TEST DRIVE MEME

[letsgolegion]

TEST DRIVE MEME



Pick a scenario!

Scenario A: The Legion has been invited to a fancy reception with the United Planets Council because various public officials and dignitaries want to meet with the new Legionnaires. Even the older Legionnaires don't want to go, but they've been told that if they bring the rookies they'll get some funding and resources to work on their project of getting the newbies home.

So everyone's put on their best color-changing dresses and self-tying ties and are getting to work rubbing elbows and trying to pretend they actually want to be there.

Naturally, while some of the dignitaries are polite and genuinely interested in the plight of the interdimensional refugees, many of the dignitaries are downright rude in various ways, either by making the rookies feel as if they'll never measure up to the old Legion (as if being brought into this world is some fault of theirs) or by being condescending when hearing about their comparatively "primitive" worlds. ("Oh, you still use fossil fuels there? How quaint!") Some like the green-skinned Coluans are outright hostile, telling the rookies that by helping the Legion, they're betraying organic life because of the Legion's support of Robotica.

A fun time is being had by all, naturally.

Okay, that's a lie, but at least the rookies have each other to talk to, right? And there's no dearth of weird future fashion to quietly make fun off.


Scenario B: The reception is under attack! A Xanthan terrorist group has busted in and plans on taking some of the dignitaries hostage in exchange for some of their number being released from prison.

"Nobody move and no one has to get hurt!" the leader cries out, his gun pointed at Madame President.

Unfortunately for them, the Legion got a last-minute invite to this little shindig. Time to team up with one of your teammates to kick some butt and practice those quips!


REMINDER:

There are only 30 player slots in the game. We do want to remind players of that at each step towards game opening, just so they're aware during the reserve/app process that these slots might fill fast. We've also moved the opening of reserves a day to make it more convenient for the mods. Here are the current dates for upcoming events:

RESERVES WILL OPEN ON: 12/20/15 @ 5PM EST/2PM PST/10PM GMT
APPS WILL OPEN ON: 12/26/15 @ 5PM EST/2PM PST/10PM GMT
GAME STARTS ON: 1/01/16

Comments

[sir_vancelot]

"I don't have to like the man to appreciate the parties he threw that I had to go and make nice at." Because that was what Vance was falling back on.

Rich being there was something of a God send. Or something like that. It seemed to make everything a lot easier, having somebody he already knew and trusted there. Especially since it was one of his oldest friends in the universe. "Though Cap was mostly the one who made me go."

[iamresponding]

"That's always been one advantage of being able to rocket away faster than the speed of the light - I've managed to skip out of almost every award ceremony, diplomatic reception, or celebratory feast I've ever been invited to."

Chooom. Gone. Being able to shoot rockets out of your butt was handy that way.

What he didn't say was that most of those ceremonies, receptions, and feasts were being thrown to celebrate him, but hey, this was Rich. He was not really one to toot his own horn.

"Then again, 'sorry, gotta go stop a worldwide catastrophe or forty' is a pretty good excuse to skip out early."

[sir_vancelot]

And being that he and Rich knew each other so well, Rich didn't have to say that the ceremonies, et al, were being thrown for him. Vance could read between the lines.

Still, he snorted and threw a smirk his old friend's direction. "Most of the time, that's how Avengers functions ended as well."

Nothing like the latest catastrophe to get everybody out of their monkey suits and...into different monkey suits.

[iamresponding]

"Hey." Rich gestured with both hands at the fact he was in his superhero uniform. "What do you think this is for?"

He leaned against the wall again, crossing his arms, his eyes scanning the room. To some it might have looked like someone idly people-watching, but nope, that was not what he was looking for. He was looking for shifty behavior, outlines of possible concealed weapons, or people that stuck out -- basically, anything that looked like maybe it didn't belong.

Threat assessment. But that was instinct anytime he walked into a room now.

"Sticking a whole superhero team -- filled to the brim with rookies -- in a room full of important muckety-mucks? That's tempting fate."

[sir_vancelot]

At least Rich wasn't the only one doing it. Vance had been doing it, too, as well as 'feeling' around for anything that felt out of place, too. From what he could tell, his telekinesis seemed none the worse for wear for him having been displaced. He knew there were others that couldn't say the same.

"Well, not all of us have powers that would rip our clothes to shreds should we use them," he pointed out, then paused. "Though I think I heard at least a couple of the guests mention that they wouldn't mind seeing that."

[iamresponding]

That really was kind of a problem with Rich's clothes. The Nova Force was still as destructive as ever and that meant it pretty much shredded through anything it touched other than him. That was why he had to wear a removable prosthetic instead of a full cybernetic - and why they couldn't just clone him a new limb.

They said his body had been changed too much on a molecular level by the Nova Force and that even though his powers had shifted upon arrival to this world, the fact he'd been irrevocably altered by it hadn't changed. They couldn't clone limbs mutated on that level and that meant if they gave him a flesh and blood arm it'd fry out just like a cybernetic would -- only a lot more painfully.

In any case, it all meant that Rich was rarely out of uniform anymore, always ready for a fight.

"So wait, which of 'em were saying that specifically?" he joked, craning his neck to look around the room. Then he grinned. "...he says as if 'Nita wouldn't kill him. I shouldn't even joke. Watch, she'll pop through random a portal behind me just to smack me upside the head."

[sir_vancelot]

And, sadly, it was probably not something that his own world would be able to compensate for, either. Unless it was something that the Nova Corps had sorted out themselves, but if they had, Rich would know. Though he wasn't entirely clear on if Rich had much access to Worldmind from here.

Vance snorted into his drink, then started looking around. "Woman in the red, woman in the...I'm not even sure what sort of color to call that fabric. The one with the design that looks like the Crab Nebula. The two guys over there are still eying you up. Oh, wait. Your back is to them." So Vance knew what they were eying. "But, then, so were the women when you were turned away from them, too."

He still grinned again. "She totally would. And I'd be glad to see her. Not sure how I'm supposed to keep you in line without help."

[iamresponding]

Rich was used to getting eyed up by people by now. You didn't go and save the universe and walk away without people thinking you at least had a nice butt, bare minimum. Also being six-foot-one and looking like he was sculpted rather than born didn't hurt.

That was in full effect here since no one knew his rep.

"I have no idea what color that is but I bet some hoity-toity fashion designer would call it 'blood orange' or something." He squinted. "You know, there are a lot of colors not meant for human retinas."

He went on, "And what, like I need keeping in line? You talk as if I'm going to jump head first into any trouble I find."

[sir_vancelot]

"Somehow, I don't think human retinas were on their minds when they created some of these outfits." As for being ogled? Vance was just glad he wore a cape, thanks.

"The last I heard, you were doing your best to save the universe pretty much entirely on your own." Vance raised an eyebrow at him.

[iamresponding]

Rich bit his lip.

"Yeah. I was, uh, I was doing that for a while."

And then he wasn't. Because...of things. That happened. Events. That involved the Abstracts and a giant Galactus Death Engine, and bubbling Lovecraftian horrors from between universes.

Because of things that happened in a dying pocket dimension involving a cosmic cube.

He still wasn't sure how to broach this subject. He reached his hand up to scratch his neck.

"So...so when you're from, Nita and my brother haven't come back to Earth from space yet, right? I mean, otherwise they would've told you how I was doing. Chris knew 'Nita was back and planned on telling you guys so I figure that's why you're not surprised about that..."

After Chris had been injured fighting the Cancerverse version of Quasar, Rich'd left him behind while he'd gone off to join everyone in space to face off against the monsters beyond the Fault. He figured Chris had passed word to the others about 'Nita so they knew the good news.

That meant it would've taken someone else telling them all he was dead. He could see Nita and Robbie staying up there for a while after he was gone, especially since Nita was supposed to be dead back home, and Robbie might have been trying to help the Novas get resettled somewhere or something.

Or just trying to avoid having to bring the news to his parents.

[sir_vancelot]

Vance shook his head. "No, they're not back. Chris did pass on the message about 'Nita, because that's not the sort of thing you want to spring on Namor without a little bit of warning, but...no, I hadn't heard anything else yet."

And he knew there was stuff he was missing because of Rich's arm. Maybe other people wouldn't realize that it wasn't his real arm, but they also weren't used to the way that their friends 'felt' on a teke's mental radar. It was a good arm. But it still meant that Rich was missing an arm for some reason. "We haven't been hearing a lot out of space, period, honestly."

[iamresponding]

"Yeah, so about that..." He chewed his lower lip awkwardly for a moment. "See, there was this hole to another dimension, called the Fault. And the Many-Angled ones had taken over the heroes there, so they were these undead monsters, like...like something outta Lovecraft. They tried to invade our universe to make it the same way -- and I mean they tried hard. We got even more people allying with us this time -- like the Shi'ar and Inhumans. It was that bad."

How did he explain the scale? How could he possibly explain it?

"I'm talking a giant death engine made of the corpse of their version of Galactus. We even lost some of the cosmic Abstracts, the, uh -- God, I don't even know how to explain them. Like Death. The Death. Is an abstract. They're so many leagues above us, beyond us, that --"

He broke off in frustration, lacking the skills to articulate some of the outrageous...scale he'd seen, as usual. Also, he was remembering watching the proemial god Aegis explode in a shower of gore and otherdimensional...cancer, remembering getting caught in the psychic backlash, feeling...things, seeing things no mortal being was really meant to feel or see as she died.

The uncomfortable little twitch on his face as he thought about it was unconscious -- and brief.

"It was bad. And it came down to me, Drax, and Starlord facing down a completely insane, omnicidal Thanos in a dying universe. We kept him there while...while the openings back home closed."

He swallowed thickly and caught Vance's eye. "The cosmic cube we had didn't run out of juice like we thought it would, and that meant it would've been damn near impossible to keep it out of Thanos' hands, out of the hands of the creepy undead Avengers in there." He drew in a deep breath. "That's how I lost my arm -- evil Cap hacked it right off with his shield. Anyway, I used the cube to get Drax and Starlord back to our universe, burned all the juice in it so they couldn't get their hands on it and burned up all the Nova Force with it. I tried to keep Thanos out of our universe so he was stuck there but I don't know if I pulled it off."

Moment of truth.

"Cause I didn't...I didn't get to see what happened next." A pause. "Because I maaaay have turned into a dimensional doorway and dissipated into energy." He did one of those awkward Rich shrugs, where only one shoulder rose and fell. "I don't know how I'm even here. I wasn't...it wasn't like I was just floating there. I was gone, Vance."

Okay, joke time.

"...Unless one of the X-Men just left the damn door open."

[sir_vancelot]

It was...a whole hell of a lot to take in.

The only thing that kept Vance from staring was the fact that Rich was very much here, though he did give the other man a slight TK shove, just to be certain. Because it looked better for the 'investors' than just grabbing Rich.

"I have never been happier that I'm not a telepath," he finally muttered, shaking his head. "Though right now, I'm kinda wishing I drank." After everything with his father, though, that was one of those things that he wasn't going to start.

He went quiet for a long few minutes, processing as he took a drink. Then finally looked to Rich out of the corner of his eye.

"Well. You know the X-Men. Once they get done with a door, it's never quite the same again."