Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Legion Tryouts; Deflecto!

Myces Sant reviewed his sales pitch, carefully maintaining a confident expression and a relaxed poise, already planning for what he would do after he closed this deal, as he had so many before.

He looked at Lightning Lad attentively as his name was called. “Sant. Representing the Mycen Corporation?”

He stepped forward into the ring, snapping his extending battle-staves into position from their arm-holsters, and bowing his head in the manner he had seen in ancient Earth holos of martial arts exhibitions, never taking his molten silvery eyes off of the figures seated on the dias.

He glanced first to the pair of combat robots to his left, and signaled his readiness, while beginning his marketing pitch. “These Ral-Four Battle-Staves are easily stowed within their arm holsters, but deploy with the flick of a wrist for immediate defensive,” and, as he’d timed it perfectly, the robots lumbered forward and shot bolts of stunning electricity at him, which he used his power to deflect, but only after swinging his battle-staves into the arc of the bolts, “or offensive use.” With that proclamation, he followed close on the heels of the reflected electrical discharges, which had struck the robots and caused them to pause momentarily. His charged battle-staves struck a sharp blow on each robot, accompanied by a flash of electricity and the two robots fully shorted out. “With a built-in electrical stun setting, a single blow from one of these fine weapons can incapacitate many foes, living or mechanical.”

He turned to the pair of humanoid combatants, one male and one female, both attired in matching padded sparring armor and equipped with their own, far lower-quality, battle-staves. The bulky male, whom he recognized from his briefings as a Legionnaire known as Colossal Boy, was also using a pair of shorter combat batons, while the red-haired female preferred a single larger staff two-handed. He signaled his readiness and they surged forward in a flanking movement, while he stood apparently unprepared for the motion, before suddenly vanishing with a startling ‘bang’ of displaced air and appearing behind the male, striking him in the back with a powerful electrical jolt, and sending the taller man stumbling nervelessly into his companion, slurring a warning, “Look out, Gigi!” The female leaned heavily on her own staff and pole-vaulted over her paralyzed companion, rolling gracefully in mid-air and swinging her staff into the area where Sant no longer stood, having vanished again in another thunderclap, and appeared above her, lashing down with his own stunning staves.

Sant landed gracefully, making sure not to land on his stunned opponents and turned to the viewing Legionnaires. “The defensive and offensive abilities of the Ral-Four Battle-Staves are merely one in a varied and trustworthy catalog of products and services I will make available to the Legion of Super-Heroes at a low, low price. Thank you for your consideration.” He smiled, and caused his battle-staves to retract and fold away, while leaning down to offer his hand to the recovering Legionnaire, and then his Science Police companion.

Up above on the dias, Brainiac 5 just closed his eyes and listened to his team-mates words as the sonic barrier came active and blocked their words from carrying to the floor below.

“Wait, he wants us to *pay* him to be a Legionnaire?”
“I feel like I just watched a commercial…”
“He’s even more arrogant than you were, Ultra Boy.”
“Hey!”
“These Mycens, everything I can find on them suggests that they are highly mercenary, and also highly secretive. Nobody even knows where their homeworld is!”
“Plus there was that whole slavery angle. They *say* that it was a ‘cultural misunderstanding,’ but how do we know they aren’t still doing that, just on the black market?”
“On the other hand, their teleportation tech seems to work a lot better than advertised. I didn’t know they even had personal teleportation technology!”
“I’m not sure we can trust him. Nobody even knows what Mycens really look like. Except for the eyes, he looks human, but is he even humanoid?”
“Does that matter now?”
“I didn’t mean it that way, Cham…”

Brainiac opened his eyes in time to see Cosmic Boy’s hand slap down forcefully upon the table. “Enough. It’s obvious he’s a no-go. We can argue about all the reasons why later.” With that the sound-dampening barrier shimmered, and Sant could clearly hear Cosmic Boy’s words.

“Applicant Sant, the Legion does not operate on a for-pay basis, nor do we accept applicants whose powers are dependent upon technology, no matter how advanced. This means that you are disqualified on several points, even disregarding your, uh, company’s, non-membership in the United Planets.”

His mind spinning, Sant recovered his poise sufficiently to respond gracefully. “Thank you for your consideration. If I might inquire, were there any other points where my presentation failed to reach the standards you require?” Several of the Legionnaires looked at each other, as if not comprehending his words, and he wondered, not for the first time, if his translation programs were in order. The Coluan spoke up. “I am transmitting a precise list of items you would need to work on before being eligible for consideration, Sant.” Sant looked down to his wrist-comm to see that indeed the Coluan had provided a lengthy list, which filled him with fresh confidence. Armed now with the knowledge he needed, he was sure to secure this challenging sale on his next opportunity!

18 months later;

“You understand, Applicant Sant, that a Legion membership is not a for-pay arrangement, and that our acceptance of you as member, should that occur, is not to be taken as precedent or agreement for any other sort of contractual, legal or financial arrangement?” Cosmic Boy said warily.

“Understood sir.” Sant said crisply, “I have taken your membership requirements into account, and it is to the benefit of my people that my services be pro bono. I am not to use my position as Legionnaire to secure financial benefit for myself or the Corporation, nor am I to use Legion branding on Mycen product.”

“Uh, right.” Cosmic Boy grunted, his expression doubtful. “Let’s see what you’ve learned with the Subs, then.” and he gestured for Sant to begin his tryout.

“In my time, I have learned that a codename is a requirement of the position, so you may refer to me as Deflecto!” Sant said with a salesmanlike flourish, before turning to the pair of human opponents and signaling that he was ready to begin.

Both Colossal Boy and Officer Cusimano moved forward fluidly, attempting to coordinate their strikes to occur simultaneously, hoping to overwhelm Sant’s defenses, which they remembered all-too-well. Sant stood calmly as they approached, not even bothering to deploy his combat-batons, until both of them seemed ready to impact upon him, at which point his form shimmered, and with resounding cracks, both of the trainers battle-staves sharply stuck home, on the combat-droids across the room! Sant smiled as the combat-droids powered up, responding to the attack and beginning to hurl blasts of electricity through the room, blasts which vanished before they struck Sant, and reappeared behind Officer Cusimano and Colossal Boy, stunning them and dropping them to their knees.

Sant vanished with a rumbling sound and reappeared between the two combat-droids, each of which swiveled on its torso and sent electrical blasts towards the grinning figure. He vanished again, so quickly that the sound of thunder hadn’t even died down from his previous teleportation, and the twin blasts slammed into the droids, which began to wobble uncertainly. He reappeared behind one of the droids, and both he and the combat-droid disappeared with a louder crash of thunder, only to reappear several meters above the other droid. A second later, gravity had won the battle, with Sant landing heavily behind Colossal Boy and Officer Cusimano, who were shaking off the effects of the combat-droids stunning electrical blasts. Sant confidently extended his hand to help them to their feet, and both signaled that the combat was over.

He didn’t even have to look up to the Legionnaires to hear their verdict, he had already received the discrete signal on his wrist-comm from the Coluan. Another satisfied customer!

Notes;

Sant is a member of the elusive Myces species, which exist as a mercenary corporate structure. No one is exactly sure what the true species looks like, as their ‘representatives’ invariably appear as a member of whatever species they are sent to negotiate with. As a member of the Earth embassy, Sant is completely human, with the exception of eyes that resemble pools of liquid mercury, but his thoughts and actions are Mycen, making him both disturbingly cheerful, and calculatingly mercenary in thought and deed. It was expected that he would charge for his ‘services’ as hero, but he chirpily explained that his role was to generate good will towards his people, and that no fee was necessary (although tips were welcome, he hastened to add, if strictly voluntary!).

Unfortunately for the sentients of the galaxy, the Mycens have a gift for salesmanship, thought to be an almost preternatural intuitive ability to figure out what someone needs, and to them persuade them to purchase it. Even Sant, clearly not intended to fill a ‘sales’ position, is quite skilled at figuring out what another sentient is thinking, and ‘selling’ them on a particular course of action. (Surreptitious testing has shown that Sant has no special empathic gifts, and in fact is both somewhat obtuse, and doesn’t have a terribly commanding presence, nor does he have any sort of pheremones or other advantageous secret racial traits. It seems that the secret ‘Mycen advantage’ is that they train from birth in these techniques, but since no one wants to accept that their ‘big secret’ is that they actually work hard at their role, rumors persist about chemical cheats or neural disruptive signals or hypnotic trances.)

There are currently 22 known ‘species’ of Mycen, each centered around embassies on 22 different worlds of the United Planets, and each taking the form of that worlds dominant member species. They seem to share no racial traits, other than the Mycen ‘language’ which is chemical in nature (and the source of rumors about their psychogenic pheremones). Mycen typically communicate in Interlac, or some other shared language, but, regardless of apparent species, can communicate with each other by touching. The communication isn’t entirely subtle, since it’s obvious to anyone who knows that Mycen communicate this way when they are doing so. (A ‘human’ Mycen tends to go someone slack, and their eyes roll up in their head. Other species have similarly obvious signs.) While no one can eavesdrop on this form of communication (not even another Mycen in contact with one or both participants), it is limited to touch range, which balances it out. One unusual feature of the Mycen form is that they do not seem to share specific vulnerabilities of the species they appear to be, so that if Sant were poked in the eye or kicked in the breadbasket, he would not be blinded or winded by such an attack. While Sant appears biologically human inside and out, save for his eyes, and appears to require food, sleep and air, just as a human of Earth-descent, it is not entirely clear whether or not his ‘vital organs’ are necessary for these functions.

The location of the Mycen homeworld is unknown, and their spherical ships, resembling great balls of liquid mercury, simply appear at their destinations via powerful space-warping engines. Their prime export is space-warping technologies, and Sant’s abilities seem to be related, but certainly not commonplace, as no other Mycen has been seen to demonstrate even rudimentary versions of such abilities without an assortment of bulky gear.

Sant was rejected from the original Freedom Legion tryouts for a plethora of reasons. First, the decision not to charge for his services had not yet been decided upon, and he tried to negotiate a salary. Second, his power was deemed to be ‘entirely defensive, and completely dependent upon the actions of foes.’ Third, he demonstrated his equipment with much enthusiasm, a salesman at heart, and gave the impression that all of his powers were based in his equipment. Finally, he offered no information about his people, and, at the time, they were new to the system, and strongly mistrusted due to a ‘cultural misunderstanding’ involving the concept of slavery, which the Mycens have since come to understand is ‘off limits’ in Confederation space...

Sant left the tryouts with a list of things he would need to work on, and later tracked down the other Rejects, whom he had somehow heard where gathering to form their own team, and offered his services. Free of charge! The team was somewhat leery of his more-than-generous offer, but he has since proven himself to be a brave and surprisingly selfless, if occasionally frustratingly obtuse, team-mate.

His abilities are primarily based around an innate teleportative faculty, allowing him to move interspatially as fast as another person would be able to leap out of the way, or step through a door. His power is refined to the point where he can teleport incoming attacks, whether matter or energy, away from himself, even targeting them to strike their source! Due to the subtle warping of space around him, he’s devilishly hard to hit, even when he isn’t specifically aware of incoming hostile force, and when he is prepared, it’s nearly impossible to harm him, as he sends attacks flying back to their sender, and blinks away from any attempt to lay a hand upon him. Sant carries a pair of collapsible truncheons that deploy from oversized bracers, and can snap together into a quarterstaff for increased reach or acrobatics use. He also has reinforced padding built into his uniform, allowing him to block attacks with his armored sleeves, and absorb some punishment, even in the absence of his powers, or against some of the few attacks that he cannot warp away harmlessly (such as explosions).