The Legion [Mods] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letsgolegion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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!"
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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.
no subject
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
"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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
But no. She's too far gone. Naturally.
He stands again, slowly, his face a little too calm. The composure would seem real if not for the way his hands are shaking. For a moment, it looks as if he's going to put his omnicom away, calmly, but he suddenly throws it, hard, at an outcropping of rubble. It clatters but doesn't break, because he designed the damn things to be just that sturdy.
Then he stands there, looking down at the ground, hands on his hips, silent, trying to regain his composure.
no subject
"Oooh, tough luck, Legionnaires! Looks like Blue Rose got put on ice! Weedwhacked! She's cooling her heels! Chilling out! She went through a cold snap, had her thorns snipped, her petals plucked! She's been pruned!"
His voice drops threateningly.
"I wonder who'll be next?"
The laughter starts with chuckling and then rises up into a deranged crescendo that booms out of the fridge like it's a a boombox and echoes through the street.
"HA HA HA HA! AHA HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA!"
no subject
Instead, he vibrates his arm to the point of intangibility and punches the Joker in the face right through the fridge door.
no subject
Barry at least gets to punch the guy in the face using superspeed bullshit. Dave watches that one passively, a little voice at the back of his head saying something he ignores completely about heroes being above beating imprisoned villains. Fuck that, Dave would be decking the asshole too if he could phase through things.
But he can't, and the urge to hit something is really intense, and his hands are too raw and blistered to be punching anything right now. So Dave settles for the next best thing, which is suddenly running and jumping at the fridge with a flying kick. He hits the top corner of the fridge with both feet, toppling it satisfyingly sideways, and can't even bring himself to care about the impossibility of a clean landing after that.
Dave eats shit. He lands in a sprawl next to the fridge, face down with his cape over his head.
Actually, this is good. He's just gonna lie here like this for a while. Yep.
no subject
He thinks, for a moment, that they might be able to head back and start damage control, that maybe they could start to recover-
And then Yuuri's sobbing is interrupted by a slew of bad puns and the Joker's laugh, and the moment shatters.
Well. So much for that.
Wash's head snaps up, gaze unwavering and focused on the fridge. He walks towards it at a calm, measured pace, scooping up a piece of debris on the way that looks like it's about the same size and shape as the dislodged ice dispenser. He avoids Barry, walks around Dave's prone form, and drops to a knee next to the upturned fridge. For a very long moment, he just looks at the Joker, making unbroken eye contact with that sole eye.
"Show's over," he says flatly, and jams the debris into the hole with far more force than is strictly necessary. If he hits the Joker and the Joker loses that eye, so much the better.
He stands, then hooks his arms under Dave's and hauls the kid to his feet. They can't just give up. They still have a job to do.
no subject