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)
legionmissions2017-09-22 02:49 pm
letsgolegion) wrote in legionmissions2017-09-22 02:49 pm
Entry tags:
THE GONE-AWAY WORLD [modplot]
Who| Those who signed up
What| The "Gone-Away World" plot
Where| The planet Tezeram
When| The same time as "The Ninth Gate" and "Total Eclipso"
Warnings/Notes| child endangerment
The Legion cruiser breaks apart upon entry to atmo. It just can't fight its way through the warped reality of the planet, through the willpower of the many criminals on Tezeram willing its destruction. But the Legionnaires own willpower and thoughts factor in, from the moment they're close enough to the planet to start influencing the "stuff" that makes up everything on Tezeram's surface.
So even though the ship rips apart, they don't die. Instead they find themselves down on the planet, separated into pairs that have to find their way towards the criminals behind all this, and find their way to each other. If they try to will the Legion cruiser back into being, they'll find it's impossible. They must defeat the criminals responsible for all this, and join together to will the cruiser back into being at the same time.
What| The "Gone-Away World" plot
Where| The planet Tezeram
When| The same time as "The Ninth Gate" and "Total Eclipso"
Warnings/Notes| child endangerment
The Legion cruiser breaks apart upon entry to atmo. It just can't fight its way through the warped reality of the planet, through the willpower of the many criminals on Tezeram willing its destruction. But the Legionnaires own willpower and thoughts factor in, from the moment they're close enough to the planet to start influencing the "stuff" that makes up everything on Tezeram's surface.
So even though the ship rips apart, they don't die. Instead they find themselves down on the planet, separated into pairs that have to find their way towards the criminals behind all this, and find their way to each other. If they try to will the Legion cruiser back into being, they'll find it's impossible. They must defeat the criminals responsible for all this, and join together to will the cruiser back into being at the same time.
no subject
No. She had to land with the drug dealer. In his very den of inequity. Her lip curls in distaste as she stands, shoving away the pain of the rough landing, and takes her bearings. This wouldn't do. Not at all. Bad enough he fed children chocolate, but to make it in this? Hadn't he heard of health and safety regulations?
America hooks her thumbs into her belt, not heeding how the shadows around her grew darker and, with her chilly feelings about this place seeping in, colder. "Did you manage to land in one piece?" Hopefully she wouldn't be dragging around an injured rabbit this entire time.
no subject
"What the bloody heck -"
Machinery? In his Warren? His offense sprouts around him in thorny vines, rich and lively and glistening with thistles. Warmth expands around him, counterbalancing America's chilly influence, but it's warmth that has the harsh edge of direct sunlight at 40 degrees Celsius.
Still, this isn't actually his home, and this isn't the time to fight over differences of taste, opinion, or the horrifying, creeping memories that a breath of chill air in something close to his home sends winding up his spine.
"All together as I ever was," he responds, though his disgusted expression hasn't budged an inch. "You?"
He resists the urge to ask if she got the soul knocked out of her on the way down - but it is a hard urge to resist.
no subject
She glances around. Flexes her hands. A world shaped by willpower and imagination. Could she will the Public Surveillance Unit into being? Track down the children faster? How would she go about doing that? She glances around at their surroundings, takes a breath, and... pulls everything in. The chill, the machinery, even the Statue of Justice. Locked away. No leaks. All that's left is a combination of fear with a slight tinge of hate and resentment that she usually feels directed at herself. She's a Judge. The Boogeyman. When parents tell their children to behave, it's because she'll come to take them away. She's not even aware that her expectation of that is filling the area around her, it's not something she needs to imagine. It's just fact.
She spares a glance at the Bunny. "You should probably do the same for your... Facility." Ugh. "We don't know who's watching or how much we're standing out. If we're going to rescue those children, anything that's out of place won't be an asset." At least until she figured out what the 'usual' for this patchwork world was.
no subject
The small space of shadows around America is closed in by the growing green, the bright sunshine, and where the hate and resentment she keeps around herself touches the edges of his influence, it takes a form he recognizes - glittering, oily black sand, floating and reshaping itself according to the fears America gives it to work with.
Bunny eyes the sand, then America, then the sand again, skepticism and suspicion in his glance. He reaches out with a hind paw to tap it with one claw. At his touch, the sand ripples from black and sticky into glittering gold, shimmering and flowing in graceful and delightful shapes, the stuff of nightmares transformed into the stuff of sweet dreams.
She definitely left her soul behind for this mission, if she hasn't had it carved out of her body already.
As for restraining his influence - it's already spreading far, streaming out from him in widening circle. As America withdraws her influence, the vines and flowers grow that much thicker, tulip-like blossoms opening and depositing eggs onto the ground. Even the dew that drips from the leaves and petals is dye, splashing on the white shells in little bursts of color.
This world is desperate for cultivation, and he is a cultivator. His will, for centuries, has been bent to the cultivation of a world less malleable than this, to making a world for mortals better by existing in it. The matter around him, stripped of its information, soaks up purpose like he is a fountain.
His urge to keep projecting this bounty upon the world, to quickly fill the void with a purpose that is shining and providential, can only be reigned in by America's reminder that they might need the element of surprise. A healthy, beautiful environment might be out of place enough here to tip off their enemies to a nature spirit's presence.
Horrifying as it is not to give this world the influence of being what he wills it - and he'd will it to be something beautiful, all right - the kids are most important. Bunny closes his eyes, and clears his mind with a deep breath. The green ceases to spread, the flowers pausing in their growth, and the dew that drips from the leaves loses its color. Eggs vanish in the undergrowth, the unique little things that mark the signature of Easter vanishing into the green that remains. That, at least, stays where it is. Bunny might be able to will it away, but he isn't doing it - grass and flowers, after all, don't have his signature on them the way Easter eggs and dye rivers do.
"Let's go figure out what's in place, then," he says, loping to the edge of the greenery for a look.
no subject
The trees don't have leaves. Where the crowns of leaves should all be there's just fire. They're all burning, but despite the desert sun, the air is cold.
no subject
She's not petty enough to just annihilate everything here. Crush it with her own iron will. What would be the point? She doesn't deal in idle cruelties. As he moves off, though, she follows, and continues her speech. "Do you even care about what that does to juves who get hooked on that junk? And here you are, using magic to just... grow it out of the ground. You might as well have a factory to create the horrors you spread. What other term is there for a place like that?"
Her spiel is stopped short by the desolate landscape. She grunts. "Looks like the Cursed Earth, all right. That would fit with the nuclear hearts of those Go-Away Bombs we were briefed on." She could practically taste the radiation from home. America glances back at Bunny's faux warren, and bites her tongue. An oasis like that definitely stands out, but if that was an extension of him... Well, leaving it standing couldn't hurt too much.
Just how much control did she have, she wondered? America stretched out her arm, fingers splayed commandingly. "Bike. To me." And, almost like it was being built piece-by-piece, a massively oversized motorcycle built itself in front of her. She opens up the seat compartment and pulls out a pair of ponchos, tossing one towards the Easter Bunny. "Rad cloaks. Not sure I'm going to be able to stop thinking about radiation. We use these back home during Cursed Earth radstorms, and something physical to hold on to might help."
no subject
Of the things Bunny's been accused of, being a drug dealer is not one of them. Defending his practice, especially when it comes to caramel, is nothing new, considering one of his closest friends is the Tooth Fairy. But Toothiana only ever accused him of promoting tooth decay, never recklessly hooking kids on an addictive substance.
This is not an argument he ever expected to have, and the depth of the accusation is bewildering. This is actually what a rational adult thinks a once-a-year gift amounts to - ?
Well, maybe not a rational adult after all.
"No wonder you've got black sand comin' off you. You are the stuff of nightmares." He answers her sneer with a snarl of his own. Insulted fury has him nearly hopping in place, but he still catches the radiation poncho and growls at it, pulling it on before pointing one short, clawed finger at America. "This conversation isn't over, but it's on hold until this mission is done."
His reputation is slandered and that is infuriating but there are children to save, and he can't bicker thoughtlessly and easily with America the way he could with Jack, or Tooth, or North. This is a distraction the children they're seeking can't afford.
The desert itself is much less horrifying than his mission partner at this point, but to be fair, he's as at home in a desert - even a desert that's somehow both cold and on fire during the day - as he is in a forest.
"I'm scouting out the bush," he announces, dropping from two legs to four in his runner's crouch. "Good luck keepin' up on that paddock basher."
He bursts off at the top speed that crossing dimensions has left him with. For once, the slowness compared to his previous speed didn't frustrate him - this was a world of will and imagination, and he didn't need to imagine being fast enough to cover the world in a day. Maybe here he could achieve something more like his normal level of power.
no subject
It's mildly dangerous but as long as they stay away from the trees it won't cause any harm.
But it quickly becomes clear the threat isn't the trees themselves.
They're just the warning system.
Now that they've both been detected dust kicks up in the distance. Something is upheaving the sand and racing towards them, like something is tunneling underground towards them at rapid speed.
no subject
It's difficult to track him, but once she's locked eyes on him and thrown a leg over her Lawmaster, it roars to life and blazes after him, tearing through the desert terrain with ease. She watches the speedometer rise, not even flinching through the storm of exploding trees, and her mind drifts to the more important situation. The children? How would they know if they were headed in the right direction? Maybe if she-
The bike's proximity alarm cuts into her thoughts, and she glances behind her, spotting the problem. It's almost comic, like a rabbit chasing them, but it's coming in far too fast and seems far too huge for her tastes. On this planet, it was probably safe to assume that everything was hostile. America glances forward, wondering if the Easter Bunny had noticed, and then back. Drokk it. If this was a world of imagination, a world of will, then it was hers.
She focuses, slamming down a foot-thick steel wall into the earth in front of the tunneling thing. A split second later, another wall a yard away, and then filling the area between them with a glass case filled with a waxy, white substance. White phosphorus. Once the glass was shattered and it was exposed to oxygen, whatever was chasing them was certain to have a very bad day.
Adding to it, she starts spawning more Lawmasters and Judges, each of them peeling off into another direction to confuse the pursuit, offer as many false positives as possible.
Actually, considering it, why couldn't she just imagine up a map to the children, marking any further traps and opposition she'd come across? Maybe it'd work, or maybe she didn't know enough. Maybe if she just imagined it'd work, but would her own doubts create flaws in the map?
...Then she'd just have to shove aside her own doubts. They had no place in a Judge's mind anyway. That's why she wore tight boots. America glares down at the screen on her Lawmaster, mentally demanding a map, uncomplicated by anyone else's wishes, to appear. Here's hoping it worked.
Come to think of it, why couldn't she just teleport there? Because there might be traps. But if two strong-willed people managed it... She couldn't just let him test it, that would be animal cruelty. She clears her throat, activates her throat mic, and transmits to Bunnymund. "Easter Bunny. We're wasting time playing it their way. We should just focus on the children and create a warp gate right to them. Do it together so we can overwhelm anyone that predicted a tactic and set up countermeasures."
no subject
Unfortunately the image of something tunneling after him fired off too many associations for him not to give the matter of the world something to work with. He'd fought a grootslang only a few years ago, and remembered it like it was yesterday afternoon.
He clamped down on the thought, though not thinking of giant fire-breathing snakes was a challenge when in a desert surrounded by exploding, burning trees, but America had a point. This was a land of imagination and they were playing like they only had imaginations on par with the mortals who'd taken this place.
Well, he'd seen a lot more than a mortal had. That meant he could imagine a lot more terrible things to come after them, unfortunately. He had to beat them to the punch by imagining what could help them instead.
The phosphorous was a nice touch, and he skidded to a stop with his paws on the sand. Holding himself back from letting a trail of flowers grow in his steps, from replicating his warren in a superficial, decorative sense, was smart, but what good actually was holding back from reaching down into the heart of an uncultivated world, and showing it what a spirit of spring had cultivated of his?
He could make springtime on every continent. Maybe here he'd have to make a continent first, but that wasn't so much of a stretch.
"Fine, just pass it through the surface of the planet. I can imagine that better'n a warped . . . whatever you said."
His entire planet had a heartbeat and a life of her own, and she listened to his requests. She permitted him to take care of the mortals who'd appeared on her surface. This world could be as kind. This world could be as stable, as rich and welcoming. He held the image of Grandmother Earth in his mind, sank into the memories of crossing her surface in a day, knowing every cave and mountain and plain and forest that an entire planet could hold.
Listen to me.
He held the image of the children in his mind, the way he'd passed so quickly to so many other scared, stolen children, with the permission of his planet to reach them faster underground than anyone could find them above. The way the tunnels opened where he needed them to go, the way sound passed through earth and stone to reach his ears and lead him to the children who needed saving most -
Lead me to them.
He stamped the ground to open a tunnel, believing with all his might that the right one would open before the groot . . . the whatever it was reached them.
no subject
Not far away, the creature hits the walls America left, then the phosphorus. There are explosions, shrieking, sand being thrown in the air, but it still only slowed it down. They don't have much time.
no subject
It would be so easy to just... let the monster, whatever it was, go through their shared tunnel, and that's what she imagined it as at his instructions, and kill them all. If she were home, dealing with a kidnapping gang that had just sicced it on her, she might even consider it poetic. Hoisting them by their own petard. The Legion wouldn't play things that way, though.
"Lower bike cannons to thirty-five degrees." She reaches down to snag a few grenades, willed onto her belt. It was nice to feel the full complement of equipment around her waist again. "Easter Bunny. Catch." She's not sure if he'll think of a similar option. Trapped eggs don't seem his style. Still, best to lob him a pair while she focused on controlling the Lawmaster. "Stun grenades. Standard issue. Loud bang, loud flash, disorienting sonics."
If she tells him the effects, it will help to make them more real. Layering those imaginations, counting on the fact that they've got to be better than the criminals.
"Just imagine you're immune to them and don't get between the bike and the targets." America snaps orders like she's used to being obeyed. Like she's done this before. Pretty close, but not exactly. "Once we're through, might be best to imagine the warp goes to the center of the planet in case something tries to follow."
It wasn't subtle, but the crooks already knew they were coming. Even if it wasn't the military-grade hardware she was slinging around, the cold fury and disgust that wrapped around her the moment she got her first glimpse of the people responsible for taking the children would've given her away instantly. Might not even need the reactive world for that.
Enough thought. Time for action. She guns her engine again, activating the turbo-boost before flying through the portal, and bellows to be heard over the noise of her engine. "I am the Law! Surrender or be Leporidaed!" The old 'Surrender or Die' schtick probably wouldn't work with someone like Bunnymund around.
She doesn't give them much time to respond, either. Not before opening fire. Non-lethal shots, aimed at the pelvis or the kneecaps. She expects they'll be resistant somehow, what fool wouldn't imagine themselves bulletproof? (Except maybe the kind who expects energy weapons.) But that's why Bunny had the stun grenades.
...Unless he decided to buck her plan for some reason.