I Am Legion Fan Fiction

This is a first for me. The only other time I’ve written fan fiction was for an assignment, so please take this imitation for what it is: an appreciation for some strongly built characters and a story that I enjoyed too much to wait until the next book.

After reading Stranger Sins, by Michaelbrent Collings, my stupid little hopeless romantic heart wanted more. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and wouldn’t change anything as it is, but I wanted to explore what could happen after.

You can read my book review for Stranger Sins here.

BEWARE: I wrote this scene to occur AFTER the events of Stranger Sins (I Am Legion, Book 4), so SPOILERS AHEAD.

Two Weeks After the Events of Stranger Sins…

Diantha lifted her luggage over the threshold of her new home in Los Angeles, startled to find a man in the hallway, waiting for them.
Her hand twitched toward her gun before she recognized the man. Unlike the first time she found this stranger in her home, she knew he wasn’t a flying monkey.
By all appearances, he was average and dismissible–average build, average height, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a plain black peacoat over a plain grey shirt and dark jeans. Except Diantha knew he was stronger than he looked. Much stronger.
Her nine-year-old daughter, holding her new Vulpix plushie souvenir and wearing an impossible concoction of an Armani Charizard shirt, peeked around to see what stopped her mom’s progression into the house. She squeaked with delight.
“Legion! We missed you!” Marnie ran past her mom to throw her thin arms around the man. “We went on a Pokémon cruise and there’s so much to tell you!”
He laughed and hugged her back. “We missed you too.”
Legion had many smiles, most of them dangerous and unnerving, but this one said that all was well. A good sign, considering the reason Diantha asked him to meet with her.
Before Marnie could start one of her never-ending run-on sentences about the cruise, the friends she met, the games she played, the Pokémon cards she won–Diantha cut in. “Marnie, go unpack.”
“Unpack? That’s a new one. Does it come with a rhyme too?”
“I’ll work on it,” Diantha said, urging her down the hall. She didn’t want her daughter to hear Legion’s answers to the questions she was about to ask.
As soon as Marnie disappeared with her bags into her new room, Diantha put her hands on her hips and stared hard at Legion.
“You saved Betty and Everly-Jensen. Why?”
“Did you want them to die that easily?”
Diantha groaned. “Are you ever going to answer my questions without another question?”
“As you did just now?”
Whatever Legion did to “teach” people didn’t involve giving answers but forcing them from others. She couldn’t decide if she was annoyed or impressed with his ability to avoid her questions.
He glanced to his left, a sign that Diantha learned the hard way that he was listening to one of his hallucinations.
“Hey, Fire, Water,” she said, addressing Legion’s dead brother hallucinations. “Can you convince Legion to give me a straight answer for once? What happened to Betty and Everly-Jensen?”
Legion chuckled with another glance at his left and right. “We couldn’t let them die that easily. We needed to teach them first.” When Legion smiled this time, it was one of his dangerous smiles.
Diantha failed to suppress her shudder. “Are they dead now?”
“Yes.”
“How? Tell me. I need to know.”
With a calm voice that didn’t match his words, Legion explained the fates of the two people Diantha feared the most. She tried to remain stoic despite the disturbing deaths appropriate for the disturbing people. When he finished, she was sure. Impossible as it seemed, Betty and Everly-Jensen were dead.
Her body went weak with relief, and she found herself sinking forward. Legion was in front of her before she knew it, holding her up.
“Diantha?”
“Thank you,” she whispered. After decades of Hell, and another decade of running, she and Marnie were free.
She wasn’t exactly sure what influenced her next action. Maybe it was a product of the intense relief she felt. Maybe it was a side effect from the cruise, watching her daughter connect with peers over Pokémon while Diantha watched happy newlyweds and families enjoy life like they’d never known fear. Maybe she was just so tired of feeling so alone because only this stranger knew and understood her most horrifying secrets. Maybe it was the sight of Legion’s smile that said everything would be alright.
And for once, it was.
She meant the kiss to be simple. No more than a quick gesture of gratitude. She didn’t even close her eyes, but when she pulled away from the peck, Legion’s hand hovered near her cheek. When had he raised it?
He slowly hovered his hand closer, like he questioned with every millimeter if he should and if she would accept it.
For the first time, Diantha found herself not only accepting of a man’s touch but wanting it.
She thought to shake her head clear of the silly notion. Instead, the tiny tilt of her head closed the remaining space, placing her cheek into Legion’s hand. The silly notion won.
She’d seen him kill people with that hand, but she only thought of the moment he put the same hand in a knife’s path to save her daughter.
Legion searched her eyes as if they held the answer to the hardest puzzle he ever faced. She studied him back. How had she ever thought of him as “average?”
He murmured something, then captured her mouth.
Legion kissed her with a strength beyond his appearance, but also a tenderness that said he was just as scared as she was about what was happening.
What was happening?
After a life of sexual torture, Diantha thought she was immune to these building desires. She thought Legion would be too. She thought . . .
Diantha’s mind finally registered his last murmured words.
Shut up, Fire.
One of his dead brothers. One of his hallucinations.
Why was every person who wanted to love her the President of Crazyville?
Diantha pulled away and stepped back, half surprised that he let her. Everyone else who’d kissed her had taken her by force, holding–bruising her until their business was done.
Instead, a hint of longing filled the space between her and Legion. The confusion in his eyes said that he was likewise a stranger to their situation. As much as she wanted to erase the gap–to kiss him until the confusion became an answer–the possible answers terrified her.
“Mom!” Marnie bounced back into the hallway. “I came up with a rhyme! We’re home again, so go unpack. The Witch is gone and not coming back!“

Except Sheldon Steward watched from a van down the street. As much as it disgusted him to see Gloria (falsely called Diantha) with a man not of Mother’s choosing, Sheldon was elated that the man who failed to kill him (who somehow destroyed all reason for life) had allied with Gloria, the very woman who needed the most careful grooming. He could clip two love birds with one knife. Gloria would be such a beautiful little bonsai tree when he was finished with her. Only after her trimming would Sheldon bless her with his magnificence.
It positively delighted him that he had the daughter to work with too. Mother’s love still reigned and would save this world.
Sheldon turned around in his seat to grin (he was told he had a very good grin) at the restrained Officer Garcia and paralegal Danielle in the back.
“Won’t this be fun?”