great deal like Spiffany, perhaps a few years older. Her lower limbs were shapely, not shriveled, and she seemed to hover in the air. She wore a garish costume of purple, silver and gold.
“Enhanced strength, speed, durability, and intelligence. The power of flight, and a kind of oracular clairvoyance to enhance the senses. Some psychic control over the natural elements: stone, wind, lightning, and fire. All at Daxamite power levels, at a minimum.”
“Who is she?” asked Spiffany Brojj.
“She is you,” replied the tall woman. “If you will accept my gift.”
“What’s the catch?” asked Spiffany suspiciously.
“If you accept this gift, you must use these powers for good. But you have already learned to use your natural powers for good. And there is always the possibility of returning to your natural state again.”
“How?” asked Spiffany.
“Magic. I come from Tharn, the Sorcerer's World. You may call me Mariam Abraxas. My sorcerous specialty is granting others the powers and gifts of ancient gods and heroes. I was working on a mnemonic to help you remember your powers… the Speed of Atalanta, the Wind Power of Aeolus, the Wisdom of Juno, Invulnerability of Baldur or Siegfried, the Oracles of Apollo... but it was just too much. You are a bright girl, and I don’t think that is really necessary? I have already cast the required spells. Just say my name-- Abraxas-- to accept this gift.”
“Abraxas!” said Spiffany.
And a new hero was born.
“You may come visit me on the Sorcerer’s World anytime you like, should you have questions, or need guidance,” said Mariam Abraxas. "I am always busy, but I will make time for you."
“And what should I call myself?” asked the new hero.
“Anything you like,” Mariam Abraxas replied.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/06/23 02:40 PM
“You know, you are the second Legion to contact me in twenty-four hours,” said Spiffany Brojj.
“We are the Super-Hero Club,” Ten corrected her.
“I’ll tell you what I told the others: I need some time to master these powers on my own,” said Spiffany. “And I have an excellent mentor already. I am looking for a good hero name, though.”
“May I suggest Ischyri?” suggested Ten.
“I’ll think about it,” said Spiffany. “Thanks for the effort. ’Bye.”
The wallscreen went dark. Ten sighed.
Phantom Girl sighed herself, as she swiped left on her own viewscreen. "No, just no," she muttered to herself.
"Sorting through applicants is a difficult process,” Ten stated.
“You can’t imagine,” said Phantom Girl. "This one calls himself 'Alex Hamster the Great'."
"I have an octet that has applied as a group," said Ten. "Their circumstances are somewhat... special."
"Let's hear about them," said Phantom Girl.
"They call themselves 'The Replacements'," Ten began.
"Billy Randall, formerly of Planet Xanadu, was treated with gingold, and Tao Chemical's Elasticizing Fluid, giving him the powers of Elastic Lad and Bouncing Boy. The interaction of the two chemicals has left him completely bald. He has thus adopted the name 'Q-Ball'."
"Ral Zamal, formerly of Mardru, was exposed to the same super-growth formula as Chlorophyll Kid, and the same meteoric vapors as Fire Lad. She is able to produce a bizarre green napalm-like flame which devours flesh, metal, and stone, but causes uncontrolled growth in plant life."
"Guy Ishtron, formerly of Venus, was exposed to radiation from fragments of the same meteor that gave Gim Allon his powers. He is able to enlarge his body, but somewhat... unevenly. His giant forms tend to be lumpy and misshapen."
"Mrak Gaal, formerly of Winath, received his powers on the planet Korbal, in the same way as the Ranzzes. He wears a permanent healing mask, as this resulted in some facial deformity. Which is apparently aggravated every time he uses his powers."
"Similarly, Czaxton Regulus also wears a permanent healing mask, and for the same reasons. As his name indicates, he is a clone of Sun Boy's old foe Dr. Regulus. He has solar powers from an exposure to a solar furnace, mediated and controlled with radioactive gold."
"Luquaan Ginnz, formerly of Zoon, was treated with Zuunium, with all the usual semi-lycanthropic effects. She has adopted the name 'Quickhatch'."
"Myke'l Tarnstark, a native Kathooni, received her powers from a combination of Jathosterone and Norgine, and has super-strength at night, or in deep shadow, or while invisible."
"Finally, Evanna Quasp, formerly of Earth, has the twin abilities to temporarily make anything green, and to make keratin-- feathers, hair, fingernails, and so forth-- as heavy, dense, and durable as lead."
"I'm beginning to see a pattern here," said Phantom Girl. "These kids were all human guinea pigs experimented upon by their parents, weren’t they?"
"Affirmative," said Ten.
"And while 'formerly' of Winath, Kathoon, and so forth, they all now reside with their parents on Bdelugmos, the Pariah Planetoid?"
"Correct again," said Ten. “Excepting Czaxton’s ‘parent’, Dr. Regulus, who is incarcerated on Takron-Galtos.”
"All due to various violations of the Forbidden Scientific Investigations Statutes”, Phantom Girl continued. “Had those laws had been in effect fifty years ago, Pol’s mother would have been an inmate on Bdelugmos as well."
"They are requesting our help in having their family's sentences commuted, and in return, wish to join the Super-Hero Club," Ten explained. "As a group."
"They overestimate the amount of influence we have with UPGov," said Phantom Girl. "I empathize, but there is really very little we can do. I'm afraid they will have to resign themselves to remaining in the protective custody of CPS until they reach the age of supermajority."
|* Editor’s Note|
“We are the Super-Hero Club,” Ten corrected her.
“I’ll tell you what I told the others: I need some time to master these powers on my own,” said Spiffany. “And I have an excellent mentor already. I am looking for a good hero name, though.”
“May I suggest Ischyri?” suggested Ten.
“I’ll think about it,” said Spiffany. “Thanks for the effort. ’Bye.”
The wallscreen went dark. Ten sighed.
Phantom Girl sighed herself, as she swiped left on her own viewscreen. "No, just no," she muttered to herself.
"Sorting through applicants is a difficult process,” Ten stated.
“You can’t imagine,” said Phantom Girl. "This one calls himself 'Alex Hamster the Great'."
"I have an octet that has applied as a group," said Ten. "Their circumstances are somewhat... special."
"Let's hear about them," said Phantom Girl.
"They call themselves 'The Replacements'," Ten began.
"Billy Randall, formerly of Planet Xanadu, was treated with gingold, and Tao Chemical's Elasticizing Fluid, giving him the powers of Elastic Lad and Bouncing Boy. The interaction of the two chemicals has left him completely bald. He has thus adopted the name 'Q-Ball'."
"Ral Zamal, formerly of Mardru, was exposed to the same super-growth formula as Chlorophyll Kid, and the same meteoric vapors as Fire Lad. She is able to produce a bizarre green napalm-like flame which devours flesh, metal, and stone, but causes uncontrolled growth in plant life."
"Guy Ishtron, formerly of Venus, was exposed to radiation from fragments of the same meteor that gave Gim Allon his powers. He is able to enlarge his body, but somewhat... unevenly. His giant forms tend to be lumpy and misshapen."
"Mrak Gaal, formerly of Winath, received his powers on the planet Korbal, in the same way as the Ranzzes. He wears a permanent healing mask, as this resulted in some facial deformity. Which is apparently aggravated every time he uses his powers."
"Similarly, Czaxton Regulus also wears a permanent healing mask, and for the same reasons. As his name indicates, he is a clone of Sun Boy's old foe Dr. Regulus. He has solar powers from an exposure to a solar furnace, mediated and controlled with radioactive gold."
"Luquaan Ginnz, formerly of Zoon, was treated with Zuunium, with all the usual semi-lycanthropic effects. She has adopted the name 'Quickhatch'."
"Myke'l Tarnstark, a native Kathooni, received her powers from a combination of Jathosterone and Norgine, and has super-strength at night, or in deep shadow, or while invisible."
"Finally, Evanna Quasp, formerly of Earth, has the twin abilities to temporarily make anything green, and to make keratin-- feathers, hair, fingernails, and so forth-- as heavy, dense, and durable as lead."
"I'm beginning to see a pattern here," said Phantom Girl. "These kids were all human guinea pigs experimented upon by their parents, weren’t they?"
"Affirmative," said Ten.
"And while 'formerly' of Winath, Kathoon, and so forth, they all now reside with their parents on Bdelugmos, the Pariah Planetoid?"
"Correct again," said Ten. “Excepting Czaxton’s ‘parent’, Dr. Regulus, who is incarcerated on Takron-Galtos.”
"All due to various violations of the Forbidden Scientific Investigations Statutes”, Phantom Girl continued. “Had those laws had been in effect fifty years ago, Pol’s mother would have been an inmate on Bdelugmos as well."
"They are requesting our help in having their family's sentences commuted, and in return, wish to join the Super-Hero Club," Ten explained. "As a group."
"They overestimate the amount of influence we have with UPGov," said Phantom Girl. "I empathize, but there is really very little we can do. I'm afraid they will have to resign themselves to remaining in the protective custody of CPS until they reach the age of supermajority."
|* Editor’s Note|
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Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/13/23 02:14 PM
All ten members of the Super-Hero Club had gathered on the Try-Out Court just outside the Clubhouse.
“You are H'Hchanamh of Houyhnhnm?” Phantom Girl addressed the young alien centaur.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied H'Hchanamh. “But you can call me Hitch, if it's more comfortable for your throat.”
“You have the power of duplication, and you call yourself Cavalry?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the little centaur.
“And you can duplicate only yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am. And my clothing-- made of modified Cargggan materials.”
“How about a demonstration?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Another little Houyhnhnm appeared, then another, then three, then four.
“How many duplicates can you make?” asked Ten.
“I’ve made up to fifty,” Hitch replied. “But they don’t have independent will, so the more I make, the harder they are to control-- unless I have them all charging off in the same direction. And they are temporary… and a little unstable. If you hit one of my duplicates hard enough, it will… disintegrate.”
“Well, we will have to take this under consideration, but I’m sure you will at least be accepted into our training program.”
“{We have a training program now?}” asked Saturn Girl telepathically.
“{Well, I think it's about time we had one. Otherwise, we’re going to lose these candidates to Deimos.}” Phantom Girl thought back.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/976317851816b20417290d590d5859a5/03df49db1ef901cb-78/s250x400/dfad02b00adb62948b3e3dfdeb7be86e2680dea2.jpg)
o o o
“Our next applicant has been delayed,” announced Ten. “Some sort of last-minute visa problem. She is Cryton Tull of Earth, who calls herself Wolf-Girl, or Wolfhound, or possibly Wolfram.”
“I know we have been discussing adding a shapeshifter to the team,” said Korvea. “But again, she has just two forms: wolf, and girl. And from what I gather from her dossier, she’s only a wolf three nights out of thirty.”
“Don’t underestimate her,” said Magissa. “She is evidently an actual werewolf, her whole family under some magical curse. Which means she is no ordinary wolf: super-strong, fast, and nigh-invulnerable. As one of the undead, she cannot be killed. Decisively destroying a werewolf is no easy task-- it takes more than mere silver. There are rites to be performed. Even in human form, if a werewolf appears to ‘die’, they will completely heal and resurrect by the next full moon.
“The werewolf and I may have more in common than I thought,” Korvea mused.
“On the other hand,” Magissa continued, “The werewolf magicks are specifically bound to the cycles of Earth and Luna, so I don’t believe her shape-shifting powers would manifest on Mars, or any other extraterrestrial world.”
“That is an education,” said Ten. “Under the circumstances, Irinia and I may have been mistaken in putting her through for consideration.”
“A Coluan admitting an error?” Magissa smirked.
“To deny the facts would be illogical,” Ten replied.
o o o
“You are a Bismollian?” Phantom Girl asked the young blonde girl.
“My name is Zilla Mijoy. My parents are Taryn Loy and Thon Mijoy. My father is a Hagenite, and has the morphogenic powers common to his people. I grew up on my mother’s homeworld. A Bismollian is like a living nuclear furnace. Anything we eat is ultimately changed to energy. Excess energy usually escapes into the environment, but my grandfather discovered a way to divert some of that energy to useful purposes. I can utilize it to triple my physical strength... or to power my shapeshifting!”
“Generalized shapeshifting,” Korvea commented. “Can we see a demonstration?”
Zilla looked around. “Do you have some small scrap of matter you don’t mind me eating?”
Ten tossed her a small aluminum screw. The Bismollian girl tossed it in her mouth. Instantly, her body melted into a mud-like form, then reshaped itself into a sparkly rainbow unicorn, before melting back into her human form.
“The more I eat, the longer I can hold my morphs,” she explained.
“Anyone have any objections?” asked Phantom Girl. The other nine Members shook their heads. “Then welcome to the Super Hero Club, Zilla Mijoy. Did you have a codename in mind?”
“I was thinking Bouch. It’s from an ancient Terran dialect.”
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o o o
“Botboy, right? I met you once on Deimos,” declared Phantom Girl.
The little mauve robot looked like Tharok, if both halves of the villain had been mechanical. It stood just fifty inches tall.
“As a child, Boris Zador of Zadron was infected with a rare necrotizing neurological disorder. His father had the roboticists of Zadron replace his deteriorating biological parts with robotic prostheses. First a foot, then a leg, then a hand, then an arm. But they could not stop the progress of the disease. Eventually, they attempted to download the child’s bio-consciousness into an exitonic platinum-sponge brain. Unfortunately, the operation was a failure, and Boris Zador was declared deceased. But they were left with me, a living, sentient machine, with traces of Boris Zador’s memories and personality. His parents found themselves unable to tolerate my presence; I left Zadron and joined The New Legion of Super-Heroes, LLC, of Deimos. But I have been uncomfortable there recently.”
“My first assignment was about a week ago, teaming up with another group of artificial beings, a group of responsometer-powered robots called The Non-Metal Men. Carbon, Silicon, Phosphorous, Sulphur, Selenium, Iodine, and Bromine. Each has powers relating to its particular elemental composition.”
“We were commissioned to stop a group of Waste Collection Pirates. This is a criminal scam perpetrated on small, low-income worlds. They are promised waste collection and recycling services at a discount. But the Pirates merely dump the trash on larger planets, Earth, for instance, rather than pay the appropriate fees to have it properly disposed of in a U.P.-certified landfill, recycling, or composting asteroid.”
“We tracked the Pirates’ largest ship, despite its cloaking device, and the Non-Metal Men used their powers to disable the vessel, leaving it floating derelict in space.”
“I thought that was enough, but then they transported the eighth Non-Metal Man, Astatine, onto the ship. Astatine is highly radioactive, and unstable. It decays in a matter of minutes, spewing heat and radiation. Ordinarily the Astatine robot is kept in a stasis field… I don’t know why it was ever created in the first place. But the Pirate vessel was utterly destroyed, and any living beings incinerated. The LLP collected the bounty, but… it was too much for me.”
“And what did the UPGov think of this disaster?” asked Saturn Girl.
“There was an investigation,” Botboy replied. “It was deemed a tragedy. The higher-ups called it an unfortunate mistake. Incident investigators agreed. Reports were quietly buried. H&B promised the U.P. that The Non-Metal Men would be scrutinized and reprogrammed. But I just can’t stay there anymore… But I cannot return to Zadron. I have nowhere to go.”
“The rights and status of artificial life-forms in the United Planets is still in flux,” the teen-aged Coluan stated, “However, I would be interested in taking on Botboy as a protege. Should his exitonic platinum-sponge brain prove stable, I believe he could be a valuable asset to the team.”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7109e40120dbd664cbdce209951a625c/c63e81e4c7564c8e-9b/s250x400/e26108953b14f13c645e8ea8ce29241293fd9e19.png)
o o o
“That is the last straw with me,” Saturn Girl remarked privately. “Are we going to finally begin a full investigation of this New Legion of Super-Heroes, LLC? There have been too many rumors of this sort of overreach circulating.”
“I used to think you were just being over-competitive,” said Phantom Girl. “But I am beginning to agree with you. Would you like me to start putting together an old-fashioned Espionage Squad?”
“You are H'Hchanamh of Houyhnhnm?” Phantom Girl addressed the young alien centaur.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied H'Hchanamh. “But you can call me Hitch, if it's more comfortable for your throat.”
“You have the power of duplication, and you call yourself Cavalry?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the little centaur.
“And you can duplicate only yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am. And my clothing-- made of modified Cargggan materials.”
“How about a demonstration?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Another little Houyhnhnm appeared, then another, then three, then four.
“How many duplicates can you make?” asked Ten.
“I’ve made up to fifty,” Hitch replied. “But they don’t have independent will, so the more I make, the harder they are to control-- unless I have them all charging off in the same direction. And they are temporary… and a little unstable. If you hit one of my duplicates hard enough, it will… disintegrate.”
“Well, we will have to take this under consideration, but I’m sure you will at least be accepted into our training program.”
“{We have a training program now?}” asked Saturn Girl telepathically.
“{Well, I think it's about time we had one. Otherwise, we’re going to lose these candidates to Deimos.}” Phantom Girl thought back.
o o o
“Our next applicant has been delayed,” announced Ten. “Some sort of last-minute visa problem. She is Cryton Tull of Earth, who calls herself Wolf-Girl, or Wolfhound, or possibly Wolfram.”
“I know we have been discussing adding a shapeshifter to the team,” said Korvea. “But again, she has just two forms: wolf, and girl. And from what I gather from her dossier, she’s only a wolf three nights out of thirty.”
“Don’t underestimate her,” said Magissa. “She is evidently an actual werewolf, her whole family under some magical curse. Which means she is no ordinary wolf: super-strong, fast, and nigh-invulnerable. As one of the undead, she cannot be killed. Decisively destroying a werewolf is no easy task-- it takes more than mere silver. There are rites to be performed. Even in human form, if a werewolf appears to ‘die’, they will completely heal and resurrect by the next full moon.
“The werewolf and I may have more in common than I thought,” Korvea mused.
“On the other hand,” Magissa continued, “The werewolf magicks are specifically bound to the cycles of Earth and Luna, so I don’t believe her shape-shifting powers would manifest on Mars, or any other extraterrestrial world.”
“That is an education,” said Ten. “Under the circumstances, Irinia and I may have been mistaken in putting her through for consideration.”
“A Coluan admitting an error?” Magissa smirked.
“To deny the facts would be illogical,” Ten replied.
o o o
“You are a Bismollian?” Phantom Girl asked the young blonde girl.
“My name is Zilla Mijoy. My parents are Taryn Loy and Thon Mijoy. My father is a Hagenite, and has the morphogenic powers common to his people. I grew up on my mother’s homeworld. A Bismollian is like a living nuclear furnace. Anything we eat is ultimately changed to energy. Excess energy usually escapes into the environment, but my grandfather discovered a way to divert some of that energy to useful purposes. I can utilize it to triple my physical strength... or to power my shapeshifting!”
“Generalized shapeshifting,” Korvea commented. “Can we see a demonstration?”
Zilla looked around. “Do you have some small scrap of matter you don’t mind me eating?”
Ten tossed her a small aluminum screw. The Bismollian girl tossed it in her mouth. Instantly, her body melted into a mud-like form, then reshaped itself into a sparkly rainbow unicorn, before melting back into her human form.
“The more I eat, the longer I can hold my morphs,” she explained.
“Anyone have any objections?” asked Phantom Girl. The other nine Members shook their heads. “Then welcome to the Super Hero Club, Zilla Mijoy. Did you have a codename in mind?”
“I was thinking Bouch. It’s from an ancient Terran dialect.”
o o o
“Botboy, right? I met you once on Deimos,” declared Phantom Girl.
The little mauve robot looked like Tharok, if both halves of the villain had been mechanical. It stood just fifty inches tall.
“As a child, Boris Zador of Zadron was infected with a rare necrotizing neurological disorder. His father had the roboticists of Zadron replace his deteriorating biological parts with robotic prostheses. First a foot, then a leg, then a hand, then an arm. But they could not stop the progress of the disease. Eventually, they attempted to download the child’s bio-consciousness into an exitonic platinum-sponge brain. Unfortunately, the operation was a failure, and Boris Zador was declared deceased. But they were left with me, a living, sentient machine, with traces of Boris Zador’s memories and personality. His parents found themselves unable to tolerate my presence; I left Zadron and joined The New Legion of Super-Heroes, LLC, of Deimos. But I have been uncomfortable there recently.”
“My first assignment was about a week ago, teaming up with another group of artificial beings, a group of responsometer-powered robots called The Non-Metal Men. Carbon, Silicon, Phosphorous, Sulphur, Selenium, Iodine, and Bromine. Each has powers relating to its particular elemental composition.”
“We were commissioned to stop a group of Waste Collection Pirates. This is a criminal scam perpetrated on small, low-income worlds. They are promised waste collection and recycling services at a discount. But the Pirates merely dump the trash on larger planets, Earth, for instance, rather than pay the appropriate fees to have it properly disposed of in a U.P.-certified landfill, recycling, or composting asteroid.”
“We tracked the Pirates’ largest ship, despite its cloaking device, and the Non-Metal Men used their powers to disable the vessel, leaving it floating derelict in space.”
“I thought that was enough, but then they transported the eighth Non-Metal Man, Astatine, onto the ship. Astatine is highly radioactive, and unstable. It decays in a matter of minutes, spewing heat and radiation. Ordinarily the Astatine robot is kept in a stasis field… I don’t know why it was ever created in the first place. But the Pirate vessel was utterly destroyed, and any living beings incinerated. The LLP collected the bounty, but… it was too much for me.”
“And what did the UPGov think of this disaster?” asked Saturn Girl.
“There was an investigation,” Botboy replied. “It was deemed a tragedy. The higher-ups called it an unfortunate mistake. Incident investigators agreed. Reports were quietly buried. H&B promised the U.P. that The Non-Metal Men would be scrutinized and reprogrammed. But I just can’t stay there anymore… But I cannot return to Zadron. I have nowhere to go.”
“The rights and status of artificial life-forms in the United Planets is still in flux,” the teen-aged Coluan stated, “However, I would be interested in taking on Botboy as a protege. Should his exitonic platinum-sponge brain prove stable, I believe he could be a valuable asset to the team.”
o o o
“That is the last straw with me,” Saturn Girl remarked privately. “Are we going to finally begin a full investigation of this New Legion of Super-Heroes, LLC? There have been too many rumors of this sort of overreach circulating.”
“I used to think you were just being over-competitive,” said Phantom Girl. “But I am beginning to agree with you. Would you like me to start putting together an old-fashioned Espionage Squad?”
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/18/23 05:19 PM
College Grounds, University of Agriculture, Manna-3
“Hello, Oz,” said Ten. “Do you remember me? I’m a friend of Dorrit Ranzz."
The statue blinked, then stirred, then sat, legs casually draped over the pedestal.
“You grew up,” said Osmium.
“Most UP citizens are considered adults at the age of 9 sola-years,” Ten replied, “And reach their full majority by age 16. Colu, however, grants majority at the age of 65 sola-years-- so I do have some time left as a ‘child’. However, my Adult Guardian no longer requires me to be accompanied by a robo-nanny. That is something.”
“Congratulations,” said Osmium.
“I would like to discuss with you the ancient, and mostly lost, technology of Responsometers,” said Ten.
“Doc built us,” said Osmium. “I got a Responsometer, but I dunno how to make one.”
“Doctor Magnus never gave any clues about how they were built?”
“Doc always said he had to start with human minds to get a Responsometers,” Osmium mused. “But they aren't perfect copies. Doc used the word ‘cartoon’.”
“So your personality is based on some 2Oth century Terran, now extinct?”
“My Responsometer is a copy of Lead’s. A copy of a copy. Lead and Tin did the same thing when they made their ‘girlfriends’.”
“So in order for someone to build a new Responsometer, all they would need is an existing Responsometer?”
“I guess,” said Osmium. “Lead and Tin did it, but I dunno if I could. I’m… a little more dense.”
“How many of the original Metal Men are still around?” asked Ten.
“I dunno,” said Osmium. “There was dozens of us, long time ago. Lot of us were scrapped. Tin and Dorothy went to Ten-Alpha. I know that. I dunno about anybody else.”
“I appreciate your help, Oz,” said Ten. There was a commotion in the distance. “Great Yod, what is that?”
Something like a flying bulldozer was approaching the University Complex. Although easily a mile away, it was large enough to be clearly visible. Ten willed his flight ring into action, and flew towards danger.
Ten consulted CYNDI, his Colu-Yod Neuromatic Data Implant. The ship was Gohani in origin. The computer uplink informed him that Gohan had recently suffered an ecological disaster, and while the U.P. was trying to assist, desperate Gohani pirates had been raiding U.P. technological facilities.
There were already boots on the ground assaulting the ship. One was a humanoid female, the other some sort of pachydermoid. Each was at least twelve meters tall. The CINDI identified the two as Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete.
There was a spaceship parked on the grounds large enough to carry the two giants. It was clearly marked with the stylized H&B emblem, indicating that the two were members of The New Legion of Super-Heroes LLC. Still, it was dwarfed by the Gohani vessel.
Nevertheless, the two heroes from Deimos were attacking the Gohani ship. Their only powers seemed to be super-strength, which was proving ineffective.
As he drew nearer, Ten observed another half-dozen brightly-clad vigilantes. He recognized Arthropodo of Xanthu, whose bio-ring allowed him to assume various insect-like shapes. There was a huge blue-and-magenta-striped elephant, who would only be Gaal Jahnson, the son of Animal Lad and Rainbow Girl. There was a six-foot-tall froglike creature, an eight-foot-tall pangolin, and a nine-foot-tall sasquatch in the group as well.
None of them were making progress against the dreadnaught.
The Gohani vessel had a standard energy shield around it, but Ten was able to slip through by modulating his own force field. The same force field protected him from the flaming gasses as he flew into an exhaust manifold.
There were a number of heavy-set Gohani waiting for him when he emerged inside the engine room.
“You thought we couldn’t see you on the internal sensors?” the ugliest of the Gohani asked mockingly.
“I thought it would not matter,” said Ten. “Leave Manna-3, and return to Gohan. Penultimate warning.”
The ugly Gohani laughed. “Manna-3 has something we want. Food. Something the United Planets will not give us.”
Ten consulted his CYNDI. “The United Planets have shipped a great deal of food to Gohan,” he remarked. “They were not prepared for the shipments to be hijacked by space pirates, and re-sold on the ground at extortionate prices.”
“Yeah, and now the grain ships are accompanied by SP military ships,” piped up another Gohani. “Which makes hijacking them a lot more difficult.”
“But it still slows distribution to a starving population,” said Ten. “Return to Gohan. Final warning.”
The ugly Gohani’s only response was “Fire.”
Energy and particle weapons rained down on Ten’s force field. It easily absorbed the blasts.
“It is dangerous practice to fire weapons in an enclosed space,” Ten observed, as he strolled over to the Central Engineering Controls. “Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride,” he warned, as the dreadnaught fell out of the sky.
The ship’s shields disabled, SPs and Legionnaires swarmed onto the ship. Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete had to wait outside, but Gaal Jahnson was able to enter in the form of a great grape-purple Slith.
“Last time they were here,” one of the Agricultural Directors explained to Ten, “They raided the Seed Bank, but I imagine that none of what they stole would germinate in Gohan’s soil. That is, after all, the definition of an ecological disaster. This time, it looked like they were headed for the Hydroponic Orchards. We appreciate the help of you and your fellow Legionnaires in stopping them.”
“Not my fellows,” corrected Ten. “I just happened to be in the area.”
“Hello, Oz,” said Ten. “Do you remember me? I’m a friend of Dorrit Ranzz."
The statue blinked, then stirred, then sat, legs casually draped over the pedestal.
“You grew up,” said Osmium.
“Most UP citizens are considered adults at the age of 9 sola-years,” Ten replied, “And reach their full majority by age 16. Colu, however, grants majority at the age of 65 sola-years-- so I do have some time left as a ‘child’. However, my Adult Guardian no longer requires me to be accompanied by a robo-nanny. That is something.”
“Congratulations,” said Osmium.
“I would like to discuss with you the ancient, and mostly lost, technology of Responsometers,” said Ten.
“Doc built us,” said Osmium. “I got a Responsometer, but I dunno how to make one.”
“Doctor Magnus never gave any clues about how they were built?”
“Doc always said he had to start with human minds to get a Responsometers,” Osmium mused. “But they aren't perfect copies. Doc used the word ‘cartoon’.”
“So your personality is based on some 2Oth century Terran, now extinct?”
“My Responsometer is a copy of Lead’s. A copy of a copy. Lead and Tin did the same thing when they made their ‘girlfriends’.”
“So in order for someone to build a new Responsometer, all they would need is an existing Responsometer?”
“I guess,” said Osmium. “Lead and Tin did it, but I dunno if I could. I’m… a little more dense.”
“How many of the original Metal Men are still around?” asked Ten.
“I dunno,” said Osmium. “There was dozens of us, long time ago. Lot of us were scrapped. Tin and Dorothy went to Ten-Alpha. I know that. I dunno about anybody else.”
“I appreciate your help, Oz,” said Ten. There was a commotion in the distance. “Great Yod, what is that?”
Something like a flying bulldozer was approaching the University Complex. Although easily a mile away, it was large enough to be clearly visible. Ten willed his flight ring into action, and flew towards danger.
Ten consulted CYNDI, his Colu-Yod Neuromatic Data Implant. The ship was Gohani in origin. The computer uplink informed him that Gohan had recently suffered an ecological disaster, and while the U.P. was trying to assist, desperate Gohani pirates had been raiding U.P. technological facilities.
There were already boots on the ground assaulting the ship. One was a humanoid female, the other some sort of pachydermoid. Each was at least twelve meters tall. The CINDI identified the two as Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete.
There was a spaceship parked on the grounds large enough to carry the two giants. It was clearly marked with the stylized H&B emblem, indicating that the two were members of The New Legion of Super-Heroes LLC. Still, it was dwarfed by the Gohani vessel.
Nevertheless, the two heroes from Deimos were attacking the Gohani ship. Their only powers seemed to be super-strength, which was proving ineffective.
As he drew nearer, Ten observed another half-dozen brightly-clad vigilantes. He recognized Arthropodo of Xanthu, whose bio-ring allowed him to assume various insect-like shapes. There was a huge blue-and-magenta-striped elephant, who would only be Gaal Jahnson, the son of Animal Lad and Rainbow Girl. There was a six-foot-tall froglike creature, an eight-foot-tall pangolin, and a nine-foot-tall sasquatch in the group as well.
None of them were making progress against the dreadnaught.
The Gohani vessel had a standard energy shield around it, but Ten was able to slip through by modulating his own force field. The same force field protected him from the flaming gasses as he flew into an exhaust manifold.
There were a number of heavy-set Gohani waiting for him when he emerged inside the engine room.
“You thought we couldn’t see you on the internal sensors?” the ugliest of the Gohani asked mockingly.
“I thought it would not matter,” said Ten. “Leave Manna-3, and return to Gohan. Penultimate warning.”
The ugly Gohani laughed. “Manna-3 has something we want. Food. Something the United Planets will not give us.”
Ten consulted his CYNDI. “The United Planets have shipped a great deal of food to Gohan,” he remarked. “They were not prepared for the shipments to be hijacked by space pirates, and re-sold on the ground at extortionate prices.”
“Yeah, and now the grain ships are accompanied by SP military ships,” piped up another Gohani. “Which makes hijacking them a lot more difficult.”
“But it still slows distribution to a starving population,” said Ten. “Return to Gohan. Final warning.”
The ugly Gohani’s only response was “Fire.”
Energy and particle weapons rained down on Ten’s force field. It easily absorbed the blasts.
“It is dangerous practice to fire weapons in an enclosed space,” Ten observed, as he strolled over to the Central Engineering Controls. “Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride,” he warned, as the dreadnaught fell out of the sky.
The ship’s shields disabled, SPs and Legionnaires swarmed onto the ship. Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete had to wait outside, but Gaal Jahnson was able to enter in the form of a great grape-purple Slith.
“Last time they were here,” one of the Agricultural Directors explained to Ten, “They raided the Seed Bank, but I imagine that none of what they stole would germinate in Gohan’s soil. That is, after all, the definition of an ecological disaster. This time, it looked like they were headed for the Hydroponic Orchards. We appreciate the help of you and your fellow Legionnaires in stopping them.”
“Not my fellows,” corrected Ten. “I just happened to be in the area.”
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/24/23 06:02 PM
“Did you hear,” Ten was telling Saturn Girl, “That the Chairman of the Board of the Palomar Trust was kidnapped some eighteen months ago? He was missing for weeks.”
“Palomar Hotels?” asked Yzopok Girl. “We have those, even Bgztlrside.”
“Not the hotels,” Ten explained. “The Trust, which distributes dividends to the shareholders; primarily the several dozen members of the Palomar family. A much smaller, and less conspicuous organization.”
“Still, large enough that the mysterious disappearance of the Chairman of the Board ought to have been a more memorable news story,” said Saturn Girl. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Well, he did return safe and sound,” said Ten. “Although with no memory of where he had been. He is an artificial life-form, so that may account for the laissez-faire attitude. Just a robot. A centuries-old robot. Made of liquid gold.”
“I know you,” said Saturn Girl. “You are making some point, in your own roundabout way.”
“Indeed,” said Ten. “I believe that H&B Industries may have abducted the robot in order to reverse-engineer its technology to create their Non-Metal Men. Reprogramming them somewhat, of course.”
“Do you have proof?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Only a suspicion,” said Ten. “I do not know how else they could have acquired lost centuries-old Responsometer technology. We know they have repurposed outmoded technology before. They purchased a non-functioning Superboy robot, an Ultra Boy robot, and a Zaryan robot which formerly belonged to the original Legion of Super-Heroes. And one of Nardo’s android replicas. Then repaired them, thus making up the core of their artificial life-form group.”
“They also had Hasahl make another Lucifer android,” remarked Saturn Girl. “Series thirteen. Supposedly built with an Ethics Chip. All completely legal, of course. They are creating a small force of cybernetic Adventurers. But I’m sure something else less legitimate is also going on on Deimos.”
“Why are you so suspicious of them?” asked Yzopok Girl. “They have never been anything but open with us, even inviting us to visit their training facility.”
“You don’t know the history,” said Saturn Girl.
“Not from around here, Dorrit,” said Yzopok Girl. “Grew up in another dimension, remember?”
“NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries. A few decades ago, the Hanscom and the Burrane families fought a multi-generational war for control of the Starfinger Crime Syndicate. There was a lot of blood shed, and a lot of collateral damage. Innocent civilians. Eventually, all of the primaries of both families were either dead or imprisoned somewhere, and the Syndicate was dissolved. There were a lot of legal businesses involved, however, created to cover up the organized crime activities. Those went into receivership with the Interplanetary Bank for years. Eventually, some lawyers turned up a couple of distant cousins, Kjell Hanscom and Ferd Burrane, who teamed up to run the corporation as co-CEOs. They recast the old criminal connections of the business as more legitimate enterprises. The old protection rackets became Starfinger Security, the old escort businesses became Starfinger Staffing Services, the illegal gambling houses became… well, legal gambling operations. Then Starfinger Security discovered they had clients with special needs. Hanscom and Burrane spun off NLSH as a half-philanthropic, half-heroes-for-hire organization. Over the past three or four years, the SPs have gradually moved to working with them over our Super Hero Club. I suspect there may be money changing hands.”
“So you don’t like them because they are stealing our spotlight as heroes?” asked Yzopok Girl.
“You know, that doesn’t really bother me,” said Saturn Girl. “It allows us to pick and choose the cases we want to work on. And if good is being done, well, I really don’t mind who gets the credit for doing it. But something just seems-- off. Sometimes the NLSH seems overly aggressive, or… or taking the side of the big fish against the little fish.”
“Not the way you would handle things,” said Yzopok Girl. “But you’re not in charge over there.”
“I always appreciate your frank observations,” Saturn Girl replied.
“Why not just accept the New Legion’s invitation, go up to Deimos, and poke around with your Saturnian telepathy? There’s no telling what you will find.”
“Wow, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Saturn Girl. “But I’ve got so much on my plate. Maybe you could wander up and poke around with your Yzopokr telepathy. Maybe sometime this week. Deimos passes overhead every five days or so.”
“Maybe I will,” said Yzopok Girl. “Do you know you’re shielding your thoughts?”
“Am I?” said Saturn Girl. “Gosh. Force of habit, I guess.”
o o o
“I went up to Deimos today,” Yzopok Girl reported.
“Did you?” said Saturn Girl. “The headache will go away after a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ve never run into mind-blocker tech like that before. Do you know what it is?”
“Nope. No idea. But H&B must be big believers in psychic privacy for their Legionnaires.”
“You could have just told me,” said Yzopok Girl. “You know I’m going to be useless for the rest of the day.”
“You understand my suspicions now?” Saturn Girl asked.
“Well… maybe,” Viqi admitted. “Although I took a tour of their headquarters. They seemed very open.”
“They wouldn’t show you anything they wouldn’t want you to see, though, would they?”
“I sort of ‘got lost’ from the tour, and wandered about on my own for a little bit. I did see something odd. There was a vase-- well, to three-dimensional eyes it looked like a vase, but it was a little more complex up in the higher dimensions. There was a kid who seemed to have gotten trapped in there, and I helped him get out-- you know, with my phasing powers.”
Saturn Girl gasped. “You released something from a multi-dimensional bottle trap? Didn’t it occur to you that it might have been placed there for a reason? For all you know, it could have been some fifth-dimensional sorcerer!”
“He… I think he sort of introduced himself,” Yzopok Girl stammered. “One I got him out, all he said was ‘William Hasaram’, then gave a little bow, and vanished.”
Saturn Girl sighed with relief. “Oh, that’s just Mrshmllw. He’s harmless. Thinks of himself as an Adventurer of sorts. He likes to call himself The Zrfffn Imphunter.”
“Well, you gave me a scare for a moment there,” said Yzopok Girl. “I’m still getting used to all the unique perils of Earthside. And this headache doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Go lie down, and I’ll bring some soup to your quarters,” said Saturn Girl.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/68152c1620e8f7c66dcca1666f70bbee/b02df2d721f78b2b-17/s400x600/d8deb0dfbcb4209c0bd7da6e2367444ab7f8c8de.png)
Yzopok Girl (Vqzga (Viqi) Gzxbp of Yzopok, Gnohhon System, Bgztlrside)
Saturn Girl (Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath, Amartan System)
“Palomar Hotels?” asked Yzopok Girl. “We have those, even Bgztlrside.”
“Not the hotels,” Ten explained. “The Trust, which distributes dividends to the shareholders; primarily the several dozen members of the Palomar family. A much smaller, and less conspicuous organization.”
“Still, large enough that the mysterious disappearance of the Chairman of the Board ought to have been a more memorable news story,” said Saturn Girl. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Well, he did return safe and sound,” said Ten. “Although with no memory of where he had been. He is an artificial life-form, so that may account for the laissez-faire attitude. Just a robot. A centuries-old robot. Made of liquid gold.”
“I know you,” said Saturn Girl. “You are making some point, in your own roundabout way.”
“Indeed,” said Ten. “I believe that H&B Industries may have abducted the robot in order to reverse-engineer its technology to create their Non-Metal Men. Reprogramming them somewhat, of course.”
“Do you have proof?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Only a suspicion,” said Ten. “I do not know how else they could have acquired lost centuries-old Responsometer technology. We know they have repurposed outmoded technology before. They purchased a non-functioning Superboy robot, an Ultra Boy robot, and a Zaryan robot which formerly belonged to the original Legion of Super-Heroes. And one of Nardo’s android replicas. Then repaired them, thus making up the core of their artificial life-form group.”
“They also had Hasahl make another Lucifer android,” remarked Saturn Girl. “Series thirteen. Supposedly built with an Ethics Chip. All completely legal, of course. They are creating a small force of cybernetic Adventurers. But I’m sure something else less legitimate is also going on on Deimos.”
“Why are you so suspicious of them?” asked Yzopok Girl. “They have never been anything but open with us, even inviting us to visit their training facility.”
“You don’t know the history,” said Saturn Girl.
“Not from around here, Dorrit,” said Yzopok Girl. “Grew up in another dimension, remember?”
“NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries. A few decades ago, the Hanscom and the Burrane families fought a multi-generational war for control of the Starfinger Crime Syndicate. There was a lot of blood shed, and a lot of collateral damage. Innocent civilians. Eventually, all of the primaries of both families were either dead or imprisoned somewhere, and the Syndicate was dissolved. There were a lot of legal businesses involved, however, created to cover up the organized crime activities. Those went into receivership with the Interplanetary Bank for years. Eventually, some lawyers turned up a couple of distant cousins, Kjell Hanscom and Ferd Burrane, who teamed up to run the corporation as co-CEOs. They recast the old criminal connections of the business as more legitimate enterprises. The old protection rackets became Starfinger Security, the old escort businesses became Starfinger Staffing Services, the illegal gambling houses became… well, legal gambling operations. Then Starfinger Security discovered they had clients with special needs. Hanscom and Burrane spun off NLSH as a half-philanthropic, half-heroes-for-hire organization. Over the past three or four years, the SPs have gradually moved to working with them over our Super Hero Club. I suspect there may be money changing hands.”
“So you don’t like them because they are stealing our spotlight as heroes?” asked Yzopok Girl.
“You know, that doesn’t really bother me,” said Saturn Girl. “It allows us to pick and choose the cases we want to work on. And if good is being done, well, I really don’t mind who gets the credit for doing it. But something just seems-- off. Sometimes the NLSH seems overly aggressive, or… or taking the side of the big fish against the little fish.”
“Not the way you would handle things,” said Yzopok Girl. “But you’re not in charge over there.”
“I always appreciate your frank observations,” Saturn Girl replied.
“Why not just accept the New Legion’s invitation, go up to Deimos, and poke around with your Saturnian telepathy? There’s no telling what you will find.”
“Wow, I hadn’t thought of that,” said Saturn Girl. “But I’ve got so much on my plate. Maybe you could wander up and poke around with your Yzopokr telepathy. Maybe sometime this week. Deimos passes overhead every five days or so.”
“Maybe I will,” said Yzopok Girl. “Do you know you’re shielding your thoughts?”
“Am I?” said Saturn Girl. “Gosh. Force of habit, I guess.”
o o o
“I went up to Deimos today,” Yzopok Girl reported.
“Did you?” said Saturn Girl. “The headache will go away after a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ve never run into mind-blocker tech like that before. Do you know what it is?”
“Nope. No idea. But H&B must be big believers in psychic privacy for their Legionnaires.”
“You could have just told me,” said Yzopok Girl. “You know I’m going to be useless for the rest of the day.”
“You understand my suspicions now?” Saturn Girl asked.
“Well… maybe,” Viqi admitted. “Although I took a tour of their headquarters. They seemed very open.”
“They wouldn’t show you anything they wouldn’t want you to see, though, would they?”
“I sort of ‘got lost’ from the tour, and wandered about on my own for a little bit. I did see something odd. There was a vase-- well, to three-dimensional eyes it looked like a vase, but it was a little more complex up in the higher dimensions. There was a kid who seemed to have gotten trapped in there, and I helped him get out-- you know, with my phasing powers.”
Saturn Girl gasped. “You released something from a multi-dimensional bottle trap? Didn’t it occur to you that it might have been placed there for a reason? For all you know, it could have been some fifth-dimensional sorcerer!”
“He… I think he sort of introduced himself,” Yzopok Girl stammered. “One I got him out, all he said was ‘William Hasaram’, then gave a little bow, and vanished.”
Saturn Girl sighed with relief. “Oh, that’s just Mrshmllw. He’s harmless. Thinks of himself as an Adventurer of sorts. He likes to call himself The Zrfffn Imphunter.”
“Well, you gave me a scare for a moment there,” said Yzopok Girl. “I’m still getting used to all the unique perils of Earthside. And this headache doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Go lie down, and I’ll bring some soup to your quarters,” said Saturn Girl.
Yzopok Girl (Vqzga (Viqi) Gzxbp of Yzopok, Gnohhon System, Bgztlrside)
Saturn Girl (Dorrit Ardeen Ranzz of Winath, Amartan System)
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/25/23 10:11 AM
this is quite a team you have built, Klar!
I like your conversational writing style. It reminds me a bit of some children's authors.
I like your conversational writing style. It reminds me a bit of some children's authors.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/25/23 06:04 PM
Originally Posted by Invisible Brainiac
I like your conversational writing style. It reminds me a bit of some children's authors.
I take that as a real compliment, IB.
Some of my favorite authors are Lewis Carrol, A.A. Milne, J.M. Barrie, L. Frank Baum, and Johnny Cruelle.
Terrible and horrifying things happen in the stories of Peter Pan, the Land of Oz, and the world of Raggedy Ann and Andy. But because of the authors’ straightforward, matter-of-fact style, many little children read these stories without trauma.
(On the other hand, I knew a teen-aged girl from Sweden who read a translation of “Alice in Wonderland” and remarked, “This is like a nightmare”. Yes, yes it is. Exactly.)
Ernest Hemingway invented the “Iceberg Theory” of storytelling, where 9O% of the information you know about the characters is kept from the reader, The theory is that this makes the story more mysterious, engaging, and compelling-- and also life-like, because we know very little about the world as we experience it. Imagine yourself driving through suburbia, passing house after house, each house full of stories of families you will never meet, and never know. It is fascinating to think about.
I have on occasion forced myself to write “Iceberg” stories, particularly in Creative Writing classes. But I am more comfortable with the J.R.R. Tolkien method, which I call the “Brain Dump”. Every tiny detail of the author’s imaginary world is spelled out, right there on the page, mostly through exposition and digressions, sometimes through footnotes and appendices.
(You see what I did there?)
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 03/25/23 07:05 PM
Glad you take it as a compliment, Klar, I fully intended it as one
And indeed, I’ve read works from most of the authors you list - and I appreciated the style. I like the “Brain Dump” style for making works more accessible…
And indeed, I’ve read works from most of the authors you list - and I appreciated the style. I like the “Brain Dump” style for making works more accessible…
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/03/23 03:26 PM
“You would think that Trade would be more profitable than War,” Chel-Eb opined.
“Khunds don’t trade,” said Star-Woman. “They conquer.”
“They have tried to ‘conquer’ Xolnar before,” Chel-Eb mused.
“The Empire is not monolithic,” Star-Woman reminded him. “Others have been defeated, but for some young Warlord, Xolnar is too tempting a prize.”
“Xolnar is honeycombed with Pluridium mines,” said Kid Ultraboy. “More pluridium than any other world in the Khundish Empire-- or in the U.P., for that matter. And they use it to fuel their starships. Unbelievable.”
“They use it to catalyze warp reactions,” Star-Woman corrected her. “A little Pluridium goes a long way, but eventually burns out.”
“We appreciate the Kassandran system lending you to us,” said Kid Ultraboy. “It must be hard being the Planetary Champion of two worlds.”
“Three,” said Star-Woman. “I am on call with Xanthu as well. The strategy is non-fatal containment, I understand. Disable their weapons, including any fighter on board the main ships. They might be disguised as escape pods, but don’t be fooled-- Khunds don’t believe in escape pods.”
“And don’t allow them to reach landfall,” added Chel-Eb. “That means destroying landing gear, if necessary.”
“We have no intelligence on what ships or how many are being deployed,” said Star-Woman. “So use your vision powers, be careful, and be diligent.”
Silently, a subspace transwarp portal opened in the distance. The Khundish Armada came through.
Star-Woman stared into the distance. “I count… 128 ships of various sizes.”
“Confirmed,” said Chel-Eb.
“Doubly confirmed,” said Kid Ultraboy. “That would make… about fifty thousand warriors. I do not want to fight them all individually.”
“You’re right,” said Star-Woman. “Some of them might get hurt. Keep communications open.” She darted off into the blackness of space, toward the invasion force.
“This shouldn’t take long,” said Chel-Eb, and vanished as well.
As Star-Woman and Chel-Eb ripped weapons from their moorings, cauterizing the damaged hulls, Kid Ultraboy had to work more slowly. Fading into intangibility, she flew through space at ultra-speed. Phasing through a ship’s hull, she scanned for weapons systems. On finding one, she would materialize, switch to ultra-strength, and do as much damage as she could. If the controls were guarded, she would remain intangible and use flash vision to melt anything that looked important. Once she was surprised by a platoon of soldiers, and quickly switched to invulnerability before turning intangible again. She was enjoying herself smashing up a small attack vessel when her attention was drawn to some sound in the distance. She scanned the ship again with ultravision.
“Someone else is here,” she announced through her telepathic earplugs. “And they’re destroying the engines.”
“Stupid, stupid stupid,” Star-Woman swore. “How are they supposed to get home? Now we’ll need a fleet of military SPs to piggyback them back into Khundish space.”
“Did you see who it was?” asked Chel-Eb.
“No, they were moving too fast,” said Kid Ultraboy.
“Wait, I see them,” said Chel-Eb. “Two humanoids, one male, one female.”
“We don’t have time for this,” said Star-Woman. “We’ve only disabled about a quarter of the armada.”
“You work faster than I do,” said Kid Ultraboy. “Let me try to intercept them, and talk some sense into them.”
She quickly found one of the interlopers. She tried to grab him, but he shrugged her off as if she were a flea. She followed him as he zig-zagged through the ships like a missile. His actions were predictable, so she was able to get out in front of him. The Khunds had started firing on him, but with no effect. In the vacuum of space, speech was impossible, but she used her flash-vision to scorch the message “Stop Destroying The Engines” in Interlac on the next ship. He ignored it, and crashed right through, leaving a gaping hole. She tried the same message on the next ship, with the same result. On the third ship he wrote, “How Will They Get Home?” He crashed right through the message, then circled back and scorched his own message into the side of the ship: “Who Are You?” She responded by writing again, “Kid Ultraboy of the Super-Hero Club. I have two friends who are disabling…” But the second party-crasher, the female, had shown up. She pulled what looked very much like a telepathic plug out of her ear, and motioned to Kid Ultraboy to do the same. There was a little flashing of lights, and she replaced the earplug, motioning Kid Ultraboy to copy her.
“That’s better,” said the woman. “Our telepathic earplugs are now paired.” She scanned the wreckage of the Khund ships around them. “Your friends are doing a good job. I’m Skygirl of the New Legion of Super-Heroes, and this is my little brother, Skyboy.”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/d92230c3878224523e6c0ebf74182dcd/a2d47b67f999c999-08/s400x600/44fdd192ee4b3dbc39d9ab7e96369c9ab7ce6d87.jpg)
{Skyboy (Kando of Kormo) and Skygirl (Kyrkka of Kormo)}
“Are you hearing this?” Kid Ultraboy asked Chel-Eb and Star-Woman.
“Yes,” was the unanimous reply.
“We can hear your friends, too,” said Skyboy.
“Listen, why don’t the five of us meet down on the planet?” suggested Star-Woman. “We’re almost done here.”
“A few of these ships are carrying Kryptonite,” Chel-Eb reported. “Kallor, I’ll leave them for you.”
“They really are very efficient,” said Kid Ultraboy. “Can the three of us give it up, and just discuss this planetside?”
“All right,” said Skygirl.
o o o
“Our ship was a casualty,” said Skygirl. “My brother and I are Kormons; we can survive in space, but can’t open spacewarps like Kryptonians and Daxamites. I don’t suppose you could give us a lift home?”
“My cruiser is parked in orbit,” said Star-Woman. “But I’m on my way back to Naltor.”
“Chel-Eb and I can take you back to Mars,” said Kid Ultraboy. “That’s just a quick jump from Deimos. I would have to scan you first.”
“Scan away,” said Skyboy. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“No, you do not,” said Kid Ultraboy. “And my penetra-vision if very thorough.” She tapped her earpiece. “Four for the Pentachoron,” she said.
And they were on Mars, right in front of the Super-Hero Clubhouse.
Magissa had a sharp face with olive skin, green eyes, and hair as black as a moonless midnight. Her working clothes were green-black robes and a matching pointed hat. But off-duty, she favored classic Romani dress, in autumnal colors. “Who is this?” she asked.
“Skygirl and Skyboy of the New Legion,” Skygirl replied.
“Juno Kazan of Witchhaven, but you can call me Magissa.”
“We don’t have any magic-workers on Deimos…” Skygirl began. She swayed for a moment, then passed out. Skyboy quickly followed his little sister to the ground.
o o o
The two unconscious siblings lay in unused quarters in the Clubhouse.
“The first thing to do,” said Ten, “is to unpair these telepathic earplugs. The NLSH has had full access to our communication network since you connected.” There was a little flash and beep as the devices unpaired. “I have reset access protection for our network, so they will not be able to reconnect.”
“But you could hack into their communications at any time?” asked Saturn Girl.
“That is a question for another time. The next order of business is to contact my Adult Guardian, and bring him to Mars, if possible.” He looked around. “For the benefit of the new Members, he is a renowned medical exo-biologist.”
o o o
“An interesting factoid regarding Kormons,” said Renlo Tagor. “All of their fingerprints are identical. One does not see them often away from their homeworld. These two are a case in point as to why. They are both suffering from what has been termed pyrexia solaaurumnis: Gold Sun Fever. The first stage is amnesia, then a sort of controlled mania, and finally catatonia. It has never been seen to advance beyond the third stage, but organ failure leading to fatality is likely.”
“So the yellow sun which gives them Daxamite-like powers is toxic to them?” asked Ten.
Renlo Tagor nodded. “They are unable to fully process the sub-yellow energies, resulting in… something like overcharging a battery. Fortunately, the treatment is simplicity itself: place them back in a red-sun environment. I have had a pair of red-sun lamps imported from Colu. You should ask Chel-Eb to keep away from this section of the Clubhouse. With his condition, depowering due to red solar energies could be debilitating.”
“You said the first symptom is amnesia,” said Saturn Girl. “So they may not be who they say they are?”
“Ask them after they wake up,” said Renlo Tagor.
“They seemed perfectly rational when I spoke with them,” said Kid Ultraboy.
“The wanton destruction of the Khund vessels,” said Renlo Tagor, “Without consideration of the consequences, would indicate otherwise. But I must now make my way up to Deimos, and see if Hanscom and Burrane provide medical services to their little Legion, and why they allowed the Kormon’s condition to progress so far. Hopefully there will be a Head Physician that I can berate.”
o o o
“You have stopped using the name Mighty Lad,” Kid Ultraboy commented.
“It was beginning to sound juvenile,” said Korvea. “Chel-Eb is fine for now.”
“I was thinking of calling myself ‘Zygai’-- the Kryptonian word for hero,” said Chel-Eb. “But it sounds silly in Interlac. Or ‘Mordo’, after the six-armed Kryptonian Hercules, one of the Aspects of Rao. But in some common planetary languages, ‘Mordo’ can mean ‘animal face’, ‘rebellion’, ‘death’, or ‘one who bites’. Then, it could be confused with Mordru as well.”
“ I have never used a code-name myself,” said Korvea.
“Well, Kid Ultraboy is also getting old. Perhaps I should just start using the name Arna.”
“It is breaking a long tradition among adventurers,” said Chel-Eb. “Shall we all begin using our ordinary names?”
“How does Daughter of Nah sound?” asked Kid Ultraboy.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/258103aa630e26dc4beceb7954283cda/c4e5486e6bb12361-28/s250x400/21727d2cdb7ee2c22456dd5330a3ac7c392ce249.png)
Kid Ultraboy (Arna Nah of Gzbk)
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/cf2ff127df5bb8d746eeaebf1c24c588/96a64230b7cabac1-9b/s400x600/4145863aae83192647819736d14d207ca9a1fb24.png)
Korvea (Korvea Mallor of Talok VIII)
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/82fe8c68a4f8f1cc0979c5170c7bad7c/405c5d8ec1aace0c-4e/s250x400/e56d7af5694f029185d54130153583325e98b6cb.png)
Chel-Eb of Krypton, formerly Mighty Lad[b], formerly [b]Fat Boy (he has lost weight since living under a yellow sun)
[img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/5d8e1c4...7e23b9209dd4640297030aa77be8bebc271b.pnj [/img]
Star-Woman (Kallor Nal of Naltor)
o o o
“Dorrit,” said Ten. “Our Kormon guests have been relocated to Deimos. My Adult Guardian reports that they have a small Medicus in their headquarters, and that the physicians there are aware of the Gold Sun Fever problem. The siblings sleep in quarters with red solar emitters, but have been on assignments away from Deimos recently. The physicians' group claimed ignorance regarding how quickly the illness progresses. They have promised to be more circumspect in the future. Still, I find myself concerned with their laxity.
Saturn Girl nodded. “I like your Adult Guardian. If it had been Brainiac 5, he just would have said, ‘no time to explain’ over and over again. At least Dr. Tagor let us know what was going on.”
“Had it been nearly any other Coluan,” said Ten, “They would have presented an eighteen-page analysis of Kormon physiology, including footnotes. I take some credit. I have learned from my time with the Club that most non-Coluans do not need terabytes of data presented. But that does not mean no information needs to be conveyed. Simplified, relevant explanations as to causes and motives are welcomed and expected. I wrote a treatise on it about four years ago. My Adult Guardian was one of the few who found it valuable, due to his interest in exobiology.”
“If you can get Coluans talking to the rest of the U.P., you will have done a great work,” said Saturn Girl.
“Khunds don’t trade,” said Star-Woman. “They conquer.”
“They have tried to ‘conquer’ Xolnar before,” Chel-Eb mused.
“The Empire is not monolithic,” Star-Woman reminded him. “Others have been defeated, but for some young Warlord, Xolnar is too tempting a prize.”
“Xolnar is honeycombed with Pluridium mines,” said Kid Ultraboy. “More pluridium than any other world in the Khundish Empire-- or in the U.P., for that matter. And they use it to fuel their starships. Unbelievable.”
“They use it to catalyze warp reactions,” Star-Woman corrected her. “A little Pluridium goes a long way, but eventually burns out.”
“We appreciate the Kassandran system lending you to us,” said Kid Ultraboy. “It must be hard being the Planetary Champion of two worlds.”
“Three,” said Star-Woman. “I am on call with Xanthu as well. The strategy is non-fatal containment, I understand. Disable their weapons, including any fighter on board the main ships. They might be disguised as escape pods, but don’t be fooled-- Khunds don’t believe in escape pods.”
“And don’t allow them to reach landfall,” added Chel-Eb. “That means destroying landing gear, if necessary.”
“We have no intelligence on what ships or how many are being deployed,” said Star-Woman. “So use your vision powers, be careful, and be diligent.”
Silently, a subspace transwarp portal opened in the distance. The Khundish Armada came through.
Star-Woman stared into the distance. “I count… 128 ships of various sizes.”
“Confirmed,” said Chel-Eb.
“Doubly confirmed,” said Kid Ultraboy. “That would make… about fifty thousand warriors. I do not want to fight them all individually.”
“You’re right,” said Star-Woman. “Some of them might get hurt. Keep communications open.” She darted off into the blackness of space, toward the invasion force.
“This shouldn’t take long,” said Chel-Eb, and vanished as well.
As Star-Woman and Chel-Eb ripped weapons from their moorings, cauterizing the damaged hulls, Kid Ultraboy had to work more slowly. Fading into intangibility, she flew through space at ultra-speed. Phasing through a ship’s hull, she scanned for weapons systems. On finding one, she would materialize, switch to ultra-strength, and do as much damage as she could. If the controls were guarded, she would remain intangible and use flash vision to melt anything that looked important. Once she was surprised by a platoon of soldiers, and quickly switched to invulnerability before turning intangible again. She was enjoying herself smashing up a small attack vessel when her attention was drawn to some sound in the distance. She scanned the ship again with ultravision.
“Someone else is here,” she announced through her telepathic earplugs. “And they’re destroying the engines.”
“Stupid, stupid stupid,” Star-Woman swore. “How are they supposed to get home? Now we’ll need a fleet of military SPs to piggyback them back into Khundish space.”
“Did you see who it was?” asked Chel-Eb.
“No, they were moving too fast,” said Kid Ultraboy.
“Wait, I see them,” said Chel-Eb. “Two humanoids, one male, one female.”
“We don’t have time for this,” said Star-Woman. “We’ve only disabled about a quarter of the armada.”
“You work faster than I do,” said Kid Ultraboy. “Let me try to intercept them, and talk some sense into them.”
She quickly found one of the interlopers. She tried to grab him, but he shrugged her off as if she were a flea. She followed him as he zig-zagged through the ships like a missile. His actions were predictable, so she was able to get out in front of him. The Khunds had started firing on him, but with no effect. In the vacuum of space, speech was impossible, but she used her flash-vision to scorch the message “Stop Destroying The Engines” in Interlac on the next ship. He ignored it, and crashed right through, leaving a gaping hole. She tried the same message on the next ship, with the same result. On the third ship he wrote, “How Will They Get Home?” He crashed right through the message, then circled back and scorched his own message into the side of the ship: “Who Are You?” She responded by writing again, “Kid Ultraboy of the Super-Hero Club. I have two friends who are disabling…” But the second party-crasher, the female, had shown up. She pulled what looked very much like a telepathic plug out of her ear, and motioned to Kid Ultraboy to do the same. There was a little flashing of lights, and she replaced the earplug, motioning Kid Ultraboy to copy her.
“That’s better,” said the woman. “Our telepathic earplugs are now paired.” She scanned the wreckage of the Khund ships around them. “Your friends are doing a good job. I’m Skygirl of the New Legion of Super-Heroes, and this is my little brother, Skyboy.”
{Skyboy (Kando of Kormo) and Skygirl (Kyrkka of Kormo)}
“Are you hearing this?” Kid Ultraboy asked Chel-Eb and Star-Woman.
“Yes,” was the unanimous reply.
“We can hear your friends, too,” said Skyboy.
“Listen, why don’t the five of us meet down on the planet?” suggested Star-Woman. “We’re almost done here.”
“A few of these ships are carrying Kryptonite,” Chel-Eb reported. “Kallor, I’ll leave them for you.”
“They really are very efficient,” said Kid Ultraboy. “Can the three of us give it up, and just discuss this planetside?”
“All right,” said Skygirl.
o o o
“Our ship was a casualty,” said Skygirl. “My brother and I are Kormons; we can survive in space, but can’t open spacewarps like Kryptonians and Daxamites. I don’t suppose you could give us a lift home?”
“My cruiser is parked in orbit,” said Star-Woman. “But I’m on my way back to Naltor.”
“Chel-Eb and I can take you back to Mars,” said Kid Ultraboy. “That’s just a quick jump from Deimos. I would have to scan you first.”
“Scan away,” said Skyboy. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“No, you do not,” said Kid Ultraboy. “And my penetra-vision if very thorough.” She tapped her earpiece. “Four for the Pentachoron,” she said.
And they were on Mars, right in front of the Super-Hero Clubhouse.
Magissa had a sharp face with olive skin, green eyes, and hair as black as a moonless midnight. Her working clothes were green-black robes and a matching pointed hat. But off-duty, she favored classic Romani dress, in autumnal colors. “Who is this?” she asked.
“Skygirl and Skyboy of the New Legion,” Skygirl replied.
“Juno Kazan of Witchhaven, but you can call me Magissa.”
“We don’t have any magic-workers on Deimos…” Skygirl began. She swayed for a moment, then passed out. Skyboy quickly followed his little sister to the ground.
o o o
The two unconscious siblings lay in unused quarters in the Clubhouse.
“The first thing to do,” said Ten, “is to unpair these telepathic earplugs. The NLSH has had full access to our communication network since you connected.” There was a little flash and beep as the devices unpaired. “I have reset access protection for our network, so they will not be able to reconnect.”
“But you could hack into their communications at any time?” asked Saturn Girl.
“That is a question for another time. The next order of business is to contact my Adult Guardian, and bring him to Mars, if possible.” He looked around. “For the benefit of the new Members, he is a renowned medical exo-biologist.”
o o o
“An interesting factoid regarding Kormons,” said Renlo Tagor. “All of their fingerprints are identical. One does not see them often away from their homeworld. These two are a case in point as to why. They are both suffering from what has been termed pyrexia solaaurumnis: Gold Sun Fever. The first stage is amnesia, then a sort of controlled mania, and finally catatonia. It has never been seen to advance beyond the third stage, but organ failure leading to fatality is likely.”
“So the yellow sun which gives them Daxamite-like powers is toxic to them?” asked Ten.
Renlo Tagor nodded. “They are unable to fully process the sub-yellow energies, resulting in… something like overcharging a battery. Fortunately, the treatment is simplicity itself: place them back in a red-sun environment. I have had a pair of red-sun lamps imported from Colu. You should ask Chel-Eb to keep away from this section of the Clubhouse. With his condition, depowering due to red solar energies could be debilitating.”
“You said the first symptom is amnesia,” said Saturn Girl. “So they may not be who they say they are?”
“Ask them after they wake up,” said Renlo Tagor.
“They seemed perfectly rational when I spoke with them,” said Kid Ultraboy.
“The wanton destruction of the Khund vessels,” said Renlo Tagor, “Without consideration of the consequences, would indicate otherwise. But I must now make my way up to Deimos, and see if Hanscom and Burrane provide medical services to their little Legion, and why they allowed the Kormon’s condition to progress so far. Hopefully there will be a Head Physician that I can berate.”
o o o
“You have stopped using the name Mighty Lad,” Kid Ultraboy commented.
“It was beginning to sound juvenile,” said Korvea. “Chel-Eb is fine for now.”
“I was thinking of calling myself ‘Zygai’-- the Kryptonian word for hero,” said Chel-Eb. “But it sounds silly in Interlac. Or ‘Mordo’, after the six-armed Kryptonian Hercules, one of the Aspects of Rao. But in some common planetary languages, ‘Mordo’ can mean ‘animal face’, ‘rebellion’, ‘death’, or ‘one who bites’. Then, it could be confused with Mordru as well.”
“ I have never used a code-name myself,” said Korvea.
“Well, Kid Ultraboy is also getting old. Perhaps I should just start using the name Arna.”
“It is breaking a long tradition among adventurers,” said Chel-Eb. “Shall we all begin using our ordinary names?”
“How does Daughter of Nah sound?” asked Kid Ultraboy.
Kid Ultraboy (Arna Nah of Gzbk)
Korvea (Korvea Mallor of Talok VIII)
Chel-Eb of Krypton, formerly Mighty Lad[b], formerly [b]Fat Boy (he has lost weight since living under a yellow sun)
[img]https://64.media.tumblr.com/5d8e1c4...
Star-Woman (Kallor Nal of Naltor)
o o o
“Dorrit,” said Ten. “Our Kormon guests have been relocated to Deimos. My Adult Guardian reports that they have a small Medicus in their headquarters, and that the physicians there are aware of the Gold Sun Fever problem. The siblings sleep in quarters with red solar emitters, but have been on assignments away from Deimos recently. The physicians' group claimed ignorance regarding how quickly the illness progresses. They have promised to be more circumspect in the future. Still, I find myself concerned with their laxity.
Saturn Girl nodded. “I like your Adult Guardian. If it had been Brainiac 5, he just would have said, ‘no time to explain’ over and over again. At least Dr. Tagor let us know what was going on.”
“Had it been nearly any other Coluan,” said Ten, “They would have presented an eighteen-page analysis of Kormon physiology, including footnotes. I take some credit. I have learned from my time with the Club that most non-Coluans do not need terabytes of data presented. But that does not mean no information needs to be conveyed. Simplified, relevant explanations as to causes and motives are welcomed and expected. I wrote a treatise on it about four years ago. My Adult Guardian was one of the few who found it valuable, due to his interest in exobiology.”
“If you can get Coluans talking to the rest of the U.P., you will have done a great work,” said Saturn Girl.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/04/23 07:25 AM
I dig the ongoing interactions with the new Legion of Super-Heroes but my biggest takeaway from this last lot of stories is that the Non-Metal Men is an awesome idea!!
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/06/23 04:39 PM
OK, Raz, here is more information than you want or need:
I have created more than fifty new characters to populate NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries.
Not all of them will appear.
And by “Click to Show Content” I mean “Here is Some Boring Stuff”.
The Non-Metal Men
I have created more than fifty new characters to populate NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries.
Not all of them will appear.
And by “Click to Show Content” I mean “Here is Some Boring Stuff”.
The Non-Metal Men
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Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/07/23 10:46 AM
Love it! I think I am going to spend a couple of hours in a periodic table rabbit hole now
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/10/23 05:00 PM
“Why did you give up the name Alter Boy?” asked Sludge. “You don’t really turn into a monster, you just alter your form.”
“On my homeworld, my alternate forms are considered truly monstrous,” the young Jaquaan replied. “Even my ‘humanoid’ form is considered grotesque.”
“And that was the reason you changed your name?” asked Sludge.
“There was already an ‘Alterhawk’ on Deimos. He’s from Novae Xanshi, with the ability to randomly modify the super-powers of others.“
“You know Saturn Girl is suspicious of the NLSH?”
“Everyone knows that by now,” said Ghurwil. “But I found them a perfectly acceptable Adventurer organization.”
“Why did you leave?” asked Sludge.
“You know, I applied to the Super-Hero Club first,” said Monster Boy. “Under the name of Variable Lad 2. The New Legion of Super-Heroes is more like a military academy. The Club has more of a family feel to it. Family is important on Jaquaa. As few Jaquaans are capable of replicating, those who can have large families. We have scores of siblings, and even more cousins. Yet Jaquaa is always on the verge of a population collapse.”
“On Pantano,” said Sludge, “We have had a stable population for centuries. We don’t even think about it.”
“On Terra,” said Monster Boy, “There are animals called Lagomorphs that breed outrageously.. They take population growth to the extreme, in an attempt to outbreed their predators. Eventually, their populations become so large they either exhaust the food supply, or overcrowding breeds disease. The population crashes to nearly zero. Their predators also starve to death, so things are still kept more-or-less in balance. Then the cycle continues. It seems like a detestable way to live.”
Sludge and Monster Boy were joined at the Spacetime Pentachoron by Ten, Botboy, Magissa, and Bouch. Venus was only a quick distortion away.
“When Venus was terraformed,” Ten explained, “There was a complement of Earthlings who wanted to preserve the natural Venetian environment. As a compromise, 12.5% of the planet’s surface was left unchanged, separated from the rest of the world by forcefields and polymer domes. We have received a notice from EarthGov that there has been a breach, and some of the native fauna has escaped. The Justice League of Earth is working with IshtraGov techs to repair the breach; they have asked us to round up the animals.”
Magissa nodded. “This is similar to the training exercises the old Legion were sometimes involved in,” she said. “Ten gave me the heads-up early, and I have prepared some scrying potions to track and observe the escaped Venusian creatures. Keep in touch with me, and I will give you your assignments.”
“It is important to work quickly,” said Ten. “These beasts are not able to survive long in the Terraformed environment. Many may be suffering badly already.”
Magissa quickly directed Sludge to a couple of gorillions lying on the ground.
“<<Quickly>>,” Magissa directed. “<<I think they are freezing to death>>.”
Sludge extruded his slime beneath the pair, reducing its coefficient of friction to near zero. He was then able to push the two massive creatures to an opening in a polymer dome.
“I can’t produce my slime in a trans-suit,” he explained to the IshtranGov techs. “Can you get them to safety without me entering your 9OO-degree, acid-filled landscape?”
The hazmat-suited techs nodded, producing a couple of sets of null-grav lifting gear.
After some trial and error, Monster Boy transformed into a tall, bushy tree-like form, sending out an effusion of some silico-sulfurous fragrance which at first attracted scores of luminous nightcrawlers and maggot-like creatures. Bouch was able to return them to their natural environment in the enclosure.
Later, they were visited by larger creatures, resembling flying crocodiles, crocosaurs, and giant frogs which required Bouch to consume a considerable amount of stone and debris to gain size and strength enough to handle the creatures.
Meanwhile, Sludge was able to handle a half-dozen assorted varieties of furry pachyderms, as well as a couple of “bulletproof tigers”, using webby cocoons of sticky slime to immobilize them and avenues of slicker slime to move them on.
Ten had engineered a flight ring into Botboy, and Magissa directed them to a flock of vaporous “cloud-rays". Almost indistinguishable from the giant sting-rays of Earth, they were far more diaphanous in structure, making the skies their home, rather than the seas.
“We need to treat them carefully,” Ten explained. “They are extremely fragile…”
The two were knocked from the sky by a deafening concussive blast. The cloud-rays dissipated into precipitating powders of silicon sulfides.
“Great Yod,” Ten exclaimed. “What in the Cosmos…”
“I recognize that,” said Botboy. “EarthGov must have called on the NLSH as well. That was one of Thoom’s concussive blasts. The people of Urrika-3 often undergo elective cybernetic surgery, like the Khunds. Thoom has had kinetic blast generators attached to his wrists. They give him a kind of super-strength, and, well, concussive blasts like that one.”
“But why would he use it on the rays?” asked Ten. “If the NLSH is here, they ought to be trying to rescue these creatures, not destroy them.”
“Thoom sometimes underestimates his own strength,” said Botboy. “He may have been just trying to knock them out of the sky.”
A complement of the New Legion came flying up on jet-packs. Ten recognized the siblings Null and Void of Exxor, an Antarean protean, and the entire Replacements team of Bdelugmos, whom he had so recently rejected. He assumed the white-skinned, bald-headed Urrikan was Thoom.
H&B’s New Legion of Super Heroes certainly has more influence with UPGov than The Super Hero Club, Ten thought to himself.
“Our apologies,” said Solar Boy, through his mask. “Our companion got carried away.”
“Don’t apologize to us,” said Ten. “Apologize to IshtraGov. These creatures are exceptionally rare.”
The New Legionnaires with visible human faces looked abashed.
At that moment, Magissa gave the telepathic all-clear. All the escapees had been accounted for, living or not. Ten signaled to Botboy, and they returned to reunite with the rest of the Members.
o o o
“Do you think they managed to get visas for their parents as well?” Saturn Girl wondered.
“I cannot believe they would have left Bdelugmos under any other conditions,” said Ten. “But I will report that in spite of the interference of the NLSH, the junior team acquitted themselves very well.”
o o o
“I brought back a Venusian animal,” said Magissa, abashedly. “It stowed away in my minicauldron. A sneep.”
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“We are aware,” said Ten. “The pentachoron detected the anomalous member when our party returned home.”
“Do you think IshtraGov might let me keep him?” asked Magissa. “He’s carbon-based, and I think he could adapt to Mars.”
“Sneep are not native to Venus,” Ten replied. “Having arrived subsequent to its full terraforming. No one really knows on what world they originated. They are something of an invasive species, and IshtraGov amenable to one being transported off-world. MarsGov animal control wants it registered, and they will have regulators monitor our treatment of it. They do not want an infestation on Mars. You wanted to keep it as a pet?”
“He’s very bright,” said Magissa. “I wanted to try to train him as a familiar. I’ve already named him Toby.”
“An appropriate name for a witch’s familiar,” Ten remarked. “Tobias ben Tobit was a noted exorcist in ancient Terran literature.”
“On my homeworld, my alternate forms are considered truly monstrous,” the young Jaquaan replied. “Even my ‘humanoid’ form is considered grotesque.”
“And that was the reason you changed your name?” asked Sludge.
“There was already an ‘Alterhawk’ on Deimos. He’s from Novae Xanshi, with the ability to randomly modify the super-powers of others.“
“You know Saturn Girl is suspicious of the NLSH?”
“Everyone knows that by now,” said Ghurwil. “But I found them a perfectly acceptable Adventurer organization.”
“Why did you leave?” asked Sludge.
“You know, I applied to the Super-Hero Club first,” said Monster Boy. “Under the name of Variable Lad 2. The New Legion of Super-Heroes is more like a military academy. The Club has more of a family feel to it. Family is important on Jaquaa. As few Jaquaans are capable of replicating, those who can have large families. We have scores of siblings, and even more cousins. Yet Jaquaa is always on the verge of a population collapse.”
“On Pantano,” said Sludge, “We have had a stable population for centuries. We don’t even think about it.”
“On Terra,” said Monster Boy, “There are animals called Lagomorphs that breed outrageously.. They take population growth to the extreme, in an attempt to outbreed their predators. Eventually, their populations become so large they either exhaust the food supply, or overcrowding breeds disease. The population crashes to nearly zero. Their predators also starve to death, so things are still kept more-or-less in balance. Then the cycle continues. It seems like a detestable way to live.”
Sludge and Monster Boy were joined at the Spacetime Pentachoron by Ten, Botboy, Magissa, and Bouch. Venus was only a quick distortion away.
“When Venus was terraformed,” Ten explained, “There was a complement of Earthlings who wanted to preserve the natural Venetian environment. As a compromise, 12.5% of the planet’s surface was left unchanged, separated from the rest of the world by forcefields and polymer domes. We have received a notice from EarthGov that there has been a breach, and some of the native fauna has escaped. The Justice League of Earth is working with IshtraGov techs to repair the breach; they have asked us to round up the animals.”
Magissa nodded. “This is similar to the training exercises the old Legion were sometimes involved in,” she said. “Ten gave me the heads-up early, and I have prepared some scrying potions to track and observe the escaped Venusian creatures. Keep in touch with me, and I will give you your assignments.”
“It is important to work quickly,” said Ten. “These beasts are not able to survive long in the Terraformed environment. Many may be suffering badly already.”
Magissa quickly directed Sludge to a couple of gorillions lying on the ground.
“<<Quickly>>,” Magissa directed. “<<I think they are freezing to death>>.”
Sludge extruded his slime beneath the pair, reducing its coefficient of friction to near zero. He was then able to push the two massive creatures to an opening in a polymer dome.
“I can’t produce my slime in a trans-suit,” he explained to the IshtranGov techs. “Can you get them to safety without me entering your 9OO-degree, acid-filled landscape?”
The hazmat-suited techs nodded, producing a couple of sets of null-grav lifting gear.
After some trial and error, Monster Boy transformed into a tall, bushy tree-like form, sending out an effusion of some silico-sulfurous fragrance which at first attracted scores of luminous nightcrawlers and maggot-like creatures. Bouch was able to return them to their natural environment in the enclosure.
Later, they were visited by larger creatures, resembling flying crocodiles, crocosaurs, and giant frogs which required Bouch to consume a considerable amount of stone and debris to gain size and strength enough to handle the creatures.
Meanwhile, Sludge was able to handle a half-dozen assorted varieties of furry pachyderms, as well as a couple of “bulletproof tigers”, using webby cocoons of sticky slime to immobilize them and avenues of slicker slime to move them on.
Ten had engineered a flight ring into Botboy, and Magissa directed them to a flock of vaporous “cloud-rays". Almost indistinguishable from the giant sting-rays of Earth, they were far more diaphanous in structure, making the skies their home, rather than the seas.
“We need to treat them carefully,” Ten explained. “They are extremely fragile…”
The two were knocked from the sky by a deafening concussive blast. The cloud-rays dissipated into precipitating powders of silicon sulfides.
“Great Yod,” Ten exclaimed. “What in the Cosmos…”
“I recognize that,” said Botboy. “EarthGov must have called on the NLSH as well. That was one of Thoom’s concussive blasts. The people of Urrika-3 often undergo elective cybernetic surgery, like the Khunds. Thoom has had kinetic blast generators attached to his wrists. They give him a kind of super-strength, and, well, concussive blasts like that one.”
“But why would he use it on the rays?” asked Ten. “If the NLSH is here, they ought to be trying to rescue these creatures, not destroy them.”
“Thoom sometimes underestimates his own strength,” said Botboy. “He may have been just trying to knock them out of the sky.”
A complement of the New Legion came flying up on jet-packs. Ten recognized the siblings Null and Void of Exxor, an Antarean protean, and the entire Replacements team of Bdelugmos, whom he had so recently rejected. He assumed the white-skinned, bald-headed Urrikan was Thoom.
H&B’s New Legion of Super Heroes certainly has more influence with UPGov than The Super Hero Club, Ten thought to himself.
“Our apologies,” said Solar Boy, through his mask. “Our companion got carried away.”
“Don’t apologize to us,” said Ten. “Apologize to IshtraGov. These creatures are exceptionally rare.”
The New Legionnaires with visible human faces looked abashed.
At that moment, Magissa gave the telepathic all-clear. All the escapees had been accounted for, living or not. Ten signaled to Botboy, and they returned to reunite with the rest of the Members.
o o o
“Do you think they managed to get visas for their parents as well?” Saturn Girl wondered.
“I cannot believe they would have left Bdelugmos under any other conditions,” said Ten. “But I will report that in spite of the interference of the NLSH, the junior team acquitted themselves very well.”
o o o
“I brought back a Venusian animal,” said Magissa, abashedly. “It stowed away in my minicauldron. A sneep.”
“We are aware,” said Ten. “The pentachoron detected the anomalous member when our party returned home.”
“Do you think IshtraGov might let me keep him?” asked Magissa. “He’s carbon-based, and I think he could adapt to Mars.”
“Sneep are not native to Venus,” Ten replied. “Having arrived subsequent to its full terraforming. No one really knows on what world they originated. They are something of an invasive species, and IshtraGov amenable to one being transported off-world. MarsGov animal control wants it registered, and they will have regulators monitor our treatment of it. They do not want an infestation on Mars. You wanted to keep it as a pet?”
“He’s very bright,” said Magissa. “I wanted to try to train him as a familiar. I’ve already named him Toby.”
“An appropriate name for a witch’s familiar,” Ten remarked. “Tobias ben Tobit was a noted exorcist in ancient Terran literature.”
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/15/23 07:33 PM
Villian the Sorcerer had dropped by to visit old friends. He had only become more distinguished as he approached thirty.
“Things have certainly changed since I last saw you,” he told Phantom Girl. “Most of the old members are gone.”
“It's just Dorrit, Txarlz, Korvea, and I,” said Phantom Girl. “Everyone eise is new. It’s a long way for you to come, just to say ‘Hello’, after all these years.”
“My troupe begins a tour on Neptune in a couple of days,” Villian explained. “I had…”
He was suddenly distracted by the passing of a young girl with a mystic aura, less than half his age.
“Finally, a Club Member from the Sorcerer’s World?” he asked Phantom Girl.
“I am no sorceress,” Magissa replied. “I have no need to disguise my true name. I was born, raised, and trained on Witchhaven. You are Tharnan?”
“Sadly, I am a failed sorcerer’s apprentice,” Villian admitted. “I now make my living performing only stage magic in traveling circuses across the United Planets. Hm…on Tharn, we were taught that Witchhaven has no true magic. Obviously we were misinformed. There is a powerful magical aura about you.”
“Yes, the Sorcerer’s World claims that Witchhaven is merely the home of charlatans and snake-oil sellers. And we are taught that Tharnans consort with demons, and desecrate the bodies of the dead. No offense intended,” Magissa laughed. “I am a potionmaker; my skill is a magical art. I don't entertain with fake legerdemain; I can brew potions to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses; stopper fame, brew glory, or bottle oblivion. A sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. I can create a stone that will neutralize most poisons-- even after they have been administered. I can see your past and future revealed in a single glance at a still bowl of smoky, silver liquid.”
o o o o o o
WHO’S WHO IN THE EARTH-K2 PARACOSM
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VILLIAN THE SORCERER
Bandar Sammad had been interested in magic ever since he had seen an amusement “fakir” perform in a local concert hall.
{In the 31st century, there are few true fakirs left, as almsgiving is a function that has been subsumed into the federal, planetary, and U.P. governments. There are many more “manoranjak fakirs”, who perform for the entertainment of the masses. Rope tricks, escapology, and snake-charming are usually included in these shows. Many of these performers are not of Indian descent.}
It was, of course, stage magic. But Bandar became enamored of the real thing. This was somewhat embarrassing to his family.
His father, Dr. Ali Sammad, was a respected professor of economics at the Nizam College of Osmania University. His mother Khadija was a local politician, a member of the city-state government of Hyperbad.
Nevertheless, he persisted. At the age of fifteen, Bandar was admitted to Myrddin University on Tharn, the Sorcerer’s world, in the Freshman class of apprentices.
He soon discovered he had absolutely no talent for magic at all.
Even a simple candle-lighting spell seemed beyond his abilities.
Still, he managed to struggle by for two years, always at the bottom of his class. He was not immediately expelled due to his teaching himself prestidigitation and other stage magic to hide his incompetence, and his very real ability to identify real magic and magical auras. At some point in their education, apprentices are encouraged to take magical pseudonyms to protence their true names. Due to his frequent failures in magical exams, Bandar took the pseudonym ‘Bungle Spelling’.
However, all good things must come to an end, and late in his second year, his deceptions were exposed, and he was expelled. He returned to Earth. His psych-scores being impressive enough, he enrolled in Metropolis University, at first majoring in Philosophy of Science. He was one of the founders of the Super-Villain Club, an ironically-named campus organization dedicated to protesting growing anti-alien sentiment on Earth. In accordance with his new interests, he changed his major to Political Science. At the same time, he began earning money by performing on- and off-campus in private gatherings displaying his abilities in stage magic, taking the name Villian the Sorcerer.
{Other members of the Super-Villain Club were Kimota Grezz (Black Flame), Anne Foxmoor (Evil-Eye Annie), Atta-Karr of Neptune (Razor), and Melaneus Niedrigh Mallor, later known as Collage. Some of these were the actual children of former ‘super-villains’.}
At the wrong place at the wrong time during an anti-alien protest (and counter-protest), Bandar and the rest of the “super-villains” were expelled from Metropolis University and banished from Earth while awaiting trial, and found a home for a short time at the Super-Hero Club clubhouse on Mars.
Cleared of all charges, Bandar went on to complete his education, and graduated with a degree in Performing Arts, and ultimately found a position with an intragalactic traveling circus. The members of the circus troupe also hold the honorary titles of United Planets Goodwill Ambassadors.
The Sammad Family:
Dr. Ali Sammad (retired economist), father (age: 6O’s)
Khadija Sammad (local politician), mother (age: 5O’s)
Bandar Sammad, aka Bungle Spelling, aka Villian the Sorcerer (age: 27)
Mo Sammad, younger brother (age: 14)
Hajri Sammad, younger sister (age: 8)
Martin Dhuon, the Sammad family’s giant manny
o o o o o o
WHO’S WHO IN THE EARTH-K2 PARACOSM
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MAGISSA
Juno Kazan was born, raised and educated on the planet Witchhaven, the daughter of Thomas Kazan and Floretta Manyar. She has an older brother named Isaac whose magical talents lie more in the psychic line. Her family is of Romani descent, with a family history dating back over twenty centuries.
She has a sharp face, with olive skin, cat-green eyes, and hair as black as a moonless midnight. Her working clothes are green-black robes and a matching pointed hat. Off-duty, she favors classic Romani dress, in autumnal colors.
Juno grew up in a mountainous region near an inland sea called the Gansas Highlands.
The climate there is somewhat similar to Scotland: cool, damp, marshy, and frequently overcast.
At the age of six, she showed a precocious talent for potion-making, and was taken under the tutelage of Swamini Phoola Visha.
Witchhaven has a bad reputation on the Sorcerer’s World, as sorcery is considered superior to witchcraft.
The feeling is mutual.
As the area around the Super-Hero Clubhouse on Mars is protected by a powerful anti-magic spell (courtesy of the First Coventry of Sorcerer’s World), Magissa has her own “witch’s cottage” somewhat removed from the main building in which she conducts her experiments.
She has a half-dozen memory crystals which contain her ‘recipe books’, but many of them contain only holograms of old alchemical tomes, which have not yet been translated into Interlac.
Abilities
Healing:
Given sufficient prep time and the proper ingredients, Magissa’s potions can heal virtually any illness or injury, short of death. Some infected excrescence from the patient is usually necessary: e.g. blood, sweat, tears, pus, or lymph.
Glamours:
These concoctions usually take the form of powders, usually sparkly. The illusions and hallucinations produced may be general or detailed, convincing or merely artistic. All effects are transitory, to one extent or another.
Scrying:
Scrying fluids allow the user to see specified geographical areas at particular times, or the past or future of an individual or object. Often the visions conjured up are subject to interpretations.
Poisons:
Alchemy is hardly necessary to brew poisons, but there are some deadly concoctions. It is also possible to induce only debilitation or deformity, either temporary or permanent.
Psychic Affect:
There are potions to excite or inhibit love, lust, hate, fear, envy, appetite and any number of other psychic conditions. There are potions which carry delusions to the mind. All of these are of limited duration.
Chemistry:
Even without using magic, is a perfectly capable Chemistry Laboratory Technician. She is as proficient as Ten in creating Profem or Norgine or any number or other common chemical concoctions. Providing she has access to the proper ingredients, that is. Her witch’s cottage on Mars always has the proper equipment.
Limitations:
Certainly there are potions which transform and transmute, but these are beyond Juno’s training. Besides, many of the ingredients are exceedingly rare and expensive. So while she is perfectly capable of a glamour which would make a bar of iron appear to be a bar of gold, she does not actually transmute lead into gold.
Similarly, there are a number of ways she could brew a potion which would convince others that a prince is a frog, or one which would (temporarily) convince some prince that they indeed were a frog. But it is beyond her power at present to create a potion which would actually transform a human being into a frog.
There are a couple of clever little potions, technically in the ‘poison’ category, that will permanently give a person pointed ears, change the color of their eyes, or cause them to (temporarily) grow an extra set of thumbs.
Magissa has recently acquired a familiar: a purple, round-headed Venusian Sneep named Toby.
“Things have certainly changed since I last saw you,” he told Phantom Girl. “Most of the old members are gone.”
“It's just Dorrit, Txarlz, Korvea, and I,” said Phantom Girl. “Everyone eise is new. It’s a long way for you to come, just to say ‘Hello’, after all these years.”
“My troupe begins a tour on Neptune in a couple of days,” Villian explained. “I had…”
He was suddenly distracted by the passing of a young girl with a mystic aura, less than half his age.
“Finally, a Club Member from the Sorcerer’s World?” he asked Phantom Girl.
“I am no sorceress,” Magissa replied. “I have no need to disguise my true name. I was born, raised, and trained on Witchhaven. You are Tharnan?”
“Sadly, I am a failed sorcerer’s apprentice,” Villian admitted. “I now make my living performing only stage magic in traveling circuses across the United Planets. Hm…on Tharn, we were taught that Witchhaven has no true magic. Obviously we were misinformed. There is a powerful magical aura about you.”
“Yes, the Sorcerer’s World claims that Witchhaven is merely the home of charlatans and snake-oil sellers. And we are taught that Tharnans consort with demons, and desecrate the bodies of the dead. No offense intended,” Magissa laughed. “I am a potionmaker; my skill is a magical art. I don't entertain with fake legerdemain; I can brew potions to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses; stopper fame, brew glory, or bottle oblivion. A sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. I can create a stone that will neutralize most poisons-- even after they have been administered. I can see your past and future revealed in a single glance at a still bowl of smoky, silver liquid.”
o o o o o o
WHO’S WHO IN THE EARTH-K2 PARACOSM
VILLIAN THE SORCERER
Bandar Sammad had been interested in magic ever since he had seen an amusement “fakir” perform in a local concert hall.
{In the 31st century, there are few true fakirs left, as almsgiving is a function that has been subsumed into the federal, planetary, and U.P. governments. There are many more “manoranjak fakirs”, who perform for the entertainment of the masses. Rope tricks, escapology, and snake-charming are usually included in these shows. Many of these performers are not of Indian descent.}
It was, of course, stage magic. But Bandar became enamored of the real thing. This was somewhat embarrassing to his family.
His father, Dr. Ali Sammad, was a respected professor of economics at the Nizam College of Osmania University. His mother Khadija was a local politician, a member of the city-state government of Hyperbad.
Nevertheless, he persisted. At the age of fifteen, Bandar was admitted to Myrddin University on Tharn, the Sorcerer’s world, in the Freshman class of apprentices.
He soon discovered he had absolutely no talent for magic at all.
Even a simple candle-lighting spell seemed beyond his abilities.
Still, he managed to struggle by for two years, always at the bottom of his class. He was not immediately expelled due to his teaching himself prestidigitation and other stage magic to hide his incompetence, and his very real ability to identify real magic and magical auras. At some point in their education, apprentices are encouraged to take magical pseudonyms to protence their true names. Due to his frequent failures in magical exams, Bandar took the pseudonym ‘Bungle Spelling’.
However, all good things must come to an end, and late in his second year, his deceptions were exposed, and he was expelled. He returned to Earth. His psych-scores being impressive enough, he enrolled in Metropolis University, at first majoring in Philosophy of Science. He was one of the founders of the Super-Villain Club, an ironically-named campus organization dedicated to protesting growing anti-alien sentiment on Earth. In accordance with his new interests, he changed his major to Political Science. At the same time, he began earning money by performing on- and off-campus in private gatherings displaying his abilities in stage magic, taking the name Villian the Sorcerer.
{Other members of the Super-Villain Club were Kimota Grezz (Black Flame), Anne Foxmoor (Evil-Eye Annie), Atta-Karr of Neptune (Razor), and Melaneus Niedrigh Mallor, later known as Collage. Some of these were the actual children of former ‘super-villains’.}
At the wrong place at the wrong time during an anti-alien protest (and counter-protest), Bandar and the rest of the “super-villains” were expelled from Metropolis University and banished from Earth while awaiting trial, and found a home for a short time at the Super-Hero Club clubhouse on Mars.
Cleared of all charges, Bandar went on to complete his education, and graduated with a degree in Performing Arts, and ultimately found a position with an intragalactic traveling circus. The members of the circus troupe also hold the honorary titles of United Planets Goodwill Ambassadors.
The Sammad Family:
Dr. Ali Sammad (retired economist), father (age: 6O’s)
Khadija Sammad (local politician), mother (age: 5O’s)
Bandar Sammad, aka Bungle Spelling, aka Villian the Sorcerer (age: 27)
Mo Sammad, younger brother (age: 14)
Hajri Sammad, younger sister (age: 8)
Martin Dhuon, the Sammad family’s giant manny
o o o o o o
WHO’S WHO IN THE EARTH-K2 PARACOSM
MAGISSA
Juno Kazan was born, raised and educated on the planet Witchhaven, the daughter of Thomas Kazan and Floretta Manyar. She has an older brother named Isaac whose magical talents lie more in the psychic line. Her family is of Romani descent, with a family history dating back over twenty centuries.
She has a sharp face, with olive skin, cat-green eyes, and hair as black as a moonless midnight. Her working clothes are green-black robes and a matching pointed hat. Off-duty, she favors classic Romani dress, in autumnal colors.
Juno grew up in a mountainous region near an inland sea called the Gansas Highlands.
The climate there is somewhat similar to Scotland: cool, damp, marshy, and frequently overcast.
At the age of six, she showed a precocious talent for potion-making, and was taken under the tutelage of Swamini Phoola Visha.
Witchhaven has a bad reputation on the Sorcerer’s World, as sorcery is considered superior to witchcraft.
The feeling is mutual.
As the area around the Super-Hero Clubhouse on Mars is protected by a powerful anti-magic spell (courtesy of the First Coventry of Sorcerer’s World), Magissa has her own “witch’s cottage” somewhat removed from the main building in which she conducts her experiments.
She has a half-dozen memory crystals which contain her ‘recipe books’, but many of them contain only holograms of old alchemical tomes, which have not yet been translated into Interlac.
Abilities
Healing:
Given sufficient prep time and the proper ingredients, Magissa’s potions can heal virtually any illness or injury, short of death. Some infected excrescence from the patient is usually necessary: e.g. blood, sweat, tears, pus, or lymph.
Glamours:
These concoctions usually take the form of powders, usually sparkly. The illusions and hallucinations produced may be general or detailed, convincing or merely artistic. All effects are transitory, to one extent or another.
Scrying:
Scrying fluids allow the user to see specified geographical areas at particular times, or the past or future of an individual or object. Often the visions conjured up are subject to interpretations.
Poisons:
Alchemy is hardly necessary to brew poisons, but there are some deadly concoctions. It is also possible to induce only debilitation or deformity, either temporary or permanent.
Psychic Affect:
There are potions to excite or inhibit love, lust, hate, fear, envy, appetite and any number of other psychic conditions. There are potions which carry delusions to the mind. All of these are of limited duration.
Chemistry:
Even without using magic, is a perfectly capable Chemistry Laboratory Technician. She is as proficient as Ten in creating Profem or Norgine or any number or other common chemical concoctions. Providing she has access to the proper ingredients, that is. Her witch’s cottage on Mars always has the proper equipment.
Limitations:
Certainly there are potions which transform and transmute, but these are beyond Juno’s training. Besides, many of the ingredients are exceedingly rare and expensive. So while she is perfectly capable of a glamour which would make a bar of iron appear to be a bar of gold, she does not actually transmute lead into gold.
Similarly, there are a number of ways she could brew a potion which would convince others that a prince is a frog, or one which would (temporarily) convince some prince that they indeed were a frog. But it is beyond her power at present to create a potion which would actually transform a human being into a frog.
There are a couple of clever little potions, technically in the ‘poison’ category, that will permanently give a person pointed ears, change the color of their eyes, or cause them to (temporarily) grow an extra set of thumbs.
Magissa has recently acquired a familiar: a purple, round-headed Venusian Sneep named Toby.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 04/24/23 05:47 AM
“Welcome home,” said Pol.
“They say ‘you can’t go home again’,” said Dorrit. “Coming back to Winath is like a visit to the past for me.”
“This is our home now,” said Dacey. “Our time away from Winath was something like a long vacation for us.”
“I have ten thousand things to see before I see Winath as home again,” said Dorrit.
Dacey laughed. “Well, Lightning Ring Farms, and Pol, are Home enough for me.”
Pol looked into Dacey’s eyes. She blushed.
“‘Where she was, was Eden,’” he quoted. He turned to Dorrit. “Let’s talk about our visit to Deimos after dinner,” he said.
The young Krinns had an asparagus fern growing in the yard outside their little home. Dorrit thought it so sweet, it was like eating strips of green cake. The rest of the meal was the same. The elder Krinns and Ranzzes regularly shipped care packages of fresh produce to the Super Hero Clubhouse, to supplement the food from the AutoChef. But Dorrit had forgotten how delicious a whole meal fresh from the farm could be. She ate more than she should have; more than was good for her. More than her sister and brother-in-law, who had been on Winath so long they took its bounty for granted.
In fact, she was feeling a little drowsy when Dacey said, “Let’s go to the living room and talk about it.”
Of course there was an overstuffed chair for Dorrit, and a loveseat for Pol and Dacey. If she didn’t love her sister so much herself, she might have felt a bit nauseated as the two cuddled together.
“So what do you think of these New Legionnaires?” asked Dorrit.
“We only left Mars a little over a year ago,” said Dacey. “Even without our costumes, I’m pretty sure everyone we met on our tour knew who we were, and were on their best behavior. But none of the New Legionnaires we did meet seemed particularly suspicious. A little green, overenthusiastic, and awkward, but we were the same once. There was something odd about the building itself: the Legion HQ on Deimos is huge, and laid out with meandering, labyrinthine corridors. But there is clearly a lot of empty, unused space there. Its like a building hidden inside another building.”
“You know Dacey can sense electric fields,” said Pol, “And I have both Kathooni infra-red vision, and Braalien quantum magno-vision. So we can see when there are hollows behind a wall, if not clearly everything that is there. Dacey is pretty sure some of these hidden rooms had machines in them, and I’m pretty sure there were a few people, too.
“And we did meet a couple of New Legionnaires who we think could use some help. Have you ever heard of the Land of Oz?”
“Sure,” said Dorrit. “It’s a fictional place from literature, like Narnia, or Fairy-Tale Woods, or Diogenes’ Cloudcuckooland, or Butler’s Erewhon.”
“Well, it may not be so fictional,” said Pol. “They have a meet-and-greet after the tour, where some of the New Legionnaires introduce themselves to the visitors, and show off their powers. We met a girl named Suzi Jamb, who claims she is from the real Oz, somewhere in Faeryland. She calls herself the Were-Woozie, and is able to transform into a bizarre blue creature that looks all squares and corners, like it was made out of building-blocks. In this form, she is nigh-invulnerable, and has a kind of magical, short-range heat vision. But she confided to us that all she really wanted was to go home: but no one knows where there is a portal to Faeryland.”
“How did Hanscom and Burrane find her?” asked Dorrit.
“She didn’t say,” said Pol. “She kind of got called away in the middle of our discussion.”
“Speaking of lost legends,” said Dacey, “We also met a Yellow Martian. Her name is Paz Yaldah-- or maybe P’Az Y’Aldah-- and calls herself Golden Girl. She’s older than most of the members. Tall, statuesque. If she were human, I’d guess she was in her thirties. She told us that centuries ago, the Yellow Martians fled the war between the Whites and Greens, and settled on a world called Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer, a small planet orbiting a red dwarf star. She wants to go home too, but no one in the United Planets knows where Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer is located. She said it's possible it has been visited by UP explorers, but they would have found no sign of intelligent life: only rocks and trees. The Ra’Akhmanii-- the Martians-- like their privacy, and would conceal themselves from any alien visitors.”
“And how did she end up a New Legionnaire?” Dorrit asked.
“She said she came to Mars on a pilgrimage,” said Dacey. “But then… I’m not sure how she got lost, or why she doesn’t know where her homeworld is herself. We were only able to talk to these people for a few minutes before they were called away elsewhere.”
“Don’t you find that odd?” asked Dorrit.
“It all seemed pretty natural at the time,” said Dacey. “The New Legion Headquarters is a busy place.”
“We met someone else you might have heard of,” said Pol. “El Mano De Angtu.”
“Mano? You’re joking,” said Dorrit. “Oh, no, you’re not. Mano is a member?”
“Not exactly,” said Pol. “The HQ is very complete: they have a hospital wing. We were walking out past it when we met him. He looked older than you would think. Confined to a grav-chair, emaciated, his skin lemon-yellow and papery. He wore only a leather diaper and a fishbowl-helmet attached to some sort of life-support belt, and a glove on his right hand..
“He was accompanied by his private nurse. I’ve seen a number of aliens, but his appearance was… disconcerting. His eyes were completely human, and the skin around them normal, if tinged with green. But it quickly became translucent, then almost transparent, by the time you reached his cheeks. The skull, nerves, blood vessels and muscles under the skin were completely visible. But his muscle tissue did not look as you would expect: instead it resembled writhing masses of elongated maggots, with small, dark masses weaving in and out here and there. The translucent skin bubbled and pulsed with the motion beneath. I’ll admit it was difficult for me to keep my composure.
“He introduced himself as Douglas Nolan, and his voice was as gentle and soothing as his face was horrifying. I talked to Mom later, and she told me his brother had been a member of the original Legion, far in the distant past.
“Mano was amused when he saw us. ‘I knew your parents,’ he said. He explained that Hanscom and Burrane had discovered that his powers did not work the way everyone believed they did, after all these years. His power does not disintegrate things, but moves them whole into another dimension; a dimension where time is in stasis. Hanscom and Burrane were working with Mano on a way to access that dimension, and bring everyone back. Including the entire planet Angtu, with its billions of inhabitants, unchanged after over fifty years.
“Mano had a room filled with mists which replicated the strange, smoggy atmosphere of his homeworld. There, he could remove his helmet and still live. In his invulnerable iron form, Mr. Nolan could accompany him without difficulty as well. They made him as comfortable as possible while conducting their research.”
“Hanscom and Burrane are definitely pursuing some worthy work,” said Dacey. “I think you need to stop worrying about this.”
Dorrit mused. “Maybe so,” she said.
“They say ‘you can’t go home again’,” said Dorrit. “Coming back to Winath is like a visit to the past for me.”
“This is our home now,” said Dacey. “Our time away from Winath was something like a long vacation for us.”
“I have ten thousand things to see before I see Winath as home again,” said Dorrit.
Dacey laughed. “Well, Lightning Ring Farms, and Pol, are Home enough for me.”
Pol looked into Dacey’s eyes. She blushed.
“‘Where she was, was Eden,’” he quoted. He turned to Dorrit. “Let’s talk about our visit to Deimos after dinner,” he said.
The young Krinns had an asparagus fern growing in the yard outside their little home. Dorrit thought it so sweet, it was like eating strips of green cake. The rest of the meal was the same. The elder Krinns and Ranzzes regularly shipped care packages of fresh produce to the Super Hero Clubhouse, to supplement the food from the AutoChef. But Dorrit had forgotten how delicious a whole meal fresh from the farm could be. She ate more than she should have; more than was good for her. More than her sister and brother-in-law, who had been on Winath so long they took its bounty for granted.
In fact, she was feeling a little drowsy when Dacey said, “Let’s go to the living room and talk about it.”
Of course there was an overstuffed chair for Dorrit, and a loveseat for Pol and Dacey. If she didn’t love her sister so much herself, she might have felt a bit nauseated as the two cuddled together.
“So what do you think of these New Legionnaires?” asked Dorrit.
“We only left Mars a little over a year ago,” said Dacey. “Even without our costumes, I’m pretty sure everyone we met on our tour knew who we were, and were on their best behavior. But none of the New Legionnaires we did meet seemed particularly suspicious. A little green, overenthusiastic, and awkward, but we were the same once. There was something odd about the building itself: the Legion HQ on Deimos is huge, and laid out with meandering, labyrinthine corridors. But there is clearly a lot of empty, unused space there. Its like a building hidden inside another building.”
“You know Dacey can sense electric fields,” said Pol, “And I have both Kathooni infra-red vision, and Braalien quantum magno-vision. So we can see when there are hollows behind a wall, if not clearly everything that is there. Dacey is pretty sure some of these hidden rooms had machines in them, and I’m pretty sure there were a few people, too.
“And we did meet a couple of New Legionnaires who we think could use some help. Have you ever heard of the Land of Oz?”
“Sure,” said Dorrit. “It’s a fictional place from literature, like Narnia, or Fairy-Tale Woods, or Diogenes’ Cloudcuckooland, or Butler’s Erewhon.”
“Well, it may not be so fictional,” said Pol. “They have a meet-and-greet after the tour, where some of the New Legionnaires introduce themselves to the visitors, and show off their powers. We met a girl named Suzi Jamb, who claims she is from the real Oz, somewhere in Faeryland. She calls herself the Were-Woozie, and is able to transform into a bizarre blue creature that looks all squares and corners, like it was made out of building-blocks. In this form, she is nigh-invulnerable, and has a kind of magical, short-range heat vision. But she confided to us that all she really wanted was to go home: but no one knows where there is a portal to Faeryland.”
“How did Hanscom and Burrane find her?” asked Dorrit.
“She didn’t say,” said Pol. “She kind of got called away in the middle of our discussion.”
“Speaking of lost legends,” said Dacey, “We also met a Yellow Martian. Her name is Paz Yaldah-- or maybe P’Az Y’Aldah-- and calls herself Golden Girl. She’s older than most of the members. Tall, statuesque. If she were human, I’d guess she was in her thirties. She told us that centuries ago, the Yellow Martians fled the war between the Whites and Greens, and settled on a world called Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer, a small planet orbiting a red dwarf star. She wants to go home too, but no one in the United Planets knows where Ra’Akham H’Ronmeer is located. She said it's possible it has been visited by UP explorers, but they would have found no sign of intelligent life: only rocks and trees. The Ra’Akhmanii-- the Martians-- like their privacy, and would conceal themselves from any alien visitors.”
“And how did she end up a New Legionnaire?” Dorrit asked.
“She said she came to Mars on a pilgrimage,” said Dacey. “But then… I’m not sure how she got lost, or why she doesn’t know where her homeworld is herself. We were only able to talk to these people for a few minutes before they were called away elsewhere.”
“Don’t you find that odd?” asked Dorrit.
“It all seemed pretty natural at the time,” said Dacey. “The New Legion Headquarters is a busy place.”
“We met someone else you might have heard of,” said Pol. “El Mano De Angtu.”
“Mano? You’re joking,” said Dorrit. “Oh, no, you’re not. Mano is a member?”
“Not exactly,” said Pol. “The HQ is very complete: they have a hospital wing. We were walking out past it when we met him. He looked older than you would think. Confined to a grav-chair, emaciated, his skin lemon-yellow and papery. He wore only a leather diaper and a fishbowl-helmet attached to some sort of life-support belt, and a glove on his right hand..
“He was accompanied by his private nurse. I’ve seen a number of aliens, but his appearance was… disconcerting. His eyes were completely human, and the skin around them normal, if tinged with green. But it quickly became translucent, then almost transparent, by the time you reached his cheeks. The skull, nerves, blood vessels and muscles under the skin were completely visible. But his muscle tissue did not look as you would expect: instead it resembled writhing masses of elongated maggots, with small, dark masses weaving in and out here and there. The translucent skin bubbled and pulsed with the motion beneath. I’ll admit it was difficult for me to keep my composure.
“He introduced himself as Douglas Nolan, and his voice was as gentle and soothing as his face was horrifying. I talked to Mom later, and she told me his brother had been a member of the original Legion, far in the distant past.
“Mano was amused when he saw us. ‘I knew your parents,’ he said. He explained that Hanscom and Burrane had discovered that his powers did not work the way everyone believed they did, after all these years. His power does not disintegrate things, but moves them whole into another dimension; a dimension where time is in stasis. Hanscom and Burrane were working with Mano on a way to access that dimension, and bring everyone back. Including the entire planet Angtu, with its billions of inhabitants, unchanged after over fifty years.
“Mano had a room filled with mists which replicated the strange, smoggy atmosphere of his homeworld. There, he could remove his helmet and still live. In his invulnerable iron form, Mr. Nolan could accompany him without difficulty as well. They made him as comfortable as possible while conducting their research.”
“Hanscom and Burrane are definitely pursuing some worthy work,” said Dacey. “I think you need to stop worrying about this.”
Dorrit mused. “Maybe so,” she said.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 05/01/23 03:15 PM
It was raining on Mars.
It’s a small world, after all, and when it rains on Mars it rains everywhere all at once..
“You know the old saying,” said Saturn Girl. “Dhanus Showers Bring Makara Flowers.”
Ten shrugged.
“I am receiving a distress call,” said Botboy, who had been manning the viewscreen of the Mission Monitor Board. “It is weak, and intermittent.”
Dorrit, is that y ^^^ ? This is Jan Arr ^^^ ried to contact ^^^ onn Winath, but it’s too far ^^^ damaged equipment. Can you help us? ^^^ ship inoperable ^^^ how much longer we can survive…
“Where is that message coming from?” asked Dorrit.
“Dryad, in the Korlon system,” said Botboy. “Korlon is undergoing substantial stellar instability at the moment, and the increasingly chaotic flares and stellar wind are causing much interference.”
“It’s a distress call,” said Saturn Girl. “They are clearly in distress. The question is, how do we help them?”
“We could ask the Circadians to determine the coordinates of the distressed ship ,” said Ten. “And bring it and its passengers here.”
“Get everyone on-planet down to the Pentachoron,” Saturn Girl ordered. “We are going in blind; we have no idea what we will be dealing with. Let’s just hope this is not a deception or a trap.”
The ship had a broad base and a tall central spire, looking something like a metallic whiskey bottle. It was battered and scarred, and in a few places had been inexpertly repaired. An archway in the side opened. A tall, blonde-bearded, broad-shouldered man, well into middle age, was carrying a slightly younger dark haired man in his arms.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” said the older man. “Fever, chills, convulsions, delirium, I have no idea what is wrong with him.”
The younger man tore out of the older man’s arms, screamed, ran a few yards screaming, then collapsed, twitching. Yzopok Girl ran to his side.
“The brain controls the body,” she said, “If you probe deep enough.”
“That is… brilliant,” said Saturn Girl. The younger man now lay peacefully on the sandy martian soil. “You will have to teach me that technique.”
“I may soon need your help,” said Yzopok Girl. “His body is rebelling. There is something fundamentally wrong.”
“I need a diagnosis before I can prepare an appropriate potion,” said Magissa. “Any ideas?”
“Perhaps it is time to call upon the medical knowledge of your Adult Guardian again,” Botboy suggested to Ten.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor appeared in holographic form. “Jan Arrah. One of the associates of Querl Dox. Are you ill?”
Jan Arrah indicated his friend trembling on the couch. “His name is Hadru Jamik… “ he began.
“I cannot help you,” Renlo Tagor interrupted. “The diagnosis is obvious: his psychocatalytic powers are out of control, ravaging his body, randomly slowing and accelerating chemical reactions. But he can be helped, it is only by the recombinant DNA technologists on his homeworld of Phlon. Their work is highly classified by PhlonGov. Even Colu has not been able to pierce their veil of secrecy. And, of course, no one has access to the DNA structures saved from Condo Arlik which were used to empower him. It would be foolish for me to attempt to treat him. You must get him to Phlon.” His hologram vanished.
“Your Pentachoron can easily take us to one of the hospitals or research centers on Phlon,” said Jan Arrah.
“We cannot,” Circadia Segundus informed the Club.
“It is not a matter of technology,” Circadia Ascheon added. “Visitation to Phlon is heavily regulated. To suddenly appear without proper authorization, even for a Phlonite citizen, would cause an interplanetary diplomatic incident.”
“It’s true,” said Jan Arrah. “My visitor’s visa expired years ago. Even I have been unable to renew it..”
“Even you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I used to be a minor celebrity,” said Jan Arrah. “But not enough to break through the bureaucracy. What we need is a major celebrity. I need to contact Hadru's wife.”
Jan Arrah and Saturn Girl joined Ten and Botboy in the Mission Monitor Room. Jan Arrah chose the ordinary wallscreen.
A bored-looking young girl appeared. “This is Qarda’s communications director. How can I help you?”
“It isn’t,” Jan Arrah explained. “It’s an A.I. programmed to filter out irrelevant communications.” He faced the screen. “Begin recording. This is Jan Arrah. Tell Qarda Meson that her husband Hadru Jamik is ill. He needs transportation to the Medicus on Phlon as soon as possible. End recording.” He turned back to the Members. “Now we wait,” he said.
Ten looked puzzled. “Hadru Jamik’s wife is Qarda Meson? She is the premier influencer on Phlon.”
“And almost unknown anywhere else in the U.P.,” said Jan Arrah. “Your computer mind specializes in some interesting topics.”
“I contacted the hospitals in New Metropolis, Nix Olympica, and Mars City,” said Saturn Girl. “None of them are willing to admit a Phlonite, let alone an Arlikian-modified Phlonite.I’m not sure how we can keep your companion comfortable… or alive.”
o o o o o o
“He is quite ill,” Yzopok Girl reported. “I may not be able to keep his illness in abeyance long enough, even with Saturn Girl’s help.”
“I believe I can concoct a potion that will alleviate his worst symptoms,” said Magissa. “But for the magic to work, we will need to move him away from the clubhouse.”
“We could move him back to his quarters on our ship,” Jan Arrah suggested.
“I have been attempting to replicate his powers,” said Monster Boy. “In order to counter the havoc they are causing in his system.” He morphed into what resembled an immense, glowing, purple tower of toxic waste. “However,it would be difficult to fit into either the Clubhouse or the ship in this form.”
Hadru Jamik remained on Mars another five days. His condition was touch-and-go, but the combined efforts of Jan Arrah, Yzopok Girl, Saturn Girl, Magissa and Monster Boy kept him alive. In the end, Phlon sent a ship to transport both Hadru and Jan to the Medicus Phlon.
“I will return for our ship,” said Jan Arrah. “But I need to let you know… there is a third member of our crew. He has been in deep meditation until now, but is due to awaken soon. His appearance may be somewhat alarming, but he is harmless. No, not harmless. He is… he has remarkable self-control. Let me introduce a couple of you to him.”
Jan Arrah led Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl into the ship. The third passenger appeared to be a massive pile of stone-- roughly humanoid in shape, well over eight feet tall seated. Miniature caldera dotted its rocky skin, some of which were smoking.
“Is it alive?” asked Yzopok Girl. “I don’t detect any mental activity.”
“Nor do I,” said Saturn Girl.
“Megalith is highly resistant to organic telepathy,” said Jan Arrah.
“Meg-A-Lith,” rumbled the stony giant, in a sleepy, far-off voice.
“Hadru and I will be back as soon as possible,” said Jan Arrah. “In the meantime, you are among friends.”
“Fri-Ends,” the creature rumbled.
o o o o o o
“Dryad is a graveyard world,” Megalith explained. “Dead. No animals. No plants. No life.”
“And yet it is your home?” asked Magissa. She had taken a great interest in the massive creature.
“I am from the distant past,” Megalith explained. “Only here because of an accident of time travel.”
“Where is your original home?” asked Magissa. “In time, I mean.”
“I am not good with U.P. or Earth calendars,” Megalith admitted. “Jan Arrah tells me my birth corresponds approximately with the fall of the Roman Empire, if that means anything to you.”
“Older than my family’s lineage,” said Magissa. “You know, the Pentachoron is the apex of time-travel technology. We could probably return you to your time, when Dryad was a living world.”
“No. I am here for a purpose,” Megalith insisted. “My homeworld was only recently destroyed. This was not the first time. It has happened before. My people are the… Wardens of our world. Every few generations, we become innately aware that something is changing. Our females gather seeds and spores from all over Dryad, and take them underground for the Great Sleep. The males stay aboveground, tending to the planetary garden..”
“Always, there is a Traveler, who is not present on Dryad when Korlon flares. He then returns, as the First Warden, to awaken the sleeping females, and leads the restoration of Dryad for the next generations. It appears that for this epoch, I am to be the First Warden.”
“That is a fascinating history,” said Magissa.
“It is the legend the Elders tell us,” said Megalith. “And I have found a transmuter, and a living catalyst to aid me in restoring the planet.”
“You have never seen it happen yourself?” Magissa asked. “Or known anyone who witnessed it?”
“Dryads have a life-span some ten times that of humans,” said Megalith. “And there are many Dryad generations between cataclysms. Still, is my presence here coincidence, or providence? Unfortunately, Korlon is still too unstable to begin the restoration of Dryad. This we discovered when the stellar storm hit us. Perhaps we will return in another half-century.”
“Your companions will be very old men by then,” said Magissa. “If they are still alive at all.”
“Then there will come others,” said Megalith, confidently
“I know someone who would be very interested in your story,” said Ten. “A Coluan temporal historian. The inventor of the Spacetime Pentachoron: Grumm Boz.”
o o o o o o
“As anyone can see,” Grumm Boz was explaining, “The Spacetime Pentachoron can serve as a time viewer as well as a transporter. See here: I have followed your chronotopic path back to the moment you left ancient Dryad, some 1.6 kilo-sola-years ago. Fascinating. That arch appears to be one of the legendary Guardians of Forever. They are quite elusive. I never expected to witness an instance of one. Whatever possessed you to enter it?”
“It was a dare,” Megalith confessed.
“Ah, the foibles of youth,” said Grumm Boz. “I, myself, once… oh, but that is wholly irrelevant. Now let me see,,, . it is known that the instability in Korlon’s photosphere is due not to any intrinsic volatility, but to the effects of a supermassive long-period comet. I believe the period is something like 60 to 65 mega-sola-years. Let me see… yes, there was the last instance of stellar disturbance. At approximately -62.9. Now if we move forward a little.. In just over a hundred sola-years, Dryad is green again. Let me mark that. Now, who visited this world between the cataclysm and the renovation? Let me zoom in for you.”
Within the triangular faces of the Pentachoron, the Members could see an adult male Dryad, with a glowing golden stone embedded in his forehead.
Magissa squinted. “Unless I am mistaken, that is a Hajar Al-Falasifa-- a Philosopher’s Stone,” she said.
“It makes sense,” said Megalith. “While we were on Dryad, we discovered we were very much in need of Jan Arrah’s transmutative powers and Hadru Jamik’s psychoanalysis. A philosopher’s stone would provide the same qualities. I wonder where I might be able to find one in a half-century or so?.”
“Ha-ha! No need,” said Grumm Boz. “Once your companions are wholly well, and back from Phlon, I can transport the three of you an appropriate distance into the future. When I see your work is complete, I can transport you back to this current place and time. And then, my stony time-displaced anomaly, I can return you to ancient Dryad, only a moment after you left. I can even return you to your pre-pubescent state, so you can grow up among your own people. It will seem almost as though this little spatio-temporal excursion was merely a fanciful dream. Although, of course, you will have done a great service to your homeworld of the future. Let me know when you are ready to depart. The Circadians will know how to get in touch with me. Now, sadly, I must leave you. My laboratory will not run itself. At least, not for long.”
Grumm Boz activated his Pentachoron himself, and vanished.
“He is a brilliant scientist and technician,” said Ten. “But perhaps a little too casual in disrupting the timeline. Perhaps before Hadru Jamik and Jan Arrah return, we ought to run this proposal past the Technarchs of Colu for their approval.”
“And the United Planet Inner Council,” added Saturn Girl. “And the Chronarchs of New Titan. And the Interstellar Counter-Intelligence Corps, just for good measure. And any other responsible body we can think of in the meantime.”
“Megalith,” said Magissa. “With enough time and preparation, I believe I could make a Philosopher’s Stone.”
It’s a small world, after all, and when it rains on Mars it rains everywhere all at once..
“You know the old saying,” said Saturn Girl. “Dhanus Showers Bring Makara Flowers.”
Ten shrugged.
“I am receiving a distress call,” said Botboy, who had been manning the viewscreen of the Mission Monitor Board. “It is weak, and intermittent.”
Dorrit, is that y ^^^ ? This is Jan Arr ^^^ ried to contact ^^^ onn Winath, but it’s too far ^^^ damaged equipment. Can you help us? ^^^ ship inoperable ^^^ how much longer we can survive…
“Where is that message coming from?” asked Dorrit.
“Dryad, in the Korlon system,” said Botboy. “Korlon is undergoing substantial stellar instability at the moment, and the increasingly chaotic flares and stellar wind are causing much interference.”
“It’s a distress call,” said Saturn Girl. “They are clearly in distress. The question is, how do we help them?”
“We could ask the Circadians to determine the coordinates of the distressed ship ,” said Ten. “And bring it and its passengers here.”
“Get everyone on-planet down to the Pentachoron,” Saturn Girl ordered. “We are going in blind; we have no idea what we will be dealing with. Let’s just hope this is not a deception or a trap.”
The ship had a broad base and a tall central spire, looking something like a metallic whiskey bottle. It was battered and scarred, and in a few places had been inexpertly repaired. An archway in the side opened. A tall, blonde-bearded, broad-shouldered man, well into middle age, was carrying a slightly younger dark haired man in his arms.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” said the older man. “Fever, chills, convulsions, delirium, I have no idea what is wrong with him.”
The younger man tore out of the older man’s arms, screamed, ran a few yards screaming, then collapsed, twitching. Yzopok Girl ran to his side.
“The brain controls the body,” she said, “If you probe deep enough.”
“That is… brilliant,” said Saturn Girl. The younger man now lay peacefully on the sandy martian soil. “You will have to teach me that technique.”
“I may soon need your help,” said Yzopok Girl. “His body is rebelling. There is something fundamentally wrong.”
“I need a diagnosis before I can prepare an appropriate potion,” said Magissa. “Any ideas?”
“Perhaps it is time to call upon the medical knowledge of your Adult Guardian again,” Botboy suggested to Ten.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor appeared in holographic form. “Jan Arrah. One of the associates of Querl Dox. Are you ill?”
Jan Arrah indicated his friend trembling on the couch. “His name is Hadru Jamik… “ he began.
“I cannot help you,” Renlo Tagor interrupted. “The diagnosis is obvious: his psychocatalytic powers are out of control, ravaging his body, randomly slowing and accelerating chemical reactions. But he can be helped, it is only by the recombinant DNA technologists on his homeworld of Phlon. Their work is highly classified by PhlonGov. Even Colu has not been able to pierce their veil of secrecy. And, of course, no one has access to the DNA structures saved from Condo Arlik which were used to empower him. It would be foolish for me to attempt to treat him. You must get him to Phlon.” His hologram vanished.
“Your Pentachoron can easily take us to one of the hospitals or research centers on Phlon,” said Jan Arrah.
“We cannot,” Circadia Segundus informed the Club.
“It is not a matter of technology,” Circadia Ascheon added. “Visitation to Phlon is heavily regulated. To suddenly appear without proper authorization, even for a Phlonite citizen, would cause an interplanetary diplomatic incident.”
“It’s true,” said Jan Arrah. “My visitor’s visa expired years ago. Even I have been unable to renew it..”
“Even you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I used to be a minor celebrity,” said Jan Arrah. “But not enough to break through the bureaucracy. What we need is a major celebrity. I need to contact Hadru's wife.”
Jan Arrah and Saturn Girl joined Ten and Botboy in the Mission Monitor Room. Jan Arrah chose the ordinary wallscreen.
A bored-looking young girl appeared. “This is Qarda’s communications director. How can I help you?”
“It isn’t,” Jan Arrah explained. “It’s an A.I. programmed to filter out irrelevant communications.” He faced the screen. “Begin recording. This is Jan Arrah. Tell Qarda Meson that her husband Hadru Jamik is ill. He needs transportation to the Medicus on Phlon as soon as possible. End recording.” He turned back to the Members. “Now we wait,” he said.
Ten looked puzzled. “Hadru Jamik’s wife is Qarda Meson? She is the premier influencer on Phlon.”
“And almost unknown anywhere else in the U.P.,” said Jan Arrah. “Your computer mind specializes in some interesting topics.”
“I contacted the hospitals in New Metropolis, Nix Olympica, and Mars City,” said Saturn Girl. “None of them are willing to admit a Phlonite, let alone an Arlikian-modified Phlonite.I’m not sure how we can keep your companion comfortable… or alive.”
o o o o o o
“He is quite ill,” Yzopok Girl reported. “I may not be able to keep his illness in abeyance long enough, even with Saturn Girl’s help.”
“I believe I can concoct a potion that will alleviate his worst symptoms,” said Magissa. “But for the magic to work, we will need to move him away from the clubhouse.”
“We could move him back to his quarters on our ship,” Jan Arrah suggested.
“I have been attempting to replicate his powers,” said Monster Boy. “In order to counter the havoc they are causing in his system.” He morphed into what resembled an immense, glowing, purple tower of toxic waste. “However,it would be difficult to fit into either the Clubhouse or the ship in this form.”
Hadru Jamik remained on Mars another five days. His condition was touch-and-go, but the combined efforts of Jan Arrah, Yzopok Girl, Saturn Girl, Magissa and Monster Boy kept him alive. In the end, Phlon sent a ship to transport both Hadru and Jan to the Medicus Phlon.
“I will return for our ship,” said Jan Arrah. “But I need to let you know… there is a third member of our crew. He has been in deep meditation until now, but is due to awaken soon. His appearance may be somewhat alarming, but he is harmless. No, not harmless. He is… he has remarkable self-control. Let me introduce a couple of you to him.”
Jan Arrah led Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl into the ship. The third passenger appeared to be a massive pile of stone-- roughly humanoid in shape, well over eight feet tall seated. Miniature caldera dotted its rocky skin, some of which were smoking.
“Is it alive?” asked Yzopok Girl. “I don’t detect any mental activity.”
“Nor do I,” said Saturn Girl.
“Megalith is highly resistant to organic telepathy,” said Jan Arrah.
“Meg-A-Lith,” rumbled the stony giant, in a sleepy, far-off voice.
“Hadru and I will be back as soon as possible,” said Jan Arrah. “In the meantime, you are among friends.”
“Fri-Ends,” the creature rumbled.
o o o o o o
“Dryad is a graveyard world,” Megalith explained. “Dead. No animals. No plants. No life.”
“And yet it is your home?” asked Magissa. She had taken a great interest in the massive creature.
“I am from the distant past,” Megalith explained. “Only here because of an accident of time travel.”
“Where is your original home?” asked Magissa. “In time, I mean.”
“I am not good with U.P. or Earth calendars,” Megalith admitted. “Jan Arrah tells me my birth corresponds approximately with the fall of the Roman Empire, if that means anything to you.”
“Older than my family’s lineage,” said Magissa. “You know, the Pentachoron is the apex of time-travel technology. We could probably return you to your time, when Dryad was a living world.”
“No. I am here for a purpose,” Megalith insisted. “My homeworld was only recently destroyed. This was not the first time. It has happened before. My people are the… Wardens of our world. Every few generations, we become innately aware that something is changing. Our females gather seeds and spores from all over Dryad, and take them underground for the Great Sleep. The males stay aboveground, tending to the planetary garden..”
“Always, there is a Traveler, who is not present on Dryad when Korlon flares. He then returns, as the First Warden, to awaken the sleeping females, and leads the restoration of Dryad for the next generations. It appears that for this epoch, I am to be the First Warden.”
“That is a fascinating history,” said Magissa.
“It is the legend the Elders tell us,” said Megalith. “And I have found a transmuter, and a living catalyst to aid me in restoring the planet.”
“You have never seen it happen yourself?” Magissa asked. “Or known anyone who witnessed it?”
“Dryads have a life-span some ten times that of humans,” said Megalith. “And there are many Dryad generations between cataclysms. Still, is my presence here coincidence, or providence? Unfortunately, Korlon is still too unstable to begin the restoration of Dryad. This we discovered when the stellar storm hit us. Perhaps we will return in another half-century.”
“Your companions will be very old men by then,” said Magissa. “If they are still alive at all.”
“Then there will come others,” said Megalith, confidently
“I know someone who would be very interested in your story,” said Ten. “A Coluan temporal historian. The inventor of the Spacetime Pentachoron: Grumm Boz.”
o o o o o o
“As anyone can see,” Grumm Boz was explaining, “The Spacetime Pentachoron can serve as a time viewer as well as a transporter. See here: I have followed your chronotopic path back to the moment you left ancient Dryad, some 1.6 kilo-sola-years ago. Fascinating. That arch appears to be one of the legendary Guardians of Forever. They are quite elusive. I never expected to witness an instance of one. Whatever possessed you to enter it?”
“It was a dare,” Megalith confessed.
“Ah, the foibles of youth,” said Grumm Boz. “I, myself, once… oh, but that is wholly irrelevant. Now let me see,,, . it is known that the instability in Korlon’s photosphere is due not to any intrinsic volatility, but to the effects of a supermassive long-period comet. I believe the period is something like 60 to 65 mega-sola-years. Let me see… yes, there was the last instance of stellar disturbance. At approximately -62.9. Now if we move forward a little.. In just over a hundred sola-years, Dryad is green again. Let me mark that. Now, who visited this world between the cataclysm and the renovation? Let me zoom in for you.”
Within the triangular faces of the Pentachoron, the Members could see an adult male Dryad, with a glowing golden stone embedded in his forehead.
Magissa squinted. “Unless I am mistaken, that is a Hajar Al-Falasifa-- a Philosopher’s Stone,” she said.
“It makes sense,” said Megalith. “While we were on Dryad, we discovered we were very much in need of Jan Arrah’s transmutative powers and Hadru Jamik’s psychoanalysis. A philosopher’s stone would provide the same qualities. I wonder where I might be able to find one in a half-century or so?.”
“Ha-ha! No need,” said Grumm Boz. “Once your companions are wholly well, and back from Phlon, I can transport the three of you an appropriate distance into the future. When I see your work is complete, I can transport you back to this current place and time. And then, my stony time-displaced anomaly, I can return you to ancient Dryad, only a moment after you left. I can even return you to your pre-pubescent state, so you can grow up among your own people. It will seem almost as though this little spatio-temporal excursion was merely a fanciful dream. Although, of course, you will have done a great service to your homeworld of the future. Let me know when you are ready to depart. The Circadians will know how to get in touch with me. Now, sadly, I must leave you. My laboratory will not run itself. At least, not for long.”
Grumm Boz activated his Pentachoron himself, and vanished.
“He is a brilliant scientist and technician,” said Ten. “But perhaps a little too casual in disrupting the timeline. Perhaps before Hadru Jamik and Jan Arrah return, we ought to run this proposal past the Technarchs of Colu for their approval.”
“And the United Planet Inner Council,” added Saturn Girl. “And the Chronarchs of New Titan. And the Interstellar Counter-Intelligence Corps, just for good measure. And any other responsible body we can think of in the meantime.”
“Megalith,” said Magissa. “With enough time and preparation, I believe I could make a Philosopher’s Stone.”
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 05/01/23 03:42 PM
Originally Posted by Klar Ken T5477
“It’s true,” said Jan Arrah. “My visitor’s visa expired years ago. Even I have been unable to renew it..”
“Even you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I used to be a minor celebrity,” said Jan Arrah. “But not enough to break through the bureaucracy. What we need is a major celebrity. “I need to contact Hadru's wife.”
”
“Even you?” asked Saturn Girl.
“I used to be a minor celebrity,” said Jan Arrah. “But not enough to break through the bureaucracy. What we need is a major celebrity. “I need to contact Hadru's wife.”
”
I really like this nod to modern-day, real-life bureaucracy. I was just chatting with a colleague about the pain of applying for visitor's visas... I really detest them in real life
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 05/08/23 02:24 PM
Mariam Abraxas’ Witch’s Cottage was actually more of a chalet, occupying a rocky outcropping on a large hill, or possibly a small mountain. An L-shaped pool sat in the front yard, and a low trellis fence surrounded the entire property. It was located in the northern climes of the Sorcerer’s World. In the winter, there was snow, and the pool was heated. In the spring and summer, flowering vines twined throughout the fence.
The house itself spoke of both comfort and utility, with bookcases, potion cabinets, and small cauldrons scattered throughout the house in easy access. But Spiffany Brojj was most impressed with what lay behind the house. One room ended in a long hallway that led back into a deep, stony cavern within the interior of the mountain itself. It was a storage area, with shelves and shelves of the most fascinating magical items.
“I understand you have taken the name Pantheon,” Mariam Abraxas remarked. “Appropriate, considering the source of your powers. But I wonder if we could supplement them with a piece of this gear.”
Spiffany picked up a large sword from a shelf and examined it.
“Don’t pull that sword from its sheath,” Mariam Abraxas warned. “If you do so, you will immediately become the Monarch of Trollheim, and that fate is a long and difficult one to escape.”
She pulled a pair of daggers from the same shelf. “Now these are useful,” she said. “But not particularly enchanted.”
“They look like they’re made of solid gold,” said Spiffany. “Isn’t gold a soft metal, not suitable for weapons?”
“Gold is no more soft and malleable than silver,” the older witch replied. “And silver knives are common, as are silver forks and spoons. But these golden daggers are edged with platinum, and so sharp they could split a human hair lengthwise.”
They stopped at a shelf containing winged helmets, winged sandals, and a large rolled-up carpet. “You already have flying abilities, although a Fliegendmantel is always a useful companion.” She continued on. “Now this might be useful to you.” Mariam Abraxas offered the young hero a golden spindle. “You could use a good ranged power. This is one of the thunderbolts Hephaestus crafted for Zeus. A multiple-use weapon. I’m not sure how many charges it has left.”
Spiffany took the thunderbolt and rolled it in her hands. It was as heavy as if it were made of real gold. “I can already draw lightning from the clouds,” she said. “As well as summon winds and levitate stones; this seems somewhat redundant.”
“Yes, I forgot I gave you those elemental powers,” Mariam Abraxas recalled. “Senior moment, I guess. I can’t be getting old, can I?”
“What’s this?” asked Spiffany, picking up a large, flat helmet, much too large for her.
“That is the Golden Helm of the giant King Mambrino, which is said to bestow invincibility on its wearer,” said Mariam Abraxas. “Although the last wearer died when his head was cut off, so I’m not sure how effective it is. You have been granted the invulnerability of Marzosh and Rivalvei at any rate.”
They wandered a little further and picked up a little silvery ring.
“Now this might be helpful to you,” said Mariam Abraxas. “This is Koikjal’s Ring of Ubiquity. It allows you to be in two places at the same time.”
“Interesting,” said Spiffany. “But two places at once is not ubiquitous.”
“Well, after manifesting a duplicate, you can transport that duplicate anywhere in the Universe. Possibly to other time-frames and dimensions, too. You can carry other things and people with you, as well. But it's not really a duplicate. It’s you, existing in two places at once. Should anything happen to either of you… both of you would be injured.”
“Despite your cautions, I think the Ring of Ubiquity might be useful to me,” said Spiffany. The sub-etheric ultraphone in her utility belt chose that moment to chime.
“Hello, Spiffany. Saturn Girl again, of the Super-Hero Club,” said Dorrit Ranzz.
“Still not interested in joining,” said Spiffany.
“Yes,” said Saturn Girl. “And you told the Legion on Deimos the same thing. Did you have a chance to tour their HQ?”
“I did, in fact,” said Spiffany. “An impressive structure. Room for at least a hundred heroes. Training rooms. A top-notch medical facility. On-site classrooms linked to the UP University system. A small fleet of star cruisers. They were even talking about installing their own Trans-Matter Gate.”
“Did it seem like the kids who were there wanted to be there of their own free will?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Many of them-- possibly all of them-- were receiving a generous stipend, and so may have been hesitant to leave. I think some of their families were being taken care of, too. There were also more than a dozen robots and androids, and it is sometimes hard to tell what is programming, and what is ‘free will’ with them. I’m sure that Karth Arn was there by choice, and would have left immediately if asked to do anything he didn’t want to. And I met a girl called B.I.O.N.2-- she used to be an organic: a Dominator child. But the Dominion experimented on her, injecting her with nanobots that eventually took over her whole system. Eventually, she became too powerful, I guess, and escaped to UP space. Found a home on Deimos. I don’t think she wanted to be anywhere else.”
Saturn Girl sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “These reports are not what I have been expecting. The truth is, the New Legion of Super-Heroes LLC is wanting to merge with the Super-Hero Club, and it is looking like this may be a good option. Unfortunately.”
Saturn Girl signed out, and Spiffany turned her attention back to Mariam Abraxas.
“This is what you need,” said the sorceress, holding up a small rod. “The Asklepian. Capable of magically curing any illness or injury.”
“Wow,” said Spiffany. “That would… that could be a full-time call.”
“Sadly, it only works for one the rod deems ‘worthy’,” said Mariam Abraxas. “Fortunately, there is an easy way to test. Sorcerer’s duels are going on at the University right now, and there are always a few injuries there. Shall we go test it out?
o o o o o o
“Here are a few more rejects from the Legion on Deimos,” Ten told Saturn Girl. “I was able to decrypt a file from when our two communication networks were paired. Unfortunately, the NLSH may have been able to do the very same to us.”
o o o o o o
Nightingale’s costume was entirely black and shades of gray. Mockingbird’s was a riot of color. The two Planetary Champions of Vannar were otherwise very similar in height, build, and age. Nightingale was, of course, the Champion of the Darklings, while Mockingbird was Champion of Diurnalites.
“I’m afraid the time has come for another ‘decisive battle’, Mockingbird was saying. “The drums of war are beginning to beat here again.”
“It is the same on the Night Side,” said Nightingale. “It seems to happen every few years. Your people are a convenient scapegoat for problems the politicians are unable or unwilling to solve.”
“Our seismic survey and ultracomputers predict that there will be a severe earthquake in Mothag, leading to much property damage and loss of life, within a couple of weeks,” said Mockingbird. “Of course, they have not bothered to communicate with your government.”
“That sounds like a perfect venue for our next encounter,” said Nightingale. “Don’t start the heavy destruction until there is a chance to evacuate the city’s population. I’ll clear out the stragglers, then meet you for a beat-down in about half an hour.”
“With luck,” said Mockingbird, “We can set off the earthquake early, and leave a smoking crater that will remind our peoples of the cost of war. For a few more years.”
“Hold on,” said Nightingale. “I have a call coming in on the other line.”
“So do I,” said Mockingbird.
“Why did you turn down membership in the New Legion of Super-Heroes?” Saturn Girl asked.
“It was a philosophical difference,” said Mockingbird.
“They seemed to believe that the appropriate response to violence was more violence,” said Nightingale.
“Violence is a fact of life,” said Saturn Girl. “There is violence in storms, earthquakes and other disasters. Is it not the role of the Champion to defend the defenseless against such violence?”
Mockingbird shrugged. “It is not my intention to debate philosophy. You asked a question. I answered.”
“I’m trying to understand…”
“We enter conflict only in extremis,” said Nightingale. “As Champions of Vannar, we are primarily figureheads. Our people must, for the most part, work out their own problems.”
“Great power,” Saturn Girl reminded them, “Comes with great responsibility.”
“No matter how great one’s power, to refrain from attempting to impose one’s will on the Universe is the beginning of wisdom,” said Nightingale.
Saturn Girl signed off in frustration.
“Do you think she really bought that?” asked Mockingbird.
o o o o o o
Lusilla Blake Opral of Hajor Dyakis had little patience for the inquiries of the girl from Mars.
“I do have Solarian ancestors,” she admitted. “One of my great-grandfathers was born on early 2Oth-century Earth. But my primary concern is re-establishing our world, and defending against the Zard.”
“Hajor Dyakis lies far beyond the farthest colonies of the United Planets,” said Saturn Girl.
“And the Zard think they can take it from us, because they perceive us as weak,” said Lusilla.
“I would think that having a super-powered organization on your side, free of government restraints, would be desirable,” said Saturn Girl.
“We are fighting a war,” said Lusilla. “We cannot enlist the aid of weak, super-adventurers who might hesitate to use lethal force against the enemy.”
“Considering my last conversation,” said Saturn Girl, “Your position is somewhat ironic.”
“I am not privy to your last conversation,” said Lusilla. “I am recruiting soldiers, period. I have no interest in being recruited into a ‘super-hero’ legion, or club, or whatever. If you can provide me with volunteers or mercenaries, let me know. Otherwise, you have nothing to offer me.”
o o o o o o
Sara Oz was troubled.
Ever since the departure of True Believer from the ranks of the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus, their power level had dropped precipitously. They were now barely capable of putting down a street brawl, and off-world expeditions were wholly off the table.
“We considered a merger with the New Legion,” she was telling Saturn Girl. “We have some difficulties on Cyranus that might be solved with some additional firepower.”
“We might be able to help,” Saturn Girl replied. “By lending out a couple of our more powerful Members. But why didn’t you take up the offer of the Legion on Deimos?”
“We want to focus on problems at home,” said Sara Oz. “And… well, my powers are in the realm of precognition and similar psychic abilities. I was elected leader this session, and… well, I trust my intuition. I did not foresee anything positive coming out of an association with the NLSH.”
“Interesting,” said Saturn Girl. “Anything in particular?”
“No specific vision,” said Sara Oz. “More of… a sense of unease.”
Saturn Girl hung up her sub-etheric ultraphone.
A hunch, she thought. A sense of unease. Just like me.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor was back in the Clubhouse.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/aff21361316775f7957702403f4bc1d2/bef7e2637ea5f759-2e/s250x400/d0d5a743ca414ea6a615a2f1cb9b29cebc1bea2c.png)
“He is not what he appears to be,” said Ten. “Nor is he as he at first imagined himself.”
Botboy shifted uneasily. Saturn Girl looked intrigued.
“When the Zadrons built Tharok, they inserted a technorganic corpus callosum between his human and computer brains. This allowed them to communicate, and to function as a single entity. I detected a similar structure in Botboy. While he does have a completely functioning exitonic platinum-sponge brain, that is not the whole story. He also has a human brain as well-- what I can only assume is the mind of Boris Zador. True, the brain is dreaming. Also, the cerebellum and most of the medulla oblongata have been removed, and the cerebrum has been-- I believe the word is ‘spatchcocked’-- but it is functional, and the amygdala remains intact. The organ is well-armored and cushioned within his robot body, between the shoulder blades..”
“We found yet another anomaly,” said Renlo Tagor. “Somewhat disturbing.” He held up a small, yellow, crystalline triangle.
“It is primarily a crystal of golden titanite, CaTiSiO5, in your parlance. It has been fabricated in a manner resembling common memory crystals. Young Txarlz summoned me to surgically remove it from the child’s technorganic callosal sheath. While active, it placed the human brain into a state resembling something between sleepwalking and hypnosis. Equally as concerning, if such a device were inserted between the cervical vertebrae of a human being, it would have the same effect.”
“A mind control device,” said Saturn Girl.
“Precisely,” said Renlo Tagor. “With sufficient funding, any number could be manufactured, and it would be simplicity itself to implant them.”
“Someone is creating a literal Legion of mind-controlled super-heroes,” said Saturn Girl.
“An unwarranted conclusion,” said Renlo Tagor, “Without further evidence. But a theory not outside the range of possibility. Of course, as with hypnosis, it would not be possible to force an individual to act outside their moral or ethical parameters. Still, the ‘puppetmaster’, as it were, would have considerable control.”
“The Super-Hero Club needs to make a visit to Deimos,” said Saturn Girl.
“I would suggest Earth instead,” said Renlo Tagor. “The headquarters of Hanscom and Burrane Industries.”
Sleepwalkers
The house itself spoke of both comfort and utility, with bookcases, potion cabinets, and small cauldrons scattered throughout the house in easy access. But Spiffany Brojj was most impressed with what lay behind the house. One room ended in a long hallway that led back into a deep, stony cavern within the interior of the mountain itself. It was a storage area, with shelves and shelves of the most fascinating magical items.
“I understand you have taken the name Pantheon,” Mariam Abraxas remarked. “Appropriate, considering the source of your powers. But I wonder if we could supplement them with a piece of this gear.”
Spiffany picked up a large sword from a shelf and examined it.
“Don’t pull that sword from its sheath,” Mariam Abraxas warned. “If you do so, you will immediately become the Monarch of Trollheim, and that fate is a long and difficult one to escape.”
She pulled a pair of daggers from the same shelf. “Now these are useful,” she said. “But not particularly enchanted.”
“They look like they’re made of solid gold,” said Spiffany. “Isn’t gold a soft metal, not suitable for weapons?”
“Gold is no more soft and malleable than silver,” the older witch replied. “And silver knives are common, as are silver forks and spoons. But these golden daggers are edged with platinum, and so sharp they could split a human hair lengthwise.”
They stopped at a shelf containing winged helmets, winged sandals, and a large rolled-up carpet. “You already have flying abilities, although a Fliegendmantel is always a useful companion.” She continued on. “Now this might be useful to you.” Mariam Abraxas offered the young hero a golden spindle. “You could use a good ranged power. This is one of the thunderbolts Hephaestus crafted for Zeus. A multiple-use weapon. I’m not sure how many charges it has left.”
Spiffany took the thunderbolt and rolled it in her hands. It was as heavy as if it were made of real gold. “I can already draw lightning from the clouds,” she said. “As well as summon winds and levitate stones; this seems somewhat redundant.”
“Yes, I forgot I gave you those elemental powers,” Mariam Abraxas recalled. “Senior moment, I guess. I can’t be getting old, can I?”
“What’s this?” asked Spiffany, picking up a large, flat helmet, much too large for her.
“That is the Golden Helm of the giant King Mambrino, which is said to bestow invincibility on its wearer,” said Mariam Abraxas. “Although the last wearer died when his head was cut off, so I’m not sure how effective it is. You have been granted the invulnerability of Marzosh and Rivalvei at any rate.”
They wandered a little further and picked up a little silvery ring.
“Now this might be helpful to you,” said Mariam Abraxas. “This is Koikjal’s Ring of Ubiquity. It allows you to be in two places at the same time.”
“Interesting,” said Spiffany. “But two places at once is not ubiquitous.”
“Well, after manifesting a duplicate, you can transport that duplicate anywhere in the Universe. Possibly to other time-frames and dimensions, too. You can carry other things and people with you, as well. But it's not really a duplicate. It’s you, existing in two places at once. Should anything happen to either of you… both of you would be injured.”
“Despite your cautions, I think the Ring of Ubiquity might be useful to me,” said Spiffany. The sub-etheric ultraphone in her utility belt chose that moment to chime.
“Hello, Spiffany. Saturn Girl again, of the Super-Hero Club,” said Dorrit Ranzz.
“Still not interested in joining,” said Spiffany.
“Yes,” said Saturn Girl. “And you told the Legion on Deimos the same thing. Did you have a chance to tour their HQ?”
“I did, in fact,” said Spiffany. “An impressive structure. Room for at least a hundred heroes. Training rooms. A top-notch medical facility. On-site classrooms linked to the UP University system. A small fleet of star cruisers. They were even talking about installing their own Trans-Matter Gate.”
“Did it seem like the kids who were there wanted to be there of their own free will?” asked Saturn Girl.
“Many of them-- possibly all of them-- were receiving a generous stipend, and so may have been hesitant to leave. I think some of their families were being taken care of, too. There were also more than a dozen robots and androids, and it is sometimes hard to tell what is programming, and what is ‘free will’ with them. I’m sure that Karth Arn was there by choice, and would have left immediately if asked to do anything he didn’t want to. And I met a girl called B.I.O.N.2-- she used to be an organic: a Dominator child. But the Dominion experimented on her, injecting her with nanobots that eventually took over her whole system. Eventually, she became too powerful, I guess, and escaped to UP space. Found a home on Deimos. I don’t think she wanted to be anywhere else.”
Saturn Girl sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “These reports are not what I have been expecting. The truth is, the New Legion of Super-Heroes LLC is wanting to merge with the Super-Hero Club, and it is looking like this may be a good option. Unfortunately.”
Saturn Girl signed out, and Spiffany turned her attention back to Mariam Abraxas.
“This is what you need,” said the sorceress, holding up a small rod. “The Asklepian. Capable of magically curing any illness or injury.”
“Wow,” said Spiffany. “That would… that could be a full-time call.”
“Sadly, it only works for one the rod deems ‘worthy’,” said Mariam Abraxas. “Fortunately, there is an easy way to test. Sorcerer’s duels are going on at the University right now, and there are always a few injuries there. Shall we go test it out?
o o o o o o
“Here are a few more rejects from the Legion on Deimos,” Ten told Saturn Girl. “I was able to decrypt a file from when our two communication networks were paired. Unfortunately, the NLSH may have been able to do the very same to us.”
o o o o o o
Nightingale’s costume was entirely black and shades of gray. Mockingbird’s was a riot of color. The two Planetary Champions of Vannar were otherwise very similar in height, build, and age. Nightingale was, of course, the Champion of the Darklings, while Mockingbird was Champion of Diurnalites.
“I’m afraid the time has come for another ‘decisive battle’, Mockingbird was saying. “The drums of war are beginning to beat here again.”
“It is the same on the Night Side,” said Nightingale. “It seems to happen every few years. Your people are a convenient scapegoat for problems the politicians are unable or unwilling to solve.”
“Our seismic survey and ultracomputers predict that there will be a severe earthquake in Mothag, leading to much property damage and loss of life, within a couple of weeks,” said Mockingbird. “Of course, they have not bothered to communicate with your government.”
“That sounds like a perfect venue for our next encounter,” said Nightingale. “Don’t start the heavy destruction until there is a chance to evacuate the city’s population. I’ll clear out the stragglers, then meet you for a beat-down in about half an hour.”
“With luck,” said Mockingbird, “We can set off the earthquake early, and leave a smoking crater that will remind our peoples of the cost of war. For a few more years.”
“Hold on,” said Nightingale. “I have a call coming in on the other line.”
“So do I,” said Mockingbird.
“Why did you turn down membership in the New Legion of Super-Heroes?” Saturn Girl asked.
“It was a philosophical difference,” said Mockingbird.
“They seemed to believe that the appropriate response to violence was more violence,” said Nightingale.
“Violence is a fact of life,” said Saturn Girl. “There is violence in storms, earthquakes and other disasters. Is it not the role of the Champion to defend the defenseless against such violence?”
Mockingbird shrugged. “It is not my intention to debate philosophy. You asked a question. I answered.”
“I’m trying to understand…”
“We enter conflict only in extremis,” said Nightingale. “As Champions of Vannar, we are primarily figureheads. Our people must, for the most part, work out their own problems.”
“Great power,” Saturn Girl reminded them, “Comes with great responsibility.”
“No matter how great one’s power, to refrain from attempting to impose one’s will on the Universe is the beginning of wisdom,” said Nightingale.
Saturn Girl signed off in frustration.
“Do you think she really bought that?” asked Mockingbird.
o o o o o o
Lusilla Blake Opral of Hajor Dyakis had little patience for the inquiries of the girl from Mars.
“I do have Solarian ancestors,” she admitted. “One of my great-grandfathers was born on early 2Oth-century Earth. But my primary concern is re-establishing our world, and defending against the Zard.”
“Hajor Dyakis lies far beyond the farthest colonies of the United Planets,” said Saturn Girl.
“And the Zard think they can take it from us, because they perceive us as weak,” said Lusilla.
“I would think that having a super-powered organization on your side, free of government restraints, would be desirable,” said Saturn Girl.
“We are fighting a war,” said Lusilla. “We cannot enlist the aid of weak, super-adventurers who might hesitate to use lethal force against the enemy.”
“Considering my last conversation,” said Saturn Girl, “Your position is somewhat ironic.”
“I am not privy to your last conversation,” said Lusilla. “I am recruiting soldiers, period. I have no interest in being recruited into a ‘super-hero’ legion, or club, or whatever. If you can provide me with volunteers or mercenaries, let me know. Otherwise, you have nothing to offer me.”
o o o o o o
Sara Oz was troubled.
Ever since the departure of True Believer from the ranks of the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus, their power level had dropped precipitously. They were now barely capable of putting down a street brawl, and off-world expeditions were wholly off the table.
“We considered a merger with the New Legion,” she was telling Saturn Girl. “We have some difficulties on Cyranus that might be solved with some additional firepower.”
“We might be able to help,” Saturn Girl replied. “By lending out a couple of our more powerful Members. But why didn’t you take up the offer of the Legion on Deimos?”
“We want to focus on problems at home,” said Sara Oz. “And… well, my powers are in the realm of precognition and similar psychic abilities. I was elected leader this session, and… well, I trust my intuition. I did not foresee anything positive coming out of an association with the NLSH.”
“Interesting,” said Saturn Girl. “Anything in particular?”
“No specific vision,” said Sara Oz. “More of… a sense of unease.”
Saturn Girl hung up her sub-etheric ultraphone.
A hunch, she thought. A sense of unease. Just like me.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor was back in the Clubhouse.
“He is not what he appears to be,” said Ten. “Nor is he as he at first imagined himself.”
Botboy shifted uneasily. Saturn Girl looked intrigued.
“When the Zadrons built Tharok, they inserted a technorganic corpus callosum between his human and computer brains. This allowed them to communicate, and to function as a single entity. I detected a similar structure in Botboy. While he does have a completely functioning exitonic platinum-sponge brain, that is not the whole story. He also has a human brain as well-- what I can only assume is the mind of Boris Zador. True, the brain is dreaming. Also, the cerebellum and most of the medulla oblongata have been removed, and the cerebrum has been-- I believe the word is ‘spatchcocked’-- but it is functional, and the amygdala remains intact. The organ is well-armored and cushioned within his robot body, between the shoulder blades..”
“We found yet another anomaly,” said Renlo Tagor. “Somewhat disturbing.” He held up a small, yellow, crystalline triangle.
“It is primarily a crystal of golden titanite, CaTiSiO5, in your parlance. It has been fabricated in a manner resembling common memory crystals. Young Txarlz summoned me to surgically remove it from the child’s technorganic callosal sheath. While active, it placed the human brain into a state resembling something between sleepwalking and hypnosis. Equally as concerning, if such a device were inserted between the cervical vertebrae of a human being, it would have the same effect.”
“A mind control device,” said Saturn Girl.
“Precisely,” said Renlo Tagor. “With sufficient funding, any number could be manufactured, and it would be simplicity itself to implant them.”
“Someone is creating a literal Legion of mind-controlled super-heroes,” said Saturn Girl.
“An unwarranted conclusion,” said Renlo Tagor, “Without further evidence. But a theory not outside the range of possibility. Of course, as with hypnosis, it would not be possible to force an individual to act outside their moral or ethical parameters. Still, the ‘puppetmaster’, as it were, would have considerable control.”
“The Super-Hero Club needs to make a visit to Deimos,” said Saturn Girl.
“I would suggest Earth instead,” said Renlo Tagor. “The headquarters of Hanscom and Burrane Industries.”
Sleepwalkers
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 05/12/23 08:56 PM
The Espionage Squad consisted of the three Bgztlside heroes: Phantom Girl, Kid Ultraboy, and Yzopok Girl, as well as the shadowcaster Korvea, the shape-shifting Bouch, and Magissa, who had brought scrying potions and an invisibility draught.
They were on Earth, in Downtown Metropolis, in a hotel suite across from the Ludwig Donner building, where Hanscom-&-Burrane had its main offices on the 1O1st floor.
“What are we supposed to be looking for?” asked Magissa, swirling the silver bowls in front of her.
“Anything unusual,” Yzopok Girl replied.
“To me, everything in the worlds outside of Witchhaven is unusual,” said Magissa. “And a great deal there, as well. But I will see what I can descry.”
Magissa poured over magical concoctions for some time, then leaned back in her chair in frustration.
“This is very peculiar indeed,” she announced. “My scrying elixirs allow me to see through the ‘eyes’ of the natural world: animal, vegetable, even mineral. But there is nothing natural on the 1O1st floor. No men, no plants, not even an insect or piece of natural stone. The windows are somehow sealed against passing birds. I can scry the outside of the building, but the interior is a perfect void.”
“No employees?” asked Yzopok Girl.
“If there are, they are blind and deaf,” said Magissa. “And I have looked for traces going back several days. It is a black box.”
“Well, it's time for phase two,” said Korvea.
Most of the Ludwig Donner building had shut down by 2am. Even the janitorial staff had gone home. Bouch and Korvea had secreted themselves in a dark room before the building closed, now they flew under cover of shadow-- Korvea on dark wings, and Bouch in the form of a tiny blackbird. All entrances to the 1O1st floor were tightly sealed, but an office on the 96th had a balcony that led outside. The two winged Members flew up five floors, but found the windows silver-black and opaque.
“Phase three,” said Yzopok Girl the next evening.
The three Bgztlrs found obstacles just as daunting.
“The 1O1st floor is protected by transdimensional shielding,” Phantom Girl reported. “There is no access, even from the Buffer Zone.”
“I have an idea,” Kid Ultraboy said. “Follow me.”
She led them up to the 1O2nd floor, and into the unprotected offices there.
“Our 4D vision may be able to see through the floor,” she suggested.
Yzopok Girl seemed embarrassed. “I’m actually acutely nearsighted in the 4th dimension,” she said. “I won’t be able to see much.”
“Well, I’ll do double duty then,” said Kid Ultraboy. “And augment with my ultrascopic vision.”
“Magissa was right,” said Phantom Girl. “There is nothing below us but banks of machines. I see a few low-level service ‘bots, but I doubt any organics have been in those rooms for a long time.”
“It’s just some sort of data hub,” Yzopok Girl agreed. “Data comes in, the machines process it, and it goes right out again… I wonder where?”
“It’s odd that they would list this as the official headquarters of the entire corporation,” mused Kid Ultraboy.
“Everyone wants a Metropolis address,” said Phantom Girl.
o o o o o o
“The Clubhouse is under attack,” Yzopok Girl announced. “The Pentachoron is down, so we need to find a way to get back to Mars on our own.”
“There is a transmatter gate in New Metropolis,” said Korvea. “We just have to find the nearest one to us here.”
Kid Ultraboy was checking her ‘phone. “There’s one in the Ludwig Donner building right across the street,” she said. “But it's not open until 9am. I know there’s one on Legion Plaza, but that’s too far… There’s one in the Tree Museum, but that’s closed, too.”
“I don’t suppose you could work some magic to teleport us back?” Bouch asked Magissa.
“Maybe,” said Magissa. “I’ve heard of potions creating stepping pools. I might even have a recipe for one in one of my books. But I would have to be back on Mars, in my lab, and have access to the ingredients.”
“So, short answer, no,” said Bouch.
“OK, there is one open about a hundred klicks from here,” said Kid Ultraboy. “We can be there in a couple of minutes using our flight rings. Then we just have to convince them to give us an emergency pass to let us jump ahead in line.”
“There were just four of them,” Saturn Girl explained, “Against the six of us. The two Kormons, and the Superbot and Ultrabot androids. They went after the Circadians first. Monster Boy was able to morph into a form with super-strength, but he couldn’t match their speed. Sludge managed to get in a hit that stopped the Superbot in its tracks; gummed up its works pretty badly. Chel-Eb was balked by Skyboy at first, then the Ultrabot. Ordinarily, he could have ripped it apart, but someone had modified the Ultrabot with kryptonite vision. Skygirl, Skyboy and the Ultrabot grabbed the Circadians and Chel-Eb, stepped on a one-use teleporter, and vanished.”
“I have tracked their destination,” said Ten. “As suspected, the trace leads to Deimos.”
“They intend to leave us stranded here,” said Botboy. “By kidnapping the Circadians, there is no one to operate the Spacetime Pentachoron.”
“Fortunately, Grumm Boz has already provided me with the necessary codes to transfer control of the Pentachoron to the Mission Monitor Board,” said Ten. “Unfortunately, I will have to remain planetside, but I will monitor your progress.”
“Ten has installed weaponry in my robot body,” said Botboy. “A Coluan forceshield, shrinking ray, and a number of specimen bottles. I would like to accompany you, if I may.”
“For now,” said Saturn Girl, “The mission is to get our people back. We will worry about shutting down the NLSH and HB Industries. Later.”
“But not too much later,” said Yzopok Girl.
o o o o o o
The NLSH HQ on Deimos now looked less like a clubhouse, and more like a citadel. There was already a couple, well past middle age, waiting outside.
“You are the Super-Hero Club of Mars, if I am not mistaken,” said the old man. Well over six feet tall, he still retained some of the herculean proportions of his youth. “Ennis Jahnson, of Jahnson’s Planet. My wife, Dori. We are here to pick up our son. Glad to have you with us.”
{Authors Note: After publishing an extended fanfic some eight years ago featuring a romance between the adult Rainbow Girl and Animal Lad, I am mortified to discover now that his name, as listed in DC Comics Who’s Who, is Ennis Janhson, not Jahnson. Oh well. Not changing it now}
Rainbow Girl in the Earth-K Paracosm
He turned to face the massive wall before them. “I know you can hear me, Hanscom. Send out my son. We’re going home.” There was no reply. “Don’t make me angry, Hanscom. I want Gaal back. Now.”
A door opened in the citadel, where there had been no door before. A young man in a garish costume stepped out.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7cb6c691d20535c2df7aa80401f31064/7e8ea4e3e74195b6-bd/s250x400/c44e3d67e7b7be3b177914c636b68f59d80dd2cc.png)
“Father, mother,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m happy here. I know I’ve been at loose ends recently, but I’ve decided I want to be an Adventurer. With the New Legion of Super Heroes.”
“Do you see it?” Phantom Girl asked Kid Ultraboy. “In the back of his neck.” The indigo-skinned Bgztlr walked up to the boy.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to join the Super-Hero Club on Mars?” she asked, pointing to the reddish orb in the sky. “What are your powers?”
“I can assume the form of any animal,” said Gaal Jahnson. “Like the old Lallorian hero Beast Boy. I’m thinking of borrowing his name.”
“But he can never get the colors right,” said Dori Jahnson. “My fault, I fear.”
Distracted by his mother, Gaal did not react as Phantom Girl swiped her hand quickly through the boy’s neck. She wound up holding a small yellow gem in her hand, nasty-looking tendrils dangling from it.
Gaal Jahnson staggered, then shook his head. “My older sister is a queen in Faeryland…” he said. “Hey! I don’t want to be here!”
“Go home with your parents,” said Saturn Girl. “We have some friends that need to be rescued from this place as well. And something in there is giving me a splitting headache, and I am becoming impatient.”
But where Gaal Jahnson had once stood, there was an iridescent blue hawk. The hawk leapt into the air, soaring out of sight.
“Stand back from the citadel,” Ennis Jahnson warned. “I know this maneuver. Run!”
The hawk came swooping down from the sky at a sixth the speed of sound, a mile of momentum behind it. At the nadir of its flight, just before crashing into the citadel wall, it transformed into a 100-tonne blue whale-- except it was a bright magenta pink.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked the boy standing in the rubble.
The Jahnson Family and the Super-Hero Club of Mars invaded the headquarters of NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries.
There was a reception committee.
“I estimate that you are outnumbered by five to one,” Ten transmitted from the Monitor Board.
Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete, enlarged to their full twelve-meter height, came crashing through the broken opening in the wall.
Bouch had consumed enough rubble that she was able to morph into a doppelganger of Joan, taking her down easily with three times her strength. Pete’s 15-tonne mass was opposed by Gaal Jahnson, in the form of a 20-tonne Titanosaur. A third colossus appeared, the Bdelugmotian Giant Guy, steadily growing until he towered over the NLSH citadel. Kid Ultraboy quickly took the threat out with her ultra-strength. She was immediately set upon by the Ultrabot, the express image of her father as a teen-ager, except for its glowing green eyes. It was joined by the recovered Superbot as well, each of the two robots grabbing a shoulder, restraining her in the air. On the ground, an android copy of Nardo blasted her with nuclear energy from its third eye.
Meanwhile:
Monster Boy assumed the latest form he had been working on: a boxy, machine-like configuration with numerous octopoid cables extending from his body and into the walls of the NLSHQ. Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl kneeled near him, immobilized by blistering, migraine-like headaches.
Meanwhile:
Inside the Citadel, Null and Void, the Exxorite twins, clasped hands to activate their shared powers. The area inside and around the citadel was enveloped in sudden darkness and silence.
“This is my fight”, thought Korvea. Manifesting her myrlon-wings, her Talokan senses pierced the blackness, only to see another Talokan flying toward her. “Cousin Zophos,” she thought silently. They grappled for a moment, then the darkness and silence gave way, as suddenly as it had appeared. “Cousin,” said Korvea, “Your allies fight independently, without cooperation or plan. Of what use was that flash of darkness?”
“But we are superior in numbers and strength,” Zophos replied. “Do not fear, we only wish you to join us.”
“But that is exactly what I do fear!” said Korvea. She was wrapped in Zophos’ projected darkness, which was thick and sticky, like warm taffy. Immobilized, there was a real danger Korvea might suffocate.
Meanwhile: Phantom Girl was trying to access the citadel from the Buffer Zone, but it was protected by the same trans-dimensional force shield they had found at Hanscom & Burrane’s Metropolis headquarters. She was able to make her way through the halls to the infirmary, where she could warn the doctors, nurses, and patients of the confrontation brewing downstairs. She handed off charge of the evacuation to Douglas Nolan who cared for his own patient while organizing the exodus of the rest.
Meanwhile:
“I have located the source of the telepathic interference,” reported the mechano-octopoid Monster Boy. “Disabling now. I have also located the transdimensional force-field generator. Also disabled.”
Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl recovered quickly, the remaining headache only making them cranky and irritated.
“I haven’t had much chance to use my telekinesis since joining the Super-Hero Club,” said Yzopok Girl. “I feel like smashing something.”
“I rather suspect I will soon have an opportunity to use my psychic counseling skills,” Saturn Girl answered.
Meanwhile:
“Unlike your father,” said the Ultrabot to Arna Nah, “I am able to use all my ultra-powers together.”
“With two of us against one,” said the Superbot, “How can you possibly prevail?”
The Ultrabot gave a reasonable facsimile of laughter. “Especially as you can use only one power at a time!”
Kid Ultraboy laughed in return. “You ‘bots were created to mimic super-powers, not to match them. I am much faster than either of you.” She went intangible, then zoomed away at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. She had been scanning the members of the NLSH with both ultravision and Bgztlr 4D vision, and with speed and precision was removing the golden mind-control triangles. Once she had as many as she could carry, she dumped them at the feet of Bouch, who was consuming them with astonishing rapidity herself. Flickering in and out of intangibility, not even the Kormons could lay hold of her.
Suddenly, Kid Ultraboy’s progress came to an abrupt halt, as B.I.O.N.2, matching her intangible form and ultraspeed, held her immobile. The Dominator cyborg grinned. “I can replicate any of the powers of the original Legion,” she gloated. “Or all of them. Surrender.”
Arna focused carefully. “This might hurt,” she warned, and blasted the mind-control device in the back of B.I.O.N.2’s neck with a burst of flash vision. The cyborg shook her head, then, memories flooding back stared intently at Kid Ultraboy.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said B.I.O.N.2.
Meanwhile:
With the transdimensional shields down, it did not take long for Phantom Girl to find the hidden room she was looking for. The Circadians had retreated to the protection of their chrysalis-pods, and were stacked in one corner. Chel-Eb lay on some sort of examination table, his irradiated by artificial kryptonite lamps. Even after Irinia had shut the lamps off, his skin still glowed green. One of the golden triangular mind-control devices lay on the table, waiting to be installed in the Rokynite. A quick examination showed that no surgery had even been begun. Unfortunately, there were also no signs of life: no respiration, no heartbeat. His body was cold.
“Ten,” Phantom Girl messaged her comrade. “Use the Pentachoron to bring the four of us back to Mars.” They materialized inside the Clubhouse. “Do you know how to wake the Cirdadians? I think… I think it may be too late for…”
Meanwhile:
More than half of the New Legionnaires were under thrall against their will and joined with the Super-Hero Club. Unfortunately, that meant that there were still dozens still loyal to Hanscom & Burrane. That included all the robots and androids, excepting only B.I.O.N.2, Karth Arn, and Lucifer-13, as well as both of the Kormons, Skyboy and Skygirl.
There was a pause as nearly one hundred super-powered beings divided into two camps. Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl were ensuring that their allies were truly their allies, and not double-minded. Neither side had a clear advantage in terms of raw power: the Kormons loyal to Hanscom and Burrane were matched by B.I.O.N.2 and the yellow Martian Golden Girl on the opposite side.The Replacements of Bdelugmos had also chosen to remain with the New Legion, but their various powers were well matched by others who had chosen to join with the nine remaining Members of the SHC.
Some kind of grey energy-field suddenly dropped on the whole area, seemingly emanating from a large purple pangolin on the SHC side.
“I am called Satyagraha of Pennggulling,” he called out. “My power is Projective Invulnerability. Within this field, you will be unable to harm one another, nor can you come to harm, nor can you damage this building, or anything in it. Let us take a few moments to settle this diplomatically-- with our words.”
There was some murmuring on both sides. Then, into the space between the two armies of combatants, stepped Hanscom and Burrane themselves.
Both men were well into middle age.
Kjell Hanscom was easily two meters tall, and as slender and pale as a birch tree.
Manferd Burrane stood at barely a meter-and-a-half, and was as round and red as a rubber ball.
Both had ragged mops of snow-white hair. Burrane’s beetled brow and high forehead made it appear as if he was balding badly, although this was not truly the case.
Burrane had a look of wicked cunning in his eyes.
Hanscom’s blue eyes bulged, giving him an appearance of pure madness.
“Kjell, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” asked the smaller man.
“I think so, Burrane,” said the taller man. “Time to bring in the calvary?” He held up a largeish, boxy device, and pressed a button. There was a thunderous BOOM, and a space-warp appeared behind the remaining New Legionnaires.
“These are our lieutenants,” cried Manferd Burrane. “Allow me to introduce Mad Donna, Creepy Jean, and Memento Moria of Apokolips Reborn! Summon your Hunger Dogs and Parademons, and recapture the prizes we have so carefully collected!”
Dorrit, Korvea, Viqi, Arna, Ghurwil, Luto, Juno, Boris, and Zilla received a message from Ten in their telepathic earpieces.
“The Boom Tube technology of the New Gods is far beyond anything known in the United Planets, even on Colu,” he reported. “But I believe I can use the Pentachoron to interfere somewhat with its capabilities.”
Before any more forces could emerge from the Boom Tube, it began to flicker and distort.
“Something is interfering with Mother Box,” reported Creepy Jean.
“Well, are you New Gods or not?” asked Manferd Burrane.
Mad Donna seemed to summon multi-colored knives from the air, and sent them hurtling at Satyagraha. The Pennggullingii fell to the ground unconscious, and the field of projective invulnerability vanished.
“Weak against psychic attacks,” Mad Donna noted.
Magissa had prepared several alchemical attacks for use against the Non-Metal Men, and chose this moment to use them.
Water and air transformed Carbon into a hydrocarbon sludge.
Elemental oxygen turned Silicon into sandstone.
The Phosphorus robot was transformed into immobie phosphorite rock.
A reaction with iron turned Sulphur into a statue of sparkling pyrite.
Selenium was transformed by sodium into the mineral selenite.
Iodine became a shapeless mound of potassium iodide.
And she used silver to bond Bromine to create the mineral bromargyrite.
Kid Ultraboy stepped forward to collect the inert responsometers.
Then pandemonium broke loose.
Hanscom and Burrane used twin rings to summon the twin Cintosians Starlight and Starbright into battle.
Those who could fly, flew. Those who could morph, morphed. Bolts of energy in all the colors of the rainbow flashed.
And then the Justice League of Earth showed up.
And Lusilla Opral of Hajor Dyakis.
And the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus.
And Nightlingale and Mockingbird of Vannar.
And the new magical hero Pantheon, formerly known as Spiffany Brojj of Earth.
Science Police from Earth, Mars, and the United Planets arrived in time to take The New Legion into custody, as well as Hanscom and Burrane themselves.
It was a fairly easy transfer, as BotBoy had used Ten’s Coluan Shrinking Ray to imprison them in a few Microversal Ampullae.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor was back on Mars again, not without protest.
“He is in a coma. He is not dead yet, but is surely slowly dying. It takes a good deal to kill a Kryptonian, even after all ordinary signs of life have ceased. But he has received what is surely a fatal dose of kryptonite radiation, and there is nothing in the technology of Colu or Daxam or Rokyn that can cure him.”
Korvea sat beside the glowing green body of Chel-Eb, wrapped in a mantle of gloom and darkness. “There is technology on Talok that could place him in stasis until a cure could be found,” she said through tears.
“It is a problem which the greatest minds of Science have struggled with for over a thousand years,” said Renlo Tagor.
“Perhaps the answer lies with Science,” said Speophonia Brojj, appearing out of thin air. “But in the Asklepian of Asclepius. Kryptonians are not resistant to magic, am I correct?”
She touched the rod to Chel-Eb’s forehead. The greenish glow began to fade immediately.After a few minutes, the Rokynite sat up shakily. “I seem to have lost my powers,” he said, flexing his arms weakly. “And I am feeling very, very hungry.”
They were on Earth, in Downtown Metropolis, in a hotel suite across from the Ludwig Donner building, where Hanscom-&-Burrane had its main offices on the 1O1st floor.
“What are we supposed to be looking for?” asked Magissa, swirling the silver bowls in front of her.
“Anything unusual,” Yzopok Girl replied.
“To me, everything in the worlds outside of Witchhaven is unusual,” said Magissa. “And a great deal there, as well. But I will see what I can descry.”
Magissa poured over magical concoctions for some time, then leaned back in her chair in frustration.
“This is very peculiar indeed,” she announced. “My scrying elixirs allow me to see through the ‘eyes’ of the natural world: animal, vegetable, even mineral. But there is nothing natural on the 1O1st floor. No men, no plants, not even an insect or piece of natural stone. The windows are somehow sealed against passing birds. I can scry the outside of the building, but the interior is a perfect void.”
“No employees?” asked Yzopok Girl.
“If there are, they are blind and deaf,” said Magissa. “And I have looked for traces going back several days. It is a black box.”
“Well, it's time for phase two,” said Korvea.
Most of the Ludwig Donner building had shut down by 2am. Even the janitorial staff had gone home. Bouch and Korvea had secreted themselves in a dark room before the building closed, now they flew under cover of shadow-- Korvea on dark wings, and Bouch in the form of a tiny blackbird. All entrances to the 1O1st floor were tightly sealed, but an office on the 96th had a balcony that led outside. The two winged Members flew up five floors, but found the windows silver-black and opaque.
“Phase three,” said Yzopok Girl the next evening.
The three Bgztlrs found obstacles just as daunting.
“The 1O1st floor is protected by transdimensional shielding,” Phantom Girl reported. “There is no access, even from the Buffer Zone.”
“I have an idea,” Kid Ultraboy said. “Follow me.”
She led them up to the 1O2nd floor, and into the unprotected offices there.
“Our 4D vision may be able to see through the floor,” she suggested.
Yzopok Girl seemed embarrassed. “I’m actually acutely nearsighted in the 4th dimension,” she said. “I won’t be able to see much.”
“Well, I’ll do double duty then,” said Kid Ultraboy. “And augment with my ultrascopic vision.”
“Magissa was right,” said Phantom Girl. “There is nothing below us but banks of machines. I see a few low-level service ‘bots, but I doubt any organics have been in those rooms for a long time.”
“It’s just some sort of data hub,” Yzopok Girl agreed. “Data comes in, the machines process it, and it goes right out again… I wonder where?”
“It’s odd that they would list this as the official headquarters of the entire corporation,” mused Kid Ultraboy.
“Everyone wants a Metropolis address,” said Phantom Girl.
o o o o o o
“The Clubhouse is under attack,” Yzopok Girl announced. “The Pentachoron is down, so we need to find a way to get back to Mars on our own.”
“There is a transmatter gate in New Metropolis,” said Korvea. “We just have to find the nearest one to us here.”
Kid Ultraboy was checking her ‘phone. “There’s one in the Ludwig Donner building right across the street,” she said. “But it's not open until 9am. I know there’s one on Legion Plaza, but that’s too far… There’s one in the Tree Museum, but that’s closed, too.”
“I don’t suppose you could work some magic to teleport us back?” Bouch asked Magissa.
“Maybe,” said Magissa. “I’ve heard of potions creating stepping pools. I might even have a recipe for one in one of my books. But I would have to be back on Mars, in my lab, and have access to the ingredients.”
“So, short answer, no,” said Bouch.
“OK, there is one open about a hundred klicks from here,” said Kid Ultraboy. “We can be there in a couple of minutes using our flight rings. Then we just have to convince them to give us an emergency pass to let us jump ahead in line.”
“There were just four of them,” Saturn Girl explained, “Against the six of us. The two Kormons, and the Superbot and Ultrabot androids. They went after the Circadians first. Monster Boy was able to morph into a form with super-strength, but he couldn’t match their speed. Sludge managed to get in a hit that stopped the Superbot in its tracks; gummed up its works pretty badly. Chel-Eb was balked by Skyboy at first, then the Ultrabot. Ordinarily, he could have ripped it apart, but someone had modified the Ultrabot with kryptonite vision. Skygirl, Skyboy and the Ultrabot grabbed the Circadians and Chel-Eb, stepped on a one-use teleporter, and vanished.”
“I have tracked their destination,” said Ten. “As suspected, the trace leads to Deimos.”
“They intend to leave us stranded here,” said Botboy. “By kidnapping the Circadians, there is no one to operate the Spacetime Pentachoron.”
“Fortunately, Grumm Boz has already provided me with the necessary codes to transfer control of the Pentachoron to the Mission Monitor Board,” said Ten. “Unfortunately, I will have to remain planetside, but I will monitor your progress.”
“Ten has installed weaponry in my robot body,” said Botboy. “A Coluan forceshield, shrinking ray, and a number of specimen bottles. I would like to accompany you, if I may.”
“For now,” said Saturn Girl, “The mission is to get our people back. We will worry about shutting down the NLSH and HB Industries. Later.”
“But not too much later,” said Yzopok Girl.
o o o o o o
The NLSH HQ on Deimos now looked less like a clubhouse, and more like a citadel. There was already a couple, well past middle age, waiting outside.
“You are the Super-Hero Club of Mars, if I am not mistaken,” said the old man. Well over six feet tall, he still retained some of the herculean proportions of his youth. “Ennis Jahnson, of Jahnson’s Planet. My wife, Dori. We are here to pick up our son. Glad to have you with us.”
{Authors Note: After publishing an extended fanfic some eight years ago featuring a romance between the adult Rainbow Girl and Animal Lad, I am mortified to discover now that his name, as listed in DC Comics Who’s Who, is Ennis Janhson, not Jahnson. Oh well. Not changing it now}
Rainbow Girl in the Earth-K Paracosm
He turned to face the massive wall before them. “I know you can hear me, Hanscom. Send out my son. We’re going home.” There was no reply. “Don’t make me angry, Hanscom. I want Gaal back. Now.”
A door opened in the citadel, where there had been no door before. A young man in a garish costume stepped out.
“Father, mother,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. I’m happy here. I know I’ve been at loose ends recently, but I’ve decided I want to be an Adventurer. With the New Legion of Super Heroes.”
“Do you see it?” Phantom Girl asked Kid Ultraboy. “In the back of his neck.” The indigo-skinned Bgztlr walked up to the boy.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to join the Super-Hero Club on Mars?” she asked, pointing to the reddish orb in the sky. “What are your powers?”
“I can assume the form of any animal,” said Gaal Jahnson. “Like the old Lallorian hero Beast Boy. I’m thinking of borrowing his name.”
“But he can never get the colors right,” said Dori Jahnson. “My fault, I fear.”
Distracted by his mother, Gaal did not react as Phantom Girl swiped her hand quickly through the boy’s neck. She wound up holding a small yellow gem in her hand, nasty-looking tendrils dangling from it.
Gaal Jahnson staggered, then shook his head. “My older sister is a queen in Faeryland…” he said. “Hey! I don’t want to be here!”
“Go home with your parents,” said Saturn Girl. “We have some friends that need to be rescued from this place as well. And something in there is giving me a splitting headache, and I am becoming impatient.”
But where Gaal Jahnson had once stood, there was an iridescent blue hawk. The hawk leapt into the air, soaring out of sight.
“Stand back from the citadel,” Ennis Jahnson warned. “I know this maneuver. Run!”
The hawk came swooping down from the sky at a sixth the speed of sound, a mile of momentum behind it. At the nadir of its flight, just before crashing into the citadel wall, it transformed into a 100-tonne blue whale-- except it was a bright magenta pink.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked the boy standing in the rubble.
The Jahnson Family and the Super-Hero Club of Mars invaded the headquarters of NLSH, Inc, a Deimos Corporation, dba The New Legion of Super Heroes, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanscom-Burrane Industries.
There was a reception committee.
“I estimate that you are outnumbered by five to one,” Ten transmitted from the Monitor Board.
Joan of Arcturus and Paraceratherium Pete, enlarged to their full twelve-meter height, came crashing through the broken opening in the wall.
Bouch had consumed enough rubble that she was able to morph into a doppelganger of Joan, taking her down easily with three times her strength. Pete’s 15-tonne mass was opposed by Gaal Jahnson, in the form of a 20-tonne Titanosaur. A third colossus appeared, the Bdelugmotian Giant Guy, steadily growing until he towered over the NLSH citadel. Kid Ultraboy quickly took the threat out with her ultra-strength. She was immediately set upon by the Ultrabot, the express image of her father as a teen-ager, except for its glowing green eyes. It was joined by the recovered Superbot as well, each of the two robots grabbing a shoulder, restraining her in the air. On the ground, an android copy of Nardo blasted her with nuclear energy from its third eye.
Meanwhile:
Monster Boy assumed the latest form he had been working on: a boxy, machine-like configuration with numerous octopoid cables extending from his body and into the walls of the NLSHQ. Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl kneeled near him, immobilized by blistering, migraine-like headaches.
Meanwhile:
Inside the Citadel, Null and Void, the Exxorite twins, clasped hands to activate their shared powers. The area inside and around the citadel was enveloped in sudden darkness and silence.
“This is my fight”, thought Korvea. Manifesting her myrlon-wings, her Talokan senses pierced the blackness, only to see another Talokan flying toward her. “Cousin Zophos,” she thought silently. They grappled for a moment, then the darkness and silence gave way, as suddenly as it had appeared. “Cousin,” said Korvea, “Your allies fight independently, without cooperation or plan. Of what use was that flash of darkness?”
“But we are superior in numbers and strength,” Zophos replied. “Do not fear, we only wish you to join us.”
“But that is exactly what I do fear!” said Korvea. She was wrapped in Zophos’ projected darkness, which was thick and sticky, like warm taffy. Immobilized, there was a real danger Korvea might suffocate.
Meanwhile: Phantom Girl was trying to access the citadel from the Buffer Zone, but it was protected by the same trans-dimensional force shield they had found at Hanscom & Burrane’s Metropolis headquarters. She was able to make her way through the halls to the infirmary, where she could warn the doctors, nurses, and patients of the confrontation brewing downstairs. She handed off charge of the evacuation to Douglas Nolan who cared for his own patient while organizing the exodus of the rest.
Meanwhile:
“I have located the source of the telepathic interference,” reported the mechano-octopoid Monster Boy. “Disabling now. I have also located the transdimensional force-field generator. Also disabled.”
Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl recovered quickly, the remaining headache only making them cranky and irritated.
“I haven’t had much chance to use my telekinesis since joining the Super-Hero Club,” said Yzopok Girl. “I feel like smashing something.”
“I rather suspect I will soon have an opportunity to use my psychic counseling skills,” Saturn Girl answered.
Meanwhile:
“Unlike your father,” said the Ultrabot to Arna Nah, “I am able to use all my ultra-powers together.”
“With two of us against one,” said the Superbot, “How can you possibly prevail?”
The Ultrabot gave a reasonable facsimile of laughter. “Especially as you can use only one power at a time!”
Kid Ultraboy laughed in return. “You ‘bots were created to mimic super-powers, not to match them. I am much faster than either of you.” She went intangible, then zoomed away at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. She had been scanning the members of the NLSH with both ultravision and Bgztlr 4D vision, and with speed and precision was removing the golden mind-control triangles. Once she had as many as she could carry, she dumped them at the feet of Bouch, who was consuming them with astonishing rapidity herself. Flickering in and out of intangibility, not even the Kormons could lay hold of her.
Suddenly, Kid Ultraboy’s progress came to an abrupt halt, as B.I.O.N.2, matching her intangible form and ultraspeed, held her immobile. The Dominator cyborg grinned. “I can replicate any of the powers of the original Legion,” she gloated. “Or all of them. Surrender.”
Arna focused carefully. “This might hurt,” she warned, and blasted the mind-control device in the back of B.I.O.N.2’s neck with a burst of flash vision. The cyborg shook her head, then, memories flooding back stared intently at Kid Ultraboy.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said B.I.O.N.2.
Meanwhile:
With the transdimensional shields down, it did not take long for Phantom Girl to find the hidden room she was looking for. The Circadians had retreated to the protection of their chrysalis-pods, and were stacked in one corner. Chel-Eb lay on some sort of examination table, his irradiated by artificial kryptonite lamps. Even after Irinia had shut the lamps off, his skin still glowed green. One of the golden triangular mind-control devices lay on the table, waiting to be installed in the Rokynite. A quick examination showed that no surgery had even been begun. Unfortunately, there were also no signs of life: no respiration, no heartbeat. His body was cold.
“Ten,” Phantom Girl messaged her comrade. “Use the Pentachoron to bring the four of us back to Mars.” They materialized inside the Clubhouse. “Do you know how to wake the Cirdadians? I think… I think it may be too late for…”
Meanwhile:
More than half of the New Legionnaires were under thrall against their will and joined with the Super-Hero Club. Unfortunately, that meant that there were still dozens still loyal to Hanscom & Burrane. That included all the robots and androids, excepting only B.I.O.N.2, Karth Arn, and Lucifer-13, as well as both of the Kormons, Skyboy and Skygirl.
There was a pause as nearly one hundred super-powered beings divided into two camps. Saturn Girl and Yzopok Girl were ensuring that their allies were truly their allies, and not double-minded. Neither side had a clear advantage in terms of raw power: the Kormons loyal to Hanscom and Burrane were matched by B.I.O.N.2 and the yellow Martian Golden Girl on the opposite side.The Replacements of Bdelugmos had also chosen to remain with the New Legion, but their various powers were well matched by others who had chosen to join with the nine remaining Members of the SHC.
Some kind of grey energy-field suddenly dropped on the whole area, seemingly emanating from a large purple pangolin on the SHC side.
“I am called Satyagraha of Pennggulling,” he called out. “My power is Projective Invulnerability. Within this field, you will be unable to harm one another, nor can you come to harm, nor can you damage this building, or anything in it. Let us take a few moments to settle this diplomatically-- with our words.”
There was some murmuring on both sides. Then, into the space between the two armies of combatants, stepped Hanscom and Burrane themselves.
Both men were well into middle age.
Kjell Hanscom was easily two meters tall, and as slender and pale as a birch tree.
Manferd Burrane stood at barely a meter-and-a-half, and was as round and red as a rubber ball.
Both had ragged mops of snow-white hair. Burrane’s beetled brow and high forehead made it appear as if he was balding badly, although this was not truly the case.
Burrane had a look of wicked cunning in his eyes.
Hanscom’s blue eyes bulged, giving him an appearance of pure madness.
“Kjell, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” asked the smaller man.
“I think so, Burrane,” said the taller man. “Time to bring in the calvary?” He held up a largeish, boxy device, and pressed a button. There was a thunderous BOOM, and a space-warp appeared behind the remaining New Legionnaires.
“These are our lieutenants,” cried Manferd Burrane. “Allow me to introduce Mad Donna, Creepy Jean, and Memento Moria of Apokolips Reborn! Summon your Hunger Dogs and Parademons, and recapture the prizes we have so carefully collected!”
Dorrit, Korvea, Viqi, Arna, Ghurwil, Luto, Juno, Boris, and Zilla received a message from Ten in their telepathic earpieces.
“The Boom Tube technology of the New Gods is far beyond anything known in the United Planets, even on Colu,” he reported. “But I believe I can use the Pentachoron to interfere somewhat with its capabilities.”
Before any more forces could emerge from the Boom Tube, it began to flicker and distort.
“Something is interfering with Mother Box,” reported Creepy Jean.
“Well, are you New Gods or not?” asked Manferd Burrane.
Mad Donna seemed to summon multi-colored knives from the air, and sent them hurtling at Satyagraha. The Pennggullingii fell to the ground unconscious, and the field of projective invulnerability vanished.
“Weak against psychic attacks,” Mad Donna noted.
Magissa had prepared several alchemical attacks for use against the Non-Metal Men, and chose this moment to use them.
Water and air transformed Carbon into a hydrocarbon sludge.
Elemental oxygen turned Silicon into sandstone.
The Phosphorus robot was transformed into immobie phosphorite rock.
A reaction with iron turned Sulphur into a statue of sparkling pyrite.
Selenium was transformed by sodium into the mineral selenite.
Iodine became a shapeless mound of potassium iodide.
And she used silver to bond Bromine to create the mineral bromargyrite.
Kid Ultraboy stepped forward to collect the inert responsometers.
Then pandemonium broke loose.
Hanscom and Burrane used twin rings to summon the twin Cintosians Starlight and Starbright into battle.
Those who could fly, flew. Those who could morph, morphed. Bolts of energy in all the colors of the rainbow flashed.
And then the Justice League of Earth showed up.
And Lusilla Opral of Hajor Dyakis.
And the Super-Hero Club of Cyranus.
And Nightlingale and Mockingbird of Vannar.
And the new magical hero Pantheon, formerly known as Spiffany Brojj of Earth.
Science Police from Earth, Mars, and the United Planets arrived in time to take The New Legion into custody, as well as Hanscom and Burrane themselves.
It was a fairly easy transfer, as BotBoy had used Ten’s Coluan Shrinking Ray to imprison them in a few Microversal Ampullae.
o o o o o o
Renlo Tagor was back on Mars again, not without protest.
“He is in a coma. He is not dead yet, but is surely slowly dying. It takes a good deal to kill a Kryptonian, even after all ordinary signs of life have ceased. But he has received what is surely a fatal dose of kryptonite radiation, and there is nothing in the technology of Colu or Daxam or Rokyn that can cure him.”
Korvea sat beside the glowing green body of Chel-Eb, wrapped in a mantle of gloom and darkness. “There is technology on Talok that could place him in stasis until a cure could be found,” she said through tears.
“It is a problem which the greatest minds of Science have struggled with for over a thousand years,” said Renlo Tagor.
“Perhaps the answer lies with Science,” said Speophonia Brojj, appearing out of thin air. “But in the Asklepian of Asclepius. Kryptonians are not resistant to magic, am I correct?”
She touched the rod to Chel-Eb’s forehead. The greenish glow began to fade immediately.After a few minutes, the Rokynite sat up shakily. “I seem to have lost my powers,” he said, flexing his arms weakly. “And I am feeling very, very hungry.”
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 06/05/23 01:59 PM
THE FINAL CHAPTER
>> ‘Series Zeta’
Wrap-up:
The two Cintosians and the three New Gods managed to escape the Coluan microversal bottles. Now on the alert for an Apokolips Reborn movement, UPGov increases galactic security, the ICC searching for the location of Darkseid’s missing planet.
Chel-Eb does regain his powers after about a month’s exposure to the yellow sun. He spends much of that time on Mercury, as a guest of the Thermoids, to be nearer the source of his rejuvenation.
Lucifer-13 joins the Super-Hero Club. The remainder of the liberated New Legionnaires, who do not end up on various prison planets, go their own ways.
Hanscom-Burrane Industries is liquidated by the United Planets Department of Commerce. It is divested of its assets, which are then re-allocated to those private entities whose claims against the corporation are arguably most appropriate, and deemed in the best interests of the public good.
The Super-Hero Club makes no such claims.
Nevertheless, UPDoC grants them stewardship of the New Legion Headquarters on Deimos.
“Well, of course they would,” said Phantom Girl.
“I wish Eulia were still here,” said Saturn Girl. “She had a real head for finance.”
“She’s busy getting her detective agency up and running,” said Phantom Girl. “But we should talk to Lue, Eulia’s trans-temporal duplicate. She and Niri are running the M'Kord homestead on Orzde now, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind doing a little bookkeeping for us on the side.”
“Well, it appears we are stuck with a big old building filled with high-tech training equipment,” said Yzopok Girl. “And a continuing stipend for a score or more of employees.”
“The reasonable course,” said Ten, “Is to use a portion of that stipend to hire a manager for the property.”
Phantom Girl stared at the young Coluan in astonishment. “That is actually a great idea. Did anyone ever tell you you have a tenth-level intellect?” she asked.
“Ah,” said Ten. “Sarcasm.”
“What we really need to do,” suggested Yzopok Girl, “Is to get up there, and inventory the property, to see just what kind of White Camelephant the United Planets has saddled us with.”
During their investigation, the Super-Hero Club discovers a well-protected, super-secure room. Naturally, they break into it. They discover a number of birthing pods, which contain clones of individuals from the Age of Heroes. That is, the 21st-century.
There is also an odd device that Ten identifies as a Time Pool. After some examination, he determines that it is an extension into paratemporal realities. “Of course, it could only retrieve very small samples,” he notes.
“You mean,” replies Monster Boy, “Like, DNA?”
There are eleven birthing pods, each tagged 'Series Zeta'. Nine are active, and two are emply and broken. Each pod also has a nameplate attached.
In alphabetical order, the nameplates read:
Marcus Desmond {Missing / Pod empty}
Caroline Ferris
Milton Fine
Cyrus Gold
Morgen deGorlois
Matthew Hagen
Pamela Isley
Selina Kyle
Alexei Luthor
Adolph Mausmann {Missing / Pod empty}
Harleen Frances Quinzel
Ten determines that despite accelerated gestation, the inhabitants of the pods have only matured to ages of between six and eleven. Nevertheless, the Legionnaires shut down the stasis program, and release them all.
Monster Boy makes appropriate clothing for everyone as they emerge, taking the form of a giant purple spider.
The children eventually take on super-hero names, calling themselves 'Series Zeta'. They are placed under the auspices of the 31st-century equivalent of Child Protective Services, and are not allowed to go adventuring.
Of course, just because they are not allowed, does not mean they don't.
Their new identities are:
"Xel"
The eldest of the clones, physically nearly twelve years old, and the de facto leader, he is a tall, slender red-headed boy. He is perfectly aware who he, and everyone else is. The clones have been mind-fed the Encyclopedia Galactica. He remembers all of it, and is perfectly comfortable in the 31st century.
"Zamora"
Willowy and fair, with dark hair and blue eyes, she immediately encountered a semi-sentient star sapphire power gem upon awakening. It was almost as if it had been waiting for her.
"Psiborg"
A short, chubby boy with a black mohawk. Although perfectly human in appearance, he is actually 50% android. He is a powerful telepath, able to communicate with-- and control, to a degree-- both humans and machines.
"Green Grundy"
The youngest of the group, barely age six physically, he is small in stature, but built like a wall. He has greenish-white skin, and curly white hair that looks like wood shavings. Incredibly powerful, he is strong and durable, and able to repair damage to himself, even to the point of growing new limbs. He cannot be rendered unconscious-- perhaps because he has no subconscious mind.
"Morgan"
A fine-featured little girl with auburn hair, dark eyes and slightly elfin ears, she awoke with a natural (sleep-learned(=?)) ability to manufacture and manipulate magical artifacts. She found a suit of golden armor waiting for her-- but it was made for a full-grown woman. She was able to magically reduce it to the proper size. She constantly projects a magical 'glamour' which makes her appear attractive and likable.
"Kaolin"
He originally 'hatched' as a whitish-yellow stone-like statuette. At first, it was believed his 'egg' had malfunctioned. However, he eventually pulled himself together, demonstrating impressive shape-shifting abilities. He is uncomfortable in a world where he is constantly changing, and sometimes becomes confused and disoriented.
Initially dubbed "Toxicodendron" by Xel, she prefers the name “Flora”
Viridian-skinned and vermillion-haired, she immediately developed a rapport with all plant life within a half-mile radius. Over time, she develops a special attachment to "Green Grundy" and is the only one able to control his occasional, unpredictable rages.
"Felina"
Dark haired and green eyed, she was found with a all-black, prehistoric saber-toothed tigress sharing her pod. She names the cat Fille-de-Nuit, but everyone else calls her Night. Sharing some sort of telepathic link, the cat obeys her every command.
"Miss Punch"
White-skinned, red-green-and-blue-haired, with a rictus grin, she is less mad than you might expect. Still, she is not all there. In time, she begins to suspect that she is not truly a clone of Harley Quinn, but a feminized clone of the Joker. We shall see.
The Adolph Maussman (Mouseman) and Marcus (Blockbuster) Desmond clones escaped together sometime before the Super-Hero Club showed up, and are out there, somewhere
Stationed on Weber's World, Series Zeta is eventually joined by "The Other Thing From 40,000 AD".
>> ‘Series Zeta’
Wrap-up:
The two Cintosians and the three New Gods managed to escape the Coluan microversal bottles. Now on the alert for an Apokolips Reborn movement, UPGov increases galactic security, the ICC searching for the location of Darkseid’s missing planet.
Chel-Eb does regain his powers after about a month’s exposure to the yellow sun. He spends much of that time on Mercury, as a guest of the Thermoids, to be nearer the source of his rejuvenation.
Lucifer-13 joins the Super-Hero Club. The remainder of the liberated New Legionnaires, who do not end up on various prison planets, go their own ways.
Hanscom-Burrane Industries is liquidated by the United Planets Department of Commerce. It is divested of its assets, which are then re-allocated to those private entities whose claims against the corporation are arguably most appropriate, and deemed in the best interests of the public good.
The Super-Hero Club makes no such claims.
Nevertheless, UPDoC grants them stewardship of the New Legion Headquarters on Deimos.
“Well, of course they would,” said Phantom Girl.
“I wish Eulia were still here,” said Saturn Girl. “She had a real head for finance.”
“She’s busy getting her detective agency up and running,” said Phantom Girl. “But we should talk to Lue, Eulia’s trans-temporal duplicate. She and Niri are running the M'Kord homestead on Orzde now, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind doing a little bookkeeping for us on the side.”
“Well, it appears we are stuck with a big old building filled with high-tech training equipment,” said Yzopok Girl. “And a continuing stipend for a score or more of employees.”
“The reasonable course,” said Ten, “Is to use a portion of that stipend to hire a manager for the property.”
Phantom Girl stared at the young Coluan in astonishment. “That is actually a great idea. Did anyone ever tell you you have a tenth-level intellect?” she asked.
“Ah,” said Ten. “Sarcasm.”
“What we really need to do,” suggested Yzopok Girl, “Is to get up there, and inventory the property, to see just what kind of White Camelephant the United Planets has saddled us with.”
During their investigation, the Super-Hero Club discovers a well-protected, super-secure room. Naturally, they break into it. They discover a number of birthing pods, which contain clones of individuals from the Age of Heroes. That is, the 21st-century.
There is also an odd device that Ten identifies as a Time Pool. After some examination, he determines that it is an extension into paratemporal realities. “Of course, it could only retrieve very small samples,” he notes.
“You mean,” replies Monster Boy, “Like, DNA?”
There are eleven birthing pods, each tagged 'Series Zeta'. Nine are active, and two are emply and broken. Each pod also has a nameplate attached.
In alphabetical order, the nameplates read:
Marcus Desmond {Missing / Pod empty}
Caroline Ferris
Milton Fine
Cyrus Gold
Morgen deGorlois
Matthew Hagen
Pamela Isley
Selina Kyle
Alexei Luthor
Adolph Mausmann {Missing / Pod empty}
Harleen Frances Quinzel
Ten determines that despite accelerated gestation, the inhabitants of the pods have only matured to ages of between six and eleven. Nevertheless, the Legionnaires shut down the stasis program, and release them all.
Monster Boy makes appropriate clothing for everyone as they emerge, taking the form of a giant purple spider.
The children eventually take on super-hero names, calling themselves 'Series Zeta'. They are placed under the auspices of the 31st-century equivalent of Child Protective Services, and are not allowed to go adventuring.
Of course, just because they are not allowed, does not mean they don't.
Their new identities are:
"Xel"
The eldest of the clones, physically nearly twelve years old, and the de facto leader, he is a tall, slender red-headed boy. He is perfectly aware who he, and everyone else is. The clones have been mind-fed the Encyclopedia Galactica. He remembers all of it, and is perfectly comfortable in the 31st century.
"Zamora"
Willowy and fair, with dark hair and blue eyes, she immediately encountered a semi-sentient star sapphire power gem upon awakening. It was almost as if it had been waiting for her.
"Psiborg"
A short, chubby boy with a black mohawk. Although perfectly human in appearance, he is actually 50% android. He is a powerful telepath, able to communicate with-- and control, to a degree-- both humans and machines.
"Green Grundy"
The youngest of the group, barely age six physically, he is small in stature, but built like a wall. He has greenish-white skin, and curly white hair that looks like wood shavings. Incredibly powerful, he is strong and durable, and able to repair damage to himself, even to the point of growing new limbs. He cannot be rendered unconscious-- perhaps because he has no subconscious mind.
"Morgan"
A fine-featured little girl with auburn hair, dark eyes and slightly elfin ears, she awoke with a natural (sleep-learned(=?)) ability to manufacture and manipulate magical artifacts. She found a suit of golden armor waiting for her-- but it was made for a full-grown woman. She was able to magically reduce it to the proper size. She constantly projects a magical 'glamour' which makes her appear attractive and likable.
"Kaolin"
He originally 'hatched' as a whitish-yellow stone-like statuette. At first, it was believed his 'egg' had malfunctioned. However, he eventually pulled himself together, demonstrating impressive shape-shifting abilities. He is uncomfortable in a world where he is constantly changing, and sometimes becomes confused and disoriented.
Initially dubbed "Toxicodendron" by Xel, she prefers the name “Flora”
Viridian-skinned and vermillion-haired, she immediately developed a rapport with all plant life within a half-mile radius. Over time, she develops a special attachment to "Green Grundy" and is the only one able to control his occasional, unpredictable rages.
"Felina"
Dark haired and green eyed, she was found with a all-black, prehistoric saber-toothed tigress sharing her pod. She names the cat Fille-de-Nuit, but everyone else calls her Night. Sharing some sort of telepathic link, the cat obeys her every command.
"Miss Punch"
White-skinned, red-green-and-blue-haired, with a rictus grin, she is less mad than you might expect. Still, she is not all there. In time, she begins to suspect that she is not truly a clone of Harley Quinn, but a feminized clone of the Joker. We shall see.
The Adolph Maussman (Mouseman) and Marcus (Blockbuster) Desmond clones escaped together sometime before the Super-Hero Club showed up, and are out there, somewhere
Stationed on Weber's World, Series Zeta is eventually joined by "The Other Thing From 40,000 AD".
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 06/06/23 08:31 AM
Klar, hi, if this is the end of your tales of your Super-Hero Club then I'm sad to see it go. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your work, it has flowed like the very best fairy tale and you should take a well deserved bow!
I'm looking forward to seeing where you direct your writing skills to next.
I'm looking forward to seeing where you direct your writing skills to next.
Re: Young Legion Book 3 - 06/17/23 05:27 PM
Harby:
There are more stories to tell.
o There are the stories of the missing years when most of the original Legion leaves, which I skipped. (I particularly wanted to take the team to visit the “Time Pyramid” in Wemding, Germany (der Zeitpyramide) which would still be under construction by the year 3123.
o There are the stories of how the SHC ultimately evolves into the New Legion seen in Phantom Girl’s vision in Chapter Sixty-Six.
o There are the stories of how the pre-teen Series Zeta deals with the New Blockbuster and Mouseman (now both adults) and their recruits. (I am particularly intrigued by Xel, a non-Coluan mad-scientist-as-super-hero let loose in the 31st century.)
But I feel I am getting stale.
I have indulged myself in the creation of dozens of new characters to populate the Starfinger Legion, (‘Series Zeta’ being only the tip of the iceberg) an indulgence which I imagine is just tedious for the reader. And it would take years to properly explore and flesh out each one.
So, I’m giving it up for now, unless I get really inspired later on.
I have a few things partially written, for my own amusement.
o One is my autobiography, thinly fictionalized, in order to disguise the identities of my grown children.
o Another is the story of Lazarus Clark, the elder brother of the Earth-Two Martha Kent. He is a Civil War veteran who goes on a remarkable journey, meeting many fantastical figures of the 19th century. (Note that Martha Clark Kent was an elderly woman when Kal-L came to Earth-2 in 1916.)
o I have a continuing exploration of my vision of the Sorcerer’s Worlds, including the weird encounter of Konk! of the Uncanny Amazers, and Galea Fati, the Helm of Fate.
But all of this is probably not that appealing to a group looking at primarily Legion fanfics.
For those who may be curious, and have a lot of time on their hands. here is a listing of the Members of The Legion of Super-Heroes LLC, a subsidiary of Hanscomb-Burrane Industries, inc., as presently constituted in my mind.
TTFN
There are more stories to tell.
o There are the stories of the missing years when most of the original Legion leaves, which I skipped. (I particularly wanted to take the team to visit the “Time Pyramid” in Wemding, Germany (der Zeitpyramide) which would still be under construction by the year 3123.
o There are the stories of how the SHC ultimately evolves into the New Legion seen in Phantom Girl’s vision in Chapter Sixty-Six.
o There are the stories of how the pre-teen Series Zeta deals with the New Blockbuster and Mouseman (now both adults) and their recruits. (I am particularly intrigued by Xel, a non-Coluan mad-scientist-as-super-hero let loose in the 31st century.)
But I feel I am getting stale.
I have indulged myself in the creation of dozens of new characters to populate the Starfinger Legion, (‘Series Zeta’ being only the tip of the iceberg) an indulgence which I imagine is just tedious for the reader. And it would take years to properly explore and flesh out each one.
So, I’m giving it up for now, unless I get really inspired later on.
I have a few things partially written, for my own amusement.
o One is my autobiography, thinly fictionalized, in order to disguise the identities of my grown children.
o Another is the story of Lazarus Clark, the elder brother of the Earth-Two Martha Kent. He is a Civil War veteran who goes on a remarkable journey, meeting many fantastical figures of the 19th century. (Note that Martha Clark Kent was an elderly woman when Kal-L came to Earth-2 in 1916.)
o I have a continuing exploration of my vision of the Sorcerer’s Worlds, including the weird encounter of Konk! of the Uncanny Amazers, and Galea Fati, the Helm of Fate.
But all of this is probably not that appealing to a group looking at primarily Legion fanfics.
For those who may be curious, and have a lot of time on their hands. here is a listing of the Members of The Legion of Super-Heroes LLC, a subsidiary of Hanscomb-Burrane Industries, inc., as presently constituted in my mind.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/7d58eba91be127979e530747c544b86d/341e525c957b93b4-72/s250x400/7db6683505a16697df7041987cfceea0561ca447.png)
TTFN
Another New Beginning - 01/02/24 04:44 PM
I continue my obsession with creating “Legacy Legions”, as well as building worlds for them to live in.
> In my Rainbow Girl fanfic, I took 5YL as a jumping-off point with children of both the original Legion and the Batch SW6 group, there being actually two Legions extant simultaneously.
This is Earth-K1
> In my Young Legion fanfic, I assumed 5YL never happened, but proceeded from TOS and the retroboot.
This is Earth-K2.
> Now I am imagining a future which descends from Action Comics #267, and the original Adult Legion stories (Adventure 354-355.
I suppose this must be Earth K-3.
Action Comics 267:
https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=946225#Post946225
Adventure 354-355:
Phantom Woman and Ultra Man have two children, Ronn and Arna, who each have both their parent’s powers.
Timber Wolf and Light Lady have three kids, Brin, Bran, and Loni, none of whom have super-powers.
Chuck and Lu have a (unnamed) little boy, who is a normal Carggan.
The former Shrinking Violet and Duplicate Boy live on distant Lallor, and have two children, a boy and a girl (also unnamed)
Thom and Nura are also married, and living on Xanthu, where Thom is an astronomer.
Other members of the future Adult Legion included Quantum Queen, Reflecto, Shadow Lass, and Power Boy, all deceased; as well as 30th-century versions of Lex Luthor and Mr. Mxyzptlk. And, presumably, Douglas Nolan, Ferro Lad 2.
But this is not their story.
THE SETUP
This would be some fifteen years later after the events of the Adult Legion stories, and shortly after the events of Action 267.
The infants, toddlers, and teens we met above are now all over 18 years old. The Adult Legion has retired. An all-new iteration consists of other children of the Legionnaires. Once again, the roll call:
Cosmic Boy: Pol Hu Krinn II
Parents: Rokk Krinn & Lydda Jath
Lightning Lad: Graym Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
Saturn Girl: Dorritt Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
Chameleon Boy: Juulz Allon
Parents: Gim Allon & Yera
Colossal Boy: Lenaar Allon
Parents: Gim Allon & Yera
Invisible Kid: Dryscoll Foccart
Parents: Jacques Foccart & Drura Sehpt
I am considering replacing Dryscoll with Pol’s little brother Jarn (an original character) which would mean that this neo-Legion would be staffed from just three families: the Krinns, the Ranzzes, and the Allons. After all, anyone can take Lyle Norg’s invisibility serum.
And they have found their Supergirl.
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/01d724635da6548ede31b1d774b61510/aeba60500e06f03e-a5/s400x600/cb57f4e0582c07c7ecfd4cfff1fff80129a30912.png)
Her complex backstory:
The actor who played Klar Ken T5477 on the holovision show “Superman 2965” was the Daxamite Jorkris Riiv. Lyra 3619 was played by the Earth human Nollis Coatl. They married in real life, and their daughter is the half-Daxamite Lor-El Riiv. As a child actor, (she starred in the long-running holovid series Zeta the Space Girl). *
She was known by the stage name Lor-El Ken T5477, but he gave up her acting career at fourteen.
At sixteen, she was recruited into the next generation of The Legion of Super-Heroes.
o o o
But there is also a new Legion of Super-Villains:
Validus: Garridan Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
(He is only just under six feet tall at this age, but he will grow)
Cosmic Queen: Indira Pradeshi°
Parents: Laevar Bolto & Nehali Pradeshi
https://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=780173#Post780173
Saturn Princess: Norja Kem
Parents: Tenzil Kem & Eve Aries
Unfortunately, she takes after her mother.
Black Phantom: Youdu Darga
Parents: Solon Darga (Phantom Lad) & Chi Tsan (Caress)
He has all the powers and abilities of both his parents: Intangibility, Acid Touch and Martial Arts training.
Quetzal: Quetzal Ranzz
Parents: Mekt Ranzz and Beauty Blaze
He is able to control both fire and electricity.
Super-Mannequin
A robotic superman-analog from Dollworld, programmed for ‘evil’
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d27ee4b28df4531c35a9e7f4f309046/fe522df473ab8dbc-ab/s250x400/83d16c138336f78c4c79f34bd6942bbafd672e58.png)
My convoluted backstory for Beauty Blaze:
Beauty Blaze is actually Matil Dirx of Bunyon’s World, the former Significant Other of Rejik Thomak, the Psycho-Warrior.
Granted pyrokinetic powers by the nova her ship fell into, by the time she reunites with Rejik she finds him a broken, psychotic prisoner in Takron-Galtos. Blaming the Legion, she seeks revenge, but is eventually reformed through the same psychic surgery that cured Mekt Ranzz.
Undergoing treatment in the same infirmary, Mekt and Matil grow close, and eventually marry.
They have twin boys named Quetzal and Xolotl, each with power over both lightning and fire.
The thing is, the LSV are not exactly evil, their goals are political in nature, although at odds with United Planets culture.
And the LSH are reckless and impulsive, often making a mess of things that their parents-- or the older children of the Legion-- will have to clean up.
Neither group is particularly making the Galaxy a better place.
O O O
Thinking a little more about it, I might go for a Supergirl substitute who is a little more... Iconic...
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/324f3b0c2fce65bff8806d2c1c8ecce1/d9706bbfd20a911f-f5/s400x600/006f6574b7b7cf412ddd572cf942ddd46b4025b1.png)
> In my Rainbow Girl fanfic, I took 5YL as a jumping-off point with children of both the original Legion and the Batch SW6 group, there being actually two Legions extant simultaneously.
This is Earth-K1
> In my Young Legion fanfic, I assumed 5YL never happened, but proceeded from TOS and the retroboot.
This is Earth-K2.
> Now I am imagining a future which descends from Action Comics #267, and the original Adult Legion stories (Adventure 354-355.
I suppose this must be Earth K-3.
Action Comics 267:
https:/
Adventure 354-355:
Phantom Woman and Ultra Man have two children, Ronn and Arna, who each have both their parent’s powers.
Timber Wolf and Light Lady have three kids, Brin, Bran, and Loni, none of whom have super-powers.
Chuck and Lu have a (unnamed) little boy, who is a normal Carggan.
The former Shrinking Violet and Duplicate Boy live on distant Lallor, and have two children, a boy and a girl (also unnamed)
Thom and Nura are also married, and living on Xanthu, where Thom is an astronomer.
Other members of the future Adult Legion included Quantum Queen, Reflecto, Shadow Lass, and Power Boy, all deceased; as well as 30th-century versions of Lex Luthor and Mr. Mxyzptlk. And, presumably, Douglas Nolan, Ferro Lad 2.
But this is not their story.
THE SETUP
This would be some fifteen years later after the events of the Adult Legion stories, and shortly after the events of Action 267.
The infants, toddlers, and teens we met above are now all over 18 years old. The Adult Legion has retired. An all-new iteration consists of other children of the Legionnaires. Once again, the roll call:
Cosmic Boy: Pol Hu Krinn II
Parents: Rokk Krinn & Lydda Jath
Lightning Lad: Graym Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
Saturn Girl: Dorritt Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
Chameleon Boy: Juulz Allon
Parents: Gim Allon & Yera
Colossal Boy: Lenaar Allon
Parents: Gim Allon & Yera
Invisible Kid: Dryscoll Foccart
Parents: Jacques Foccart & Drura Sehpt
I am considering replacing Dryscoll with Pol’s little brother Jarn (an original character) which would mean that this neo-Legion would be staffed from just three families: the Krinns, the Ranzzes, and the Allons. After all, anyone can take Lyle Norg’s invisibility serum.
And they have found their Supergirl.
Her complex backstory:
The actor who played Klar Ken T5477 on the holovision show “Superman 2965” was the Daxamite Jorkris Riiv. Lyra 3619 was played by the Earth human Nollis Coatl. They married in real life, and their daughter is the half-Daxamite Lor-El Riiv. As a child actor, (she starred in the long-running holovid series Zeta the Space Girl). *
She was known by the stage name Lor-El Ken T5477, but he gave up her acting career at fourteen.
At sixteen, she was recruited into the next generation of The Legion of Super-Heroes.
o o o
But there is also a new Legion of Super-Villains:
Validus: Garridan Ranzz
Parents: Garth Ranzz & Imra Ardeen
(He is only just under six feet tall at this age, but he will grow)
Cosmic Queen: Indira Pradeshi°
Parents: Laevar Bolto & Nehali Pradeshi
https:/
Saturn Princess: Norja Kem
Parents: Tenzil Kem & Eve Aries
Unfortunately, she takes after her mother.
Black Phantom: Youdu Darga
Parents: Solon Darga (Phantom Lad) & Chi Tsan (Caress)
He has all the powers and abilities of both his parents: Intangibility, Acid Touch and Martial Arts training.
Quetzal: Quetzal Ranzz
Parents: Mekt Ranzz and Beauty Blaze
He is able to control both fire and electricity.
Super-Mannequin
A robotic superman-analog from Dollworld, programmed for ‘evil’
My convoluted backstory for Beauty Blaze:
Beauty Blaze is actually Matil Dirx of Bunyon’s World, the former Significant Other of Rejik Thomak, the Psycho-Warrior.
Granted pyrokinetic powers by the nova her ship fell into, by the time she reunites with Rejik she finds him a broken, psychotic prisoner in Takron-Galtos. Blaming the Legion, she seeks revenge, but is eventually reformed through the same psychic surgery that cured Mekt Ranzz.
Undergoing treatment in the same infirmary, Mekt and Matil grow close, and eventually marry.
They have twin boys named Quetzal and Xolotl, each with power over both lightning and fire.
The thing is, the LSV are not exactly evil, their goals are political in nature, although at odds with United Planets culture.
And the LSH are reckless and impulsive, often making a mess of things that their parents-- or the older children of the Legion-- will have to clean up.
Neither group is particularly making the Galaxy a better place.
O O O
Thinking a little more about it, I might go for a Supergirl substitute who is a little more... Iconic...
Re: Another New Beginning - 01/11/24 10:52 PM
Metropolis, Earth, April 2997
“I don’t understand how he got his hands on it.”
“You know how it is today-- anything and everything is available on the Galactic Web.”
“You know that Gim and Jo are going to be furious about this. It's going to be a political disaster. For both of them.”
“Which will be completely forgotten… eventually. Meanwhile our son is… like this… maybe forever?”
“You know, I’m right here!”
O O O
“At its peak, there were one-hundred-twenty-five Legionnaires, with four hundred support staff and their families- human, alien, and android- housed on Legion Plaza. The Legion Tryouts Auxiliary processed over a thousand applicants each year. Less than one out of a hundred qualified, although a couple dozen each year went to Montauk Point.”
“I know all this, Dad. We studied it in school. Ancient History. Then the Directorate placed the Legion under the umbrella of the Science Police, and it eventually disappeared as a separate organization. Legion Plaza is a tourist attraction now. Mostly gift shops.”
“Ancient history? I lived it! I was Legion Leader for two decades, with your Aunt Imra as Deputy. I don’t suppose today’s course material includes why the Legion was disbanded?”
“I guess they wanted Adults in charge?”
“Adults were always in charge. At first, it was Rene Brande and Marla Latham in charge. Then when the Founders were old enough, we took over training the kids. EarthGov and the UP always had a finger in the pie as well. But then…
“He called himself Carom. He used the same elasticizing serum your Uncle Chuck did to give himself nearly identical powers. He had a similar temperament, too: good-natured, with a self-deprecating humor. Chemically, the stuff expands adipose tissue into a spongy, super-elastic material.
"The problem is, he was a Mardrite, not a full Terran, and he reacted differently to the serum.
"There were side effects. He began to develop pustules on his skin. He went to the Med-Techs, and they got it under control for a little while. Then it turned cancerous. They got that under control, too. Then one day at a public appearance-- not even on duty, just doing publicity for the Legion-- he had a runaway outbreak. His body expanded uncontrollably, pox breaking out like balloons. It was horrible. He died before anyone realized what was going on.
“Legionnaires had died before. But in battle, heroic sacrifices. And not so publicly, not in front of a bunch of adoring fans.
“And at that point, kids were experimenting with the drugs that made the Legion superheroes recreationally. Jathosterone. Gingold extract. Miraclo. It was an open secret. In small doses, they all wore off quickly. Parents tolerated it, the SP looked the other way.
“Parents panicked after Daon died. Everybody panicked. New laws were passed. It’s why Norgine is a strictly controlled substance today, locked away in labs. The Legionnaires were placed under the direct supervision of an all-new bureaucracy in the Science Police. They passed over your Uncle Jo, picked someone else to head it. Jo was on track for a position as Commissioner for the Sol system, but that somehow evaporated, too. The Legion was seen as too dangerous for mere children. Or young adults, for that matter. And then… just unnecessary.
“I understand you hear the stories of a ‘New Golden Age of Heroes’, but there are many UP citizens, my age and older, who don’t look back on those years as so golden.”
“Look, we'll be careful, OK?”
"You need to be more than careful. You need to not do this."
“I don’t understand how he got his hands on it.”
“You know how it is today-- anything and everything is available on the Galactic Web.”
“You know that Gim and Jo are going to be furious about this. It's going to be a political disaster. For both of them.”
“Which will be completely forgotten… eventually. Meanwhile our son is… like this… maybe forever?”
“You know, I’m right here!”
O O O
“At its peak, there were one-hundred-twenty-five Legionnaires, with four hundred support staff and their families- human, alien, and android- housed on Legion Plaza. The Legion Tryouts Auxiliary processed over a thousand applicants each year. Less than one out of a hundred qualified, although a couple dozen each year went to Montauk Point.”
“I know all this, Dad. We studied it in school. Ancient History. Then the Directorate placed the Legion under the umbrella of the Science Police, and it eventually disappeared as a separate organization. Legion Plaza is a tourist attraction now. Mostly gift shops.”
“Ancient history? I lived it! I was Legion Leader for two decades, with your Aunt Imra as Deputy. I don’t suppose today’s course material includes why the Legion was disbanded?”
“I guess they wanted Adults in charge?”
“Adults were always in charge. At first, it was Rene Brande and Marla Latham in charge. Then when the Founders were old enough, we took over training the kids. EarthGov and the UP always had a finger in the pie as well. But then…
“He called himself Carom. He used the same elasticizing serum your Uncle Chuck did to give himself nearly identical powers. He had a similar temperament, too: good-natured, with a self-deprecating humor. Chemically, the stuff expands adipose tissue into a spongy, super-elastic material.
"The problem is, he was a Mardrite, not a full Terran, and he reacted differently to the serum.
"There were side effects. He began to develop pustules on his skin. He went to the Med-Techs, and they got it under control for a little while. Then it turned cancerous. They got that under control, too. Then one day at a public appearance-- not even on duty, just doing publicity for the Legion-- he had a runaway outbreak. His body expanded uncontrollably, pox breaking out like balloons. It was horrible. He died before anyone realized what was going on.
“Legionnaires had died before. But in battle, heroic sacrifices. And not so publicly, not in front of a bunch of adoring fans.
“And at that point, kids were experimenting with the drugs that made the Legion superheroes recreationally. Jathosterone. Gingold extract. Miraclo. It was an open secret. In small doses, they all wore off quickly. Parents tolerated it, the SP looked the other way.
“Parents panicked after Daon died. Everybody panicked. New laws were passed. It’s why Norgine is a strictly controlled substance today, locked away in labs. The Legionnaires were placed under the direct supervision of an all-new bureaucracy in the Science Police. They passed over your Uncle Jo, picked someone else to head it. Jo was on track for a position as Commissioner for the Sol system, but that somehow evaporated, too. The Legion was seen as too dangerous for mere children. Or young adults, for that matter. And then… just unnecessary.
“I understand you hear the stories of a ‘New Golden Age of Heroes’, but there are many UP citizens, my age and older, who don’t look back on those years as so golden.”
“Look, we'll be careful, OK?”
"You need to be more than careful. You need to not do this."
Re: Another New Beginning - 01/22/24 04:42 PM
“Norgine is a mutagenic. Its effects can differ from individual to individual. For me, there was a side-effect of spontaneous long-range teleportation. Fortunately, Dr. Gym’ll was able to get that under control. It looks like, for you, you have less control over your invisibility?”
“It’s not a matter of control… it’s just that I feel more comfortable like this. I have to concentrate to stay visible.
“And there’s another weird thing. When I’m like this, I feel fine, but the rest of the world seems out of focus. Less… real. Blurry, and far away.”
“That’s because you aren’t seeing with your eyes. Light goes right through you. Lyle Norg compensated for that by having his serum give him extra senses. But since you don’t interact with photons, you’re also a little bit out of phase. You can even accidentally fall into a pocket dimension… temporarily. With me, it mostly happened when I was stressed out or anxious.”
“That makes sense. Out of step with reality… while I’m invisible, I can also kind of… push through walls. You know how you can concentrate, and make your clothes, or small objects invisible with you? Well, I kind of… push in the… in the other direction, and the wall becomes… permeable? I mean, I can walk through it, but it’s like walking through Pindar bean jam.”
“Like walking through Pindar bean jam… Do you often walk through Pindar bean jam? How do you know what it feels like?”
“I mean… it feels like that’s what it would feel like.”
“It’s not a matter of control… it’s just that I feel more comfortable like this. I have to concentrate to stay visible.
“And there’s another weird thing. When I’m like this, I feel fine, but the rest of the world seems out of focus. Less… real. Blurry, and far away.”
“That’s because you aren’t seeing with your eyes. Light goes right through you. Lyle Norg compensated for that by having his serum give him extra senses. But since you don’t interact with photons, you’re also a little bit out of phase. You can even accidentally fall into a pocket dimension… temporarily. With me, it mostly happened when I was stressed out or anxious.”
“That makes sense. Out of step with reality… while I’m invisible, I can also kind of… push through walls. You know how you can concentrate, and make your clothes, or small objects invisible with you? Well, I kind of… push in the… in the other direction, and the wall becomes… permeable? I mean, I can walk through it, but it’s like walking through Pindar bean jam.”
“Like walking through Pindar bean jam… Do you often walk through Pindar bean jam? How do you know what it feels like?”
“I mean… it feels like that’s what it would feel like.”
Re: Another New Beginning - 01/28/24 03:07 PM
“You’re his big brother! How could you let him do this to himself?”
“It was his choice, not mine.”
“The Medicus can’t do anything for him. Your mother has taken Jarn to a hospital on Daxam. Hopefully they can find a cure.”
“And what if they can? Will you try to find a ‘cure’ for my powers, too? How about fixing my ‘rebellious streak’?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. And a Time Bubble! Why would you take a Time Bubble to the 2Oth century?”
“It’s not against the law.”
“Not everything that is legal is… necessarily a good idea.”
“We took a self-guided Time Tour. You’re allowed to bring back souvenirs. No one can change the past, even if they try.”
“Kara was not a souvenir!”
“You and Uncle Garth and Aunt Imra did it first! I wish you had told us before, too. I mean, everyone knows about Superboy, but… both cousins? Honestly?”
“That was different… Look, I know that you hear stories of a ‘Golden Age of Heroes’, but there are a lot of UP citizens-- people in charge-- who don’t look back on those years as so golden. Your idea of creating a new Legion of Super-Heroes… It won’t turn out as you imagine. You may as well call yourself the Legion of Super-Villains, as far as some people are concerned.”
“Then we’ll call ourselves the Justice Society, or… what does it matter what we call ourselves? We have special powers and abilities, and we should use them to make the Galaxy a better place. Just like you and Mom did when you were my age. And all our ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, too.”
“Look, R.J. had a vision. He infected us with it. We thought we could change the world. So we took it on. But you… if only you could stand here and see how really young you are. You kids are barely into adulthood. The world has so many possibilities waiting for you. You should be planning on a career, meeting new people, socializing, dating… you don’t need to take on such responsibilities now. Look at Ronin and Arna. Or Ayla and Brin’s kids. Their lives are… normal. Happy. They’re on track for careers, families. They never needed to be heroes.”
“Maybe we need to.”
“Have you counted the cost? Son… we named you after my little brother. He wanted to be a hero, too. He looked up to me. Followed me into the Legion. And died a hero… saved the Universe… defeated the Archimage… He saved all of Reality. But he’s gone. No matter what else, no matter how noble his sacrifice, he’s gone, and he’s not coming back. I think about that every day. I don’t want you to follow the same path.”
There was silence for a time. The father left the room. The son sat in the light of the fading dusk.
“But maybe the world would have been better,” he said under his breath, “If the Magic had never gone away.”
“It was his choice, not mine.”
“The Medicus can’t do anything for him. Your mother has taken Jarn to a hospital on Daxam. Hopefully they can find a cure.”
“And what if they can? Will you try to find a ‘cure’ for my powers, too? How about fixing my ‘rebellious streak’?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. And a Time Bubble! Why would you take a Time Bubble to the 2Oth century?”
“It’s not against the law.”
“Not everything that is legal is… necessarily a good idea.”
“We took a self-guided Time Tour. You’re allowed to bring back souvenirs. No one can change the past, even if they try.”
“Kara was not a souvenir!”
“You and Uncle Garth and Aunt Imra did it first! I wish you had told us before, too. I mean, everyone knows about Superboy, but… both cousins? Honestly?”
“That was different… Look, I know that you hear stories of a ‘Golden Age of Heroes’, but there are a lot of UP citizens-- people in charge-- who don’t look back on those years as so golden. Your idea of creating a new Legion of Super-Heroes… It won’t turn out as you imagine. You may as well call yourself the Legion of Super-Villains, as far as some people are concerned.”
“Then we’ll call ourselves the Justice Society, or… what does it matter what we call ourselves? We have special powers and abilities, and we should use them to make the Galaxy a better place. Just like you and Mom did when you were my age. And all our ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, too.”
“Look, R.J. had a vision. He infected us with it. We thought we could change the world. So we took it on. But you… if only you could stand here and see how really young you are. You kids are barely into adulthood. The world has so many possibilities waiting for you. You should be planning on a career, meeting new people, socializing, dating… you don’t need to take on such responsibilities now. Look at Ronin and Arna. Or Ayla and Brin’s kids. Their lives are… normal. Happy. They’re on track for careers, families. They never needed to be heroes.”
“Maybe we need to.”
“Have you counted the cost? Son… we named you after my little brother. He wanted to be a hero, too. He looked up to me. Followed me into the Legion. And died a hero… saved the Universe… defeated the Archimage… He saved all of Reality. But he’s gone. No matter what else, no matter how noble his sacrifice, he’s gone, and he’s not coming back. I think about that every day. I don’t want you to follow the same path.”
There was silence for a time. The father left the room. The son sat in the light of the fading dusk.
“But maybe the world would have been better,” he said under his breath, “If the Magic had never gone away.”
Re: Another New Beginning - 02/02/24 11:12 PM
“I am sorry, but there is nothing we can do.”
“But the effects of Norgine have been reversed before! Jacques, and The Invisible Invaders, and… well, others, right?”
“Your son is half-Braalien and half-Kathooni. Over the centuries, the genome has diverged. We believe his DNA pattern to be unique… unless you have other children? But the Norgine reacted quickly with his system, and… the mutagenesis is complete. It is an integral part of… who he is now. Ethically, we can do nothing. Practically, we have no idea what ‘turning off’ the affected strands might do to him. If, indeed, that would be even possible.”
“His original genetic sequence has been on file with EarthGov since birth…”
“There are limits to what even Daxamite medical science can do. We cannot simply rewrite the genome from scratch. Nor would we, if we could.
“You yourself could travel back in time, and bring some younger version of your son into the present, then claim him as your only son, and disown your invisible child.
“But would you? He is legally an adult, he made an informed, although, in most jurisdictions, illegal, decision. But can you accept him as he is now? As he wants to be?”
“You know, I’m right here!”
“But the effects of Norgine have been reversed before! Jacques, and The Invisible Invaders, and… well, others, right?”
“Your son is half-Braalien and half-Kathooni. Over the centuries, the genome has diverged. We believe his DNA pattern to be unique… unless you have other children? But the Norgine reacted quickly with his system, and… the mutagenesis is complete. It is an integral part of… who he is now. Ethically, we can do nothing. Practically, we have no idea what ‘turning off’ the affected strands might do to him. If, indeed, that would be even possible.”
“His original genetic sequence has been on file with EarthGov since birth…”
“There are limits to what even Daxamite medical science can do. We cannot simply rewrite the genome from scratch. Nor would we, if we could.
“You yourself could travel back in time, and bring some younger version of your son into the present, then claim him as your only son, and disown your invisible child.
“But would you? He is legally an adult, he made an informed, although, in most jurisdictions, illegal, decision. But can you accept him as he is now? As he wants to be?”
“You know, I’m right here!”
Re: Another New Beginning - 02/12/24 03:20 PM
“My best legal advice for you-- for anyone, really, in a similar situation-- is simple. If you did it, and it's your first offense, plead guilty, skip the expense of a trial and an attorney, suck it up, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. This is simple possession. No one is going to send him to Takron-Galtos over it. One or two years probation would be usual. And an even lighter sentence If he gives up his dealer. The Directorate might even drop all charges if its someone notorious. I would understand if you don’t want to give up your dealer, though. Some of those guys tend to hold long-term grudges.”
“I made it myself.”
“You what?”
“You what?”
“I made the Norgine myself. It’s not too hard. And the recipe is in the public domain.”
“You sound like you were baking a birthday cake!”
“You didn’t sell any of it, did you?”
“Do I look stupid? No, no, you already think I am. No, I didn’t sell any. We barely got enough for one full dose as it was.”
“I guess it wouldn't really have been that hard, if you have the right equipment... and access to the right ingredients. Lyle whipped it up in his basement, after all. And Dox used to make up samples at LHQ on a regular basis. For experimental purposes only, you know. But where did you find the equipment? I’m pretty sure that some of what you would need is pretty sophisticated. You wouldn’t have access to that kind of stuff in your virtual ChemLabs, would you?”
“Dorritt’s mom has a pretty sophisticated setup at her place. Of course, Dorrit and Dacey aren’t allowed in, but that’s just a house rule, not the law. I’ll bet their mom still hasn’t found out. They’ve gotten pretty good at thought-blocking.”
“You realize I’m going to have to tell them now?”
“Oh, D&D are already in deep splod about the Time Bubble thing. I don’t think anything you say about Norgine will make it any worse.”
“I made it myself.”
“You what?”
“You what?”
“I made the Norgine myself. It’s not too hard. And the recipe is in the public domain.”
“You sound like you were baking a birthday cake!”
“You didn’t sell any of it, did you?”
“Do I look stupid? No, no, you already think I am. No, I didn’t sell any. We barely got enough for one full dose as it was.”
“I guess it wouldn't really have been that hard, if you have the right equipment... and access to the right ingredients. Lyle whipped it up in his basement, after all. And Dox used to make up samples at LHQ on a regular basis. For experimental purposes only, you know. But where did you find the equipment? I’m pretty sure that some of what you would need is pretty sophisticated. You wouldn’t have access to that kind of stuff in your virtual ChemLabs, would you?”
“Dorritt’s mom has a pretty sophisticated setup at her place. Of course, Dorrit and Dacey aren’t allowed in, but that’s just a house rule, not the law. I’ll bet their mom still hasn’t found out. They’ve gotten pretty good at thought-blocking.”
“You realize I’m going to have to tell them now?”
“Oh, D&D are already in deep splod about the Time Bubble thing. I don’t think anything you say about Norgine will make it any worse.”
Re: Another New Beginning - 02/18/24 10:55 PM
“I’m sorry, miss. You can’t be here. The Park is closed until sunrise. Come back in twenty centimes.”
“I’m meeting someone here, officer. Is there a place I could wait close by? Someplace visible?”
“There are benches, next to the Shi outside the gates. You can wait there. Anyone coming to this side of the park would see you.”
O O O
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“I’m a docent, dear. Ms Kuruka. Just waiting for my shift to begin. Have you been to the park before?”
“I’ve lived near this part of Metropolis for a long time. So it’s funny. Not really, no. Is there a lot to know about a park?”
“Metropolis New Downtown Public Park replaces the old park that was once where the Weisinger Shopping Mall stands now. They moved all the park structures over here, including the Interplanetary Zoo. Oh, that was decades ago; I was just a young woman then. But they still call it “New Park” after all this time.”
“I’m supposed to meet some friends inside-- at the big plascrete ellipse just inside the gate. It's not hard to find, is it?”
“Well, some of these paths are a little twisty, but… if you give me a description of your friend, I can let them know you’re looking for them.”
“They shouldn’t be too hard to spot: four teen-age boys-- well, maybe only three, come to think of it-- and one girl, and a Durlan.”
“I’ll keep my eye out. And your name dear?”
“Lor-El… Riiv.”
“Oh, you’re Lor-El Ken T5477, aren’t you? My grand-daughter used to love watching you in Zeta the Space-Girl. What have you been doing with yourself for the last couple of years, dear?”
“We’re here.”
“Oh, did you hear something?”
“I see the Park is open now. Thank you. I’ll just be going. In, I mean. Going in.”
“So what have you been doing since Zeta ended? I was a big fan.”
“Well, if you were such a big fan, you would know that my parents vanished under mysterious circumstances during the filming of the last season. I’ve been trying to deal with that, as well as trying to get control of my earning for Zeta. And get my parent’s not-insubstantial assets released from probate. They’re letting me stay at our home in Hollywood Estates, but the entire staff has been let go, even the robotics. So I have this huge house to keep clean, while I wait for the lawyers to finish. Meanwhile, I get a small living allowance. I wonder, when it's all over, if there will be any money left at all.”
“Ouch. Cannot relate. I’ve never really had to worry about where the money is coming from. Mom and Dad have pensions from the Brande Corporation, I guess, and I know they do some consulting work.”
“Well, Dad was no RJ Brande, but he had a good income from residuals.”
“He starred in the old Superman of 2965[/i] show, didn’t he[/i].”
“Yes, he… could you make yourself visible? It’s kind of weird talkinginto the air. No… wait… Yes, there you are. Now I can see you.”
“How…? I’m transparent to all forms of electromagnetic radiation. You shouldn’t be able to see me unless I want you to.”
“You displace air molecules, and I can see the outline of your body when they bounce off. Probably no one but a Daxamite could see it, and then only if they had practiced with their heightened senses for a while.”
“So what do you think of being our new Supergirl?.”
“I’m done with acting. And I need to do something that gets me out of that house, or I’ll go stir-crazy. I can give it a shot with you guys. Why not? Maybe we’ll even be-- are those your friends? Around that picnic table?”
“That’s us.”
“Dorrit Ranzz- Saturn Girl. So glad you could come.”
“Graym Ranzz- Lightning Lad. Pleased to meet you.”
“Juulz Allon- the one and only Chameleon Boy.”
“And I’m his brother Lenaar- Colossal Boy. We’re twins, believe it or not.”
“Pol Krinn- Cosmic Boy. You’ve already met my brother Jarn.”
“And who is this?”
“I’m the secret seventh member. Vajezatha of Fwang. I won’t be going on missions with you, but I can do this!”
“Wow. His power is that he creates buildings?”
“He turns into the building. A living, nigh-invulnerable fortress. He can create a headquarters around us-- and our stuff-- anytime and anywhere we need him to. Plus, he’s got mad office skills. He’ll be keeping our mission logs, handling communications, and so forth.”
“He’s made the fortress look a lot like the original Legion clubhouse. A little more orange-y. Although my father says we ought to distance ourselves from the name Legion of Super-Heroes. .”
“My folks said the same thing. But there are a lot of other names from history to choose from. How about the Teen Titans?”
“Justice League or Justice Society?”
“Freedom Fighters?”
“Seven Soldiers of Victory?”
“Global Guardians? Or maybe Galactic Guardians?.”
“Infinity, Incorporated? The Terrifics? Justice Corps?”
“The Outsiders? Because right now, that’s what we really are.”
“How about the Teen Philanthropists? That seems non-threatening, and gets across the idea that we intend on going around doing good.”
“You know, a few centuries ago, all philanthropic organizations were organized under a national law called ‘Section 5O1c’. Maybe that’s what we should call ourselves. It’s obscure enough that we can make it mean what we want-- put our own stamp on it, as it were.”
“My brother, the history buff. Takes after Dad..”
“You know, I like it. It can mean whatever we make it mean. Shall we vote on it?”
“Hmmph. Who died and made you Legion Leader?”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b91c2e58d1dddbfd908226b3fd6cda6d/ba185d2c1f780f9c-bb/s400x600/991ca226682f65fe74431f3747ef4dfbb2587901.png)
Section 5O1c
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/85f2a6b36ee39e8fd9aeb2a6081a084b/e71c982b5d12e0d0-22/s400x600/5d834d432500b6f32df07a5e7c2b661bf59d9a33.png)
Invisible Kid (Jarn Krinn)
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/3b9410e4f9ce08cc6f500b92369aca51/261374404258d16b-a4/s400x600/6cbff7e45e0e96446294bb36a2c1d87c7395f3cc.png)
Fortress Lad II (Vajezatha of Fwang)
“I’m meeting someone here, officer. Is there a place I could wait close by? Someplace visible?”
“There are benches, next to the Shi outside the gates. You can wait there. Anyone coming to this side of the park would see you.”
O O O
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“I’m a docent, dear. Ms Kuruka. Just waiting for my shift to begin. Have you been to the park before?”
“I’ve lived near this part of Metropolis for a long time. So it’s funny. Not really, no. Is there a lot to know about a park?”
“Metropolis New Downtown Public Park replaces the old park that was once where the Weisinger Shopping Mall stands now. They moved all the park structures over here, including the Interplanetary Zoo. Oh, that was decades ago; I was just a young woman then. But they still call it “New Park” after all this time.”
“I’m supposed to meet some friends inside-- at the big plascrete ellipse just inside the gate. It's not hard to find, is it?”
“Well, some of these paths are a little twisty, but… if you give me a description of your friend, I can let them know you’re looking for them.”
“They shouldn’t be too hard to spot: four teen-age boys-- well, maybe only three, come to think of it-- and one girl, and a Durlan.”
“I’ll keep my eye out. And your name dear?”
“Lor-El… Riiv.”
“Oh, you’re Lor-El Ken T5477, aren’t you? My grand-daughter used to love watching you in Zeta the Space-Girl. What have you been doing with yourself for the last couple of years, dear?”
“We’re here.”
“Oh, did you hear something?”
“I see the Park is open now. Thank you. I’ll just be going. In, I mean. Going in.”
“So what have you been doing since Zeta ended? I was a big fan.”
“Well, if you were such a big fan, you would know that my parents vanished under mysterious circumstances during the filming of the last season. I’ve been trying to deal with that, as well as trying to get control of my earning for Zeta. And get my parent’s not-insubstantial assets released from probate. They’re letting me stay at our home in Hollywood Estates, but the entire staff has been let go, even the robotics. So I have this huge house to keep clean, while I wait for the lawyers to finish. Meanwhile, I get a small living allowance. I wonder, when it's all over, if there will be any money left at all.”
“Ouch. Cannot relate. I’ve never really had to worry about where the money is coming from. Mom and Dad have pensions from the Brande Corporation, I guess, and I know they do some consulting work.”
“Well, Dad was no RJ Brande, but he had a good income from residuals.”
“He starred in the old Superman of 2965[/i] show, didn’t he[/i].”
“Yes, he… could you make yourself visible? It’s kind of weird talkinginto the air. No… wait… Yes, there you are. Now I can see you.”
“How…? I’m transparent to all forms of electromagnetic radiation. You shouldn’t be able to see me unless I want you to.”
“You displace air molecules, and I can see the outline of your body when they bounce off. Probably no one but a Daxamite could see it, and then only if they had practiced with their heightened senses for a while.”
“So what do you think of being our new Supergirl?.”
“I’m done with acting. And I need to do something that gets me out of that house, or I’ll go stir-crazy. I can give it a shot with you guys. Why not? Maybe we’ll even be-- are those your friends? Around that picnic table?”
“That’s us.”
“Dorrit Ranzz- Saturn Girl. So glad you could come.”
“Graym Ranzz- Lightning Lad. Pleased to meet you.”
“Juulz Allon- the one and only Chameleon Boy.”
“And I’m his brother Lenaar- Colossal Boy. We’re twins, believe it or not.”
“Pol Krinn- Cosmic Boy. You’ve already met my brother Jarn.”
“And who is this?”
“I’m the secret seventh member. Vajezatha of Fwang. I won’t be going on missions with you, but I can do this!”
“Wow. His power is that he creates buildings?”
“He turns into the building. A living, nigh-invulnerable fortress. He can create a headquarters around us-- and our stuff-- anytime and anywhere we need him to. Plus, he’s got mad office skills. He’ll be keeping our mission logs, handling communications, and so forth.”
“He’s made the fortress look a lot like the original Legion clubhouse. A little more orange-y. Although my father says we ought to distance ourselves from the name Legion of Super-Heroes. .”
“My folks said the same thing. But there are a lot of other names from history to choose from. How about the Teen Titans?”
“Justice League or Justice Society?”
“Freedom Fighters?”
“Seven Soldiers of Victory?”
“Global Guardians? Or maybe Galactic Guardians?.”
“Infinity, Incorporated? The Terrifics? Justice Corps?”
“The Outsiders? Because right now, that’s what we really are.”
“How about the Teen Philanthropists? That seems non-threatening, and gets across the idea that we intend on going around doing good.”
“You know, a few centuries ago, all philanthropic organizations were organized under a national law called ‘Section 5O1c’. Maybe that’s what we should call ourselves. It’s obscure enough that we can make it mean what we want-- put our own stamp on it, as it were.”
“My brother, the history buff. Takes after Dad..”
“You know, I like it. It can mean whatever we make it mean. Shall we vote on it?”
“Hmmph. Who died and made you Legion Leader?”
Section 5O1c
Invisible Kid (Jarn Krinn)
Fortress Lad II (Vajezatha of Fwang)
Re: Another New Beginning - 02/26/24 03:45 PM
“As the robot-butler passes out the desserts, let me introduce our host.”
“I am sure some of you are thinking, ‘Who is this child?’ and, ‘Is this some sort of joke?’ Well, if it is a joke, a fine dinner has been provided, so this evening has not been a complete waste of your time. Be assured, I do have a serious proposal to you.”
“For those of you who do not already know me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Garridan Ranzz. Yes, those Ranzzes. Famed leading citizens of Metropolis. You may have even heard my name. But there is another aspect to me.”
“Let me change into something more comfortable. Ahem.”
“Frightening, isn’t it? Yes, I am the original Validus, whom some consider was the most powerful member of the Fatal Five. Murderer. Destroyer of worlds. Agent of chaos and destruction.”
“A little more than a dozen years ago, my parents rescued me from my time-lost condition, and restored me to my natural form. But the old Validus still dwells within me. Smaller now, perhaps, more human-sized, but I assure you still as powerful and malevolent as when it first appeared over three decades ago.”
“Having established my bona fides, let me explain my vision. Each of you is the head, actually or practically, of a minority political movement, on Earth or in the United Planets. My idea is that we combine our funding, utilize one another’s political bases, to create a much broader and stronger movement. Each of us is persona non gratawith the United Planets, and on some planets, your political parties or affiliations have even been criminalized.”
“But enough about me. Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves. Saturn Princess?”
“My name is Norja Kem, of the planet Bismoll. My mother is the expatriate Queen of Titan. This is because there have been two factions fighting over the throne: right now the Librae faction is ascendant. My question is, in the modern United Planets, why are there monarchies at all? Orando, Pasnic, Avalon; Naltor and Talok, in all but name. And a lot of little duchies and empires scattered around as well. I stand for abolishing every monarchy in the United Planets, and requiring a world-wide representative government for any new applicants to be considered. There are many who agree with me among the monarchist worlds. Some who oppose us. Many more who just don’t care.”
“I am Youdu Darga of Bgztl. My ambitions are not so grand as Ms. Kem’s. I just want Bgztl free, and out of the United Planets altogether. We reside in an entirely different dimensional plane, for Gnohho’s sake.”
“Well, by a remarkable coincidence, I am Validus’ cousin, Quetzal Ranzz. My parents were once known as Lightning Lord and Beauty Blaze, but are now reformed, productive citizens of the United Planets. Which, I suppose, is well and good. But the psych-enhancers the United Planets Prison Complex Medical Facilities used to get the job done are essentially brain-washing machines, which could be put to bad use if they ever fell into the wrong hands. Many of those in my coalitions believe they have fallen into the wrong hands already. Who is to say any of us might not be branded ‘super-villains’ for our beliefs, and subjected to UP mind-scrambling and re-programming?”
“Oh, I am sure you are all very passionate about your causes, and your political actions committees spend many fruitful hours wringing their hands over the injustices in United Planets governance. But I understand why Garridan has brought us together. My comrades are the people who can get things done. You can call me Cosmic Queen. Indira Pradeshi of Venus, Sol System. Nihilist, Agent of Chaos, Anarchist, occasional Dadaist, Absurdist and Chaoticist. I know how to get attention. I know how to get the newsfeeds talking about your respective causes. I know how to make you unforgettable.”
“I am Quaara Yakklo, one of the Durlan diaspora. You may remember my father, Ringus Yakklo, the Durlan actor. He died during the galaxy-wide DKP viral outbreak, as did so many Durlan males. Those few who recovered found themselves crippled-- sterile, and unable to shape-shift. I would like to see our remaining Durlan females somehow able to find a place in U.P. society, but that would take a major change in mind-set. I have no idea how to go about it. I’m not sure I belong here.”
“Quaara is here at my invitation. As is Garridan, who reached out to the rest of you.”
“My name is Elwinda Warren-Daggle. Ah, I see that caused a stir. I am also in favor of Durlan rights. I also have my own agenda. I would like to see the insane levels of taxation among the United Planets completely done away with. I would like to see a firewall between UPGov and the Interplanetary Banks. But most of all, I am here because I am the sole beneficiary of the Daggle and Warren fortunes, including a controlling interest in Brande Industries. I would like to put that money to good use. For you, and ultimately, the future welfare of the United Planets and the Galaxy.”
“And who, or what, is that?”
“Hi, Folks! I am Mistress Elwinda’s humble servant, mechanobot Designation Seven-Three-Slash-Seven-Vee-Ex, the Super-Mannequin of Dollworld. Just happy to be here, and programmed to be of service.”
![[Linked Image from 64.media.tumblr.com]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/cc78e4fa77922af1e229068194223bad/b2da197b48261081-fd/s540x810/f3c397f1470a04929ad5c8e06d55277d1cea3a1b.png)
“I am sure some of you are thinking, ‘Who is this child?’ and, ‘Is this some sort of joke?’ Well, if it is a joke, a fine dinner has been provided, so this evening has not been a complete waste of your time. Be assured, I do have a serious proposal to you.”
“For those of you who do not already know me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Garridan Ranzz. Yes, those Ranzzes. Famed leading citizens of Metropolis. You may have even heard my name. But there is another aspect to me.”
“Let me change into something more comfortable. Ahem.”
“Frightening, isn’t it? Yes, I am the original Validus, whom some consider was the most powerful member of the Fatal Five. Murderer. Destroyer of worlds. Agent of chaos and destruction.”
“A little more than a dozen years ago, my parents rescued me from my time-lost condition, and restored me to my natural form. But the old Validus still dwells within me. Smaller now, perhaps, more human-sized, but I assure you still as powerful and malevolent as when it first appeared over three decades ago.”
“Having established my bona fides, let me explain my vision. Each of you is the head, actually or practically, of a minority political movement, on Earth or in the United Planets. My idea is that we combine our funding, utilize one another’s political bases, to create a much broader and stronger movement. Each of us is persona non gratawith the United Planets, and on some planets, your political parties or affiliations have even been criminalized.”
“But enough about me. Let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves. Saturn Princess?”
“My name is Norja Kem, of the planet Bismoll. My mother is the expatriate Queen of Titan. This is because there have been two factions fighting over the throne: right now the Librae faction is ascendant. My question is, in the modern United Planets, why are there monarchies at all? Orando, Pasnic, Avalon; Naltor and Talok, in all but name. And a lot of little duchies and empires scattered around as well. I stand for abolishing every monarchy in the United Planets, and requiring a world-wide representative government for any new applicants to be considered. There are many who agree with me among the monarchist worlds. Some who oppose us. Many more who just don’t care.”
“I am Youdu Darga of Bgztl. My ambitions are not so grand as Ms. Kem’s. I just want Bgztl free, and out of the United Planets altogether. We reside in an entirely different dimensional plane, for Gnohho’s sake.”
“Well, by a remarkable coincidence, I am Validus’ cousin, Quetzal Ranzz. My parents were once known as Lightning Lord and Beauty Blaze, but are now reformed, productive citizens of the United Planets. Which, I suppose, is well and good. But the psych-enhancers the United Planets Prison Complex Medical Facilities used to get the job done are essentially brain-washing machines, which could be put to bad use if they ever fell into the wrong hands. Many of those in my coalitions believe they have fallen into the wrong hands already. Who is to say any of us might not be branded ‘super-villains’ for our beliefs, and subjected to UP mind-scrambling and re-programming?”
“Oh, I am sure you are all very passionate about your causes, and your political actions committees spend many fruitful hours wringing their hands over the injustices in United Planets governance. But I understand why Garridan has brought us together. My comrades are the people who can get things done. You can call me Cosmic Queen. Indira Pradeshi of Venus, Sol System. Nihilist, Agent of Chaos, Anarchist, occasional Dadaist, Absurdist and Chaoticist. I know how to get attention. I know how to get the newsfeeds talking about your respective causes. I know how to make you unforgettable.”
“I am Quaara Yakklo, one of the Durlan diaspora. You may remember my father, Ringus Yakklo, the Durlan actor. He died during the galaxy-wide DKP viral outbreak, as did so many Durlan males. Those few who recovered found themselves crippled-- sterile, and unable to shape-shift. I would like to see our remaining Durlan females somehow able to find a place in U.P. society, but that would take a major change in mind-set. I have no idea how to go about it. I’m not sure I belong here.”
“Quaara is here at my invitation. As is Garridan, who reached out to the rest of you.”
“My name is Elwinda Warren-Daggle. Ah, I see that caused a stir. I am also in favor of Durlan rights. I also have my own agenda. I would like to see the insane levels of taxation among the United Planets completely done away with. I would like to see a firewall between UPGov and the Interplanetary Banks. But most of all, I am here because I am the sole beneficiary of the Daggle and Warren fortunes, including a controlling interest in Brande Industries. I would like to put that money to good use. For you, and ultimately, the future welfare of the United Planets and the Galaxy.”
“And who, or what, is that?”
“Hi, Folks! I am Mistress Elwinda’s humble servant, mechanobot Designation Seven-Three-Slash-Seven-Vee-Ex, the Super-Mannequin of Dollworld. Just happy to be here, and programmed to be of service.”
Re: Another New Beginning - 03/03/24 12:29 AM
“The scene was chaos down on Legion Plaza today. Rege, you were on the scene today?”
“Thanks, Lelani. Yes, shoppers were shocked as explosions rang out around Weisinger Shopping Mall and the Legion Plaza Gift Shops this afternoon. Eye-witnesses tell us there were flashes of lightning and a robotic sky-battle. There were also reports of outbreaks of small fires, around the Mall, and one storefront collapsed when a retaining wall just seemed to vanish.
“Perhaps the oddest report we have heard is the sudden appearance of the old Legion Headquarters from the ‘6Os. Once an iconic building on the Metropolis skyline, the ‘Super-Hero Club’ headquarter was torn down decades ago. Materializing only briefly, no evidence of the building remains at this time, and evidence of the attack itself has been disappearing quickly, as City repair crews have been active on the scene.
“There has not been a terrorist attack in Metropolis for over twenty years, but it is suspected that this was an aborted attempt. No groups have claimed responsibility, but a team of renegade Sklarian Raiders has been broached as likely suspects.”
“Thanks, Lelani. Yes, shoppers were shocked as explosions rang out around Weisinger Shopping Mall and the Legion Plaza Gift Shops this afternoon. Eye-witnesses tell us there were flashes of lightning and a robotic sky-battle. There were also reports of outbreaks of small fires, around the Mall, and one storefront collapsed when a retaining wall just seemed to vanish.
“Perhaps the oddest report we have heard is the sudden appearance of the old Legion Headquarters from the ‘6Os. Once an iconic building on the Metropolis skyline, the ‘Super-Hero Club’ headquarter was torn down decades ago. Materializing only briefly, no evidence of the building remains at this time, and evidence of the attack itself has been disappearing quickly, as City repair crews have been active on the scene.
“There has not been a terrorist attack in Metropolis for over twenty years, but it is suspected that this was an aborted attempt. No groups have claimed responsibility, but a team of renegade Sklarian Raiders has been broached as likely suspects.”
Re: Another New Beginning - 03/11/24 02:19 PM
“I told you my baby sister and her band of misfit heroes would try to interfere if we struck at the Plaza. We need somewhere more distant-- but just as newsworthy. What do you think, cousin?”
“Our messaging failed, but at least we got away. We can thank our Black Phantom for that.”
“You and Darga seem to have formed a mutual admiration society.”
“This random vandalism seems pointless. What we need is more long-range plan set toward a well-defined goal. Planet Opsdomus uses old Superboy robots they purchased from the U.P. as an automated law enforcement squadron. It’s their answer to the Science Police. If we could capture a few at a time, I believe I could reprogram them, to swell our ranks.”
“You’re no technological genius. Your father only played one in the Holos.”
“True, but I am also not stupid; these robots were created using centuries-old technology based on a design by a sixteen-year-old boy. I believe I have acquired enough IT skill over the years to reprogram them.”
“I think we should go to Bgztl. I have cohorts there who can serve as ad hoc militiamen for us.”
“And just what would we do there?”
“I propose a program of targeted sabotage. The trans-dimensional ports are the only thing keeping trade between the U.P. and Bgztl freely flowing. Shut those down, and Bgztl will be forced to become independent again-- and the U.P. will have one less world to exploit.”
“And what time period are we talking about?”
“Every major city on Bgztl has a TDP depot. So, five or six hundred targets.”
“Even at an optimistic one per day, this is a project that could take over a year. And how quickly can these stations be repaired?”
“It’s not just taking them down. If we can hit each one with maximal damage, and a few serious casualties each time, whatever repair systems they have in place will become overloaded.”
“And when things begin to falter, we can make our demands known. At that point, we can even start sending out patrols to hit other points in the cities.”
“I still think that robotic reinforcements would be valuable before we start a regular program of assault.”
“OK, what if we agree that you and the Super-Mannequin head for Opsdomus, and the rest of us will go to Bgztl and scope out the situation. Take my cousin Quetzal with you; his abilities ought to be useful battling robots-- even super-robots.”
“Our messaging failed, but at least we got away. We can thank our Black Phantom for that.”
“You and Darga seem to have formed a mutual admiration society.”
“This random vandalism seems pointless. What we need is more long-range plan set toward a well-defined goal. Planet Opsdomus uses old Superboy robots they purchased from the U.P. as an automated law enforcement squadron. It’s their answer to the Science Police. If we could capture a few at a time, I believe I could reprogram them, to swell our ranks.”
“You’re no technological genius. Your father only played one in the Holos.”
“True, but I am also not stupid; these robots were created using centuries-old technology based on a design by a sixteen-year-old boy. I believe I have acquired enough IT skill over the years to reprogram them.”
“I think we should go to Bgztl. I have cohorts there who can serve as ad hoc militiamen for us.”
“And just what would we do there?”
“I propose a program of targeted sabotage. The trans-dimensional ports are the only thing keeping trade between the U.P. and Bgztl freely flowing. Shut those down, and Bgztl will be forced to become independent again-- and the U.P. will have one less world to exploit.”
“And what time period are we talking about?”
“Every major city on Bgztl has a TDP depot. So, five or six hundred targets.”
“Even at an optimistic one per day, this is a project that could take over a year. And how quickly can these stations be repaired?”
“It’s not just taking them down. If we can hit each one with maximal damage, and a few serious casualties each time, whatever repair systems they have in place will become overloaded.”
“And when things begin to falter, we can make our demands known. At that point, we can even start sending out patrols to hit other points in the cities.”
“I still think that robotic reinforcements would be valuable before we start a regular program of assault.”
“OK, what if we agree that you and the Super-Mannequin head for Opsdomus, and the rest of us will go to Bgztl and scope out the situation. Take my cousin Quetzal with you; his abilities ought to be useful battling robots-- even super-robots.”