Chapter 10
"Mindset"
"Thank you for arranging this mission, Imra," Dream Girl said, flopped into the biggest chair she could find on the Legion cruiser. "I love the Terran Legionnaires dearly, but-"
"There are some days where you just can't stand it anymore," Cham put in.
"Dreaming, yes!" she agreed.
"When was the last time we did this, anyway?" Phantom Girl asked, rolling over in the air.
"Oh, years… not since before Chemical King joined," Saturn Girl said.
Shadow Lass looked around. "I wish there were more of us," she said. "But all our members seem to come from Earth or worlds seeded by Terran metahumans. It really gets to me when I stop to think about it."
"Are you suggesting we need a more diverse worldview?" Element Lad asked.
"Maybe. Maybe I'm just a little lonely."
"Lonely?" Princess Projectra said. "You have no idea. It's hard enough being a princess at home; on Earth I look just human enough for people to notice my eyes all the more."
"When you bother to show them," Tinya said, thinking of the Princess's strangely-slit red eyes. "Is that why you took to wearing that mask with your new costume?"
"I tell people it helps disorient the ones I illusion more, and that's true- but you're right as well," Projectra admitted.
"I look different enough that no one is surprised by me," Blok rumbled. "Is it really that bad?"
"I would say so," Nura said.
"At least none of the rest of you have to pretend," Cham grumbled. "Does anyone mind if I drop this?"
He gestured to his body.
"Not at all," Imra assured him.
"Yeah, who are we to mind a green tentacle-ly thing talking to us?" Shadow Lass asked sarcastically.
"The only thing I wonder about," Jan said. "Is why, if the Legion is supposed to promote galactic diversity, we are based on Earth with so many technically-human Legionnaires?"
"Now there is a question," Imra agreed.
A group of Legionnaires were seated around the kitchen table.
"Is anyone else really worried about the fact that Terror Firma managed to get a long-term undercover agent in place with access to pretty much any criminal right under everyone's noses?"
Bouncing Boy looked at Chemical King over his drink. "A little, yeah."
"And then that same organization managed to get someone into headquarters without us knowing until the very end."
"Also troubling," Dawnstar agreed. She was sitting with Wildfire.
"They also managed to make an entire royal court forget they were ever in the same room as each other."
"I think that's the worst bit," Lightning Lad shuttered.
"Definitely," Ultra Boy muttered into his coffee. Timber Wolf was baking behind him. They were killing time until something happened or Phantom Girl returned.
"Do you live on coffee?" Two-thirds of Triplicate Girl asked. Her white body was in the medical wing, finishing up some new additions.
"Maybe."
"And the very fact that all this planning seems to be of the long-term sort is- scary," Condo continued. "How long have they been hiding from us? And what's this 'revenge' they keep talking about?"
"You're in a thinking mood, aren't you Condo?" Wildfire asked. "Are you sure that's a good idea? You usually get depressed when you think too much."
"I'm fine. This is just worrying me."
"It's so difficult to deal with other people's cultural ideas sometimes." Imra was still talking. "I get that it's probably a species thing, what with us having so many technically-humans around. There's only so much open-mindedness you can have with entirely different senses and neurological wiring between people. And I have to listen to it."
"Frustrating is the name of the game in the Legion, I think," Cham said. "Like with this Terror Firma thing. Or the Workforce."
"Has anyone even seen the Workforce lately?" Elemental Lad asked. "I haven't heard anything about them for four months, since right before Cosmic Boy lost his control from stress and started screaming at everyone about failing."
"You know, that's a good question," Tinya said. "They used to be everywhere, getting under our feet most missions, but now-"
She gestured with her hands. " -poof! They're gone."
"Well, I'm glad," Nura said. "Less Atmos in my world is good thing."
"Does anyone else have the feeling there's a lot we don't know about them?" Projectra asked.
"Of course there's a lot we don't know," Shady responded. "We barely ever see them, then they disappear, and not more than five or six show up at once. There's plenty we don't know, even with the ones we recognized."
"I hate not knowing things," Nura sighed. "But then when I do know I hate it all the more. I'd just like a straight answer for once, with no confounding variables."
"If you wanted a job that gave answers, Dream Girl," Blok said. "You should have become a scientist."
"And then we never figured out who made COMPUTO turn on us. The computer is supposed to be unhackable, so where does that leave us?"
"Somewhere with no answers, Condo," Bouncy said tiredly. "We have no more idea than you do."
He looked at his teammate, noticing he was still groggy from waking up. "I'll go ask Lyle and Violet."
"Hey, Con!" Lyle called as his boyfriend stepped through the doorway. "What's with you?"
Violet glared at him irately. "Keep it down, will you? I'm working over here."
"You don't need quiet for physics calculations, Violet. You can do that in your head. You need real quiet for precisely mixing chemicals."
She muttered something and Lyle turned back to Condo, smiling brightly. "So?"
Condo told him about the questions he had been thinking of.
"Well," Lyle said thoughtfully. "I don't know about the missions or the reasons any more than you do, but the computer question bothers me sometimes too."
"There's no question about it," Violet spoke up. "COMPUTO's unhackable by everyone but the people with access to the connected modems or the computer itself."
"Everyone but the builder," Lyle reminded her.
"I know that," she snapped. "How could I forget?"
Lyle rolled his eyes in Condo's direction. They'd shared a talk the day Lyle came back from his extended mission about the Situation and the new relationship dynamics between his two oldest friends in the Legion. Both agreed it was high time the scientists figured each other out.
So Condo felt bad about this next suggestion. "If we're sure it couldn't have been anyone in the Legion, then what about Brainiac 5?"
Violet glared fiercely at him. "Brainy would never do that. He would never try to attack us, or hurt us. Not if he was himself."
"Was he really himself though, when he left?"
Violet opened her mouth, then shut it.
Lyle looked at her questioningly.
"Do we even know what 'himself' is, anymore?"
"Nura?" Shadow Lass asked. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing out here?"
"It'll happen when it happens," she answered. "Vent while you can."
"That doesn't make me feel any better," Tasmia told her.
"Well hey, it's good by me," Tinya said. "You know what bothers me? That everyone else's thinking is so narrow. People only ever bother to consider things in three dimensions physically, and besides that… why shouldn't I love Brin and Jo both? Everyone already knows I go out on dates with both of them. If I'm happiest with both, why not have both?"
Jan spoke up. "Being apart from your people is hard; especially when no one else has the same ideas that you do. With me- for most others, change is… abhorrent. Change is a thing to be afraid of, to worry about. But change is natural, and how can anything natural be wrong?"
"It's worse when it's part of your religion," Tasmia moped, still put off with Nura's vague answer.
Jan nodded in agreement and she continued. "People off Talok are scared of the dark. They believe it hides demons and ghosts and evil things. It doesn't. It holds peace and protection and self-knowledge."
Cham groaned. "Don't get me started on self-knowledge. Other people put faces on for others all the time; so why should they freak out when I do the same?"
"It must be a psychological foible," Jeckie said. "I can make people see what I want, feel what I want- I can change memories if I tried. And people, when they know, fear me. Say they can't trust themselves around me. But I know their senses deceive them daily -I see what they cannot- and their minds remember things incorrectly, even remember wrong things, all the time. So why be scared of me when I do what they do to themselves?"
Imra snorted, and everyone turned in surprise to look at her. Her expression was bitter. "Scared of powers? You have no idea. No one outside Titan knows how to properly shield their minds."
"There are many differences throughout the galaxy, to be sure," Blok said after a long silence where everyone was respectfully quiet for Imra. "I dislike living in a city. There is too much concrete and steel and plastic. The components they are made of fine of themselves, but altogether they choke off the planet."
Jan smiled slightly. "Homesickness," he said quietly to himself. "Has anyone else discovered the problem here?" he asked, louder. "People fear what they do not understand."
Nura looked around at all of them. "Well, you know what my problem is?" she asked loudly, disrupting the gloomy turn she felt the conversation was about to take. "I hate knowing how my day is going to go before it happens."
"It doesn't matter," Violet said firmly. "And what about the strangeness with the duty roster when I was out with Cosmic Boy on Imsk? We never resolved that either."
"I already talked with Imra about that," Lyle said. "No one in the Legion would mess with the computer."
"Dream Girl did," she retorted. "What about Nemesis Kid? It suits his personality-"
"And you're trying to blame someone you don't like. I don't like this idea that Brainy could be messing with us from afar, but he really the only person who would be capable of doing that."
"We don't know much about Terror Firma," Violet said. "They could have a computer genius."
"The equal of Brainy? May I remind you that no one had ever heard of these people before?"
"All the more reason for there to be one," she told him. "Everything in this galaxy goes through a computer sooner or later. If they have someone really good at that sort of thing, they could have disguised their actions for a long time."
"You're really trying to keep yourself in denial, aren't you?" Lyle asked. "Will you at least consider Con's idea?"
She ignored him coldly. "I don't want to hear this."
"You can forget all about it when we leave," he wheedled.
"Fine." She stood up and pushed her chair back forcefully. "But not in here. Your room, Lyle."
"See Tasmia, there's your answer," Dream Girl said. "Are you happy now?"
Shadow Lass looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean-"
The cruiser alarms went off. Everyone rushed toward the massive front window. Chameleon Boy switched back to his orange form mid-leap for the button to bring up the transmission.
It was Xolnar calling.
"Legion?" a tremulous woman called uncertainly. "He- hello?"
She let out a small shriek as the whole room trembled.
"This is the Legion," Saturn Girl said urgently. "What-"
"Terror Firma," she whispered desperately. "Terror Firma, please-"
The woman looked over her shoulder toward a pounding on the door, and ran off; pushing the button to end the transmission on her way.
"So about what Condo was saying," Jo spoke up. "He's right; that's all weird."
"Oh, now you're in a thinking mood too?" Wildfire said sarcastically. "This is going to end well."
"You know something?" Jo continued.
Bouncing Boy looked up blearily but determinedly at him. "No. Don't you two even start. It's bad enough that the entire leadership structure is out right now for something or other without waking up to find myself in charge, again, and you two -"
"An Ryd said she needed the money when I caught her after the report in the Daily Galaxy. But she turned in that info anonymously. So the paper couldn't pay her for the tip. So who was paying her?"
No one had an answer for him. He pushed away from the table and walked out of the room, heading to pace the halls.
Jo thought.
I can't believe that Saturn Girl or Andi would keep the Legion in the dark about this, if it's true. But I can see them not telling anyone if the effect would be bad. And with everyone stressing over Terror Firma and the Workforce and the team finally having pulled themselves together… I can see that causing trouble all over again. And it's not like An ever really said she was making it all up.
He didn't like the way his thoughts were going.
"We need to plan first this time," Phantom Girl said firmly. The cruiser was on its way toward Xolnar, but wouldn't be there for another half hour at least. Everyone was in that testy point between emergency and action where waiting became unbearable. The Legionnaires had learned long before that the only way to cope was to distract themselves somehow.
They couldn't be everywhere all the time; but they never stopped trying.
"Gather 'round, everyone," Nura said. "Let's hear what you've got."
Lyle pulled Condo onto the bed with him, settling his boyfriend's head on his shoulder and wrapping his arms around him. Violet stood with her arms crossed by the door.
"Pull up a chair?" he asked, gesturing to a small circular table in the corner with its two chairs. He had Condo over for breakfast, some days. Dinner once, too.
She stayed standing. "Just get this over with so I can disprove you," she snarled.
"You don't have to be so nasty, Violet," Lyle admonished. "Go ahead, Con."
"Everyone has been talking about how much Brainiac 5 was… unsure of himself when he left. We don't know where he went or what he's doing. We do know that he lost the battle against a very nasty part of himself before he left-"
"We don't know if that even exists anymore," Violet interrupted.
"Condo is talking here, Violet," Lyle pointed out. "Just let him do it. Commentary later."
"So can anyone truly say that there is no chance that he decided to… continue in that thread? He was doubting his place in life when he left, was he not?"
"NO!" Shrinking Violet screamed in fury. "That can't be! I can't believe that!"
"Didn't you mean, 'don't believe', Violet?" Lyle asked quietly.
"No," she said hotly, her voice thick. "I can't. You-"
She realized what she was saying and stopped. "You wouldn't understand," she insisted quietly.
"How much do you need me to?" he asked, getting up. He put his arms around her, and, amazingly, she didn't try to pull away.
"I don't want to think about this possibility either," he told her quietly. "But if we're trying to consider options, that's the best one we've got."
"He couldn't be like that." It was unclear whether she was trying to convince herself or him. "He's not like that."
"I know he's not," Lyle assured her. "But Condo has a good point."
Violet pushed away from him. "So let's say that it has been Brainy hacking the computers," she said quickly. "What do we do about it?"
"We know we can't lock him out," Lyle said. "He's too good for that, and neither of us are smart enough for that."
"The Legion could get new computers, but it would take up a lot of time to get everything running again," Condo said. "And we can't afford that, not with Terror Firma and the Workforce."
"And they'd have worse security than the computer now, so it's not like that would do us any good," Violet said bitterly.
Lyle could see how much emotion she was trying to keep under the surface. It was hurting her to think like this, he could tell.
"So we can't do anything," Violet said grimly. "Because regardless of who is doing this, we aren't good enough to stop them."
The Legion cruiser finally entered the atmosphere of Xolnar.
"Just leave it on auto," Nura commanded as they prepared to leave. "It'll be fine up here and we'll need everyone."
Imra nodded her assent and the Legionnaires flew down to the planet's surface.
The town they had landed in was in ruins. Princess Projectra looked at it in distaste, remembering her capital city.
"Where are all the people?" Chameleon Boy asked in the unnatural silence.
"I don't know," Saturn Girl said. "I can't hear anyone."
Phantom Girl had a sudden, horrible thought and phased through some of the ruins. Shadow Lass watched her.
"There's no one in there," she said, coming back to the group. "No one alive, no bodies…"
Jan was looking a little sick. "Just because there are no bodies doesn't mean there aren't any dead."
Blok knelt and buried his hands in the churned-up dirt. There were big cracks down the road where the ground had split. He could hear how the earth still shook…
The ground was vibrating.
"Saturn Girl," he rumbled. "I can feel people."
"Where?" she asked urgently, motioning the others over.
He concentrated.
"This way."
The still-new Heroes of Lallor peeked over the top of some ruins.
"So, what do we do?" Life Lass asked quietly.
"Well…" Gas Girl bit her lip. "Um, well. Evolvo, what do you think?"
"Planning is hard."
"Obviously. But do you have any ideas?"
"No."
"But there are people we have to protect here!" Life Lass protested. "We have to have a plan."
"We can rush them!" Gas Girl exclaimed, then heard Konk's voice in her head.
Yeah, because that always works so well.
"Never mind," she amended.
Evolvo looked back at the unsteady buildings behind them. Each held a small knot of people, hidden from sight.
There were only three of them against a group of terrorists known for destroying everything they saw. What sort of odds were those?
Tinya watched Imra as the Legionnaires flew in search of Blok's vibrations. The telepath wasn't scanning the ground as the others were. She was squinting into the sky, flying slightly off-course in relation to the others.
"Trade your thoughts?" she asked, flying closer.
Imra looked at her in astonishment for a moment; then seemed to remember where she was.
"If Blok feels movement, that means there should be something alive around here, but I couldn't feel anyone," she told Tinya. "Not just people, but animals or insects as well. So I'm trying to find out who's blocking me. So what about you?"
"Why would Terror Firma attack Xolnar? I mean, is there anything here?"
"No," Nura called. "Just the planet. Some general factories, office buildings. Regular things."
"No secret weapons installments?" Cham asked hopefully. "No revolutionary but controversial scientific organizations?"
"Nope."
"Not even an underground music industry?"
"Not at all."
Projectra dove suddenly, heading for a stand of trees.
"Jeckie!" Shadow Lass called. "JECKIE!"
She didn't answer.
Tinya and Tasmia traded a look.
"Cham, you and the girls get down there," Nura said. "You're needed."
"When she said we'd be needed," Tinya started complaining. "I didn't think she meant like this."
"At least there's only three of them. They can't cause that much damage," Tasmia said, uncharacteristically uncertain.
Both looked at each other.
"Though they have got a record…"
Cham just looked down the hill at the small settlement. It looked like summer homes clustered around the banks of a large lake. Three of the Workforce were huddled behind the ruins of retaining wall. Dirt spilled over the top and sides, uprooted flowers littering the ground. Chunks of masonry poked up from under piles of soil.
"I'm going down," he decided.
He switched into the form of a small rodent and scurried down through the grass.
"Cham!" Tasmia hissed. "Get back here!"
He didn't hear her.
"Someone has to have some sort of idea," Life Lass said desperately. "They're holed up across the lake! How are we supposed to get over there without being seen?"
"I'm a little more worried about what to do when we get there, Somi," Gas Girl admitted. "But we can do it! Evolvo, you can grow gills, right?"
"Probably," he said absently, staring at the sky above them.
"So we just get you in the lake and you jump out on the other side; and we run around either side while they're distracted!"
"Good start," said a voice from behind them. "But it needs work."
Gas Girl toppled over and landed in a dirt pile, limbs askew. "Wha-"
"It's just me," Cham said, holding up his hands. "Don't freak out."
"When-"
"The Legion just got here. What's up with you?"
"You would not believe the last four months," Life Lass said. "Most of the Workforce went and quit 'cause Duplicate Boy is overbearing jerk, and then we had to get off the planet, and then the ship broke down, and then we got rerouted onto a ship that took us fifty-nine light-years out of our way-"
Cham opened his mouth to clarify his question by she just kept right on talking.
"-and then we ended up transferring to a ship here, and then it broke down, and no one could fix it, and then we got involved in a-, in a-, anyhow, we couldn't get a ship out of here because no one knew how to fix anything and nobody visits Xolnar a whole bunch cause they've got nothing to trade and don't need to trade with anyone for anything and then those guys show up!"
She gestured frantically at a large summer home on the other side of the lake.
"That's one long streak of really bad luck," Cham told her, feeling a little ignored. "But I meant about your planning."
"Oh," she said, chagrined.
She explained.
"Huh," Cham said. "Well, like I said, it's a good start. But we'll need the Legion for this."
"Just the ones on the hill or the ones who flew over a few minutes ago?" Evolvo asked.
Cham shook his head in amazement. "You don't miss much, do you? Just Shady and Tinya and Jeckie should be fine."
Saturn Girl probed harder with her mind, falling back to let Blok and Nura lead the way. Jan came up to fly beside her.
"Still no luck?" he asked.
"None," she sighed. "I can't-"
She fell suddenly.
Jan dove to catch her. Her eyes were unfocused and she looked stunned.
"Imra?" he asked uncertainly.
"I feel like I just flew into a wall," she moaned. "Did you know Terror Firma had a telepath?"
"Jeyra Etinn," Nura said disgustedly. "The SciPol infiltrator we busted two months ago. Remember my report about that?"
"Vaguely," Imra told her, steadying herself. "We should move. They know we're here now."
Jo backed up quickly, only seeing Shrinking Violet coming at the last minute. He caught sight of the look on her face and looked in confusion down the corridor. There wasn't anyone or anything in sight to have made her look like that.
He remembered that Lyle's room was in this hallway. He went and stuck his head in the door. "What's with Violet? She just walked by looking like someone died."
"For all we know, someone could have," Lyle told him, lying on his bed. Condo was sitting at his feet, looking uncomfortable. "Con brought up something she didn't want to hear."
"Which would be?" Jo pulled up a chair from the small table nearby. He sat on it backwards with his arms resting on the backboard.
"Con's worried about the way things have been going with the tech lately," Lyle said. "He thinks maybe Brainy gave himself over the dark side and is messing with the computer."
"That doesn't sound like him," Jo said doubtfully.
"True, true," Lyle agreed. "But Con's got an answer for that too."
"Really?" He looked at Condo questioningly. "What's that?"
Condo fidgeted. "He changed a lot physically right before he left. We don't know if he as a person changed as well. We could run into him a year from now and not recognize him."
Jo thought for a minute. "Yeah, you're right. That could happen. Like getting brain damage. That can change your personality."
"It's not just the trauma," Condo told him nervously. "Do we really know how long he was fighting with his mind? Any sort of thought process leaves a physical trace, and a person is more likely to act like they're used to acting. If he was struggling with destructive impulses since at least, um…"
"About half a year," Lyle put in.
"It could be that we let a potential maniac run free. Just because he wasn't acting like that when he left doesn't mean he didn't start later."
"The more you talk the more screwed I feel," Jo told him morosely. "So what do we do if it turns out what you just said was right?"
"I don't know," Condo admitted. "That's why I came to ask Lyle and Shrinking Violet. But she didn't want to hear about it."
"It's not you, Con," Lyle said comfortingly, sitting up. "She just feels horrible that someone she loves-"
"You have no idea," Jo snorted. "You weren't here for all that."
"-could turn into something she would have to hate."
The door shook as it was pounded on from the inside.
Jeyra Etinn glared briefly at it and there was a muffled scream. "I picked up someone, Elysion. I think the Legion is here."
Elysion was pacing back and forth across the room, muttering. "The Legion again? When will they learn to get out of the way? They should understand what we're doing here. Why do they keep us from the revenge?"
"Who knows?" she asked flippantly. "What should we do about our guest?"
"Keep it in there," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Call everyone together."
He looked at her, his face stretched into a mad grin. "We have bugs to crush."
"There are people coming," Projectra said suddenly. Cham had just finished explaining his plan.
"Okay. Change of plan," he said quickly. "Jeckie, keep them distracted, will you?"
She nodded and looked off into the trees, focusing.
He glanced over the top of the dirt-and-masonry spill. "Now!"
"Clear this up for me a little more, will you?" Jo asked. "Violet's mad because Condo was being logical and you agreed with him?"
"Pretty much," Lyle told him. "But it's a little more complicated than that."
"How can she get mad at someone for being logical?" Jo muttered under his breath. "Is the universe going mad?"
"Nothing's simple anymore," Condo sighed.
Tinya and Gas Girl ghosted through the trees, coming up on Terror Firma's hijacked summer home from the right.
"You can really do that?" Gas Girl asked, pulling herself together just enough to talk.
"Do it all the time," Tinya assured her. "Phase in, grab some wires, phase out. Completely kills the power systems."
"And me?"
"If you could knock them out, it would be helpful. And there are types of gases that can blind a person. If all else fails, you'll go in through the vents and mess with the fuse box. Just try not to get punched."
Evolvo dove into the lake, his powers forming a set of gills and fins for him as soon as he went underwater.
Cham followed him, shifting into a small, fast water creature.
They cut sleekly through the waters, scaring off the shoals of fish that had gathered in the middle of the lake to escape the commotion near the banks. Cham stopped him a few yards from the edge to talk.
"We're the distraction, remember that," he told the former Workforce member. "Stay behind me if you can. You haven't got a lot of experience and I don't want you getting hurt."
Evolvo was inclined to agree with him, but privately vowed to help somehow.
"How, exactly, am I supposed to be-" Life Lass took a gasping breath, trying to keep up with Shadow Lass. "-useful? My powers aren't very-"
Another breath.
"-strong. Or helpful."
"You just aren't thinking creatively," Shadow Lass retorted. "I remember what I heard about you. Your power is to animate anything inanimate. A house is full of inanimate objects."
She put on a burst of speed that would have left Life Lass moaning if she hadn't been wheezing.
"Now, less talking," the Legionnaire commanded. "More running. Remember; you're all listening to us this time."
Imra and Nura's group landed among the trees. Saturn Girl sat on the ground and closed her eyes.
She sent her mind ranging out to find the telepathic barrier. She hit it much farther away than before. It seemed to have contracted around a central point.
Her mind brushed something that left it reeling and disoriented. She pushed harder, and felt it give. Another push, and it fell.
She moved on to the barrier and struck out at it. It shook, then stabilized, pulsing briefly in recognition.
Imra knew what that meant. Her challenge had been accepted. This Titanian would play by the rules Esper Lass refused to follow.
Cham burst through the front wall in the form of a giant, fierce looking herbivore. Evolvo slipped in behind him.
Elysion and some assembled Terror Firma members reacted instantly. The ground started to shake, the air started moving in strange ways, and fire flared up in a corner.
Just in time for everything in the room to short out, and total darkness to fall.
Cham switched immediately to a night predator and attacked. Evolvo waited until his eyes adapted to seeing in infrared and watched his back.
A splintering noise somewhere in the room testified to the arrival of Shadow Lass.
Gas Girl, remembering what Phantom Girl had told her, sublimated herself into a thick, choking gas.
A sudden, unexpected gust of wind blew her into all corners of the room.
"Tal," Life Lass wheezed, still winded from her dash around the lake and now choking on her friend. "Think creatively!"
Gas Girl pondered on that for a moment, and changed herself into xenon. She quickly sank near to floor level. Consolidating herself, she spilled around the feet of a terrorist and turned into helium.
The terrorist felt the onrush of air but couldn't react fast enough. Gas Girl changed herself into carbon dioxide when she was a face height. He passed out.
Cackling with glee in her head, the Hero of Lallor moved on.
Evolvo saw an enemy coming up behind Chameleon Boy. He was too busy with someone else to notice.
The young man took a deep breath and jumped between the two of them.
The terrorist paused for a moment, long enough for Evolvo's powers to finish kicking in. He punched her in the jaw.
He didn't see Cham's ears flick back, noting his help.
Shadow Lass was honing in on Elysion when the wall next to her blew outward. Knocked off her feet, she tumbled into Kynda.
The fire-wielding Terror Firma ignited fireballs in her hands, bringing them toward the Legionnaire.
She lashed out with her foot and sent the terrorist tumbling. Kynda rolled to her feet and shot off more fire.
Tasmia ducked and called on her shadows to wrap around the girl. She struggled for a moment, then burned them away in a searing flash of light and heat.
Tasmia immediately moved to the side, knowing that a blinded target like herself was easy to hit.
Kynda had gotten the same idea first. Shadow Lass ran right into her. Her vision had cleared enough to see another flaming sphere headed for her.
The air moved and it went out. Gas Girl, taking her cue from watching Phantom Girl's performances in battle, solidified long enough to punch her in the face. She fell, knocked out.
Gas Girl spun. "I feel so, so-" she said delightedly.
"Effective?" Tasmia asked sardonically, rising to her feet. "That's the feel of accomplishment, there."
Imra reached out her mental arms to Jeyra. She reached back. If they had been standing in physical space, they would be grasping each other's forearms.
Imra braced herself and pushed. Jeyra pushed back. It was like wrestling, in its own way. The first person to hit the ground lost.
Round one.
Evolvo materialized at Life Lass's size.
"Somi."
She jumped and lost control of the drapes she had been animating. It didn't bother her too much, though she resented the interruption. It wasn't really as if she could see anything to attack properly in Shadow Lass's projected darkness.
"I have an idea."
The prisoner Jeyra had mind-blasted dashed through the trees. She stumbled on roots, jumped over thorny bushes, and ran through thin branches that whipped at her face. But she kept going. The Legion was here, and the people who had been helping. She couldn't let the terrorists she knew were coming get to them.
Jeckie squeezed her eyes shut tighter when pain lanced through her head as she tried to sit up. Something had been prodding at the illusion she had put over the forest, one she had crafted to keep the Terror Firma members rushing through the woods going in circles. Then the thing had pushed them over completely, knocking her out as the illusion unraveled against her will.
She settled for opening her eyes without sitting up.
There were a lot of angry terrorists surrounding her, a menacing green glow coming from behind them.
Shadow Lass looked out into the darkness. Nura, Blok, and Jan had arrived, and had melded in with the other fighting Legionnaires with the ease of long practice. They fought easily, only slightly hampered by the less-experienced Heroes of Lallor.
There were three people she didn't see. One she knew was here, one she thought was here, and one shehoped wasn't here.
An earth-mover, a telepath, and a teleporter.
Finding the stairs, she sprinted upwards. She found Jeyra Etinn sitting cross-legged on the landing, eyes closed.
She wouldn't be worthy to call herself Talokian if she couldn't recognize a duel on sight, even if it didn't involve weapons or fists.
She went back down.
"Can you get rid of the darkness?" Life Lass whispered when she set foot on the ground floor. "I can't see anything to animate and Evolvo has an idea."
Shadow Lass dispelled the darkness as she stalked out the front door, searching for the man who made the cracks in the street.
Imra gave a little under Jeyra's constant pressure. The other telepath pushed hard, trying to throw her off. Imra knelt slightly and pushed, overbalancing her opponent and sending her sprawling.
Jeyra pulled herself up and started round two of the duel.
Imra sent her mind questing at Jeyra's own, trying to read her thoughts. Jeyra was good at this; better than Esper Lass was. The Legionnaire couldn't get any reading of her. She felt the terrorist probing at her own mind and drew her walls tighter around her.
She knew most people's shielding was worse when they were trying to see into other's minds, and took her chance.
She ran into a thick mental block and heard Jeyra in her mind, repeating her thoughts to her.
:…in my head. I lost.: Imra shoved Jeyra and her mocking voice out of her mind and dropped her shielding in preparation for round three.
The menacing green glow shot out and wrapped around one of the terrorists threatening Jeckie. It grabbed a mid-sized tree and yanked it out of the ground, swatting at the others.
One giant alien spun and was blocked from her line of sight by an equally large alien standing over her.
Jeckie took advantage of the distraction to put the illusion of crumbling ground on him. He flailed his arms, trying to regain the balance and support he was convinced he had lost.
She stood and fought to ignore the dizziness and nausea that swamped her.
There was a great splintering as the giant alien she had lost sight of missed her target and sunk her fist into the tree. There was a peal of derisive laughter at her folly. The alien snarled and swung her injured hand backwards in a wide sweep.
There was a crunch as she hit someone's face.
The green light changed to red in all of an instant. The alien's opponent stood unsteadily, blood pouring out of her shattered nose.
The young woman glared at her attacker, eyes defiant. Her shoulder-length brown hair hung around her face, matted with mud and sweat and drying blood. She lashed out with the red light, tangling the other alien in a hedge of thick bushes.
Jeckie decided immediately that she liked this girl.
"Elysion!"
He stole a quick glance behind him to see Shadow Lass hard on his heels; dashing around the lake just as he had done. She was too far away to see clearly, but he knew her face would be furious.
He sneered to himself and stopped, waiting for her to catch up.
The Legionnaire thought she was onto his tactics. She stopped about ten yards away, pacing around him in a wide circle; waiting for him to make a move.
He wouldn't play by her rules. This was his fight.
Jeyra, he called.
"So, what you're saying is that he's pretty much evil, dead, or in hiding?" Jo asked, trying to clarify.
"Yeah," Lyle said sourly. "Fun all around, isn't it?"
Imra waited for Jeyra to drop her shields, but she never did.
She felt the other telepath leave.
Furious at this breach of etiquette, Imra searched for her mind.
"Hold your breath," Life Lass whispered to Jan. He had noticed her making the rounds of all the other Legionnaires, and wanted to know what she had to say. "And don't do anything."
He did what she said, wondering.
Gas Girl consolidated herself on the landing overlooking the large front room of the house.
"Now, Tal!" Life Lass yelled.
She jumped over the railing, sublimating into tear gas in an instant.
Terror Firma coughed and wept and swore, rushing for clear air.
:Elysion?: Jeyra asked.
Now, Jeyra.
The world went white for the Legionnaires and their allies.
"Time!" Cham called, astonished to find himself still standing and in the same position as before. The only sign that Terror Firma had ever been in the area was the destruction.
Life Lass fished out a clock and reported.
Cham checked his ring log.
They had been out almost an hour.
"What?" Nura said incredulously, having also checked her ring. "How-?"
"The same way that Orando never remembered Terror Firma before it was too late," Jan told her.
The first thought Imra had upon reawakening was that wasn't Jeyra Etinn.
But now she knew the feel of Terror Firma's secret weapon.
She would be able to find it again.
Jeckie shook her head to clear it. The young woman she had been fighting with was leaning over with her hands on her knees to support her.
"Princess Projectra of Orando and the Legion," Jeckie said.
Her partner looked up. "Dhori Aahngraisho," she said, breathing slightly harder than usual and her voice distorted by a broken nose.
Dori Aandraison, Jeckie translated in her mind. "Your power- that was drawn from the Pathophotological Spectrum, wasn't it?"
Dori's eyes became guarded. "Ih'm noht a Lantern Chorps mhehmber, igh skwear."
"Didn't say you were," Jeckie pointed out. "Though there was a good reason the Lantern Corps were banned. Though I thought they could only manage to master one color per person."
She walked over. "I've never heard of anyone able to access more than one."
"Iht's a ghcift," Dori retorted. "'snhot lihke igh ghet toh ushe ight mucgch, gthoh. Mhaks mghy mood gho ahll fungy."
"Tell me," Jeckie said conspiratorially. "How do you feel about leaving Xolnar?"
"Well, you all clean up nicely," Nura told the Heroes of Lallor, hands on her hips.
"You really think so?" Gas Girl asked excitedly.
"We had advice," Life Lass pointed out.
"But you were smart enough to follow it," Cham said. "Puts you ahead of a lot of people we've met."
"Well, I think that they did a fairly good job by themselves," Imra announced, coming out of the trees. "The people were safely hidden and mostly calm when we arrived, remember?"
"They were, weren't they?" Nura said thoughtfully. "Seems like you all picked up Rule One pretty fast: civilians come first."
The Heroes of Lallor beamed at each other.
"Experience counts for quite a bit, you know," Shadow Lass reminded everyone, disgruntled at her lost opportunity to fight.
"Yeah, we know, Shady," Cham muttered.
"You mean, you know," she muttered back.
"Leave off, you two," Imra told them, then whispered something to Blok. He nodded.
Jan looked at them questioningly. "What?"
Imra raised her eyebrows. "All in favor of taking the Heroes of Lallor home?"
The vote was a unanimous 'yes'.
Jeckie and Dori walked out of the trees. The Legionnaire looked up at the sky and squinted, then activated her ring.
"Imra?" she asked. "Come give us a pick-up, will you?"
"Us?" came her voice.
"I have someone here that I'm sure the Subs would love to meet."
