THE GONE-AWAY WORLD [modplot]

[letsgolegion]

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.

Comments

[nofortunateson]

Proud as Theta is of getting that right, he is what he is - and the thought of utterly disintegrating some fortifications appeals to the part of him that remembers why he was made in the first place. "Ooh! Can we do that before we leave?"

Despite sharing a few neural walls with Theta, North absolutely does not see that one coming. No sooner is he twisting in his seat to make sure he's seeing what he thinks he's seeing than Wash blips right out of existence, leaving an unmanned control panel and an open door that he rolls the Warthog-ball through before someone can catch on to what's happening and shut them out again. He doesn't floor it immediately - partially because not long after the walls go clear, he bumps them up into and along one, the sphere skittering and scraping along invisible concrete as he rolls them along the length of it with the warthog tipped onto a lazy diagonal. Course correction's a secondary concern and something he trusts Theta to lean into, he's scanning the field as quickly as he can put it together, into and out of thermal range until he spots a pair that's smaller than the others, lit-up in brighter oranges and reds on thermals, and outside of that matching in a way that immediately jumps out in a sea of subtly different silhouettes.

"Two o'clock?" he checks, already heading that direction, because if he's seen it then Cortana's already had time to double-check.

[letsgolegion]

While the Legionnaires are facing off against the wills of every criminal in this place, said criminals have forgotten that their wills aren't the only ones shaping it, and that the wills of the Legionnaires aren't the only ones combating them.

The existence of the Legionnaires in the complex reaches the children. Rooms away, the criminals in the room react to the fuss outside and say just a little too much about who's attacking where the kids can hear, and so they know three groups of Legionnaires are coming from different directions.

Baela and Claeton Trivv grew up on stories of the Legion of Superheroes. They idolized the Winathian Legionnaires Spark and Livewire until they disappeared with the rest of the missing Legionnaires. They have the full collection of Legion action figures at home, every last one, and lovingly add new figures when they're made of new Legionnaires. They still play with the figures of the Legionnaires sent home and hope they'll come back someday. (Claeton still loves his Spider-Woman figure and Baela's favorite is still Great Saiyaman).

And the thing about worlds based on thoughts is that narratives are a natural part of existence. Even though life is random, senseless, and often harsh, the human mind needs to make sense of it.

This has turned into a story of the good guys coming in to save the day, and it's one that the twins believe in much more strongly than the criminals believe in their narrative of actually winning.

The fortress shifts. The way isn't entirely clear - the group of Legionnaires have quite a few mooks to mow down in between them and the kids. But the room the two children are trapped in suddenly morphs and shifts so that there are three entrances to where they're stuck in their cage, with easily breakable doors, perfect for good guys to break through to save the day.

Time shifts too, so that despite however long it took them all to get there, the various teams of Legionnaires are poised to get into the room at the same time. The criminal masterminds behind this plot - unconscious of even doing it - also conveniently spread out so that there's a group of them in front of each entrance.

Three doors. Three teams. Three clusters of villains. It's all neat and tidy. But the Legionnaires still have to imagine up one hell of a party crash to overpower the criminals they're facing.