(no subject)

You know, once upon a time, I had a pretty normal life.  I'd all but bombed out of my astronomy classes, but my dad pulled a couple strings, got me a job at one of Brande's labs, working on some big star making gizmo for some Regulus guy.  It was all right.  Nothing too hard, and I could science enough to make a go of it.  

Then it all goes horribly wrong.  Damn thing starts going critical, we start evacuating the place, only I trip.  And the damn security door seals shut.  Next thing I know, it's like standing on the sun.  More heat, more light, than anything I could have imagined.  Just before they burn away, I close my eyes.

I open them... only it's nighttime.  Lab looks like its been abandoned for ages.  I try and look down at myself, to see if I'm injured, only there's no... me there.  Just this shapeless, shifting blob of energy.  And it hurts.  Hurts even more than it did before.  Hurts so much I want to lash out at everything.

I don't remember much about what happened after that.  But I remember fighting the Legion.  Cos and Garth and Imra, Tinya and Triad.  And I think Brainy's there too.  They're fighting me, and I'm just acting on instinct.  But then Imra touches my mind, starts guiding me.  And they whip up this containment suit, stabilize my energy, and suddenly I can think clearly again.

And it turns out its ten grifin' years later.  Mom's dead.  Dad's dead.  Randal's dead.  Speeder accident.  No family, no body, no idea what the hell I'm going to do with my life.   Legion tells me maybe I should go here, to Brande's Academy. 

Me?  I just wanted to die.  A life trapped in this suit, without smell, without touch, without taste...  Even the way I see and hear isn't really the same as it used to be.  And I can't even do that.  Sure, I could tear this suit apart, let my energy start drifting... but I'd still be here.  My mind would still be going on.

But it was here, at the Brande Institute, that I met Myke.  Weather Boy.  A freak like me, his body a patchwork of man and weather control machines.  And he said to me, "Drake, we're as human as we feel.  It's not about what we look like, or what we're made of.  It's who we are inside.  We can let it consume us... or we can use what's happened to us to become something, to become something for somebody.  We've been given a chance.  We can be heroes."

And Myke was.  He used his powers to help people.  Joined the Legion, saved a lot of people.  And he made me believe that I could be too.  So I joined the Legion too.  Met some great people, saved even more. 

And Myke died.  Sacrificed himself to save a whole lot of people.  Went out with a smile on his face, knowing he'd done it.

Mike said there was a hero in all of us.  I don't know that I believed him back then.  But these days, I do.  I've got it, my friends have it, and more importantly, you've all got it.

That's why you're here.  The last class of the Brande Institute, and the first class of the Legion Academy.

It's time to start showing the world what you're made of.