legionmissions | WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Mission Log Post]

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WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Mission Log Post]

Who| Everyone!
What| Fighting all the threats that Galactus' presence has caused
Where| Mostly on and around Braal, except for Spectre team who will be on Earth
When| After Galactus' appearance and after Nova was put in Medbay
Warnings/Notes| N/A for now

There were a lot of fires for the Legion to put out all at once. While the Legionnaires native to the universe constructed the sun cannon near Braal's sun and prepared to fend off an attack from Galactus, the other teams had to get into place in the many places they were needed.

So far Galactus' siphons hadn't been sunk into the planet yet but it was only a matter of time.

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After being given psionic blockers to stick to their temples, the team facing the psionic attack on Braal thresholded into the area with the problem.

The Science Police had given the Legion the location of the conflict, a temple dedicated to the Spirit of the Last Son, where many scared Braalians and Xanthan refugees had gathered in the face of Galactus' siege on their world. Many of them were running away from the church screaming. Some were scratched and bloody.

When the Legionnaires got inside the church, they would find the source of the panic -- one of the humanoid Braalians had glowing red eyes. Blood streamed from the corners of their eyes and from their nose, and they had somehow sprouted massive claws, despite not having claws like that naturally. The out of control Braalian was attacking everyone within reach and throwing aside pews with super strength like they were nothing.

There were already several dead people sprawled out on the floor of the church.

"Even I can tell that's not normal," Parker -- "Payback" at this point -- said, first eyeing the Braalian causing all the ruckus, then automatically scanning the architecture of the church.

"I'm going to need you guys to distract them long enough for me to tag them and take away...whatever's making them do that."

Jason, or rather Amp since they were in the field, will take her chiding to heart and not call her 'Ms. Payback'. Glancing around at the chaos, he felt ill. Bodies weren't anything he would ever be used to, it seemed like. No one died when he was a Ranger. Things in the Legion's universe didn't seem to go as smoothly.

"Distraction? Sure. I can manage that." He wished he had any of his old gear. A good spray of lasers would make things pretty easy here, he figured. But in the absence of that... Well.

...Why wasn't that Braalian using magnetics?

He shoved the thought to the back of his head. Whatever was going on, the psychic creature probably didn't know how to use it and the Braalians were probably too scared to use it. Best not to let it twig on. "You do what you gotta. I'll keep its attention focused on me as best I can." He paused, took a breath, then sprinted full-tilt down the main aisle of the church, vaulting over fallen Braalians.

His plan was simple: Catch its attention. A good tackle would probably take care of that.

Videl always tended to talk big about how tough she was and how much she had been through helping out the police back home, but it took all her self control not to retch at the sight of the bloodbath occurring right before her eyes. Before thresholding out, Videl had been grumbling to herself about receiving a side-line assignment when the fate of the universe meant standing against Galactus. The sight of the warped Braalian --it was pretty obvious who was being possessed-- and the palpable terror of the crowd solidified for her that this was just as important as the world-eater.

While fighting to control her stomach, Videl opened her mouth to ask Parker what she was planning to do ... and closed it when Jason ran headlong into action.

"Wait a second!" she shouted after, though he probably didn't hear her. Gritting her teeth, she slammed down her visor and rushed off in the opposite direction as Jason. If he was going for the head-on approach, she'd play ranged. While he tackled the possessed Braalian, Videl quickly picked her way through the chaos, sticking close to the walls and making her way to the front of the church. There were sure to be plenty of distracting religious paraphernalia around the altar that she could use.

The thing realized that the three of them were there to fight it.

"Fools!" the possessed man hissed. "I am Harrow. I am the shadow that life casts! I stalk the end of days and haunt the fall of worlds. I go hand in hand with the holocaust."

In his possessed Braalian body, Harrow was fast. He noticed Jason's obvious attack and right when he got close, he flipped backward and kicked one of the pews at him. The pew ripped away clean from the floor, making it clear that the Braalian's body was super strong in a way Braalians usually weren't.

The upside to the attack was that Harrow was still distracted by Jason. And Videl was right that there were plenty of items to use to either throw or even use as impromptu weapons, like the heavy metal candlesticks or large spiky, metal monstrance on the alter.

Jason went forward, Videl went around, and Parker went up. She was used to moving through three dimensions of space rather than the two that most people relied on, and churches tended to have a plethora of places a clever thief could hide.

She scurried through the shadows and the architecture, hoping that she wasn't wrong to trust her teammates could do what they thought they could do so that she could do what she did best: steal something really bizarre.

Strength instead of magnetism. Right. Jason channeled his powers inwards and cleared the bench with a high leap. Maybe as a Ranger he could've caught it, but not now.

He wasn't used to fighting in confined spaces like this. Usually it was open fields, streets, warehouses, or the abandoned mine quarries. Thinking of all the people around, and all the weapons Harrow had at hand, he kind of missed that.

"Well, we're breaking you up, freak!" Using the flight ring, Jason twisted in mid-air and suddenly rocketed forward into a drop kick. He'd thought it looked weird when he'd seen a recording of the Karate Kid working it, but he couldn't deny that it closed the distance fast enough.

It looked like Harrow was just about as strong as it was fast. A really unfair combination, Videl bemoaned to herself. As she searched the altar for something flammable (hey, fire was always distracting), she started to realize what Jason had already figured out: Harrow wasn't using its host's innate magnetic-kinetic abilities (or whatever it was called).

She spied a squat, knobby looking candlestick and grabbed it, yanking the candle out and tossing it aside. It was a little larger and significantly heavier than a baseball, but not so unruly that Videl couldn't manage a good pitch.

"You can go hand in hand when the holocaust ends, too!" She wound up, then served the pitch right at Harrow's (borrowed) head.

Parker's climbing went successfully unnoticed because of the distraction Jason and Videl were causing Harrow.

"I am the stain that death leaves! I am --"

Getting drop-kicked in the face, apparently. Jason successfully got his kick in, and before Harrow could recover, Videl managed to clock him in the head with the candlestick. The attacks left him briefly stunned, but he scrambled back on his hands and in a creepy crabwalk, to try to get away, twisting and breaking the limbs of his host to do it.

That was even creepier. Parker was used to people shying away from pain; while she didn't generally fill the Hitter role in the roster back home, she knew a few things. Things like "people don't usually break their own bones unless they have no other choice". There'd been other choices here.

She hoped that there'd be some way to get this poor person's body back from this Harrow thing.

In the meantime though, she dropped down behind the crawling body, hand sweeping out in an arc intended to connect with a slap before moving her hand out of immediate slashing range again.

Well. That was a sound that would stick with him for a while. Jason made a horking noise, barely managing to fight back another wave of bile. Was a new nightmare going to be a part of every time he slapped on the tights and went to save a world?

He shook it off. It'd look bad to be that creeped out in front of everyone else. No, he had it. He was cool. He took a breath, then darted after Harrow. "Keep up the heat, Videl!"

Hopefully she saw what Parker was up to. On his old team, he wouldn't have worried, but this crew was still largely unpredictable.

The sickening crack of bones and the inhuman contortion Harrow forced its subject's body to take made Videl retch again, but she forced down her stomach with grim determination.

"I've got a candlestick for every bone you break in that body, Harrow!" Videl shouted, seizing another piece of metal religious iconography and pitching it at the fleeing form. Her heavy projectiles would probably be responsible for breaking as many bones as Harrow, but she wasn't about to let the beast escape, especially to a new host.

Videl pointedly kept her attention away from Parker, lest her gaze tip off Harrow. She had no idea what Parker was doing back there, but she trusted that her teammate had some sort of tactic to use against Harrow. Videl's role was distraction, and she had she had an array of worship relics and three years of pitching practice from gym class to work with.

With gritted teeth, she threw a couple more metal objects at the possessed Braalian's head, hoping that she could knock them unconscious and thereby cripple Harrow.

It was enough. Well, mostly enough. Jason chasing after Harrow made Harrow flip over and reset the bones in his stolen body, making them go solid and whole again, so that he'd be in a better position to defend and attack.

Between that movement and the creature trying to evade Videl's bone-breaking attacks, Harrow wound up being in just the right place at just the right time for Parker to touch him.

Harrow stiffened and screeched as most of his psionic powers were leeched away by her power. However, Parker's power wasn't up to snuff for depleting them all. His consciousness was psionic energy in and of itself, making it so that he still could keep his presence in his stolen body. But now he would have a much harder time reshaping that body according to his will or using powers like super strength.

Now he was simply a spirit in a stolen form, projected down from his body on Galactus' ship, with claws and not much else to fight back with.

"This will not stop me! I enter without permission!" he cried out, reaching a hand towards Jason. "I will -- no!"

Harrow tried to invade Videl's mind next, and then Parker's -- and all three of them would've felt it, an uncomfortable, oily presence trying to force its way in. But the psionic blockers held.

"Warded minds. No matter! I will find a new body to snuggle into!"

To do that, Harrow needed to leave the church and actually find someone else, though. No one was left in the church except for himself and the Legionnaires.

Parker recoiled when Harrow tried to invade her mind, her victorious smirk vanishing into something between 'neutral' and 'dead' like a stone dropped into a deep pool of water. She'd already retreated upwards, out of the reach of the body's reach, but that meant there was nothing around her to grab to use as a weapon. She dropped from the air again, this time swinging a kick at the back of Harrow's stolen head.

Apparently, "things trying to touch my brain" was something Parker didn't handle well.

Now, evil things messing with his head. That was something Jason had some experience with. Thankfully, he had the psi-blockers, he didn't want to get the full Green Ranger experience. Having Tommy's powers was bad enough. As fond as he was of his pal, that was an experience he wasn't in a hurry to share.

Parker took high. Jason took the middle, planting his foot firmly and popping off a side kick at Harrow's middle.

"Guys! Get ready!" He put a hand on his utility belt. Not enough time and in a bad position to pull out his spare psi-blockers, maybe Videl could close the gap fast enough to pop them on. Or Parker, she was faster than he'd expected. A good thing, he wanted to be the one catching most of Harrow's attention.

He just hoped that Harrow's mind powers ended at possession, and not actually reading minds.

Videl staggered back a step as the vile touch tried to accost her mind. She threw off her helmet and scrabbled her hands through her hair viciously, as if trying to scratch an itch beneath her skull. Thankfully, she didn't disrupt the psi-blockers on her forehead.

Jason's voice snapped Videl's attention back to the fight, where Harrow was trying to make its escape. It was weakened, she could tell; whatever Parker had done, it had done more damage to Harrow than a metal candlestick ever could. This was it, their chance to go on the offensive. Harrow was fast, but thanks to the fancy powers this universe had granted her, so was Videl.

She fished the spare pair of psi-blockers from her pocket and took off at a sprint toward Harrow. If she could just get close enough, if they could keep Harrow still for just the briefest second, she could slap these psi-blockers onto the Braalian's temples.

Harrow didn't stand a chance. Parker's kick from on high caught him in the head. Jason's kick down low caught him in the side. And after he slammed into a broken pew, Videl managed to get the psi-blockers on the temples of his stolen body.

Now they just had to restrain him with normal restraints and he would be trapped in his stolen form, unable to escape to a new body, unable to escape to even his own body on Galactus' ship.

And that would be easy enough. The psi-blockers made his stolen body crumple. It was difficult for him to make the body move now.

"Nooo! You cannot stop me. I am the shadow that life casts --" He struggled to move and failed. "I stalk the end of days and haunt the fall of worlds--"

Or at least he had. Now he wouldn't be able to do it anymore.

"Shhhhh," Parker said, wadding up her hat and stuffing it into his mouth. "Nobody cares."

She looked back over her shoulder at the others and bared her teeth in something like a smile.

"That was emotionally satisfying. Do either of you want to do the honors and cuff him until we can steal the body back?"

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WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Mission Log Post]

PART 5: HARROW (TEAM ZETA) - Jason Lee Scott, Videl, Parker

Re: PART 5: HARROW (TEAM ZETA) - Jason Lee Scott, Videl, Parker

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cw: limb-breaky creepy J-horror stuff

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