Ummm, I'll get this over with. I DON'T OWN THE LEGION. And never will. Surprise.
Woah. First off, I am so freaking sorry I never update. School and all completely limits my freetime. At least half of this story was written in Geometry, where my teacher gets nothing done. Anyways, this story idea came to me out of nowhere; an idea built off another random idea. You may see a connection between this and a comic I created. This chapter is also a tad darker than my usual, and some of the future chapter's will be more humorous.
Rated T for violence and possible cursing.
You may continue.
Walking Reflection
Flashing lasers. Burning buildings. Dark clouds of smog littered the sky. He inhaled a small breath only to have to cough it out due to the stinging smoke filling his lungs. The teenager glanced around, eyes watering, to look for his teammates in the ranging chaos.
A flash of blue and red stood out in the corner of his vision. Superman was having some difficulty with the Emerald Empress; doing his best to match her mystical eye's power with his own laser vision.
He turned his attention to the three figures surrounding Validus. An orange, a white, and a purple version of the same girl were throwing punches and kicks at the giant that barely seemed powerful but Triplicate Girl was clearly wearing Validus down.
To her left was Saturn Girl, taking on the large form of the Persuader. She was fog casting mental projections of herself and the enemy was swinging his axe around like a crazy lumberjack in a pine-tree forest.
Brainy seemed to be handling himself perfectly as usual, managing to piss off Mano just by commenting on his primitive tactics. They were fighting on top of one of the many buildings that were currently being threatened of burning to the ground. Suddenly his awareness was ripped from his friends' fights as he felt approaching heat and dodged the electric blast fired at him.
"Most people try to survive their own fights," Tharok said haughtily as he fired another laser at Lightning Lad.
"Well most people don't start fight's that they know they're gonna lose!" Lightning Lad replied as he shot a powerful dose of lightning at the villainous cyborg. Tharok sneered and stood on the ground firing at Lightning Lad who was in the air practically flying in circles.
"Jeeze, you arrogant kids are so sprocking annoying nowadays!" He shouted gruffly as he began to shoot bigger bolts of energy at the flying teen.
Lightning Lad swooped down and landed a kick to Tharok's face that sent him stumbling backwards. Infuriated further, the onslaught of fire increased and Lightning Lad dodged it, feeling smug about not even having to use his actual powers to beat his enemy.
"Why? Because you always get beaten up by a bunch of kids?" He said teasingly, landing in front of Tharok ten feet away.
Suddenly Tharok stopped shooting at him to look at something behind his opponent. He tilted his head as his face broke out in a large smile.
"Oh, would you look at that! I'm not sure that's completely hygienic."
He heard Triplicate Girl cry out and he whipped his head around to the voice. She had a gloved hand over her mouth, the other one pointing at something. After following the finger's direction, he realized why everyone had stopped fighting.
He saw Saturn Girl's face go blank with shock as she noticed the small unmoving figure; he saw Superman's horrified expression as he rushed over to where his friend had crashed to the ground.
And he saw the blood.
Everywhere.
There were bright green splatters standing out on the dark cement like neon paint on a black canvas. Superman was in the way so he couldn't see what was wrong; the only obvious problem was the massive amount of blood. Lightning Lad ran forward.
And then his foot landed on something lying on the ground. He glanced down at his foot, and he almost lost the contents of his stomach.
There on the pavement, laying in a puddle of something bright and wet, was a green hand sporting a cracked Legion ring. But it wasn't just a hand. His eyes followed up past the wrist, past the black lines of the elbow, up to a slim shoulder with a patch of purple and black material shredded on it. It didn't take long for Lightning Lad to notice the unmoving leg still clad in clothing and attached to the arm through a portion of torso.
It wasn't a piece of Brainy, it was a chunk of him.
A chunk of him that was supposed to stay affixed to its owner.
But it wasn't.
He felt nauseous and dizzy as he stumbled over the gruesome remains. Had Lightning Lad been another ordinary person, he would have grabbed the pieces in the hopes of reattaching it, like placing a tooth in milk to place back good as new. But Lightning Lad knew it just didn't work like that…
O/O
They were worn a ragged, figures of fatigue and defeat. Saturn Girl and Phantom Girl were walking ahead, heads bent together as they whispered furiously back and forth.
"This is his entire fault for not showing up."
"You can't blame him, he was probably busy hanging out with his new friend."
"Come on, you know that's no excuse for leaving us short a team member when we needed him most."
"You're right, but, it's not so terrible," Saturn Girl glanced back in Lightning Lad's direction. "He's doing okay and the fact that he's walking makes him look just fine…"
"Fine? Saturn Girl, his arm got blown off! Since when does that get counted as fine??"
Lightning Lad took a moment to look down at his teammate. Brainy was leaning against him, supporting his lost balance by allowing Lightning Lad to act as a tall prop. His right arm ended before his elbow in shredded mass of green skin and wires. The blast that had blown his right arm off had also knocked him unconscious during the battle with the Scavengers. Lightning Lad had taken the initiative to carry the injured Coluan back to headquarters until Brainy had woken up and demanded to be set down from such a "demeaning position".
What an ingrate.
But the strange thing was, he didn't look angry or in pain. If anything, he just looked sad. Lightning Lad knew he'd be pissed and screaming if he lost his own arm. But the expression of nonchalance on the little guy's face was just so… pitiful in a weird way.
" Hey, I kept your… um, arm, if you need it…" Lightning Lad started, holding the green arm up from his side in an awkward manner. I mean, how do you how do hand a guy his sprocking arm back?
"I don't need it," he said, not even bothering to look up.
"But maybe you couldn't reattach it or something…"
"No. Once something that large is ripped off, the whole body simply will not accept it back."
"So wait, you're telling me you're permanently one-armed??" If only it had been a leg, then he could've been one of those old pirate things…
"Of course not," he sighed, obviously agitated from the barrage of stupidity flying his way. "It will regenerate eventually into a new hand." Kind of like a starfish… Lightning Lad did not say the comparison out loud, but simple mused to himself about how funny the mental images of Brainy as a starfish were. Then something clicked in his mind.
"Hold on, you're gonna go handicapped in battles until it grows back?" The mental theater returned, this time with a midget Brainy trying to do one his fancy backflips and falling off-balanced to his face.
"It won't take that long. It was only my lower arm; it will be regrowing any time now. You won't have to wait on it."
"Who said I was waiting," Lightning Lad said as a grin grew across his face. "Maybe the look will catch on."
O/O
Lightning Lad shook his head to the present. This was not the same. This was too far wrong; too much blood, too much missing. He didn't want to acknowledge it, but he turned back to the unmoving figure no longer lying completely on the ground.
Superman had wrapped the small Coluan in his red cape that was now showing dark spots blooming on the left side. Their friend's wide eyes were dark and lifeless, staring unblinkingly into the smoking sky. An expression of surprise was frozen on his face, and he looked like he could jump up at any moment and command that he be told why almost half of him was resting 20 meters away.
But the eyes didn't flicker, the body didn't move; it remained limp in Superman's arms.
And the Man of Steel was on his knees shaking. Shaking. Whether it be from anger or distress, it was a terrible sign. The last thing they needed was for the Invincible Man to lose it. Lightning Lad leaned over and placed a gloved hand on his shoulder.
"Hey Clark," he said gently, "you should probably take him to the medical bay."
The dark haired head bobbed in a short nod, and with a small 'whoosh' and a blend of colors, the person under his hand was gone along with the boy in the cape. He looked towards the Legion HQ and hoped that someone would be there to help show Superman how to use all of the complex futuristic technology.
"I ASKED WHY YOU SPROCKING DID IT!"
The Triplicate Girls were interrogating Mano, the only member of the Fatal Five that had not been able to flee. Two of them were holding his arms with a fierce death grip while Purple stood in the middle, hands on her hips, looking as if she was capable of slicing and dicing the villain with just her glare. Lava-lamp-head simple stood there, laughing, like he was laughing at death in the face.
"I told you. I was told to chop the bothersome kid up! Pushing him off the building was my idea though; adds a nice touch to these boring streets..." Orange punched his lights out before Purple could kill him. They all looked at Saturn Girl who appeared lost in thought.
"He's not lying. The weird thing about it though is I can't bring up who sent the entire Fatal Five to take out… one of us."
"Do you think someone erased it?" White asked worriedly. "It could have been Esper and the Legion of Super-villain's again."
"I just don't know," Saturn Girl said quietly as her eyes wandered to the cracked legion ring on the ground. A heavy gloom fell, a curtain on an unfinished act.
"I just don't know."
Mmmmmmmmm… green blood… yum. Lightning Lad's POV. I've never done that before. When people review, it gives me a little help/push to write and I love to hear from you guys! (But I won't be furious or anything if you don't)