THE MIND SLAYER

[legionnpcs]

Who| Plot Participants
What| Psychic Assassins!
Where| On Legion World
When|
Warnings/Notes| N/A


THE MIND SLAYER

She's been setting this up for weeks now. It's almost too easy with how trusting these Legion fools can be. If they'd only taken her seriously, if they hadn't laughed at her then... Well, things would be different. Now they'd welcome her with open arms. After she killed a few of them, of course.

This has to be done up close. She'd taken a job as a waitress in the mess halls. The older Legion, the ones who'd been at her tryout, didn't even recognize her. They deserved this more than their replacements. She almost feels sorry for them. But, no, she had to move before Saturn Queen went to trial in a few days. Meta, Esper, she's Esper now, can't risk any more time. If it's to be done, it has to be done now. She'd rather be further away, but her mental range isn't as long as she'd like. Tucked away into a dark corner of Legion World, she stood across from her costume. Heroes wore costumes, and she couldn't call herself that while doing this, but she could still draw strength from it.

She watches it, imagining how she'll look in it, and shivers. Nerves, she tells herself, glancing at the trigger device in her hands. "I'm sorry," Esper whispers. "But I deserve this." With the press of a button, the nanofactories kick into high gear and, for over a dozen Legionnaires, the lights go out. Whatever they're doing, their physical bodies instantly collapse and slump over, as if they're in a coma. Anyone coming too close, entering her psychic range, joins them.

They awaken almost instantly, finding themselves in a hellish amalgam. Parts of their worlds slammed together to make some twisted patchwork reality. And, like Oz himself, Esper's head appears above them, smiling with forced confidence. "You deserve to know what's happening, Legionnaires. My name is Esper! And you're locked into your own mindscapes. I've seeded you with teletechnology designed to tear your minds apart! It will be painless, mostly, but the weakest among you will fall to your own memories as my machines convince your subconscious that you shouldn't be alive." She drifts back a little, examining the group. "And, linked like this, if one of you falls, all of you die. Don't resist and make it more painful for yourselves. Just surrender and make it painless and easy for your friends. And don't try anything stupid. I'll be watching."

With that, she slides out, making sure her mindfield keeps people away from this section of Legion World, and that those who are still awake haven't noticed the heroes dropping like flies.

But she'll be back. And her machines have already set to work.

[[If you wish to have your characters discuss matters, set up your comments in the mingle post! Otherwise, make new toplevels for every mental scenario you'll work with.]]

Comments

MINGLING POST

[legionnpcs]

[[If the Legionnaires want to get things straight before springing into action, do so here!]]

Re: MINGLING POST

[gonebyebye]

Ray is the first to pipe up.

"So, just to make sure we're all on the same page, we are absolutely going to try something stupid, aren't we?"

Gohan

[fourstars]

This part of the mindscape lacked any sort of distinguishable characteristics at first glance. The ground was white, the sky was white, and the whole thing looked like it stretched on forever. It was overwhelmingly huge, and it was definitely easy to get lost in it. However, if one paid close enough attention, they'd be able to find a lone building out in the white expanse.

It was a small building, perfectly quaint. It had a large opening in the middle, framed by two white pillars, and seemed to have two small rooms to each side. On the left, was the kitchen, leading to the pantry. On the right, was a bedroom, leading to the bathroom. On the sides of the building, were two gigantic hourglasses with green sand. However, opposite the entrance to the building, was a single door.

Except it wasn't one door. It opened to a stark white hallway, with more doors. Each door lead to a memory, although there were some doors that weren't properly closed...

( OOC: Okay so this is Gohan's mindscape, and I'm gonna tag this with the altered memories. IT SEEMED LIKE THE MOST ORGANIZED WAY TO DO IT. )

Saiyan Invasion

[fourstars]

The battlefield was nothing but mountains and fields, out in the middle of nowhere. The ground all around them riddled with craters, every inch of it covered with evidence of the various battles that had gone on here. It wasn't just craters though, there were also corpses littered all over the place. One in the middle of a crater, covered in burn marks. Another lying in the middle of the field, missing an arm. And another scattered into pieces, as if someone had exploded. Among them however, was one living person; a short bald man, incapacitated, struggling to stay conscious.

Across from the massacre, was a large brute of a man. A hulking wall of muscle, his only distinguishable features being his mustache, and his bald head. He certainly looked like the one responsible, if his bloodthirsty smirk and battle damage was anything to go by. But further behind him was a much shorter man, arms crossed, simply watching the events unfold. Both seemed to be wearing battle armor of some kind, the shorter man white and blue, the larger man black and yellow. However, the former looked completely untouched, while the latter looked like he barely had any armor left.

Kneeling in front of the man, looked to be a small child. Wearing white and purple, and looking like he was crying in a bigger crater than the other ones. Inside this crater, looked to be the bleeding corpse of yet another fighter, this one a green man, wearing a purple outfit similar to the child's. But before anything could happen, the child reared his head back, and screamed.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The pink eyepiece the shorter man was wearing began beeping wildly, drawing his attention to the child. The larger man, however, had a manic grin on his face. "Alright, that's it kid! Bring it on!"

The kid brought his hands to his forehead, teeth grit in what looked like blind fury. The one incapacitated earthling blinking in astonishment. "G-Gohan...?"

Gohan's hands began glowing then, yellow energy gathering in his hands. However, it was erratic, with bolts of lighting lancing out of it. The shorted invader continued to watch the kid, his eyepiece continuing to beat. "Seven hundred... eighteen hundred... what the..." He muttered to himself, until the eyepiece finally let out a steady beap, and his eyes widened. "These earthlings can hide their true strength!" Finally, he addressed his partner. "Nappa, look out! The little one's power has risen to twenty-eight hundred!"

Finally, Gohan extended his hands forward, and a brilliant yellow beam shot out. Carving through the ground as it fired at Nappa, before the hulking man simply punched it, and sent it elsewhere, leaving Gohan completely stunned.

"Nappa, we're not taking any more chances." The shorter man called out, gritting his teeth. "Kill him now. We can't risk them joining forces with Kakarrot."

"Aw, come on Vegeta, do we have to?" Nappa said with a chuckle, before he bit it back at Vegeta's glare. Sighing in resignation, as he clenched his fists and turned to face Gohan. "Sorry kid, you heard the boss. Play time's over..."

Cell Games

[fourstars]

The battlefield here looked like a bomb had gone off. A gigantic crater clearly visible, the edges of the crater littered with the remains of an army. Tanks, planes, infantry, they were all there, dead and destroyed. However, there were plenty of other signs of battle damage, the barren field littered with what looked like destroyed mountains, in addition to other smaller craters.

In the middle of the battlefield, looked to be a large green bug man. Large black cockroach wings on his back, as he stood with his arms crossed, looking elsewhere. Behind him was a child with spiky blonde hair, looking to be in his preteens. Covered in various bruises, but otherwise still standing. Both of them seemed to be looking up to the cliffs, watching seven fighters fight with seven blue miniatures of the green bug man. However, while the green bug man looked on in amusement... the child looked panicked, desperate, ready to beg for the bug man to stop.

"L-Look, I was lying. I don't have a hidden power, just... just please stop!"

"Oh Gohan, you don't really think I believe that, do you?" The creature mused, back still facing Gohan. "No, I know you're just trying to save your friends... but don't worry, you can save them all if you just show me this power."

"I DON'T HAVE IT!" Gohan screamed desperately.

The creature chuckled, sounding plenty amused. Not a shred of empathy in its words, as it raised its voice to casually address the blue creatures. "Alright children, enough playing around! You can go ahead and kill them now!"

"NO!"

Shepard

[thebioticwoman]

To what should be absolutely no one's surprise, Shepard's subconscious is represented by her ship, the Normandy, a military vessel that looks like Legion levels of tech happened in a much less optimistic future, all holographic displays and smooth automatic doors...and corridors guarded by armed marines wearing targeting eyepieces. The ship is crewed by an eclectic mixture of people from Shepard's memories, human and otherwise, some of whom wear uniforms and some whom are civilians present solely because of dream-logic.

At a closed door, the holographic lock spins for a moment, processing, and flashes from orange to green. The door splits into three sections, sliding away, and the Normandy gives way to...

The Skyllian Blitz

[thebioticwoman]

...Low gravity and brisk air tainted with the acrid scent of smoke and carrying the sound of distant explosions and the city's anti-aircraft emplacements firing. These streets must have been neat and orderly once, but now they're torn up and scattered with rubble and destroyed vehicles...and bodies, human and alien. Some wear civilian clothing, but many more are fallen combatants, a few in the neat, understated armor a legitimate military force would issue, but most in battered hardsuits painted with garish unit insignia and and kill counts. These might have been professionals, but they weren't soldiers.

Closer inspection reveals that most of the infrastructure damage is tactical; someone has turned this city street between two warehouse blocks into a choke point and a killing field, carefully placed craters and collapsed walls forcing the attackers to advance only where the defenders want them to go. Or rather, the defender.

2nd Lieutenant Shepard is currently experiencing what will hold the title of "Worst Day of My Life" for years. She's slouched behind a pile of concrete and twisted rebar, sniper rifle in her lap, her armor stained with the rainbow of blood that results from close quarters combat with multiple species. In one hand she's holding a small device, thumb idly flipping some kind of cap up and down. A holographic display wraps around her other forearm, projecting a screen on which she's watching the raiders advance yet again in a much more cautious approach than such a numerically superior force would usually take.

Exactly like she wanted them to. The APCs inch forward and their infantry escorts maintain a nervous watch, for all the good it does them when Shepard detonates the demolition charges in the skyway they're dawdling under, bringing down several tons of steel and glass on the vehicles and personnel. The lower gravity makes it less effective than she'd have liked, but those APCs aren't going anywhere under their own power ever again, and neither are most of the people who had the misfortune to be on foot when the trap was sprung. In the confusion, Shepard starts picking off mercs with neat headshots as they stagger back to their feet or venture out of their ruined vehicles.

The memory is suffused with fatigue, almost seeming to wash the color out of it and leave only a gray weariness behind. After hours of heavy combat against impossible odds, Shepard is bone-tired, running on adrenaline and discipline, but where the fatigue has leached away everything else, there still lies a bedrock of determination--if they want this city, they're going to have to kill her, because nothing short of that will stop her. Unfortunately, it looks like they might succeed.

Assault on the Collector Base

[thebioticwoman]

...An H. R. Giger nightmare, organic-looking machinery integrated into what resembles nothing so much as an insect hive of enormous proportions, the machines and the structure itself dwarfing Shepard and her fireteam, a light-skinned, dark-haired human woman and, for those who've both met him and have a knack for recognizing turians or at least their facial scarring, Garrus.

Shepard and her squad are advancing with agonizing slowness as the Collectors throw wave after wave at them, more of the remorseless insectoid aliens appearing from the vast reaches of their base to replace their comrades as quickly as they fall. It's not merely a firefight; Shepard and the other human are wreathed in biotic power, as are some of the Collectors, both sides pounding each other with dark energy in addition to bullets.

One of the Collectors glows as if burning from within, which seems to grant it greater biotic power and resistance to damage. When Shepard and her teammates do succeed in killing it, the glow appears in a new host, accompanied by a deep male voice emanating not from the possessed Collector, but everywhere, the sound of it seeming to fill even the enormous cavern in which they fight.

"We are the Harbinger of your ascendance," it says as it unleashes yet another biotic strike and Shepard ducks into cover just in time.

"Do you ever shut up?" she mutters through gritted teeth. All three of the squad are clearly flagging, their reaction times growing more sluggish and their aim suffering, and Shepard's inexhaustible grim determination can't entirely hide the fatigue and mounting dread woven through the memory. They're holding their own, but it's a near thing...and then Garrus screams as his chest explodes into a spray of blue blood.

"Garrus!" Shepard charges from her cover, her shields absorbing several shots from the Collectors as she all but slides into Garrus where he's fallen, lying unmoving in a spreading pool of blood.

"You will know pain, Shepard."

2B | Open to all

[grumpylady]

Assault
To the inexperienced, the giant making its way through the ruined city was especially huge. To YoRHa and the androids, they simply knew it as an aptly named "Goliath-class" machine lifeform. Slowly, it continued its rampage. All available YoRHa units had been ordered to engage and disable the machine. The sky was light up with flight units and artillery crashing against the Goliath. 2B and 9S were on the way to their own flight units to join the battle, when a horde of machines surrounded them.

On their own, these machines posed little threat to the two YoRHa androids. They'd dispatched these smaller units countless times already. This specific bunch, however, had a special trick up their sleeves. They surrounded 2B and 9S, their heads extending several feet from their torso and beginning to spark vividly. A blast was generated, small and without causing any additional structural damage. However, 2B and 9S were in range and subsequently disabled.

"Ngh! Can't... can't move!" They'd been caught off guard by an EMP and needed time to reboot their systems. A few minutes was all they needed, but the rest of the machines weren't willing to give them that precious time. Not to mention the Goliath that continued stomping through the ruined city.


Long Live The King
A large forest teeming with machine lifeforms. Though they stayed within the trees and ruined castle, they were fiercely protective of their territory. Those who entered would be attacked on sight as the machines acted in the name of their king. Who was this king? Simply a machine lifeform equivalent of a baby. No limbs, no way to communicate, confined to a crib. Yet the other machines of the Forest Kingdom had called this child their "king." They had died protecting this king who couldn't walk, much less defend itself.

And so the king fell, with A2's sword piercing its metal body. A2, a YoRHa deserter and traitor. Command had called for her annihilation assigning both 2B and 9S to the task.

Despite being an older model, and outnumbered, A2 remained a formidable opponent. In fact, her skills were proving enough to gain the upper hand on the other androids.

"That all you got? You newer models aren't so tough." With her superiority established, A2 took the time to gloat. She was landing the cleaner blows and the more frequent hits. And it didn't look as though she was going to back down anytime soon.

2B and 9S could only hold out for so long.


Become as Gods
"Alert: Large quantities of enemy machine lifeforms currently approaching unit 2B's location. Proposal: Engage in evasive maneuvers to ensure continued operation."

"Pod, locate the fastest escape route out of this factory!"

"Affirmative." But the news just kept getting worse. "Analysis: All known exits have been sealed."

"Damn it! 2B to Bunker! Come in! Requesting immediate assistance!"

There was only static.

"Communications currently too unstable." Pod 042 responded continuously floating next to 2B and assisting with combat operators. It continued to fire a steady stream of bullets at the approaching machine lifeforms, as 2B used her sword to carve a path through their numbers.

"Pod, keep looking for a way out. Anything we can use!"

"Affirmative."

Meanwhile, the machine lifeforms continued to attack 2B and Pod 042. Some remained silent, others made audible calls for the android's demise.

"Gods! Gods! Gods! All of you shall become as gods!"

While other machines took their own lives, jumping into fiery pits of molten metal, thinking that they too would become as gods.

What they chose to do was of little consequence to 2B. Their continued aggression needed to be dealt with. And while 2B was more than capable of thinning their numbers, she and Pod 042 were still trapped inside the factory.

Locus

[agnominal]

One might have been forgiven for expecting a base or military installation of some kind, given Locus's general mentality, the lens through which he viewed the world. After all, his place of comfort and solace on the station had been a replica of a base he'd served time on, somehow more appealing to him than any luxury or comfort he could have asked for.

But this? This lacked even that most basic human element. No furniture, no doors, no sign of life at all.

Instead, there were screens. Tall, illuminated by text that listed off one file after another that could be selected, all with cryptic filenames attached to them. Some would result only in garbled, corrupted data being spewed back before the file was locked down and the screens returned to their default. Some flashed red and were altogether inaccessible, for whatever reason.

But some? Some would begin to spill narrative text across the scene, Locus's thoughts in his formal, stilted fashion, before everything began to shift...

New Jerusalem

[agnominal]

Anyone who'd seen Locus's Legionnaire Legacy might recognize this particular memory. It was not a battle, but the end of one. Bodies lay littered across the dust of the planet, broken and bloody and some torn to pieces. Smoking ruins lay behind them, the remnants of a base, and smoke likewise drifted up from the shadow of a city painted against the dying light of day. This was a world moments away from annialation.

A nearby Warthog had been overturned, now crushing the torso of the man who had once been the superior officer of this unit, his eyes staring blankly upwards and his face caked with blood. Nearby, however, a moving figure was struggling to upend the Warthog before cursing, head turning back towards where Locus sat.

Locus says nothing. Does nothing but stare through a sniper scope into the distance. What keeps him from stillness is the fact that he's panting heavily by this point, blood dripping into the dirt at his side where he sits braced against a chest-high wall of debris. And from him, echoing through the memory in ripples, one singular feeling. One thought.

They're dead. They're all dead. Why. Why am I... It's the thought that permeates this memory, soaks deep, lingers. That hopelessness and guilt is thick enough to choke on.

But a face, rough with panic and gritty with desperation cuts through the numb and despair. That figure by the Warthog has come closer, staring down at him through a very familiar scout helmet. Felix. "Look, I get it. Got to follow orders, cause you're a soldier. But see, our orders weren't sit here and die on this rock. You get me? Captain gave us orders to guard this spot, but last I heard? Top brass gave orders to win this war. You win a lot of wars by dying, Ortez?"

This was the turning point. He remembers that. This was the moment the war could have claimed him, when he could have closed his eyes and gone under and stayed there. Perhaps if he had, many lives in the long run might have been spared. But there was Felix, panting down at him, before pointing out the corpses of their fallen comrades all around. "These guys followed orders and they died. But we're better than them. You hear me? We're gonna survive--"

But something goes wrong. The words don't finish leaving Felix's mouth. He stops as a sharp noise pierces in the air, and some purple, luminous spike suddenly juts out of his throat. That brief flicker of something like hope shrivels and dies as Locus watches Felix crumple then and there, fingers desperately trying to tug the needler spike free, before his gaze lifts. An oncoming unit of Covenant forces, Elites and Grunts, towering armored aliens and their minions bearing down on this exact location and now?

Just him. Surrounded by the corpses of everyone he'd known, everyone he'd fought alongside. Maybe this was how it was meant to end, after all. Feeling nothing but a dragging, numbing heaviness, he lifted his rifle and turned it towards the approaching creatures. Only a few rounds left. But turning the gun on himself was the coward's way out. If he was going to die, he'd take as many of them down with him as he could. Perhaps then, this futile last stand wouldn't have all been so meaningless.

Silent Horizon [CW: Body Horror, Gore]

[agnominal]

This memory is a more recent one. God help those who could remember the horror show that was Silent Horizon, and the Faceless. It is a place of nightmares, this strange cavern made of bone, blood vessels, and twitching sinew. A wet stickiness glimmers off the walls and pools around the feet of those gathered.

The Phalanxed. Those who were corrupted by the Faceless in its effort to absorb everything into itself. And the Legionnaires who stood against them.

Is it any surprise that Locus is on the side of the monsters? He's difficult to recognize at first, even to those familiar with him. Like the other Phalanxed, he's been mutated by the Faceless. He's even larger than usual, towering even while bent double, with what appears to be a rusted gear wedged into his spine that whirs and clicks with his movement. There are chains that burrow deep into his limbs, similarly swollen and overtaken by a grisly bone-and-gristle armor that layers over his signature sage and black. There are no visible eyes, mirroring the appearance of his helmet, except that dark, stringy hair finds a way through the cracks of this cartilage-like plating...and there is a far-too-wide gash of a mouth, filled with sharp teeth and dripping with some frothy black liquid.

Whirrrrr....click-click-click-click... Some shadow lingers at his back, pulling the chains attached to the gear like some macabre puppet master, but the bulk of Locus's figure hides them from view. For now.

The truth of the memory is this: The Faceless was defeated, Locus returned to himself, and was drawn to safety by the rest. Consider then if the battle had continued, long enough for the transformation's toll on his body to grow too large. It was the risk involved in this horrifying metamorphosis, as blood oozed from tears in skin and muscle.

Eventually, he would bleed out. Eventually, the process would be irreversible, and 'Locus' would be gone.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

[hepunchedhitler]

Someone hasn't been polite enough to wait around, even though there's an entrance to their mindscape. It's a mansion, very posh, very well furnished. Pictures cover the walls every now and then, though their faces are blurred. And many of the doors in the halls are locked, strongly. They're all helpfully labelled, however, with numbers ranging from 1920 to somewhere in the early 2010s. Six doors, from 1940 to 1945, smell very strongly of freshly peeled potatoes and cut onions. Many others are frosted over. Combat can be heard through some of them, but not much else. Someone's had training in resisting telepaths, it seems. Even if it's not perfect.

One of the doors, for instance, has been forced. Mud and water leak from whatever's on the other side, and the sound of gunfire bleeds through.

SIEGE

[hepunchedhitler]

Opening the door leads to an honest to god medieval fortress, complete with a moat and drawbridge. Gunfire and explosions fill the air as a small group of men lays siege, trying to push on despite the fierce opposition. Whoever's good and bad is likely decided quickly, once a flash of lightning reveals the swastikas flying over the castle. Nazis. And this doesn't seem to be one of Jason's sim scenarios.

The Americans down below, recognizable as Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos for anyone who knows their history, aren't faring well. Their hope for a stealth raid has been ruined by the searchlights mounted on the parapets, and they've been pinned behind rocks and fallen trees by German machine guns. While they're protected from the rattling fire of the machine guns, there's at least two mortars going off. Whoever's firing them isn't even trying to hit the Howlers, they're just keeping them corralled while the gunners get their kicks.

The sound's barely audible in the distance, especially with the explosions and ceaseless fire, but soon the roar of a high-powered motorcycle fills the air. Thundering across the battlefield, the machine hits the crest of a hill and soars through the air, the man in a red, white, and blue kicking off of it to carry himself to the top of the castle walls as the bike falls short, exploding in a fiery burst against the fortress walls. “Es ist der Amerikaner! Es ist


From there, the entire feeling of the area changes. Frantic, almost all guns are turned on Captain America as he storms over the walls, knocking soldiers to the side in his push towards the heavy weapons. The Howling Commandos cheer and leave cover to charge the castle as well, whooping battle cries and trailing grappling hooks… right as a mortar finds its way into their midst. Cap doesn’t seem to have noticed, he’s vanished into the castle, but he’d been depending on that backup. Not even a super soldier can stand up to an entire company of the Wehrmacht alone. It seems that this nightmare generator isn’t about traumatizing him, but outright killing him.

It’s going to take someone’s best efforts to search the castle in time to set this memory back on track before he’s convinced he died here. But taking down a few Nazis along the way can’t hurt things.

Raynor

[savinglives]

This part of the mindscape was barren, deserted. Littered with the remains of a once large city, a capital maybe, laid to waste by what looked like a great battle. Destroyed vehicles littered the streets, both civilian and military. The buildings nothing but huge skeletons, the lucky few still standing left with large chunks of them missing. The whole thing was sobering enough, but the utter silence didn't help anything. The only sound audible being the winds blowing sand throughout the empty streets, its eeriness accentuated by the purple night sky, and the multiple full moons casting light down on the city.

The whole scene screamed 'post-apocalypse', although the multiple moons made it obvious that this wasn't Earth. The only sign that could give any meaning to where this was being a highway sign left on the streets.

Welcome to New Gettysburg

Further down the street though, was a strange-looking artifact. Untouched, no battle damage on it, looking very much like a shiny grey pillar, hovering in place without any possible power source. There was a strange blue glow to it, as it it were multiple pieces brought together to form this pillar, held together by this strange blue energy. If touched however, the landscape would immediately change...

All In

[savinglives]

... showing what looked like Hell on Earth.

The landscape changed once again, showing what one could imagine Hell looking like. Red skies covered in dark clouds, pools of lava all over the battlefield, as an indecipherable amount of creatures seemed to approach the viewer's current position. They were vast in numbers, almost blotting out the sky and covering the horizon. However, they were too far away for any distinguishable features to be picked out, which only put into perspective just how many of them there were.

At the viewer's current position though, seemed to be a small military base. Various forces gathered together, attempting to fortify their positions, but still scrambling to establish a foot hold. There was enough of a base that resources were being gathered, and factories and barracks were being built as quickly as possible. And in the middle of the base, on an elevated plateau...

Was the floating pillar.

"You've brought me the Xel'naga artifact," A feminine voice said, its conniving words seemingly being transmitted directly to everyone's minds. "It was good of you to save me the trouble of finding it for myself."

Alarms blarred around the base then, the wave of creatures in the sky and ground now moving toward the base at alarming speeds. Its sheer numbers against the scrambling military force making it obvious this was not a winnable fight. "WARNING. LARGE ZERG FORCE INCOMING." Said a robotic voice over the speakers, an adjutant. However, where the artifact was supposed to be activated, to wipe out the initial assault...

There was nothing.

"Jim, the artifact's not responding!" Someone said over a speaker, seemingly coming from a table not very far away. Covered in relevant tactical equipment, as a marine with black armor and a skull visor listened intently. "We're not ready for that many zerg! You need to hold them off somehow while we figure out what's wrong with the artifact!"

"Dammit..." Jim cursed, pulling his visor back. A tense expression on his face, as the reality of the situation sunk in. He roughly grabbed his gauss rifle, moving to the front lines. One hand up to his helmet, as he pressed a button and began transmitting. "This is Raynor, I need battlecruisers on both choke points! Marines, get inside your bunkers and hold the line! Matt, whenever those factories are done, I need them to build me as many siege tanks as they can, as fast as they can! I don't care how many zerg we're dealing with, we're not leaving this planet until that artifact does its job!"

Finally, he approached one of the bunkers, and set himself up inside it. Leveling his rifle at the incoming first wave, as he steadied his breathing.

"My forces are without number, Jim." the feminine voice said again, inside everyone's minds. The first wave of zerg coming within range, as Raynor's forces finally began to fire, the desperation obvious to everyone present.

"This can only end one way."

Inertia

[mirror_soldier]

Screens line the walls of a winding hall in this section of the mindscape. Taking a step onto the metal grated floor will cause several of the monitors to pop to life, setting off a cacophony of muddled voices echoing down the claustrophobic passageway. Some of them continue to flicker on and off, switching erratically between scenarios, while others seem to be stuck showing the same clip on a perpetual loop.

Some have clips focused on the Flash. With, one in particular, repeating a scene of him breaking the neck of a yellow-clad speedster. But most feature a much younger speedster and what can be assumed to be his family and friends. While most of these are from a outsiders viewpoint, there are some that clearly come from a first-person perspective. With these, there's a particular focus on the family, the oldest of which looks as if he's sick. The further one travels down the hall the more the screens grow sparse.

Eventually, they become almost exclusively about conversations with this man as he's clearly drawing closer to death, speaking about how proud he is of the kid and how he thinks of him as a son. Just passed these, is what at first may look like another screen that's just large enough to be a doorway, but unlike the others, there's a green tint to the 'screen' that will pulse with energy in reaction to anyone coming close. No noise comes from it despite it displaying what looks like a vicious argument between the kid and the older man. If touched, the 'screen' proves to be a gate, easily passed though.

If ignored, the hall will once again fill with more monitors. Now they display nothing more of the family from before. Instead, everything is hyper focused on one person, in particular, that the boy seemed to of taken to stalking. Much of the information shown depicts files on him being a corrupted politician with a particular hatred of metahumans. As the hall finally draws to its end, yet another gate is set into the wall, once again leading to an ongoing confrontation.

Like with the last gate, no noise can be heard coming directly from the gate itself, but the screens surrounding it have all taken to depicting the same scenario from the kids perspective. They're all playing out of sync with one another as the man throws out claims of having done so much for the boy, along with accusations of him being a traitor to their family, until he finally the points something at him.

With that everything but the gate spontaneously shuts down, as on the other side of it the kid collapses, the person he'd been arguing with now coldly standing over him.

Tucker

[lovernotafighter]

For the short amount of time that Tucker had been around, there had been a gratuitous amount of flirting and a reckless surface veneer, enough that it made the idea of his own memories a fearful path to tread. Funny enough, there was a distinct lack of females in them, no parties, no flirting. There was a boring base, something that looked old, abandoned and forgotten, aside from a few blue banners hanging off the walls. Somewhere in the heart there would be a flag on a short pole, but no one really knew why it was important.

The base, though, had a tall, free-standing doorway on the roof, with green light where the door should be. Teleporter. Tucker hated them because they made him nauseous and the black stuff on his armor was a pain, but hey, maybe someone else would have better luck.

There was just...

The Desert

[lovernotafighter]

It's hot. It's so goddamn hot. Yesterday was hot, today was hot, tomorrow - if he lived that long - would be hot. The nights were cold as balls, but he was just glad he got to live through them, because by all accounts now he should have been dead. The excavation crew certainly was, long since gone and slaughtered, and Tucker was the last, a stupid ambassador that had a responsibility to aliens and to humans both.

You know, since he was in between.

Tucker sat just inside the door of the desert alien temple, helmet hanging from his fingers. It was cooler to keep it on, but he wanted the fresh air even if it was stale here. On the wall, small little lines - four vertical and one diagonal cutting through them - were clustered in dozens, beside a Tucker was here, motherfuckers crudely sketched into the rock. He had been here a long, long time, long after the ration bars ran out, but good thing the assholes outside had enough to "share" before he had to resort to space rats or some shit.

Whatever, that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the echoing silence, the way he had pleaded over the goddamn airwaves for hours, for days, for weeks and no one got back to him. The way he had laughed a little at the beginning, made jokes, and those dwindled away to fear, to desperation.The way not one gave a shit. The way no one followed up, not even Church, or the reality that Caboose hadn't stumbled over him yet with that stupid fucking luck of his.

There was no one. It was pretty sad when the only people talking to you either threatened to blow your head off or was just yourself. And loneliness could break down the strongest of support beams.

He hated being alone, he realized. He fucking hated it, that people hadn't fucking cared enough to help him, hadn't even fucking thought of him--

Sand got into the worst places, too.

God, he was so fucking over the goddamn desert. It was bullshit, utter goddamn bullshit, and no one was coming. No one was fucking coming, no one was ever coming because they had all abandoned him. Assholes. Goddamn assholes, the government, the aliens, his teammates. The sword lit up in his hand as he shook it out, the helmet back on.

He was going to die in here anyway. Might as well go out like a bad ass and take as many of those assholes with their fancy ass turrets and big machines as he could, right?

The temple shook as he heard a round hit the door. Deep breath.

Time to go to war.

Widowmaker

[araignee_du_soir]

[Now Entering Annecy]

The hairs on the back of the necks of those that entered this part of the mindscape would stand on end the moment they crossed into it, guts twisting at the sight of what seemed like an alien place to even those of the Legion. Desolate and foreboding, grey ash hanging in the air, the land was in ruins. A keen eye would see what could only have once been a beautiful town in those ruins, buildings and roads laid to waste by some kind of large scale attack that would remind many of concentrated shelling, carpet bombing or the tactic of a species that conquered through raising the land, wiping it clean of the natives and rebuilding it in their image.

And so it would seem to be, in this place where the water in the canals was a dark, unhealthy red that bubbled from time to time and the entire area appeared to be covered in webs that reflected the sourceless light flickering throughout the area. A closer inspection revealed that the webbing wasn't made of silk, but of metal wires, cables and cords sprawling over the buildings. Some formed bridges over the ominous water and others blocked passage into some of the ruined buildings, the design unique to each web save for they all had a stylized symbol woven into the webs.

The further one ventured in, the more they would feel like they were being watched. Always watched. It was silent save for the occasional clicking and clacking of something moving across those cable webs. The frequency would vary, and sometimes arachnid shapes would catch in the peripheral vision, but a direct look toward the movement would show nothing on the webs. Almost like the spiders that clearly traversed the metal webs had melded with them the moment they were sighted...

Yet, that wasn't the most disturbing thing about this particular mindscape: there was no sign of life, as the land had seemingly been sown with salt, and yet there were spots of vibrant plant growth interspersed throughout. Patches of grass with calla lillies grew from the remains of dead bodies. Some were merely collections of bones, while others were bloated corpses well into decomposition - all reflecting their manner of death to be a single bullet to the head.

Down one path, across a webbing bridge, a solid building stood looking as though it had been set down by the hand of God amid the ruined land. And yet another path would find its way into one a the ruined buildings, revealing a passage down into what would have once been a storm cellar, the sound of music drifting from wherever that lead below ground.

But travelers would need to take care not to stray too far from canals for there are large, deep pits covered by thick webs that trapped metallic spiders as large as a house, eyes glowing red, as they either laid in wait or slumbered.. for the time being, reminding everyone that some things should never be set loose. Tread carefully.

Once Upon a Time - OTA

[araignee_du_soir]

Down the stairs and through the cellar, the music that was so out of place with the surface beckoned. The back of the cellar turned into the long corridor of a reinforced bunker with many doors. All doors were closed with electronic locks - the lights red - except for one door which was wide open... and lead right into the auditorium of the Palais Garnier in mid-performance of a production of Swan Lake.

The ballerina dancing the part of Odile was incredibly skilled and seemed to dance effortlessly. There was something familiar about her, but the production continued on, the audience cheering at the end, all dancers having bright smiles on their face during curtain call. The scene quickly shifted to a dressing room, the ballerina that had been the black swan, Odile, out of costume in a white robe, sitting before her vanity as she brushed out her mid-length dark hair that held the slightest tinge of blue. Pale skin and warm honey colored eyes, she looked up when there was a knock on the door and another dancer came in.

"Amélie," she said in an excited voice (in French which all could understand in this mindscape), barely pushing the door closed behind her. "There's a man that wants to meet you."

"There always is on Saturdays," Amélie, the woman that would one day become Widowmaker, replied. "You know I don't bother with them, Lucienne. Be polite, but give my regards and excuses."

Lucienne smirked a bit and leaned against the door, making it click properly shut. "He says he's an Overwatch agent."

There was a momentary pause in Amélie's hand, the brush stilling, as her eyebrows rose. "Now is he..."

The other woman's smirk grew a bit. "I see that caught your attention. He's handsome, too."

A light snort came as Amélie set the brush down and started refreshing her makeup. "He's probably just saying he's Overwatch to get my attention. Those kind of men are all alike - making up stories to impress the pretty girl, when all we want is someone genuine. Not worth my time."

"...then why are you fixing your makeup?" Lucienne moved over to meet Amélie's eyes in the reflection, prompting her to get a tube of lipstick thrown at her.

"Shut up." But Amélie knew she was more intrigued by the potential of a real Overwatch agent than she was willing to admit. "Tell him he can buy me one drink at the bar downstairs. One." A pause. "Did he bother to give a name?"

"Gérard Lacroix."



[ooc: I will give the memory in chunks, letting it unfold for the characters that visit. No posting order required!]

Garrus

[calibrates_big_guns]

The entrance to Garrus's mind will look awfully familiar to anyone who has visited Shepard. It was the Normandy, rendered down to the last rivet and seam, every crew member at their station. Wrex is aboard, along with Grunt, and Liara, and Tali, and all the rest. It was a combination of people that had never been on board the Normandy all at once in reality, but in Garrus's mind, this was how he saw the place.

Wouldn't feel like home if the gang weren't all there.

The holographic lock floating in front of every door is green except for one. At the far end of a long hallway on the third deck - a hallway studded with empty cryo-pods - is the door to the main battery. The lock is glowing an angry red -- locked. But when someone draws close, the color changes to orange, and then green. It opens with a pneumatic hiss ...

Omega

[calibrates_big_guns]

Garrus is tired. His arms are heavy and stiff, and his shoulder had gone numb from the repeated kicking of his rifle. His aim is steady though, as he keeps his sights trained on the makeshift barricade that had been cobbled together on the other end of the bridge.

It was manned by a few poorly equipped freelancers, spraying ineffectual suppressing fire across the no man's land between the barricade and Garrus's safehouse. If he had a clean shot, he took it. If not, he'd snap off a warning shot and they'd scurry back into cover for a few long moments before they started again.

Every now and then, he'd see movement a little further back - a flash of gang colors that set a knot of anger twisting in his gut, and usually signaled another big push. They'd come close a few times, but the bottleneck provided by the bridge practically funneled them into his scope. The few he couldn't pick off on the mad dash towards the safehouse, he could finish off inside without much more trouble. They'd thrown a few curveballs at him - the gunship was a nasty surprise - but so far he'd managed.

'So far' were the key words there. They got a little closer each time. Every shot was starting to take just a little longer to line up, and there were a few easy shots that went wide. As long as they didn't run out of bodies or bullets, it was only a matter of time. He'd made his peace with that. He was just going to make them bleed for every inch of ground in the time he had left.

It was another few minutes before the next big pushed started. A tide of freelancers surge over the barricade, and Garrus's rifle sends high-velocity round slamming through their armor, one after another.

Then he hears the door behind him slide open.

He whirls around, snapping off a quick shot that drops the first Blood Pack grunt through the door. Unfortunately, he wasn't alone, and the other six don't hesitate to open fire. Garrus dives for cover, feeling the dulled thuds of bullets punching into his kinetic barriers. He hits the ground and rolls, but half-way through his leg buckles and he stumbles. He looks down to see blood oozing from a bullet hole in his leg.

Then, Garrus takes a shotgun blast to the chest and crumples to the floor.

Seras Victoria (Open) || The Assault on Hellsing Manor

[died_a_virgin]

Seras' mind is a bit different from a lot of people, it's fragmented, almost like broken shards of a mirror. It's was for her own protection. There seems to be slivers of memories from two different people flashing by, but there's one shard that's larger than the others. It seems to be the doorway of a house. Nothing too fancy, but it's obvious that its the door from the roof.

Down the stairs it becomes obvious that this isn't some sort of office building or apartment complex. It's a mansion. A rather large one at that. The sounds of explosions can be heard from outside as well as gunfire. Just what in the world is going on here?

There's a woman rushing through the halls, two rather large guns in each hand as she rushes towards the sounds of battle. She finally makes it to where the gunfire is coming from and stops for a moment, breathing hard. The woman is Seras, different from what the Legion has seen. Blue eyes, darker hair, both arms, and a yellow uniform.

What she sees in front of her is slaughter. Men torn apart and being eaten by what appears to be monsters in uniforms. Not just any uniforms. Nazi uniforms.

"No..."

ESPER SHOWDOWN: Locked to Wash, Gohan, North, and Touma

[legionnpcs]

It was going to be just another memory. Three men on the battlefield, one little boy in a space pod screaming and pounding his fists against the glass as the only one still standing raised a hand to kill his father. And that's when Gohan's mindscape cracks like a mirror.

Esper rises from the horizon, tinging the now-frozen memory with her own fury and frustration. More precisely, she floats in the center of a massive psychic construct, built from the memories of everyone present. A flash of Ray meeting Egon for the first time in her legs, of America standing at the feet of Lady Liberty flickering through her eyes, Tucker bickering with the Blues stretching over her chest.

She's not strong enough to take them on her own. She needs to steal their power for herself.

"I told you that you should have just given up!" She moves, the memory fracturing further as she storms toward them. It's even enough to force Gohan out of his role as a helpless child. "It would have been easier on everyone if you'd just died!" Esper raises both hands and lightning formed of self-hatred and fury flash from her palms, striking towards the center of the group. "I didn't want it to be this way, but you're forcing my hand!"

Trapped in a Saiyan's mind against a raging giant. Little possibility of backup. With the world breaking around them. It's time to show the wannabe why they were chosen to be Legionnaires.

[fourstars]

Gohan had been elsewhere in the mindscape when he suddenly felt himself pulled away. Everything around him flashing into a mess of colors, before he suddenly found himself inside a very familiar spacepod. The pink glass, the bottom of the crater, there was no way Gohan didn't recognize this as Raditz's spaceship. But that recognition only lasted all of a few seconds, before he noticed the way the scenery was cracked, as if the ground and the sky were made of glass.

And then there was Esper, shooting lightning at them.

Gohan's eyes widened, and he reacted before he even got the chance to think about it. His aura flaring to life around him, shattering the pod into pieces, as he dodged the blast at high speeds. One second, he was in the pod. The next, he was at the edge of the crater, having carried the other three with him. A completely surprised expression on his face, as he looked down at his hands, opening and closing them.

He... moved. He moved at high speeds. He hadn't been able to do that ever since he got brought into the Legion's universe.

"What just...?"

York & Delta

[goddamngrenades]

Compared to the rest this scrap of the mindscape is calm, organized, and relatively straightforward. A long hallway, carpeted, all worn wood and smelling vaguely of citrus and dust stretches endlessly till a fork at the farthest end. Along the walls are doors, each locked by various means or ever so slightly open. Some have their doors missing entirely, some lead to yet other branching hallways in a sprawling labyrinth of locked and unlocked rooms. Some are empty. Some have small comforts- a sofa, a plant. Green winds throughout along the carpet in the one more advanced accommodation. Glowing lines that lead past some doors to what may inevitably be an exit-

Save for where one line veers sharply to the right, to a darkened door, the green light cracked. Sparking, flickering in and out before continuing past dimmer than before to another door long since closed, musty and worn, hot to the touch...

Happy Birthday

[goddamngrenades]

Beyond the first is a nebulous space- a room that is and is not a room, walls that are and aren't entirely solid. A digital representation rather than actual concrete and glass and lights flickering from screen to screen. Miles upon miles of codes and calculations that spiral ever inward in a complicated mass of tangled predictive tactics. York's presence is tangential to the figure in the room- colored armor on the screens flitting from frame to frame until he's out of sight.

Some of the screens are calculations, some showing combat in normal and slowed time- the way Delta perceives the world. Tense and frantic his hands flow through the air, controlling data and calculations as a voice echos throughout the room.

'There's been an incident. Security failed.'

I gave you the schematics, but they are- they are too complex, I need more time-

Wash [CW: Insanity, Violence, The Usual]

[unrecovered]

Wash's fragment of the mindscape is eerily quiet. The bare bones of an abandoned military base, windswept and dilapidated, stand nestled in a barren canyon. Nothing grows here except grass, long and yellow and dry and undisturbed. It looks for all the world like nobody's been here in a very long time.

Until you find the door with the long staircase behind it, leading to the ill-lit underground bunker.

The staircase leads into a room with two steel doors. One is labeled with a single Greek letter - Epsilon, for those that recognize it - and tightly locked. Several steel bars criss-cross the door, firmly locked into place, and half a dozen deadbolts secure the door near the handle. It's almost overkill, but the obvious signs of attempted forcible entrance make it a necessary precaution instead.

If you stand close enough, you can hear someone speaking in a low voice, words too quiet to be intelligible. A second voice is pitched in a high, unceasing scream.

The second door, marked with a single vertical yellow stripe, hangs open. Behind it stretches a long hallway, lined on both sides with rows of steel doors, securely locked, each with a single small window at face height. Peering in the windows reveals the memory behind each door: a small blond boy, sitting alone on a swingset, staring into the Spokane sunset; a gangly teenager, a little too skinny for comfort, hiding in the walk-in freezer of a restaurant while the manager insists to the city inspector that all of his employees are above-board, thank you; a young man, exhausted and trembling and still standing at attention, fatigues spattered with blood that obviously came from humans and blood that obviously did not, explaining to his commanding officer that he's the sole survivor of his platoon, there's no one left, I'm sorry, sir, I tried; Wash, in gray and yellow Freelancer armor, losing badly at poker to Connie and three people in blue armor and still laughing...

The doors gain more locks the further down you go, but the memories continue: Connie tells him to pick a side and leaves him confused in front of a glowing leaderboard; he watches in dawning horror as a training exercise goes wrong and a live grenade explodes next to York; he sits in the back of a pelican, struggling to control the panic bubbling up in his chest as Maine is dragged on board, bleeding from too many wounds to the throat; Where's Connie, he asks, knowing that any answer he gets will be bad; the Director runs into the observation deck and shouts a name he doesn't recognize, and he watches his friends crumple in pain; I'm sorry, Agent Washington, says a small, fiery figure floating above his friend's shoulder, Agent Maine is feeling poorly and doesn't wish to talk right now, and it's the third time this week he's gotten that answer but he can't really argue, can he...

The next series of doors is heavily locked and secured, in much the same way the Epsilon door at the entrance had been, and it's a good thing: they all show signs of attempted entry. Bars are slashed or burned, locks are twisted and broken, but every single door stands firmly shut. The windows show-

An image of a blonde woman in fatigues, turning to leave, as Wash topples off a surgical table and starts to scream-

Medbay shaking and rattling, tilted at a terrifying angle, and a confused and terrified Wash hits a wall as the ship impacts into the planet-

Wash struggling and clawing at an orderly's grip, crying for help from friends who are no longer there-

Wash, back pressed flat against a wall, tearing at the back of his neck and screaming get it out get it out GET IT OUT as an orderly rushes in with a syringe-

A white room, padded, too brightly lit for comfort, and Wash, straitjacketed and shaking, huddled in a corner and whispering a desperate mantra over and over, get it out get it out please god i can't i can't please please get it out get it out...

The next long stretch of doors is just as heavily locked; the difference now is that the windows are blacked out and sound is muffled. Some of the doors have gunfire and screaming; some have conversation, edged but too indistinct to make out; some are terribly silent; all show signs of rebuffed attempted entry.

The next door with a window and sound shows a snowy landscape and a very battered Wash being propped up by a group of multicolored soldiers, Grif and Tucker among them, as they remove his gray armor and trade it with the blue armor of a body lying nearby, Tucker exasperatedly replying Yes, Caboose, I said we can keep him, now quit asking!

The next shows Wash patiently building a blanket fort with Caboose; the next, a game of capture the flag that's gone on for far too long, with neither Reds nor Blues showing signs of stopping; the next, fighting through a base to extract a much-missed AI; a quiet conversation with Carolina; a brawl against way too many black-armored robots; a crashed spaceship and two bases set up at either end of a canyon, because some things are absolute; a civil war that nobody asked for, complete with a first glimpse of Locus; betrayal, and a tight escape, and the gut-wrenching nausea of sudden teleportation; battles won and lost and won again; Carolina and Wash versus Locus and Felix, ending with the overkill of a spaceship crash; and every door shows some degree of abuse, of attempted entry, but every single door has remained closed, and it looks like Wash might have escaped Esper's meddling entirely-

And the next door is wide open. He's worried at this memory for months, even more so this past week or so; it had been on his mind when Esper had activated her nanofactories, and she'd found it unlocked and open and beckoning.

From out here, it sounds like war.

Chorus, The Final Battle

[unrecovered]

"One Mantis, we can handle, but this will be a bloodbath."

There's gunfire, and screaming, and soldiers in all different colors of armor running in all directions. Those not quick enough to find cover are gunned down mercilessly or caught in rocket explosions, the source of which can be traced back to a twenty foot tall fully armed and armored bipedal automaton. Several of them, in fact. Anyone with an aerial view will be able to pick out nearly a dozen, with more dropping from the spaceship hovering in close proximity. Their orders are search and destroy, and while the soldiers on the ground have had some successes - as several wrecked and smoking automatons prove - they're not doing well.

This isn't the first time Wash has been in a fight that's heavily stacked against him, and he's holding his own - his last grenade, well-aimed, lodges in the chassis of one of the robots, and it goes down in a fiery explosion. He doesn't wait, darting for different cover and grabbing a (young, inexperienced, terrified) soldier with him on the way. "Stay here. Aim for the leg joints or the guns. We can do this."

In real life, this is when the Reds and Blues, aboard that hovering spaceship, accessed the Mantis' controls and shut them all down remotely, securing a victory for Chorus and the end of the war. In real life, this is a scarce few minutes before the Time Trapper pulls Wash into the world of the Legion.

In this memory, a Mantis that simply hadn't been there a minute ago stomps up behind their cover, towering over them. Years of honed combat reflexes get Wash out of the way; the young soldier he'd grabbed isn't quite fast enough and doesn't survive the ensuing hail of bullets. He sprints for cover, barely throwing himself out of the way of an incoming missile, and nearly yells into his comms. "Tucker? I need a sit-rep!"

Silence. Silence for far too long.

"Tucker!"

In this memory, the shutdown signal simply isn't coming, the odds are overwhelming already, and the ship is still dropping active Mantis units onto the ground. Unless something changes quickly, everyone is going to be killed.