Living Legends, Part 2

[SotF]

"You have managed to upset me a great deal mortal," the draconic figure snarled at the chaos mage before him, "My plans were upset by your idiotic attempt at entertainment."

The last words were drawn out into a low growl that shook the very air around the cowering figure of Ethan Rayne.

Flesh seemed to rot and drip from the skeletal figure of the dragon as it spoke, but with each chunk that fell it seemed to never lose any real mass.

"And as such little mage of chaos," it snarled, acrid smoke with a stench almost like brimstone mixed with the ever present touch of decay, "You will become what you have always been, just more visibly so."

"From an ape your kind did come," it laughed, a deep and cruel chuckle that spoke of malicious glee, "And so an ape you will be."

"No, please," the chaos mage tried to beg as fur erupted from his skin, shredding clothes as he tried to reach out in a plea for mercy from the merciless being.

It turned away, moving slowly before the head turned towards him once more, neck turning almost serpent like, eyes burning like the fires of hell itself.

"Find what I ask and bring it to me little wizard," the undead dragon ordered, "And I will restore your human shell, if your fail me, monkey, you will pay far more than any other."

And as Ethan fell to the ground the creature was gone to the sobs of the mortal now in the form of an ape.

 

[perfect_solider]

did you make him who I think you did?

 

[SotF]

did you make him who I think you did?

Possibly, it depends upon just who you think I turned him into.

 

[SotF]

Harry relaxed in the chair before the fireplace with one of the ancient tomes open in his lap.

It had been a long week since their debut and the scars to the landscape from the fight with the demon were still visible.

O'neill had been talking to a General, Hammond the mage believed, about a meeting with the group while Cliff had made contact with a few friends of his still alive from his Nazi fighting days. That should be enough to keep the government off their backs, though at least Cliff and Faith were pretty much immune to prosecution due to paperwork Cliff had been given just prior to WW2 thanks to his actions against Nazi subversives.

"Mister Cranston," he heard one of the receptionists chime in from the lobby across the intercom, "You have a Mister Lupin here to see you."

The wizard sighed and sat the book aside.

"I'll be right down," he answered.

 

[SotF]

Jason Dawson laughed as the weapon fired into the police cars while the officers dove for whatever cover they could find.

While he knew that the loot would be limited with the cops already involved, it was just as fun to show the fools just what they were dealing with.

"Alright boys," he cackled with a mad glee visible on his face, "Bring out the big guns!"

Two of the masked grunts with him opened the back of the van now embedded in the front of the bank to reveal the stolen Fifty Cal they'd brought with them. No cop could match that, and if worse came to worse, when combined with the other toys they'd brought with them, they could cause whatever fools were sent in later to fight for their woe begotten lives.

He crouched behind one of the makeshift barricades and began to reload his own weapon as the machine gun opened fire.

Dawson blinked as the gunner ceased fire and seemed to alternate between staring at the weapon and something outside.

The mans eyes widened as Jason turned and peeked over the blockade.

"What the..." he stammered as a figure stood there in the open wearing what had to be a Halloween costume.

Well, if the nut was prancing around like that, he deserved to be added to the ranks of the dead.

"What are you waiting for," the crook yelled at his minion, "Shoot the bastard!"

The big gun resumed fire only to do nothing save rain to the floor around the, now advancing, figure that seemed to be Superman.

"Oh for christs sake," Jason snarled before dashing to the supplies they had brought and grabbed the RPG they had brought for the off chance that the SWAT team arrived before returning.

"Whatever armor you've got," he chuckled while taking aim, "It won't help against this!"

The explosion blocked his vision for a moment before the figure stepped clear of the smoke cloud.

"Oh shit," he stammered as the man reached out and crushed the barrel of the machine gun and turned to face him, staring oddly at the weapon he still carried.

A weapon that was suddenly getting very hot to the touch.

 

[perfect_solider]

Oh shit indeed :sisi: :sisi: :snigger: :snigger: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[SotF]

Faith was bored as she hovered in midair.

It had been two hours since the tests began with Cliff giving her orders for the various maneuvers for the gear she now claimed as her own.

The difficulty of the tests grew as she finished the previous ones, and they still hadn't reached the maximums that they needed to know.

At least the leather portions were broken in now.

This one fit perfectly, and was the seventh Rocketeer suit design, and her second one.

The test version from the fight with the Demon had been the first modern one and now sat in the display cases beside the five that Cliff had worn before his retirement.

One of the agents that had worked with Cliff during his later days in the business had sent a new power system by way of Jon, something that annoyed the gunslinging member of their group.

The new design shifted the packs design quite a bit while providing a lot of new capabilities that had previously been either to wasteful to use or impractical due to fuel concerns.

Plus they didn't have the roar that the previous versions had which meant that all eyes were not looking for danger minutes before she actually arrived.

"Change of plans," she heard Cliff state, "Superman encountered some problems, and you get to finish his patrol route of the city."

"What happened?"

"Crooks with machineguns and apparently explosives," her mentor responded, "He broke it up and is in the process of ferrying wounded."

She gulped at the thought of dealing with that kind of mess herself.

"Well finish the trials tomorrow."

"Understood," she answered before veering off from the proving grounds and towards LA.

 

[SotF]

The pain had started to fade as Ethan opened his eyes, smelling the comparatively pure air of Earth.

Ethan Rayne wondered just what the hell he had managed to piss off as his new fur rippled around him while the tattered scraps of the clothes he had now outgrown during the spell dangled off of his apelike frame.

Rising quickly he smelled a puff of smoke and recognized the drugs for a moment.

With the pain that had wracked his being, the fact that two stoners seemed to be getting their kicks watching him was aggravating.

His displeasure was shown with a roar and an almost instinctive thumping of his chest.

The two started to back off when the realized that the "monkey" they had been staring at was as tall as they were when on all fours and much larger when standing.

The long haired, blonde stoner looked at his handrolled cigarette, turned to his silent, bearded companion, and said "Fuck, man, this is the best fuckin' shit ever!"

It was at that moment that the cursed mage's stomach betrayed him, causing him to vomit all over the taller and louder one.

"And that has got to be some sort of power puke," Jay stammered before the noticing that the projectile vomit was eating away the cement they were standing on.

Neither saw Ethan turn and leave wondering just where he'd wound up.

 

[perfect_solider]

jay and silent bob?

 

[SotF]

jay and silent bob?

Yeah, they are the first of two encounters in the same state that Ethan will have that I'm cameoing other characters in.

 

[SotF]

Jonathan O'neill wasn't sure whether he loved or hated Colorado Springs, to many memories that were, simultaneously, his and not his. He blamed the rogue Asgard, Loki, for the situation.

It felt weird to be looking for the template from which he was cloned.

Doctor Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones the Fourth had tagged along when he found out about Daniel Jackson's presence at the planned meeting ahead of them. Of course the fact that Indy was dressed in attire that came from around World War 2 and was carrying a whip with him had gotten them some rather odd looks in their direction.

Of course, Indy was also the only member of the group gathering in LA that was physically of an age where he could buy alcohol was another reason to bring him along.

At least he remembered to program the VCR for the Simpsons this time.

 

[SotF]

Norman grimaced as he cleared some of the mess left by Levinson from the desk.

The older man had worked for first Lamont and now Harry as the caretaker of the equipment they'd used in their mission, though now he'd had the added pressures of other heroes joining the fight, something he'd missed from his younger years.

Glancing at the schematics laying on the desk he glanced over at the boy now laying splayed out on the couch with a raised eyebrow.

"I thought you were designing weapons for O'neill?"

A motion barely identifiable as a shrug was the response as the dark haired teen took a drink from the can beside him.

"He found something that caught his eye in the vault that Har showed us," the heir of the memories of one Doctor Bruce Banner responded with a slight groan, "And so I figured that I could design something more useful, at least with combining some of the crap from Bruce's memories and what I could get from Dash and Supes as well, not to mention the military databases connected to O'neill's files."

Norman Burg glanced down, the dark eye patch over his left eye prompting a slow turn to glance over the design.

"A spaceplane?"

"Yep, take the Blackbird, the Quinjet, the Batwing, and all of the ones the Justice League used," he chuckled slowly, "Then add in the more interesting and exotic things the Air Force has recently gotten their hands on, as well as bits from a group of idiots called the NID."

A brief pause.

"And then tack on some magical effects and some of the crap Andrew and I'd come up with over the past few years before that becomes the result."

The old man stared at the boy for a moment.

"You realize this is really insane don't you?"

"Are any of us sane though."

 

[perfect_solider]

A space plane...the military is going to shit bricks

 

[SotF]

A space plane...the military is going to shit bricks

Yep, they'll have their own that'll drive others a bit off the wall.

 

[SotF]

The glass shattered and he ran.

It had been a field trip that had gotten him into this mess, and now he wondered just how he'd make it out of it.

Crouched behind one of the displays he caught a glimpse of the immense gorilla like creature come stomping forwards before pausing to seemingly sniff the air before backhanding one of the guards that reacted to the monsters intrusion into the museum.

He cringed as the body slammed into the stone of the wall.

John moved as quickly as he could while keeping his head below the displays over to the downed man, eyes noticing that he was dead before reaching him.

His hands slipped the pistol from it's place in the guards holster and readied himself to do what his mother had taught him, what she said he was born to do.

There was no fate, but what he could make for himself.

Rising to his feet, John Connor opened fire into the beast.

Their eyes met as it froze, a moment of annoyance showing in those all to human eyes.

And then the weapon clicked empty and he realized that the monster was still standing with no visible blood.

Mad laughter escaped from it, giving him the realization that this was far worse than the nightmare world his mother had seen.

It charged before he could react and plowed through him,letting him fly like a rag doll through dozens of cases before a sickening jolt tore through his back.

Darkness seemed to fill his vision as he realized it had taken the gun and then crushed it before him.

And then he fell, slamming into yet another case, hearing vases and pottery of some sort break beneath him before he ended up laying across the former display atop the broken artifacts and shattered glass.

And then something else touched him, something erupting within, touching every fiber of his being with a burning light.

Something in his head roared with a primal fury unlike anything he had ever felt. A voice sounding like the crackling of an open flame that it would not die so easily, a voice that spoke with strength and assurance that he had never experienced before.

He was not a rat that would scurry from one hole in the ground to another to hide, he was something far stronger.

The smell of smoke filled his nostrils as the ape walked away, searching through the displays for something that he could not identify.

The moment before the darkness could take him forever he felt it stronger and he heard the voice within him scream that the fire had come.

And then the pain was gone, as if it had been a figment of his imagination.

On his feet again, he glanced down and saw naught but flames as they danced across his skin.

The horror of the judgment day that could have been was not the nature of what roared and danced around him. It was not a flame of death and destruction, but a primal force that seemed to become a part of him, offering him the same protection that it had his distant ancestors who had first gained their mastery of the fire before the dawn of civilization.

He moved through the broken glass and towards the ape.

"Hey buddy," John snarled as a ball of flame materialized at his call in a hand, "I'm not through with you yet!"

And the battle was joined.

 

[yorath]

:huh:

soooo did John just stumble upon the Witchblade(it's apparently been retconed that it occassionally allows itself to be weilded by a man... though I could be wrong there) or the Blades of Chaos? either way, interesting new snippet. only real complaint is that you seem to be falling into the same prob most 'all-star' lineups do. that being so many characters, that the core and story line starts to suffer so that everyone get's screentime.

 

[SotF]

A large part of the inspiration for this comes from JLU with how I'm working on it while adding other bits and pieces. A lot of the characters are going to be short term cameos.

And John found something entirely new, though based on a few other things.

 

[SmacksKiller]

Is this Conner before or after the TV series ? Because if it's after, he comes with his own nifty pet Terminator.

 

[SotF]

I'm planning on mixing T2: New John Connor Chronicles with the Sarah Connor Chronicles for the timelines. Those two can easily mesh if you simply view it as yet another timeline. Eve (A T-799) could easily be the Architect who set up the time chamber and plasma canon (Not to mention setting up an interesting conflict between Cameron and Eve about what is needed with Eve being programmed to get aid for the original judgement day timeline). Besides of the Terminators only the T-XA or perhaps the T-Meg could take on the gathering of heroes here.

 

[SotF]

Harry glanced at the twin rows of glass tubes along the path to the meeting room.

Each tube contained what Lamont had collected from one of the various heroes of the past. The Shadow had been around for a long time, with the stories Harry had been told by his adopted father spoke of at least three centuries.

The particulars of his magic had kept him alive until he could prove himself and trained a successor to the secrets he had held.

One of the last costumes of the Shadow was in one of the displays now, joining the gear of the others.

Magus stopped his walk when he spotted one of the older cases open and the weapon and ammo belt missing.

"Norman," he commented, loud enough for the intercom to pick it up, "Reid's display is missing a few things."

"I'm afraid one of your new friends took your permission to use some of the gear quite literally."

"Please tell me that Dash isn't playing cowboy," came the groan in response.

"No, Mister O'neill took a liking to that specific one according to Mister Levinson."

He blinked and nodded, "Make sure to order enough silver ammo, no need for the new Lone Ranger to be forced to use lead."

 

[SotF]

Dash relaxed with the bottle in one hand and the chocolate bar in the other.

Caffeine and sugar, at least as far as he was concerned, made the world turn round.

He watched the people in the park with a smile as the new and strangely freeing weight of the comms watch let him roam as fast and as far as he wished, at least when not directly on call.

Harry had told him about the man who had been among the first to use the device, a miniaturized version of the Gridley Radio, before being even more modernized to make it even more useful.

He wondered what the man who used it so often over a half-century before would think about it now. While he missed his family, even Violet, Dash had let that loneliness carry him to stare at the costume of the man that now inspired him for hours when his attention span normally stayed on topic for minutes.

The long, yellow trench coat on display in the gallery and matching fedora had inspired him to add a similar coat to the new costume he wore while on the job, though O'neill had talked him into adding armor to it in order to keep stray gunfire from taking him out in the process.

Now, whenever he wasn't on call to deal with whatever terrifying threat reared its ugly face to menace the world, Dash had time to see the things his father had never let him. He was allowed to see the places that had only been in the travel brochures and pics online.

For the moment he was exploring New York, and ,quite honestly, was getting bored with the sights and sounds of the Big Apple.

Unfortunately, to him at least, the three biggest stops he'd wanted to see had been strictly vetoed by Xander. So Reno, Vegas, and Atlantic City were off limits ,Not to mention anything outside the borders of the united States or Canada, and New York felt to slow for him.

Right as he was calling it quits with the city, a bit of excitement came into play when an oddly colored, giant ape came crashing into the park followed by some sort of living flame in the shape of a man.

Raising his arm to signal the others after forcing himself to remember to get aid before dealing with the dangerous lunatics, not to mention to get into costume, he smirked.

"Calling Dick Tracy," he exclaimed only to get the low and annoyed groan from Norman on the other side.

"I really wish you would cease playing around with the communicator as if it were a toy Mister Parr," the butler stated with an audible scowl, "And you really shouldn't be using the name of one of the fallen heroes in such a manner, pay the dead some respect."

"Sorry," came his own chastised response, "But we've got a major problem here."

 

[Prince Charon]

Interesting. The Human Torch (I think) and I'm-not-sure-who. Grodd? M. Malla?

 

[SotF]

Ethan Rayne was transformed into Chaos from Primal Rage (I'm going to be working several of the characters from Primal Rage into this) by my own version of Necrosan. He's already duking it out with an elemental infused version of John Connor.

 

[SotF]

Harry hadn't gotten beyond introductions with Lupin when the alarms flared to life.

"Alert," came the synthesized, female voice in a strange monotone the still unnerved him, "Unknown hostile detected, all Operations Personnel report to tactical."

His eyes rolled when he rose to his feet.

"Excuse me," Harry stated swiftly while turning to move towards the door from the office he'd chosen to meet in, "It appears that there is other business to which I must attend."

"I'm going with you," came the response a second later while the worn man moved behind him, prompting a shrug from the young mage after a glance.

He hadn't yet had the time to fully figure out what it was about the man that felt somehow predatory, but his instincts and a few quiet and unobtrusive spells deemed him as trustworthy.

And Lamont had always taught him to trust those types of things without any direct evidence to the contrary.

The tales of the Shadow dealing with the merger of two worlds had been what had spawned that bit of advice. Something had occurred when two versions of Earth entered the same point in their own universe at the same instant, no real reason for what had happened although the surface of the other Earth had been wiped clean and the survivors had been elsewhere either on the primeval world of Pelucidar or on other planets such as John Carter the ersatz warlord of Mars.

Only one being had been present in both worlds, John Clayton the heir of the title Lord Greystoke also known as Tarzan.

At least the first Tarzan, and both versions of him had merged into one.

And to think that the old man had referred to that as one of his less weird adventures with friends and allies across the globe and beyond.

Of those who had experienced them first hand, only five still lived, though the argument could be made for a sixth.

Three of them never left Pelucidar, one in Africa, and Cliff was already involved in the group he was gathering. The last, well, that one was hard to find and even then there was no guarantee either way.

The relics of heroes were all that was seemingly left of those times, most of the worlds of the other reality had broken off contact with Earth, or rather did not truely like dealing with the Earth that had been there.

It was a saddening thought that the same could be their own fate, nothing but sorrowful memories in the minds of the survivors when they finally met their fate.

Lamont had never told him what disaster had befallen those he saw as heroes, and even when his adopted parent had lay dying, Harry had not pressed the old man on that.

He did not dwell on the deaths of his parents and would as soon not know. It was, he believed, best to let his thoughts remain on other things. If he wanted to know anything about them it was about how they lived and let their deaths not change things.

Now some of his questions would be answered if the man was willing to talk of the dead.

His attention returned to the present as he entered the situation room, pausing to glance at the holographic image in the center of the room.

"Sir," Norman stated from his position at one of the computers, "I've already taken the liberty of requesting Superman to deploy as swiftly as he can."

A brief nod was the only response required, "How soon can the rest of us be on the scene?"

"Unfortunately," he came the answer, "Three hours at the earliest, and that leaves out Tarzan, O'neill, and Indiana."

"Damn," a brief pause as he studied the image in detail, "I thought that Skull Island was still globally quarantined."

"While the appearance is similar, this ape is not a Megaprimus, or at least not one anything like the one unleashed in New York in the twenties."

"Is there a way to speed up our intervention other than teleportation?"

"Mister Levinson's plans could be put into full construction," came the answer, "With all resources and skipping most of the testing phase, a group could be on station if fourty-five minutes."

A nod as thoughts brushed the young master of magics thoughts, "I can get three, including myself, on station in minutes."

"I figured as much, who would you take with you?"

Lupin stepped forwards, "If you're going, I'm going."

"No," came the response, "I don't know you that well yet, and I need more knowns on station."

A moments silence.

"I'll take Rocketteer and Hulk," he decided, "With Dash already there and Xander on his way, we should be able to stop it while the others can come in the plane."

"Wise decision sir," came the calming answer.

 

[SotF]

Xander grinned as he pushed himself as far as he could go, feeling the increase in heat against his skin while rocketing through the clouds.

The headset Harry had left him with was quite the help, making it easier to find the right directions to where he wanted to go. The small visor tied into a GPS unit was Magus' idea for bypassing the problems that he was having with finding places.

Hell, there were already fifteen times that he'd inadvertently ended up above a cornfield in Kansas where his inherited memories told him Smallville was by not paying attention, and a few times elsewhere with those same memories trying to guide him to Metropolis.

New York was dead ahead and Superman was ready for a rumble.

Reaching up, he removed the navigator and slipped it into one of the armored pouches that had ended up being a requirement according to Harry. He did see the wisdom in it since it carried the things that he remembered Clark having to improvise on the fly.

No sense getting stuck paying to repair streetlights and signs that were bent out of place as restraints when he could easily be carrying some handcuffs.

A flash of crimson just ahead and the man of steel grimaced.

The pillar of flame was enough of a beacon to see where he was heading to.