Chapter Text
STARHAVEN CITY EST CALENDAR DATE 2999.01.12
The Emperor’s arrival to his capital was heralded by a sonic boom that echoed across the city and spaceport. He drifted slowly towards his palace, dark cloak blillowing in the wind, in order to inspect the damage where his throne room was situated along the spire. Slaves and robots were inside and out, working to repair the large gap in the wall. His ire began to build, and in a second had moved through the gap to be in the throne room itself to find Dune supervising the repair.
“Move it, you dogs!” Dune growled in his raspy voice, “He’ll be back soon!”
“He’s back now,” the emperor said darkly.
Dune turned with surprise. “Me-…My Lord,” he corrected himself and gave a slight bow. Behind the Emperor’s war mask, Dune could sense his anger and braced for some kind of punishment.
“What happened here?” The Emperor said directly.
“It was the Legion, my lord,” he said with some reluctance, “They… resisted. They escaped. And…”
“’And’ what?” The Emperor asked.
Dune looked away. “They escaped with Spark and Element Lad.”
The Emperor took a deep breath to calm himself. He scanned the room, noting the ruined carpet, cracked walls all over, and a ruined dais. He clenched his fists. “Where is Repulse?” he asked Dune.
“He- He’s taken a strike force to retrieve them, your majesty,” Dune answered, “Amber is down below in the lab with the prisoner.” Dune delivered the last news with a more upbeat tone as if to provide a silver lining to the news.
“Take me there.”
Farther down the spire of the spire, Ferro, Amber and Kid Quantum were in a lab where Ferro happened to be strapped down onto a couch. Amber hovered over Ferro holding a syringe, while Kid Quantum stood in the corner, staring blankly. “You can’t hold out forever, Ferro,” Amber whispered, “Just let me give you this and everything will be OK.”
Andy called over to Jazmin. “Hey, Kid,” he said, “C’Mon give me a hand and knock her out!”
“Everything will be OK,” Jazmin echoed.
“Well, Ok,” Ferro said. Amber leaned in to inject him with the solution, only to have Ferro transform himself to iron just before the needle made contact with his skin. Ferro’s voice, now with a metallic echo, laughed at Amber. “I could do this all day,” he said, “you wanna try that again?”.
“You sprocking git,” Amber snarled and threw the syringe across the room in frustration, “Keep that up and see if we don’t figure out other ways of punishing you.”
“What, are you going to try and sap me to death again?”
“What do we have here?” A deep voice asked from behind them. A hissing sound followed as both the Emperor strode into the room, still in his black transsuit, armor and battle mask, followed by Dune, who gave Amber a warning look from behind the Emperor’s back.
“Th-this is Ferro, your majesty,” Amber explained, “We captured him when they tried to escape.”
“So,” Ol-Vir began slowly but intently, “You were given the Legion to detain, and let them go ALONG WITH THE TROMMITE,” he shouted the last phrase, causing Amber to flinch. Pausing to collect his breath and composure, he continued, “And in trade, we have this whelp who can simply turn into metal?”
“S-sir, we still have Kid Quantum…” Dune interjected.
“Who cannot create raw materials, nor provide a power source,” the Emperor said as he swiftly turned to interrupt, “We have the energy source that can be redirected, if needed, so the girl is of lesser value, but refining the material without the Trommian will take weeks if not months.” He pointed is finger directly at Dune as his eyes began to glow red with anger. “See to it that we get Arrah back and that you have set contingencies in place.”
LATER IN THE THRONE ROOM
The core workforce, Repulse, Dune and Amber, waited in the antechamber of the throne room, used for preparations for attendants to the emperor, and thus lavishly decorated with mosaics and tapestries depicting battles of the founding of Starhaven. The royal office had announced that the Emperor would make a statement after the repairs had been completed to the throne room, and the Workforce were to appear at his side, so they waited.
Doors to the personal chambers swung opened and the emperor himself strode into the room. He turned and directly faced Repulse with quiet anger. “What was the job that I told you to?” he asked.
“B-boss, they got out of hand – I tried to…” Repulse began. Sweat immediately started to bead on his brow beneath his spiked blond hair.
“What. Was. It.” The Emperor repeated.
“Subdue the Legion,” Repulse said softly.
“Exactly right,” The Emperor said, “that was exactly what I told you to do.” He turned and Repulse could feel the scowl on his face, hidden in the shadow of his hood, “So why did you do the EXACT opposite?”
“We went after…” Repulse tried to respond.
“You lost a DIVISION of Sentinels!”
“But more Legionnaires appeared!” Repulse was finally able to get out, “Even that Daxamite, M’Onel. That’s why we had to retreat!”
This seemed to give Ol-Vir some pause, and he contemplated as he stared out the window for a moment. He turned back to Repulse. “Those nanofibers that you wear, are you able to manipulate them as if they were a hand?” he asked softly.
Repulse became almost enthusiastic with a topic he felt like he could discuss freely. “Sprock yeah, I can do that! I’m the best!” he said.
“Show me,” the Emperor said, “Do that with your armor and expose your hand so that I can see this for myself.”
“Sure, boss,” Repulse said and held out his right arm. The fluid nanometals flowed back to his elbow and morphed out to the side, creating a replica forearm and hand. Showing off, and proud of himself, he moved his real hand just as the metal hand made the same find movements with the digits.
“Good,” Ol-Vir said, and two beams of intense red light fired out of his eyes and disintegrated Repulse’s exposed forearm, cauterizing it just before the joint. Amber gasped and stepped back, while Dune shifted his mass to the side.
Repulse stood staring at where his arm just was with his mouth agape. It took him a moment before he started screaming in pain as the reality of what had just happened connected into his brain. “My arm!”
“Yes,” Ol-Vir said coolly, “Considering the magnitude of your failure, you should consider this merciful, especially since you have the capacity to effectively replace your limb.” He began to stride out a side door that would take him to his living quarters and addressed the other two. “Let this be an object lesson as to the consequences of failure moving forward,” he said and walked towards the door to the throne room.
“My arm!” Repulse continued to cry, “My sprocking arm!” Amber leaned in to comfort Repulse, who angrily pulled away.
“Now pull yourself together,” the emperor said, “I have a statement to make.” He turned and made his way to the throne room door while Repulse took deep breaths to steady himself and morphed a metallic forearm and hand over where his natural one had been.
The emperor strode out with the Workforce behind him. Repulse was breathing heavily as the shock was still settling in, but his visor allowed him some capacity to shield his current state; his eyes were bulging wide with pain. With the throne room being repaired to new within hours after the Emperor’s arrival, the elite Pathfinder guard had been summoned, along with several top Starhaven government chieftains who all reported to the Emperor himself. Dune and Amber stood at either side of the Emperor’s dais, and Repulse stood at Amber’s side. A hush settled over the crowd as Emperor Ol-Vir descended onto his throne from above, in his dark cloak and raptor-crown.
“Subjects of Starhaven,” he began, “As you may have heard, a tribe known as the Legion of Super Heroes has come to our empire and joined forces with the rebels that would aim to reduce this empire and our way of life into dust. They attacked this very throne room two days ago and are on the run on this world with assistance from the rebels. While we are grinding away the Manitouan resistance even as we speak, a team of these radicals is here. Make no mistake we will spare no effort to destroy this Legion and wipe them out of the universe. We will scour this world until every trace of a Legionnaire is found and eliminated.
"We will scour every building, every street, every starship to find them. If you see any trace of these criminals, or even anyone helping them, contact the authorities at once.
"Any citizen of Starhaven found to be providing assistance of any kind to this Legion will be subject to immediate execution.
"Let it be done.”