A Legion of Lawndale Heroes 'Mini', by Brother
Grimace
"It's like I told you – 'reason and logic are
always iffy, but good looks will melt an iceberg'!"
- A 'Project Pegasus'
researcher, Dazzler #9
(Note: this Mini' takes place during the events of
A Legion Halloween.)
*****
The young man's voice spoke clearly through the darkness in the room. "Where's my left sandal?"
A female voice immediately answered. "Right here..."
"Thanks."
The room was silent.
"Would you like something to eat?" The girl's voice was slightly unsure, as if she wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say.
The boy's voice immediately perked up. "Got any pie?"
"I – I think – there's half a sweet potato pie in the fridge, and a lemon meringue pie..."
"I'll get it." There was another moment of silence. "Got any hot chocolate? I don't know why, but that sounds good right about now."
"It does, doesn't it?"
A sigh of resignation came from the girl. "Could you actually walk over there and get it? I mean, don't show off your powers..."
The smile on the boy's face was evident from the sound of his voice. "They don't work that way – remember?"
The same tone came from the girl. "I remember."
The sound of feet moving against carpet and then time could be heard in the darkness; the face of Cadet Second Class Michael Fulton was suddenly visible in the light of the opened refrigerator in Daria Morgendorffer's Legion Tower apartment. "You have good taste," the young man said, adjusting the sheet he wore toga-style as he scanned through the shelves. "Pie... more pie... almost a whole MiGatti's Pepperoni Pizza, half a E.B.A. from 'Lords of 'Za, and six bottles of Mocha Storm Iced Coffee'."
Daria didn't even bother to pull up the sheets to cover herself as she sat up, turned on the light next to her bed, and then reached for her glasses. "Jane always says 'there are three things that are vital to life itself. Caffeine, pizza and toilet paper. Everything else is just secondary.'"
Michael pulled the sweet potato pie from the fridge and set in on the counter; he closed the refrigerator door and stopped at the sudden note of sadness in the auburn-haired girl's voice as she shifted gears, squinting as she looked down at the floor.
"Where the hell are my glasses?" Daria's hands felt
around the top of the nightstand where her glasses were - at least that's
where I thought they dropped, she thought. I was a bit busy not falling
over my Grim Reaper robe and keeping my balance while I was getting his chest
plate off... among other things. I thought I dropped them on the nightstand -
where did they go?
Daria glanced up and gave Michael a quick scowl as she noticed that he was wearing his glasses. Along those lines – how did you manage to remember where yours were – and get them in the dark? Guys...
"The way you kick? Probably in the Davis Strait by now," the boy snickered, earning him a scowl that he thought made Daria look all the more adorable.
"One – thanks for the compliment," Daria said, looking up from the floor. "Two – stop staring at my boobs. You've already seen them close-up, you don't have to keep ogling me. Three – come help me find them."
"I know where your boobs are. Oh - you mean 'your glasses'."
"If you don't come and help me, you can find where the door is – oh, and you can leave the sheet."
Michael shrugged; he walked across the floor and squatted down beside the bed. "By the way - thanks for having, well - I don't-"
"If you can't say it, you shouldn't be using it," Daria said, looking at the drawer where several condoms rested. "I blame you and your Academy friends for having them around - not to mention the Human Sexuality course we've been taking."
The young man's head popped up, total surprise on his
face. "You're in the middle of taking the Academy course? And you let
me even get close to you? You're tougher than anybody realizes!" Not
to mention being worlds more horny than they could imagine, if you still
could drag me in here after going through any of that course.
Michael's hand felt around beneath the bed until his fingertips felt the smoothness of a lens. "There they are," he said, fishing the glasses out and wiping them on his sheet before placing them on Daria. "Oh, and I found your glasses, too."
He smiled, glancing down, as Daria read his surface thoughts and blushed deeply; the Academy cadet reached over and their lips met, with Daria pulling him close as the kiss they shared became deeper and more impassioned. "Oh, my God," Michael said, as they parted. "That... you're... that was..."
"Good answer, relic hunter," she said, smiling up at him. "You're not freaking out about my being a telepath and scanning you."
"I'm in my eighth year of going to a school where over a quarter of the students have some sort of psychic-based power - and fifteen percent are actual telepaths," Michael said, playing with a lock of Daria's hair. "Freaking out over being scanned accidentally is way in the past, and besides – you're forgetting my power. I'm a 'contact-omniscient', remember?"
The cadet peppered his next six words with tiny kisses along Daria's neck, and then, continued on. "Psychometry... postcognition... hyper...intelligence... hyper... invention... one day when you're back at the Academy, you should let me show you how my power really works. You should see the relics I've gotten to work with; my power lets me literally stand in time, see the area as it was when the artifact that came from that place was new, and know exactly what the artifact is, does and works."
The young psychic let a soft groan of pleasure flow from her as Michael's right hand began to move slowly downward from her neck, his fingers stroking slowly between her breasts and down towards her navel. "Daria... you have to see what Stonehenge looked like when it was first finished, or the Coliseum, or the Lighthouse at Alexandria... I've gotten to walk around – more or less – some of the biggest moments in history."
"Easy, there, tiger," Daria said, stroking Michael's cheek; she would have been stunned if she had realized at just how much like her mother she sounded as she spoke. "You've already taken advantage of my maidenly virtue. You don't have to bump yourself up anymore."
"But I thought that's what we psychics did – make ourselves sound more impressive, so people won't think we're weaklings like the psychics on TV and in the movies." The sarcasm in the young man's voice brought a smile to Daria's face. "What?"
"You're something else," she said. "With the things you've actually done, you still act like a stereotype intern from the dusty back-shelves of a library or museum somewhere."
"It's safer in the background," Michael said. "I don't have people wanting to make a rep off me, like other people with powers like mine – what kind of fight would me and Sherrie Klein have, anyway? A thrilling life-or-death 'final battle' over which of us can pick up a piece of marble and tell if it came from a Roman sleeping chamber, a column or a vomitorium? We don't roll like that."
"You're not fooling anyone," Daria said, idly playing with his earlobe as she lay back and sighed. "I just lost my virginity to 'Young Indiana Jones'. Talk about a 'family tradition'."
Michael gave her a questioning look. The entire night – dressing as a Roman Legionnaire for the Legion Costume Ball (he still couldn't believe he wangled permission to go), talking with Daria (who he'd met at the Academy months before) about historical accuracies of his costume, getting invited on a tour of the Tower that somehow ended up with them missing the rest of the party because they were far too busy in her room, not to mention that this was also his first time, as well – was still too unbelievable for words.
Daria smiled as his thoughts flowed easily to her; strange, she thought, mindspeech with Michael is interesting. It just... happens. Kind of the way this just... happened. "The women in my family are attracted to 'adventure types'."
The boy's eyes rose. "Me? And you didn't go after Jefferson, or David Allen?"
Daria shook her head. "I – don't do well with rich guys who think they know more than me."
Michael laughed gently. "Jefferson's not like that, Daria. That's a guy who's in a serious race to live up to the family name. He's fifth-generation military, and his brother Franklin – well, he's been competing directly with your Colonel Armalin since they were military cadets and went head-to-head at an 'Army-Navy' game. When he doesn't have to do something to make himself worthy of the family name, he's a great guy."
The Legionnaire let another slow moan escape as Michael traced a finger along the underside of her left breast. "As for David Allen – well... did you ever watch 'M*A*S*H'? He's like Major Winchester. He might be a rich jerk – until you get to know him, and then, he's 'your friend, the rich jerk' – but he's not a Major Burns. He knows what he's doing... and there's a bit of 'push them away before they reject you' in there, too."
Daria smiled up at him. "He still needs to have somebody take him out and beat him like a rug every now and then."
"I'll tell you about Major Juntunen someday – that guy was his 'Obi-Wan' when he was a cadet at the Academy, and David Allen had just started there – but for now..."
"Oh, my God!" Daria yelped suddenly, her lower body jerking with pleasure as Michael's hand slid downwards past her navel and beneath the thin sheet covering her. "Give a girl some warning about that power of yours!"
Michael smiled at the half-scowl, half-smile the auburn-haired girl flashed at him. "Speaking of 'beatings'; your friend Jane and Tom Sloane were the talk of the Academy for a couple of days. I didn't think either you or David Allen were into each other."
He rolled over, pulling a willing Daria on top of him. Besides, Julia would go thermonuclear if you had given him a second look – even though those two have no clue what the hell's going on between them or what they're going to do about it, they sure as hell damn near lose it if anyone goes near the other.
Daria straddled him slowly, and lowered herself to kiss Michael's nose before he spoke. "Jane and I worked the Tom thing out. If she could see me right now – well, besides laughing herself into a coma..."
"So Sloane did have a thing for you," he continued. "Okay. No wonder Prime – I mean, David Allen - can't stand the sight of him."
"Excuse me?" Daria rose up on her elbows, looking Michael in the eye. "They're not friends? I thought that they knew each other from when they were little."
"They do – but they're not friends at all," was the reply. "David Allen can't stand Tom because of how Tom and the other rich kids treated him when he went home during summer breaks his first three years at school – after that, he started going year-round and stopped going home at all, if he could avoid it. The last time he went home was just after he graduated the First Academy."
Michael pulled himself upon a pillow. "Tom's not a fan of his, either. The last summer David Allen went home, his twin was also there from his fancy school – and oh, they got serious payback all summer long. Then, after you guys came to the Academy - he found out that David Allen's a psychic, and that wasn't a good scene, from what I heard. There's a rumor going around that Tom's terrified of psychics."
Daria shrugged. "Tom's never been afraid of me."
"No – but he's been dreaming that he could be here right now – well, he used to," Michael replied, and a bright flush colored his face as he recalled shaking Tom's hand at the Academy – and accidentally pulling from him the images of when Tom accidentally saw through Daria's clothing when she was using him as a sparring dummy.
The Legionnaire's eyes went wide as the memory flowed from Michael to her. "That jerk! I promised him that I'd-!"
Daria's anger immediately ceased, evaporating as Michael pulled her in and kissed her; other emotions began roaring through the Legionnaire, shutting out everything around her but Michael...she shuddered with excitement as the sheets covering them both slid away, and their bodies became one...
*****
Unnoticed in a side corridor, two men watched Daria and Michael quietly returned to the party.
Archangel elbowed Richard and said, "Told you,
now pay up."
Richard good-naturedly sighed and entered a code on his hand computer. When a
multiversal coordinate appeared, he showed that to Archangel and said,
"Best Thai in the D-Multiverse. The Tom Yum Ka is an absolute must
and if you ask for 'home style', the spices will absolutely light you up."
END