Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
Notes: Sorry in advance to Bonkai peeps for adding yet another fic to my catalog of unfinished ones. I just couldn't resist, even though in this fic Bonkai's sort of bllink-and-you-miss-it. Super sorry about that. Also sorry to Supergirl fans because this probably won't be for you guys. Had no choice but to load under SG for lack of a Legion TV show (except in my dreams where Kat Graham is Shadow Lass). I don't watch SG, just occasionally browse promo shots of Mon El and the Legion. Most of this fic's based on comics canon, with heavy tweaking. Basically it's a mongrel plot bunny that's taken over my life for now. So, yea, have I mentioned in this story the amazing Kat Graham plays Shadow Lass? I made a cover. It kinda sucks, I'm not an artist (sorry #4). But it's there for reference. :) Hope you enjoy.
1
Twelve years since first waking up in the pod after the destruction of Daxam. Five years after his divorce. Four years post-return to the 31st century and leadership of the Legion.
Life is fantastic demolishing bad guys, saving the people, and even occasionally coaxing the bad guys into switching teams and saving people themselves.
Mon El can't think of any other time in his life when he's been this…fulfilled. The rush of his best highs during his hedonistic life as a Daxamite prince will never compare to the look on an old man's face when one of the Legionnaires flies him to safety from hybrid alien attack number 218. Or the heartfelt gratitude of a struggling city mayor in a rumpled suit, happy for another day the sun rises over his hobbled but still hopeful city.
In the dark, on the rare nights when he's actually home and in his bed attempting to sleep, Mon El spares moments indulging in the treacherous sense that even at their most sublime, his two serious past relationships can't hold a candle to the joy he feels now, being alone…and worthy. Comfortable in his own skin, assured in his skill and powers, respected as a leader.
And celibate. For two years. If his friends from his old life in Daxam could see him now, they'd think this was his worst nightmare. They'd be wrong. Leadership and celibacy and Legionnairing is all he needs after all. He believes it, wholeheartedly.
Sometimes, just from the strange giddiness of it all, he laughs randomly in the dark, whistling to the shadows in his room.
-o-O-o-
The Fatal Five were contained in a prison dimension, the United Planets Senator explains via the projection screen. But the Sun Eater came along presenting a greater threat and the Fatal Five negotiated their freedom by mutual agreement. If they killed the Sun Eater, they would be released on probation in the Barren Earths, never to return to the United Planets.
Weeks after sending the Fatal Five on their mission, the United Planets realize their error.
The Legion find the Sun Eater, disoriented but still supremely capable of wrecking a portion of a planet out in one of the Barren Earths. Wrapped in green fire and leeching heat and energy from the area around him, the humanoid creature is alone. No sign at all of the Fatal Five, though the Sun Eater seems to convulse and spout garbled curses at their mention. Ultimately, it's Ultra Boy, Shrinking Violet, and Phantom Girl who fly around at their wits' end distracting the Sun Eater, while Tellus and Cosmic Boy immobilize him just long enough for Mon El's heat vision to overload the creature. From an orbiting satellite, Brainiac 5 shoots a modified accelerator beam to end the battle, crystallizing the Sun Eater's shattered parts before it can reassemble.
The Legionnaires never intend to kill, but the frozen particles of anti-matter which comprise the remains of the Sun Eater are difficult to neutralize safely enough for imprisonment.
"How do you jail a regenerative being that eats suns?" Brainiac 5 asks the group, in a rare moment of being caught stumped.
They witness the random scattered matter of what was formerly known as the Sun Eater drift against the desert. Soon enough the silver dust storms form nearby, threatening all in its path. It's a phenomenon unique to the planet, known to be fatal if caught in its crosshairs. Mon El and the other Legion find cover in the caves from the storm, because despite many of them sporting invulnerable skin and metahuman strength, nobody wants to test how their lungs might stand up to silver dust exposure.
They aren't long in the cave before an unholy gloom settles the already dim, irregular walls. His teammates' voices shrink away. Eventually they're totally absent, as is his air supply. Briefly, he realizes this is how it is to drown: choked for air, the world turning black as his lungs fill with water and his body sinks into sluggishness. It's a darkness so complete and terrifying the universe has to be ending, constricting back into nothing and trapping him in its radius. He wants to scream but can't. A foreign taste fills his mouth, a little like blood because he has chewed his tongue to shreds in the agony of this blackness. But no—he recalls another taste even now, of bile and something else that brings to mind that day when the guard woke him and he saw his planet crumbling through the windows of his palace room.
It's foreign to his palette now because of its absence for so long: stark fear, the kind that leads to madness.
At the last moment, his flailing hand connects with a jagged piece of rockwall. With a jolt, Mon El remembers that he's not surrounded by water but stuck in a cave. Instinct tells him to punch, though half a millisecond upon connecting with something warm, soft with hard edges, and most definitely resembling a body—he pulls back and uses the strength of his punch to disable rather than destroy.
A startled grunt reaches his ears. A sharp heel lands in his gut, knocking the wind out of him. In his confusion, he tries to fly but stumbles through a kick instead, which is quickly slapped away by a pair of hands too quick for his present state. He parries again, regaining some more of his senses. His unknown assailant counters all his moves with lightning reflexes that please the part of him relishing the challenge. The blackness seems to throb in warning, giving him another momentary lapse of self, just enough for an arm to whip out, wrap around his neck and shoulders, and overturn him bodily.
He lands in a heap, somehow knowing even in his addled state that he's landed at the feet of his opponent.
"Harmless," he croaks in Saturnian, opting like the tactician he's become for a merciful outcome not for himself, but for the other Legionnaires. "I'm Mon-El. With the Legion. We're here to help. Don't hurt my friends."
He thinks it can't possibly get worse, but the absolute void in which he's trapped somehow constricts around him, sharpening enough to dig, though it doesn't break his skin.
Then a scoff follows.
"Hurt your friends? Your people bring monsters to this planet. Scores of my people have fled."
The rage in her voice chills him, as does her accusation.
"We didn't bring them. You won't believe me until you see for yourself. My teammate Tellus can show you. We can help. You see what happened to the Sun Eater out there. If the other invaders are still here, we'll find them."
In the long silence, her breathing reaches his ears. She sounds winded; the amount of power she exerts to keep him in place must be monumental. He has quite literally flattened mountains before.
"What are you?" they both suddenly ask, in unison. Her tiny gasp instantly afterwards coaxes out his smile, and he wears it in secret, there in that yawning abyss.
He waits for another interminable length of time before the blackness reveals more sounds, the familiar grunts and pained groans of his teammates rejoining them. The absolute dark recedes in stages, as a single lantern lighting the cave shines bright like a star and stings his eyes. He and the other Legion squint up at their captor, struggling to regain their bearings and vision.
She's a hypothermic elf, is his first thought when he finally registers her appearance: blue skin, ear tips pointed up that makes her look curious as she stares back at them all. Mon El after years of leadership is aware of his team's reaction, of Ultra Boy and Cosmic Boy dropping their jaws, and Phantom Girl's eyebrows meeting her hairline.
She must be cold, though, because aside from her blue skin, she's wearing what looks like a plunging one-piece swimsuit and combat boots.
Tellus sums it up to the group telepathically: ~ Oh. My. ~