ENDGAME PART 3

[letsgolegion]

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:

"ROAD WAAARRRR!"

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.

Comments

[truefaceofthelaw]

"Shut it, mugglie."

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.