MURDERWORLD [mod plot] [Reunion/Rescue]

[letsgolegion]

Who| Everyone who wants in
What| The reunion/rescue of the folks in Murderworld
Where| The Temperate Zone
When| Day 3, at the very end of the arena
Warnings/Notes|

Thanks to the heroes that broke into Arcade's control room, the arena was officially over, and now that the Science Police and Legion had been contacted, people were being gathered up in an area in the temperate Zone and being extracted by portable threshold gates. A first aid station had been set up to triage those who needed immediate emergency care and patch up what injuries they could to hold people over until they got home.

Grief counselors were already on standby to help the Legionnaires and Harrubian dissidents and their families deal with the crisis they had just faced.

Arcade had already been taken away by the Science Police to face trial for multi-murder, and while some of the raw footage of the arena had already been uploaded to the UP internet, the Legionnaires had made the best of a bad situation.

The fact of the matter was every Legionnaire that had been kidnapped had survived. Arcade had been stopped. Almost all of Arcade's "Tributes" had been killed or detained by the Legionnaires and some of the Harubbian dissidents. The arena had ended on Day 3 instead of Day 30, which had saved dozens of lives. And the upload of the raw footage had been stopped mid-stream so that only a few people would have to deal with their ordeal becoming public knowledge.

Now it was time for friends and teammates to reunite and for everyone to head back to the safety of Legion World.

[ooc: Anyone can start a thread, regardless of whether they're a Legionnaire that was in the arena, or a Legionnaire outside the arena checking up on their friends.]

Comments

[unrecovered]

Wash can do war. Sadly, Wash is really good at war. This right here was a whole other flavor of bullshit and he's not terribly fond of it.

And according to Rich, it doesn't stop-

"Why do we have to get used to it?" The question is sharp and sudden, almost as though it's been torn out of him. "Arcade said he'd read the books in prison. He's a repeat offender. So, what, we try him and put him in jail and he just- escapes, eventually, and does this shit all over again? He gets out and kills people and we just bring him in again and repeat the cycle? Is that how this shit works?" He's getting upset and therefore getting loud, and he manages to catch himself and bring the volume back down.

A Legionnaire should probably not be yelling this next part anyway. "At what point do we stop deciding that his life is worth more than the lives of the people he's killed?" He's starting to regret not snapping Arcade's neck when he had the chance, especially if Arcade is known for this sort of thing and has pulled it more than once.

[iamresponding]

Rich put the water bottle on the ground specifically so his hand was free. He held it up in a calming gesture, the kind of gesture he sometimes made with his troops to let them know he wanted a respectful pause so he could talk, and that what he had to say might help with whatever issue they were dealing with.

"I'm not saying anyone should get used to the same villain over and over. Some people in my world won't kill no matter what -- and I'm not one of 'em. Sometimes people are just too awful and powerful to leave alive. Sometimes there are situations, like what we just went through with the Tributes, where there's no legal recourse or reliable prisons to hold a bad guy. Sometimes a bad guy is getting away with horrible things every other week -- and in that case, I take care of it. Permanently."

He dropped his hand, with a slight shrug.

"Which definitely isn't the norm in my world." He shook his head. "But I've checked up on things here, and Takron Galtos has only one prison breakout on record. It ain't exactly the revolving door the prisons are back home."

He tried to find a better way to explain.

"I just meant that...in a world like this, there's lots of villains. Because that's how it works with criminals and supervillains. You can put one away forever and there's still always gonna be more. But there's ways to cope. To understand each time it happens, with each new bad guy, that you can get through the other side."

[unrecovered]

He recognizes that gesture and stops short. It's not the first time someone higher up the chain of command has told him to shut up and listen in so many words (or so few). Right now, it's easier to think of Rich as a higher-up - at the very least, he has more experience in death trap bullshit, so hopefully whatever he has to say is worth hearing.

Turns out it is. Given the situation, Wash isn't exactly expecting that, but there it is.

It says something about Wash that 'I kill my villains before they become repeat mass murderers' is reassuring; then again, it was all too satisfying to hear Felix take a long fall off a high ledge. Given how frequently his past comes back to haunt him, it's nice to hear that someone else - someone who's done this insane superhero thing for a lot longer than Wash has - shares Wash's views on permanent solutions.

"That helps," he admits, taking another long pull from his water bottle. It's bullshit, but at least it's doable. "Do you ever have problems with copycats? Because the last thing we need is another death arena."

[iamresponding]

"Occasionally, but killing the original wouldn't change that." Hell, if they killed Arcade, some sick psycho would possibly decide that was the kick in the pants to replace him and copy what he did. "In any case, we learn from this. There are things we know to look out for -- and to train for -- that we didn't think of before this."

A pause.

"Wilderness survival being one of them. For instance." He shook his head. "I'm from New York. The most hunting I've ever done is hunting for a decent hot dog cart."