Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Postlo3w stories *LATEST UPDATE 1 MAY*

yay! more!

ah Tel, but good to see he's working on his issues!

aw Strut! definitely an A+ for emotional intelligence there!

wait whoa, some awesome news here! I love how Nightwind and Slug picked up on these things re: two campuses!

love the way you have various folks reacting to the transmat pad news! and also linking to every world, nice!

you may LIVE on Earth as you wish! I love it!

shift roster! also a great step forward! yay work-life balance!

Wellbeing Squad! loveeeee the idea!

also living the banter. Element Lad, Light Lad, great choices!

and Life Lass, whooo!

also nice having Mwindaji decline because he prefers adventure

and Tellus! excellent! nice quartet you have there!

wait! I'm still curious about the Academy student count, and that the number of enrollees may boom?

and I did count 8: Enigma Lass, Variable Lad, Amp, Key Kid, Dragonwing, Chemical Kid, Lullabye Lad, Sojurn... ok I was wondering if you were slipping someone in, but makes sense Slug might be off with hits count

lol at Garth putting his foot into it, and Imra not being amused

love the Staycation Booth!

LOL at Elastic Lad's monologuing...

interesting that Engima Lass goes "and his wife", and not Saturn Girl. why, I wonder? (and also of course curious about why only these three)

just realized that Ion's real name is a homage to Mark Waid, cool!

whooop of course. Emerald Emperor, Garak of the Glow, brilliant connection that I didn't think of earlier!

Quick off the mark, IB!

re: the transmats - I realised that as fun as it is for me having a mobile base that can zoom around anywhere in the UP, living on essentially a big ol' spaceship is a big adjustment that a lot of characters might not actually want to do long-term...I also wanted to keep the option of having them stuck in particular places sometimes for plot reasons, so fixed teleportation seems like a good way to have my cake and eat it too

I also wanted to get Mwindaji not being in the Wellbeing Squad out of the way upfront, because on paper he would be perfect for it but I don't really see it being something his character would be into and I don't really want him to just be a plot device that roams around healing everyone in the background all the time and removing any dramatic tension (there's a couple other characters with a similar situation who come to mind as well, but that might be something that will come out in the stories some time).

The student count really was just bad memory on Slug's part - you have counted the 8 students correctly! The 8 current students anyway...


This one I can answer straight away! Enigma Lass tries to avoid any words with an "r" sound because even though Variable Lad has talked her into losing her costume's voice modulator, she still hates the way she drags out her rrrrs as a Dominator. It's why her sentence structure is sometimes a little bit weird as well, she has to do some on the spot mental gymnastics to find the right appropriate best way to say things sometimes (also why she only ever calls Oaa by his real name instead of Varriable Lad).

I always try to go back and do a spell check whenever I write Enigma Lass's dialogue to make sure I haven't missed any R words, but now that I've said that I bet I have missed some - she and Slug are more of a pain in the ass than Comet Queen or Quislet have ever been when it comes to getting their dialogue right sometimes hahahaha


Yes! Good pickup! And you also just reminded me that Bioluminescent Lass's real name Jaene Birrun is a play on John Byrne because I originally made her as a stand-in for Aurora from Alpha Flight in the heroes from other worlds thread a million years ago, I had completely forgotten I did that!

More on Garak and/or the Emerald Emperor soon, but next up - Key Kid's adventure with the Cavalry that I ran out of space to throw in this time around!

ah duuuuh! thanks, I had just read Enigma Lass' bio, but the R sound did not come to mind! silly me! nice characterization, raz, and wow, a tough one indeed to implement.

I was thinking about whom BioL-Lass' name was referencing! I kepy reading it over and over, but John Byrne simply didn't put up! nice!

Hey Raz, I don't have as much time as I'd like to review your latest section but I'll try anyway.

Gravity Kid is showing some self awareness - which is a very nice bit of character growth. Even him admitting to himself that it was cowardly to have the conversation so one-sided when Bobb was unconscious is a step up from his usual behaviour. I really like that you are introducing and following up on his emotional growth Raz, he's such a snipey character (in all of our fanfics, poor guy ) that these moments are a sweet counterpoint to the usual.

And while Tel seems lacking in natural empathy, Strut shows his - nice! Evolvo lad's teleportation pads is a great idea, and limiting them to one (or a few anyway) on each world is a great way to use it too - wish I'd thought of that rather than just going straight in with Henry and his anywhere warps tbh. Looking forward to what you are going to add to the academy, it's such a rich mine for story ideas! And, potentially living on their homeworld and just beaming up to HQ when their shift starts - how great is that! That's another idea I wish I'd come up with, and may well appropriate And a Wellbeing team - haha we all seem to have picked up on how appropriate that function would be. I really like he team you've put together for it as well, and was wondering if M'Windaji would be on it as your take as him being a White Lantern of sorts would seem to be he natural fit, though I'm kinda happy that you didn't as it'll make their missions more interesting reading I think.

And speaking of mining the Academy's story potentials, Enigma Lass continues to be intriguing! A super smart immortal Dominator kinda freaks me out the more I think of it, but I'm interested where you'll be taking her storyline. And every appearance of Elastic Lad is golden! I wonder what Garth and Imra are up to?

And your alt Fatal Five are slowly taking shape - I re-read all of your older stories two years ago and the battle of te Fatal Fives was a great and quite scary stryline so I'm really looking forward to this plot!

This was fun Raz, and I'm here waiting for more, more, more!

Hi Harbi, thanks for the R&R!

Gravity Kid will be having some actual character growth from this point on! I am looking forward to writing him not being such a sooky lala all the time to be honest lol

Strut is a hidden treasure! Admittedly it's a bit easier to be empathic when you have senses that can pick up on someone's mood by their biochemical changes, but also he's actually got a bit of depth that will show its head every now and then as much as he might like to pretend otherwise

I get what you mean about the teleportation.....on one hand it makes sense that a thousand years in the future with a Brainiac 5 it's weird that the Legion DON'T have teleportation....on the other hand, it makes a huge difference to what you can do narratively. I thought fixed teleport locations were a nice compromise.

I also kinda stole the idea of a Wellbeing Squad from y'all, I think it is a really good natural extension of a superhero team in a generally utopian future

Garth and Imra's plotting will come to fruition very soon and as far as an alt Fatal Five goes...we may find that it's a bit more than five in the end...

RIMBOR
Devil's Canyon

The rain drove down in icy daggers and Science Police sirens filled the air like the persistent yowling of some nocturnal creature, but the natives of Rimbor were not going to let that ruin a good night out.

With weather this bad, one might think the traffic at least would be more manageable; instead there were just more accidents. One lone woman avoided the congested airways above, taking her chances instead with the more grimy criminal element on the pedestrian walkways below the aircar safety barriers. As only a native Rimborian could pull off so easily, Ray Sah avoided direct interaction with the many other sentients around her while also somehow projecting an air of mildly threatening confidence that stopped the pickpockets and the more violent thugs here from starting trouble with her.

Her yellow raincoat still pulled tight around herself against the elements, she soon arrived at her destination. A line of sentients stretched around the corner of this overcrowded street, all of them waiting with varying degrees of impatience to get into a nightclub which was called Mother's Milk according to the borderline obscene hologram flickering over the door.

Bypassing the queue altogether, the dark-skinned young woman made a beeline for one of the two bouncers; the bouncer was an enormous yellow brute covered in animated tattoos and wearing a latex corset which complimented equally her three breasts and her incredibly muscular physique. The hairless bouncer initially glared intensely at the much more petite woman approaching her, until the visitor came under the shelter of the holoemitter above the door and slipped her hood back over a frizzy mane of black hair to reveal her face more clearly.

"Flare??" Shocked, the bouncer called Ray Sah the codename that she'd once used as a member of the Fatal Five. "I thought you wuz gonna rot on Takron-Galtos forever!"

"Parole for good behaviour," Flare winked at the much larger woman. "I'm a changed girl, Shelli!"

The bouncer named Shelli's jaw dropped momentarily before both women burst into raucous laughter.

"The good behaviour part's true at least," Flare wiped at her eyes as her chuckles subsided. "I was going crazy in that place, I would have become a space nun if it got me out any sooner...I gotta get back in the game though, is Biggie upstairs?"

"Sure thing sweetness, you go on ahead and have a good night!" The huge bouncer leaned down to give Flare a surprisingly wholesome peck on the forehead, one that Flare still had to stand on tiptoe to receive.

"Hey, no way!!" This was from a woman dressed in fishnet and an aqua coloured leotard with matching eye makeup at the front of the queue. "I've been out here an hour in this sprockin' rain and you're just gonna let that skinny fem skip the queue? Who died and let her go in first??"

"Nobody's died yet," Flare looked upon the woman menacingly. "But it can be arranged..." With the barest of effort, a sheath of flame came to life around Flare; her raincoat was instantly incinerated, revealing a skimpy golden outfit beneath. Her skin instantly turned a vivid red color, and her hair was replaced by a mane of fire. The first handful of people in the queue gasped and staggered back.

"Now why'd ya have ta go and piss her off..?" Shelli shook her head regretfully.

Before Flare could make good on her threat, the once and former Fatal Five member suddenly vanished in a dramatic flash of emerald light. Her would-be victim stammered half a word, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted right on the spot.

Sighing, Shelli nudged the unconscious woman into the gutter with one huge studded boot. "You!" she barked at the terrified Caladosian standing next in line. "Your lucky night, hot stuff! Get in there before I change my mind!"

As the quaking purple woman rushed past her and into the club, Shelli spared a thought for Flare before she shrugged and turned her attention back to her job. Whatever Ray Sah had gotten herself into now, she was certainly cunning and dangerous enough to get herself back out of it again...

**********

THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES MOBILE BASE
The team leader's office

ROLL CALL
Blok: team leader; magically enhanced strength, invulnerability, speed, flight, stamina, wisdom and courage
Element Lad aka Jan Arrah: elemental transmutation
Life Lass aka Somi Gan: matter animation
Light Lad aka Darvan Locke: gravity negation
Tellus aka Ganglios: telepathy and telekinesis

While Blok sat comfortably in an oversize chair with his hands steepled before him, Tellus was perched as ever on his hindquarters in one of the few areas of the room not filled with plants; the other three members of the newly established Wellbeing Squad sat around the office in individual memory foam seats.

"Thanks for making time to speak with us so quickly, Blok." This was Element Lad, whom the group had just informed Blok was the Wellbeing Squad's leader.

"Of course," Blok nodded slightly. "And thank you all for coming together so quickly...I am pleased to hear that already you have elected a leader amongst yourselves."

"Element Lad has more experience than most of us when it comes to using his abilities to help others," Tellus noted diplomatically, "And certainly more experience leading others as a Legionnaire. It seemed only logical that he should be the leader of the Wellbeing Squad."

"What Tellus said," Light Lad agreed. "I think I speak for both Life Lass and myself when I say Element Lad's the obvious choice for the role. We're just happy to be in a position to help...right, Life Lass?" He gave her an encouraging smile.

Life Lass nodded awkwardly and muttered something in agreement that was barely above a squeak.

"So, we've narrowed down a dozen or so options for our first mission," Element Lad took the reins of conversation again, "But it occurred to us...should we involve our Manager of Diplomacy in this? It's honestly difficult to choose one world that needs us more than any other, maybe Marte could suggest something that might help the Legion or even the wider UP diplomatically at the same time?"

An electronic breep sounded before Blok could respond, and a tiny holographic represenation of the Legion's Communications Officer Trava Coruu appeared over Blok's desk. "Uhh...Blok? Please pardon me, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt you like this...I know you're in the middle of an important meeting, but I just received the strangest comms packet addressed to the...the Wellbeing Squad..?"

It was clear to everybody that this was the more timid of Trava's three selves, but as insecure as she might be she was just as good at her job as her other two "sisters". They knew that she wouldn't have made a mistake, and were just as baffled by this message as she seemed to be.

"But...we haven't announced that the Wellbeing Squad even exists yet?" Life Lass voiced what they were all thinking, sounding as timorous as Trava while she looked from one Legionnaire to the other. "...Have we..?"

"We have not," Blok confirmed. "Thank you, Trava...send through the comms packet please."

Trava's face soon disappeared from view, replaced by that of a much older pale-skinned man with a long white beard protruding from his plain khaki hooded robe. Blok and Element Lad recognised him immediately, and at the same time realised how he'd known about the Wellbeing Squad. This also became apparent to the others in the room as he delivered his message in a stately baritone. "Greetings, Wellbeing Squad, from the Seat of the High Seer of Naltor. I wish to congratulate you on your new endeavour, and confirm that my schedule has been cleared for us to meet in three standard days from now. Specific date and time coordinates have been beamed along with this verbal message...in the past, I would perhaps have sent this message to Nura Nal but we all must adapt to new circumstances and I have every confidence that you youngsters will be able to help Naltor with great courage and skill in its time of need."

"That was Beren Kah..?" Light Lad raised his eyebrows. "No offence, but...I didn't expect the planetary leader of a super science world like Naltor to be so...wizardy..?"

"Naltor gave us Dream Girl, but let us not forget that at one time it also gave us the White Witch," Tellus remarked thoughtfully. "The longer I spend away from Great Mother Ocean, the more I learn that the sentients of the United Planets come in many variations, Light Lad."

"True," Element Lad agreed, "And Naltor exemplifies that as well as any planet...at any rate, team; it seems like we've found our first mission!"

**********

EARTH
Oceania, Earthgov's Refugee Orientation Camp

ROLL CALL
Key Kid aka Miqui Ver: Legion Academy student; ability to bypass any man-made lock or barrier

The Cavalry
Antennae Lad aka Khfeurb Chee Bez: can broadcast radio transmissions from different spatiotemporal loci
Bouncing Boy aka Charles Foster Taine: super-bouncing
Polecat aka Dafe Meron: odor generation
Porcupine Pete aka Peter Dursin: projectile quills
Rainbow Girl aka Dori Aandraison: rainbow powers
Una aka Luornu Durgo Taine: forcefield generation

When their aircraft descended over the artificial chain of islands named Oceania, Key Kid's initial reaction had been one of wide-eyed awe. Like some large-scale representation of a molecule, dozens of articifial hexagonal islands stretched out across Earth's Pacific Ocean joined by impossibly long transit tubes. It was a truly epic feat of engineering, seeming even more so when there was nothing else but miles of deep blue water all around the islands.

It was only when Polecat explained the history behind the artificial network of countrystates that Key Kid realised the true tragedy behind this amazing feat of science. Dafe Meron explained soberly that naturally formed islands had once populated this area of the ocean until the dual burdens of environmental damage and warfare took their toll. Australia, New Zealand, Luthor Island and Easter Island were some of the few places to have survived intact, but many other countries existed nowhere outside of history holos anymore. Oceania was Earthgov's solution to the displacement of untold millions of refugees from these former island countries.

In fitting synchronicity, the Oceania Refugee Orientation Camp served as a temporary home, education and acclimation centre for non-Terran refugees who found themselves on Earth. Some of these refugees hailed from war-torn worlds, some were cultural outcasts from their home planets; a depressing number of them had lived happy lives on Earth until Earth-Man stoked the flames of xenophobia which led to these aliens being treated like criminals just for wanting to build a better life for themselves and their families. This very facility had in fact not so long ago been more of a jail and deportation centre than anything else. It was only after the Legion of Superheroes defeated Earth-Man's Judgement League and revealed the presence of the Dominion behind the rise in Terran xenophobia that clearer minds had prevailed on Earth. Where this place had once represented the worst of humanity's prejudices, it now served as a place of hope for those who sorely needed it.

Once the Cavalry had landed their vehicle and registered their presence with the local authorities, they made their way on foot to their final destination. Key Kid had to admit to himself, when he heard they were coming to a refugee camp he'd pictured somewhere grey and despairing; this place was like an oversized university campus though, with neatly maintained parks and white-walled buildings that stood anywhere from three to ten stories high. The refugees who lived and worked here roamed freely, with the mostly robotic security detail so subtly present that it was easy to forget there even was a security presence here. Sentients everywhere seemed to recognise the Cavalry members, and gave them a nod and a smile as they walked past or in some cases even exchanged greetings with some of them.

"You guys sure are popular here, Bouncing Boy!" Key Kid remarked as a small girl with pink skin and large multi-faceted eyes shyly waved at Rainbow Girl from behind her mother's leg.

"Lu and I are nearly as new to all this as you are actually," Chuck Taine clarified. "It's the others who really earned all this goodwill."

"Oh please," Rainbow Girl ribbed Bouncing Boy. "I'm fairly confident you two have done slightly enough as Legionnaires to be as beloved as a bunch of ex-Substitute Heroes."

"When these people really needed heroes though, it was you ex-Substitute Heroes who stood up," Una replied. "People don't forget who was there for them in their time of need, Dori."

"I think maybe I'm missing something..?" Key Kid pondered, clearly mystified.

"Back when Earth-Man was on the loose," Antennae Lad explained, "Before we became the Cavalry....the Legion of Superheroes had been banned from Earth and Earth-Man destroyed the Legion of Substitute Heroes' base and thought that would take care of us, but we couldn't just sit on our hands and watch people being hurt all around us. So we did what we could and helped who we could until the Legion of Superheroes were able to finally beat the Judgement League and expose the Dominion."

"You're underplaying your part in all of that, Chee," Bouncing Boy added. "The Legion needed all the help we could get in the end, and the Subs came to our rescue just like they always had."

"What I don't get," Key Kid sourly changed topic, "Is why I'm meant to be all chummy with that Diskhead Enigma Lass...I mean you guys know how bad the Dominators are, you had to fight them on this planet too!"

Some of the Cavalry exchanged perturbed glances with one another, but it was Bouncing Boy who was the first to find his voice. "Key Kid...Miqui...the Dominion as a political force was an enemy of the United Planets, that's true. But individual Dominators aren't evil because of the actions of their former government."

"And we won't be using derogatory terms like that again." Una gave Miqui a cold stare that easily matched anything he'd seen from Saturn Girl. "Especially not here of all places, Key Kid. These sentients have experienced enough discrimination, they don't need to hear more of the same from us. Are we clear?"

Key Kid gulped and found himself unable to meet Luornu's gaze for more than a very uncomfortable moment.

"...Yes, Ma'am."

Though they'd had a less than spectacular start to their mission of mercy, the Cavalry and Key Kid both slipped into a more relaxed cooperative spirit as the day wore on. Bouncing Boy, Antennae Lad and Rainbow Girl entertained dozens of alien children with their quirky abilities and gave grateful parents some rare time to themselves; Dori had been practicing control of her weird multiversal rainbow powers, and while she was far from being able to choose from her multitude of abilities at will she found that with an hour of focused meditation she could generally hone in on whatever ability most suited her need at that time...or as Key Kid described it, she was "like a not as good Variable Lad (no offence)". Today, Rainbow Girl had desired a form capable of assisting as many people at once, and she found herself able to split into seven independent light forms which of course were every color of the rainbow. She was as immaterial as light but she was also as fast as light. With such a small team helping so many people, it was an ability that came in handy.

Porcupine Pete, Una, Polecat and Key Kid were all more useful for their ability to carry and distribute grocery packages to the waiting families than they were for any powers they possessed right now, but Miqui was surprisingly okay with that. Back at the Academy he always felt like he had so much to prove; he'd been in the Heroes of Lallor, but that meant nothing when every other student at the Legion Academy outclassed him by light years power-wise. Here with the Cavalry, carrying containers of food and personal hygiene products to families in need, his power made him no more or less effective than anyone else around him.

Now that he was here on Earth, Miqui also understood why that Durlan counsellor had recommended Key Kid spend some time with the Cavalry. Miqui figured it wasn't an accident that almost as soon as he got here they'd brought him to a place so full of alien life. Obviously this was supposed to open Miqui's eyes to the fact that all sentients were equal, that he couldn't judge a Khund or a Psion because their people had generally had friction with the United Planets. Nobody else seemed to get it though....Key Kid didn't hate all aliens, he only hated Dominators. It was in their name for sprock's sake, the only thing they cared about was dominating everyone else around them and Miqui would never forgive or forget that. All of that aside though...he had to admit he was enjoying himself here today.

Quite out of nowhere, a couple of explosions sounded from blocks away and panicked screams soon followed. The security forces became so much more overt all of a sudden as a handful of droids zipped off to investigate, and the gathered heroes all exchanged concerned glances. Bouncing Boy opened his mouth to utter a command, but Rainbow Girl interrupted him while keeping her tone light for the many children gathered around them. "Indigo's already on it, Chuck," a yellow Dori Aandraison said cheerily, "Maybe we should get these little knee-highs indoors somewhere though, huh?"

"Good thinking, Rainbow Girl. I--"

"Cavalry, look out!!" This too was Dori's voice, though it didn't come from the yellow woman who'd just spoken. The rest of the team were a little discombobulated until the indigo Rainbow Girl called out again from high overhead. "We couldn't stop her, get out of here!!"

A rotund woman with her blonde hair braided into two tight buns on each side of her head was hurtling through the sky above like some kind of human cannonball. She passed right through two of the security droids in her flight path, both of the automatons exploding at her touch. The blonde woman slammed into a four storey building and another explosion sounded forth, this one raining debris down onto the crowd of hundreds who'd gathered in this open plaza for their care packages.

"Chuck! Do you see?!" Una shouted as she flung her hands up at the crumbling edifice; using the forcefield that Brainiac 5 gave her would never come as naturally to Luornu as her old duplication powers, but she'd practiced enough that it was almost second nature by now. The forcefield prevented rubble from crushing the many innocent refugees below, and other copies of Rainbow Girl worked alongside her teammates to try and shepherd the people away to safety in as orderly a manner as possible.

"I see," Bouncing Boy frowned as the woman careened off of the building and down toward the crowd. "She's not flying, she's bouncing...and she's bouncing straight at us!" Without giving a thought to his own safety, Bouncing Boy zoomed straight at the leather-clad blonde woman in his own inflated form. The two slammed into each other, and yet another explosion sent Bouncing Boy veering off at an acute angle where he clipped the roof of a second building and soon ricocheted out of sight.

Bouncing Boy had done what he'd set out to do though; their collision sent the blonde woman hurtling away from the panicked crowd and into another building, this time smashing through a window and coming to a chaotic halt indoors.

"Who is this nutty lady??" Key Kid hollered at anyone who would answer. "One of the refugees..?"

"Hardly!" The blonde woman blew out the wall around the window through which she'd crashed, and now that she was standing still for a moment the gathered heroes could swear she was almost glowing with incandescent light. "You fools may call me Bouncing Betty...I am seeing my last days of this life, and I intend on using that time to slay this subhuman filth! Do not stand in my way, aliens!"

A blue version of Rainbow Girl hovered near Una. "Luornu, can you--"

"I doubt very much she could bust through my forcefield," the woman called Una assessed the situation, "But I can't spare one for her, Dori. It's taking everything I can to keep these people safe from Betty's collateral damage! And I'm worried about Chuck, he should have bounced back by now--"

"--I'm sure he's fine, but Orange has gone to check on him."

"We need to stop this woman before she really hurts somebody!" Antennae Lad exclaimed.

"We need to get these people to safety," Polecat rejoined. "Most of us are no match for a bouncing explosion woman!"

"Most of us isn't all of us," Porcupine Pete hovered just above the crowd, asserting himself without really even meaning to. "Look at her, I don't think she has the control of her power that Bouncing Boy does; we can use that. Dori, I need a couple of your selves to find the safest place here and something she can't bounce out of like...like I don't know what, maybe an anti-grav training room or something?"

"I think I've found something more low-tech, but it should do the job!" A beam of green light zigzagged through the buildings to coalesce into an emerald hued Rainbow Girl. "Polecat, you might come in handy; can you follow me? How are we gonna get her to follow us though?"

"Leave that to me," the homely Porcupine Pete gave his friends a lopsided smile. "Una, you just focus on keeping these poor folks out of danger if you can please?"

"You can rely on me," Luornu nodded. Though part of her was concerned about her husband, she knew that wherever he'd ended up, Chuck was more likely just a little dazed rather than hurt...more in the front of her mind was a pleasant sense of surprise that Porcupine Pete of all people seemed to have developed into something of a real life superhero while everyone else was looking the other way. The Cavalry were certainly an odd bunch, but the more time she spent with this team the more she'd come to see that they were a brave and resourceful bunch too.

Porcupine Pete could see that Bouncing Betty was getting ready to leap from her vantage point again, and he timed his own flight perfectly. As the corpulent woman launched herself at a crowd of screaming sentients below, Pete darted beneath her and shot an armful of quills at her. Just as Bouncing Boy had been able to redirect her trajectory before, Pete's assault caused another more minor explosive outburst and flung her back away from the crowd and bounding across a couple of flat rooftops like a pebble skimming across water. More importantly, some of the quills had pierced her like a pin-cushion, and the volatile woman turned her attention from the other aliens to Pete personally.

"You can fly!" Bouncing Betty railed as she charged straight at Pete and found herself bouncing astray once more thanks to another volley of quills. "Why do you not flee while you can, alien? Are there lives worth your own?"

"You know, I actually remember you now!" Pete swung one leg out as though he were doing a sidekick, and another rain of razor-sharp projectiles came down on Betty. "You were with the Judgement League, right? Here's the thing, Betty....I know I'm no Dirk Morgna in the looks department but I'm human too...and some of us don't see aliens as being inferior to the rest of us. Some of us are willing to stand up and fight xenophobic bullies like you."

Bouncing Betty growled an unintelligible but no doubt very rude response, and suitably enraged she gave chase to Porcupine Pete while he followed Rainbow Girl's green form through the Orientation Camp.

Watching half of the Cavalry rush off through the camp, Key Kid wished that he could figure out a way his power could be useful. Rainbow Girl's light forms were darting this way and that as they tried to find the safest place to ferry the refugees, Una's forcefields were keeping everyone safe...a flash of red made him flinch, and he saw yet another of Dori Aandraison's seven selves floating before him.

"Key Kid, could you come with me please? I've found an underground bunker, I think it's meant to be used in case of natural disasters."

"Sure, I get it." Key Kid's shoulders slumped. "My power's useless in combat, I suppose I'd better not get in anybody's way, huh?"

"What?" Dori was taken aback. "Miqui, no...we need you. With all the chaos Bouncing Betty's caused, we haven't been able to find anyone with the clearance to gain entry! We're gonna need your power to get all these people somewhere they'll be safe!"

"Oh..." Miqui Ver looked over the faces of sentients from more worlds than he recognised, each of them gazing expectantly at him and Rainbow Girl's red form. "Oh! Yeah, yeah of course...let's go!" With new purpose, he followed the intangible heroine while Antennae Lad and some of Dori's other selves guided the crowd to follow them.

...Meanwhile, Porcupine Pete had successfully led Bouncing Betty on a merry chase across the Earthgov Refugee Orientation Camp. A quick glance into the expansive skylight of the building that Polecat had run into gave Pete some idea just why he'd been instructed to lead Betty here...Pete had run through an awful lot of quills getting this far though, and he was down to a half scalp full and the odd spiny quill poking out of each cheek.

Bouncing Betty, in her less than graceful way, had come to a stop by shattering a massive air vent which emerged from the building's rooftop. She stalked across the roof toward Pete now, noticeably dripping sweat. At First Pete had assumed that she was sweating from simple exertion; she didn't look like a woman for whom regular exercise was a priority. But the closer she came to him, the more it seemed that she really was glowing, and brighter than before.

"Betty, are you...okay?" Pete asked, strangely a little concerned for the villain. "You said something before about seeing your last days, are you sick or something..?"

"It is my power," she explained through gritted teeth. "It would have claimed my life much sooner if I had never come to this time, but even 31st Century science is not magic...my days are numbered, porcupine fellow...but before this energy swallows me whole with its unholy appetite for destruction, I will at least take you with me!"

She launched herself at Porcupine Pete one final time, and Pete dived across the rooftop to evade her. At the same time, Bouncing Boy's perfectly spherical form descended at just the right moment to slam Betty down through the skylight of the building. Once again, explosive force sent Chuck Taine veering off at great speed as soon as he made contact with his less skilled counterpart, but this time he was prepared for it and his flight ring slowed him down where his own power would have had him ricocheting wildly around the camp for a while.

Bouncing Boy and Porcupine Pete heard a splash from somewhere inside the building, and as they approached to take a closer look they were suddenly confronted by Rainbow Girl's green form. "Oh, boys...I'd stand downwind if I were you. Polecat's had a good three or four minutes to really unleash in there...it's not like I can smell anything in this form but you two..." Pete and Chuck took the hint and wisely decided to stand a respectable distance away from the broken skylight.

Three stories below them, Polecat stood beaming beside the Olympic-sized swimming pool that Rainbow Girl had located earlier when looking for somewhere to hold Bouncing Betty. The villain herself bobbed helplessly in the middle of the pool, with nothing to bounce against and the worst odor she could ever have imagined taking away any will she had to fight another moment.

"And that, Madam..." Polecat boasted proudly while Bouncing Betty retched in the centre of the pool, "....is the stench of victory!"

**********

Countless miles away, an enormous grey-skinned man sat hunched down so that his head didn't brush against the ceiling of this cheap motel room he found himself in. One woman sat on a bed, tiny arcs of electricity dancing between her outstretched fingers. Another woman stood facing a featureless wall, her arms folded across her humble breasts as she watched events unfold on Oceania using senses far beyond those anyone else on this planet could claim.

The standing woman muttered a frustrated sigh. "I told Betty she should have bided her time...if she was going to throw herself into one last suicide mission, it might as well have been something a little more important than just trying to kill some stupid alien queue jumpers!"

"Trying to kill?" the other woman repeated with a questioning inflection. "So she didn't even actually kill any of them after going off on her own like that? What a waste of sprocking energy!"

"Maybe..." the first woman replied thoughtfully. Every exposed surface of the standing woman's skin was covered in eyes of different colors, each one blinking at its own rate. One of those eyes now focused on a different part of the Earthgov Refugee Orientation Camp, an underground bunker where a teenage Lalloran boy stood arms wide before two massive vault doors that only his power could have opened.

"....Then again, Bouncing Betty might have just led the Judgement League to exactly the snot-nosed little alien punk we need to get back on top again..."

**********

yay, more!

ah, Flare! always found her an interesting character.

I love how Shelli is just, eh, Flare will be fine. (and that lucky would-be victim!)

memory foam!

love the Wellbeing Squad getting to planning!

oh yeah, Jan is the natural leader for this quartet

love that Trava's selves have different personalities too!

Naltor! nice hook there!

Refugee Orientation camp in Oceania! A reference to modern day Australia and Nauru?

oh, that's said. replacing many of those Pacific Islands. Luthor Island! glad Easter Island made it... and these refugees came from those lost islands! nice references to Earth-Man's time, and glad that the refugee center is now one of hope.

also realy glad that the refugees live in good conditions! definitely a hopeful future the best kind of future

Chuck and Lu make a good pairing. Chuck as the more lenient one, Lu as the sterner one. and they handled it amazingly, with Lu putting her foot down on the slurs, while giving Key Kid some grace re his issues.

love your solution for Rainbow Girl's multivariable power sets, and that all still have to do with the rainbow and light!

also tickled pink that Dori's powerset in your story, is basically my Invisible Brainiac character's powerset (splitting into seven beings, named by the colors of the rainbow!)

hah! of course, Bouncing Betty! she's just the type of racist who would attack a refugee center, and explains her recent bio

is Betty dying? last days of this life?

go Pete! like seeing Pete stepping up!

awesome of Pete to not only show tactics and leadership, but enough power control to steer Betty around!

ah Miqui, so young. as soon as Dori-Red spoke, I knew what she meant!

love how Chuck is better at bouncing than Betty! and nice reappearance, just the right time

hah! love Polecat stenching up the place!

ooh nice hook there. is Eyeful Ethel the one standing? is Tusker the gigantic one? now who is the electric lady?

Thanks for the R&R, IB!

I always thought Flare and Caress had promise, I wish they had appeared outside of that one Fatal Five story back in the day!

The Refugee Orientation Camp was in fact inspired by Australia's Pacific Solution, our treatment of refugees is one of the really shameful things we have done in Australia and I thought it'd be kind of nice to show that attitudes like that don't have longevity in the Legion's future (on a side note, there is a book called Dark Victory by David Marr which talks about the Pacific Solution and how it came about, and it is really thoroughly researched and worth reading...but man it really disgusted me and made me mad when I read it!)

Luthor Island is one of those things I made up on the spot because it sounded fun and I'll probably decide to do something with it in another ten years hahaha

How funny that Rainbow Girl stole your powers!! Great minds think alike I guess

You are pretty much on the mark with Ethel and Tusker, and there will most likely be another bio coming up soonish to cover the electric lady as well!

What a compliment to have the same idea as you, great minds

and yay for more Ethel, I always thought she was so underused in the Retroboot. A bit criminal that they didn't at least slip her into the crowd scenes in 3 Worlds either!