[VIDEO]

[thedreamisdead]

I'd like to take a trip to Old New York. Or New New York. Or whatever it is they're calling it these days. It's a personal matter, nothing serious for anyone here. However, given my... unfamiliarity with the current time and my public status, I would like to request someone come along with me as an escort or a distraction for nosy cits while I take care of my business.

I'm willing to accompany you on anything you need to do while you're there. [Assuming it's legal.] No need for a wasted trip on your part, after all.

Comments

[gonebyebye]

I do need to check out a few bookstored. Most of the more useful guides to the occult aren't the kind of thing anyone wants to digitize.

[thedreamisdead]

Given the horror stories I've heard about haunted books, I'd hate to think of a haunted computer hooked up to any networks.

[gonebyebye]

It's less an issue of anything being haunted, although that can certainly happen, as it is an issue of attracting the wrong sort of attention. Making all that information easily acceptable to the masses is a good recipe for an accidental conjuring, and some entities can get stronger based on the amount of people who know about them. Belief is a powerful thing, figuratively and literally.

[thedreamisdead]

Don't they have an entire Sorcerer's World here? I'm not sure how many people are there, but I'd think that would be the big hot spot for that kind of... Belief.

[gonebyebye]

True, but in their case, they understand the risks associated with that kind of knowledge, and have the ability to prevent or solve any issues that might crop up. You can't really say the same about your average civilian.

[thedreamisdead]

No, I suppose you can't. Guess I'm just used to citizens that are usually too stupid to get things right. Everyone here seems a lot more on the ball.

Not that I'm complaining. Stupid cits are easier to corral, and the less angry gods we have invading, the better.

[deafleppard]

Yeah, sure. I can tag along.

[thedreamisdead]

Appreciated.

[deafleppard]

Sure thing. It's kind of where I'm from.

Well, a different version. Not this super-fancy really high tech version.

But that's cool too.

[thedreamisdead]

New York's underground where I'm from. Problems got so big it was decided just to pave over the entire thing and build a new city on top of it. Now it's infested with werewolves, cannibals, muties, and troggies.

We call it the Undercity. Kinda creepy. Went down there once when I was a cadet. Strange to see it built up like this.

[deafleppard]

First of all. Wow.

Second, that makes sense. Why fix your problems when you can just ignore them altogether. Soooo much easier.

[thedreamisdead]

I'm sure it made sense at the time. Does seem like a bit of a waste, but given how old it was it might've been cheaper than trying to upgrade a small town like that to fit in with the rest of Mega-City One.

[deafleppard]

So how did it end up with werewolves and cannibals?

Especially cannibals.

[thedreamisdead]

Not entirely certain on the werewolves. Some kind of virus, I believe.

We've had a number of massive crises hit my city over the last 40 years. Invasions from the Soviet Cities, alien invasions, gang wars, extradimensional beings trying to kill us all. Quite a few citizens abandoned the city during all that, heading either into the Undercity or the Cursed Earth.

There's not a lot to eat in the Undercity. No sunlight. Vicious animals. Troggies. When people get desperate and hungry, well...

[deafleppard]

Okay what did your city ever do to have all that happen to it.

Like, seriously.

[thedreamisdead]

Freedom overdose.

[She's joking. Honest.]

[deafleppard]

[And yet...]

Oh hell no.

[thedreamisdead]

It's true. Everyone wants some of our spare freedom.

[deafleppard]

So I'm gonna head into what might be dangerous territory for me.

That the reason why they named you that?

[thedreamisdead]

No big drama. My grandparents named my mother that when they first moved to Mega-City One. Full of hopes for the land of opportunity, I suppose. They believed in the American Dream. Never met them, they all died before I was born, but my father told me about them.

My mother was killed by the Judges. My father got pregnant with me a few months later and decided to start over. Do things right. Named me after her.

[deafleppard]

Hang on. Your father got...

What?

[thedreamisdead]

Men can have babies. True, the practice has died out largely due to robot midwives, but...

Well. In any case, my father didn't quite go that route. He was a bit... odd. After my mother died, he had his moved into her body. A guilt complex, I suppose. Had his original taxidermied up with robotics and programmed with some of his classics. Like I said, a bit eccentric.

Before he had the brain transplant completed, he had the doctors impregnate her.

[deafleppard]

That's weird.

Like.

So... weird.

[thedreamisdead]

I'm well aware of my father's oddities.

[deafleppard]

You're welcome for the reminder.

[unrecovered]

Sure. Just don't arrest anyone while we're down there.

[thedreamisdead]

[This was turning into a party. Oh well. Couldn't hurt to get to know some people.]

I'll trust the Science Police to do their jobs if we find anything.

[She is absolutely going to arrest someone.]

[unrecovered]

[Oh, he knows. That's why he's covering his bases here.]

Uh-huh.

[crowskinovercoat]

What's a New York?

[thedreamisdead]

It was a small city. Population numbered around twelve million at its largest, before being absorbed into Mega-City One, at least in my world. At one time it was a major cultural center.

[crowskinovercoat]

Never heard of it ... but I've never been on a spaceship before, either. I feel like I learn something new every day.

[She doesn't sound entirely thrilled about that last part, but what can you do? She kind of has to crash-course on everything as she goes; even if that wasn't her temperament all over to begin with, she knows so fantastically little about anything here that isn't herself.]

Like the idea of something that big, and calling it just a city. That's like no city I've ever been to. I can't even imagine that many people, all in one place ...

[Legion World is "one place" too, Velvet!]

[thedreamisdead]

I'm sorry, I grew up in a city that was about forty times that. It's a little hard to see it as something other than... small.

[Learning leads to character growth, something America thinks quite a bit of the Legion needs.]

Maybe it would be a good idea to come down to see New New York with us. You're not a Legionnaire. [It's not a question. America checks the duty rosters twice a day for changes and familiar names.] If you decide you want to go on missions with us, then seeing scale of our duties would be a good experience for you. Might help you decide one way or the other.

[crowskinovercoat]

"Small," huh ...

[She exhales. She doesn't think anything of America mentioning her non-Legion status, even if she has no idea about the duty rosters existing, because for her, assuming more Legionnaires caught her public transmissions the other day than actually tried to talk to her (during or afterwards) about anything in them is one of those facts of life that she figures would go without saying.]

If you're offering, I'll come. I could use the change of pace. It's strange how bored you can get in a place big enough to call itself a whole world.

["Might help her decide." Makes her sound like a hobby. Not that Velvet's really insulted; honestly that's about how she feels about them, too.]

[thedreamisdead]

[As far as America's concerned, some of her teammates do treat this like a hobby. Cute names. Tights. Arguments over capes. Petty fights distracting from the impending doom of the multiverse. Idiots.

Hobbyists, in other words.]

Well, we'll be with a crowd, so we're likely to end up all over the place. Personally, I haven't been bored yet, but I also got to set puppets on fire the other day. Traumatizing children in the name of the Law always adds a spring to your step.

[A small smile. She's joking a bit. Someone's bound to take that out of context, though.]

[crowskinovercoat]

[And ... it's impressive how quickly her face shuts down, neutrally open eyes going flinty and cold, expression sliding into resigned dismissiveness.]

... is that so.

[That may as well be all the confirmation of her suspicion that the Legion isn't everything many of its members she's met up till now think it is that Velvet needs.]

Never mind. I think I'll pass.

[thedreamisdead]

Mm? Ah. That was supposed to be funny.

[Man. Civilians. No sense of humor.]

Enjoy Legion World, then.

[crowskinovercoat]

Was it. [The flattest of tones.]

I think maybe some people's idea of comedy should be illegal. What do you think of that idea?

[thedreamisdead]

Oh, there is absolutely banned material out there.

[Possession was a crime. Performing an illegal comedy act was a crime. Being in the audience for such an act was a crime.]

Mentioning last mission's attempted murder of myself by animatronic children's show characters isn't, however.

[crowskinovercoat]

[And like that, some of the icy coolness slips out of her tone of voice - and her posture, in turn.]

[In fact, that gets her to do the tiniest of headshakes, an internal tut-tut with her eyes closed, almost reflexively - like she's used to really terrible jokes that play up someone's worst impulses for the sake of it, which, in fact, she is - but it's not like that washes away her own innate suspicion of the Legion and what it's capable of, or meant to be. She just is who she is, and tends to exist in moments much less than concrete relational arcs - perfectly capable, if she doesn't see why it should be anyone else's business, of tabling one discussion and moving on whether she has a strong opinion about it or not. And the question of whether she thinks America (or, by extension, the rest of the Legion, who would presumably take her side in that confrontation, given Velvet's opinion of her own ability to abide by any "law" save her own) is someone she'll have to worry about taking out someday is currently one of those tabled questions. She settles back into her usual position of casual detachment and vague, deadpanning disdain.]

... oh, you're one of those people.

[thedreamisdead]

Couldn't say. I don't know which of 'those' you mean.

[Probably not anything flattering, judging from that tone.]

[crowskinovercoat]

One of those people who, if she had to pretend to be a cackling supervillain, would go on about how she's going to suck the marrow out of someone's bones, instead of using the table manners her mother taught her like she ought to do.

[thedreamisdead]

It would be better than my gangster impersonation.