legionworld | Jason: Episode 001

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Jason: Episode 001

Who| Jason Lee Scott, whoever
What| Jogging while figuring things out! He's getting a bit of a brood on, but he'll try not to get any on anyone's shoes.
Where| The more open spaces in Legion World. One of the park-ish areas should work fine.
When| A day or so after his release from Medical.
Warnings/Notes| Not as of yet.

There are all kinds of ways for people to cope with a situation that's strange or out of the ordinary. Some people broke down. Other people set out to explore as much as possible. Some went into denial. Others, like Jason, buried themselves in familiar activities.

Jason preferred not to focus on it too much. He needed these things in bite-sized chunks. Going from average teen to Power Ranger had been enough of a shift in the status quo, the only reason he'd been able to handle it so well was that all of his friends had been right there with him. And now he didn't have his Ranger powers (well, he had the morpher and the coin, but trying to transform had left him feeling decidedly non-spandexy and a little awkward. Billy could probably explain it. And Trini could explain him.), his new 'powers' didn't make a lot of sense to him and seemed to puzzle some of the techs, and he was alone. That last bit was really the worst part. If he'd had even one familiar face here, that would've made things so much easier to cope with. But the only trace of home he had were his morpher, non-functional, and his clothes, which still smelled like a poison planet. He'd probably have to burn them.

That had been... Probably not even a day ago. He'd tried wrestling it in his head a bit, and after a few hours of beating his head against the wall with worry and confusion, he decided to focus his energies on something entirely different: Saying 'forget this' and going for a jog. Legion World (Seriously? An entire planet ship thing to themselves?) was so large that it felt like he could go forever without meeting anyone else, but he kept passing by people here and there. Techs. Civilians in their weird future-clothes. The little bug-people. Possibly Legionnaires. He didn't stop to ask. There were only so many pitying/curious looks and platitudes that he could take before just wanting to be alone for a bit.

Still, he could only run for so long. His appetite hadn't been much before, he'd been too worried. And now... Well, he hadn't exactly grabbed a bottle of water, and the last place he saw that might have something to drink from was a few miles back. Jason slowed to a stop, breathing heavily, and placed his hands on his hips, looking up at the sky as he continued to walk for a bit. Just coming to a stop after a run like that would've been begging for a cramp.

Still. Thirsty.

He paused and glanced around, spotting someone. It didn't matter so much who they were, he guessed. "Yo!" He held up a hand, moving a bit closer. "Hey, sorry to interrupt. I'm new and, uh. I think I got a little lost here. Did you see where I could get a drink of water?" He grinned sheepishly, spreading his hands in a 'what can you do?' gesture.

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In the last three years of war when he wasn't actually fighting the enemy, he had been put through a few training drills by Doctor J and Professor G, along with some other members of the Sweepers, or the Colony Liberation Organization. They were down to two gundam pilots, so they needed all the help they could get.

But that said, in experiencing sub military training, he could tell when someone was getting stitches in their side. Jason nearly looked military, or could pass as such where he was from, but at Jason's greeting he nods upwards to acknowledge him.

He'd been sitting there a while, watching some of techs and staff walk around, just trying to have a quiet moment without the tech all around him, and all the noise that came with it. Waking up with the headache he had, he almost might have wished he stayed on the poison planet, but for now he was just grateful for a place like this to get his baring straight.

"Yeah." He pauses and glances back down a path, which lead towards bay doors into a sort of lounge area inside the more 'space ship' part of the station.

"Looks like they got some sorta cafe thattaway."

All the way down there, huh? Jason grimaced mentally, but he shook his head and offered a grateful smile to Duo. "Thanks, bro."

He raised his hand in a choppy wave and started jogging in place. Might as well work on the way over there. If he's going to dip into a cafe, he might end up having to get a quick snack, and that'd be it for today's run.

Starting to turn, Jason glanced back at Duo again, giving him a concerned look. "Hey. You should probably look at getting some water too. You're not looking too hot. Anyway." He started off, tossing a wave over his shoulder. "See you later, all right?"

"Yeah, no problem." He says, exhaling softly. While he was content to sit here and relax Jason did bring up a good point, though if he had been trying to conceal his discomfort he was doing a piss poor job of it. Pushing himself to his feet he calls out.

"Hey wait! I'm commin' too." Besides the fact that having conversation will help distract him from the nagging sensation of picking up on the presence of every little machine in the area, it was a good time to get something to eat as well.

"Might as well take your advice."

Rich was laying face down in the grass because...well. He could. Really, there was no other reason for it. He'd tripped and decided getting up was just something he didn't feel like doing right now, he was just laying there, enjoying the feeling of grass on his face. He'd even kicked off his boots to feel it on his toes, too.

When the kid called out to him, asking for water, he lifted his head slightly and pointed in the direction of some nearby fountains. This area of the ship, this park, was made up to look like Central Park and he knew Central Park like the back of his hand, like any proper New Yorker would.

"There are some fountains right over there, on the other side of those bushes."

Then he plopped his face right back down in the grass again, stretching out even more like a cat. One had to wonder if there was something wrong with him because lying face down in the middle of the park was a pretty unusual way to behave...

"Uh. Thanks." Well, that was... that was something. Yeah, sure, Jason was thirsty, but this guy was. Uh. Something else. Was he sick or something? He'd taken his boots off, which could mean anything really, but he was still stretched out on the grass like a lizard on a hot rock or something.

Bunching his eyebrows together, Jason moved over and squatted next to Richie, cocking his head a little. "Are you okay?" He reached out and hesitated, eyeing the robotic-looking arm before deciding not to touch him just yet. "I mean, you aren't hurt or anything, are you?"

The guy was a bit bigger than him. Carrying him off to get some help might be asking a bit much after he'd run for so long. Maybe with the flight ring... But no, that was getting ahead of himself. Best to see what was up first.

Edited 2016-01-05 07:18 (UTC)

"I'm fine, kid." Rich rolled over onto his back. "Just, uh...in a weird place right now." He stretched a little in the grass and then rested his head on his hands.

"Getting used to reality again, I guess."

He felt strange. Numb because of his deadened senses and full of feeling all at once because of...

Because he hadn't felt anything. He didn't know what that meant. Did that mean there was no heaven? Did that mean he hadn't been dead, just...dissipated into some kind of ambient energy? He didn't know. All he knew was that it was yet one more thing that made him aware of the strange scale of the universe and his equally strange role in it.

"You ever have something so strange happen that when things go back to normal you're not even sure it's real?"

'Back to normal.' Which meant being displaced to another dimension and being expected to be a superhero in space was completely normal for him.

Okay. Still a little weird. But more understandable, he guesses? Weird. The scarred face caught Jason's attention, but now probably wasn't the time to compare battle scars. Not that Jason had any.

At the question, he cracked a bit of a grin and shrugged, moving into a sitting position. Okay, weird guy actually wants to talk? That was fine with him. "Man, over the past year, 'strange' has been totally redefined for me. This is definitely one of the weirder things that's happened to me, though." He couldn't help but laugh a bit, thinking back on some of the weirder parts. "So, getting used to reality? Were you in a coma or something?"

Probably not. Unless that outfit was seriously padded, the dude looked ripped. He'd be a lot flabbier if he just came out of a coma, right?

Oh boy, this was a weird thing to drop, but it was the truth. As far as he knew it anyway.

"I was dead," Rich explained. "I turned into a dimensional door and dissipated into energy. To save some of my friends."

Hopefully, Thanos hadn't come through but it had to be done. He couldn't leave them there and something had to be done with the cosmic cube since it hadn't burnt out the way they'd expected. Otherwise, the nasties in the Cancerverse could've gotten their hands on it and could've potentially used it to wreck havoc back home.

"I know that sounds crazy. I can barely believe it myself. But it definitely happened and yet here I am."

Somehow.

...Well, that's a bit of a bombshell to drop on someone without warning.

"Uh."

That was pretty far beyond even the Angel Grove measure of weird. How did you even respond to that?

"That's rough, man."

He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to process how he's react, given the same situation. Somehow, rolling around in the grass like a freshly washed dog didn't seem too bad now.

"I was all prepared with some dumb story, but I don't think it'd top that. Did your friends make it out okay?" The life of a Power Ranger. Questions like this come out totally normal. Two years ago, he wouldn't be able to process it at all.

Rich smiled a self-satisfied little smile.

"They did."

That was the last thing he'd seen, Peter and Drax on the other side. He wasn't sure if he'd been able to hold back Thanos, though. He hoped he had. That would've been the best way for it to have gone down, Peter and Drax getting through and Thanos trapped in that nightmare forever.

Well, actually, the best way would've been him surviving, too, but he was here, wasn't he? Maybe whatever had happened here would undo the rotten part of that little ending.

"And whatever story you were thinking of, don't think it's dumb. I got the kinda stories most people can't top -- I work on a different scale than a lot of people when it comes to hero stuff. Doesn't mean the smaller things aren't important, y'know?"

That was good, at least. Jason liked to think that he'd do the same, but still. The big D was a big step to take.

Still.

"I guess you're right about that." He shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "Doesn't mean it feels a little less petty to complain about getting stuck in another dimension for a few hours, though. No one had to, uh. Sacrifice themselves to get us out." Man, he was going to have to dance around that.

He knew there were scary cosmic threats out there. Rita and her cronies didn't come from nowhere. But he hadn't actually considered working beyond saving the city, and the world.

"Ah, it ain't petty. Trust me. Like I said, I've got a lot of stories and a weird life. Most civilians wouldn't be able to match it."

Because you're totally a civilian, right Jason?

"Tell me your not-dumb story. My life is dramatic and depressing as hell sometimes, and sometimes it's nice hearing about something else for a change."

Everyone had different types of stories in his line of work anyway. Just because being trapped in a giant carnival ride death trap didn't have whole worlds at stake, it didn't mean that stories about it were any less interesting -- or funny.

Totally a civilian. Nothing else. Uh-uh, not him.

Jason squats lightly and rubs the back of his neck. "Well, uh." What was a good, safe story? The Rad-Bug? Nah. "Well, this one time, I was helping out the Angel Grove Youth Center's Cultural Food Festival and Rita Repulsa, the evil space witch that's trying to conquer our planet? Well, she sent down this evil pig monster to eat all of the food. Except it wouldn't eat the hot stuff, so we were left with all of this super-spicy food after the Power Rangers defeated it."

This is, in fact, a totally average day in Angel Grove. Jason doesn't stumble once when sharing it, and he laughs sheepishly.

"Probably doesn't rate up there with turning into a door, though."

"Are you kidding me?" Rich asked with a chuckle. "That is hilarious."

It was weird. And not in a horrible way, either, like many deadly weird things he knew of. It was weird in a harmless, funny way. Like many things on Earth were.

"You have an evil space witch trying to take over the world? Really?"

Jason waves his hand at the laughter, unable to keep a smile off himself. It'd seemed serious at the time, but it really was a little dumb if he thought about it.

"Yup. Rita Repulsa. Some astronauts found this space dumpster or something on the Moon about a year ago and when they cracked it open..." He shrugged. "Apparently she'd been trapped for ten thousand years and decided to conquer the first planet she saw."

He rubs the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. Man, after talking to a guy who died saving his friends from some big bad, this really didn't seem that... big.

Rich started laughing at "space dumpster," just because Jason had chosen a fairly hilarious way to word it, and had trouble holding the laughter down long enough for Jason to tell him the rest.

"Rita Repulsa, wow. Even as far as villain names go...well, actually I've heard dumber."

Rich saw Jason's embarrassed look and smiled, hoping to put him at ease.

"Sound like a lot of the supervillains back home on my Earth. If some villain shows up threatening to turn humanity into, I don't know, tribbles or something, just because Earth was there and they needed something to be mad at, everyone just figures 'must be Tuesday.' Still sounds like a pain to deal with, though -- just like the villains back home. These 'Power Rangers' -- are they superheroes?"

If Rich was from Jason's world, he would rue the day of the dumpster! Rue!

"Yeah, I've read comics with more intimidating names, but..." He shrugged. "It's a little different for us. I mean, we were pretty normal up until then. First she shows up with giant monsters, then the Power Rangers pop up right after. Definitely heroes, though."

There wasn't any question or hesitation in his voice about that.

"They don't do a whole lot of public speaking for anything, they seem to be pretty protective of their secret identities. You see them fighting sometimes, but I think the only time they've actually spent time with anyone was right after we got sucked into another dimension. We were throwing a festival for them and weren't sure that they'd show up, but they seemed pretty stuck with it once we all popped back to the party and saw them before they had a chance to leave. They were pretty cool about it, though."

He'd been too busy feeling an enormous wave of relief to really think about teleporting out. Technically that might've been breaking one of their rules, but Zordon didn't seem to mind after. Maybe because they hadn't sought it out.

"The Legion's a lot different about that kind of thing."

"Yeah, it's different than how things are back home, too. Back in my universe, there was this big bit of infighting over secret IDs and this law to make heroes unmask. Some heroes were for it and some were against it -- unfortunately, I wasn't one of the people that had a choice. Me and my friends got outed by a former teammate because it was my old team that caused the accident that made the law happen in the first place."

Rich frowned.

"Everyone was torn in two and wasted all this time fighting each other over it, because some wanted the secret IDs to protect their loved ones and some wanted things to be like the Legion. Then the law got repealed anyway."

After all that damage, they just got rid of it.

"Me? I guess I don't know which one is right, but I do know that now I worry about my parents every damn day. Especially when I'm not even in the same universe to stargate home and protect 'em."

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Jason: Episode 001

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