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legionmissions2018-01-18 09:48 pm
letsgolegion) wrote in legionmissions2018-01-18 09:48 pm
ENDGAME PART 3
They all manage to break through somehow, all their alternate selves recombining again so that they remember every iteration of the scenarios they went through. Their passage through Chronoblivion's outer shell leaves them falling through portals into...
A desert. In the middle of nowhere. It's a wasteland filled with the detritus of dead worlds.
"Green Legion, Quantum Legion!" cries out Shikari, pointing in one direction of the wasteland that looks pretty much like all the others...unless you squint. And see that there's some massive structure in the distance. "That way!"
Kid Quantum moves to fly but can't get off the ground. Brainy tries too.
"Brainy!" Kid Q calls out. "Why can't we fly?"
"This pocket dimension potentially has different physics altogether," Brainy says, scanning his flight ring with his omnicom. "The Valorium in our flight rings isn't interacting with gravity the way it does in our own universe. They're effectively inert."
"We still need to get the device closer to Chronblivion, right?"
"Yes. Due the nature of dimensional space within these pocket dimensions, we're going to have to get it much closer - I estimate it'll need to be within approximately fifty feet of Chronoblivion's core self."
"Then we're going to have to have any natural fliers like Shikari try to carry the device and as many Legionnaires as they --" Kid Q stops talking as she hears a rumbling in the distance, coming from the opposite direction from the one they have to travel in. Something is kicking up dust in the desert, something big and loud. The ground is vibrating under their feet.
"Everyone, get ready, we may have another fight on our hands!" says Kid Q.
It's a caravan of tricked out vehicles. Cars, trucks, motorcycles -- if it guzzles gas, it's in the caravan. They're all covered in an odd mix of dust and rust and gleaming chrome. Those that fought in Murderworld might recognize the vehicles as being from the arena, somehow here, despite long since having been confiscated by the Science Police.
For a moment, it seems as if people are coming to hunt them down, that the past is coming back to haunt them, except as the caravan of outlandish vehicles gets closer, they can see things on it that make it clear they're not facing enemies. Legion symbols have been affixed to the grills of trucks, have been spraypainted wherever there's room.
"What the sprock...?" says Kid Q.
As the cars and trucks get closer, they can see two little mechframes clinging to the tops of two of the trucks. In the cockpits of those mechs are two very, very tiny figures, one a blonde little girl, the other an unmistakable shade of green. The caravan stops before it reaches the Legionnaires, with the two mech-bearing trucks rolling forward slowly ahead of the others before stopping, too.
A familiar Legion staffer from the Outpost, one of the cruiser pilots, leans out the driver's window of one of the trucks.
"Looks like you all could use a ride!"
Brainy's eyes pop open wide at the sight of the green figure in the mech.
"What are you doing here?!" Brainy cries out shrilly, waving his hands wildly. "I told you that under no uncertain circumstances were you to leave the Outpost--"
"Father, you could't possibly expect me to --" starts Merl, rolling his eyes, as he makes his mech hop off the top of the truck.
Valeria cuts them off as she makes her mech hop down from its truck as well.
"I told you, Merl." Val's eyeroll is just shy of audible. She knows how grownups get.
She turns to look at Brainy instead of her partner in crime, smiling with the sweet innocence of a Machiavellian little monster who knows she's holding all the cards. "We can go back if it's that important to you."
"The universe outside is decohering," says Merl, with a smug look identical to Valeria's. Neener neener, they can't send them back. "The Legionnaires that were outside are still alive - their fight with with the Catastrophists has moved inside the outermost layer of Chronoblivion's shell, but our universe is starting to come apart at the seams. Valeria and I have run the calculations, and at its current phase, defeating Chronoblivion before It has entirely consumed our universe may allow it to recohere again. But it was becoming...inhospitable. So we engineered a way to allow the Outpost to crash through to this layer. We were fortunate that the universe falling apart afforded us a chance -- the physical laws are mere suggestions now -- and also that the team's transport through helped break down the walls and provide us easier ingress."
Merl shakes his tiny head.
"There's nothing out there, father. There's nowhere for everyone on the Outpost to go back to. And we're not sitting back when we can help," he says, jutting out his tiny chin. "The staffers and Valeria and I are are as fond of material existence as all of you."
"Why is something from Murderworld here?" asks Kid Q, looking at the caravan. She recognizes it from the footage. "These vehicles..."
"The universe is decohering and being drawn into Chronoblivion's body for consumption. That means alongside the wreckage left from other universes, anything from any point in time can be drawn here randomly from our universe," Brainy theorizes. "our presence alone may possibly warp reality to draw in random objects and entities from our recent histories."
"Well then..." Kid Quantum jumps onto the ladder and climbs to the top of one of the semis, and is joined there by Valeria, who climbs back up in her mech. "Legionnaires, looks like we've found our ride!"
Merl climbs back up on the other truck in his mech, triumphantly joining Brainiac 5 there.
"Kid, we've got company!" Timber Wolf calls, staring into the distance behind the caravan.
There's more dust on the road: another caravan, making the grounds shake this one outfitted with skulls, driven by people that are definitely not allies.
It's the mercenary Warboys from Murderworld, ripped out of the past. They're joined by clouds of Catastrophists with jetpacks, swarming around their caravan. Only a fraction of the outside forces have broken through but combined with the enemies this dimension is spontaneously manifesting, their forces are formidable.
As the Legion caravan starts moving again towards their end goal, and the team prepares to face the other caravan of enemies rapidly catching up, a way-too-enthusiastic staffer, eager to face some real action, leans his head out of a window and screams:
The Miracle Machine has to get all the way to the end of the road to work. If it's activated with the wrong wish, or too far from Chronoblivion's core self at the center of all his shells, they lose.
If the void of nothingness that's following along after the caravans, consuming the landscape left behind, catches up to them before they reach the end of the road, they lose.
If the Catastrophists and Warboys manage to steal it and toss it away in the void threatening to consume all of existence, they lose.
No pressure.
KEEP AWAY
Brainy is the one that's been guarding the Miracle Machine, since his shield power will make it difficult for anyone to get it out of his hands. But the Catastrophists are well-equipped and in a twisting set of dimensions influenced by thoughts and desires, getting their hands on some heavy duty handheld weapons wasn't difficult.
A blast from one of the weapons slams him against a ladder on top of one of the monstrous vehicles that leads to a bit of scaffolding. Another blast collapses the scaffolding on him. There's a chance he can work his way out but with Catastrophists approaching on top of the truck, he's not taking any chances.
"CATCH!" Brainy cries, taking the device out of a pouch in his belt and tossing it at another Legionnaire, starting a game of keep-away that might save existence.
[ooc: Please see the instructions for this thread in the ooc post.]
Re: KEEP AWAY
no subject
But it didn't mean he couldn't turn invisible, and make himself harder to find.
And so started the most dangerous game, of an invisible fifteen year old climbing all over the trucks, and jumping between them. Taunting the parademons with a disembodied voice, and just overall being the most obnoxious nuisance. It was working pretty well for a bit, since no one could really tell where he was. At least, until someone got lucky, and nicked his shoulder.
"--GAH!"
He fell on his side, on the back of one of the trucks. Invisibility dropping, as he very quickly tossed the machine over to the closest legionnaire he could see. "HOT POTATO!"
no subject
With the device curled safely inside his being, he shapeshifts into the form of a giant ball covered in sharp spikes. A storm of sand billows up as he begins to roll, keeping pace with the caravan. Enemy vehicles that dare cross his path are bumped aside or steamrolled without remorse. But as effective as he is at destroying enemy vehicles flanking the Legion's caravan, he can't keep it up for long.
Finally, he morphs back to his default form and leaps onto the back of a truck where he tosses the Machine to the next Legionnaire.
no subject
A number of mercenary warboys spot him holding the Machine, and engines rev up to catch up with their targeted payload. Besides the driver, who is busy, Zenyatta's the only one on this vehicle who can now ferry their objective to another location.
He needs to be fast.
Zenyatta takes a deep breath before his entire being bursts with golden light. Six golden arms sprout from his back, and he lights up the nearby area. He's Transcends and channels all his omnic energy to move. He swears he hears familiar voices telling him that he has their strength; were they from the Iris or his fellow Legionnaires?
Warboys and Catastrophists start firing on him as he dashed from vehicle to vehicle. People he passes by may find their health renewed, but Zenyatta only feels the strain of channeling the Iris and the bullets hitting him. It gets to be too much for his body to handle.
Just before his connection with the Iris breaks, Zenyatta shoots his orbs towards the next Legionnaire and drops the Machine into their hands before recalling his orbs once more. Zenyatta collapses into the bed of the truck, most of his energy spent and numerous errors flashing in his vision.
WITNESS ME
...Mostly because the road itself is running out. Anyone that falls off the caravan and any cars or trucks that go down will be quickly swallowed by the void following behind them all. The team has to keep itself rolling long enough to reach the end of the line.
[ooc: This part has no special instructions. Team up and have fun!]
THE END OF THE LINE
And so the space here looks like the emptiness between comic panels, and all of them have taken on a strange appearance, almost but not quite two-dimensional, their colors bright and popping between dark outlines. All of them look like this because even the displacees were made to fit into the Legion's dimension, made a part of it, given powers to make them fit the narrative.
The native Legionnaires look slightly more comic-ey than the rest of them. The displacees were made to fit, but they were etched into existence here, stroke by stroke.
While consuming this universe, Chronoblivion has reshaped itself to fit, too. But where the Legionnaires are all orderly lines and inked colors, It's something else. It looks like a face, floating there in that whitespace, made of inkblots. Fresh ink drips from the face's lips like blood, splattering as It talks.
It breathes the word and it creates a foul wind that rushes over them.
Always outside. Hate the inside-things. Little lights. Blink blink. Snuff you out.
There is a cloud of jealousy in the air, almost tangible. It hates them because they get to live inside existence, where it can never go, and so it consumes existence, and kills all the little living things It's so jealous of.
Like a child who wants a toy that doesn't belong to them breaking it so no one can have it at all.
Hate.
There is no reasoning with this creature. It's not as if It doesn't have the capacity for mercy or empathy, It just ignores it. It chooses hate, and so hate is etched into every inch of Its massive being, written into the folds of every pocket dimension, spelled out in the little lights of every atom with its subatomic particles.
no subject
The device had started the fight in his hands and now at the end of the road it's wound up back in his hands again.
The device starts to power up, transforming from the Legion insignia to something different.
"Because you've forgotten something important..."
The Miracle Machine unfurls into a delicate shape that looks like it was made from blown glass. While it looks too delicate to be a threat, the way that it pulses with barely contained power
"You're not the only one with worlds inside you."
They are not just small lifeless things to be consumed or discarded. They have their own will. They are each their own entity, separate and important, and they defend other entities that are the same.
It had forgotten that. It had forgotten that the universe wasn't just filled with things to be consumed or discarded.
The device powers up and then...
There is a pulsating blast from Chronoblivion that nearly knocks them all end over end. Their ink outlines all go fuzzy but Brainy's go the fuzziest. Instead of bleeding from injury like a normal organic being, the color starts bleeding out over the smudged edges, green and black and purple dripping onto the ground.
"The device is powered by will. He's trying to take control. Too much! I can't - even with all my tracks of consciousness, I can't -"
Final Fight
Kid Quantum crouches beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder and then reels back from the shock.
"We can disperse it!" she calls out to the Legionnaires, feeling Chronoblivion's unbearable will bearing down on her now, too. "We can spread out the load with contact. A few of us need to grab onto Brainy and then form a human chain and grab onto each other!"
Brainiac 6 climbs out of his robot and joins his father's side, clinging to his upper arm, and Kid Quantum reaches up a hand to grab onto Timber Wolf's, who reaches out a hand for one of Gate's pincers who reaches for Dreamer... and so on, and so forth.
"We may have different reasons we fought our way here, but what we all have in common is we all have something worth saving. Focus on that now!"
[ooc: Comment under this thread with your character's last battle of wills with Chronoblivion, and them focusing on what they're trying to save.]
no subject
Or maybe it does matter. Maybe dealing with all that hurt just prepared him even better to deal with this one, with the unbearable pain of Chronoblivion's will bearing down on them, nearly tearing them all apart at their inky seams.
(What's with the whole comic book motif, anyway?)
In any case, Dipper's ready for this. Ready to endure hurt one last time to take this terrible source of pain out of the universe. And there's so much he wants to save. His fellow Legionnaires, obviously. Like Pidge and Wash and all his other friends.
And Mabel. Mabel has to keep existing and has to have an existence to keep glittering up with her mere presence.
And he has to save home. His parents, who, in his mind, are eternally waiting at that bus stop in Piedmont
And then there's his Grunkles and their boat - and the journey they're supposed to have together, the one they've waited too many decades to have a chance to go on. And Wendy and Soos and Candy and Grenda, and even Pacifica and all the weird people in Gravity Falls.
And beyond the people, there's just existence: weird, wild worlds that should be allowed to keep being strange. Existence has to keep existing because of the beautiful things that exist in it, like pine breezes and sunny summers and mysteries...
If he doesn't live to ever enjoy those things again, Oregon forests, and sunshine, and weirdness, it doesn't matter because if they pull this off at least someone else can. They'll still be there to be enjoyed. By someone.
And so his resolve is as firm as ever and he breathes out his fear and it may just be one voice added to the mix, screaming "No," but it's at least a firm voice, and that might just be enough.
Re: Final Fight
And while his world is a little broken and beaten up and not its brightest he knows what it once was, and could be, and that shining bit of potential is what makes it worthwhile. They were heroes once upon a time, building a better world, before they got caught up in their own drama, and they can be heroes again. Real heroes.
Especially since Rich and his friends can go back to their world with a vision of this place and all the heroes they fought side by side with in it. This isn't a perfect world but it's a good one, and it's one a bunch of strangers made even better.
And so his Earth is there in his mind, and he loves it even though sometimes it hurts to love it that much, and now other Earths are tucked away with it, the homes of people he's come to care about, and then there are the people in those Earths that deserve to be protected, too, and so on and so on...
And the people at his side, old friends and new - and even near-strangers that are at least admirable in some ways.
He wants more. More time to be with them, and he doesn't know if the Time Trapper will grant that, but they have to be alive for there to be any chance. He wants more time with the friends he left behind on Earth, more time to see Vance be less serious and time to see Robbie actually happy at least sometimes, growing stronger after all the hurt. He wants more time to teach Sam everything he knows. He wants to extend a hand to Danny and show him more of the ropes, help him feel less alone. He wants a chance to pay Wash back for yelling at him at exactly the right time.
And he wants more days with Grif like the ones they spent in their little treehouse, laughing, in their own little world. That little world is another world to protect, just like all the others, the one they make when they're together.
It's old hat, hope in the dark. That means he's ready for this, he's good at this and those miserable years in the Cancerverse have only made him a little rusty. The Legion's drawn a line in the sand - the same line he's always drawn against enemies like this, and there are heroes that will hold the line.
Just like always.
"Hey, Chronoblivion, buffet's closed."
no subject
He meets what he feels is Chronoblivion's punishing glare head on and when he speaks, his tone is low and foreboding.
"I understand your plight, Chronoblivian. The chance to exist is not equally granted to all. That is why I will not let you take from me what is mine." Here, he draws back his lips in a snarl, fangs exposed. Like nothing else he wants to return to his universe, his home, his tarnished world that's still so beautiful in his eyes because it's his and because it has become such a part of who he is. For a being like Aku, this alone is worth clinging to.
"The Gods could not obliterate me and neither shall you," he growls. "STOP THIS OR BE ENDED!"
no subject
And boy, did it ever look like one.
Rico steps forward with a grin, confidence radiating from every inch of his body. It doesn't scare him to hold the fate of the universe in his hands - if anything, it electrifies him. His feet are planted solid with an accompanying spine of steel - to be one of the few standing between the universe and that - he isn't scared at all. His body is a live wire conduit, thrumming with an anticipation that almost can't be contained. All of these high emotions resonating around him - pride, love, tension, nostalgia, determination, willpower - it drums under his skin, beating a rhythm with his heart.
He knows hate. He knows spite. He knows every petty, filthy instinct, every dirty emotion under the sun. The worst crime and excess a person could ever sink to, and the worst authority entrusted to punish it.
But now, he knows more than that.
He’d felt it. Remembered what it was like. The contempt that was once genuine concern. The protectiveness that festered into resentment. When he had first arrived here, stepped into the mess hall with his boot treads still filthy from the streets of Mega-City One, he hadn’t thought anything was worth saving. Not in this universe, and not even in himself.
But he thinks back to Zenyatta and his dance. The juve with the cloned origins, the mission and memories he shared. Archangel’s stubborn views on justice. Beeny's presence proving that things could change, would change. Every tantalizing glimpse of the future. That he would be vindicated - the proof was right there, and he liked to re-watch it on occasion - and all that he had to do was wait. Connections were made, winding little handcuffs that snapped tight around their wrists and chained them together in a way Rico was almost loathe to break.
But instead of the future, he turns his eyes to the past. Not just the lux-apt in Mega-City One, the pleasure of the excess, of violence. Or concern over his personal little fiefdom, the city he'd claimed ownership of as a prince ruling over his subjects. But to when he was younger. When he still felt like he understood his brother with perfect clarity, and the whole path in front of them laid out so neatly. That fierce swell of pride every time they had each other's backs, defended each other. Fighting for what they believed was a higher cause. Stepping in perfect synchronicity before their bond had broken in the way that it had. His stubborn, sanctimonious, self-righteous brother whose presence he hated but couldn't help seeking out.
There would be no chance for him to fight back. He’d never know this was coming. Everything would just blink out, with no fanfare. And Rico knows, that if he were in his place, he’d face this with an implacable set to his jaw and win. And Rico can’t ever be upstaged. He’s not going to be a deadweight while they’re saving the universe.
Rico stands tall, chin jutting out imperiously. And he brings all the genetic stubbornness, his full authority to bear. Every ounce of authority entrusted to him, and every pound he'd taken for himself, he brings with him.
This is worth saving.
Re: THE END OF THE LINE
Brainiac has to find words for the wish and he finds them. They come easily. He's known them for most of his life now.
He whispers to the device: "Long live the Legion."
To live, the universe has to keep existing. To thrive, all their worlds must be safe.
And so Chronoblivion explodes in a dribbly inky mess and the walls of his pocket universe start crumbling down and for a moment it looks like there's no escape from the catastrophe but they - and the Legionnaires that had been fighting in the shell, and the staffers - suddenly find themselves on a newly restored Legion World, some distance away from the collapsing shell of Chronoblivion. They can see it through the windows of the station. It looks like it should have a pacman sound, bwooowoowipwip.
There is no final explosion...It's just gone.