Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business (1) Some few details...

from Legion Lost 11
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They all knew she could do this. She didn’t leave it unsaid that this was, in fact, exactly what she had done to each of them. But, she left the room knowing that it was not truly the same. She was there to stop Element Lad; not to probe his thoughts or gently deceive him, but simply as their only hope for stopping whatever it was that Jan could start.

She had already wondered at what that could be. How dangerous his power could make him. She wasn’t wondering now, only numb.

The desperate strategies and wishes that beget the shams she shoved at her friends were gone. Only a glimmer of contemplation slipped in when she reached out to reassure herself that they were behind her.

Chameleon first. What about him? How often does Cham feel like she has, with his powers of deception and missions of trickery?

Monstress behind him. What about her? Has Candi’s fickle facades ever alienated someone despite her deepest wishes?

It doesn’t matter, though. She stops herself and re-focuses on what they need her for--to stop him. How is she going to do that if Jan has become what she fears he has?

They check in. She restricts her focus even more.

“Let’s go.”

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She stays silent.

Cham and Candi will try the vocal methods for figuring out what has become of Jan’s motivations. She delicately tests the perimeter of his mind.

His perceptions are nearly indecipherable. She sensed the elemental composition of the air, the bulkhead, the space beyond... A brief crystal clear sense of what each substance was reached her, and was then pushed away by the next substance.

She tried a few moments of it, then shut it out. It would take her days to maneuver in and properly interpret such a cacophony. Manipulating Jan’s senses was not the way in, and time was running out. Besides, Candi had just found her own way in, and discovered what Jan’s plans for the future really were.

They had the information they wanted.

“Let’s leave the room, carefully.”

Candi wasn’t listening. Cham was ready to go. She was ready to go. But, she would not remove her focus from Jan to give Candi a stronger mental command.

Candi kept pleading and hoping, and she really couldn’t blame her.

How can you let go of something more when you’ve lost so much?

“Candi, we need to go.”

“Candi?”

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Show the others. She had to show the others. Without even thinking, she reached out for every one of them.

“Candi?”

She showed them everything and said what they needed to hear so that they could accomplish their own missions. They needed to know the truth, get done what they needed to do, and escape. They had to leave, now.

She saw them begin to take action, and then concentrated again on her own location--hesitant now, as she found Cham broadcasting more malevolence than Jan.

They couldn’t keep Jan occupied with a head-on confrontation. Think, Cham, think.

He wanted to kill, and said as much. She had to get him under control.

Think, Cham, “Who else in this room has killed? Are you as subordinate as another of his progeny, or are you Legion?”

Cham blanketed his frenzy just in time for her to sense a new and less harmless intent coming from Element Lad. But not in enough time for her to prepare for his solid backhand.

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Cham’s desperation slapped at her next. She had to regain her alertness quickly. Her eyes focused faster than her mind, what she saw shocked her into action.

In the span of an instant she tried everything she had prepared.

She projected her presence, magnified a thousand times, into Jan’s mind. Commanding it to stop. It made no difference, no more than shouting into a windstorm.

She projected pain, sharp and intense. A brutal trick that had worked with so many others. Jan gave it no notice.

She tried smothering all of his senses, but it would never work when so many of those senses were beyond her grasp only moments before.

Even as she tried more of her tricks, she knew it was time for a last resort.

Jan’s mind moved and twisted and turned. She hadn’t ever seen so much tumult at someone’s conscious level. Somewhere, she knew, was a relative calm that was directing the fire that now surrounded Cham. If she wasted another second hunting it down, Cham would be dead.

She rallied her strength, and readied to fight the windstorm in Jan’s mind with a hurricane.

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She was already in Jan’s head, along with a tempest of other thoughts and sensations. Her extra presence alone didn’t make that much difference. So, she brought everyone else in with her.

She reached out to every part of the Rosetta, throwing every non-Legion consciousness she encountered into the storm. It stopped him cold. Jan had never developed the mental defenses she needed on a daily basis. She could give him a taste of what being a telepath was like—finding individual minds miles away and pulling them into his awareness.

She maintained each connection as clearly as her own. The hurricane had swept up Jan’s attention and gave Cham respite, but this too was just a diversion.

It was time for some true telepathy, and she hated it.

Even as she considered the ill effects of her previous uses of this last resort, she dived out of the windstorm and into the subconscious.

She would have to aim for the same target that Candi had been after, the Jan that they had known so long ago. Awakening any resolve out of that part of Jan--if it still existed--was her last hope. She fixed an image, a memory, of Jan in her mind and steeled herself against the nonsense and horrors that she expected to come.

But, again, she was surprised. His conscious, which should have been a focused strand, was all twists and turns. His subconscious, which should have been cryptic and fleeting, was a barren silence.

It was a vast expanse with only one place to go. She was being drawn there, powerless. Drawn to the center of his subconscious, and she let slip a bit of panic at the Progenitor that could be doing this to her.

Closer and closer. One last surprise, as she saw not Jan the Progenitor standing at the center but a match to the memory she had summoned upon entering this subconscious. A near-match anyway. This was Jan, she was sure, and as she drew close enough to him to expect him to hear her, she called out.

“Jan?”

His features sparked.

“Hello. I am Jan Arrah, of a planet once known as Trom. I was also...”

“Jan! What--”

And now she knew it was too late. She turned to look and saw the Progenitor coming for her. There was no evasion in this place. That original tempest outside had concentrated itself into this presence. She looked one last time at the Jan who was still speaking before the Progenitor’s counterstrike. At its strength, she knew her battle was over. It sent her reeling, back to her own mind with hardly a question answered, and little hope that she would live through the obscurity that was overtaking her own consciousness.
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I'm not normally a shameless hussy fan but you're easy style of writing makes her very accessible. Love how this fits into established Legion History too. This is great stuff AP Boy, thanks for sharing it.

Great Job and a very good read!

Harbinger & saturnrings,

I'm tickled that you both enjoyed it, and thanks for taking the time to reply!

Just bumping to accompany my next.

Great work.

Amazing, you make Imra so real.

I'm not an Imra fan but I could almost get to like her as you've been writing her. Good work!

Thanks Arachne, Invisible Brainiac, and Varalent. I'm glad you liked it, and glad you replied, so thanks again!

These were awesome! I think I've decided to consider them 'in continuity'. Good job.

Juan

Thanks, Juan. It was tough to get the details to match. I'm glad you appreciate it.