Chapter 3: Start of the Legion of Superheroes

Shawarma King

Brockton Bay Mall

I thought it'd be highly amusing, to me if no one else, if we all sat down and talked while eating shawarma. Fun fact of this not so grimdark death world Worm: all of the media I am familiar with up until 2024 has been successfully imported from not just Earth 1 but a bunch of others as well in the local multiverse cluster. Earth Bet, or 2 for simplicity's sake is where I reside. There are 52 in total, and yes apparently we are the reality's New 52. Don't worry about it. I certainly don't.

The Undersiders are dressed in what appears to be canon uniforms, except of above average quality. They must know a guy. Or at least, Tattletale does. Skitter's uniform is in fact the completed version from her canon debut however, she must have tried even harder than canon Taylor because it's above average in quality. Especially considering she made it all herself.

We all take seats on a large circular table. Food and drinks have already been laid out in the center. Undersiders and Skitter across from us present members of New Wave. I forgot to mention this earlier but Vicky, Amy and Crystal have high tech looking visors as part of their overall uniforms. The lenses are transparent enough to see their eyes and they serve as functional HUDs, eye protection and all sorts of supervision options. Modeled after my eyes actually, just not including psionic enhancements. And lastly, because not everyone has a sufficient Brute rating, I made sure all of the super suits I made are equipped with powerful shields modeled after the best of best mods in the Borderlands series. If somehow something punches through, the suits themselves are crazy durable.

The Undersiders look tense, I can tell they are still debating running for the hills even as they start eating and drinking. Nobody has said anything yet to kickstart the talk I demanded. I ponder for a few moments how I want to approach this.

"First off, don't bother trying to show off how smart you are, Lisa Wilbourn." Tattletale and her gang freeze in shock at my blatant disregard of the Unwritten Rules. My teammates are definitely gaping at me as well, I feel through my senses. Skitter is no different.

I look at each of the parahumans before me one by one, making sure to look each of them straight in the eyes. Regardless of any eyes covered by protective lenses. "Let's just get this out of the way, shall we? I know who you all are and your general motivations. And you're all in danger because of, at the very least, the secret boss of the Undersiders. Simply because, Coil is now aware of you all, including Miss bug controller. Or should I say, Taylor Hebert?"

Before any of the villains or Taylor can bolt or, god forbid, attack me and mine, I cover us all in my domain. With the concept of Imagine Breaker nullifying all superpowers not protected by my tinkertech shielding. Because my shields are designed for such things, even from my own psychic energy.

I hold out my hands in the universal sign of surrender, hoping to calm them down. "I am not threatening any of you. And I can prove I know what I claim and that I am sincere in wanting to help all of you. You'll notice none of your powers are working right now and I am keeping you all seated. Please, I just want to help." I talk them down as calmly as I can.

I address Tattletale, or Lisa. I guess, now that the cat's out of the bag. "Lisa, I will allow your power to be released from the dampening and release enough of my thinker protections for you to read me reliably. Sounds fair to you?" She gives me a shaky but honest nod of agreement at that.

And so I explain everything I need to explain. I tell them about Coil, Lisa's recruitment at gunpoint, how Brian will never get custody of Aisha if he relies on Coil's word, Alec will be better protected by me, my family, and eventual Legion, Rachel and her dogs I personally wish to fund and take care of because I love dogs, and lastly, Taylor can be a great hero if she joins my personal team and I will investigate personally her trigger event and bullying campaign. And so on, along those lines.

It may seem strange I am convincing them this way but, I believe a hammer is what is needed here and not a scalpel. Being direct and honest is both easier for me, and effective. No bullshit. It helps that I am the number one ranked hero in the world. No joke, I have the highest dungeon clear record, and bounty arrests. And now, two high profile kills. First two of many more I imagine. S-rank actually means something here, I at the very least make sure of that by way of example.

Vicky, Amy and Crystal of course chime in and every now and then, which I highly appreciate. Because it helped give Lisa more data to read and lend credence to everything I am saying.

Lisa, smiles like a fox now. "So, what exactly is your plan for use, John Dallon?"

I return her grin with one of my own. "Simple, join my Legion of Superheroes, and help me protect the world. In return, I shall make sure you are all taken care of."

I release my domain not long after that, because all of them do in fact agree to disband the Undersiders and come under my umbrella. Taylor as well, with a bit more convincing on my and Lisa's part.

I had Amy heal all of our new allies and give them a general tune up. No more mental disorders for them, and whatever else was ailing them. Made sure they were all at the peak of human physical conditioning as well. As a bonus you could say, for joining my budding personal team.

New Wave as a hero team is legally under the control of Aunt Sarah by the way, the Legion will be directly under my control but deeply allied to New Wave. They ARE my family after all, they get priority over everybody else that may need the Legion.

The PRT, Protectorate and BPD were called in as soon as Lung, Oni Lee and all of the goons were neutralized by the way. Lung and Oni Lee's heads I set aside for bounty confirmation, and the mundane thugs were all handcuffed, with minimal healing for the ones with twisted limbs. Just enough to handcuff them properly. Amy and I shot them with Icers as well, just to be safe.

So, we all hashed out details regarding the Legion for the next half hour or so. As well as my plans to hunt down Coil and Bakuda who I suspect is either on her way to Brockton Bay or hiding out somewhere in ABB territory. Of course, I had to explain who the fuck Bakuda was in the first place.

Once all of that was out of the way, we all heard the bell attached to the front entrance tingle. Miss Militia, Assault and Battery had just walked in. Miss Militia was doing that smiling with her eyes thing she is known for and checking me out blatantly, so was Battery, Assault was wagging his eyebrows at his wife as he glanced between her and I. She proceeded to choke him in a headlock.

It was Miss Militia that addressed the room. Because you know, Assault was being assaulted and battered by his wife, Battery. Affectionately, of course. "Valor, Glory Girl, Panacea and Laserdream. Excellent work taking down Lung, Oni Lee and all those thugs. No civilian casualties, and minimal property damage, but that appears to be all Lung and Oni Lee's doing. Would you and your new friends be open to coming into the PRT headquarters for a debrief?"

She was looking me in the eyes as she said all that, and her body was clearly being leveraged here. Miss Militia was sexy posing at me to agree to come in.

…it was working of course. All of the other girls in the room started glaring and pouting at us. Including Battery. You know, the married woman choking out her husband.

"But of course, Miss Militia. I do need to speak with Director Piggot about what's going to happen next. Regarding our new friends here, among other things." I smile a charming smile at her, Battery too because that way lies fun possibilities as well~

Even as Vicky, Amy and Crystal have been biting me in the shoulders and neck respectively ever since I started flirting with Miss Militia. Not with words as you can see, but in body language and eye contact. Everybody else was deeply amused by my predicament, including me. It shows that they're jealous because they care! Which is also funny because they are open to a larger harem but, I suppose it's because they wish to take their time with that? If the expansion of the harem pushes through at all. It is quite probable we just have a bunch of girls up for casual stuff without commitment to the harem.

PRT Headquarters

Main Meeting Room

Everybody not out on patrol and necessary for this meeting was here in the meeting room. Director Piggot, Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and my teammates and I.

So, the PRT and Protectorate ENE branch representatives across from me and my Legion. All of New Wave is basically an honorary Legion member but not all of the Legion will be New Wave. Important distinction, you know.

Director Emily Piggot used to be overweight, unhealthy enough to need dialysis and prejudiced against capes because of trauma. I made sure to fix all of that years ago. Had to make my case to Alexandria herself. Logic won the day as it tends to when I wield like I do. So, Director Piggot is not a crazy person dying more and more each day thinking all capes are bad. And is a capable PRT Director as a result, imagine that.

S-Class threats besides Endbringers are all still around from the Worm canon you see, so the Ellisburg event still happened with the Goblin King. All of those threats will be dealt with, in time.

Director Piggot assumes the Gendo Ikari pose, quite effective on her part regardless of the absence of glasses with a glare. "Valor, the bounties on Lung and Oni Lee shall be transferred to your personal bank account post haste. For the sake of records, could you all please recount what exactly happened to lead to today's events? Before we move on to what I think you have to say about your new friends."

She was sharp as well about such things, another major reason she's good at her job.

Tattletale, her original team members and Skitter explain their side first. I had Taylor adopt the hero name as a trial run, see how she likes it. Nobody is masked, because the PRT and Protectorate will need to know who the new members of my Legion really are anyway. I am following New Wave's doctrine regarding accountability and whatnot. I can make sure all members are well protected with my tinkertech if nothing else. And I do have a lot I can do beyond technology, psychic powers are bullshit like that. Among my many other powers in my skill trees.

As for mine and my lovely harem girls and our side of the story?

"Well, Director Piggot, our date night was interrupted while we were still at McDonald's. We saw the fire, we ran towards it." And then I went into as much detail as necessary regarding the fight.

Miss Militia was clearly impressed with everything we accomplished and deeply aroused by me in particular, she was eyefucking for several minutes into my retelling of events. Armsmaster was confirming everything with his lie detector, which he perfected with mine and Dragon's help ages ago. He's a good friend of mine, we run in certain Tinker circles.

Director Piggot was stoic for the most part, but I could see the respect and admiration in her eyes no matter how much she tried to hide it all. All three of them were quite open with body language to me and my eyes anyway. Not to mention their surface thoughts and emotions.

"Finally, Valor, what exactly do you plan for this ragtag group of supposedly former villains, and a new vigilante?" She asked but I could see the knowing look in her eyes.

"Director Piggot," I adopt a rather teasing voice. "No need to play coy, we've talked about this many times. I wish to establish the Legion of Superheroes. Please draw up the contract for the PRT and Protectorate side of things."

Director Piggot's answering grin was downright predatory, in a good way of course. She accesses her intercom system in the room and asks her personal secretary to bring in the necessary papers. We have a lot of things to sign and amend and whatnot, but it will be worth it in the end. The Legion of Superheroes will be good for this world and all others.

Legion of Superheroes HQ

Training Room

We're in a pocket dimension generated by my Hero System. The building we are in resembles a futuristic military style compound combined with a high tech castle. We have the main Legion Cruiser, a spaceship that looks exactly like it does from the Supergirl series, and a bunch of smaller craft in the form of Quinjets from the MCU all in one hangar. The Legion Cruiser makes use of Time Lord and Nordic Rune expansions and enhancements though it is the only one that does.

I am currently in the training room of the main structure on the heroics side of the vase, the castle contains the living quarters and whatnot.

Glory Girl, Panacea and Laserdream are having our new members run the gauntlet. As in, they are mercilessly training our new members in order to make them learn how to properly fight and get a lot of intense workouts and what not. The hardlight programs are running an army of robots scenario.

I am watching over them all, flying above them in the room. I only step in when it gets too much for them. I'll have to plan out more recruitments, book some dungeon diving, and kill some more villains but, this is fun and necessary.

Tattletale, Grue, Regent, Hellhound and Skitter all got new and improved suits by the way. I took care of it all. Basically the aesthetics are all the same, I just added light armor as needed and have them all Legion Rings. No weapons for them though, not yet. I'll have to observe how they operate for now before I give supplementary gear.

I had all of my personal weapons equipped alongside my supersuit. My guns are equipped onto weapon slots and I can rotate between them as needed, basically my System uses the Borderlands layout with my very own ECHO menu, the Hero System connected to my Legion ring once I finished making mine all those years ago.

Standard 4 slots for weapons, Class Mod, Relic and Grenade Mod. My inventory space is infinite though. Four class trees are available to me, but with infinite active and passive skills. There are an infinite number of Heroes out in the multiverse so, I guess that tracks. I am idly going through my skill trees right now even as I spare some psychic power to also observe and step in during the combat training session.

I don't think I ever mentioned what my class is called, but really it's just what it says on the tin (the System name): Hero. Race of course, you know it well by now. I have four skill trees: Alexandria , Inspired Inventor, Psychokinetic and Kaleidoscope. So it covers heroes of all sorts: Superman types, overpowered tinkers, all Psionic abilities you can think of, and a catch-all for magic, the only limit is my own imagination. After spending points of course.

As of right now, I spent the last 15 years of my life, ever since I awakened my powers putting points into Alexandria , Psychokinetic, Inspired Inventor for the most part. With whatever points I could spare into Runecraft under the Kaleidoscope magic skill tree. Perhaps one day I shall travel the wider Multiverse, after I have secured solid protections for the local multiverse cluster.

I have my Walther WA2000 Sniper equipped for range and my trusty katana for melee. Occasionally, when anybody in the group going through the robot invasion scenario looks like they are about to be overwhelmed or sustain rather debilitating damage, I fire off a shot from my sniper rifle. I go for armor piercing disruptor rounds made from vibranium with Norse runes engraved, runes that are channeling the power of Thor. The enemies are made from hard light mimicking actual robots after all.

After killing Lung and Oni Lee among other things I accomplished that day, I got quite a lot of points saved up and I am pondering what to spend them on now. So far, I doubled down repeatedly on everything that covers Daxamite and Titanian physiology to upgrade my Alexandria skill tree, anything and everything under psionic energy manipulation for Psychokinesis which synergizes well with my Titanian biology, and under Inspired Inventor I invested into firearms, bladed weaponry, shields, armor and a bit of explosives. I suppose at this point, I should reinforce my weakest specialization, magic in general.

Don't get me wrong, Runecraft is versatile and incredibly useful when done well, but having more mastery under my belt for the most esoteric of arts can only make me more powerful and over prepared for anything that comes my way. I mean, the concept of Imagine Breaker that I can bring forth with purely psionics and the strength of my will is powerful, but it could theoretically be resisted by being with stronger mystery and/or willpower than I. Not to mention crazy strong physiology as well like say, dragons from the Nasuverse or some bullshit like that. High ranking demons as well.

Alright, I have a lot of points to spend and I don't really need to save up for anything because doing whatever I consider "heroic actions" will net me points. That's not just active combat against evil by the way, romancing heroines, and consistent training also fall under what I consider to be actions fitting of a hero. Because what I see as a hero is what I deem necessary in a story.

So, what do I hope to counter through investing in magic? Protection and increased damage against demons and dark magic I suppose is always good. Okay, I'll invest all of my points into the following schools of Onmyouji arts then: Enchantment or Charm Gear, Shikigami, and Four Guardian Gods. So that covers Talismans for powerful enhancements, familiars from Onmyouji arts, and channeling the powers of the Black Tortoise, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird, Azure Dragon, as well as the Yellow Dragon through my martial arts. Also known as Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku, Seiryu and Kohryu. Divine beasts that guard the four cardinal directions and the golden dragon that rules over them in the center.

I spread all of my ability points across the three paths of Onmyouji arts equally. I'll design a talisman to cover all support enchantments, create one good Shikigami to start with, and practice channeling the Four Guardian Gods different energies on my own later.

Our new Legion members are basically at Captain America levels of physical fitness, they simply lack skills and discipline. We from the New Wave team shall beat all of that into their bodies.

I am qualified as a master in Jeet Kune Do and all of the martial arts that I adapted into my own particular style. I got acknowledged by all of my old masters when I was still a student, I was given an actual scroll as certification from all of the dojos I used to attend. My final exam to reach master status was the same in all of the schools of martial arts I attended: defeat the resident grandmaster of the dojo one on one no holds barred, without using anything beyond human physical ability of course. I designed an extensive gravity manipulation function into the Legion rings to help with that, the rest was my own iron will not to use any of my powers.

And so, I was the designated instructor for our close combat training. That goes for ALL members of New Wave and the Legion. Current and future. After the robot army training scenario, everybody washed up and got changed into clothes fit for martial arts training. We all opted for comfy workout clothes instead of gi or something similar. It's not like we need to uphold traditions or anything. We just need to feel comfortable when training.

I start off with a slow demonstration of basic strikes only on a metal dummy. They look exactly like the wooden training dummies used for Wing Chun and other similar styles but, we're using metal versions made out of adamantium reinforced with Norse runes. Because the weakest of any team members and allies that will have access to these dummies will at the very least be in the Captain America starting strength range.

Every one of our new members go through the basic strikes until they can reliably pull them off at varying speeds. Everyone has a metal dummy in front of them. After strikes, I show off all the kicks I like to use most of the time. Which covers all of the kicks I know that do not require any spinning. For now. Vicky, Amy and Crystal already know these moves so they practice their own preferred styles as I help our new members.

And our training goes on like that, for the rest of the day. As we all retire for the evening in personal rooms within the Castle, I plan out what I know of Worm canon and I decide that the only truly pressing issue is Coil. I need to take him out. Permanently, but here's the tricky part: doing it without his contingencies fucking up the PRT, Protectorate and Brockton Bay in general.

Then I realize it's quite simple, or at least I can make it simple. First, using the holographic computer built into my Legion suit I call up a programming software I designed myself. I feel I can create my first shikigami and have reliable tech support all in one companion. Question is, which android waifu do I want first?

Legion of Superheroes HQ

Valor's Workshop

So, I am basically the ultimate all rounder when it comes to my tinker specialization. Whatever blindspots I had after spending points I covered through old fashioned studying, psychic powers and being able to think super fast and enhanced natural intelligence through alien biology is a cheat helps a lot in that regard. And even in my previous life, when I was truly invested in something I really put in the work to learn what I needed to learn. All of the supporting knowledge I gained from my tinker specialties so far also helps reinforce my aptitude for coding, smart weapons and all that sci-fi engineering overlaps with such things.

I made sure a fully functional Omni-Tool was combined with my Legion ring. When it came down to it with regards to the specific character design of what amounts to a mystical cyborg shikigami I was torn between the following choices: Kiwi from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Daisy Johnson from SHIELD, and EDI from Mass Effect.

One is based on a capable netrunner with extensive cybernetics, one is known for being a world class hacker with Inhuman gravity powers, and one is a powerful AI with a gynoid body. I am not limiting myself to just AI characters for this because the important bit is the concept of overpowered hacking ability and my own personal choices in the matter. Because, I'm dealing not just with science and technology but magic as well.

And so, being the greedy and impatient bastard that I am, I chose all three. Because I have the time and resources. Whatever I don't have on hand, I can transmute in mere seconds. And time is no obstacle because whatever I do, I do it with the utmost speed and efficiency afforded to me from Inspired Inventor, not to mention my other skill trees and how those improve my speed in general.

Kiwi shall have her canon color scheme but with a more complete human design (basically no missing parts from a baseline human) with my preferred body measurements, Daisy Johnson AKA Quake shall have a modified version of her final super suit from Agents of SHIELD, the black bodysuit with the yellow trim and gauntlets (I will add light armor plates to certain areas and make sure the skintight bodysuit is made using vibranium), and EDI shall have her alternate body design form Mass Effect 3, she will of course have access to shapeshifting when she wants or need to blend in better. Kiwi will have access to that as well.

And I don't plan on keeping the three of the stored inside of Talismans by the way, which is how shikigami are used in Twin Star Exorcists where my newest magic skill tree comes from. They shall be out in the open indefinitely. I'm not a monster.

AN: I shall stop here. Kiwi, Daisy and EDI deserve some proper screen time in the next chapter. Coil shall die for sure as well, and I might squeeze in some more content after that. I shall see. Thanks for reading.

Posted on: 11/28/2024