WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - Mod Plot [Network Post | 1]

[letsgolegion]

[They get a transmission from the outpost orbiting the planet where new displacees appear, the battered remains of the planet Phelolu. It's a priority distress call, so the message is received by every Legionnaire and all major posts on Legion World.]

[The commanding officer of the response team is a Carggite, Dr. Trez. All three of her grey-haired selves look shaken. Behind her, the main viewscreen of the outpost is cracked and consoles are sparking. The outpost has clearly come under heavy attack.]

Mayday mayday, this is Legion Outpost Phelolu, we are under attack by a 10X10 threat! I repeat, it is a 10X10 threat. Do not send a response team. I repeat: do not send a response team! We'll leave monitoring equipment on for surveillance but all personnel is evacuating the outpost.

Over!

[And that is the only message they get. She quickly reforms into one self, and leaves the console, helping a crew member that's fallen. The entire command deck shakes once. Then again. Fortunately, all members of the team escape the command deck and the hatch to the threshold room closes.]

[By the time the hull rips open, it's plenty of time for them to have escaped through a threshold gate. It's hard to see what causes the breach. There is only a flash of silver and all of a sudden a chunk of it is gone. More of it gets ripped away, and there's a brief flash of something blue and sparkling. With another flash of silver, the whole deck explodes and the camera view is lost. The monitoring system shifts to an external camera as a default so that they can see the field of wreckage outside. There is only a small, barely functioning hunk of the outpost left. The rest is a debris field that's obscuring the view of the planet. Ice dust from the vaporization systems creates a huge cloud that the barely functioning lights reflect off in the void.]

[That's when they see it looming out through the debris field. It's an incomprehensible being, a force of nature, and each sentient's mind must try to make what sense of it that it can by assigning it some kind of image. To many humanoids, what they see is the face of an impossibly huge man.]







[Despite the fact that it should be impossible for any sound to vibrate through the void, they can hear him speak, his voice thundering impossibly loud. Everyone who hears it hears it in their native language, two simple words that spell out the doom of civilizations:]

"GALACTUS HUNGERS!"
[Silver and sparkling blue streak by again and they see now what the cause of the streaks are. One is a man that looks like he's made of liquid silver, riding a silver surfboard. The other is a ethereal and graceful-looking alien with a staff, who looks like she's made out of stardust. As they attack the last of the outpost with a wave of cosmic power, the feed cuts out.]

Comments

[whyarewehere]

[Grif is late to the party because his reaction was to look at his comm, shut off his comm, and bury his head under his pillow long enough to pull himself back together. His hair's a mess, but he's calm.]

Alright, I've prepared an official summary of the situation based on my research:

WE'RE. FUCKING. BONED.

[Panic is uncool. Defeatist wisecracks are much cooler.]

[iamresponding]

As the resident Galactus expert, I have to say this is an entirely inaccurate report.

We're super fucking boned. You didn't put enough emphasis on how boned we are.

[But at least he's almost laughing. Thanks, Grif.]

[whyarewehere]

I will defer to my colleague in his area of expertise.

[He laughs just a little too quickly.]

Fuck.

Nice knowing you, dude. It's been real.

[iamresponding]

Look, statistically speaking, making sure I didn't go down without a fight has gone down in my favor in the past. And statistically speaking, I must be freakin' lucky to have survived encountering him three times so far.

And here's the kicker: each time, the people who were with me? They survived, too. The people who evacced with me made it off the planet. My friends that helped me face down Annihilus survived the Galactus event. The evacuees on Orbucen...

They all made it, too.

So, I'm not saying we're not screwed. But I plan on at least trying to make it to surviving encounter number four. And if we all work together we've got a much better chance of that. I'll be your good luck charm.

[whyarewehere]

Now you're just making me look like a jackass.

[He scrubs his face with one of his hands in a gesture of frustrated nerves.]

I'm not good at this planning shit. Pretending to make plans and then not doing anything is more my speed.

[It's funny because speed is the only thing he has going for him.]

[iamresponding]

Nobody's good at this planning shit. Join the club. We all have matching 'We actually have no idea what the hell we're doing' t-shirts.

The best we can do is knock our heads together and hope something falls out that's smart enough for us to actually use.

[headinjuries]

There's gotta be better news than that.

[ YOU'RE THE AWESOME NOVA WHO'S GOOD AT THIS YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW TO FIX IT ]

[iamresponding]

Sam.

[He wishes he could be that guy. He knows what it means for Sam to know who he is and what he's done and hear him say 'yes, it's that bad.']

The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, all the cosmic people up in space I've fought beside -- nobody's ever really stopped him. Not for good. Richards is the only one who's ever made a dent.

But nobody else. Not really.

That doesn't mean there's nothing we can do, but it's something everyone has to be prepared for. This is one of those things where everyone has to try for one of those hail Mary eleventh hour miracle kinda things.

It's big leagues end of the world stuff. I know you've faced the Phoenix and that's definitely a big deal but there are levels and while Galactus isn't always quite as flashy, he's just as bad in some ways and worse in others. Everyone's gotta be prepared for that.

[headinjuries]

[ It's kind of like hearing Santa Claus isn't real.

And also that Rudolph is going to eat your planet like the carrots you left him on the table and despite how well he handles every other reindeer, Santa's just like "nope, not this one."

...it's probably a bad analogy but Sam never claimed to come up with good ones. ]

...got it.

[ ffffuuuuuuuuuu ]

[iamresponding]

[Nah, he's not going to leave him like that, looking like he kicked his puppy.]

On the upside, like I was telling Grif, I've survived Galactus going postal three times and the people right around me survived, too.

And the planet I was evaccing the one time? All the evacuees made it.

This is gonna be tough but you've all got one hell of a lucky charm hanging around when it comes to him. Hopefully, that luck'll rub off.

[He gives him a reassuring smile.]

In any case, there's no way it can go down worse than when I tried to arrest him.

[headinjuries]

You tried to arrest Galactus.

[ what. ]

Like, we mean the same thing here, right? Handcuffs, you have the right to remain silent, that kind of arrest?

[iamresponding]

It was mostly just to get the Silver Surfer's attention to try to convince him to get Galactus to give Orbucen more time, but yeah.

Went up, identified myself, gave him my badge number, and told him to suspend his activities immediately.

[He grins a grin that's pure mischief.]

And look at that, Sam? I'm still here.

[headinjuries]

You tried to arrest Galactus.

[ For a moment, it's not clear whether he thinks that is the stupidest thing he ever heard or... ]

That. Is awesome.

[ ...or that. ]

[iamresponding]

[Rich laughs.]

Starlord had a few other very different words for it. But it worked. It definitely got his attention, and once I had it, I was able to bargain with Surfer to give Orbucen more time.

Still got my butt kicked something fierce, though.

[headinjuries]

Yeah, well, everything he said is probably right too, but that doesn't make it not awesome.

[whyarewehere]

You tried to arrest this guy.

Oh my god. Of course you did.

[Rich why are you so dumb?]

[iamresponding]

Hey, I needed to get the Silver Surfer's attention!

I got my butt kicked but it worked. I was able to convince Surfer to help.

[whyarewehere]

And you think you can do it again?

The talking to the Surfer part, not the arresting part. The arresting part is still way stupid.

[iamresponding]

It's worth a shot.

We definitely need a backup plan, and we might have to take down Stardust to have a chance of only Surfer being able to make a call about redirecting Galactus, but I ought to try at least once to just ask. Before anything happens where someone could get hurt.

[His brows furrow]

Even with Stardust there, Surfer's got seniority. He might be willing to call things off without us needing to risk ourselves taking Stardust down first.

[deafleppard]

Quick question, here.

How exactly did he... get that way? I mean, it's not normal for anyone to suddenly get up from bed and decide they're going to eat planets for the rest of eternity.

[iamresponding]

What I've heard at least is he's from before the universe.

That he's from a possible universe that existence before mine and the process of surviving that one's collapse and the Big Bang creating a new one changed him somehow.

[deafleppard]

You think!? I'd be pretty upset too if that happened to me.

[deafleppard]

What is before or after he spoke that you began to think that?

[whyarewehere]

Definitely after. I am a thorough researcher.

[Grif can be glib all he wants, but he still sounds strained.]

[deafleppard]

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, he's out there in space and we can still hear him pretty clearly.

That's talent, for you.