A Rokk and a hard place [CLOSED]

[oredinary_hero]

WHO | Legionnaires
WHAT | Bringing a team-mate up to speed
WHEN | Before the end of the 'Thicker Than Blood' plot
WHERE | Starting in the elevators then off to somewhere private
WARNINGS | Probable mentions of violence that's about it

Waking up to find he'd been kidnapped just so he could compete in some death-match for people's entertainment wasn't exactly par-for-the-course in the Legion but it wasn't the worst position Rokk had ever found himself in either.

He'd taken in everything he'd been told about the situation calmly, asking the odd question and trying to get a feel for the position he was in. While he was confident with his powers he could overpower the soldiers who'd collected him he held off on trying anything, needing to know just what sort of forces he'd be facing. There was also the fact that anyone who'd consider making people fight to the death would have no compunctions when it came to harming innocents and he couldn't act until he knew there were no hostages who could suffer as a result. There was no sign of the rest of the Legion so he was holding out hope that they were looking for him even now. After all, capturing him was one thing but the entire team? That was a feat no one had managed yet. But that didn't mean he was going to just sit around and wait for a rescue.

So he'd obediently followed the so-called peacekeepers to the place where they told him he'd be staying and after briefly examining the room had set out to see what he could learn about this place called Panem.

His attention was on the communicator he'd found in the room, searching through the information it provided when the elevator stopped in front of him and the doors slid open. Stepping inside and hitting the button for the ground floor he spared only half-a-glance for the lift's other occupants before going back to what he'd been reading.

For half a second. Then his gaze snapped back up to actually look at his companions as he gaped in surprise.

Comments

[googledox]

"Now that most of the pertinent details of our captivity have been relayed to you, there's also the matter of Jan to discuss," Brainy said, briefly noting how Cham's tentacles seemed to tighten around the cooking implements he was working with when he said it.

"We have to decide what to do. Sometimes these arenas allow people to regain powers, though often in a limited fashion, but his control over his powers could mean that just a small increment of his powers might allow him to transmute himself in such a way that he removes whatever method of power inhibition they use. He was able to sense and heal a micro-lesion in my brain that was undetectable to all medical scans."

[atippleoftransparency]

They can wisecrack their way through the rest of this horrible mess, but the topic of Jan sobers even Lyle.

"I'd say we should try to keep an eye on him to prevent that, but the Arenas seem to be pretty big. Brainy and I found each other through a combination of sheer luck and the fact we think alike; it's possible we won't find him until after he activates his powers. And it's possible that, when that happens, we might be without our own."

He traced his fingertips over the tabletop, mouth set in a grim line.

"What we'll be able to do will be limited to what weaknesses his limited powers leave us."

[oredinary_hero]

Jaw tightening Rokk studied the three silently. He'd long given up the notion of a fair universe but it still seemed too much to put Brainy and Cham through this again

"Too much to hope that they'll be smart enough not to let him get any power back. Or that he won't last that long." The latter seemed possible - Jan would be unused to defending himself without his powers. As cold as it was it would be best if he died early on. But they couldn't bank on that happening.

He tried running through their options in his head but there were few enough not to be worth it. Without any idea of the arena's layout beforehand or what resources they'd have and no way to track Jan there was little they could do to plan ahead.

"Seems to me we're just going to have to play this one by ear. If we can find out if he has any associates or allies we can keep a look out for them too. It might give us some leads way to find him." Also not something Rokk had much hope of though. "If any of us run into him alone I think we should avoid a confrontation." He shot Lyle a pointed look as he spoke. Lyle seemed the one most likely to get it into his head to try and take on the Progenitor on his own and also most likely to ignore an order not to.

[chamthulhu]

"That might not matter," Cham said, his voice tense in a way that was completely genuine. He didn't look at his friends because he didn't want them to see the hateful expression on his face.

He had grieved for Jan like the rest of them, even despite his anger, but he and Saturn Girl had been the ones that had been there. That had seen Candi ripped apart with their own eyes. They were the ones that hadn't moved fast enough to save their friend.

"You're talking as if he'll let you avoid one. We were trying to avoid one when we lost -"

He couldn't bring himself to say her name.

"He needs to go down."

And that was not the fake villainy speaking, that was his own anger. But then he'd always been the one that had come the closest to breaking their oath.

[googledox]

Brainy leaned his elbows against the table, steepling his fingers, taking on his sternest expression, the one he always used when explaining how close they all were to certain doom.

"I'm loathe to suggest it - this is one of our own, after all - but in terms of threat assessment and the potential he has to end this world, an action that's even beyond us despite our darker natures..."

He drew in a deep breath and let it out.

"The risk he poses is too great to leave unchallenged, Rokk. If the Capitol underestimates in the slightest - like they underestimated my mother - the results could be beyond disastrous. Especially if he manages to seize whatever means they brought us here. His existence here could lead to multiversal catastrophe. If any of us run into him, unless one of us knows the others are immediately nearby to gather as backup, I -"

He didn't want to say this because then it meant he might have to be the one to do it, and despite his often harsh demeanor, he'd never come close to killing. Out of all of them, he perhaps had the greatest emotional need to never do it, because of who he was and where he'd come from.

Yet he was still advocating it anyway.

"I believe that the best course of action in an encounter, if backup isn't available, is for the person there to make an attempt at...neutralizing the threat he poses." He shut his eyes tight for a moment and then did his friend, and their code of honor, respect by calling it what it was. Blinking them open, he added, "Correction: we should kill him. I won't mince words - the Jan we knew deserves better than that."

He lowered his hands to the table, pressing them against it as if trying to fight the urge to fidget uncomfortably with them.

"In the time it takes to gather the others, he might find some means in an arena to fully overcome his power restraints." He shook his head. "You weren't there, Rokk. You didn't see the Rosette, the fleets larger than any in the United Planets, fleeing from his wrath. You didn't hear the genocidal hymns of the Progeny or see - feel - Candi die. I know that must make it seem that those of us who did couldn't possibly be objective but it's quite the opposite. The rest of the Legion will never be able to understand what a galaxy in the shadow of the Progenitor is like. We'll never be able to describe it in mere words alone."

It had changed them. It had changed the Lost Legionnaires and everyone knew it. They hadn't been broken, certainly, and when they'd first returned they'd seemed like their old selves. But the eventual death of the universe had peeled back the outer layers that made them seem like the Legionnaires they'd been before and revealed something hard as steel underneath.

They now had a quiet sort of solemnity, an inner peace, in the face of tragedy or hopelessness, because they'd done it before. They'd been lost before. It meant it was easier for them to believe they'd get unlost.

It also meant many of them now leaned a bit more in the direction of pragmatism in the face of overwhelming evil.

[atippleoftransparency]

"Makes sense to me," Lyle said, because it was easier than I'll do it.

Reep likely wasn't even going to be in the Arenas, and having to kill someone -- even someone who would be a clear and present threat to all life in all realities -- well, it would probably break Brainy. It probably wouldn't break Rokk, but Lyle didn't want to see him have to make that choice and deal with the psychological fall-out. Not if he could take that burden instead.

Besides, they'd start arguing with him if he flat-out volunteered; and that might draw more attention to their little complete failure to kill anyone else than they wanted.