cbishop

@batkevin74: i get the sway, but i was going by your comment that he'd still be the Punisher. Not much room for sway there. He's pretty rigid about the scum of the underworld.

As Wildvine said, original fiction is welcome in the Fan-Fic forum. It's as close as CV gets to a Writer Show-Off (WSO) forum, so original stories have to go somewhere. Now I say that FF is the WSO, because I think RPG would have to be called the Writers Show-Off, as you folks work together on the overall story. FF sometimes has writers taking turns on chapters, but it's not really in the sense of roleplay, as they're not focusing on one character per writer. They're taking turns writing the whole. But mostly, the stories are usually a one-writer show.

I think RPG is inherently busier than FF, as you have to work together and participate for RPG to work. If there's 15 guys on FF writing 15 different stories, and they decide to read today instead of write, then well, FF is down for the day. With the passing of ImpurestCheese this past summer, it's slowed to a near halt. I think we're just starting to recover from that. It's going to be slow, I think.

@batkevin74: A good story as always, but it only works one way if he'd "still be the Punisher." He wouldn't be able to tolerate his adoptive dad or his organization, and he'd take out everyone... possibly with Gambit's help.

Is there another way to do this?

I'm voting @batkevin74. :)

Just a quick note, guys, to credit the songs. "One of these things does not belong" is a song used on Sesame Street, and the other song is "Herman the Worm," a camp song I found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-rg7EIt1x4

Legion of Super-Heroes/ Aliens

"Urk!" screamed Brainiac 5. "For the millionth time: quit eating my wiring every time I modify something in this lab!" He threw a scanner at the little gray creature, and it bounded off of the round workstation, just dodging the device.

Tenzil Kem clambered out from under the same workstation with a mouthful of wiring, and managed, "Whuf's gun oin?" between chews.

"Matter-Eater Lad! You too?" scowled Brainy.

Tenzil took a big gulp, and protested, "Well, he was having some," pointing a thumb to his right, towards Urk. Urk blew a raspberry at Brainy and ran out of the lab. "This inertron wiring is tasty."

Brainy closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself. After several seconds, he started, "Tenzil, y--"

"--Oh my... where did you get that!?" shouted Tenzil, pointing at the table Brainiac 5 had been working at. On it lay an organic mass that looked like some kind of weird cross between a lobster, a scorpion, and a humanoid hand, only scarier.

Brainiac looked at the table, clearly distracted from the rant that he was about to go on, and annoyed that he was interrupted by the very person he was about to rant at. "What? That? Oh, Phantom Girl brought it up. Tinya wanted me to see if I could figure out a way to stop these things. The ship that our lost Legionnaires disappeared on came back with a bunch of these things in it. They're still inside with more of the team, trying to clean them up. There's one that seems to be--"

Tenzil sounded panicked. "There are more of those things? Here?! Has that one implanted its young?"

"Well, no," said Brainy as he turned the creature over with a couple pairs of forceps. Then standing upright suddenly, he turned to Kem and said, "Wait. How did you know it implan--"

"BRAINY! LOOK OUT!" shouted Matter-Eater Lad.

The creature had suddenly leapt from the table, and its nightmarish tail was wrapped around Brainy's throat from behind, the finger-like appendages reaching over his head, trying to get to his face. The appendages suddenly spread wide, about to attempt to spear Brainiac 5's face from all sides, when Tenzil grabbed it and took a bite, making it squeal and squirt green blood. Tenzil continued his attack, taking several bites that removed appendages, until finally, the creature lay dead against Brainy's back, dangling from his throat.

The Coluan unwrapped the tightly coiled creature with some annoyance. "You needn't have worried, Tenzil. My force field belt was protecting me from being choked, being implanted, and fortunately, from the creature's acidic blood that you've gotten all over everything!" he said with disgust, as he used a force field protected hand to wipe the green blood away from himself.

"You're welcome," Tenzil said dryly. "Where are these things? Where is the ship?" he asked quickly.

"Out on the quad in front of the clubhouse," said Brainiac 5. "You know what these things are? Tinya says that one of them is--"

"Yes! And Brainy, if you ever take anything I say seriously, you need to--"

Brainiac 5 held up a finger to shush Tenzil as he spoke into his Legion flight ring. "Tinya, Matter-Eater Lad knows what these things are. How is it going in there?"

"They're everywhere!" screamed the answer. "Kid Psycho is dead! One of things like I brought to the lab! It just...it leapt on his face, and wouldn't let go, and...and...and soon after, this other thing just burst out of his chest! There's one on Supergirl, but she seems to be handling it, but it's actually causing her pain! There are bigger creatures in here too! They're so fast! Oh my god! Jo!" There was a loud, animalistic squeal. "Brainy! We're outnumbered here! We need reinforcements! More than just this one creature! Supergirl just burst through the hull, headed for space! I think she needs more sunlight! Br--"

"--AINY!" shouted Tenzil, punching the Coluan's force field in the shoulder area. "You have to secure that ship now! If Supergirl has punched her way out, now they have a way out too! That can't happen!"

Brainy shrugged away from the affront of being touched. "What are you--"

"NOW, BRAINY!" shouted Tenzil.

Brainiac 5 spoke into his ring again. "Brainiac 5 to ship's computer. Containment procedure alpha- extend ship's force field. Let nothing in or out except Phantom Girl."

"Confirmed," answered the ship, followed by, "Done."

"There," huffed Brainiac 5. "Now wha--"

Tenzil held up a finger to shush Brainiac 5, and spoke into his ring, "Matter-Eater Lad to all Legionnaires aboard the ship in the quad! Respond to those creatures with lethal force! Do you hear me? Lethal force!"

Brainiac 5 spoke into his ring with anger. "That's a violation of the United Planets protoc--"

"They're not giving us a lot of choice, Brainy!" came the shout of Wildfire, followed by the sound of his anti-energy blast. "These things just keep coming at us, and the only way to take them down is to take them down hard!"

"That is the only way," confirmed Tenzil. "And Drake... you have to get them all. Every egg, every facehugger, every soldier, the queen, and anyone implanted with those things. Just one left means disaster."

"Roger that, MEL," answered Wildfire. "Brainy, you good with that?"

"No," came the curt answer, "But I suppose I'll have to adjust. Just bring me samples."

"Don't bring him anything," Tenzil said forcefully. "Burn, it Drake. Burn every bit of it."

"You heard the man, Legionnaires!" came Wildfire's shout over the rings' communicators. "Take these things out!"

The various blasts of powers, and the horrific squeals upped in pitch. Brainiac 5 and Tenzil listened silently for a few more seconds before realizing that the communicators had stopped, and they were hearing the noises from outside of the clubhouse. Clearly, the ship had erupted into all-out warfare.

A sonic boom was heard, and then there was a thunderous crash that shook the complex. "Brainy!" came Supergirl's voice over the ring. "Let me back into the ship!"

"No can do, Supergirl," started Tenzil.

"Kara!" Brainy shouted into his ring. "You're okay?"

"Thanks to a page from Kal's playbook, yeah. I was able to get into space in direct sunlight, making me stronger. I was able to cough up the creature inside of me, instead of it bursting out."

"Did you kill it?" Tenzil asked excitedly.

"What? No," answered Supergirl.

"Go back and get it!" shouted Tenzil. "Go back and get it right now! Burn it with your heat vision! Freeze it with your breath and break it into a million pieces! Throw it into the sun! But kill it, Supergirl! Kill it!"

"Tenzil?" she asked with confusion.

"Kara," Brainy said calmly. "He's the only one that knows what these things are. If he says kill it, kill it. Or bring it back here so he can. This threat is apparently level omega."

"I... okay," was her only response, and then there was nothing more.

Just then, the rings sounded with another voice. "One of these things is not like the others! One of these things does not belong!"

Brainy made a sour face, and started, "Is that--"

"--singing?" finished Tenzil.

"It's one of those monsters," came Phantom Girl's voice. "It took Kid Psycho's ring! It's actually been helping us against these things! They're after him as much as us!"

Brainiac 5 looked at Matter-Eater Lad with raised eyebrows. Tenzil stared back at him in disbelief, and then hesitantly, he told his ring, "May-maybe...um...maybe save just that one."

"WILDFIRE!" shouted Phantom Girl. "NOT THAT ONE!"

"What?" was heard in the background.

"Oh, grife!" Tinya said before the communicator stopped.

"Warning!" blared a the ship's computer over the clubhouse's communications. "Warning! Ship's hull has been breached by Phantom Girl and one of the creatures!"

"Is it...I can't believe I'm going to say this," Brainy sighed. "Is it the one that was singing?"

"Affirmative," stated the computer.

"Clubhouse computer, dispatch containment drones to Phantom Girl's position immediately, and contain the creature that is with her," ordered Brainiac 5.

"Affirmative," stated the clubhouse.

As the vibrational hums of the drones' propulsion systems were heard leaving the clubhouse, the final peals of battle toned down in the ship.

"That's the last of 'em," came the voice of Ultra Boy. "Knock knock, Brainy. Let us out."

"Sit tight," answered Tenzil. "Ship's in quarantine until we get hold of Infectious Lass. She scans everyone, and clears you of having any foreign organisms, then you get off the ship. Call's in now."

"Ah, sprok!" complained Ultra Boy, and the communicator shut off.

Tenzil smirked nervously to Brainiac 5. "He's not going to be happy when he gets out of there."

Brainy just shrugged.

***

The containment drones came into the lab towing an inertron chamber reinforced with a force field. Inside was a sight that made Tenzil Kem recoil like a child. "Oh my... Brainy, it's really them. It's really them!"

Brainiac 5 put a firm hand on Kem's shoulder, and shook him. "Tenzil! It's contained! Get it together! What are these things?" he demanded.

Tenzil gripped the hand on his shoulder tightly, gazed at Brainy for a moment with a look of complete horror, and then pulled himself up to his full height. "Th-they... they're called Xenomorphs. They just...they seem to just exist to multiply, and they multiply by... by killing everything else they come across."

"By implantation," Brainy said in a detached manner which oddly seemed to calm Tenzil a bit.

"Y-yes," he sighed as Phantom Girl and Supergirl entered. Supergirl was carrying the frozen pieces of the creature she'd coughed up in space. She tossed them on the table as Tenzil continued, "Bismollians hadn't had the ability to eat matter for too long when the ship carrying the Xenomorphs crashed on our planet. We were still recovering from the microbial poisoning of our organic food sources, and then these... things swept across the planet. It was a massacre- one we nearly didn't survive. We finally regrouped, and fought back, and managed to wipe them out."

"How many were implanted?" Supergirl asked, rubbing her chest as she remembered her pain, and imagining the pain that anyone less powerful than her must have felt.

Tenzil shrugged. "None."

"None?!" the three Legionnaires balked simultaneously.

Tenzil shrugged again. "We eat matter- Xenomorphs count. They're a little spicy, but it was like a force-fed buffet." He thought about it for a moment, then reached for a piece of the frozen creature on the table, and popped it into his mouth. "Never tried them cold before." He chewed a few times, and said, "Pretty good."

Phantom Girl phased her head through the lab wall, and the sounds of retching could be heard from the hallway.

Tenzil grimaced, and called weakly, "Sorry, Tinya!"

Tinya just waved him off as she phased back into the room.

"Anyway," he continued, "the massacre was just from... well, everything else about them. They claw, and bite, and stab with their tails. They were mowing through the population pretty good when they realized implantation wasn't going to work. We marshaled our forces, grabbed some weapons, and finally fought back. It finally took just about every able-bodied Bismollian and a grid search of the entire planet to wipe those things out. The queen had gone mobile, and made nests in several spots. It took a long time to get them all." Tenzil went silent as he remembered the horrors of that long conflict, until Supergirl put a comforting hand on his back. He smiled at her briefly, then looked back to the containment chamber.

"So, what do we do about him?" asked Brainiac 5, pointing at the containment chamber.

"I don't know," said Tenzil, walking up the chambers window, emboldened by Supergirl's presence. Speaking into his ring, he said, "I've never heard of a sentient Xenomorph. How is this possible?"

"...And he was this big. I asked Herman what happened, and he said, 'I swallowed five watermelons'..."

"What the sprok?" asked Phantom Girl.

"It's...it's a camp song...from the twenty-first century," Supergirl said with confusion.

"Camp song?" asked Brainy.

"It's for kids, Brainy. It's a nonsense song to entertain kids," said Kara.

"Hey!" shouted Tenzil. "What the grife are you?"

"...And he was... Oh, what?" asked the creature, but its mouth didn't move. "Oh, yes! The creature you see before you is just as wild and menacing as all the rest, but I have control of it."

All four Legionnaires now stood at the window, staring incredulously.

"Down here," said the voice, and their attention was drawn to the bottom of the window as the creature's flight ring tapped on the glass. "That's it, look closer. He's not moving while I've got him."

They all four leaned in very close, and just as their noses were about to touch the glass, the voice yelled, "BOO!" and Tenzil recoiled in horror. "Bwah-hahahahaa! I couldn't resist! I'm so sorry! Hey, will this thing hold him if I let go?" the voice asked.

"Without doubt," stated Brainy.

Supergirl leaned in and said, "I see it. It's...a worm."

"Not just a worm!" it said. "You can call me Earworm!"

Kara started "You look like--"

The worm's eyes got big, and it said, "Ah! I see you know my ancestor! Yes! I'm a descendant of Mister Mind!"

"Mister...? Brainy? Can we get him out of there?" asked Kara.

Brainiac 5 motioned to the chamber with one hand, and said, "Tinya? Do you mind?"

Phantom Girl phased her hand into the chamber, and gently lifted Earworm and the flight ring in the palm of her hand. She then phased them out of the chamber, and the Xenomorph immediately started squealing, and clawing at the chamber's inertron glass. Phantom Girl handed Earworm to Supergirl, since she seemed to know what they were dealing with.

"How did you wind up in one of these things?" asked Supergirl.

"Oh, I was trying to take over the queen, and couldn't quite do it. I had to escape to that guy," said Earworm, nudging his head towards the chamber. "I was trying to take command of the entire army, but when it didn't work, I figured maybe I could just use him to make a new army out of you guys." The inchworm-like creature's body almost seemed to shrug.

"You... you were going to use us to make an army of those things? On purpose?" Supergirl asked in shock.

"Well, yes," Earworm said simply. "Still intend to. Think I'll start with you," he said to Supergirl, and just like that, Kara went rigid, now under Earworm's control.

"Oh my god!" shouted Tinya. "He's got--"

Fzzzzt! came the sound of an energy blast, followed by Ssss, as Earworm sizzled into vapor. Supergirl shook herself out of her mind controlled stupor, and everyone looked to the doorway of the lab.

"Someone order a flash-visioned worm?" asked Ultra Boy.

"Jo!" shouted Tinya as she ran across the room and flung her arms around his neck.

"You're supposed to be in quarantine!" shouted Tenzil. Ultra Boy gave him a hard look, and Kem said, "I mean...um...if you don't mind...why are you out of quarantine?"

"Infectious Lass cleared me," answered Ultra Boy, "and I came to see if I could help with anything."

Tenzil sighed with deep relief. "Uh...thanks," he said simply.

"Why 'Earworm' for a name?" asked Brainy.

"It's slang, Brainy. Twenty-first Century slang," answered Kara. "It means a song that gets stuck in your head, you know? One you can't stop singing?"

Brainy thought for a moment, and said, "No, I don't know."

Supergirl patted his chest lightly, and smiled. "I'll explain it to you later. He must have time traveled with me somehow. I'm really sorry, guys." Looking to the containment chamber, she asked, "What do we do with him?"

Jo simply ripped the inertron door off the chamber, caught the creature as it leapt out, and ripped it in half, spraying green blood everywhere. He had switched from strength to invulnerability, and was protected, just as Supergirl was protected by her invulnerability, and Brainy by his force field. Phantom Girl phased and let it pass through her, but Tenzil got splashed by a good amount of it. He wiped his face with his hand, licked it off of a finger, and walked over to the table with the frozen pieces on it. "I'm...um...just gonna..." he threw a thumb over his shoulder towards the door.

Tinya ran towards the opposite wall and phased through. Blarghhhh!

The others looked at Tenzil who shrugged and smiled weakly. "What? they're good."

@richgenx: I'm writing! Dang! ;)

@batkevin74: This is really a full story told in overview, rather than a snippet. I'd rather read the full story, mind you. This is the kind of glossed over history you give when setting up the story that comes after this. Nice stuff though. I want to see the Hornet armor now. :)

@batkevin74: Nice! But away with this snippet nonsense! You must finish this story! :)