Dark Mirror An Elseworlds Tale of the Legion of Super-Heroes By: Christian

No, this wouldn't do, she thought, discarding yet another attempt at an outfit. It wasn't that there weren't many to choose from but rather that she was incredibly picky. As she threw away the cloak of dark midnight blue and took off the long matching gloves. She ran a bare hand through her ivory locks and was about to remove the matching knee-high boots when the chime to her room rang.

"Come," she said, simply.

"Am I disturbing you?"

Projectra turned dismissively to the door. Posturing, she smiled.

"Of course not, dear," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"Cosmic Boy's asked you to accompany us on this mission to the Antarian Nebula," Saturn Girl responded, unphased. "It isn't mandatory, but it might be good experience for you."

"Why not?" Projectra responded, gathering up her normal cloak of deep red and the white gloves that she usually wore. "It isn't as though I have anything else to do."

"Why me?" Brainiac 5 protested, moving a visor from his eyes. "I don't have the slightest reason for going to the Antarian Nebula."

"C'mon, Brainy, it'll be good for you to get out of this stuffy lab," Cosmic Boy said, adding a smile to his argument. "You're looking a little green."

"Your attempt at humor failed miserably," Brainiac 5 retorted, going to a nearby storage cabinet. "Is this a veiled attempt at procuring my help without a direct request?"

"Alright," Cosmic Boy relented at length. "You got me. I need someone to take readings of the Nebula."

"I thought this was a curriers mission for Mr. Brande?" Brainiac 5 asked, taking a fresh jumpsuit from the small closet. "Why are we taking readings of the Nebula?"

Before an answer could be given, the Coluan began to rattle off probabilities as to the real nature of their mission. He stepped behind a screen in the corner of the room and removed his soiled jumpsuit and boots. He didn't finish his tirade until he'd finished dressing and even then, he was still in the middle of a calculative statement.

"Brainy?" the Braalian said.

"What?"

"We're just curious."

About two hours later, Saturn Girl, Princess Projectra, Cosmic Boy and Brainiac 5 were aboard a small Legion cruiser. Rokk sat in the pilot's seat with Imra next to him. He babbled on about technical information that he found interesting and she tried desperately to be interested.

In the back of the small shuttle, Projectra wove a simple illusion in the palm of her hand. It was of her homeplanet, Orando and fit perfectly in her delicate hand. Beside her, Brainiac 5 watched. He did nothing, said nothing, only watched while her homeworld spun in her hand and its twin moons followed it. She made no gesture, no twitch of her hand, but the world was as real as she, it seemed and as she looked up to the Coluan, she sensed his question.

She closed her hand and the planet disappeared.

"Yes?" she said as he rubbed his chin. "You were going to say?"

"I was only observing that your illusion was perfect," he said. "It was perfect in every way. Its scale, the diameter of the sphere of your world, even the distance of your moons from the planet. It was a perfect scale copy down to every detail."

"Of course it was," she answered, imperiously. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Are you always so scientifically sure?" he asked.

"It has nothing to do with science, dear," she said with a slight smile. "It's of magical origin. It works on a different principle than your science."

"I don't believe in magic as a principle, Your Highness," he retorted.

"And what is it?"

"It's a manipulation of existing energy, that simple."

"I see," she said with a bemused smile. "Ever the scientist."

"Naturally," he said, turning forward in his seat.

Projectra just smiled and turned to look out of the window on her side of the cruiser.

As the shuttle neared the Nebula, Brainiac 5 took a seat in the farthest compartment of the small shuttle and began to operate the scanning and recording machinery. It was like photographing an act of an inspired god. Long, miasmic strands of deep purple, emerald green, cerulean blue, and long, artful swirls of scarlet criss-crossing the entire thing. The entire nebula was dotted sporadically with gold and swooshes of silver. Truly a work of cosmic art.

Projectra looked out over the spectacle and even she marveled with wonder.

"Sunsets of Braal were like this," Cosmic Boy said with a nostalgic smile. "The metal of the mountains warped and splintered the equally metallic clouds into cascading rainbows."

"Sounds beautiful," Saturn Girl said, looking at the way his face took on a pleasant glow. "You must miss your home a great deal."

"Yeah," he said, sort of dreamily. "It's not like I can just skip on over and spend a week on-planet."

"You could." She said. "Garth could handle things as Deputy Leader."

Rokk didn't nod as he was lost in thought.

"Rokk," Ewa Krinn said to her oldest son, "make sure Pol is dressed warmly.

"Sure thing, Padmon," the teenager said over his shoulder as he left the dwelling he and his brother called home.

Rokk and Pol made their way down a worn path to a small outcropping of land that overlooked a small lake and a dizzying view of a nearby valley. As they took their normal seat, Pol picked up a couple of rocks nearby and with his very limited magnetic control of the ore in their center made them twirl around one another. Rokk smiled in appreciation.

"C'mon, Rokk," Pol said in a sing-song plea. "Do it."

Rokk stretched a hand forward and two others joined them. The second rocks began to go in a perfect figure 8 around the ones Pol was spinning. It was a manuever they had perfected with months and months of practice together. It was a small thing that brought them both a great deal of joy. The fact that they could work together and make things happen. What Rokk could have performed the manuever by himself but he didn't dare tell Pol. It was enough that his younger brother was smiling.

As the two of them let the rocks settle back to the ground, the first fingers of light blue began to stretch across the violet of the sky, Pol leaned over and rested his head on his older brother's shoulder. The gray of the clouds took on a periwinkle tint as the first light of Braal's deep royal blue sun rose. It's dark light became brilliant blue as it folded back the night. As it became a full orb, the dark blue gave way to a pale green and finally a bright orange, burning into the sky and filling it with gold, scarlet and burgundy shards of light.

"You know we'll never forget days like this," Rokk told Pol in a whisper.

"I hope not," Pol whispered back.

"You still with us?" Saturn Girl said, bringing Rokk back to the cockpit.

"Sure," he said. "Just remembering good times."

Imra smiled fondly, watching the Legion leader firm his grip on the controls and guide the ship with an ease that came not from experience but confidence. She remembered first seeing Rokk and how that confidence touched her. It wasn't just a mantle he wore, it was who he was. It defined him and made him who he was.

Magno-ball champion, eldest Pashaw of the Krinn family, now, Legion leader...Rokk had always been destined for the mantle of leadership. It was this ideal that made him the solidity that held the Legion together. Garth provided the fire, she the cool head and Rokk the proverbial glue that would hold the three of them together...then with Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl...the five of them together. Now, they'd expanded to 20 members and Rokk had served 3 terms as Leader.

"What?"

"What?" Imra echoed him, noticing with some embarrassment that she'd been staring at him.

"You were staring." He smiled. "Careful, Garth might get jealous."

"Just because he thinks I'm his property doesn't make it true."

"I think I'll leave that one alone."

"What is our arrival time?" Imra asked, obviously changing the subject.

"Twenty partials to the interval," he responded. "A bit ahead of schedule."

As the shuttle banked to the right, a bright red circular light began to flash. The warning klaxon sounded then and Rokk hit the emergency stabilizer to no avail. He looked to Imra and saw her restraint holding. He looked over his shoulder to the small compartment that held the other two Legionnaires.

"Strap in, guys!" he called. "This could get rough."

"You don't understand the peril we're in!" Brainiac returned. "We are being assaulted!"

"He's right, Rokk!" Imra shouted to his right. "It's a VERY powerful mind! It's at the fringes of my powers' ability to detect but nevertheless existing."

A gut-wrenching sound echoed then through the interior of the small Legion shuttle. Cosmic Boy's hands raised and his magnetic power flared from his hands. Wave after wave of magnetic energy gripped the plasti-steel of the ship and held it together against a powerful exterior pull.

"Saturn Girl, take the controls!" he shouted.

The panel to her left exploded as the front portion of the shuttle crashed inward. Cosmic Boy's power stopped shards of ragged metal from skewering her but only barely. From the back of the small craft, Projectra let a shriek of terror leap from her throat. Cosmic Boy afforded himself a look and saw the Princess safely enfolded in the familiar blue glow of Brainiac 5's force field. He stood only inches from her. The metallic panels of the compartment had enveloped them and molded itself to the shielding. Cosmic Boy didn't dare relax his hold on the front for fear of crushing Imra and himself.

"Is there anywhere in this system to land?" Cosmic Boy shouted through the whine of twisted metal. "ANYWHERE!"

"A small cluster of asteroids," Saturn Girl shouted back, the navi-computer charts fresh in her mind. A flash image that she shared with Rokk instantaneously.

The shuttle began to manuever in the direction she'd shown him in her mind. It was being crushed by some unseen force and it was Cosmic Boy's constant shifting of magnetic waves that kept the four of them from being destroyed. Now, it was his additional power that guided them through the coldness of space to the destination Saturn Girl had instilled in his head. The strain of this extended use of his power began to show and his body was drenched in seconds with perspiration.

"This is going to be hard, people," he said, feeling the atmosphere burning the hull of the ship.

"Is the air breathable?" Projectra asked Brainiac 5.

"It should be," he said. "As long as we don't exert ourselves unduly."

"Tell that to Cosmic Boy," the Princess returned.

Moments later, the hull of the ship had been rounded and hollowed out as much as possible and Cosmic Boy helped Saturn Girl from the ruined cockpit to the passenger compartment. Projectra sat on a torn cushion and Brainiac 5 sat at a computer bank that had escaped permanent damage.

"What does it look like, Brainy?" Rokk asked.

"About 100,991 credits to repair," was the irritated response.

"Careful, Brainy," Cosmic Boy said with a solid smile. "That was dangerously close to a joke."

"I'm not laughing," the Coluan returned. "I have managed to set up a beacon. How long it will last or how far it will go is unknown. I calculated roughly 2 and a half hours and a small one word message of 'marooned' was all it could carry for that length of time."

"That will have to do," Rokk said. "Any trace of the source?"

Saturn Girl widened her telepathic scan. "I'm still sensing a mind. No coherent thoughts which could mean an alien mind. Or...an incredibly focused one." She paused, reaching deeper into the void. "I am picking up synaptic activity...it's like reading a book in another language and not knowing the language. You know there are words and a meaning to them but you don't know either."

"Keep trying but keep your distance," Cosmic Boy said.

"What can I do?" Projectra asked. "My power is pretty much useless."

"Maybe," Cosmic Boy relented. "But you aren't. Come with me."

The two Legionnaires left the confines of the shuttle and surveyed the rocky exterior of their crash site.

The air was thin. It was as if breathing through filtered cotton. Cosmic Boy stepped slowly up onto the plateau that the small shuttle seemed wedged into. The twin columns of rock that forked around the hull were barely eight feet tall but effective at holding the shuttle fast. Behind him, Projectra commented about how easily the craft seemed to have been set down in exactly this spot. Good point, the Braalian observed.

Rokk stretched his hands out in front of him and the massive rocks that had been jarred loose and now flanked the ruined landing gear were lifted into the air and about three feet from them. Again, others were moved and when the landing gear was clear of debris in this fashion, Cosmic Boy used his power to restructure the underside of the craft.

"No," Projectra said. "There is more curve on that section."

"What?" Cosmic Boy asked, turning to the Princess in surprise.

It was her turn to gesture. To the right of the two of them, a perfect facsimile of the ship appeared. She smiled at the Legion leader and pointed out the section she'd been referring to. She explained that the curvature she was talking about redirected the impulse plasma burst that the craft needed to achieve and maintain lift and without such curvatures, the super-heated substance would melt the craft to slag before it could take flight. The appropriate modifications were made and the illusion vanished.

"How'd you know all of that?" he asked.

"There IS more to me than noble heritage and a keen fashion sense," she retorted with a smile.

"I'll bet," he said, turning his attention to the hull of the ship.

"Can you reroute the primary power core through the secondary systems?"

Brainiac 5 rolled his eyes at this ridiculous suggestion from the telepath. Under the console as he was, she didn't see this gesture. He voiced a negative response and tried to phrase it in a way that he thought wouldn't hurt her fragile human feelings, but he was never sure. One of the disadvantages of having a twelfth level computer mind was having very little room in it for emotions.

He pondered this and as he did so thought of Kara. She had been able to engender a response from him every time she came into view or whenever he thought of her. This was more often now that she had been away for so long. He knew that her responsibilities in her own time period held her there for long periods, but as he thought of her, he wondered how her responsibilities here affected her. She had only been gone for a month but he missed her more every day.

Back to work, he reminded himself as he went back to rewiring the circuits of the primary control panel. It was the one Cosmic Boy manned and recently repaired. It wasn't enough to just repair the structure that housed it, the circuit board needed to be repaired, also. It could get them to their destination and possibly send out a communication signal en route but PRECIOUS little beyond that. The damage was extensive and beyond even twelfth level ingenuity in terms of repair. As he slid from under the almost-ruined control panel, he relayed this news to Saturn Girl, who telepathically relayed it to Cosmic Boy.

"Have you any success in locating the source of our maroon?" Brainiac 5 asked, replacing the tool in the twisted tool kit that had been lodged from its place and now lay at his feet.

"Very little," she said, her mind still somewhat focused on that task. "If they decide to strike again before we reach Premier Dagrat, we may not survive a second attack."

Inside the craft, the words had barely left Saturn Girl's mouth when outside the shuttle, the atmosphere and the rocky ground became an inferno. The attack was sudden and totally without warning. Cosmic Boy barely recovered from the inital heat for his mind to register that they were bathed in flame. Through the din of crackling fire and erupting rock, Rokk heard a voice he'd never heard before.

"Again, Starbolt, before they recover!"

Almost as if it were a cue to destruction, Cosmic Boy heard Projectra's voice ring out above the noise that clouded his head. Seconds after, the heat of a supernova bathed him. It took every ounce of mental strength for him to raise the metal-cored rocks around him to partially shield him from the blast. As he did, he wondered if he had been caught off guard what Projectra had fared. He yelled her name over the heated maelstrom even as the rocky fort he built melted.

"I'm here," she said, closer behind him than he'd thought.

"Now, Tempest!" came the voice again.

Added to the fiery trap was an electrical barrage that missed both Cosmic Boy and Projectra directly but charged the metallic rocks with its deadly energy. The small hairs on the back of their neck rose in response and the slightest tingle prickled their skin. Cosmic Boy's hand closed around Projectra's wrist, blindly pulling her with him. Around his form, the rocks separated from the ground and rose like missiles into the air.

She knew he was "firing" blindly. The rocks rose from random places and flung themselves outwardly in an equally random pattern. They flew through the fire, which had begun to die down due to the small amount of oxygen in the air. It was with this realization that she noticed it was harder to concentrate on using her powers as she fought to breath in the oxygen depleted atmosphere.

She and Rokk cleared the fire and had just turned when a being from a nightmare bore down on them. He was composed of living fire that roiled around his person as well as comprising his body. Covering his torso, forearms and hands and his legs to mid-thigh was a flaming red cloth that added to his ghastly image. His mouth was twisted into a sneer and his eyes were mere slits in the magma that made his face. His hands exploded into flame as did the ground.

"DOWN!" Cosmic Boy yelled, throwing himself and Projectra to the ground while raising the rocky ground beneath them into a semi-shield. As he did, he noticed that the rocks had been sluggish as if they were resisting him. To his horror, the very rock that had just saved their lives began to close in closer as if trying to crush them.

"DO SOMETHING!" Projectra screamed as the rock started to bite into her skin, bruising it.

With his power, Cosmic Boy peeled back the rock but not until it began to rise. At roughly six feet into the air, he and Projectra leapt from the rocky prison that closed in on itself just as they were leaping free. They didn't dare activate their flight rings, as they hadn't measured the atmosphere and it would end this newly-started fight if they flew into a dense atmosphere and became unconscious from lack of air.

"Well, well," said the flaming intruder as he flew in a circle around them. "Resourceful, aren't they?" he said, circling closer, obviously not hindered by the low atmosphere. "No matter! Electron, do it now! Crush the infidels!"

"Infidel!" Projectra shouted, planting her feet as she moved to put her back to Cosmic Boy's. "I will show you 'infidel'. You DARE attack a daughter of Orando!"

Around the flaming being, air and space froze. The temperature of zero suddenly became comfortable to most as the crystals of what was once air froze around the fiery foe. His eyes became wide and he held his hands in front of him. They were icing over, as was his body. Thick, blocky shards of ice formed at his torso and up to his throat, simultaneously coating his nether regions, arms and thickening at his already-icy hands.

"NOOOO!" he yelled, as he fell with a thud to the charred ground beneath him.

"Shall I finish you, cur?" Projectra said, advancing on him even as Cosmic Boy shadowed her. "Shall I freeze the very air you breathe?"

Even as the words left her mouth, ice formed in his throat and around his mouth, eyes and nose. Panic gripped him as he felt the cold bite into his skin. As he began to scream, his mental synapses shut down, a reaction to the overwhelming fear and panic he was feeling.

"Good job, Jecky!" Cosmic Boy said. "But, I think we're just starting."

Projectra turned to see four other figures flying toward them and closing fast. The lead figure was a humanoid with a basically human face and...feathered...head. He was dressed in a costume similar to that of Cosmic Boy's. Where Cos' was a dark fuscia, this stranger's was a dark yellow-orange. Yellow boots, gloves, and belt where Rokk wore white. And at the chest where circular disks of metal adorned the costume, this being had an equal number of triangles totally four in all. His hands were outstretched and even at this distance, she felt the magnetic field around them stir. He had magnetic abilities just like Cosmic Boy!

The second figure flew next to him, slightly above him. He was also humanoid with dark hair, a white bodysuit accented with dark blue and trimmed in red squares that glinted in the faint light. He wore a visor and on his chest an emblem that was reminiscent of Ultra Boy. His mouth was twisted in the same vicious sneer as the one she'd felled.

"There!" he shouted.

Projectra recognized this as the previous voice. The one who had shouted orders to one called, Tempest. His voice was loud but hardly authoritative. Perhaps he was a type of "second-in-command" of this motley crew, she thought.

"Electron, immobilize them!"

The command that boomed in both their ears came from the third figure who in an elegant upward arch, stopped in space to observe his orders being executed. He was a pale humanoid with his hair replaced with an electrical storm. He wore a midnight blue bodysuit with a dark yellow-orange overlay that matched his gloves and boots. From his neck and continuing to just below his waist was a jagged lightning bolt of brilliant yellow on a black field.

"Oracle, hold," he said to the final figure in the quartet.

She was equally pale with flowing hair of a pale blue held with a black headdress of some sort. She wore a light pink bodysuit with a light purple sash that matched the thigh-high boots she wore. Unlike the others, she seemed to be smiling.

"Scan them!" the central figure commanded.

On the fringes of her mind, Projectra felt tendrils of alien thought. She pushed back as they tried to push deeper. Limited success at first, she knew but as suddenly as they'd appeared, they were gone. Instinct told her she had had help in the form of her physically absent teammate. She was right, she knew as the fortitude of her mind increased a bit. A psychic "boost" from Saturn Girl.

Beside her, Cosmic Boy countered the field of the one called Electron. Wave after wave of magnetic energy rippled from the Braalian's body as the rock and metal within them were both shoved brutally into construct after construct, only to be shattered by the opposing construct of his foe's making. Shield was battered with a rocky hammer, cage was hacked in half by axe and on and on.

"Smasher, take the woman!" Projectra heard as she noticed the flying assailant fixed on her.

He bore down on her. As he did, she threw back her head...and laughed. The sound rang in his ears and all around him. He sped toward her and snarled a curse in a language he knew the woman wouldn't understand but it mattered little to him. Soon, that smile would be wiped from her face. He would see to it, personally.

His fists unclenched and became claws aimed at her throat. As he was about to reach her, she simply STEPPED out of the way! Rock and chunks of metallic ore spewed into the sky around him as his near-invulnerable body made contact with the ground, digging deeply into the earth. He recovered quickly and turned to face the woman. She had gone. But the laughter echoed madly in his head. Loud, mocking, laughter...like bells chiming over and over...and over and over...deafening him. Soon, his sense of equilibrium was thrown and his mentality was lost in the ensuing vertigo. As his universe slipped into madness, he sank uselessly to the ground. A solid mass to his left sent him reeling into unconsciousness.

"HOW!" came a voice from above Projectra.

"Tempest," Oracle said, her voice incredibly light and airy. "She must be using sorcery. I sense that Smasher is alive but the last thought he had of his reality is NOT what we witnessed. To us, she simply hit him...to him, she disappeared!"

"Another telepath?" Tempest asked, momentarily turning toward her.

"No." Oracle responded. "But, I am sensing...something."

"We've got to figure out what to do!" Saturn Girl said urgently. "I feel the one called Starbolt surfacing. He won't remain unconscious for long."

"What do you propose we do?" Brainiac 5 said, dryly, already formulating several scenarios.

"I'm not sure," she relented. "If I can continue to mask our presence from the one called Oracle, we might have the element of surprise."

"Do you know who they are?"

"Not with any certainty. They seem to be a police force of some kind."

"And we're under arrest?" Brainiac 5 asked, a hint of rhetoric in his voice.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Wonderful," he said. "And if this is the arrest procedure, I'd hate to see the interrogation."

"We've got to risk going outside," Saturn Girl said, turning to the Coluan. "Rokk can't last very long against that one...Electron, and Projectra is sorely outnumbered."

Brainiac 5 continued punching computations into the mini-computer on his belt. The readings they had taken of the Nebula and the spacial distortions around them seemed to correlate on certain base frequencies and patterns were beginning to emerge. His mind raced along with the computer, barely ahead but not quite. He projected a scenario of their situation.

"With a 98.002398 percent probability," he began, facing Saturn Girl. "The Nebula is the source of our problem and the source of its solution."

"Clarify, please?"

"Of course," he said. "I still forget how limited you humans are in your thinking. What I mean is, the Nebula is in a state of flux, hence the brilliancy of its color and clarity. This particular nebula is acting as a dimensional doorway. The co-ordinates are a bit off but I have calculated them to a .0873987 variant."

"Please, Brainy, in Common, please?" Saturn Girl said, tempted to surface scan the information from him.

"Our attackers are from an alternate universe and have been displaced in ours. Apparently, they see US as the intruders and are trying to eradicate us," he said, his tone one of obvious annoyance. "What's more...the one you called Tempest has sent for reinforcements."

"Moons of Jupiter!" Saturn Girl said. "We're hardly the most powerful members of the Legion and if they are copies of us, then we are in deep if they call their version of Mon-El."

"PALTRY TERRANS!!!"

Saturn Girl winced at the whine of the tearing hull and the booming voice of Tempest. Electron was peeling the metal of the hull back and as he did, Brainiac 5 stepped in front of the Titan native, activating his force-field belt. A purple-ish aura surrounded them just in time as deadly electrical energy encompassed them and the inside of the shuttle. A barrage that was generated by the imperious form of Tempest. His eyes crackled with the same energy as his mouth twisted into an annoyed sneer.

"You are trespassing within Shi'ar space!" he said. "By order of Lilandra, Majestrix of the Empire, you are to be dispatched."

Saturn Girl heard the circuits of the ship overload and explode, heard wiring sizzle and short out. The shuttle was being electrically gutted. She reached out with her telepathic senses to the one called Tempest. Her mind touched his and she was greeted with hostile resentment, blinding loyalty to this Lilandra and a love for a dark woman...Nightshade...a doppelganger of Shadow Lass from the mental image he had of her. Behind all of these things, she saw a pocket of thought that she knew would house his fears.

Most had this pocket. A little section of their mind that they shunted their fears to that kept them at bay for as long as necessary for the being to continue with everyday life. But, with her abilities, it was child's play to open that pocket.

[PROJECTRA!] she thought.

[I'm here, Saturn Girl, but speak quickly. Oracle is as skilled a telepath as you and if my mind is open for too long...]

[I'm going to link with you.] Saturn Girl thought. [You'll know what to do.]

The effects of Tempest's attack were starting to fade and with it, his resolve. As he began to power up for another attack, Imra tore through the thin fabric of his "secret" mind. Around Tempest, reality became fiction of the most horrid kind. On a lone planet-scape, Tempest stood alone...the vastness reaching out before him like oblivion. The isolation, the pain that accompanied it, the combinations of the entire thing were too much for him. In a vertigo of emotion and fear, Tempest's mind was shunted into unconsciousness by a slight "push" on the part of Saturn Girl.

She had heightened Projectra's illusion to such a point that it was totally believable on every level. To Tempest, the universe had swallowed him whole. When he fell, he fell into endless cosmic eternity. This would pass, but not for a while as Saturn Girl implanted a suggestion to simply, "sleep". As her mind touched the rousing Starbolt, he did the same.

Resistance came in the form of a mental battering ram as she faced Electron. A shove in one direction met with an equal shove in the opposite one. As his name applied, he was a force of nature and was not going to fall easily. Beside his own formidable mental might, Saturn Girl sensed another mind...that of the woman called, Oracle. Incredibly focused and directed, it was like a needle darting to and fro....looking for any opening that it could penetrate.

Brainiac 5 moved the two of them outside the ruined shuttle and into the open. He could see that Smasher had regained consciousness and was using a version of Flash-Vision to quick-melt the rocks that Cosmic Boy hurled at him. Projectra stood behind him, fatigue showing on her face. It was clear she was out of ideas.

In front of him, Saturn Girl was in mental combat with Oracle as Electron stood virtually motionless, his mind engaged, also. The bodies of Tempest and Starbolt lay about 6 feet from one another and while it looked as if they might have the advantage, Brainiac 5 thought differently. As he let the force-field drop, he re-established it around the form of Electron, snapping the alien from his mental reverie and freeing Saturn Girl up to fully combat Oracle.

Electron fired bolt after magnetic bolt at the construct that encompassed him. They were each reflected and absorbed by their sender. It went this way once, twice, three times until the alien finally succumbed to the lack of air inside the force-bubble and collapsed.

"What do you want?" Saturn Girl asked, standing on a field of stars, her body clothed in deceptively fragile flowing robes. Her regular fuscia bodysuit gone.

Oracle stood as she had...her long hair flowing behind her and her eyes fixed on the telepath that had drawn her here...to the Astral Plane. "We 'want' nothing. We demand your surrender," she said, bitterly.

"Surrender?"

"To the Shi'ar Empire."

"Do you not realize you are displaced in time and space?" Saturn Girl asked.

"Yes," Oracle said with a cruel smile. "We are the first wave."

"First...wave?" Saturn Girl echoed, realizing what she meant. They weren't just agents of the Shi'ar Empire here by accident, they were...

"A Scout team for the Shi'ar Invasion," Oracle finished the thought. "Yes, we know of your 'United Planets' and the myriad of worlds that make it up. Worlds that will be added to the Empire for the glory of the Shi'ar and the Majestrix Lilandra!"

"Surely, you know there are more of us..." Saturn Girl said.

"As there are more of us," Oracle countered, a quiet challenge behind her words.

Smasher was literally inches from Cosmic Boy when a solid wall of invisible energy was erected. Having no warning, he 'smashed' into it. Winded, he paused. This pause was all that was needed for Cosmic Boy to erect a prison made from rock and pieces of ruined debris from the ship. Brainiac 5 used his force-field belt to enclose the alien's head and as he had done with Electron, deprive him of air. Soon, Smasher was unconscious.

"We are hardly beaten!" Oracle shouted from inches above Saturn Girl.

She had left the Astral Plane and now stood fully in the realm of "here and now". She glowered at the Legionnaires and surveyed the fallen of her group. She touched on of several dozen milky-white discs that adorned her costume and said something in a language none of them understood.

"Be warned," she said loudly, then. "The Imperial Guard WILL return and when we do, your entire 'Legion of Super-Heroes' will hardly be a match for us!"

She, Smasher, Tempest, Starbolt and Electron began to glow and distort in beams of blue and violet light. As space seemed to fold and twist in on itself, they were caught up in the effect and after only a minute, perhaps half of, they were all gone.

Projectra sat on a large rock, shoving the ivory locks of her hair from her face. She regarded the ruined shuttlecraft. Thinking prudent silence best, she let Brainiac 5 be the first to speak. As the Coluan went on about repair impossibilities and redefining the shape of the craft, the Princess thought about Oracle's last words. As she regarded Saturn Girl, she knew that the telepath had seen the true meaning behind the words. From somewhere deep in her, Projectra felt a shiver...of darkness.

"Could you guys use a lift?" came a familiar voice from above them.

A figure in a red jumpsuit and a flowing blue cape "stood" in space several hundred feet above them. He stood with his arms folded and a broad smile on his face. As he descended, he explained how he had picked up the distress call en-route to a nearby space colony and radioed the nearest Legion Cruiser to rendezvous with them.

"You guys alright?" Mon-El said as his feet touched the ground. "Am I too late?" he said, surveying the landscape and the huge torn holes in the surface of the ground.

"I think we may ALL be too late," Saturn Girl said, coming to stand with the others. "From what I learned from Oracle, we're on the verge of an invasion."

"I don't think it's going to happen for a while," Brainiac 5 interjected.

"What do you mean, you heard what she said," Cosmic Boy questioned.

"Yes, but the Nebula is shifting out of phase with their universe as we speak," he explained. "No doubt they were an invasion force, but I hardly think it was our universe they were sent to invade. Their naming of our United Planets was something pulled from Saturn Girl's mind and was used as a posturing technique."

"So, there's nothing to be afraid of?" Projectra said, trying to clarify.

"I'd say with a great deal of certainty, the answer is no," he said.

"Then let's get out of here," Mon-El said, energetically. "Colossal Boy and his team should be ready to receive you."

As they surveyed the landscape, Saturn Girl's mind reflected on what she had seen in Oracle's mind. The pictures were very specific and to spite what Brainiac 5 maintained, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was more truth to what Oracle had said than he had given credit to. Even as the transporter beam took hold of them, she couldn't help but think they had only scene a skirmish in a much bigger war.

The End