[video] Welcome to Legion World

[relativityspeaking]

[A young woman with dark skin and closely-cropped black hair appears on the screen. She's wearing an easy smile, but her eyes are alert.]

Hello everyone. I'm Jazmin Cullen, also known as Kid Quantum, Legion Leader. I wanted to officially welcome you to Legion World, and this reality, and assure you that we are doing everything we can to get you back home where you came from. You're all welcome to stay here on Legion World, regardless if you've taken the oath and agreed to help us out while you're here. Those of you who did take the oath or have offered to help out in other ways, don't worry, we'll have you positioned shortly.

We've prepared classes to familiarize yourself with the United Planets and the technology level here so that you can function independently here. If you're joining the Legion, we have additional classes for you to take.

[Her smile widens, briefly.]

Yeah, I know, you're thrilled about having to do more homework to help us out, but hey, we don't just hand those rings out like candy.

[She reaches forward a the image shakes as she takes her omnicom in hand.]

Like I said before, I'm Legion Leader, and here are a few other important faces.

[She turns the omicomm as she speaks, showing the other members of the Legion.]

Matter-Eater Lad is my deputy leader, if you need to get in touch with me, your best bet is generally to find him. It's not that I'm dodging you, but I'm out and about a lot. He's agreed to make sure that at least one of us is available to you.

Ferro has taken on responsibility for introducing you to media, games, sports, and other forms of entertainment in this era. He also has experience in making the switch from a different era, and he's said that he'd be happy to help you with yours.

Gates has offered to help you familiarize yourselves with the culture of the United Planets in the 31st century, as well as the many and varied cultures within it. He promises that they will be informative and engaging.

Bouncing Boy will be teaching starship piloting and is the support staff coordinator. If you want to learn to drive in this era, or if you need to talk to anyone on support staff, talk to him.

If you have any interest in hand-to-hand combat, you're going to want to talk to Karate Kid. I also personally recommend his meditation training if you've found yourself with new powers that you're not quite sure how to control yet.

For those of you who've joined the Legion, Timber Wolf will be your field instructor. He'll be looking out for you in the field, and your primary trainer for working with each other.

Umbra will be instructing you in power control and battlefield tactics. Even if you're not working with the Legion, it would be a good idea to take the former class if you have powers you're unfamiliar with.

Brainiac 5 will be providing tech support, science lessons, and mentoring for those of you who are interested in engineering.

Dreamer is our source of catastrophe warnings outside of the official reporting system. If you hear her yelling, you should probably suit up.

[The camera stops on Kid Quantum again, and she presses a button, causing two images to display on the screen.]

You've already met Dr. Gym'll, our head physician, and Dr. Ry'krr, who is in charge of assisting with the handling of mental health. They'll still be filling those same roles now. Additionally, one of the other sentients who arrived recently, Dr. Arbuckle, will be assisting Dr. Gym'll.

[The images disappear. Kid Quantum smiles again.]

Even though I wish it wasn't under these circumstances, welcome to the Legion World. If you need help with anything please don't hesitate to ask us or the staff.

Comments

[nerdninja]

Well, it's mostly just something that rubbed off from a lot of c...

[Wait.]

...omic...books.

[iamresponding]

Like the ones Marvel Comics puts out? Like, where they make up fictional stories about us real superheroes?

[He raises an eyebrow.]

I didn't realize you were from the same world.

Although they always write Spidey's comics like he's a bad guy so I don't think they'd have put something like that in 'em. He gets a bum rap in the press and everything, and the comics are the same. They never paint him in a good light -- and it sucks. Anyone that knows him knows he's a stand up guy.

I swear, I don't know how those people get off sometimes, writing that stuff when they don't even pay the heroes for licensing or put stories by them first or anything.

[Now he thinks Donnie's from his world and that he reads the comics that are fictionalized stories about real heroes.]

[nerdninja]

But they're not -

[Oh, geez.

Donnie has enough imagination to fully wrap his mind around the idea of infinite possible universes, including ones in which other possible realities have been expressed as works of fiction, and yet somehow that makes this even harder to grasp as being right in front of him.]

It's all fiction, where I'm from, it's not -

- do you really know Spider-Man?

[iamresponding]

[How could he be fiction in another person's -- oh. Huh. Probably the same way Donnie's fiction to him.]

How 'bout that?

[That's all he says, with a little grin on his face. He's still not going to tell Donnie what he knows about him being fiction. Rich has led a strange enough life that this little revelation isn't exactly a game-changer but he doesn't know that other people would feel the same way.]

I guess it must be that many-worlds thing. Everything's gotta be real somewhere, right? Including worlds where real things are fiction and worlds where fiction is real.

My friend Peter Quill was always on about that. Alternate universes. And you know, he talked about the big space sombrero. I never could figure out what the hell that was about.

[That is to say...]

But yeah, Spidey's my pal. Once you get into the business, you meet everybody at some point. And I've been...all over. More than some people have. I've fought side by side with the Silver Surfer -- and thrown down with him, teamed up with Spidey more times'n I can count, and been ordered around by Cap.

I'm actually an Avenger, although that only went on for a hot minute before I had to go back up into space.

[nerdninja]

[He knows Spider-Man. He's an Avenger.

He's been bossed around by Captain America.

(Which sounds a lot cooler than getting bossed around by Leo, Donatello's pretty sure.)]

Okay, now I definitely have to make sure I get back home, because Mikey's going to be insanely jealous.

[...well.

Aside from the very awkward circumstances under which Mikey last parted from the family, at least, and that's still a recent enough (and weird enough) development that he doesn't quite catch himself until it's left his mouth, and there's a twitch of something awkward but quickly smothered in his expression.]

[iamresponding]

Mikey -- that a sibling?

[And could he perhaps be considered 'a party dude'?]

It ain't that big a thing, anyway. Like I said, I was an Avenger for a hot minute. My, ah, jurisdiction I guess you'd call it, was space. After the Annihilation War I barely went back to Earth anymore.

And then it seemed like the universe wanted to try to throw everything it could at me for a while there. I was too busy cleaning up after the war to stay and do the Avenger thing.

[In the past he might've gotten smug about the whole thing, Donnie being enthused he was talking to an Avenger, but things didn't go to his head as easily as they had in the past.]

Which meant instead I tooled around the galaxy and wound up doing dumb things like trying to arrest Galactus.

[nerdninja]

Little brother. Reads a lot more comics than I do, honestly.

[Donnie just picks a few corners of the literary universe to indulge in; Mikey's so all over the place that he's usually a quicker source than the wiki.

And whatever response he was starting to string together to that is lost as soon as Rich gets to arrest Galactus.]

...wait, seriously?

[BUT YOU SEEMED SMART.]

[iamresponding]

[Rich's grin broadens.]

It's slightly less stupid than it sounds. [A pause.] Slightly.

He was devouring a planet and they needed more time to shield the engines of their arkships to get them into orbit. Sooo the only thing I could think of to do was try to be a distraction and get his attention, see if maybe I could convince him to give them a little more time. He can be reasoned with. Kind of. Sometimes.

It got the attention of his herald, the Silver Surfer, at any rate, and after he gave me one hell of a beatdown, he was able to convince Galactus to give the planet a little more time.

[He briefly raises his eyebrows.]

When you're low on options, that's when it's time to go for the Hail Mary and see if you can manage an eleventh hour miracle. I almost got blasted out of existence with the power cosmic with that one but they did manage to evac in time.

[nerdninja]

...well, I might not have much room to talk about stupid risks, I guess.

[Everything about the way they'd taken on the Technodrome was stupidly risky, and Donnie's part in the plan most of all.

But, as Rich said, when you're low on options...

And it had worked, in the end.]

[iamresponding]

[Rich just grins.]

Yeah, well, now that we're here, I expect we're gonna get up to a whole lot more of 'em.

[nerdninja]

At least this time I get medical insurance.

[Or whatever passes for it in the future.

Hey, at least this time the medical technology is good to start with!]

[iamresponding]

I hear ya' there.

Now that I actually need it again, I'm glad we're all squared away. God knows I could never afford it before.

[nerdninja]

Just not being the one setting up my own IVs is a pretty good change already.

[Having anyone else around who can be trusted with it is a great change.

He sees you not washing your hands, Mikey.]

[iamresponding]

You've had to set up your own IV? Jeez.

[He's never quite been pushed that far. Either the suit did the healing for him or the medicos handled it during the war. Luckily, the times he's not had any insurance he's never gotten sick or hurt that badly.]

[nerdninja]

Would you walk into a hospital if you looked like this?

[iamresponding]

Actually, yes, but only the one. There's kind of this secret superhero hospital in Chinatown back home. She'll take anyone -- meta, mutant, baseline human, or otherwise. No questions asked.

But that place is kinda special. The head doctor there made it for superheroes and vigilantes after one of 'em saved her life.

[It bugs him that Donnie doesn't have anywhere to go like that.]

Maybe when all this is over you can see if they'll let you bring home some medical equipment with you. They have robotic surgery tables and stuff here, right?

[nerdninja]

That's an idea.

[He hadn't really thought about the possibility of being able to bring stuff back, maybe because of too much time travel fiction where people are worried about altering the outcome, but if it's the future of not actually his dimension, then doesn't that kind of mitigate the ethical "you can't just alter history" concerns right there?

And it's not like they'd do anything crazy with it.]

I mean, assuming the power sources are self-contained or otherwise adaptable...

[iamresponding]

You kidding me? With a setup like this, they probably have energy sources that could run hundreds or thousands of years. Some of the tech here is crazy advanced, from what I've seen.

[A pause.]

Not all of it, mind you -- their cloning tech is a little behind; back home they did me up a new leg lickety split when I lost one in an orbital bombardment, but here they weren't able to clone me a new arm that could channel the Nova Force without burning up. That's why I've got the robotic prosthetic.

[He says it all very casually, like it's perfectly normal to lose limbs all willy-nully and need them replaced multiple times.]

Other'n that though, everything here's leagues ahead of what they had up in space back home.

[nerdninja]

I just don't get how you can have a power source last that long without something...

[Sigh.]

...I'm gonna be saying that a lot, aren't I.

[iamresponding]

The answer is "science."

Always.

'Cept for when it's magic. Which is even worse.

[nerdninja]

The only good thing about magic is that I have an excuse for not getting it.

Which is still like a bad thing that just has a slight silver lining.