Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Wrapped Around Your Finger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If only he has that time...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

*

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

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

*

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

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

.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dreamy laughs at the mundanity of this unforeseen consequence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“To what end?” Brainy asks.

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

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

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

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

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

And... that's a wrap!

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

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

Whoo! Way to up the ante, Set.

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

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

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

Interesting bit with the Gil'Dishpans as well.

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading!

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ringleader! Great name!

Hacking the teams flight rings - another top idea!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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

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



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



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



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

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



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



Thanks for reading and commenting!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep it coming, Set!

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



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

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



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



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

Thanks for the feedback!