Brainiac 5 | Querl Dox (post-zero hour) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
googledox) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionmissions2017-05-04 08:02 pm
googledox) wrote in legionmissions2017-05-04 08:02 pm
Gods Among Us - Saving the Past [modplot]
Who| Everyone who signed up
What| "Gods Among Us"
Where| The Past
When| After the timeline falls apart
Warnings/Notes|
The shifting timeline finally settles into something...horrible. Legion World is no more. As they make it to the lab, the team finds themselves on Brainiac 3's asteroid base instead, and through the windows, something monstrous can be seen.
It was once Earth. The time travelers that altered the past sold out the planet to extradimensional entities long ago -- and all of history has suffered for it. Hence: Brainiac 3's base existing in place of Legion World. Except it doesn't belong to Brainiac 3 anymore. It was Brainiac 5's inheritance.
Brainiac 5 stares at them all from his throne. Strange cords are affixed to the apparatus on his head as if they're downloading information directly into his brain. Hanging in the room around him are different cities, shrunken and trapped in forcefield bottles. Other oddities float in containment units through his throne room. Without Earth and the influence of its heroes, galactic history has shifted. The Legion never existed, and neither did the UP. That means, without the tempering influence of the UP law, that Colu's mistreatment of the Brainiac line was far more openly brutal. This version of Brainiac 5 never became a hero.
In the windows outside, a battle is ongoing. Tentacled robots attack the strange construct that once was planet Earth. Brainiac doesn't seem to be the only one attacking the devastated planet -- other ships and constructs can be seen. Apparently, this is the last stand for many of the major powers of the altered 31st century.
Brainiac 5 looks at them like they're insects. He stands up and walks towards them, the cords attached to his head apparatus detaching one by one. A pedestal rises and a chamber opens within it, revealing a small metallic orb. He takes it in his hand and presses a button. The orb floats in the air and then suddenly expands into a bubble large enough to hold them all.
When he talks it's with a distant voice, one that sounds utterly soul-less.
"When I received the message from my alternate self, I considered simply keeping you for study."
He walks over to the window, watching the chaos unfold outside, his expression flat.
"How fortunate you are," he says in a voice utterly devoid of anything resembling emotion, "that I'm so very bored."
He waves a hand vaguely at them, over his shoulder.
"The time sphere will take you where and when you need to go. There's a data file on board that explains the alterations to the timestream." A massive ship explodes outside the window. "Do try to make the timeline at least slightly less dull."
After they pile into the time sphere, travel through the time stream is...strange. The timestream is small and massive all at once. There’s no sense of space or scale to it. It’s brilliantly colored, like layers of vibrant paints pushing through one another and dribbling past, streams of reds and greens and yellows streaking by in an instant eternity. It feels as if someone could just open the door of the time bubble and touch a solid barrier, but if they lean in they get the feeling it stretches to a near eternity.
However, if they focused in the reverse of the direction they’re moving, there’s a small dark spot in the farthest distance, where the color all cuts off. Like everything’s ended. It’s best not to focus there.
For such a massive space, it's also exceptionally crowded. They catch glimpses of multiple time travelers as they travel to the past. First, the time bubble almost rear-ends The Flash, and his then-teenage sidekick Kid Flash, as the two speedsters run on Barry's cosmic treadmill. Then it passes by another time bubble; from inside it, the hero Booster Gold and several different incarnations of the Blue Beetle stare out at them quizzically.
They even pass by a past version of the Legion itself. They're all teenagers here, and arguing with each other too fervently to notice the present-day Legionnaires whizzing by. Brainy, sans his white facial inhibitors, floats there bickering with Invisible Kid, gesturing wildly at some kind of metal platform.
Then the bubble gets them where they need to go. The files left for them by Brainiac 5 explain what was changed and what must be fixed. If they're a little barebones clinical, it can perhaps be forgiven, given that the final version of him that sent them back wasn't even a superhero.
What| "Gods Among Us"
Where| The Past
When| After the timeline falls apart
Warnings/Notes|
The shifting timeline finally settles into something...horrible. Legion World is no more. As they make it to the lab, the team finds themselves on Brainiac 3's asteroid base instead, and through the windows, something monstrous can be seen.
It was once Earth. The time travelers that altered the past sold out the planet to extradimensional entities long ago -- and all of history has suffered for it. Hence: Brainiac 3's base existing in place of Legion World. Except it doesn't belong to Brainiac 3 anymore. It was Brainiac 5's inheritance.
Brainiac 5 stares at them all from his throne. Strange cords are affixed to the apparatus on his head as if they're downloading information directly into his brain. Hanging in the room around him are different cities, shrunken and trapped in forcefield bottles. Other oddities float in containment units through his throne room. Without Earth and the influence of its heroes, galactic history has shifted. The Legion never existed, and neither did the UP. That means, without the tempering influence of the UP law, that Colu's mistreatment of the Brainiac line was far more openly brutal. This version of Brainiac 5 never became a hero.
In the windows outside, a battle is ongoing. Tentacled robots attack the strange construct that once was planet Earth. Brainiac doesn't seem to be the only one attacking the devastated planet -- other ships and constructs can be seen. Apparently, this is the last stand for many of the major powers of the altered 31st century.
Brainiac 5 looks at them like they're insects. He stands up and walks towards them, the cords attached to his head apparatus detaching one by one. A pedestal rises and a chamber opens within it, revealing a small metallic orb. He takes it in his hand and presses a button. The orb floats in the air and then suddenly expands into a bubble large enough to hold them all.
When he talks it's with a distant voice, one that sounds utterly soul-less.
"When I received the message from my alternate self, I considered simply keeping you for study."
He walks over to the window, watching the chaos unfold outside, his expression flat.
"How fortunate you are," he says in a voice utterly devoid of anything resembling emotion, "that I'm so very bored."
He waves a hand vaguely at them, over his shoulder.
"The time sphere will take you where and when you need to go. There's a data file on board that explains the alterations to the timestream." A massive ship explodes outside the window. "Do try to make the timeline at least slightly less dull."
After they pile into the time sphere, travel through the time stream is...strange. The timestream is small and massive all at once. There’s no sense of space or scale to it. It’s brilliantly colored, like layers of vibrant paints pushing through one another and dribbling past, streams of reds and greens and yellows streaking by in an instant eternity. It feels as if someone could just open the door of the time bubble and touch a solid barrier, but if they lean in they get the feeling it stretches to a near eternity.
However, if they focused in the reverse of the direction they’re moving, there’s a small dark spot in the farthest distance, where the color all cuts off. Like everything’s ended. It’s best not to focus there.
For such a massive space, it's also exceptionally crowded. They catch glimpses of multiple time travelers as they travel to the past. First, the time bubble almost rear-ends The Flash, and his then-teenage sidekick Kid Flash, as the two speedsters run on Barry's cosmic treadmill. Then it passes by another time bubble; from inside it, the hero Booster Gold and several different incarnations of the Blue Beetle stare out at them quizzically.
They even pass by a past version of the Legion itself. They're all teenagers here, and arguing with each other too fervently to notice the present-day Legionnaires whizzing by. Brainy, sans his white facial inhibitors, floats there bickering with Invisible Kid, gesturing wildly at some kind of metal platform.
Then the bubble gets them where they need to go. The files left for them by Brainiac 5 explain what was changed and what must be fixed. If they're a little barebones clinical, it can perhaps be forgiven, given that the final version of him that sent them back wasn't even a superhero.
no subject
It's not that he moved at superspeed, though. No, he just reached into Sam's brain and messed with his sense of motion, causing him to only think he'd been flying straight. Then he'd reached into the part of their brains responsible for processing visual stimuli and had simply removed himself.
That's when they hear his voice. It echoes in the alley around him, not coming from any particular direction, like they're in a movie theater with surround sound. Except it's not something they're actually hearing with their ears. He's reached into the parts of their brains that process sound now.
"Judging from your insignias, you've time traveled back to this time from over 1000 years in the future. You're the displacees, the ones pulled into this universe. The Coluan was responsible for sending you back, yes? I flagged him as a potential threat to myself and my colleagues, but I didn't think he'd retain continuity of personal identity long enough to send you back here, not with all the fluctuations in the timestream. He must have found a way to communicate with his alternate selves as each one formed. Fascinating."
He clicks his tongue.
"When all this is over, I'll have to swing by the 31st century and see if a version of him still exists -- there's bound to be a way to contain his brain in a casing and use it as a biological supercomputer."
no subject
"My name is Randall Dowling," says the man. "I have three companions: Kim Suskind, Jacob Greene, and William Leather. We're from an alternate Earth, but our efforts to conquer it and hand it over to an otherdimensional death engine made of merged posthumans failed. So we've moved into this one and we're adjusting history, trying to make ourselves...at home. When we're finished, we'll sequester this world off, and make it an island in the void, the only thing left after Chronoblivion destroys everything."
A slight pause.
"The reason I'm telling you all this is so that you understand that it doesn't matter that I've told you," Dowling continues, his voice still cold and calm but somehow mocking, too. "It doesn't matter if you know our names or who we are or why we're here. We stared into the fires of creation and were changed. We're challengers of the unknown. Optimal humans, explorers, scientist gods."
"So, megalomaniacs," says Rich blithely. "Got it."
"Oh no, Mr. Rider. We're not like the monsters you're used to fighting. That you are fighting right now."
Rich suddenly lets out a choking noise, gritting his teeth together, every muscle tensing as his brain floods his body with adrenaline.
"That post-traumatic stress you've been quietly ignoring has created some wonderful chemical pathways in your brain," says Dowling. "It's seamless, I imagine, the way you're now suddenly back in the war."
Rich slowly turns to Gwen, blue light blazing in his eyes, clearly seeing something else.
"Bugs. Lord, I am so sick of bugs. How many of you do I have to kill before it's over? How many?!"
He lunges for her, his Nova force arm a firebrand, Nova Force cupped in his other hand.
no subject
"Okay, has there ever been anyone who called themself a god and wasn't completely nuts? Because I'm coming up dry -"
And then it goes to hell.
Sam has always been about acting first, thinking later, and this moment is no exception. He blasts straight off again, but this time, for Rich, aiming to knock him off his assault. "This is so not the time for that 'Nam stuff, Dick!"
no subject
"Wait, what?"
That... wasn't really how she expected this to turn out.
"Aw come on, not this again." She'd had enough of this back when she and Dipper tried to knock each other senseless.
Gwen quickly and hastily leaped up high, sticking to the side of a building and putting a bit of distance between herself and that world of hurt Rich tried to give her just then.
"Okay, first of all! Spiders don't really count as bugs!"
Right?
no subject
no subject
At the very least, though, Sam's attack makes it so that the blasts of Nova Force he fires at Gwen are easier to dodge.
"No more! You don't get to hurt anyone else!"
It looks like this won't be easy for Rich to shake. That means they might have to try to stop Dowling while simultaneously fending him off.
no subject
"Oh, crap."
He catches himself without stopping and launches back towards Rich. "Hey, we're not close to done yet, dude!" If he can keep Rich busy enough for Gwen to get an opening to deal with Dowling - well, it's a tall order, but what hasn't been in his life?
Good thing about sharing a powerset with Rich: he knows the tricks, even if he hasn't mastered as many of them. Other good thing: for raw speed, Sam's got something of an edge. (Bad thing: Rich definitely has the edge in raw power, and if Sam gets tagged, it's gonna hurt.)