Upon my liar's chair [BLARGH FHTAGN] [player plot] [part 2 and 3] [closed to signups]

[iamresponding]

Who| Rich Rider and those who signed up for Part 2 and 3
What| Stopping the squids from opening a rift to the Cancerverse and saving Rich
Where| At a derelict stargate station and the Cancerverse
When| An IC Day after "Game of Throne"
Warnings/Notes| Lovecraftian squid-monsters, body horror, attempted suicide by black hole

It's time.

They take over and do whatever they have to do, say whatever they have to say to disentangle Rich from anyone that'd get in his way.

The seed was planted a long time ago and what started as a little sprout of life within him grows and blooms within him now, rolling under his flesh, taking over his eyes so that he sees the things that should not be seen. Reality's edges roll away and reveal everything to him, the sickness that is Chronoblivion clinging to the edge of the world and the half-finished worlds and realms beyond.

He can see the Cancerverse and the beings within, staring at him whole universes away. Deep inside himself, his soul thrashes and spasms, and he's lost in a cage of endless rotating fractal visions of the many possible nightmares to come.

And then They push up his sleeves, move his limbs, and and get to work.

Their mission is holy. They will fulfill the Legion's mission and save existence. Chronoblivion's own bloated form will become their new Galactus Engine, they will touch every universe with their gift and life will reign eternal.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.

Comments

[iamresponding]

Proximity sensors start blaring but Rich finally stops the cruiser and sits there, staring ahead at the great disc of inky black. He's just shy of the event horizon, where gravity will be too strong for the ship's thrusters to counter; they're working at close to full strength right now, just keeping the ship stationary.

It's the closest someone can get to the purest oblivion possible, and a part of him wants that oblivion so badly. A part of him needs it, like he's some kind of addict that will only be happy if he gets one last hit of the intoxicating darkness he'd found after each death.

After a moment of staring, he has something close to a child-like tantrum, pounding his fist against the control panel of the cruiser, thrashing his limbs, needing to hit something, anything, as if that will somehow exorcise the monsters and the conflict inside him. The thrashing accidentally turns the main lights off and the emergency lights turn on, leaving him bathed in a red glow. Then he slams his head against the wheel, wrapping his arm and tentacle around it, as he tries to make a choice.

Grif is one person too many, with too much hurt in his voice. He has two friends -- no, brothers, just like Bobby -- that will have to watch yet another member of their family die, two friends that'd lay down in traffic for him, that have bled for him in the past. Wash and Grif are yelling despite only having known him for about a year. And Sam...Sam is begging. Rich thinks back to the fight against the Lanterns, when he'd held Sam in his arms, waiting for the color to come back to his face after the blue light chased away the red and had replaced his heart. He'd been so afraid that it wouldn't be enough.

He'd begged then, the silent, pleading, internal litany of a parent or a brother holding a fragile, small body in their arms.

Please God, don't take him, let him be okay, please, if you have to take someone, take me, please take me.

He made Sam beg now, too, and he hates himself for it.

It all finally gets through to him. The love and fear and protective anger.

And the faith.

"We deserve better than this, because you are better than this."

They have faith in him. And the thing is, even if he can't always believe in himself, can't see his own worth, he has faith in them, too. He does have fuckup insurance. He has the kind of fuckup insurance that'd rather die than disappoint him.

"Sorry. But I can't let you down."

He's been used to zipping from one problem to the next for years that have felt even longer than they were, years that have made him feel decades older than he is. In the Cancerverse, that constant state of movement had been eternal as he'd fled from one threat to another, trying to find safety in a world where there was none.

But even before that, he'd been a human rocket, never stopping, carrying the weight of the universe on his own, hoping his forward momentum was strong enough to drag it along with him before it weighed him down so much that he stopped for good. He hadn't been allowed to be anything else. The universe needed him to be that way, because even with friends like Drax and Gamora and Starlord, at the end of the day, it was always him facing the worst of it alone, with everyone else helpless on the sidelines.

It was his job. It was his job to fight and bleed and cry and suffer because sometimes no one else could do that job, not the way it needed to be done.

It finally sinks in that it doesn't have to be that way here. He's the one forcing them on the sidelines this time, instead of supervillains, fate, or circumstance. He gets to have a choice now whether he suffers alone under the weight of galaxies, under the weight of spiraling arms shimmering with life, or whether he lets someone else help shoulder that burden.

He doesn't have to keep everyone else safe. Someone else can keep him safe in a way no one has since the war. For once.

Finally.

He doesn't look up. The words are muffled.

"Are you sure there's something you can actually do? Brainiac, tell me you're sure."

[googledox]

Brainy doesn't look up from working on the door, but only because he isn't sure Rich will turn around and if he doesn't, they'll need it open to have a chance to get to them in time.

"Rider, you're hardly the first Legionnaire who's tried to solve a problem by hurling yourself at a rip in spacetime. I've done it before myself. Twice. As a rule, we try to make it a last resort, and every other time it's happened, I found a way to make things right."

He'd figured out how to shut down the Anomaly, even if he hadn't been the one that took the ship he'd made into it.

He'd figured out how to close the rift near Earth after the Blight, too, even if some of the Legion had been flung into the Second Galaxy in the process.

"We always a find a way, and I always find the solution we need to do it. We have quite the track record."

[relativityspeaking]

"I promise that if it looks like we're running out of time and options, we'll let you do what you need to do. But if there's any chance at all we can fix this, you need to let us try."

A pause.

"You said you wanted to come home. Let us bring you home, Rich. You can finally rest after. When you're safe."

[iamresponding]

There's a long silence.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was just supposed to be a goodbye, one that made it so they hurt less.

But it's enough. It's finally enough.

The human rocket finally...stops.

"Okay," he whispers. "Okay."

He leaves the comm on just long enough for him to see him turn the cruiser around and then flicks it off. Before long - right as Brainy fixes the couplers - he walks in through the airlock door. In the fight earlier, his helmet had gotten knocked by a tentacle towards the hangar door. He picks it up off the floor and puts it on.

Man's gotta have his bucket.

The moment it's on...the tentacles retract and the tentacle arm turns back into a hand.

"My friend Starlord once told me 'if death ever comes your way and won't let you pass, make sure you scream right back in his face,'" Rich says, sounding utterly exhausted but more determined than before.

"Let's scream in their faces."