Nova Prime / Rich Rider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iamresponding) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
legionmissions2017-10-22 08:09 pm
iamresponding) wrote in legionmissions2017-10-22 08:09 pm
Upon my liar's chair [BLARGH FHTAGN] [player plot] [part 2 and 3] [closed to signups]
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.
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.
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"Copy!"
He's moving as quickly as he can, moving closer to Rich and putting distance between himself and his teammates. He doesn't know if he'll need his power nuke, but the last thing he wants is for anyone but Rich to be caught in it.
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Grif hates it.
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Then something else starts to push its way in, mouths gaping, tentacles grasping.
Primal fear floods the room, radiating out of the portal like heat. This...thing isn't meant to exist in the material universe. One of its tentacles reaches out and grabs Brainy, waving him in the air. When he forms a sphere of shields around himself, more tentacles wrap around the field and squeeze, trying to break them.
Rich himself is clearly still struggling for control. The purple keeps washing over his skin, making it pale and wrinkled and dead, and then it keeps turning back. His eyes flicker back and forth like a broken street lamp from the usual blue they glow when he's using his powers to a sinister purple-red light. As fast as he rips tentacles out of himself, causing them to wither and die on the floor, new ones form and start waving dangerously, trying to grab at them all.
Rich screams again and cringes, tears squeezing out through his eyelids as the squids dump years of suffering back into his brain. Still, even as they lay him bare, they make themselves vulnerable. The more they open him up to them the more they leave themselves open for him to see.
"Brainy, they don't want you to touch something called a 'entropic regulator.' I think if you mess with it, it'll let you shut down it down fast enough -- !"
The squids cut him off by using the tentacles sprouting out of his body against him. One of them wraps around his face like a gag, and another warps around Rich's neck, squeezing. Just because he's their host doesn't mean they'll need him as one for long. He's just a tool for them and one they won't need anymore if the portal is able to do its job in time.
As he struggles with being strangled, he starts to lose control, and since his mind has been laid bare to them - they know any weaknesses about the others that Rich knows. So tentacles whip out, wrap around Speedball's torso, and squeeze, until something cracks. Then fast enough to be difficult to stop but slow enough that the damage can't be considered concussive, they press him back into a pile of broken equipment filled with sharp fragged metal.
Rich lets out an "MMPH!" a hand extended towards Robbie.
Then they hijack Rich's powers, too. His arms start flailing wildly of their own accord and Nova Force energy fires out of his hands wildly.
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"Freelancer, take out his powers!" Even if that doesn't hurt the squids, it'll keep them from using his powers against them. "Nova, help me lay down cover fire to free Brainy. Justice, take care of Speedball."
Doubletime, I'm giving you your orders over the earplugs so they don't see you coming. After Wash downs his powers, I need you get in there and destroy the tentacles that are strangling Rich. she says over their connection via the telepathic earplugs.
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Another eye on the it reaching through the portal, all eyes and too many teeth for something that isn't on XBox.
He can hear Grif and Sam somewhere nearby - Robbie thinks he should spare an eye for them as well, try to clear a path, but then Brainy's under attack in the edge of his field of vision.
There's too much to keep track of, and Robbie prioritizes distracting the squid in the portal from Brainy, if he can, and hopefully keep it from noticing the other new arrivals. Energy bubbles are very good at annoying hell spawn.
... but there really was too much going on. When Robbie moves to launch himself at a spot near the portal, planning on an explosion of bright bubbles on impact, he takes that eye off Rich.
Stupid. He thought Rich was fighting it well enough, and that Vance is a better anti-tentacle wrap helper. Now, he's worse off than Brainy, because the tentacle's squeezing hard, and Robbie isn't even remotely succeeding in pulling the appendage off of him. "Rich, buddy, you need to ease up on the hu-"
Crack. It's a double crack, actually, matched with a sharp pain. The pressure feels worse, or maybe the pain feels worse against the pressure. Robbie really can't tell, because his head feels fogged with the sensation.
It's funny, in a sick way, that he realizes that being in pain hasn't made him short of breath in years, no matter how badly he was cut, just as the jagged, twisted edges of metal pierce his back. It shouldn't hurt this bad, if he could just relax and breathe through it; he should be used to this. But he can barely breathe shallowly, and he's never been skewered before.
Then, the tentacle pushing him into the debris rots to death around him, and he's falling and landing on a bubble that's not his - it almost sends him bouncing, but he manages to get a hold of himself, figuratively, and slid to the floor. Literally, too, as his hand pushes against the one exit wound on his stomach to slow the bloodflow. He can feel more running down his back. Damn Time Trapper stealing powers - pain used to be worth it.
"I hate... portals." He weakly bats a stray energy bubble at Rich. It's the principle of it.
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In his nightmares, though, it's all in slow motion. Things that Vance should be able to deal with and can't because he's frozen in place. Here, though, there's no chance to react because it's all just going down too quickly. There's hardly a moment for him to even start getting his brain in gear before Robbie's bleeding on the floor.
He knows that, tactically, giving up the high ground is a bad idea. Up here, he can see everything and may have a better chance of reacting next time. (Because he'd done so well so far.) But it's clear that Robbie's wounds need to be attended to before he can be moved.
Which is why Vance drops down beside Robbie, reinforcing the TK shield around them, extending it even into the floor as protection against the tentacles. He winces as one slams down over his head as hard as it can, but turns his attention back to Robbie, doing a quick scan to see how bad the injuries are.
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Still, maybe it's a good thing Grif is half slung over him, because that's enough of a reminder to Sam that he can't just jump straight into the middle of things without thinking (the way he'd almost certainly be doing otherwise). He needs to move in the other direction.
"Hang on, dude."
Why limp across this mess when he can just blast them in the other direction, right?
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While motherfucking Cthulu somehow isn't at the very top of that list, he's still going to have nightmares about this for a good long while.
But right now, in this moment, none of that is important.
He snaps his attention back to Rich in time to just barely dodge a blast of Nova Force and sets off his power nuke. "Done!" It'll take care of the Nova Force for the next two minutes; if he's lucky, it'll affect the tentacles as well.
(He's long since stopped putting stock in being lucky. That's York's job.)
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And Kid Q's in his ear, because of course.
Got it, he sends back. Can he do this? He can do this, because he has to do this. The seconds he spends getting boosted away by Sam are all the time he has to psych himself up for it, he hopes it's enough.
Then Wash kills Rich's powers.
"Be right back," Grif tells Sam, and he's off.
Grif isn't as fast as he wants to be. He's been running a lot, he's never been good for stamina, and there's a nasty stitch working its way through his right side. Luckily, though, not as fast as he wants to be is still really damn fast. He slides in around the alien tentacles and starts tearing the smaller ones away from Rich's airway, digging in his nails for extra grip. He makes up for lack of bodily strength with raw pissedness.
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The horrible monster pushing its way in screeches in agony as the portal shuts off, slicing through its body. The section of it that was poking through into the universe is severed with a sickening gush of slime that splatters all over Brainy and Sam, and it slides down to the floor like a grisly carpet, twitching and quivering until it finally goes still. It starts to rot immediately, shriveling and withering away now that it's in a universe where death still lives.
Grif also manages to destroy the tentacles around Rich's neck, letting him breathe again. Since the portal is defunct, he's more valuable anyway, so the squids stop trying to throttle him, but their efforts to take control of his body again are in vain. Now that he's been given a chance to catch his breath - literally - he's managing to re-assert control. Especially with the portal breaking the connection to the Cancerverse.
The purple fades from his face, and the tentacles sprouting from his body whip out in all directions, knocking the Legionnaires aside. Only the injured Robbie is spared the onslaught.
...Because Rich is the one doing it, not the squids.
While they're recovering, he flies towards the hangar door, flight ring maxing out on speed. The second it closes behind him he breaks one of the automatic couplers. Brainy will be able to fix it in time, but for now, it'll give him the head start that he needs.
The second he's on the Legion cruiser he came in, he jumps into the seat and undocks the ship, flying out of the hangar on manual.
It's time to end this. Before anyone else besides Robbie gets hurt.
"You should've known better," he says to the monsters inside him. "You killed me a thousand times over and I never stopped fighting you. What the hell made you think I'd stop fighting you now?"
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"Brainy, can we just break down the door and use our transuits to get to the cruiser?"
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Brainy gets to work, dismantling the casing next to the hangar doors.
"It's going to take at least a few minutes."
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"Rich, I know you can beat this. We need you to fight them. Even if you can't take enough control to fly yourself back here, if you can at least stop the ship, we'll have time to come to you."
To her surprise, he actually answers, so she pulls up a larger holodisplay so they can all talk to him at once.
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His face is still his own, the purple banished from it, but there are still tentacles sprouting from his back and one of his hands has been replaced by one. It grips the steering wheel tighter.
"I remember it all now. I didn't die in the Cancerverse. No one can. You just come back every time, and that's what I did. I died and came back. Over and over and over. And they...they put something inside me. When The Time Trapper grabbed me he just locked it all away, until that fight with Evil Superman damaged the seal."
He closes his eyes tight.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Something felt off. I started to feel like I wasn't myself -- and I started having these nightmares... and I know I should've looked into it more, but I just didn't want it to mean anything."
His voice cracks.
"I just wanted to come home. I wanted to come home so bad. I thought...maybe I earned it, maybe I deserved the Time Trapper giving me a second chance. But that's not how it works. I didn't earn anything. I cheated. I thought I could escape the Cancerverse but...it followed me back."
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cw: suicide
He punches in some coordinates.
"As long as I'm here, they'll just keep coming. I'm the door..." His expression hardens with resolve. "And I'm gonna slam it shut. I know just the way to do it, too. I don't know if just dying is enough but I figured out something better, just in case."
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"2G10-M8K," he says in a hushed breath. "The reason this system is filled with so much mine-able debris is because of a collision between two planetary systems caused by 2G10-M8K. Richard, you're planning on flying into 2G10-M8K, aren't you."
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And so is he.
But that doesn't matter.
"I know it's the 'nuke it all' option, but that's because it really is the only way to be sure."
They have too much to worry about so he's taking the time bomb inside of him out of the picture.
"I'm not letting the squids use me to hurt anymore people I care about, and I'm not giving them another chance to take over the multiverse. Team's got enough on its plate on that front thanks to Chronoblivion."
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The chaos continues outside the teke bubble, but Robbie’s too unfocused to follow all of the shouting. Rich, or whoever is puppeting him like Invisible Kid, attacks everyone but him and escapes, and that’s weird enough that Robbie loses the ensuing conversation around thalarite trying to figure out what the game is. He’s not dead, and you’d think getting everyone dead would be the plan.
Although that level of force had worked. Robbie certainly hadn’t been together enough to go after him, and now it’s too late. Rich is up on the monitor talking about event horizons. “… you hurt us, so you’re going to throw yourself into a black hole to not hurt us anymore?”
He straightens as much as he can in hopes the monitor will catch his eye roll. “Should I throw myself in next? I’ve attacked more heroes than you, Squich... don’t do this to me."
He can't do more dead friends. "Just sit tight and we can handle it.”
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"That was never your fault. You were hurting and mixed up and people took advantage of that instead of getting you help. What happened at Stamford was never your fault, either. It was always Nitro." It was Nitro who had made the choice to hurt innocent people, just like Rich has a choice to let harm happen now. "But this one's on me. I get to choose whether I let them use me to hurt people. I've seen the world they want to make."
His voice starts quavering and he looks ahead. For a moment, he sees something else besides the stars and the stellar gasses swirling in the system around the black hole. There's a tension to his jaw that suggests he's barely able to keep himself from screaming.
"I'm not putting anyone else through that. I can't do it. And the only other way to prevent it is if I go back to the Cancerverse." His voice suddenly goes high and brittle. "I'm not going back. I'd rather be dead. That's all I wanted when I was there, I wanted to be dead. For good. I wanted to finally rest."
He blinks and manages to find his way back to the present again, away from the purple and crimson skies and biting ground, away from the times his body had been broken over and over.
"It's not about what I deserve. It's about risk. My life isn't worth the risk."
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Of course, that left him with some bells ringing in his head, which is why he didn't get to do anything to try to stop Rich. No actual injuries, thankfully, but he still couldn't react to what was going on.
He stands, letting the teke bubble go as he listens, fighting with his own fears as he listens to Rich.
"You're still an idiot, Rider."
There's exasperation in his voice, but there's fear as well. Like Robbie, he can't do more dead friends. But, more than that, it's a call back to the med bay room when Rich woke up after nearly being killed by the Silver Surfer. "You aren't alone any more, Rich. Not here. And it's not just me and Robbie and Sam. It's everybody in the Legion. It's some of the greatest minds in the multiverse. If anybody can get you out of this, Rich, it's the people here and now.
"Damn it, Rich. You're worth that risk. You've ALWAYS been worth that risk."
He pauses a moment, glancing to Robbie and Sam before looking back. "Don't make me watch this a third time, Rich." Don't make him stand by and watch a friend go into a situation he can't help with. One that might end in their death. "I don't think I have it in me to deal with that again."
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So maybe they can have more closure than if he ran off and just did it without a word.
"I have a box of letters for a lot of people under my bed, for my family, and for both teams." The New Warriors and the Legionnaires. "And for Nita. There's few for some folks up in space back home if you ever cross paths, too. Like Gamora and Starlord."
You never knew. It's a big universe, sure, but sometimes it feels like a small one.
"'Just in case' stuff. I figured in our line of work, it was a good idea to have some goodbyes ready -- especially since I thought I'd died the first time."
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He's got a mentor to yell at.
"We're in here with a guy who has a brain the size of a galaxy -" A vague wave in Brainy's direction. "- and you're just gonna throw your hands in the air and say, that's it, this is the only way to do this?"
His voice is getting louder as he continues. "We don't get to quit. You're the one who told me that. Do you think we don't -" (And then his voice cracks, but for once he's too preoccupied to even feel embarrassed about it.) "Do you think we don't need you to help us finish this?"
The next part, though, is quiet. "Come on, Dick." And still quieter. "Please."
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"There's not enough time. I can feel them pushing, tearing..." He breaks off into a wince and then opens his eyes again. "A few years ago, I had a tough call to make, so I asked myself: do I put myself first? Maybe live a few more days that don't matter, and let the universe down? Or do I step up?"
He breathes in a shaky breath.
"Novas always gotta step up, Sam."
His eyes are glassy now.
"Novas don't get to quit, but we're also a Corps for a reason. Our universe - and the Legion - needs Nova...and they'll still have one. You're just a munchkin so you have some room to grow, sure, but you're already ten times the hero I was around your age, and I'm so proud of you for it. When you find him again, your dad's gonna be real proud of you, too. You earned that bucket -- long before you met me."
He gives him a sad smile.
"You're gonna shake the stars, Sam. Even though it hurts knowing I won't get to see it, I'm still glad I got this extra time, since it meant I got to meet you."
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It's low, nearly a snarl. Wash has recovered from getting thrown around by tentacles and made his way towards the holodisplay while everyone has said their piece, and it's given him just about enough time to get good and angry. Pain, he understands. Exhaustion, he understands. Guilt over hurting people, he - regrettably - understands. Giving up?
Fuck that.
Sam might be done yelling at Rich, but Wash is just getting started, and if there's one thing he's gotten good at during his years with the Reds and Blues, it's yelling at idiots.
"You realize this doesn't fix anything, right? You die, you put the squids in a shitty situation and hope that they don't find a way out or get released by the local idiots, and you leave us to fight Chronoblivion without you. You don't have to deal with the problem anymore, but we sure as hell do!
"And you're giving up because what, you're tired? Look, I get being exhausted. I get walking through a hell that nobody else will ever understand. I get wanting to leave that behind. But when I did that, I had no one. You have friends who are willing to work their asses off and put their lives on the line to help you, but instead of waiting ten minutes so we can fix this shit, you run off because you're fucking tired? You're done? That's it?
"That box of letters under your bed isn't going to lead a team or fight Chronoblivion or help your friends. We deserve better than this, because you are better than this, so start fucking acting like it!"
He's said too much - torn open wounds he'd rather keep hidden - because this is it. If they can't convince Rich to turn around, they lose him for good, and Wash's desire for secrecy isn't worth that. They'll be shitty last words if they fail, but he's done all he can.
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