The Legion [Mods] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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legionmissions2017-01-03 06:11 am
letsgolegion) wrote in legionmissions2017-01-03 06:11 am
NO SANITY CLAUSE [modplot]
Who| Open to everyone not in "Silent Horizon"
What| An alternate version of The Joker, Herald of Chronoblivion, wreaks havoc on Cargg
Where| Relegg, capitol city of Cargg
When| Shortly after the other half of the team is deployed to the Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| Bombs, madpeople, forced drugging/torture of civilians, creepiness, and chaos
It starts with a bang, of course. Bombs going off, Joker gas making innocent Carggites go completely mad. Joker gang members, paid mercenaries and criminals, pour out into the streets, damaging property and attacking whoever they come in contact with. It's all one big nightmarish surprise -- but one that clearly took a lot of planning. All these bombs, and gas deployment systems, and tech suppression devices, and all these minions... it's random and yet not, calculated and improvised all at once.
This universe hasn't seen a villain like this in 1000 years, and last time it saw it, it was the same one, albeit a version native to this dimension. This one's from another similar dimension, but he dances around in the middle of it all the same way, laughing. Floating cameras broadcast his face to every viewscreen in the UP; he's taken over all the channels.
His body is strange, the colors of his skin and clothes and anything he touches black and white and inverted, like the negative of a photo, but that wide Cheshire grin is just as sinister as it's always been -- in the past or present, in this universe or any other.
"Hellooooo United Planets! Are you sick of having most social ills abolished? Tired of languishing under the heavy burden of an actually functional justice system? Are you bored with never wanting or needing for anything?" He waves both arms with a flourish and does a little soft shoe. "Then it's your lucky day! For a paltry sum of absolutely nothing, you can have your very own Joker! I slice 'em, I dice 'em, I make julienne surprise! Which you need desperately; just admit it, living in a perfect universe is a drag! Humdrum! Tedious!"
He blows a raspberry and waves a hand like it's the worst thing he's ever heard.
"It's a bunch of hooey, I tell ya'. Fortunately, for you, I'm here to blow the galaxy wide open!" Explosions go off behind him and there's a chorus of screams. "Literally!"
He lets out a chilling laugh, like someone's just told him the funniest joke he's ever heard.
"I even recruited a motley crew of madmen to help me with this momentous occasion -- including some UP citizens I tortured to insanity in my Ha Ha Hacienda, my own little homemade Arkham just outside the city. I missed some old friends, don'cha know, from the golden days when psychotics could roll through the revolving doors of the nuthut and freely wander the streets. I couldn't get any of them crazy enough to put on a bat costume -- that was a little too nutty even for them, hoo hoo! -- but I managed to get some familiar faces grinning back at me again, with only a turn or two of the thumbscrews."
His smile widens, even though that should be impossible for it to get any wider.
"This is just the start! Because your precious heroes, those brave souls in the Legion of Superheroes -- they've kept a little secret from the fair citizens of the UP." He leans in close to one of the cameras. "And it's that I'm just the opening act! The warm up! The main event is still to come. Y'see, I'm good pals with Chronoblivion, a monster from outside of space and time that's almost as maniacal as me, and after I've set the galaxy on fire -- and made sure it's well done -- he's ready to settle in for the main course, i.e. you. Your whole universe is going right down the hatch!"
He sweeps both arms out.
"Until then, sit back and enjoy the show, kids! I promise it'll be a gas!"
Another bomb explodes, filling the area around him with Joker gas. Screams in the area around him start turning to hysterical laughter that matches his own laugh, which bursts out of him like a living thing.
"HA HA HA HA! AHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA!"
What| An alternate version of The Joker, Herald of Chronoblivion, wreaks havoc on Cargg
Where| Relegg, capitol city of Cargg
When| Shortly after the other half of the team is deployed to the Silent Horizon
Warnings/Notes| Bombs, madpeople, forced drugging/torture of civilians, creepiness, and chaos
It starts with a bang, of course. Bombs going off, Joker gas making innocent Carggites go completely mad. Joker gang members, paid mercenaries and criminals, pour out into the streets, damaging property and attacking whoever they come in contact with. It's all one big nightmarish surprise -- but one that clearly took a lot of planning. All these bombs, and gas deployment systems, and tech suppression devices, and all these minions... it's random and yet not, calculated and improvised all at once.
This universe hasn't seen a villain like this in 1000 years, and last time it saw it, it was the same one, albeit a version native to this dimension. This one's from another similar dimension, but he dances around in the middle of it all the same way, laughing. Floating cameras broadcast his face to every viewscreen in the UP; he's taken over all the channels.
His body is strange, the colors of his skin and clothes and anything he touches black and white and inverted, like the negative of a photo, but that wide Cheshire grin is just as sinister as it's always been -- in the past or present, in this universe or any other.
"Hellooooo United Planets! Are you sick of having most social ills abolished? Tired of languishing under the heavy burden of an actually functional justice system? Are you bored with never wanting or needing for anything?" He waves both arms with a flourish and does a little soft shoe. "Then it's your lucky day! For a paltry sum of absolutely nothing, you can have your very own Joker! I slice 'em, I dice 'em, I make julienne surprise! Which you need desperately; just admit it, living in a perfect universe is a drag! Humdrum! Tedious!"
He blows a raspberry and waves a hand like it's the worst thing he's ever heard.
"It's a bunch of hooey, I tell ya'. Fortunately, for you, I'm here to blow the galaxy wide open!" Explosions go off behind him and there's a chorus of screams. "Literally!"
He lets out a chilling laugh, like someone's just told him the funniest joke he's ever heard.
"I even recruited a motley crew of madmen to help me with this momentous occasion -- including some UP citizens I tortured to insanity in my Ha Ha Hacienda, my own little homemade Arkham just outside the city. I missed some old friends, don'cha know, from the golden days when psychotics could roll through the revolving doors of the nuthut and freely wander the streets. I couldn't get any of them crazy enough to put on a bat costume -- that was a little too nutty even for them, hoo hoo! -- but I managed to get some familiar faces grinning back at me again, with only a turn or two of the thumbscrews."
His smile widens, even though that should be impossible for it to get any wider.
"This is just the start! Because your precious heroes, those brave souls in the Legion of Superheroes -- they've kept a little secret from the fair citizens of the UP." He leans in close to one of the cameras. "And it's that I'm just the opening act! The warm up! The main event is still to come. Y'see, I'm good pals with Chronoblivion, a monster from outside of space and time that's almost as maniacal as me, and after I've set the galaxy on fire -- and made sure it's well done -- he's ready to settle in for the main course, i.e. you. Your whole universe is going right down the hatch!"
He sweeps both arms out.
"Until then, sit back and enjoy the show, kids! I promise it'll be a gas!"
Another bomb explodes, filling the area around him with Joker gas. Screams in the area around him start turning to hysterical laughter that matches his own laugh, which bursts out of him like a living thing.
"HA HA HA HA! AHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA!"
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The Joker's voice and personality bore an uncanny resemblance to the Trickster's, and he bore more than a passing resemblance to the Trickster's Earth-3 counterpart. Given that, Barry wasn't the least bit surprised when Wash informed them that poking at the Joker's ego was a good way to get him into position to trap him.
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Dave falls in beside Wash all too casually, lightly bumping a fist to the man's shoulder in a show of approval. And it's probably the best suggestion of tone you're gonna get right now, because for all the laid-back airs he's affecting, Dave's closed off like he hasn't been since he was back home committing necessary fratricide.
He doesn't like fighting. But hell if he doesn't know how to compartmentalize in order to get shit done, retreat into himself a bit and fall back on old habits he doesn't like much more. He's stony-faced and unreadable despite the quipping -- it makes his normal coolkid chill look like the most open emoting in contrast -- stance relaxed but ready. Clowns are unpredictable by nature. Like fuck is he gonna let this knockoff catch him off guard.
But hey, they've got a solid enough plan right now. Bait the clown into chasing them. Easy enough, right? If there's one thing in life that Dave had proved he excels at, it's pissing off clowns.
"Anyway, time to get this show on the road. No one gives a shit about the opening act. Let's just fast-forward through this walking commercial so we can get to the good stuff already. The popcorn's already popped and I'm not wasting any of it on previews, gotta save that shit for the feature presentation."
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"No one gives me the hook!" he says tossing the Batman costume over his shoulder like it's nothing.
But the brief flash of a scowl fades to extreme disappointment.
"But why am I even surprised? Of course you don't get the joke. No one ever does! He never did -- but Batsy came so close, during all those times I pushed him right up to the brink!"
He sweeps his hands out at the mayhem.
"Just like they've been pushed to the brink." He waves a hand dismissively. "Still, the terrified screams of the masses aren't quite the same as being locked in a death spiral of dysfunction and despair with a fellow lunatic-in-arms -- but that's fine!"
The way his eyes flash with purpose looks eerie with the strange photo-negative aura around him. "I'll just have to make a new one."
The way he moves is even eerier. There's no premeditation. He doesn't telegraph his moves. One second he's talking to them, the next he's suddenly reaching into his jacket while running towards them, his movements erratic. He pulls out a massive, comically large mallet, which takes on the same strange photo-negative effect by virtue of him touching it.
While Barry has the speed to run circles around him, that'd be a lot more helpful if his movements were actually predictable. It's not as if he can tell where Barry's going to be, but the chaotic way he moves mean that some of his movements just accidentally have him swinging his mallet places where people are going. It's like some strange inverse of predicting where they'll be and planning to be there; instead he's planning absolutely nothing and by virtue of moving erratically, he's somehow everywhere.
"You can't stop it. Either it'll be because of me or the man upstairs, but one way or another, one of you Legionnaires will change from a stiff in spandex to another kook in a playsuit! Mad as a hatter! Three sheets to the wind! One card short of a full deck!"
Where did those razor-tipped playing cards come from? Wherever it is, they're suddenly being flung at them with one hand as he swings the mallet with the other. He laughs and laughs.
"Eventually, I'll have a new partner to cut a rug with! Until the punchline drops, and the sky falls, and then we'll share a good guffaw together at the end of the world!"
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No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy; Wash has been in enough battles to have that drilled into his head. Still, the Joker is different than anyone he's fought before. Even the Meta, mindless and crazed, was driven by some sort of animal instinct, both when there were too many AI and when there were none. This is different; this is completely, truly chaotic, and the only his motion trackers keep close calls from becoming hits he can't currently afford to take.
Well, shit.
He dodges as best he can, trying to get the fuck out of the way of that hammer and heading down a completely different street from the one they'd just been on. Hopefully Dave and Barry will remember the plan to draw him away, such as it is.
"You act like we haven't already been there," he says to the Joker, voice edged now that survival has taken priority over mockery. "Your existential breakdown might be hilarious to you, but like I said, your jokes are shit. The rest of us think it's boring." He grabs his knife in one hand, doing his best to block the incoming cards and hissing when one slices through the undersuit at his elbow, and grabs his stun baton with the other. The moment the Joker gets close, he goes in, aiming the baton for the hand holding the mallet. If it works, he might be able to get the Joker to drop it; if it doesn't, he's taking that mallet straight to the ribs.
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Wash has the hammer...somewhat occupied, so Barry moves, plucking cards out of the air too fast for them to cut him.
"One card short's still better than not having a deck," Barry quips, dropping the cards into a trash can further down the street.
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A deeply thoughtful observation from Dave, as he darts backwards away from the hammer tornado that is currently the Joker. He temporally jumps forward to appear a bit further down the street, trying to still stay near the others, and brandishes his sword. Why did he find himself a sword in the spacefuture where there are laserguns and shit? Because fuck you, swords are awesome and also all he's really good with.
"Sorry that your bat-furry boyfriend dumped you or whatever and now no one will go on a candlelit crazydate with you, dude," Dave calls down the road, deadpan as one can be while raising their voice to be heard above a rowdy clown's nonsense. "But I'm like 90% certain none of us are looking for a special someone right now. 95%? Pretty sure Freelancer is single despite what the shippers say, but I'm also pretty sure sanity is one of his kinks so you're still outta luck, Pennywise."
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Even though he just laughed in the face of Wash and Barry's words, clearly enjoying their little to-do, Dave actually gets him angry. Batman is a sore subject, clearly. It's one thing for the Joker to talk about him, to make all his jokes, but being reminded of that
losslittle annoyance clearly frustrates him.Still, the frustration passes quickly. The Joker is mercurial like that, with a mind that won't stay in a single mood for long.
"Bats and I did have a certain rapport, but it's time to move on," he says. "There are plenty of potentially demented fish in the sea! Do you really think all your teammates will weather the storm that's coming and actually stay sane in the face of it all? Most of your soldier friends, like York, seem like they were already nearly at the breaking point before they ever showed up, or they were dead, or both! And people say Arkham cranks out the crazies -- Project Freelancer clearly leaves the place in the dust!"
He cackles maniacally, as he dodges blows.
"And what about sweet little Kubo? Even with mommy dearest hovering nearby, do you really think he'll stay untouched?" The Joker raises his eyebrows significantly. "Dipper sure didn't. Kid's crazier than a sack of rabid weasels! You ought to ask him about his secret simroom program -- where he beats Sinestro half to death, over and over and over. Not exactly the scintillating subject matter you'd usually find in the secret stashes of most teenage boys, but it sure is a hoot!"
Wash successfully tazes the mallet out of his hand, and said hand goes to the little trick flower at his lapel. Molecular acid squirts out of it, hitting Wash's faceplate.
"And then there's good ol' Grif!" he says to Barry. "Who you're hoping you can help shape up -- but he has a breaking point, you all know he does. Where things will get just terrible enough that even he can't find a joke -- until he laughs at one of mine!"
Cackling, he's ready and waiting for Dave to attack him, joy buzzer hidden, but at the ready. He's ready for Barry too, fake boxing glove hand prepared.
"Or maybe your foul-mouthed pookie bear will face one horror too many," he says to Dave. "Have you ever wondered how many he can take? Take it from a certified certifiable -- there's always an upper limit, boyo! And when one of your people hits it, oh, the mad, mad music we'll make together!"
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That moment is long enough for him to miss Joker reaching for his flower - one of his signature weapons, one that Wash knows about - and in the next moment, there's acid in his face, hissing and bubbling as it eats through his visor.
He jerks back and yells, thumbing the seals on his helmet and tearing it off his head. For the next few seconds, he's got nothing - he's just trying to get the fuck out of the way enough to recover and recalibrate.
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It's also exceedingly good way to get him to run right into a trap. Barry runs at the Joker, and gets a boxing glove to the face in addition to the acid-flower he pulls from Joker's lapel.
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The stony mask slips for a second, and Dave flushes bright red.
He recovers quickly enough, at least, but maybe not enough to remain as cautious as he should be. Wash is down for the moment, and Dave is a Knight. It's more instinct than anything else that has him flashstepping forward to plant himself betwern Wash and the clown, taking a swing with his sword in hopes of at least pushing the Joker back a bit. The fucking joy buzzer comes as a surprise in the worst way, when the Joker grabs at the blade instead of dodging away and hits him with a nice little electrical charge.
Dave seizes up at the shock, a sensation like a thousand pins jabbing into his hands and forearms, and it's a solid few seconds before he can manage to move his hands enough to drop the sword and stagger backwards, teeth grit through the lingering pain.
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He does a little soft shoe.
"Bats always had both in spades, and that was the only reason he even came close to keeping up. Look at you all, trying to pretend you know what you're doing while you struggle pitifully against the inevitable. Even the original Legion wouldn't have had a chance in the end, but at least they had their act together. All those practiced maneuvers, and shiny belt buckles, and the sickening senses of idealism."
His voice drops to something more menacing.
"That's why they had to go." He cheers up immediately. "The best part of it all was making the whole galaxy think that the only one smart enough to get them back was the person responsible! Let me tell you, it was a real gas!"
Cackling, with the joy buzzer hand, he drops a small bomb from his sleeve that explodes into a cloud of joker gas.
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"You've got way too much confidence for someone who hasn't actually won yet." Barry says as he rotates his arm at superspeed, easily blowing the gas away.
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Wash takes the extra second to recover, to get his bearings, and to inwardly swear a blue streak, because his helmet is too damaged to record and it would have been really fucking nice to prove Brainy's innocence to the galaxy at large.
But that's something to rue later. Right now, there's a fight going on, a fight that thankfully only includes poison gas for half a second. The moment that gas is clear, Wash is sprinting at the Joker, knife in hand, low to the ground, and fast as he can go. He aims to catch the Joker in a full shoulder tackle, and the hand with the knife flicks upwards to slash at the joy buzzer. If he can cut the weapon off, great; if he has to take the whole damn hand, he'll happily do that too.
But the most important part of this is that they're close enough to the fridge for the plan to work, and he gives the signal - "Fall back!" - holds out for the space of a breath - that has to be long enough for a speedster to get himself and Dave at least fifteen feet away - and sets off his power. His eyes flash.
Hopefully, Dave and Barry got out of the way in time. Hopefully, the Joker doesn't have anything else up his sleeve. Hopefully, Wash can get clear in enough time for Dave to do his part. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.
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Right, the plan. A little fast-forwarding to get himself clear of the range of Wash's nullifying thing, and a pause to catch his breath and make sure the null shit is already activated.
Then Dave's running right back in the old fashioned way, saving his juice for the moment he gets within a few feet of the clown asshole and--
tick tick tick ti--
A neat little localized timestop.
"Hurry the fuck up," Dave calls to the others, already feeling slightly woozy from the effort of it. Or maybe that's something to do with the electrocution? Whatever. "Let's lock this ridiculous asshole down already."
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wraps and locks the chains around, and tilts the refrigerator over in a fit of pique, letting it hit the ground with a heavy, painful sounding thud.
"The jack is in the icebox!" The Flash says with a look of tired triumph.
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He means the puns and kicking someone over, surely. Not jamming people into refrigerators or anything.
In any case, the threat is neutralized, the city is saved, and without the Joker guiding the chaos, it'll be easy to contain before long.
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"Good work, Legionnaires! Now that he's contained, we should be able to finish getting this situation under control."
She's looking a little worse for wear like them, a large cut on her face, but she's clearly happy with the results of this battle so far.
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Brainy looks at his omnicom.
"I've synthesized a cure for the Joker gas affecting the Carggite citizens and deployed drones to disperse it through the city. About 62% of the infected Carggites have been cured. Reports from the other teams indicate that 82% of the city has been secured and that most of the Joker's minions have been detained. With the tech suppression fields taken down, the Science Police have been able to properly deploy bomb-disposal drones. Most of our fellow Legionnaires have reported in, with very few major injuries. Some haven't reported in yet, but I don't think there's cause for much concern, they may just be working."
He looks up and raises his eyebrows.
"Carggite causalities are minimal, considering he circumstances. A disaster of this magnitude should have caused much worse --"
He trails off, looking up the street, his eyes going wide.
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He isn't the cause of Kid Q's "Oh grife," though -- the bundle in his arms is. It's clearly a body, covered in a bloody blanket. The body's face is covered but the blue high heels sticking out from under it makes her identity clear. So does her hair, peeking out from under the blanket, changing back from blue to blonde as it thaws. It's coming loose from its bun, water and chunks of ice dripping off it onto the street.
Blank-faced, Yuuri walks up to Kid Quantum, refusing to look her in the eye, and he places Blue Rose's body on the ground in front of her. Then he steps back and drops to his knees, like a puppet with its strings cut. He bows forward and thuds his head against the ground.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
He seems to get stuck that way, on loop, saying it over and over and over.
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Wash rolls to his feet in time to see the fridge slam backwards on the ground, wrapped in chains. "Good work." Barry looks like he's okay, Dave far less so, but for now they're all alive and the Joker is captured, and that's going to have to be good enough. He retrieves his mangled helmet from the ground and maglocks it to his hip as he turns to head towards Dave and Barry.
It's a relief to see Kid Q and Brainy, and to hear that things are going well. He knows he still needs to be alert - that the fight's not quite over - but he can still feel the beginnings of exhaustion pulling at his limbs, the start of battle-fueled adrenaline starting to fade. Whatever. As long as he doesn't collapse before he makes it back to Legion World, he'll be fine.
Also, his back is fucking killing him, what with the pieces of glass still embedded in there, but he'll worry about that when this is all over. He'll be fine.
And then Brainy says that, and Kid Q looks like she's seen a ghost, and the narrative causality that runs his life is definitely enough of a bitch to throw an even bigger threat their way at the end of the fight, and he whips around, ready for whatever other danger is approaching-
And sees Yuuri, holding a very familiar and very dead body.
He would rather have had the fight. This is so much worse.
He takes a knee next to Yuuri, not bothering to hide a wince as pain lances up his back, and puts his hands on Yuuri's shoulders, gently pulling him upright. He then wraps Yuuri in a hug, holding him tightly. "It's not your fault." The denial is firm, almost fierce. Yuuri just got started as a Legionnaire, he just found his confidence, and the last thing he needs to do is blame himself for a teammate's death. That way lies only ruin; the least he can do is try to save Yuuri from that.
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"Jesus."
Really? Really? She hadn't even been fighting the big bad. Hell, she'd just gotten here. Isn't there some universal rule against killing people off before they've gotten properly established? This is breaking so many rules of a proper narrative. And here he'd thought this world was more rational than the one he'd come from.
Fuck, she'd just been cheerfully blogging about being a hero and sharing her music and shit.
Briefly, he's struck by the temptation to do a rewind and fix things -- this world doesn't even play by the same rules, it might not doom everything -- but that kind of thing is beyond his abilities now. The ice-skater guy is clearly wrecked, but Wash is taking charge of that. There's nothing for Dave to do.
Grim-faced, he tugs his hood up with still-stinging hands and falls silent.
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There's a brief moment where Barry's thoughts run along the same lines as Dave's. He could try to travel back in time, stop this from happening, jumping back an hour or so can't cause that much trouble...before he ruthlessly squashes the temptation down. If he even can time-travel here, it's still a terrible idea.
There's not much for him to say. Barry wants to know that whoever attacked her was taken down, but given Yuuri's current state it doesn't feel like the right thing to ask.
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Then she stands up again and steps around the body so that she can reach Yuuri and Wash. She claps the latter on the shoulder, careful to avoid the glass shards he's mostly ignoring, and pulls the former the rest of the way to his feet, catching his chin in her hand so that he has to look at her.
"The fault," she says, her voice soft but firm, "is with the person who killed her. I'm sure that you did everything you could."
She lets him go, only to wrap her own arms around him, just like Wash had.
"Thank you for bringing us her body. Thank you for surviving."
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But then Kid Quantum pulls him up and tells him it's not his fault and thanks him.
It isn't until she say "Thank you for surviving," though, that he finally, really breaks down. The tears change from a slow, tense trickle into the kind of great, gasping sobs that can only come from someone that's never seen someone else die before.
It's the one-two combo that really set it off: Wash and then her.
He buries his face in her shoulder because he hates the idea of anyone else seeing him cry.
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