[video] Show Me Your Moves

[whyarewehere]

[The camera bobs and judders as someone sets it up, catching flashes of a scruffy, unkempt face and pale arms and the sky for a moment.]

Okay so I've been thinking, we've got super powers here, right?

[The picture steadies pointing out at what appears to be a beach, but is more likely to just be a simulated section of beach on the Legion World. It falls over, and Grif swears as he rights it again.]

...Anyway. By super powers I mean amazing things you couldn't do before, because otherwise you're just from some world where you can do cool stuff most of us can't and that's not superpowers, that's just life being unfair to the rest of us.

[Satisfied that the comm is stable, Grif steps out in front of it as he continues.]

So, I want to see what you guys can do. And because I am all about being fair, I'm going first.

[He swings his arms a little, takes a couple breaths, then bolts to the waterline. He's nothing but a speed blur followed by a trail of thrashed sand. He stops at the surf and charges back just as quickly. At the end he's doubled over in front of the camera, hands on his knees, huffing and wheezing.]

Whoo!

[He laughs as he catches his breath, which makes it somewhat harder, and is grinning despite how much that tiny display of super speed seems to have taken out of him. In good shape, this guy is not.]

It's like... it feels like everything's normal speed to me when I do it and everything's all slowed down. It's crazy shit, man.

[Grif plunks down heavily in the sand and picks up the comm again, still visibly panting.]

So. That's me. Show me what you got.

((OOC: Feel free to threadhop each other and talk about powers if you like! Grif is encouraging sharing.))

Comments

[whyarewehere]

For what it's worth, I get the feeling that not everybody here is that thrilled to see us anyway. Like that green guy.

[He eyes Donatello, then adds,]

The other green guy, I mean. There are so many weird people here I swear.

[Diplomatic, Grif is not.]

I think they might be telling the truth about it being an accident, but still. What the hell kind of thing do you have to be doing for this to be your accident? You don't exactly tear up the space time continuum by running a red light.

[He pronounces the "uum" in "continuum" like the one in "vacuum".]

[enthraller]

By what?

[Sorry Grif, your example is less than helpful for those from worlds without cars or traffic laws.]

[whyarewehere]

What do you mean by what? Have you never been in a car?

[It's such a universal and age-old experience for him that he can't even imagine someone wouldn't have it.]

[enthraller]

A what?

[whyarewehere]

You know, four wheels? You drive it and go places? Beep beep?

Are you from the anti-car dimension?

[enthraller]

You mean a carriage?

[Except for the "beep beep" part. No idea what that means.]

[whyarewehere]

Wait, you guys still use horses?

[Oh my god that is adorable.]

[enthraller]

[There are probably more tactful ways that could have been phrased. As it is, Saralegui's face colors slightly, some odd embarrassment on behalf of his home world, and his lips press together into a thin line to avoid scowling.

It's probably the most sincere expression he's had since waking up here.]

I do realize, just from this ship, that other worlds might have developed...alternatives.

[Really mindblowing, overwhelming alternatives.]

But you could at least try not to sound so condescending about it. Horses have worked just fine for a long time now.

[whyarewehere]

[Grif smiles innocently.]

Well, there's nothing wrong with horses, but I don't think anybody's done anything important on a horse since the dark ages.

[enthraller]

[Saralegui's eye narrow.]

I've won wars on a horse. Is that so unimportant?

[nerdninja]

Hey. Think about what you guys look like to me.

[...which is actually a bluff since human is the norm in his own world, too, but come on, man.]

But in a place with this level of technological advancement, there's a lot of ways for things to go wrong. Intradimensional teleportation, for example - a couple variables off could make that go interdimensional...

I'm a little more concerned about all of this superpowers business.

[He's landed in the wrong dimension by accident. These things happen.

Getting superpowers out of nowhere? Definitely did not happen, the last time.]

[whyarewehere]

I'm not too concerned about the super powers thing, because mine's not... I don't know, "bleeding a lot while dying".

I'm gonna put myself down as first to not be surprised if that happens to someone, though. This is all looking pretty unplanned and things go awful enough when you have a plan.

[nerdninja]

Well, the way I see it, anything capable of altering basic genetics - since that's what I'd assume that powers like this are attached to - is more to worry about than picking someone up and dropping them in the wrong place.

[whyarewehere]

The wrong place did have air we couldn't breathe and we're lucky these guys picked us up.

[Grif shrugs.]

Who knows, maybe we just got a blast of atomic bullshit on the way in. Like in the comic books.

[Because that is totally how radiation works in the real world. Definitely. One hundred percent.]

[nerdninja]

Real life doesn't work like comic books!

[Except for the ways that it absolutely does in his own world, that he doesn't notice because they're real life.

And also.]

...well, maybe for Rich.

[whyarewehere]

Sometimes it does! Like this one time, me and some other people got sent to the future by an explosion.

[Grif does not understand that no, they did not get sent to the future by the explosion. They're all just really dumb, jump to bad conclusions, and haven't seen enough evidence of how dumb and incorrect they are.]

Rich... that's the Nova Force guy, right? Can't disagree with you there.

[nerdninja]

Or you were sent to the future by a far more complex temporal phenomena that presents with an explosion, because anything capable of that is going to be pretty volatile on its own -

[...okay, no, he should know better than to attempt this, shouldn't he?]

[whyarewehere]

Nah man, it was just a big bomb our sergeant built into a robot because he's an idiot. Big enough explosion equals time travel to the future.

[He pauses, then adds.]

In case you wondered, the future sucks.

[googledox]

The...incident that made our teammates disappear was due to our attempt to banish a very powerful enemy of ours to another dimension.

My calculations should've been accurate. They were -- they still are accurate. Every time I've recalculated the readings and collated the data, I've come to the same conclusion, that the device should have successfully pushed our enemy back into the other dimension it was trying to escape from and left everyone in our universe unharmed.

However, that isn't what happened. Most of the team disappeared.

[Or, according to official UP reports and eyewitnesses, 'were vaporized,' but he refuses to believe that.]

A few of us were able to shield one another with our powers to avoid a similar fate.

The...incident couldn't have done this to you, but given that you appeared at the site of the Legion's last battle as a full team, where the others disappeared, it is possible that damage to the spacetime continuum there left a rift or tear that's now become exploited by a force or entity acting according to its own purposes.

Part of why we've taken responsibility for getting you home -- aside from the UP's suspicious behavior regarding the last group of dimensional displacees -- is because it's possible that whatever is behind this is exploiting what remains of my mistake.

And if that's the case, the least I owe you is a dedicated effort to get you all home or to the dimensions of your choosing.

[whyarewehere]

[Grif would normally take this moment to continue giving Brainy shit for it probably being his fault, standard Grif procedure, but he gets distracted by something more immediately relevant to his continued health and wellbeing.]

Nobody's really told me anything about what happened with the last guys, actually. You think it was a government coverup?

[He also loves a conspiracy.]

[googledox]

The full extent of the UP's involvement is unknown. All we know is that the first group of dimensional displacees was a group of Legionnaires from alternate dimensions. A UP survey team was studying the planet and managed to save them from dying from the planet's hostile conditions when they first arrived.

Then instead of respecting their rights as sentients, they brought them in secret to a holding facility where they studied them and refused to let them go free. The alternate Legionnaires managed to break loose from containment and put out a distress call, after which we liberated them, took them under our protection, and started working on a solution to get them home.

However, the quantum ties to their home dimensions proved stronger than the forces holding them here, so they disappeared. We believe they were successfully pulled back to their home universes without our intervention. Due to our concerns that it might not be an isolated incident, we established a base in orbit around the planet with an intervention team with long-range scanners that could threshold down to the surface if more people appeared, so they could be rescued from the planet's hostile conditions. We'd establish one on the surface itself but the frequent windstorms would demolish any permanent base there.

What remains in question is whether the discovery of the first group by the UP survey team was incidental or if there was a concerted effort on the part of the UP to meddle with any residual damage to spacetime at the site where our teammates disappeared. Given that their behavior regarding the first group of dimensional displacees was suspiciously disrespectful of their rights, we're still uncertain of the extent of their involvement.

[whyarewehere]

"Studied". Like lab rats? And you guys... what, elect these people?

The high ups are always objectively terrible people, but damn.

[googledox]

Like lab rats, yes. Fortunately, they didn't do any experimentation that caused pain or physical harm but we were told their scans were somewhat invasive and that they limited their freedom of movement, which is unconscionable. All of you may not be citizens but your rights are still protected under UP law.

As for the researchers responsible, they were fired and some of them were even imprisoned. Unfortunately, there were enough layers of plausible deniability that the actual public officials we believe were responsible got away with it.

That's why we've taken over monitoring the planet. You're all free to leave Legion World as long as you're currently off-duty or as long as you opted out of being a Legionnaire in the first place, and like we stated when you first signed up, those of you that have volunteered to be Legionnaires are also free to resign at any time.

Even those of you that opt out of being Legionnaires are encouraged to contact us for aid if you travel through to UP member worlds and find yourselves in hostile situations with the UP government. We're hoping that our association with you is enough to encourage any unsavory parties within the UP to understand their previous treatment of dimensional outsiders won't be tolerated if they attempt the same with you.

[whyarewehere]

Okay, then I can still sleep with both eyes closed. Good to know, because I can't actually do it the other way.

[googledox]

If you face any difficulties with the UP, we are not averse to "going off the grid," as the old Earth saying goes. Despite the size of Legion World, we have the stealth tech to do it.

It wouldn't be the first time.

[Which really says a lot about the Legion's relationship with the UP government.]