googledox: (alt - evil)
Brainiac 5 | Querl Dox (post-zero hour) ([personal profile] googledox) wrote in [community profile] 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.
tenzero: (pic#11156918)

[personal profile] tenzero 2017-06-03 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Of course the bad guy can fly, of course. What type of adventure would this be without some sort of wrench in their plans. He stamps the ground with one foot and fire licks around his legs, though the surrounding grass remains entirely untouched.

Make that two wrenches, actually, as he whips his head around to nod to Pidge. "Bring the pod there or bring them here? I can do either, if they don't freak out and run away at the sight of all of us!"