NOTE: I'm using a combination of time/space versions of the Legion. For the continuity of this story, do not look! (Yoda say!) It takes place in the same "universe" as "Through Different Eyes" and therefore cannot be placed neatly within a canon timeframe. However, I'm using the idea brought out in a back-up story from regular canon that said the Legion flight rings can be made invisible by the wearer. I hope you all enjoy this story!
The thin, lithe form came to land on the top of Legion Headquarters as lightly as her namesake. Ayla Ranzz had recently acquired the ability to cancel the gravity around an object and make them super-light. Her former ability had been to generate lightning and channel it through her body. Unlike the ability she now possessed, she shared the former ability with her older brother, Mekt and her twin brother, Garth.
It was that thought that occupied her as she entered the monolithic building that housed the Legion of Super Heroes. She thought back to the fateful night the three Ranzz children had piloted their shuttle to the nearby planet of Grisbos and had a wonderful time taking in the crystal caverns, the rainbow cliffs and the fantastic floral masterpieces created by its inhabitants.
She and Garth had thought of taking Mekt somewhere that would raise his spirits. He was a brooding type of person but moreso on this day. THIS day had been Ayla and Garth's birthday and that was especially hard on their older brother. Unlike many of the other inhabitants of their homeworld of Winath, Mekt had been a single birth. There were other Winathians that were singles, of course, but it was always a difficult existence. It was especially hard on Mekt and always had been. As the oldest, he thought that he should set an example for his younger siblings and how could he do this as a single?
On the ride home, Mekt seemed to be in better spirits, at least for him. He smiled a bit more and there was a bit more of a glimmer in his eye that had been missing before. He was in the middle of telling a joke in his own unique way when the alert klaxon sounded. The three Ranzz children froze momentarily in place. Mekt was the first to respond, pulling the nose of the cruiser up hard. This had no effect and it was Garth that noted that the gravitational field of the nearby planet was too strong to break from.
Ayla realized with a stifled cry of horror that they were going to crash as she saw the rocky cliffs of the planet coming into view through the haze of the atmosphere. As the small shuttle plummeted, she saw more and more the jagged spears of lightning that streaked and stabbed at the dark skies of the Lightning World of Korbal and her heart plummeted with them.
"Brace yourself, little sister!" Mekt screamed over the deafening roar of the craft as it fought hard the extraordinary force of nature that had them in its grip. "This is not going to be easy! Garth, strap yourself in!"
Garth's hands never left the control stick to spite his brother's warning. He afforded himself a quick glance over his shoulder to his twin as she strapped herself in and to his right and his brother as he too followed his own advice. Facing forward again, he directed his attentions on piloting them through the horrendously sharp mountain range that the craft was hell-bent on crashing through. He punched up the shield grid to see a maze of nonsense. He redirected the last bit of thrust the small engine could muster as the planet's very essence drained their power cells like some sort of planetary parasite.
"I think I can get us through that gap!" Garth yelled as the small craft began to shake and tremble in earnest.
Ayla's terrified scream echoed through the small cabin as the cruiser hit solid rock and bounced three times to land on its side only to skid several hundred yards. The inside of the small craft buckled and threatened to crush the three. Mekt tried to stay balanced as much as the situation would allow. Garth was fighting desperately to stay in his seat, using the buckled hull as a brace. Ayla held the straps of her safety harness and prayed.
"I was a big one for praying in those days," Ayla said aloud as the memory replayed itself in her mind.
She entered her own quarters and activated the security lock on the door. She slowly took off her long white gloves and laid them on the sanitizer. She flipped a switch and the machine's transparent edges folded around and met one another, enclosing the gloves in a cylindrical tube. A faint yellow glow was emitted by the small sensors beneath the pad and in three and a half seconds exactly, the heavy oil that she'd stained the gloves with was gone.
She took off her uniform and began a bath. Like many of the Legionnaires that had visited the 20th Century, she'd rather liked the old fashioned tubs and the feeling of hot water easing out the tensions of the day or night, as the case may be. She'd had the claw-footed bathtub reproduced and installed in her quarters soon after her time jaunt. It was her guilty pleasure, as she secretly thought it was others'.
Long moments later, she eased into the warm water and the faintly scented bubbles. The water caressed her like nothing she'd felt in a long time. Just sliding into the tub, she could feel her tensions ease and her worries lessen. It was much like that after the accident, she recalled. She, as usually, had been the first one to worry about things.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Ayla asked as Mekt applied a bit of pressure to the tool in his hand.
Her eldest brother only shook his head, his concentration on the task at hand. He had adjusted several key components in their ship's onboard computer and was attempting to reshape the casing that held it so that it wouldn't spill out everywhere. Ayla and Garth stood by but did nothing. As Mekt had pointed out, there was nothing to do.
There was a deeper sense of being helpless in Ayla's being, however. She had little experience with the world of technology and couldn't make any difference, there. Garth stood next to her and as she looked at him, she knew he was following every move their brother made in his mind and knew exactly why what was being done was being done the way it was. She looked at the mass of lights and knew nothing.
As the men stood working, Ayla turned and slipped from the aft section of the small craft and outside. The massive mountain range they had crashed into took her breath away, along with the low oxygen in the atmosphere. There was a faint burning smell in the air and a taste...like lead, she thought. As she stepped out, the ground beneath her rustled a bit and she noticed there was a slight coating of a rust-colored substance everywhere. She stooped and ran her hand along the ground. She smelled the tips of her fingers where the stuff coated them and she knew it was copper. She brushed it from her hands and looked into the sky. Lightning streaked the sky in long, jagged forks and although she knew she should have been scared, Ayla Ranzz found something fascinating about the patterns the brilliant streaks made in the air.
She noticed that the lightning looked as if it were getting closer to the place where they were. She saw it touch down in several places in the distance and as she watched, a slight sense of panic crept into her being. What if the lightning strikes us while we're here, she thought to herself. Will the ship keep us safe or fry us if we're unlucky enough to be inside it, she continued to muse as she watched the sky, wrapping her arms around herself.
She never had time to answer her own questions. As she was turning to go back into the ship, she heard the gutteral calls of the two monstrous beasts that advanced upon her and the small craft. They were easily twice the size of the ship and lumbered about on four legs. Long trunk-like snouts extended from oblong faces that were crowned with a row of spiked protrusions that looked to run the length of the creatures. Large round eyes watched everything around them as they came closer.
Ayla let out a piercing scream and found herself frozen in place, fear gripping her tightly and not allowing her flight. As she watched, one of the two creatures reared up on its hind legs and let out a cry of its own that shook some of the more precariously stacked rocks loose. As it did. The lightning that had been shooting across the sky struck the creature in a tremendous display of light and sparks. Instead of being damaged by the electricity, the massive thing seemed to be feeding from it. Again, Ayla screamed at the sight as the creature struck the ground with its forelegs and came toward her.
As the second creature joined the first in closing in on the frightened girl, Garth and Mekt appeared in the hatchway of the ship. Seeing their sister in danger, they were at her side in minutes. Garth reached her first, pulling her behind him as if he could shield her from these behemoths. In his mind, he probably could have.
"Get back!" Mekt shouted, pelting the creatures with stones as they surrounded the ship and the Ranzz siblings.
"Stop!" Ayla screamed. "You'll only make them angry!"
"We have to do something!" Garth said, closing them together, back to back.
At that moment, both of the creatures lined up the triad in their sights. With growls of something no one could understand, they charged their bodies again with the lightning of the planet. In one terrible instant, that lightning was redirected. Garth, Ayla and Mekt Ranzz were hit with the full force of the terrible lightning storms of Korbal amplified a thousand times over through the bodies of these horrendous beasts. Pain was a luxury in comparison to the feelings these three felt as they were driven to their knees screaming.
Pulling herself from the bath, Ayla dried herself quickly. It was really no wonder that on this particular night these memories flooded her head, she thought as she made her way to the closet in her bedroom. It was like this every day and had been since the accident. Perhaps it always would be, she concluded, pulling a gown of midnight blue sprinkled with glittering flecks of silver. She'd sewn every stitch of this beautiful garment especially for tonight. She slipped into the creation and ran her hand along the side closure.
She piled her hair onto her head after taking the last of the long rods from it. She arranged it into an elaborate mass of curls with only a few tendrils of hair framing her face. She applied a bit of color to her eyes and cheeks and sat back to admire her reflection. This would definitely do, she told herself, happily.
As she stood, she noticed the flight ring she wore. It was more that a symbol to her, it was more who she was than people realized. Sometimes more than she even realized. Tonight, however, she wasn't Gossamer of the Legion of Super Heroes. Tonight, she was Ayla Ranzz. Focusing her thoughts, she willed the ring invisible. It was an amazing alloy that the Legion flight rings were made from, indeed.
"There," she said aloud and headed for the door.
In the hangar deck of the massive structure that held the Legion of Super Heroes, she found her personal transport. It was Winathian in origin and a smaller version of the craft that had been crashed on Korbal. The only difference being that the aft cabin wasn't included in the design. It could still easily fit the passengers that she'd planned on tonight.
Pulling up the hem of the gown, Ayla slid into the pilot's seat. The engines roared to life and soon the Legionnaire was soaring over the glittering cityscape that was Metropolis. There was a time when she couldn't have piloted the ship herself but a lot of things changed through the course of her life.
"Are you alright?" Mekt said, helping his sister to her feet.
Through blurred vision, Ayla saw the face of her older brother. His face was charred a bit and a nasty cut was visible over his left eye. She sat up with his help and noticed Garth nursing his own wounds but, to her great relief, he was alive. She assured her brother that she was also fine and was then helped to her feet.
"What happened?" she said, her recollection a bit skewed. "I remember the creatures and the attack." She looked around for the monsters.
"They're gone," Mekt assured her, helping her with amazingly steady hands. "It was apparently the residual energy left in the battery that drew them here. Its unique signature was like a proverbial beacon. Since we absorbed some of that energy in the crash, we had the same signature. We stood out as much as the ship did."
"Garth?" she said, her head throbbing a bit.
"He's fine. A bit unnerved, but fine," Mekt answered, authoritatively.
In his heart, he envied the way his sister rushed to her twin's side. He had no one that shared the particular bond that Ayla and Garth did. He was a singular birth unlike most of the Winathian populace. He watched the two embrace and felt a pang of something he could only categorize as jealousy. He hated that part of him but somehow...today...it was somehow stronger now. It burned a bit brighter.
"I hate to break this up," he said, standing by the door of the craft. "But I think I may have discovered the problem."
"Then you can get us home?" Garth asked, standing fully and following his brother into the small craft.
"I believe so," Mekt continued once they were all three inside. "If I understand what happened to the ship, the power outage was a result of an unknown space anomaly. The entry into the atmosphere of Korbal sapped the power from the battery and we crashed."
"So?" Ayla asked. "What do we do?"
"I've rerouted the battery and if our new physiology is any indication of what we are now capable of doing," Mekt said, facing them, "WE recharge our ship and return home."
"WE do?" Garth asked, incredulously. "How?"
"We've been somehow altered by the attack of the creatures." Mekt answered. "We are now capable of channeling electrical energy and, from what I can see, creating it."
"Wow!" Garth said, already formulating the potential for his new ability.
"Shall we see if we can recharge this heap and get off this rock?" Mekt said, connecting the last set of power coils and leading his siblings outside.
When the three Ranzz children were assembled outside of the downed craft, Mekt took the lead. He showed Garth and Ayla where to focus their newfound abilities and then took up a place of his own. He held out his arms and they followed suit. At first, none of them knew how to call their power, how to trigger it and make it flow. It was Garth that found the mental key. His was the first body to charge with electricity and bombard the ship with its energy. Mekt followed suit and finally Ayla triggered her own power. Together, the trio's focused discharges hit the ship in all the right places and recharged the battery.
"Reservation for three," Ayla told the starched maitre'd as she entered the City Star.
"Certainly," he said with a decided Titan accent. "The restaurant will be departing within the hour, my lady. If you'll follow me, I have selected a seat for you and your companions that will give you an excellent view of the city as we do so."
"Thank you," she returned, following him to a tiered seat on the second level of the famous eatery.
She was the first to arrive, as she knew she would be. She'd deliberately asked for time early and was the first to be cut from the current relief mission. The ravaged planet they had been trying valiantly to rebuild was coming along rather nicely and she really liked using her powers to help people. Her new-found powers were more subtle and she'd finally found her niche in using them, it seemed.
Not at all like calling the lightning....
"What are we going to tell our parents?" Garth asked, handling the navigational controls as the small ship rocketed toward their homeworld.
"The truth," Ayla said from the back. "We tell them what happened to us."
Mekt spoke up then, but she was lost in her own words. She imagined what they would say and what their parents would say in return. She knew what she would say to the news if the situation were reversed. She would feel much the same way as she did now...horrified. What if one day, the electricity were lethal to them rather than harmless. What if when they tried to use their new abilities one day, they were killed in the process...
Ayla vowed then and there not to use her abilities unless she had no other choice. They scared her in so many ways that she didn't want to think about it. She didn't see what happened to them as a gift of any sort but as a curse. She watched Mekt and Garth in the cockpit of the ship talking amongst themselves and the look on their faces at the mention of their new powers and in a way, she envied them. They were totally unafraid but she wasn't...
Staring into the many bubbles of her champagne, Ayla thought about the difficulties their powers had brought them. She remembered the morning after Mekt had left for parts unknown to make his powers work for him, in his words. Garth had told their parents about Mekt's final words and panic had gripped the Ranzz family. No word had come from Mekt and months later, Garth had departed for Earth to see if the Science Police could help locate their brother.
It had been that fateful trip that had changed Garth's life, and hers, forever. History had archived the meeting of Garth and Rokk with pinpoint accuracy. The meeting of Garth Ranzz and Imra Ardeen was infamous, as well, by now. The financial backing of R.J. Brande produced from these three teens the far-flung Legion of Super Heroes.
Ayla stared at the blinking lights of the city beneath her as the chills crept up her spine. Her earliest dealings with the Legion had not been happy ones. The most vivid was Garth's funeral. His first funeral. She had seen Garth's body lying lifeless after the fatal confrontation between he and Zaryan the Conquerer and every fear she'd ever had about her powers multiplied a thousand times over. She didn't want to end up like Garth.
But she had. She had ended up just like him. With some padding and some help from some inside sources, she'd impersonated Garth in the Legion for months and none had been the wiser. Except for Inferno. He'd had suspicions from the beginning.
"Our medical computer couldn't have been so far off base when it pronounced Garth dead...this HAD to be an imposter!" he'd said, finally revealing her to the others.
She'd joined the Legion as Garth's stand in, as she could never replace her brother. She proved herself time and time again as a full-fledged Legionnaire but she never really got used to the many battles they were called on to fight. She never really became hardened to the many faces that evil had and the many faces that treachery wore.
"Ayla!"
Hearing her name, the young woman turned to see a familiar face parting the crowd before her. The trademark platinum locks the woman wore were piled atop her head and she was clad in a skin-tight violet dress with a slit up the right side to allow for ample leg to be seen. Her escort was dressed in a gray suit with matching violet piping. He was dashing in anything, it seemed to Ayla as she watched them cross to her.
"I didn't know you'd be here tonight," Ayla said, standing to embrace her comrades.
"Thom asked me at the last minute and we used our Legion status to get in," the bombshell said brightly.
"Most of us make reservations, Nura," Ayla retorted, somewhat kindly.
"Yes, well..." Nura said, dismissively. "Most of you aren't me, now are you?"
"Ayla," Thom said pleasantly, nodding as Nura walked away.
"Thom," she said, reseating herself.
The cruiser landed softly and she disembarked on the metallic deck of the observatory. She'd chosen to do this part of the mission, herself. It seemed like one that was suited for her unique abilities and thanks to Brainiac 5, one that she could handle scientifically. The new electrical generator had been built, inspected, and installed and she was sure that with the uplink she carried that he could talk her through the repairs. It was experimental, but not terribly complex according to Brainy and the engineering team that monitored her progress from a ship above the planet.
She approached the monstrosity and a pang of something hit her in the chest. She'd never known anything like it...after the day on Korbal. She was afraid. More afraid than she admitted to be but she strode forward, anyway. She looked over the machine and recognized key components from the schematic she had studied. She knew exactly where to route her electrical powers and what to do.
Putting her hands on the panels specified, Lightning Lass took a deep breath and with it, the sense that she was doing something for the betterment of others. Just like Garth would have done had he not been...NO...now was not the time to think like that. She would live up to his unspoken expectations. She would succeed. She would prove her worth as a Legionnaire and a member of the Ranzz family. Somewhere, Mekt would be proud of her wherever he was and so would Garth.
Activating her power, Ayla felt the familiar charge through her body and the minute lift of her hair. She felt the surge grow stronger and flow from her into the machine. As the control panel to her left began to blink, something in the power flow changed. In a micro-second the world around Ayla Ranzz dissolved into one blinding flash of pain, sulphur and electrical light and energy. Sparks showered her as she was thrown violently into the far wall of the small room, jarring her violently. Another explosion, small, triggered a larger one and the cascade began to encompass the machine.
One thought came to Ayla's pained mind....CHAIN LIGHTNING...
That day had been a blessing and a curse for her. A blessing because it removed her electrical powers and the fear that came with them and a curse because it had also removed her from the Legion.
"Little did I know..." Ayla said, exerting her power on her glass. As it floated a few inches off the table, she smiled. "Gossamer was born that day, as well."
She looked across the restaurant at where Nura Nal sat with Thom Kallor. They were talking and she was laughing. Underneath that beautiful, shallow exterior was the brilliant mind of a Naltorian scientist. A scientist that through a carefully planned 'accident' saved her life. Nura had a premonition that several Legionnaires would die and that Ayla would be among them. She rigged the device to rid Ayla of her electrical powers and to get her removed both from the Legion and from danger.
Another brilliant mind found a way to bring her brother back to life. Again, like Dreamer, the answer came from an unexpected source in the form of Legion powerhouse, Mon-el. He'd discovered a way to transmit the life force of one person into the body of another.
Mon-el and Kon-el had been the first to volunteer for the transfer. They'd decided that they could survive the experiment if it happened to be them the lightning chose. They brought Garth's body to a lightning world and placed him at the apex of the planet, a point chosen by Brainiac 5 with pinpoint accuracy.
Ayla joined Saturn Girl, who loved Garth almost as much as she did, Inferno and Chameleon Boy. The six Legionnaires each held steel rods and gathered around the lifeless body of Lightning Lad, each praying to whatever deity they believed in. Around them, the lightning struck, destroying mountains and scorching planes across the planet. Each of the six were sure that they would next feel the sting of the lightning but Ayla prayed that it be she that felt it first and that it would restore her twin.
The bond she shared with Garth had never been stronger than on that fateful night. It was as if it held them together across the chasm that Garth had crossed over. Somewhere, she felt in her heart that Mekt was there, too. They hadn't always been close but they had always been family and that bound them tighter than inertron.
Then it happened.
The lightning came down from the sky like an angry finger of an angry god. Ayla watched it find it mark in Saturn Girl. She watched it kiss the rod in the Titanian's hand and light up her body with its power. She watched helplessly as Imra Ardeen screamed a terrible scream and went rigid before staggering back against a nearby rockface.
"IMRA!" Superboy shouted, going to her.
Mon-el reacted secondly but it was Chameleon Boy that did nothing. He only looked to the rod Imra had held. It shifted a bit and finally spilled out into a gelatinous blob...smoking and burnt by the lightning.
"Proty," Chameleon Boy whispered as Inferno moved to comfort Ayla.
"Chameleon Boy..." Saturn Girl groaned from nearby. "Your pet...Proty...discovered that I was planning to deliberately die for Garth...and he...took my place."
Long moments passed as Chameleon Boy held his dying pet. The lightning crashed across the sky and tore through the crowded clouds above. The six Legionnaires huddled together and as Mon-el inspected the coffin Garth lay in prepared for the worst news.
"He's ALIVE!" Mon-el shouted, instead, noticing Garth's shallow breathing. "It worked! Garth's alive!"
"I was so happy," Ayla said aloud, running a finger absently along the rim of her glass.
"Ayla?"
Gossamer turned to face two people who, in the course of her life meant more to her than even she realized. She was out of her chair and across the room before they could even begin to close the distance, themselves. Tears streaming down her face, her arms wrapped around their sturdy frames even as they embraced her in the same fashion.
"It is wonderful to see you, little Ayla," the taller of them said, his white hair catching the light with a stunning brilliance.
"Mekt..." she said, words failing her as she embraced him. "I'm so glad to see you."
"And I, you, little sister," he said, his voice even but somewhat lacking in strength.
"Let's sit down," Garth said, helping his older brother to the table Ayla had come from.
As the three siblings seated themselves, Ayla felt a surge of pride at how her brothers looked to her. Garth wore a midnight blue suit and Mekt wore a deep suit of green. They were striking visions to her. It had been almost two years since Garth had left the Legion with Imra and they'd set about trying to find their brother. It was almost three months ago that the search had yielded results.
"So tell me all about things," Ayla said gently. "How you are."
"The Yorgian Fever wasn't fatal," Mekt said, swiping at his hair. "But it did diminish my powers quite a bit."
"A small price to pay for your life," Garth added.
"Indeed," Mekt seconded. "I will recover physically."
"Physically?" Ayla questioned, concerned.
"Emotionally, I may not recover so easily from the things I did as self-imposed Lightning Lord. They were terrible things..."
"But it was the fever and the overload of electrical stimulus to your brain," Ayla said, quoting the doctor's reports. "It can't be all your fault."
"Freedom of choice, little sister," Mekt said, smiling a half-smile. "I had it and didn't choose to use it until it was almost too late."
"Almost being the key word," Garth said, a hand to his brother's shoulder. "We're going to stand behind you, Mekt. The way you stood behind us all those years when we were all kids back home. The way you stood up for us on Korbal."
"After everything that's happened?" Mekt said, his eyes falling a bit. "I tried to kill you both on more than one occasion."
"That was the old you," Ayla said, smiling as she put her hand to his. "You can start over. We can help you do that. We've both done it."
"And you're sure I can too, is that it?" Mekt asked, seriously.
"With our help," Garth assured him.
"Then I shall try."
"We all will," Ayla added.
"Can we order now?" Garth said, noticing the restaurant had began its ascent. "I've not eaten all day and I'm starving."
"Of course," Mekt said. "Enough about me."
"No it isn't," Ayla said with a mock look of admonishment at her brothers. "The whole reason we're all here is because of you."
"That's right," Garth said, smiling. He joined his sister in clasping his brother's hand and echoing her words to their oldest brother. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"