iamresponding: (bucket - squidded purple)
Nova Prime / Rich Rider ([personal profile] iamresponding) wrote in [community profile] legionmissions2017-11-10 03:13 pm

Full of broken thoughts [Part 3]

Who| Everyone who signed up
What| Part 3 of "Blargh Fhtagn"
Where| The Cancerverse
When| Not long after part 2, before "After These Images" and "Body Snatchers"
Warnings/Notes| Lovecraft, possession, body horror/transformation

They work quickly. While several already-awake members of team had deployed in response to Grif's call for help, several Legion staffers had gotten to work waking up more to potentially be deployed. While wating for them to get briefed and arrive, Brainiac had gotten to work on the stargate that the squids had converted into a portal to the Cancerverse while puppeting Rich.

Brainy doesn't use the stargate itself but the technology grafted onto it by the squids is something he quickly reverse engineers for his purposes and before long a strange-looking array has been built around the forcefield bubble currently containing Rich.

Inside it, Rich hugs himself and rocks in place. Every time tentacles start to sprout from his body, he fights them, drawing them back in. But it's a losing battle. His face is that mottled purple again and he's slowly losing control.

Rich is glad that Robbie and Sam have been sent back to Legion World and don't have to see it. The former because of his injuries, the latter because Rich put his foot down on Sam being remotely close to any of it.

"Brainy, we're running out of time," Rich huffs out, sounding pained.

"It's finished," says Brainiac, and he waves for everyone who's coming on the mission to move closer. "We need to get ready to deploy. Richard, I know you don't want to go back to the Cancerverse, but this --" Brainy holds up a device that looks like a shoulder-mounted laser of some kind "-- phase resonance modulator can destroy the bond between you and the Many-Angled ones. But it'll work if deployed on you when you're within its confines."

Rich closes his eyes tight and his body trembles.

"So I have to go back," he says.

"Unfortunately, yes," says Brainiac. "Equally unfortunate: the dimensional shifter I've reconfigured from the devices created by the Many-Angled Ones will randomize our placement in the Cancerverse. We'll all be placed there, with a functioning portal home, within a ten mile radius, but we'll have to find each other again, and while I believe our omnicoms and will have limited functionality and that the trackers in our flight rings will allow us to reconvene, their flight capabilities aren't configured for the conditions there. The probe I sent through made it clear that Valorium won't have the same effect there."

"So I have to go back, we'll get split apart, and nobody will be able to fly."

"A ten mile radius is manageable," says Kid Q, "especially if your trackers still work. They'll find you, Rich, they'll find each other, and then you'll all find the way out."

It would be "we" but since Kid Q's powers involved altering the universe on a fundamental level - and given it was a world with different physical laws - Brainy had decided it was too risky since there was no telling how her powers might work there.

"Okay," Rich breathes out. "Okay. Just...hurry."

After everyone is ready, Brainy lines them all up in a circle around Rich's containment bubble, turns off the shield, hits a button, and then reality rips with a sickening tearing sound and they find themselves separated - sometimes in pairs and groups of three - in a waking nightmare, a place made of flesh, and cracking stone, and too many eyes. The ground gives when they walk, as if it's made of flesh. The sky is black, filled with hazy red mists, and yet somehow the world is filled with purple-red light, despite there not being a sun. In the sky above there is a moon that looks down on them with unblinking eyes. In the distance there are shrieks and inhuman cacophonous noises.

There are things waiting for them in the dark, waiting to grant them the endless gifts of this realm, unceasing lives that come after endless, repeating deaths.
googledox: (116)

Home Free

[personal profile] googledox 2017-11-26 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
Brainy makes sure he's the last one through, forcefields ready to drop into place to prevent any denizens of the Cancerverse from crawling through the portal. Rich tries to be but Brainy just shoves him through the portal with his forcefields.

He doesn't have to worry about any of the monsters slithering through, though. Some of them try, but the gray rot that's consuming the Cancerverse swallows them up first and turns them into dust.

The creatures here simply should not be and only exist because death was dead. Now, with death returned, the entire dimension is withering and dying as its long unlife comes to an end.

Brainy comes through the portal and doesn't have time to shut it off until Death is already there at their doorstep. Rather than doing something stupid or dramatic, he simply backs away, slowly and respectfully.

"Do we need to shut down the portal or can you - ?"

He has to turn away and avoid looking directly at her. He doesn't seem scared, but he's clearly seeing something different from the rest of them.

To others, she exists in a form that's familiar, like someone of the same species. To him, she has many forms, all existing in the same space. Simultaneously. None of those forms are particularly frightening, but she still is something just a touch...impossible.
Edited 2017-11-26 04:07 (UTC)
icanwait: (012)

[personal profile] icanwait 2017-11-26 04:24 am (UTC)(link)
Death glances over at Brainiac, then snorts in amusement. "Whoops, sorry." If he decides to risk it again, she'll look like an impossibly pale human for him, too. A girl gets a little distracted mopping up an entire universe and might forget something like locking down her physical manifestation for the supergenius in the room.

"I'll break the connection on my way out," she says with a wave of a hand and a quick shake of her head. "No offense, and I really do appreciate the foot in the door, but I don't want you guys touching anything else."

Nothing about her bespeaks anger--the Legionnaires are innocent in this--but they're still messing with things beyond their comprehension, even Brainiac.
googledox: (004)

[personal profile] googledox 2017-11-26 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
Brainy simply nods respectfully, leaving it to her.

Beyond the portal, an entire universe dies, but he has trouble mustering any regret over it.
toldyouso: (pic#4658984)

[personal profile] toldyouso 2017-11-26 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
Pete's been (uncharacteristically) quiet through all this; multiple broken bones and a lot to think about seems to be the combination required to shut him up. Take notes.

"Not to interrupt the metaphysical proceedings I couldn't possibly hope to understand or anything like that," he says, interrupting the metaphysical proceedings he couldn't possibly hope understand, "but when you're done, could you take me--" he holds up a hand to Rich to forestall the protest misinterpreting him would cause "--back to my home universe?"
icanwait: (009)

[personal profile] icanwait 2017-11-26 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
Death squints at him, then shrugs. "Yeah, sure. The Time Trapper's got no claim on you, so I won't have to deal with him throwing his toys out of the pram over it."

A bone-chilling screech comes through the open portal and Death rolls her eyes. "For the love of--look, last call on an entire universe is complicated. I'll be back in a minute." She disappears, but for a moment the room fills with the sound of mighty wings.
toldyouso: (pic#4658941)

[personal profile] toldyouso 2017-11-26 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
"That's the plan," Pete says casually, like he's confirming what time they're going to meet up for drinks. "If anyone's out there ruining my reputation, I want it to be me." He has the original franchise rights on that one, okay.

Rich's hand on his shoulder feels heavier than it has any right to even if Rich is supporting half his weight on Pete--and thanks for that, buddy. It's not like he's got cracked ribs or anything.

"D'ast all, Rich." Pete shakes his head, wondering if he's annoyed with Rich or his own memories of himself on the other side of this conversation. "Remember how I made an honest mistake and let the Phalanx into the Kree defense network, almost resulting in the entire universe getting involuntarily turned into a cyborg hivemind? Remember how you wouldn't let me sit there afterwards and feel bad about it when there was a job to do?

"Well, payback time."
Edited 2017-11-26 06:33 (UTC)
toldyouso: (pic#4658956)

[personal profile] toldyouso 2017-11-26 09:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Wow, you must be annoyed constantly." Because he's always right, get it? Crisis over, Pete smirks and shoves his own problems back under the wiseass persona where he can deal with them later. Or never. Never is good.

He pulls himself up and takes a deep breath, then winces when his rib cage reminds him that's a bad idea. "Yeah, I'll sort it out. There are so many people who want a crack at me I oughta be able to get plenty of help to hunt myself down." Don't even try to tell him Gamora wouldn't enjoy sticking a sword in his doppelganger.

"I'll wrap it up ASAP and see about getting back here. Someone has to be able to open a portal. Maximus. Galactus. The condescending guy with the prisons." It says something that Reed Richards ranks underneath a criminally insane Inhuman prince and a cosmic entity who eats planets on Pete's list of people to ask for help. "In the meantime, this lot and Worldmind can probably keep you alive despite your best efforts."

He looks over the assembled Legionnaires with the non-sarcastic half-smile that means it's a compliment (to Rich's friends, anyway), his eyes catching for a moment on Vance. Does he know--eh, it can wait. Turning back to Rich, Pete lets his voice drop to hide it from the others beneath the hum of machinery. "Let your team help you, Richie."