TTGB Next Gen:Inertia(closed)

UnseenMaiden

We are but shadows
Joined
Feb 13, 2008
Posts
3,688
(For those of you who read this and are curious. This is a what if? future of the TTGB Next Gen:The Gathering Storm which is itself an offshoot of TTGB Next Gen and Teen Titans GenderBender AU.

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An object at rest will remain at rest.
An object in motion will remain in motion.
Unless an external force is applied to the object.


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Decided to pop by for a visit, have we? Well then, don’t be shy. Come into my parlor.

The voice whispered in her skull, almost like a caress, making her hair stand on end. Even with the advantage her genes leant to her senses, such as sight, she could barely see the glimmer of sunlight reflecting off the sands of the distant moon before her and somewhere on the dusty satellite was a prisoner of unique circumstances. Normally, he would be imprisoned on Earth or, if Kal’Elin had her way, the Phantom Zone, but the Justice League had decided it was best to keep the man on a loose leash. He hadn’t quite succeeded in doing anything world ending yet, but it seemed that this was his intent and, unfortunately, even in the league of heroes that protected their world below there were not many who could truly take Jules in a fight now. A hint of smile touched her lips as she sent her own words out across the vastness of space between them.

Said the spider to the fly.

Experience told her she was stupid for flying out here so quickly, for hoping that something good might happen if they just talked. She had been so happy to find out that he had come back, was alive, that it hadn’t mattered to her, those little signs she should’ve noticed before things turned bad, hadn’t mattered enough for her to question how exactly he had returned to the land of the living. It had been so naive of her, so damn foolish. People didn’t just come back to life, hale and healthy with happy endings for all. Something always went wrong, because there was always a price. For one of her best friends, it had been replacement.

“You have fifteen minutes, Knave.”

Turning towards the general direction of the rebuilt watchtower, doing its’ slow but sure rotation around the Earth below, and saluted her assent and understanding. She hadn’t really planned out what she was going to do once she got up here. The phone call had come and the blonde just couldn’t wait, not for Mal to get back and wrangle himself into a spacesuit, not for Kestrel to give the ok to leave, and not to grab any kind of helmet for herself. This was why the JLA was hacking into the Titan’s earpiece to talk to her now. No doubt Match was going to berate her later for her short sightedness, but they had known she was coming and if Jules did try something, well, mentally, she was ready to be among the first line of defense against the thing he had become anyways. Cold laughter echoed through her head, followed by a voice that was both sweetly familiar and chillingly strange with the menace behind the cajoling tones.

That isn’t my name. You know what to call me, my dear Alice, to make me come to you. Forget that child you once knew.

The urge to scream at him rolled over her, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Her oxygen would only last so long and if she let him speed up her heart rate with anger, then that was just less and less time she had to do something, anything. Alice really didn’t want to admit it to herself, but some silly part of her had hoped that there’d be some sweet moment between, some sharing of a childhood memory or other, and poof he’d be her dear friend again. Dissociative identity disorder was the technical term they had labeled him with, once they had all managed to bring him under control from his semi-rampage of Jump City. Julien had simply cracked under the pressure to maintain the semblance of a life with Trigon rattling around in his head, not to mention he’d experienced death..more or less, which was traumatizing on anyone who’d come back to life.

Vlad, the personality that had risen up after Jules had come back, didn’t offend her as much as she was sure he meant to. Which was a very good thing, because she could feel the prodding on her mind, attempting to be subtle and probably succeeding if not for her acute familiar with having her mental self poked by Jules and others over the course of her life. It occurred to her to shut him out but she didn’t want the persona on the offensive, even if she couldn’t bring herself to address him how she wished. The radio crackled in her once again, just she had calmed herself down enough to respond to his velvet taunt.

“Titans Assemble! There’s a hoard of mechanical spider-like eldritch abominations attacking the tower and protections are kind of failing fast over here.”


Just like that, all of the things she had wanted to say were pushed aside. Simply put the tower was more important and their leader was liable to chew her head off if she decided to ignore the call just to ‘chat with a prisoner’ as Bats would have put it. Mentally sighing, the blonde gave a departing wave towards the JLA’s base of operations and tilted herself back just far enough that the Earth’s atmosphere, and therefore gravity, could embrace her once more. As she began her inexorable descent, a smirk flirted across her lips. A thought had occurred to her, one that gave her optimism just a glimmer of hope, and she couldn’t help but tell him so, even if it would just piss ‘dear Vladimir’ off.

’And yet, you still respond when I call.’

Closing her eyes, she let that hope sit nestled somewhere safe. Even after everything that had happened, despite how untouchable he now seemed, her friend still responded to his own true name. As soon as she had reached an altitude that would contain some kind of breathable air, she paused her fall, taking in great gasping breaths, letting her oxygen starved lungs recover from her neglect of them. The scant moments that passed seemed to drag on as she took the necessary amount of time to wait for the burning feeling to fade from her lungs and skin enough for her to operate. When she finally was left with only a sunburnt red tint to her features, the floating blonde pressed the button on the communicator, ready to let Match know that she hadn’t just abandoned her post at the tower as much as it probably seemed. In truth, she’d only been gone about five minutes. Long enough for things to go to pot apparently, but it wasn’t like she’d left the moment the rest of the titans went on their mini vacations. The others weren't going to be very happy about cutting those vacations short either.

“Where the fuck are you guys?!”

Match’s voice crackling in her ear, just as she opened her mouth, was enough to let her know that she was in for an earful regardless of how little time she’d been gone. Wincing, she resumed flying down towards Jump City and the bay as she relayed her apologies back to the ghost.

“Sorry sorry, didn’t quite have the ability to speak there for a bit, Match. I’m not too far away so see you in a sec. How are the rest of you guys doin?”
 
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The horde of aforementioned abominations had appeared fast and with little warning for the lingering members of the young team of superheroes. Many of the current roster had been spread out for various reasons ranging from personal leave or a need to patrol their own home cities. As such, the current residents were somewhat of a skeleton crew, meant to maintain watch in the others absence and to make the call when facing an immediate emergency. Such as was the case at this moment in time, as the onslaught of spiders had already begun climbing their way further up the Tower walls.

Several of them were about to join their brethren as they started to grip at the lower portion of the wall with their mechanical pincers, before suddenly having their plans of ascension ruined by an unexpected wave of water which came out of the surrounding sea to wash away these enemies. Unfortunately, there were many more where these came from, as several others began to replace their fallen comrades before meeting their own ends due to the onslaught of sharply pointed boulder forged projectiles.

The blond Atlantean Prince whom was behind both of these defensive manuevers took in a deep breath after exerting his respective powers to deal with this seemingly nonstop horde. It seemed, Ronan reflected to himself, that he'd picked a rather strenuous time to voluntarily take up part of the watch patrol over the Tower. Letting out a light grumble as even more of the horde showed up, the young halfbreed only allowed himself a brief break at the sound of a familiar voice in his ear piece; placing a finger over the device while remaking with dry sarcasm, "Oh, you know. Fighting for our lives and the survival of the innocents. Just another day in the city."

Taking a moment to overturn a large strip of land in order to flatten several other spider-like creations, the youth then erected a rocky barrier to block the resulting returned laser fire as he remarked to the Kryptonian clone, "If any of you guys with superspeed in your bag of tricks could make use of that in getting here right about now, that would be very nice of yo-" His words were suddenly cut off at the sight of a sudden blur which streaked along the water leading toward the Titans headquarters and whirled by the blond before taking out numerous enemies with a flurry of moves barely seen by the naked eye.

"....And foot is in my mouth." He finished, ending the call with Knave while looking over the speedster who suddenly zipped around the barrier and stopped in front of him, "So... what took so long?"

Taking a moment to stretch out his legs like at rack runner preparing for a big race, the young redheaded speedster codenamed as Stat flashed a wide smile at the other Titan before apologizing, "Sorry, had to remove this annoying little rock stuck in my boot about thirty-six miles back. Also saved two kittens in the trees!" Rotating his arms slightly while watching the blond roll his eyes at the bad joke, Mallory West gestured with a jab of his thumb over at the invading spider-like mob, "So what's the deal with these things?"

"Spider-like abominations are trying to ruin the Towers new paintjob. That's about all I have to work on right now." The Atlantean stated while adjusting the goggles meant for keeping rock particles from getting into his eyes; clearly intent on continuing with the remaining assailants on their headquarters until they were finished.

"Nefarious bastards...." He stated while glancing over and narrowing his eyes in mock anger at the idea of these things messing with the Tower's pristine look, before both teens had their attention drawn toward the earlier group which had managed to work their way higher up the building.

"Shit. Forgot about them." The blond admitted reluctantly; considering his own options prior to turning toward Mal for assistance, "Would you mind? I can't exactly hurl rocks at the ones up there. Not without Kes' or somebody else complaining about the resulting smashed windows."

With a simple salute, Stat got into a running position while letting loose his momentary war cry, "Alright, chums, let's do this! Leeeeeerooooy Jeeenkiiiiins!!!!"

Zipping off in a flash, the blond could only stand there with a dumbfounded expression and ask to himself, "Wait, Leeroy who??" Before he could ponder this enigma, however, there was a sudden cracking and crumbing sound as the stone barrier he'd erected only moments earlier had suddenly come crumbling down towards the Titan.

"Dammit!" Ronan let out while barely managing to leap out of the way with the use of a little acrobatic trick he'd picked up from Kestrel. Landing in a crouched position a few feet away, the Atlantean stared down at his approaching enemies and put his hands together for a brief knuckle cracking sound while preparing to continue fighting the good fight.

Meanwhile, the younger Titan had managed to take out a few more of the spider-like creatures on ground level before using his speed and traction to ascend the walls with the use of his primary powers. Mal knew how a lot of the others tended to see him. The jokester with a bad sense of humor who either didn't take a situation seriously or addressed it with a joke or two for masking the pain. For now, he only hoped that his earlier traded remarks with the Atlantean Prince weren't so transparent in their attempts at covering the mixed up emotions which continuously troubled the teen speedster.

It saddened and disappointed Mal to admit it of himself, but the truth of the matter is that if it weren't for Alice he may have given up hope for their mutual childhood friend by now. Or at least given up on the idea of being able to reach him in there where his family seemed to have failed. Alice was stronger then himself in that regard. Or perhaps in greater denial, depending on whom you asked. Still, she did a good job of making him believe, while together, that there could be hope for Jules recovery in the future. For however long it may take them or anyone else in the respective JLA or Teen Titans to reach their all but lost friend.

Zigzagging along the walls of the Tower to get at the spiders along every side of it, Mallory had let his guard down enough while reflecting on these troubled to allow for one of the arachnid abominations to suddenly leap down and catch him by surprise. "Ack!!" He blurted out while the creature wrapped its limbs around the teen; causing him to struggle in maintaining his traction while suddenly making sue of his secondary powers to 'jinx' his attacker with a pink glow which caused its destruction. As the pieces of the spider-like being fell to the ground, Mal struggled in maintaining his horizontal traction, while the other arachnids in turn took advantage of the slowed by target by firing their respective lasers at it.

"Oww! Hey, cut it out! Don't you guys have some science nerd you should be biting to instill superpowers upon or something?!" The redhead shouted while trying to regain his momentum in those split seconds; feeling his footing slowly but surely giving way as gravity finally reclaimed its ownership of him and sent the teen falling from about halfway up the Tower. "CRAP!!!" Was his immediate reaction to the incoming solid rock pavement below as Stat started rotating his arms in an attempt at creating a whirlwind affect to at least slow his descent as the ground grew closer, "This is so going to leave a mark...."

The speedster was only able to build up a small slowdown effect when the sudden arrival of a very familiar face marked his rescue by swooping down and catching her teammate in a split second maneuver. Letting out a slight 'oomph' sound due to the initial catch, Mal blinked those red eyes a few times before glancing down at the ground and then upward at his rescuer, "....Shouldn't you be wearing a red cape and blue uniform with an S on it while doing this?" Again. Humor to mask exactly how scared he actually was during those fleeting moments of time. It was what he did at times. For better or worse. But still, the small smile which peaked out upon his masked features was genuine due to the always appreciated presence of his longtime friend and now teammate.
 
Sure enough, Ronan’s voice came in over the radio and, while he didn’t sound particularly pissed by her absence, he didn’t sound terribly happy either. The surprise attack had not been in either of their plans that morning, but she supposed that if he wasn’t exclaiming about how she shouldn’t have left him to defend their town more or less alone in the first place, whatever was attacking the tower had yet to be any kind of major threat. The muffled crash that came after was enough make her rethink that last thought. It would be just her luck if the Atlantean had gotten himself injured or worse before anyone else had arrived. Moments passed by as she waited for some kind of sound to signify that her teammate was ok. Two-way radio made it kind of hard to tell how severe an injury could be, not that this excuse would keep Kestral from kicking her ass if something had happened to the prince. She had just paused her flight to open her mouth and ask if Ronan was ok, when his voice came back requesting some superspeed on her part or others. There was exertion and annoyance in his voice, but no hitch that would signify pain, so the kryptonian felt it was safe to assume his bones remained unbroken and he wasn’t bleeding out right now. Rather than answer, Alice felt it would be far more useful of her get her ass to the ground tout de suite.

She’d be fairly quick now that she had reached Troposphere and could better see what was happening down at the tower without losing enough concentration that an airplane would suffer the consequences. It would’ve been easier going if she had been capable of contacting the various flight control towers in the state and have them adjust the flight paths of the craft in her vicinity, but that took time she really didn’t have. The simpler option was to weave around anything that came her way. Pilots received training on how to deal with people like here anyways. Besides, the closer she came to the ground, the less she’d have to dodge. Ronan’s voice abruptly cut off, announcing, she assumed, that back up had arrived. Sure enough Ronan’s bright red hair made him fairly easy to track as he streaked around their little island in the bay. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips, knowing that he’d probably mention beating her to the scene later.

Taking advantage of her distance from their attackers, the blonde turned her attention away from her speeding friend and onto the ‘abominations’ Match had been so emphatic about. Well, there were a goodly amount of appendages, but likening them to anything eldritch was probably pushing it, especially (at least from what she could tell from her vantage point) since they seemed to be purely mechanical in origin, instead of containing any organic components. Her attentions veered away from the tower for a few seconds. Mallory and Ronan seemed to have a good handle on the situation at the moment, Mal’s declaration of a bit of pop culture well before his time aside. He was on the internet for more than she’d ever been. There was no telling what he could dig up. These spider-like things probably ran on some kind of basic AI loop with a directive or two thrown in to ensure that their creator’s wishes were carried out. If they were less complicated then even that, then there was every chance that whoever had decided not to like them that day was nearby to control their mechanical minions. Granted, villains tended to be pretty egotistical and it was just as likely she could find some gloating jerk lurking around instead. Either way, a good survey or three of the surrounding area would bring up anything out of place.

Alice took one last look at the tower to make sure that both of her teammates weren’t in any major need of backup at the current time and slowed down enough so that everyone else would get more than muffled words and rushing air when she used the communicator to tell them of her intent. She had just pressed the button when a familiar shout reached her ears and grabbed her full attention.

Mallory was falling. He was already beginning to attempt to use his powers to slow down his descent, but it didn’t take more than a second for her to assess the situation and realize that the physics were all wrong for him to succeed. She remembered that Match had always hated the rocks that surround the tower, and for a moment that same hate tinged her own emotions. It wasn’t hard imagining the redhead dashed against those rocks, and losing yet another dear friend. The fear that she felt knowing the future that would bring left her trembling.

“No”

One day, Mal would die. Even if they somehow came to live in a world where dying peacefully in your sleep from old age was the only killer, her genealogy would still mean she’d outlive him. She knew that, had always known that, accepted it even in her own way. It didn’t mean she was willing to have him die today, especially from something as stupid as falling right in front of her. Match may have had a fear of flight but she hardly did and instinct had already kicked her into gear before her shocked brain had had enough time to realize she was moving towards the red-haired man, much less take into account the protest she had breathed up in the air. He was concentrating on trying to not die so Mallory failed to look up and see her as confidence made break out into a grin. Mentally thanking the various evil scientists and donators that had helped create the amalgamation that was herself, Alice slowed down enough to match his speed, so she wouldn’t break any bones, and caught the red-haired speedster in her arms.

"....Shouldn't you be wearing a red cape and blue uniform with an S on it while doing this?"


The pulse of adrenaline and fear had both of their hearts pounding pretty hard in her ears, but she kept grinning anyways, despite her friend comparing her to old Kal-Elin. It was tempting to slip into childhood habits and tell Mallory about her day in rapid succession, at a speed that most dogs would cry at, but that could wait. Instead she spotted a couple more of the titans just off the horizon and settled for getting the two of them back on the ground and commenting on his question.

“Only if we get to have unresolved sexual tension afterwards and I can rock the shy nerd look.”

Not that most people knew about the Kent side of the woman of steel, but Alice simply did care at the moment. Her nerves were more than a little on edge and being a little rebellious would have to do for now. Movement drew her vision to their surroundings. There were metal spiders coming towards them shooting lasers and, handy enough, she had some of those herself. Heat gathered behind her eyes as she motioned at Mal and Ronan to get out of the way.

“Duck!”

Heat vision was one of those powers that scientifically made little sense to her, but it worked so who was she to argue the semantics. For a few moments, her vision of the world took on a rosy hue as the machines closest to them were melted into various-sized parts. After cutting a large enough swath, she took a few steps forward and grabbed one of the steaming hunks of metal, turning it this way and that in an attempt to what made the thing tick. The answer seemed to be ‘not much’.

“Hey guys, these things are hollow on the insi..woah ow!”

Apparently, despite being severed from the rest of its’ body, the spiders were still fully capable of surviving her onslaught enough to damage. The bit she had been holding had effectively bit her, hard enough to sting like a bitch, even if it hadn’t drawn blood. Flinging it on to the ground and out of her grasp, the blonde woman took that time to stomp on it, thoroughly, and several of the other pieces that were lying around for good measure. It was definitely childish of her, and probably presented an interesting picture, in her singed clothes, to their arriving teammates. The thought made her smile as she raised a hand to her communicator. A tentacle came out to grab her as she poke but that was quickly stomped on as well.

“Hey, Match, we’ve got the outside covered, I think. How are things on your end?”

Silence was the only answer, bringing a frown to her lips.

“Match?”
 
"I'm not going to lie. You would look oddly cute with glasses and pigtails." The redheaded teen shot back with a smirk, being grateful over Alice's presence for more reasons than her having come to his rescue at a fall which, at the very least, would have put him out of commission for a good long time.

His attention was immediately drawn toward the spiders next attack as Alice warned Ronan and himself of ducking. Which the speedster managed to do, grabbing the Atlantean Prince for good measure to make sure he was ducking out of harms way with a speed which would have been far faster than the other male could react toward, but was almost like a casual motion for the only child of the current Flash. "Ack!" Uttered a startled Ronan, whom wasn't harmed by the sudden yet controlled pull toward the ground, but couldn't keep from making a mild complaint on the matter, "Could you not grab the collar next time? Swear it's a small miracle I haven't gotten whiplash from hanging around you."

Giving a shrug which showed the speedster was used to Ronan's occasional grumpy tendencies, Mal retorted while returning his attention toward the battle, "Better a little whiplash to the neck than getting your head cut clean off." The halfbreed Prince couldn't argue with that type of logic, as his own attention returned to dealing with the seemingly nearly endless supply of spiders spider-like abominations as he began to test out Knave's mention of the nasty little invaders being hollow by filling them with rocks. Many large, projectile shaped rocks, which were hurled at the attackers not busy with the Kryptonian at the moment.

On his end, Stat worked on providing Alice with some backup, which she admittedly didn't seem to need, while other Titans began arriving on the scene to help join up with the efforts of driving away the invaders to their headquarters. Ronan seemed to take up the role of temporary field commander, which seemed rather fitting considering his royal bloodline and direct relationship with the groups actual leader. Meanwhile, the speedster moved about at a blur which perhaps only Alice could truly keep up with while destroying as many of the mechanical spiders as possible. At overhearing the apparent silence from the other Kryptonian on the small island, however, Mal did reach a hand up to double check on the girl in the tower.

"Yo, Matchbox? You getting these?" He spoke while holding a gloved hand to the receiver in the portion of the teens mask which stretched over his ear; using the occasional nickname which the teen had at times taken to calling the ghostly figure after getting used to the whole ghost-of-his-father's-ex dealie. The current lack of response had caused some concern for Mal, even if the speedster figured there wasn't anything these little buggers could do to a ghostly apparition. Well, unless they had built in proton packs or anything similar.

"Be right back. Gonna check for any trouble inside the Tower." The words came out with a casual tone, yet spoken at a speed which probably came close to sounding like gibberish for anyone without speedster or superhearing abilities like Alice - bolting off immediately without really waiting for the blonde to either agree with his decision or attempt in talking him out of it.

It only took a matter of seconds for Stat to make his way into the Tower, with a few seconds added on afterward until the speedster was able to spot several of the spider abominations, which confirmed their having punctured an entry point of some sort through their defenses. Speeding through the hallways and corridors, Mallory left a shower of mechanized spider bits within his wake while trying to follow their path toward whichever destination from which they were originating. With a mixture of his speedster gifts and the additional power of his fathers 'hex' ability, the teen was able to fight his way with relative ease as his speedy trek lead him throughout numerous rooms until suddenly finding his forward momentum halted by a mountain of a figure which abruptly caught him off guard while turning a corner down a large hallway.

"OMPH!!" The redhead let out at the surprising impact; stumbling backward a couple steps, then tripping and falling flat onto his ass as a hand reached up to make sure his nose wasn't broken, "Hey, watch where I'm.... oh, crap."

The attempt at a bad joke was interrupted when Mallory stared upward at the rather large and muscular young supervillain whom was standing before him. Goliath was the offspring of Mammoth, one of the original Titans old enemies and a former classmate of his father during Hex's time at the H.I.V.E. Academy. Their parents hostility didn't necessarily pass its way down onto the respective meta-humans, but it didn't exactly mean they were on friendly times - as evident by the way the hulking male was grinning down at Stat while cracking his knuckles for effect as a handcuffed suitcase hung around his large wrist, "Good. I was hoping one of you little shits would come snoopin' around inside. Kinda sucks to be you right now, don't it?"

Observing the various spider-like abominations making their way around the large male by means of the floor or scaling along the walls/ceiling, Stat was quick at leaping back onto his feet and dodging as Goliath attempted to stomp an oversized boot down onto the speedsters midsection. Only giving a parting glance toward the hole made on the ground as a result of this missed attack, Mallory started moving to and fro along the hallway - dividing his attention between avoiding the occasional laser blast of the spiders while getting in the occasional hit on Goliath. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough room within this area for Mal to build up the desired speed for delivering any knockout punches.

"Yeah, yeah. So where's your boss? Off getting his head buffed and polished? Or finally taking my advice on going for that Airbender tattoo?" The speedster quipped, managing to grab one spider by its limb and sent a little kinetic energy through it before hurling the object toward Goliath - whom took the exploding projectile to the face and was stumbled backward by the resulting effects, yet didn't show signs of any real injury or damage. If anything, as the smoke cleared around his face, the big lummox looked annoyed.

"Partner." The villain corrected Stat on the association with Gadget, for which the brute seemed more upset over than the actual attacks thus far - even if those stinging punches and now continuously hurled spider-bots were starting to hurt more than he was letting on, "And he's supervising this little 'test run' of ours from a safe distance while I get to have the fun of a more hands on approach."

That calm demeanor which Goliath had managed to keep up would soon fade, however, when Mallory tossed one, two, three kinetic energy fueled (with a little hex magic for good measure) spiders into the brutes face and upper body. This was promptly followed up by the speedster finally building up enough momentum to charge forward and launch both feet into the villains chest with enough force to send the unprepared cretin crashing into the nearest wall. Hard. As the intruding figure was left smashed against the wall with an imprint of his rather large body upon the crumbling surface after falling free of said hole and falling to his knees.

"Fuck!! That's it, you little shit! Lucky you looks to be the first test subject to try out Gadget's newest little pet project." He shouted, quickly opening up the suitcase at his side and slipping on a gas mask while pulling out one of the containers which ere to be planted within the Tower's ventilation system.

Mal may not know what those containers were about, but as he saw Goliath about to crack one opener, he knew it couldn't be good news. "Oh no you don't! Hi-yah!!" He shouted, charging forward and delivering a swift kick to the brute's wrist, which did dislodge the container from the villains grip, yet sent it spiraling toward the nearest wall.

"Crapcrapcrapcrap!!!" Was the only mantra Stat could seem to muster out as he tried to catch the metal object, only to find his efforts impeded by the remaining spiders in his way which slowed him enough to let it hit hard upon the surface. For a brief moment, the container sat there without any response. Just as Mal was about to let out a breath of relief, however, an obvious sprung leak to the side suddenly resulted in a thin yet very visible cloud of smoke spraying out with a loud 'hissss' noise.

"Well... that can't be goo-ACK!!!" His words were cut off by the sudden feel of a large hand around his throat from behind. So distracted was Stat by the now leaking container that he'd briefly forgotten about Goliath - whom was apparently hell bent on making the young hero regret the mistake - as that hand tightened like a vice around the now struggling to breathe teens neck.
 
next Alice and the THE WORLD! or tentacle rape whatever

Match

Music blared in her ears as her fingers halfheartedly tapped out the rhythm on her chest. The music was ok, she supposed, though the various mixture of songs Alice had put together for would probably have sounded better if she was actually paying any attention to them. Her mind just kept drifting off in directions she didn’t want to go right now. There was nothing to do and no one to talk to at the moment so music had been among her last resorts for a distraction. Next would be the tv, stooping down to Kor’s once beloved pastime of soap opera watching.

Speaking of which, she was sure he’d be interested to know that The Young and The Restless was still running. Perhaps she could hijack X’Hal’s com signal and catch up with the princess’ father for old time’s sake. That was sure to kill many hours and she kind of missed hanging around with the big lug. Granted, she missed a lot of things about the old days, before the team had split up, before Ula had unwillingly pulled them all into political intrigue, before she’d..

A groan escaped the blond ghost’s lips as she smacked her hands over her face to snap her out of that dangerous train of thought. She wasn’t exactly over her death but, before she’d been dragged back to the tower, she would’ve sworn she had at least matured enough to come to grips with how everything had played out and stop wishing for a re-do or a time machine. It was too late for all that and a little pathetic of her dive straight to her regrets in the few minutes the tower had been completely emptied of titans today. With renewed determination, she cycled through what she had to listen to until something reasonably catchy and loud caught her ear.

Malicious force detected. Tower lockdown commencing.

“What?!”

Jerking up from the couch, Match looked around carefully as red light bathed her surroundings. Almost in answer to her question, the intercom blared the warning again. There wasn’t anything that she could immediately see or hear that posed a threat, but that hardly meant there wasn’t one. It was times like these that she almost missed her old superpowers. At least she would’ve been able to make a sweep of the area with her supersenses instead of debating between going to the window before the protective shield was dropped down or heading for the control room instead to find out what was going on from the surveillance cameras.

Shrugging, she walked over to the big bay windows and peered out, ignoring the constant sense of déjà vu she had in the tower. There wasn’t a single thing out of the ordinary that she could see. Quiet waters, empty island, and nothing noteworthy coming from the direction of Jump City. Still the alarms were supposed to be a good bit more sophisticated than a guard dog barking at squirrels. It hadn’t come up yet but if some invisible menace decided to attack her it was quite possible that she wouldn’t see it. Chock another winning point to x-ray vision, she supposed.

“Computer, cut off the alarm and display camera feeds in and around the tower.”

Thankfully, one of the little things X’Hal’s alien tech upgrade had done was to make their security a little more accessible. Now she could just view the computer from their television screen instead of going the slow route to the control room. Obligingly, a variety of video feeds flickered into life that gave a fairly accurate survey of the area. A few moments passed as she perused them all only to draw a question mark. Was she really about fight some invisible person or had their alarm system lost its’ marbles all of a sudden? Though it could just be some glitch in the sound system since, despite the time it took proclaiming the impending lockdown, she had yet to see any of the physical preparations go into effect.

Not having spent the past decades of her death boning up on the latest tech, she wasn’t exactly an expert on how to manipulate their amalgamation of a computer system, but she could at least do a few basic things, like check for bugs. Gliding her hands over the screen, she ran a few tests to pinpoint the malfunction, carefully setting aside her growing unease at the weirdness of the situation. It was too much of a coincidence that their systems would glitch like this at the one time when the tower was vacant of its’ living occupants. Since she couldn’t leave the tower, Match doubted any of the titan’s enemies even knew she existed and, with Alice running after what had once been BeastGirl’s son, Ronan on patrol, and the rest of the titans off on vacation, now would probably seem like primetime to set up a trap on their home turf.

Closing her eyes, the ghost took a breath she didn’t need and concentrated on where she wanted to be. This had been easier when she had first arrived but she could still shutter in and out of existence enough to go through the entirety of the tower and see if she could find any physical evidence of attack while the computers mulled over their own ineffectiveness. The first ten floors yielded nothing and the pool entrance was similarly vacant, but the ground floor had a nice hole in it and what looked to be, well she wasn’t quite sure what. Giant spiders from Cyborg’s nightmares? They didn’t really seem to be aware that she was there. Did the titans have any spider themed enemies? Not that she remembered.

“Right. Well, whatever you guys are or belong to I can’t exactly leave you alone to be pests.”


The way they all seemed to suddenly regard her as one entity was creeping her out a little, but she was already dead so what did she have to fear. Grabbing something suitably heavy nearby, she headed to the nearest spider and slammed the coat rack down on it with as much strength as she could muster. For moment nothing happened, then tentacles came out of the fucking thing and wrapped around both her and the coat rack. Struggling wasn’t very effective, especially when the tentacles around her decided to grow teeth.

“Damn it! Stop biting me you bastard.”

Disappearing out of its’ grasp, she reappeared a respectable distance down the hall. Super strength would have probably been a good thing to have about now or any of the other numerous powers she could name that she did not have. How the hell had Phantasm held her own in this place? Her first attempt apparently amounted to shit. Pulling the communicator out of her pocket, Match decided to just suck it up and call for help, especially as the rest of those arachnids were suddenly realizing where she gone off to and were making quick work of the distance between them and herself.

“Titans Assemble! There’s a hoard of mechanical spider-like eldritch abominations attacking the tower and protections are kind of failing fast over here.”

As soon as the last sentence left her mouth, another tentacle attempted to grab and she stumbled out of its grasp. She almost started running towards the stairwell when common sense took over and she just ceased to be and reappeared in the control room, shouting for the computer to lock all doors leading from one floor to the next including the control room’s. The screens didn’t show much of anything still but she was about to attempt to fix that and get some more fire power under her belt so she wasn’t standing here useless anymore. A few keystrokes later didn’t yield much of anything. According to the systems and the screens everything was just peachy keen, In fact the only thing disagreeing with that synopsis was her own eyes and the little scrolling red text at the top of the screen saying they were still under attack. Locking herself in her probably wasn’t the best plan after all. There was no telling what those things were up to. Thumbing her communicator again, she shouted into it this time, an edge of annoyance and panic in her voice.

“Where the fuck are you guys?!”


Immediately, a few responses finally came over the speaker, followed by several loud rumbles around the building. Taking that as a good sign, she calmed down enough to at least tackle the problems she could logically. Sparks flew at her as she pryed open the control panel, making the ghost draw back and curse before she belatedly realized that nothing would happen if the errant electricity hit her anyways. Grumbling, she knelt down below the surveillance screens again to continue to puzzle out the reasons behind the tower’s malfunction. There was nothing she could do with the software. No amount of key tapping had yielded even the slightest result and while Match was the first to admit that she probably didn’t know what she was doing right now, that wasn't going to stop her. There had to be something to reboot the system somewhere, some kind of failsafe Batwoman had put in place just in case they were hacked. She’d once had a brilliant intellect herself. The least she could do was find a switch or a button to press. Frustration had her slamming her fists uselessly against the paneling, quickly followed by a loud pop and a painful whirring sound coming from the mechanical innards of the machine.

“Oh fan-fucking-tastic, now I broke it. Good going, Match, way to help!”

“Hey, Match, we’ve got the outside covered, I think. How are things on your end?”

“Probably full of spiders by now. Don’t know since I’m busy screwing everyon… Hey it worked!”

Pulling herself out from under the monitors, she’d been greeted by bank of video feeds now showing what was actually going on instead of the empty rooms and scenery that had been displayed before. For a brief moment she was actually pretty proud of her handy work.

“Match?”

"Yo, Matchbox? You getting these?"

Of course fixing the visual took out the audio from her end. Why wouldn’t that totally happen? Just a little pissed at herself, she knelt down in from of the computer banks again, only to stand back up again abruptly when something caught her eye. There was a face she recognized, more or less because it resembled someone who she used to enjoy punching. Goliath, from what she read, didn’t seem to be as easily duped as his mother, but weird ass spiders still didn’t seem to be quite his speed. Leaning closer to the screen, she lifted a hand to expand and enhance the image so she could see what the big man was up to, when Mallory suddenly appeared on screen. With no sound to clue her into what was going on between them, she was at least able to see that Hex’s son was able to take care of himself at the moment, easily dodging the foot aimed for him before rebutting with his own attack. By the sound of things the others would be on their way to help him and she would hopefully have two-way communication working between them again.

Unfortunately, as she looked back up from her work a moment later, the fight seemed be going the other way now as an pissed-off looking Goliath was bearing behind Mallory as he was cradling something. Not giving herself much time to think it over, Match disappeared from the interior of the control and shuttered into existence in the hallway that the cameras had indicated, if nothing else, she could at least create a distraction to give Mallory the upper hand again. The sight that greeted her upon arrival was one that took her a couple of seconds to digest. Mallory was no longer kneeling on the floor but dangling from Goliath’s grip while spiders swarmed around them. Despite how panicked she’d been in the last few minutes and annoyed at her own incompetence, this would mark the first time she’d been well and truly pissed today. Even if Mallory was effectively a nice reminder of life she had failed to have, she still cared about the kid and he didn’t deserve to die. She’d be damned if she let Mammoth’s keep on trying either. Lights flickered around them as she floated closer to the pair.

“Hey, dickwad! Leave him alone.”

It was too bad that they weren’t closer to the rec room. She could have sent couch into his head. For now she settled for the various objects in range. Mostly spiders it seemed but she was sure there was a bed in there from one of the various spare bedrooms nearby. They floated around them as she took a moment to gather a proper rage about her, glaring at Goliath in the hopes that this show would be enough to loosen his grip so Mallory wouldn’t get hit in the crossfire. Not that this seemed to be working as well as she hoped. With a thought, she launched her assault at the behemoth and kept it up until his grip loosened and he came after her instead. Letting him come close enough to grab her, the ghost reused the same trick she did with the spiders and disappeared from his sight.

It wasn’t until she reappeared by Mallory that she noticed the leaking canister, plums of vile colored gas hissing out of the pressured hull. Cursing, she flipped off Goliath as he turned around and grabbed Mallory. As much as she now really wanted to stay and keep throwing things at this guy’s head until he was knocked, whatever Mallory had possibly breathed in of this stuff was probably bad and even without that worry, he was in no condition to fight a pissed off giant for the next few minutes. Her only plan of escape would probably work on him too, maybe. Hex would probably kill her a second time if it didn’t.

“Hang on, kid.”

Her feet hit floor in the medical ward a moment later and thankfully, Mallory’s weight was still there and the room was amazingly spider free. Ushering the redhead to sit down, the ghost was still plenty angry to lift the oxygen canister from the corner of the room and float it towards them. Oxygen mask in hand, she placed it over his mouth, as she took the quiet moment to study his now bruised throat. It would probably heal quickly enough, knowing what she did of his mother’s metabolism.

“Hopefully, this should take care of whatever that gas is.”
 
Last edited:
Alice””””

"Be right back. Gonna check for any trouble inside the Tower."


“Be…”

Mallory was already gone before she could finish her short sentence, even when delivered at the highest speeds she could muster. Therefore, the end of her sentence died a fairly quiet death at a frequency that wouldn’t make any nearby canines howl in pain.

“..safe.”

Just because her friend’s feet were firmly planted on the ground again, and they had traded a few jokes, and he was well-trained and highly skilled or else there was no way he would have survived these past few years even with her help, that concern for the speedster’s well-being still bordering on panic didn’t ease its’ grip on her chest. Really, she should be used to it by now. Ever since Julian had died, before he had come back as Vlad, in the back of her mind there was this sick thought that the moment she messed up again another one of her friends would die. Then J’onn had disappeared and, despite their eventual success at loosening the death grip on Jump City, teammates had been lost in the heat of battle. Her gaze never left the hole that had been blown into the tower.

It had been 48 seconds since the first friend that she had ever made had gone through it. There was no word from him over the radio and she forced herself to breath evenly as the tips of her freshly manicured nails pressed painfully into her palm. She couldn’t see through the shielding as it was meant to hold against all conceivable threats(including a Kryptonian gone power mad), but she could listen and she didn’t hear any screams just yet. Still, she frowned as her thoughts of impending doom threatened to crowd her out of any reasonable reaction. Alice was deep enough in her own head that she actually jumped a little when Ronan’s hand landed on her shoulder. He was giving her a sympathetic smile as if he had some inkling of what her thoughts were like. They were not incredibly close, but you couldn’t work together with someone as long as they had without gaining some knowledge of their inner workings.

“Don’t worry so much. Stat’s got this handled. What you should be wondering about is how long Kestral can go without breathing when she yells at you for leaving your post.”


It had been two minutes and twelve seconds since Mallory had entered the tower. The rest of their team was quickly closed the distance between them and the shore, picking off various stragglers of the mob or robot bugs that felt the need to twitch at their approach. Alice gave a nervous chuckle and forced her muscles to relax before reaching up to pull her hair out of the bun that she’d put in before going into the beginnings of space and fingering out the tangles that had snarled their way into the strands. Burning through the atmosphere had the terrible habit of ruining the time she spent most morning to straighten out her curls. This served to give her a couple moments to take a few calming breathes before turning to their resident prince and pinching his cheeks.

“She’s only annoyed because her precious merman was caught in the crosshairs.”

This was only partly true. Kestral didn’t have as big a stick up her ass as her predecessors could but she was still very much all business when the moment called for it. However, even though they were officially through and had been for a while, Alice really couldn’t avoid noticing the lingering glances between the aquatic halfling and the latest in the line of bat-brats. There was some major ‘what ifs’ left unspoken in that relationship. At least part of the tongue lashing she could expect to come her way would be because Ronan specifically could have used her help the one moment she had felt the need to be somewhere else. Visiting a childhood friend, even a former teammate, just simply wouldn’t be rated important enough. Sure enough, their leader was not smiling once she was close enough to yell.

“Where were you?!”

That glare would have made a lesser woman flinch at the very least, but it was going on five minutes and neither Mallory nor Match had said a damn thing. She was frankly too distracted to care about this lecture or the punishment she was probably going to receive for her perceived lack of diligence. Her foot began to tap even as she took precious seconds to give a terse response.

“I wasn’t even gone for half an hour.”

She had been away from the tower for exactly fifteen minutes and thirty seven seconds. That was including her flight to and from her visit with Julian. She felt this was fair as it was less time than it took Ronan to do a cursory sweep of their fair city on the other side of the bay. Despite being pretty sure she knew why Kestral was this annoyed with her, Alice felt that her absence was entirely reasonable for any ordinary day.

“You were supposed to be here.”

“I was supposed to be around and I was!”

“Eight hundred miles is not around, Knave!”

“It is for me!”

This could have boiled down to a staring contest for them really quickly had not a couple of things happened at once. Namely, that the spiders, well what was left of that sudden onslaught, started emitting a high-pitched electrical ticking that was pretty irritating to her sensitive hearing and the more physical of the emergency perimeters on the tower suddenly lifted. Then there was a small explosion next to her feet and another and then the field started going off like a field of kids with handfuls of sparklers on the Fourth of July. It had been eight minutes since Mallory had entered the tower and Alice took this momentary distraction as her opening to slip in and find out what was keeping her two teammates from saying one word about their safety or lack there of.

The panic she had been keeping at bay semi-successfully was all too eager to chock her as she stepped into the tower and was greeted with the ashy remains of what she assumed was more of their arachnid-like foes spattered all over the floor and walls coupled with an almost eerie silence. No, there was breathing and heartbeats, both beating rather fast and damn it, multiple heartbeats meant Mal had probably found whoever was being their villain of the day, since Match’s dead heart didn’t have a tempo of its’ own anymore. It took almost no time at all for her to race up the staircase and past several floors until she narrowed in on the sounds of life to be greeted with a horribly familiar sight.

“Where is Stat?”

There was no sign of Mallory, even with a quick sweep of her X-ray vision through the neighboring rooms and hallways. Gas was leaking into their air vents and thick enough in the immediate vicinity to make her cough as the chemicals coated her throat. A dark laugh made Goliath’s eyes crinkle in a way that had probably made his mother’s heart melt when he was a baby, but was just really creeping her out as she sought to clear her lungs of what smelled like a mixture of pheromones, biocides, saline, and a specific cocktail that could only be purchased from LexCorp last she checked.

“If he’s reacting anything like you will, probably right here, blondie. There’s a nasty rumor floating around that speedsters can end up going so fast that they might as well be dead. I wonder if there’s any truth to that.”

Goliath’s heart was beating at an elevated pace, even for his gargantuan size. The musky mixture of adrenaline and arousal gave a particular scent to the air that she was trying really hard to ignore. She’d heard stories from Morgan about the kinds of things this man found exciting and woe be unto him if her best friend’s corpse had become one of those things. She couldn’t tell whether he was lying or not and taking deep calming breaths was not easily done when racking coughs is what she came back. The polluted air was beginning to make her lungs hurt and she knew the moment the giant grasped that, he was going to view her as some kind of prey.

So she grasped at what threads she could. The smell of the gas was familiar somehow. Beyond LexCorp’s signature there was a memory in her head from her genetics that was clamoring for attention. An analysis on a brightly lit computer screen, amusement, annoyance, a much younger Hex looking unsure of how he wished to respond, elevated heartbeats, and a faint tinge of arousal that was much more pleasant than Alice’s current companion’s. Her throat was already sore but she managed a hoarse laugh of her own as she smirked at the leering giant, even as the couch he had meant to slam down on her while she was taken of guard was easily dodged.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Brush up on your history lessons. This was already tried on the Teen Titans decades ago. We defeated the nefarious plans then and I’m sure Gadget’s attempt to take a page from your ancestor’s gang’s playbook isn’t going to work now. So why don’t you toddle on back before I bruise you too badly and tell him to give it up.”

She made sure to give all the credit to the most obvious suspect in today’s attack. The giant was not his mother. There was nothing dumb or slow in his thoughts even though he could be brutal and a punch first kind of opponent, she knew from experience that he could plot right along with the best of them. However, everyone on the team knew very well how touchy he was about being thought of as the village idiot and poking that particular button was usually enough to make him angry and therefore very sloppy. Right now though, he was excited. It was an emotion she really didn’t like the thought of either Goliath or his technologically obsessed partner in crime possessing and it was enough to make her concerned about the actual effects of what she was inhaling. Logically, it shouldn’t do to much more than create instability in a human’s cell walls. That kind of thing was super useful when needing to administer medicine quickly, but everyone besides Kestral was meta-human or alien and that was enough to make her uncertain, despite her words.

“He is my partner, not my boss. You little shits would do well to remember that I’m my own man, which is more than I can say for you. ”

His words came out clipped, a very definite seething given to each individual syllable there. Mentally she congratulated herself for making sure to notch that particular arrow. It was also possible that Mallory had already beat her to that particular target. It was an easy one and there was evidence of Goliath’s anger littered in pock marks all along the hallway, but no blood that she could see or smell, thank god. She couldn’t suss out Mallory for the past few no matter how hard she tried and she could tell that she was starting to get uncharacteristically off balance with each fist Goliath threw between his words.

“I remember when Her Majesty had you in her crosshairs. This is just a test run of course. Can’t pull out all of the stops on you lot just yet. But I’m willing to bet that when my partner perfects this formula you’ll be stripped down to exactly what her royal bitchiness showed the world you were, just a whore with a god complex.”

By the grin on her opponent’s face, he damn well knew the gas was having an effect on her. This was very evident when she finally slowed down enough that he managed to hit her in the skull with one large meaty hand, sending her careening into the wall closest to her and a couple more until blue sky suddenly greeted her eyes. Moments passed while her head throbbed, Alice fully expected another assault of one kind of another. Had he been trying to hurt her by talking about the Queen of Spades? Her time under that particular villain’s control was still a blank spot in her otherwise perfect memory and woke her with nightmares she rather wouldn’t talk about even with those she trusted.

The fresh air was doing quite a bit to alleviate the fog that had been slowly engulfing her thoughts even if it was doing nothing for her growing headache. Hell, she could even get a better grip on her abilities than a few moments previously. Mallory’s beautifully healthy heartbeat thrummed in her ears and she could hear her teammates some levels below. A quick glance through the surrounding walls showed that Goliath was uncharacteristically ignoring her in favor of hooking more of those canisters to their ventilation systems. He was being rather single-minded about his task, making her wonder if maybe this gas was affecting him as well. She did remember a suspicious lack of a gas mask during their confrontation. Which reminded her.

“Computer, perform an emergency filtration of the Tower’s air supply to the ionic level.”

That, systems operating properly, should at least minimize the damage done to the team for now. Pulling her head and shoulders out of the crater she had made in the Tower’s outer walls, Alice stretched, took a few more blessedly clean deep breaths and sped towards where she could see Goliath had left her body to go, landing a healthy kick on him to send the giant some yards away from her.

“You want to talk god complex? Fine. I’ll play.”

She grinned at him as he lumbered to his feet. Mallory was doing just fine and since she wasn’t so full of the noxious substance that Goliath had been pumping into the air now, Alice felt just peachy and ready to enlighten Mammoth’s son to how little is insults should mean to her.

“I’m a fine mixture of dna and biometrics designed to eradicate anyone my creators felt posed a threat to them. I’ve only been in existence for a couple of decades and I already have seven organizations created solely to put me down if I so much as look like I want to be anything other than the charitable hero that I am and somewhere around 3010 others, give or take, have a contingency plan with my name on it for the same effect.”

He did punch at where her head had been a moment earlier once she finished closing the distance between them, but his reaction time was slowing much the same as hers had been. Not that she couldn’t have dodged him regardless, but watching the annoyance and confusion in his eyes as he watched her effortlessly evade a fist that should have landed was just incredibly satisfying for her right now. Grabbing by the throat with one deceptively delicate hand, she slammed the large man’s head into a wall a couple of times to put stars into his eyes.

“I can crush your skull in less time than it would take you to react to my having crossed the room. Let me put that into simpler terms so that even you, with your brain soaked in a stew of narcissistic rage, can understand.”

Alice pressed her nails into the giant man’s neck, dots of blood rising to the surface of his skin, as she pulled him close enough to whisper in his ear in the hope that this would be enough to emphasize her point to the psychopath

“You only exist because I let you and you’re lucky I can still hear Stat’s heart beating, Goliath, because today is one of those days that I just really do not give one iota about truth, justice, and the American way.”
 
Mallory could already hear the future lectures given to him by his father, mother, Kestrel, Alice, probably even Ronan of all people as he repeatedly punched at the back of Goliath’s large palm with one supersped hand while trying to cover his mouth and nostrils with the other. Neither one of these were proving overly effective in either of their jobs, as those needed gasps for air were laced with the mysterious chemical filling this section of the tower. Not that Stay didn’t have a few options available to him for escaping the villains clutches, but most were a bit risky and could prove damaging to himself, which in turn could hinder his ability to get away from the canisters or even attempt to neutralize them as a threat to any of the others. Still, it didn’t look like the young hero had many options, as he prepared to start vibrating his body in order to begin burning at Goliath grip from both inside and out of his clutching hands, only to spot his sanctuary appearing on the scene.

“My... hero...”

Despite the slightly cheeky demeanor, it was clear by the smile across Mallory’s slightly purple face that he was extremely grateful for seeing Match show up. Focusing both hands now on trying to pry those massive fingers free of their hold on his neck, the redhead began kicking back at the brick wall that was Goliath’s torso with as fast a speed as he could go without running the risk of breaking his leg. How much or how little his contribution helped out was difficult to tell, but the attempts to get him free of that choke hold was eventually successful, with the speedster nearly collapsing down to his knees while instinctively gasping out for air despite the less then clean nature of his surroundings. Fortunately, Match was there to get him someplace safe from both their enemies and the gas, as the young hero found himself whisked away to the infirmary fast enough to even make his head spin a bit. Of course, some of that may have been the gas and his nearly being strangled only moments earlier.

Part of him wanted to make a cheeky remark to let her know he probably looked worse then he felt, but the coughs that came whenever he’d opened his mouth to even catch his breath had spared Match of his wit, as the speedster found himself laid out with a gas mask over his face to help him with the breathing. For now, it was hard to tell what the affects of that gas might be, let alone if the mask was helping to alleviate those symptoms in the least, but it was helping him to breath a lot easier as his super human metabolism worked on healing up the more threatening of the damages done to his neck over the next few minutes. The bruising on the outside would take a good while longer to go away, unfortunately, but Mallory could feel himself being able to swallow and take in deeper breathes a lot easier over time. It was with this that the young hero looked to the heroic specter and gave a thumbs up which was only partially intended to mimic that of a downed athlete on the field.

“T-Thanks, Matchbox. I owe you big time for this one.” The speedster remarked, before adding with a half smile, “Which, hopefully, I can make good on before my dad finds out how sloppy I was and starts to wring my neck even harder then the big G did out there.”

As Stat did this, however, the speedster took notice of the shake to his raised arm before focusing a little harder on trying to keep it from doing so. Perhaps it was his nerves acting up after the near fatal encounter from a few minutes ago, but this seemed to be something else as his arm almost vibrated similar to how he was intending to do earlier with Goliath to burn at his thick hide with superspeed friction to force the brute into letting him go. That was strange, but his arm settled back down after a few moments of focus, before which Mallory then lowered the limb to his side as his eyes suddenly went wide with realization.

“Wait! What about the gas and Goliath?! We have to warn Alice and the others before they get hurt! Or worse!”

The speedster tried to get up from the table, only to find his legs moving faster then his mind had intended, which caused him to lose his balance and nearly take a tumble to the floor as he grabbed onto the table. His hands started shaking in a similar way as before, albeit not quite enough to do more then shake the table and anything upon it while trying to keep his legs from giving into the strange urge to start doing laps around the whole city in order to burn off some of this sudden energy. Was this the result of the gas? Seemed a safe enough bet, which itself made Mallory both fear for himself but also for his friends, with one in particular standing out among the team.

“Damn it... I have to help Alice! I can’t just stay here and possibly let something bad to happen to her!” Stat let out, as his words related to both what physical harm could happen to her and what further mental trauma may be inflected if she let slip of her control over her usual instincts.

Indeed, as the battle between Goliath and the Kryptonian continued, it seemed that the blonde would have little to worry about in terms of being hurt by his hands. The large males focus blurred for a moment after Alice slammed his head into the wall behind him, as it was now his turn to feel what it was like to have a more powerful foe attempting to crush ones neck. Surprisingly, the blonde’s attempts had managed to put a rare glimmer of fear into the villains eyes, as his arms hung to his side for the moment as her grip on his neck tightened while she pulled him in closer to make her threat clear. A threat which, to the best that Goliath could tell, was not a bluff on the kryptonian woman’s part. Through they fear, however, was another sign of being impressed by the hero, as the large male struggled to grin at her through the pain.

“I can... ngh, can see what... the Queen saw in you, little Alice. This side of you is a lot more... kaff, a lot more entertaining then your... usual self. Not to mention... a lot sexier.”

Truthfully, while Alice has largely succeeded at putting the fear into Goliath, there remained that twisted part of the male who was actually excited by the little heroines more sinister side. In fact, that scent of arousal she had picked up on before with her super senses was actually becoming stronger, as the brute smirked at the blonde with that greasy smile of his which often meant bad news for any female uninterested in finding out the hard way just why else they called him ‘goliath’. Not only that, but Alice had brought him in close enough for the villain to begin pressing his lower body forward enough that his swelling arousal actually managed to brush along her inner thigh through his uniform, while his struggling to breathe voice started to add with a growled whisper which carried upon its tone a sense of his sadistic perversion.

“Feel free to keep me in mind... if you ever want to work off some pent up energy in ways... other then fighting.”
 
Match

A few tense moments passed in silence as she watched Mallory breathe under her unblinking stare. He was healing, which was a good sign. There was no telling what future tech was used om chemical warfare in this day and age, and the kid had probably inhaled an unhealthy amount of whatever Goliath was lugging around in the tower right now. That was something she should probably check up on before anyone else on the team wandered into the tower and needed rescuing. She probably wasn't going to be nearly as efficient as she would have been with her old power set, but he couldn't touch her and she didn't have to breathe so the advantage would ultimately be hers.

“T-Thanks, Matchbox. I owe you big time for this one. Which, hopefully, I can make good on before my dad finds out how sloppy I was and starts to wring my neck even harder then the big G did out there.”


To her credit, the lights only flickered a little at the mention of his father, before current events took precedent.The thumbs-up that she supposed had been meant to reassure her, had gained itself a blurry outline that, going by the redhead's freaked out face, wasn't intentional. Then he'd shouted something high-pitched enough to be at home on the Alvin and the Chipmunks album before falling off and clutching onto the examination table as his legs had, apparently, gained a will of their own. It would have been funny if it wasn't so distressing to watch.

“Damn it... I have to help Alice! I can’t just stay here and possibly let something bad to happen to her!”

At least his next shout was at a normal pitch and gave her something she could damage control.

"You're not going to do her any good if you get yourself stuck in the floor."


Panicking was only going to make him metabolize faster and he did not need a lick of help un that department. Dragging the forgotten oxygen mask back over to him, Match grabbed Stat by the chin in order to train his gaze on hers. She hoped her smile looked reassuring enough to distract him.

"Hey, you need to flush out your system. Alice is a big girl, Mallomar, She's got this."

Dear god, that was was a clumsy attempt at a nickname, but she'd need every arrow in her arsenal to keep him from running off to save his childhood buddy and the kid seemed to love them as much as Cyber had.

"Computer, bring up every camera feed containing a Titan member on the screen in medical room five."

A wall flickered to life across from them, displaying about fifteen different screens. Alice had been in the stratosphere twenty minutes ago to her knowledge,but if Stat was this freaked out then it stood to reason that he had seen her much closer to the ground before stumbling into Trouble. Hell, it looked like a majority of the gang was outside and the spider things were now just a bunch of festive piles of debris. Some were beginning to make their way into the foyer and, yep, there was Alice, right next to Goliath. Of fucking course.

"See, she's fine."

Forced cheer wasn't really one of those things she ever remembered excelling at, despite being created as part of an infiltration mission, but it did seem like Alice had the upper hand at the moment. Goliath seemed slow and unfocused, while the blonde girl was smiling. Then to Match's surprise, she watched as he Knave proceeded to go about giving the large man what looked to be one hell of a concussion before whispering something in his ear.

"Losing her temper... but fine."


She fixed Mallory with a stare that she hoped held the gravity needed t make him stay put, to the best of his current abilities. Brute strength had been a pretty common fighting style among most of those with the kryptonian genes. Sometimes a solid punch was far more effective at any attempts in diplomacy However Alice tended to be more defensive, more in control of her environment than Match had ever learnt to be. Disturbingly, blood seemed to be welling up around Alice's fingertips as Match made her way to that room's control panel. She should be able to at least get the air filtered and analyzed, before making the quarantine official.

Mallory was losing control over his body, Alice seemed to be losing control over her emotions, and she was willing to bet Goliath wasn't feeling too great at the moment either. The ghost had a sneaking suspicion of what was going to be found to be leaking out of those canisters. It was time to nip this bullshit in the bud.

Warning! Quarantine Level 5 commencing. Please Stand clear of all doorways and windows.
 
Alice

Apparently the threat of looking like the aftermath of a Dario Argento film wasn't enough to knock some sense into her foe's head. Well, she could smell the fear and his bad breath, but the rather impressive boner he was rubbing up on her a the moment and his words were going a long way to convince her that he considered being this close to murdering his as some form of foreplay. even worse, she was almost tempted. It had been a couple of months since she'd found time to have her dance card filled and it wasn't like she was fond of every sexual partner she had ever had. There was a reason she didn't own a cell phone.

Still, going through the actual logistics of what hooking up with one of her enemies would entail, not to mention the aftermath of him gloating every time thy fought afterwards, and her loss of self-respect. Scratching her itch with a psychopathic, murdering rapist just didn't seem worth it. A girl had to have some standards, after all.

It was possible his offer had been purely rhetorical. Not so much harmless flirting, as a subtle warning that when an opportunity came, he wouldn't be presenting her with much of a choice. Also his grinding against her leg had turned into more of a boa constrictor's version of a cuddle and if she'd been anything other than a simulacrum of some of the more powerful beings that had inhabited this planet, Alice probably would have had the good sense to be worried. Instead, she was just adding annoyed, disgusted, and offended onto the list of not so great things she was getting to feel today. So help her, if he groped her she was going to snap his fingers off.

"Goliath, I could have sworn that you just asked me to tear your dick out by the roots. Maybe I'm hearing things though because that would require me touching it and that just isn't gonna happen."

Her hand flexed with her words, delving her nails into the muscles of his neck just the tiniest bit each second. She hadn't been bluffing before. Most of the time the Kryptonian clone felt like a bull living in a world made of tissue paper. She'd spent her entire keeping herself under control and it would be so very easy to slide her hand in about two inches and let this giant pain in the ass bleed out.

Warning! Quarantine Level 5 commencing. Please Stand clear of all doorways and windows.

The tower wide announcement made her wince. The klaxons echoing in her skull in a way that seemed designed to punish her specifically. She could hear bug fart on the other side of the planet, but it was rare that something at around 60 decibels was going to ruin her day. She had more control over herself than that. So what exactly.. oh yea, the gas. She'd forgotten about the gas and something in it must have finally triggered the emergency quarantine. Frowning, she took her hand away from Goliath's neck and tried to shake her thoughts away from the path it had been going down in order to take stock of their situation. The air around them was a fuzzy purple and she'd just been breathing in instead of crimping the nozzles shut on the canisters, because she just couldn't resist the urge to sound like a badass.

"Fuck, Goliath. I am dumb and you are even dumber to get stuck here without any sort of semblance of protection."


Even as she spoke, she could hear the resounding finality of hermetically sealed shields coming down. Soon the air would switch to a recycled source and anywhere with an contamination rate of 40% or higher would be closed off and decontaminated. Incidentally, she was absolutely sure that where they were standing qualified as contaminated and, super though she was, even Kryptonians needed to be able to breathe eventually.

"So we can do this the easy way or the hard way, but our asses need to be in the stairwell in about five minutes or the Tower's defenses will kill us."

Normally, she wouldn't have given him a choice, but between the cooling blood on her hand, the dark stain on his collar, the migraine that the alarm was beginning to give her, nausea was creeping in. She'd dislocate his arms and throw him over her shoulder if she needed to, but she'd also waste precious time throwing up her breakfast.
 
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