Justice League: The New Wave (IC)

[Zet_Cross]

Smallville, Kansas
********​

The Ships alarm started going off. "Lyls whats going on?"

A holographic Lyls Dox appears from a console. Several local space anomalies have been detected. The largest surrounds Keystone and Central Cities. The screen flashes to life with an image of the dome surrounding both cities.

"Right then time to suit up." Milton's body starts to shine as pieces of the GRID armor materialize around him. After a few seconds the shine disperses revealing a gold and purple clad, power armored Milton Fines aka GRID. "Ready a runway."

An wall in the side of the cave opens up in the direction of the Keystone-Central dome. "I really wish I could turn while running like this, the Flash can bloody turn at these speeds, why can't I"

The Flash generates electricity around his body as he runs resulting in unique muscle movements, you do not.

"Yes Lysl I know. It was a rhetorical question." The armor starts to glow as he gets to what would be considered a starting line. Speed Boost charged and ready. A second later he is streaking across the land, speed near equal to that of the Flash himself. Ten minutes later he slams into the dome hoping to breakthrough it, unsuccessfully.

I told you it would not work. "You may be a twelfth level intellect but it never hurts to try the impossible sometimes."

 

[Varshanka]

I will always be there for you (Karan/Wondergirl) Tag: (Rose/M'Gann)

New York.
********​

With her fists making short work of the hulking brute that had scared the shit out of Rose, Karan was ready to rumble. Even as the one before her fell and she looked around she heard another one behind her….

"KOBRA SMASH!"

Turning she looked at it and with a face twisted in anger she began pelting the living tar out of this one as well. This things seemed to have the innate ability to jump in the way of her fists. Especially with their faces. Not that she really cared for where she was hitting it, even as she darted up, down, side to side, above it, and below it. She was hitting it so hard and fast it looked like a Tasmanian Devil cartoon had gone berserk on the thing.

"Wonder Girl!" she called, glancing up from the watch to see whether Karan had speedbagged the mammoth-man yet.

Looking over when Rose called out, Karan paused in her tirade of speed punching to see just whom Rose was calling to. And met those red red eyes. Her heart skipped. Paused. And skipped again. She was ok. Rose was ok.

Wait, what had Rose called her? Wonder Girl? As in.. Girl I wonder what you are doing? OR Girl you are a Wonder to behold. Maybe it was Wondergirl. Like a name. Wonder Girl, Wondergirl. Hmm. Was she a Girl Wonder, a Wondergirl. Girl not yet a woman. Super sexy hot teen lady, nahh. Wonder Girl worked.

"I think we need to get to Metropolis!"

Metro Police? Oh, Metropolis. City. Location. Headquarters.

Jumping up she landed a round house flying kick to hulking brute number two’s face. And then, without even landing she scooped up Rose and flew away, taking both of them into the sky, and towards headquarters.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Green Arrow/ San Fran

The heart of the city was in chaos. Hell the whole of the city was, but here was in full swing. Connor had never seen so much carnage in his life. Green and Yellow Ninja's kept popping into existence, yelling their stupid "Hail Kobra " mantra, then killing the first thing they could see.

Worse than them were the massive beasts. He had finally seen were they had come from. One of those same Ninja's had appeared in the street before him. Unfortunately a group of civilians had been in his way so he had swerved around a few parked cars. In between though he noticed that this guy was different, he had not drawn a sword but had stabbed himself with something.

As he rounded the last car and he finally got a bead on the guy, he was surprised to find not a ninja but a hulking brute standing there. He had loosed the arrow anyway only to have it bounce off the thick hide of the thing.

He had then spent the next ten minutes playing dodge the monstrosity, while it threw cars, poles, asphalt and whatever else it could lay it's hands on at him until he had finally tricked it into running into a power box.

It had been stunned for several seconds allowing him to steady himself and get a bead on it and shoot it through the eye like he had with the other one.

He always felt better if he could steady himself like that. More focused, powerful and energized. It was like he knew he could not miss and he would defeat his foe no matter what.

Still looking at the scene before him now he was not so sure even if he was able to do that now that he would still win.

Reaching over his back he pulled out three arrows and shot them in rapid succession and three more ninja's died, yet five more took their place. He reached for more and his searching fingers only found two more tips.

Oh great. Outnumbered, under strengthed, and now no Ammunition.

Smiling he fired off his last two arrows watching as two more ninjas dropped. Slinging his bow over his back he searched the ground and easily found one of the dead ninja's swords.

Well when in Rome...Smiling grimly he headed towards a group of screaming tourists hiding inside a Bakery as three Ninja's descended on the place.

 

[LuckyVic]

Nighting arrives at HQ

Metropolis.
Bessolo and Sullivan.
Soon.
********​

Staggering to his feet to smack away another Blackadder ninja with his shield, Guardian would signal to the approaching Justice Leaguers that they should get inside. "Go, go, go! We'll hold the line! Get to the hangar deck, get in the air, they'll brief you in transit!"

When Nightwing arrived at the new HQ of the equally as new JL he saw the building was under attack. It made him wish he had brought the Bat with him instead of the motorcycle. But he wasn’t sure if they would have room for it here, and he didn’t want anyone getting their hands on the technology within on the chance they might then be able to trace it back to Wayne Tech. The cycle though better than most of its kind was for the most part still just a motorcycle.

He saw the Guardian waving them on and yelling while fighting off some of the same so called ninjas that he had fought not long ago. He also saw another wave of them coming at those that would be his allies. Since they were in his way he decided to deal with them. He saw a platform and got an idea. He accelerated to max speed and used the ramp to launch himself and the bike. As he soared above some of the ninjas he removed the Escrima Sticks from the side of the bike and jumped from it just as the bike landed on another group of invaders.

He made his way towards the entrance hitting, and thanks to the electrical prods in the sticks, tazing the Blackadder ninjas as he moved through, and sometimes over them. Doing whatever it took to get to where he was being directed.

 

[UnseenMaiden]

Billie in New York

She had herself braced for an attack the moment the door slammed between her and the relative comfort of the light of day. Danny was a powerful entity, that much was evident to her as soon as rumor had led her to its’ stoop, but she still wasn’t sure what all of those powers were or how much control it had over the victims that had been snagged before she had entered in on the scene. If the building had some kind of psychic thrall over the people here, then he wasn’t doing much with them right now. The drums that had led Ms. Taya into the club’s depths still made Billie’s head pound and the bright strobing lights that lent color to an otherwise pitch black room showed her a small crowd of twenty with glazed eyes and slack expressions. There was no common denominator among them that she could see. Gender, race, age, and social status all seemed to vary wildly from person to person. Muscles still tensed for a fight that didn’t seem to be coming, Billy took the quiet to eat a few more greasy bites of hot potato strings while she gathered her thoughts.

So it turned out Hope Taya was old and had killed a lot of people, probably in the heat of battle. Danny was seemingly clairvoyant to some degree and didn’t seem to care about things like motive when judging people for their crimes. Which made Billie wonder why she’d escaped the deadly siren song for so long. Her past wasn’t exactly squeaky clean. There had been those killed by her hands in the line of duty and as a kid she had committed quite a few lesser offenses as well. Shazam had wanted someone pure of heart and had been stuck with an angry, downtrodden street urchin instead. He had come around eventually but Danny hardly seemed that forgiving or resigned. It was possible that Ms. Taya was just the honey in the fly trap for Billie. It didn’t really add up under any kind of logical scrutiny but the blue-haired woman kept it as a maybe in her head none the less. For all she knew, the sentience she had been conversing with for weeks was mad as a hatter.

“Danny…Danny, please! I don’t want to hurt you!”

She wasn’t entirely sure if it could hear her over the din. Hell, she couldn’t even hear herself right now, but she shouted into the pulsing beat anyways. Pushing the small crowd aside only revealed a seemingly normal if relatively empty club. There were other people strewn about, eyes closed but chests rising in the steady rhythm of breathing. She wasn’t sure if she would be allowed time to tend to them, but she walked over to the nearest one, an elderly latina woman, to try. Her pulse was slightly erratic but strong underneath Billie’s fingertips. She wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t know if the woman was going to be alright. She just knew she wouldn’t die within the next ten minutes. There was a cup on the floor next to the woman, its’ contents spilled not too long before her arrival as the ice was still mostly frozen. It amused her to think the building was playing bartender to these people, those that apparently deserved to die. It either spoke of reluctance to go through with the deed or a serial killer-like mind. Billie very much hoped it was the former. Just as she was about to stand and check on the others while continuing her search for Hope, the ice suddenly melted and pooled into a semblance of words next to her.

‘You’re only human. You can’t hurt me. ’

“Oh, but I can.”

It wasn’t the absolute last resort for her, but close enough. She had been hoping to avoid this with her weeks of sentry duty. Fishing through her pockets, she pulled out a small book barely bigger than her palm. She wasn’t any sort of genius with magic. Leave that up to the likes Zatanna and Doctor Fate. Hell, if it wasn’t for her latent abilities to tap into Captain Marvel’s powers, she kind of doubted she’d be any sort of magic user at all. That made this little beauty a find for her. It acted as both travel-sized library and amplifier. Which was something she was sorely going to need if she had even a hope of this hunch of hers working.

Danny had been trying to expand/leave shortly after she had arrived on the scene. She guessed she was trouble if that was the reaction to some friendly pointed conversation. That was why she had put a containment spell down. She reasoned that if it was trying to expand itself, then it could. If it had the ability to get bigger, it stood to reason the sentience could become smaller as well. Not that she was going to try anything as complicated as shrinking a brownstone building. She wasn’t Brainiac. She was just going to crank her containment spell up to eleven.

“I may only be human, but that doesn’t mean I’m defenseless.”

The page she tore from the small book was thin, like vellum or rolling papers. It was covered in what she had always figured was Sumerian, but she could have been wrong. She could only really read it when she was concentrating hard enough and willing to tap into that other side of herself for help. Reaching out for the glass on the floor, Billie ignored whatever Danny’s latest remark or threat would be. Just because she wasn’t getting the fight she had been expecting, it didn’t mean she exactly had the luxury of time. Hopefully Ms. Taya could take care of herself, but the people surrounding her now needed some serious help by medical professionals very soon. She didn’t like to carry around weapons. It wasn’t very practical of her, but she felt it was safer that way. So Billie smashed the glass on the floor and used one of the larger shards to tear a jagged gash into the palm of her hand. Blood was going to have to take the place of skill and power. Laying the piece of paper on her bleeding hand, Billie smiled a soft, sad smile.

“You’re only bricks and mortar and look what you can do.”

What happened next happened very quickly. One moment Billie was slamming her hand, spell and blood mixed together, into the floor and thinking hard of the building’s components. The next moment there was no club at all and dozens of very woozy and confused people surrounding her in the alleyway. There had been no bright flash of light, no otherworldly screams, if it wasn’t for the brick under her hands and the intense nausea she felt, even Billie would be wondering if it had worked. She opened her mouth to say something, but now that their stupor had been lifted it seemed Danny’s victims wanted to be anywhere but there and fled.

She marked them, memorized their faces so that she could track each of them down later, as they stumbled out of the alleyway one by one, dazed and confused. She had set them free from a certain kind of purgatory, but that hardly meant they would sin no more. She would find them tomorrow, talk to them as she had talked to Danny, pull them away from the proverbial ledge that they had all been teetering on long enough to commit the crimes that they had. Tomorrow, but not today, not as her blood, warm and sticky and slick down her fingers, soaked into the sentient and very angry brick that she held in her hand. It was all she could do to not to heave up Lex’s peace offering as her own life laid the foundation for a spell of containment. She would also talk to Danny. She wouldn’t shove him somewhere and forget about him. There was good intent there, hope, and she would talk for years if she had to but she wouldn’t give up. Everything deserved the grace of a second chance.

It was very tempting to lay her head down on the cold ground and forget about the world around her for a few moments. She needed some time to recuperate after this latest escapade. With a deep sigh, she made herself, sit up and stretch, then stand and look around. There was Ms. Taya to think about. She had not seen Lex’s bodyguards among the people leaving her slumped body behind. Billie needed to make sure she was okay. Only the bleeding woman never got to make a full 360 to find the tall black woman. A bright green light had flared to life just in the corner of her vision as she had begun to turn. Si she had looked back towards the alleyway entrance in time to see one of Danny’s victims ran through with a scimitar. Despite the life she had led, the things she had seen and needed to do, she somehow never got used to the sight of death. That jarring mixture of disbelief and the urge to scream in horror crashed into her like a cold ocean wave as she watched the life flicker out of the man’s eyes. He had looked surprised and scared and sad before he died.

The sadness haunted her more than anything else. It was a sign that, had he lived, she could have saved him. She could have soothed the pain of the world and set him on a better path. The guy with scimitar did not look sad as he pulled the sullied blade out of his victim with a sickening slurp. He stared at her with eyes full of hate and bloodlust. In response, she just gaped stupidly, her mind and body too beaten to make sense just yet of what she had witnessed. Then he strode towards her, weapon poised to kill and maim and years of battle and then running kicked in, instinct effectively snapping her out of the shock she had been slipping into. It wasn’t to have her formulate a plan. It wasn’t enough for her to realize that she was a puny human woman right now facing off a zealot with a sword. It wasn’t really enough to make her utter that magic word and bend this unfair fight to her advantage. However it was enough to make her shift her stance to something with a little more stability. It was enough to fill her head with anger instead of guilt. It was enough to have her run towards her would be murderer, holding the bloody brick in her hand, ready to deal some damage. To her credit, it was enough to the sword-wielding stranger stop and open his eyes wide with surprise.

 

[Varshanka]

Two Demons have a chat..

Boom.

Four.

Boom.

Five.

Five blasts from the hellgun to drop one of the hulking beasts. The bouncing and screaming ninja’s went fast. Blow their head off and they were out. But the bigger ones took so much much more. But if you dropped a ninja before they injected themselves.. well.. they were a dead ninja.

Ratching another ‘round’ into the chamber the Rider paused, black leather on leather creaking as it looked around. There was a.. resonance.. a familiarity in the air.

“Azarathian..” The Rider snarled as flames rippled the length of it’s writhing chains. Chains that lashed and twisted with hate and anger.

A green cloaked ninja appeared, dying before it could speak as a chain ripped through it’s chest. Without even blinking the chains twisted and ripped the spine from the psychotic thug.

Stepping from the shadows the pale skin and grey cloaked figure watched for a moment, satisfied that this region of town was protected.

“I can smell you Azarathian.. are you in league with them?”

“No.. Rider,” Raven replied, choosing to not antagonize one of the few entities she had a small respect for, by using it’s true name.

“They teleport, like you.. Raven..”

“They teleport, but not like me.” Raven corrected. “They are using .. science.” She informed her companion, her lips twisted in disgust.

“Can you.. track them?”

“Perhaps.. are you proposing an Alliance?”

“A.. truce.”

“Very well, Rider. A truce.” Raven agreed, giving a soft nod of her head, as she began casting a spell of co-location and tracking.

“You find. I have other..”

Boom. The hellgun blasted for the unmpeenth time of the morning, blowing the face, skull, and top of the hooded cloak from a figure before it was done materializing and waving it’s arms.

 

[ChasNicollette]

This is The Road to Ruin, and we're starting at The End. (Rose/M'gann)(tags Karan)

New York.
********​

Jumping up she landed a round house flying kick to hulking brute number two’s face. And then, without even landing she scooped up Rose and flew away, taking both of them into the sky, and towards headquarters.

Rose rolled her eyes.

How one accomplished conveying this when one had no visible pupils or irises in your red red eyes, this writer is not certain, but Martian Manhuntress did it.

But she grinned with wry affection.

And she dropped through Karan's arms, ghosted through her flesh and bobbed to fly along beside her, matching speed. Granted, it wasn't as... easy... to pass through the matter of Karan's body as it had been certain apartment doors or massive solid rocks, perhaps owing to Karan's molecular density, but it was easy enough to accomplish.

Rose, Martian Manhuntress, flew alongside Karan and matched her velocity and held out her hand for Karan to hold.

And she grinned that wry, affectionate grin. "I get that maybe you're not used to other people being able to keep up with you, but it looks like boundaries are going to be a work in progress for us, huh?"

Metropolis was not far north of New York-- their metropolitan areas overlapped to New York's north, as did Gotham's to New York's south.

And at the speeds that Kryptonians and Martians could fly...

Metropolis.
Bessolo and Sullivan.
********​

...they were already there.

Just in time to see Guardian and his MetroPD SCU team and the multidroids fending off a fresh wave of besieging Kobra forces.

Just in time to see Nightwing dart inside, heading up towards the hangar deck near the top of the building.

"What are we thinking?" Rose wondered of Karan as Metropolis rushed up to meet them.

"Roof?"

 

[TertiusHuman]

Let the bodies hit the floor

Some of the ninjas started to fall, since he could not see why, it meant that either they had high blood pressure or something else. One of the big uglies turned towards Garfield while the others turned away, looking for targets.

"Well first things first."

He decided between humming bird and fly... Seconds later a swarm of flies rotated slowly where Garfield had stood. This confused the ugly who started looking around and Garfield managed to glimpse the ninjas' attackers. Suddenly a green whale tail slammed into the ugly, sending him flying.

"Batter up!!"

Garfield imitated a swing and peered after the figure dwindeling in the distance. A ROAR emanated from several Ajarkar and the stormed towards him.

"You guys really need some body lotion. Your insides are showing."

He took off running towards the nearest ugly, about ten feet out the green man turned into an African bull elephant. The two bodies collided with shuddering impact, the momentum almost giving the elephant the edge. Before the Ajarkar can grab hold, the elephant was gone.

A hummingbird flitted up in front of the Ajarkar's face and flitted away before he recognized the green bird was his adversary. None of the Ajarkars expected the next creature that appeared. A leafcutter ant.

It was green not red, stood 6' and when it gripped the nearest Ajarkar, it lifted him easily and tossed him aside.

"Hey it actually worked! Yay me!"

 

[kizkiz]

Central City: Kiz let's loose.

"Where!" One of the mammoths roared. The other two mammoths crashed around the first floor of the museum. They echoed the call, chorusing it back amongst each other. They wouldn't shut up with their calling. They took out their frustration on the pillars in the great hall, where many of the Flash's foes were once arrayed in marble and steel. Now all those statues were shattered to pieces. One of the mammoths just punched a pillar over and over, tearing out chunks of concrete and rebar.

The interior was darkness and shadow. The lights that weren't shattered were off. A few handfuls of the black adder had slunk in while the mammoths had continued to stomp around. They skirted around the mammoths, and the mammoths didn't seem to even notice the black adders. One ninja, though, had gotten too close and had his faced smashed like a rotten pumpkin.

Kiz gave Shanker free reign to thin the herd, and much of Kiz's time was spent pulling bodies into alcoves and stashing them under piles of rubble. Kiz was good at skulking, he'd done his fair share over the past millennia. It wasn't easy dodging around forty ninjas and three mammoths, but the space was gloomy and he'd been able to teleport around the interior. Once people were in, he didn't plan on letting them out.

Kiz appeared behind a ninja talking into his right wrist. "The infidel cowers."

Another ninja appeared in a puff of smoke.

"Oh, c'mon man, not now."

"We must ever keep our skills sharp. Hail Kobra"

The first ninja coughed, waving his hand in front of his cowl. "Hail Kobra yourself. You know I'm allergic to the green smoke."

"You whine like an infidel." The second ninja turned around. Kiz ducked down in the shadows of a fallen pillar. "Perhaps you are."

The first ninja put a hand on the katana. "Want to hiss from throat?"

"Is that the infidel?" The second said, pointing across the hall where one of the mammoths was stomping a length of A/C duct into a metal pancake.

The first plunged his left hand into his vest, coming out with three ninja stars between his fingers. "Where? Where?"

"You bleat like a sheep. Baaaa. Haha."

The first growled and hurled the three stars into the second's face. "I am not hearing you." Then he whipped out his katana and plunged it into the second's body nine times. "What? Hmm, no. Your words. I do not hear them." The first sheathed his katana back into his back scabbard, then turned and walked away towards another black adder.

When the first ninja was gone, Kiz came out of the rubble and dragged the second into where he'd been hiding. He put more rubble around the body. He popped up slow, peaking over the remnants of a waist high, frosted glass divider. He frowned.

>>They linger by the first we touched, Great One. We want to touch them. Just a small one.<<

>>No, my love, we abide.<<

>>Death by fire or kissesss, Great One, where issss the differencessss?<<

Kiz shook his head. He crawled back towards the black adder he'd just buried. He fished around on the corpse's forearms until he found a small device on the underside of the right palm. He used one of the shuriken to cut the fabric and trace the length of the wire up the arm, over the chest, and along the neck to where it connected to something against the throat. He attached the device in reverse order to his own body. After a moment of configuring, he heard some chatter amongst the black adders. Still, he wasn't sure if the blood mage's could hear.

"The infidel is killing everyone!" He shouted into the device at his wrist.

"Where? Who? Kill the Infidel!" A random, tumult of shouting and screaming broke out. More questions. The adder around the room started running around like a hive of angry bees.

"Above! He kills us above." Kiz lowered his voice, panting and wheezing into the device. "So much death." He watched as the black adders scrambled around, many sprinting off upstairs.

>>My love, do they linger still?<<

>>Yessss, Great One. Yessss, they pokessss and prodsss the fallen."<<

Kiz tossed the technology to the ground and set about killing. He attuned to a place just behind the bunch running up the stairs, reappearing there half a breath later. He tossed the Lasher into their midst and unveiled its full power. The stairs were shunted to the Void, while the pit of the Lasher materialized. Tree trunk thick tentacles writhed from the cold darkness, curling around bodies. The ninjas were fast to react, a few leapt into the air, sticking on the walls with spiked feet and hands.

Kiz punched the back of the head of the nearest, knocking the black adder into the pit where three tentacles tore its body to tatters. Ten others were dead in the first minute. He ran around the edge, battling a handful of ninjas that were trying to retreat. He caught one's kick, ducked under and punched him in the groin. Then he dove into another coming in under the katana blade, grabbing the handle and pushing it into another. He attuned to the other side of the pit near the top of the stairs, reappearing a moment later. He watched them continue to fight like he was in their midst. It bought enough time for the tentacles to finish quartering and mashing the easy pickings and grab another round of fodder. The few ninja's remaining on the walls leapt into the air, flipping and landed at the base of the stairs.

The mammoths came charging into the pits. The black adders loitered behind, hurling shuriken into the mass of tentacles. A few were whipped at Kiz, but the tentacles were too wild to anticipate and most were lost in their writhing mass. The few that made it bounced off the Shroud of Ulark.

>>They comessss, Great One.<<

Kiz ducked around the corner and blinked through the second floor. He peered through the cracked plexiglass window. It was colored red with yellow streaks, lightning bolts perhaps. Kiz watched the blood mages bend over the unconscious body of the blood mage in the entry stairs outside. They rose as one and stepped into the museum. When Kiz made it back to the stairwell, he saw many of the ninjas were gone. Kiz scanned the immediate area, no doubt they'd sought other ways to the second floor. The three mammoths were buried to their chests in the pit, ripping tentacles out by their roots. Each tentacle ripped, withered but another appeared within seconds from the blackness of the pit. However, when the three blood mages showed up, the tide turned. The six of them made steady progress on thinning the pit. Kiz didn't care. He waited for one of the mages to try to banish the tentacles, before he recalled them to the Void.

The Lasher was never content, but it was sated with the smashing and popping of bodies it had received. Recalling a prison was much easier to do when they got to scratch an itch first. Kiz made sure the mammoths and mages could see him. When the pit disappeared, the stairs returned. The mammoths gaped then roared and ran up the stairs at Kiz. The blood mages were slow to follow. The blood mages exchanged looks amongst each other. Kiz lingered as long as he dared, before turning and diving to the ground as a hail of shuriken burst from multiple locations around the "Hall of Heroes."

The main section at the top of the stairs was a huge showcase of heroes who had fought with the Flash. There were raised screens, now cracked and torn up, and signage everywhere. Like the rest of the building, the inside was in ruins. It looked like the adders had used the place for katana practice early on in their occupation. One shuriken struck his sternum, burring itself an inch into his bone. Kiz growled, attuned, and disappeared as the second volley rained upon the mammoths. Kiz reappeared on the other side of the room, he attuned again and jumped several more times, while the chaos built. The mammoths continue their charge, scattering the adders like bowling pins. The blood mages cast out magics, some of which Kiz could follow, but many were alien to him. He got a fever. His blood started to boil. His left leg went weak.

>>I need you to return, my love.<<

>>Thank you, Great One. We do so tire of thissss placessss, Great One. <<

Kiz released Shanker, freeing up a large chunk of his power. With Lasher gone as well, he was free to concentrate on Serrah. He worked his way to a bank of plexiglass windows, wedging himself in the recess of two fallen heroes and a pedestal. He anchored the place behind where the trio of blood mages congregated near the stairwell.

The blood mages flinched and whirled, but Serrah was already upon them. Her lion head tore one of their heads off. The goat rammed another to the ground, while the cloven hoof of her right forepaw speared the third. Her snake head whipped up and spewed burning pitch over one of the mammoths. It screamed for once as its body was soaked in napalm. As it ran about like a living torch, droplets of liquid flame went everywhere. Again and again, the goat head spewed burning death.

Kiz latched onto a spot just below on the stone steps leading into the museum. He bent the Void and stepped through to that place. Outside was empty. He'd managed to pull all the nearby enemy into his trap. The plexiglass held remarkably well against the black adders blades. The few cracks they did make belched smoke and napalm.

>>Rend. Kill. Burn.<< There was so much joy as Serrah sent the thoughts, which were laden with images of burning bodies and melting stone.

>>Set the whole building a blaze. Circle over head and burn whatever comes.<<

>>Yes. Burn. Kill.<<

As content as he ever was that Serrah comprehended what he wanted, Kiz tossed the unconscious blood mage over his shoulder. This one was a girl, young but naga-touched. Her body was light. He was slow and methodical, teleporting from shadow to dark place to shadow.

He called a small clutch of the Nadeau to him then. They circled high overhead then split off in different directions. A three moved on towards Eaglewood. A pair went south and three west. Another landed on a nearby abandoned freight car on the railroad. Four others perched on abandoned buildings and roof tops around the museum. Kiz continued on following the the railway out of town.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Velocity (Tag BB)

For the time being it looked like the green guy could handle the big guys. His ability to shift into different animals was impressive. Still Velocity had been able to clear out all the ninja's leaving him with just those to deal with before running off to check something out. She had a hunch about something, but she needed higher ground to test her theory.

She ran up the wall of the Ray and Maria Stata Center and once on top quickly scanned the skies. Luckily there were still more and more of the ninja's porting in and by concentrating she could see the traces of the signals leading back the way they had came.

Smiling she raced back down and towards the battle again. Picking up a sword along the way she again vibrated it at the correct frequency and darted into the clearing just as one of the Ajarkar's was sent flying by a huge green ant.

Smiling she actually stopped to admire that before zooming in and cutting off the legs of two advancing beasts before the sword broke. That was always a problem with materials not designed to function like she was asking it to.

Still she had bought enough time and she stopped in front of the green guy.

"Hi, my names Velocity. Guess you must be a good guy as well considering," she began, gesturing around at the carnage around them. "Look we can stay here and try to take out as many as we can, or we can go to the source and take them out there what do you say?"

She smiled at him then shook her head, "Well actually I am going with or without you. I am just giving you a chance to tag along. If you want to come though you have to change into something pretty small. I will be running faster than I have before and you are going to have to hang on tight."

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Green Arrow (tag Rider/Raven)

Connor had been fighting for...Actually he wasn't sure how long he had been fighting for. Since ditching his bike and picking up a sword he had battled countless Ninja's, saved and lost people, been injured and run away from the brutes where possible.

He had attempted to take one on early and almost died. If it had not been for a fortuitous bit of luck with the road caving in below the thing and dumping it into a gaping hole, and then a building collapsing into it, he was pretty sure he would have.

So now he just stuck to the things he could do. Evacuate every civilian he could, and kill every green clad, sword wielding maniac he saw.

He had been able to fashion a crude slingshot, and there was no end of ammunition in the ruined streets, but he still kept his eyes out for a sporting goods, gun or heck even a shopping center. Anyplace that would stock arrows. He felt naked without them.

He had made his way closer to downtown when he started to hear loud explosions from up ahead.

Now what? Were they trying to blow up the place now? He headed towards them, but he didn't see any smoke and yet they seemed to go off with astonishing regularity.

As he rounded a corner he caught sight of a familiar figure several blocks down surrounded by a pile of corpses. Really he shouldn't be surprised that she was in the thick of things and that the hulking brutes had proved no match for her, still he did wonder what all those loud explosions had been.

Seconds later he got his answer as a ninja rushed at her and she calmly raised her hand, a shotgun in it and pulled the trigger. A blast of fire exploded from the end engulfing the man's head and blowing it away, and again there was the familiar boom.

Smiling Connor began to make his way towards her as another figure, this one with a purple cloak became visible beside her.

Well she wasn't attacking it so it must be friendly he reasoned. Picking up the pace he killed a ninja as it tried to materialize in front of him and then as he was one block away he thought he better make his presence known before he got his head blown off.

"Friendly coming in, no need to take my head off unless you really didn't like our ride," he chuckled as he jogged the last little way. Looking around at her body count he whistled. "Very nice job, remind me never to tick you off. So anybody have any ideas about what's going on?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Only at first did it have its appeal, but now you can't tell the false from the real.

(Hotline)

New York.
********​

"GTA V got banned in Australia," she growled to herself as she hauled up onto the sidewalk to weave out of gridlocked, panicked traffic.

"But you snakey-ninja chaos-hard-onned bitches, we ain't in Australia."

It was right about then that an Ajagar dropped from the rooftops, cratering the pavement beneath its cragged, mighty toes-- and, with a sadistic grin on its scaly, disfigured features, it grabbed onto The T-Car with both arms, holding it in place.

"KALI... YUGA..." it rumbled.

Swearing luridly in both American and Australian slang, Ruby slammed The T-Car into reverse, into drive... the tires squealed and squalled against the pockmarked sidewalk, making zero headway--

"Weapons systems, weapons systems--!" Ruby flicked controls hurriedly--

--but the dashboard bleated at her instead.

[Weapons on safe mode. Enter password to enable.]

A keypad opened up before her, and Ruby rolled her eyes-- "All my life I gotta spell things to get anywhere."

Hurriedly she tried typing in the first thing that came to mind.

B-O-O-Y-A-H.

[Incorrect password.]

Ruby's eyes bulged. "Oh, come on, how is that not the password?"

She hurriedly tried again, felt even The T-Car's armor buckling--

--it felt like the world was caving in around her, suspiciously like the time a T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent had trapped her in a trash compactor as a kid--

S-O-N-I-C-B-O-O-M.

[Incorrect password.]

Shit.

V-I-C-T-O-R.

S-T-O-N-E.

S-I-L-A-S.

All met with rejection.

Shit shit shit. C'mon, girl genius, think.

E-L-I-N-O-R-E.

[Weapons systems enabled.]

The steering wheel immediately sprouted joysticks with triggers and the heads-up display manifested flickering, glowing crosshairs.

"Booyah!" Ruby roared, pumping a fist.

But before she could even grab the joysticks to unleash the fury of whatever remained of The T-Car's power cells...

...blood started pounding in her ears, migraine pain started stabbing up through what was left of her hangover...

...her skin was flushed, feverish, her throat was closing...

"Agh-- agh-- God--"

One of the hooded Bestowed stood beside the driver's side window, pressing his palm against the glass, boiling her blood in her veins.

--her mind was spinning--

--neurons cross-firing--

--she thought of her grandfather--

--scrabbled for her phone, The H-Dial--

--her fingers were going numb--

--she dropped her phone between the seats--

--oh God--

--actually going to die this time--

--Billie--

--whud.

A figure landed on the hood of The T-Car, right in the face of the Ajagar... and it screamed, not roared, an actual blood-curdling scream, as that figure jammed something gold and gleaming into the Ajagar's face--

--and then the Ajagar slumped, silent, gaping and gazing into nowhere.

The Champion's Trident buried in its forehead.

Aquaman stood there for a second to make sure the mammoth-man wouldn't regenerate somehow, then yanked The Trident back out of that Ajagar, and whirled to face The Bestowed.

The Trident glowed bright, as did his tattoos, and with a wheeze Ruby returned to herself, able to breathe again, her temperature regulating-- as Kaldur'ahm used his godlike ability to manipulate tides to undo the bloodbending that The Bestowed had been wreaking on Hotline.

The Bestowed had enough time to widen its snakelike eyes beneath its hood before Kaldur struck it with a lightning bolt that reduced it to a twitching, ashen mess.

Hacking and gasping, Ruby slapped the dashboard and shot her team leader a weary grin. "Kaldur. Oh, thank Christ."

Aquaman stared grimly at his slain foes. No life was ever taken gladly. But time was of the essence. And many more lives were at stake. Were he defending his own kingdom, he would be forced to make the same decision.

"Thank Neptune," he corrected her.

Then he smiled faintly. "Nice ride. Vintage. Victor always did good work. Put it in flight mode, that we may get to Metropolis. We are needed."

"Flight mode's offline," Ruby protested, vehemently. "All I've been able to get bloody working is the amphibi-mode, and not for luck of trying!"

Kaldur almost chuckled.

He dropped down beside The T-Car's passenger side, hauled the jammed-shut door open with his considerable strength, climbed in-- winding the window down so that he could sit with his right arm out the window holding The Trident.

"I can work with that."

 

[UnseenMaiden]

Raquel(finally) in Dakota City

“And then we’re going to fly and fight bad guys and I’m gonna go pew pew pow. YOU’RE DEAD! And the cops will come and take them to jail!”

It was cold this morning, cold enough that Raquel wished she had put an extra sweater on her son before they had left their apartment. Not that he seemed bothered by its’ absence in the least. He’d spent the last twenty minutes chattering away, his little feet kicking the bottom of the bus’s seat no matter how many times she’d warned him to stop in the past, while trying to carefully color the large coloring book his daddy had given him during his last visit. It was a book of animals. Not exactly the four- year old’s interest, but he had been thrilled by it nonetheless and at least Noble was trying to be there for him now.

“I thought they were dead.”

She’d been real hesitant to let him be a part of Amistad’s life, at first. He had been among many that had told her to kill her child after all, but time had apparently changed him for the better. He really seemed sincere and was even holding down a legit job. Half a year of weekly quality visits had him shining in her son’s eyes and watching them together made it easy to see why she had ever given him the time of day in the first place. Not that she was considering their getting back together. She was an optimistic woman, but not that much. They were completely different people from the stupid teenagers of five years ago. Not to mention he had a girl that he seemed very much attached too and more power to them for keeping her foolish heart from temptation. Amistad had fallen silent, his furrowed brow denoting that he was deep in thought. Smiling, she leaned down and kissed his head which seemed to snap him out of his moment of seriousness. With a little sigh, he shrugged and went back to coloring the roaring, and soon to be a mixture of red and green, lion.

“Yea, but then they came alive again.”

“And what if there are no bad guys on your birthday?”

Her little boy gave her an exasperated look, one she recognized from her own face, as if the answer to her question was painfully obvious and she was wasting his precious time asking it.

“Momma, they have to be there or else Aquaman won’t come.”

If she had been drinking something, she would have choked on it. Of all the answers she expected her son to give, matter-of-factly assuring her that Aquaman was coming to his birthday was not one of them.

“Aquaman?! I thought you wanted an Icon birthday party.”

His birthday was still months away but he had been all about Icon since he was three. She had thought for sure that she had already planned out everything for the big day already. Not that it was a huge event. She wasn’t going to pull out the big guns and insist that Augustus come in full superhero regalia because his grandson wished it to be so, though she had been not-so-subtly hinting for months. It was just going to be a simple affair of friends, family, park, cake, and ice cream. Now she was going to have to hunt down party supplies with Kaldur'ahm’s image plastered on them. The Atlantean had not been Aquaman for very long, but she knew it was him her son wanted. Hindsight had her remembering his rapt attention during some of the recent broadcasts with the newest Aquaman in them. At the time she had chocked it up to just basic excitement about superheroes in general. That would teach her to assume she knew what went on in her little boy’s head. The familiar landmarks of their stop caught her eye just as she was about to teasingly inform Amistad that Aquaman can’t fly. Instead, she hurriedly helped him pack his coloring books away into his backpack and made sure neither of them left anything behind before they emerged onto the sidewalk.

Raquel had moved her little family, of which her mother very much did not count, away from Paris Island years ago. Not that she was living the high life or even what counted as lower middle class in Dakota, but she could walk down the street without constantly tensing for a battle and Amistad got to go to school with enough funding to afford enough teachers AND supplies for everyone. Still, the streets were unusually quiet this morning. It could have simply been the cold snap they were experiencing, but with the strange things she had experienced in her short life, it could have just as easily been the start of a zombie apocalypse. It was a big relief to find that her son’s school seemed to be experiencing their day more or less normally. The kids seemed cheerful, the parents in a bit of a hurry, and the teachers striving to herd their students into the more manageable smaller groups of the classroom. Like many mornings, she wanted to linger and make sure her son was safe from all of the things that his school and teachers could not protect him from, but she had a job to do. So she gave him a hug and a kiss that he giggled and struggled to get away from, her hands covertly checking that his belt was securely in place, and let the door to his classroom swing shut behind her as the first bell rang out through the halls.

Various joints popped and crunched once she finally stood up from her chair for the first time in what felt like hours. She was too young to feel so stiff, but fighting bad guys and righting wrongs had taken their toll on her mortal body. Placing two hands on the small of her back, Raquel leaned back forcefully enough to draw several very satisfying pops from her spine. She had spent all morning on scanning cookbooks from the 19th century into a digital format for the county library’s website. It wasn’t part of her job description, but like everywhere else in this town, the library was understaffed. It was one of the many reasons why they had been so willing to hire a teenager with only a GED to her name so many years ago. One of the other many reasons had been Augustus and his many connections that he had used to help secure her present place in life. Speaking of which, he had been missing for awhile now. Not long enough for the city to take notice yet as it wasn’t the first time she had needed to pick up the slack, but considering she had yet to hear a damn thing since he had gone to that Justice League meeting, Raquel had already made the leap from annoyed to concerned to very concerned. Unfortunately, any attempt to contact the League had left her with nothing but computerized assurances that everything was fine.

Her concern was enough to make her lunch a working one. Her coworkers gave her strange looks as she took her warmed up leftovers outside into the frigid air, but they didn’t bother to enquire as to why she was willing to get pneumonia today. She was a hard worker that tended to do strange things or disappear on a semi-frequent basis. They were used to it by now. It was about five minutes’ walk to a small, mostly dirty, but thankfully empty park. Taking a few sips of her soup first, she finally made the call that she had been hoping Augustus would come back and render pointless before she would have to make it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to Virgil, but it didn’t really seem like he wanted to talk to her lately. She didn’t take it personally. He’d been distant with everyone, barely out on the streets anymore, and always working at his new job with S.T.A.R. Labs. He was wicked smart, smarter than anyone she had ever met that wasn’t an alien, and she was glad he had found his dream job as it were, but she wasn’t surprised when her call went straight to voicemail without even an attempt at ringing. She couldn’t help the sigh, nor the irritation in her voice as she obliging left a message after the beep.

“Hey, Virgil. We need to talk. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark and I’m not just talking about these new bang babies running around lately. Call me back or come by when you get out of work. I’ll make you some dinner.”

Increased bang baby activity was another thing that had been bothering her. It didn’t make any sense. There had been no reports of another accident, but new metahumans were popping up everywhere in Dakota lately. Thankfully, most of them were just scared at waking up with powers, but there were always those that saw this as a way to tip the scales of economic flow in their favor. This past week alone had her running ragged to keep people from getting freaked out enough to riot. As if on cue, screams suddenly rent the air, sending Raquel running toward the source with on a second’s mournful glance at the remains of her lunch. With practiced movements, she put her mask on as she ran to the small crowd of screaming people flowing out of Emmanuel Greater Hope Baptist Church. Most had blood on them; some were attempting to call 911 for what good it would do. Everyone recognized her on sight and made way for her to enter the church unimpeded. Inside was man with a sword slaughtering those that had not been fortunate enough to get away. Swallowing her horror, Rocket ran towards the maniac as fast as she could, catching his downward strike with her belt’s kinetic field. It rippled purple for just a moment and only seemed to infuriate the attacker even more. Which was exactly what she wanted as each stab and slice only fueled her inertia field and provided a great distraction so that he wouldn’t harm anymore of the church’s patrons.

“FAITH TO KALI YUGA!”

The green ninja was not happy about her continued ability to draw breath. After each strike, she was taking a few steps back, trying to look scared in a way that would make him think he had a chance of winning. It took a few more moments and a few more steps for Raquel to remember exactly where she had read the words ‘Kali Yuga’ before. It wasn’t the hindu goddess Kali. One of her aspects was destruction and she did have a very dedicated and creepy sect in Bengal devoted only to that aspect, but they inflicted pain on themselves, not others. It wasn’t until she was stumbling backwards through the open doorway that she remembered having read bits of a translation of the Kalki Purana some years back. A demon was supposed to usher in an age of sin and misery, up to and including cannibalism. Her stumble had seemingly given the scimitar wielding ninja the opening he needed. One moment he was in front of her. Then, with a puff of green smoke, he was up in the air above her, screaming again. It really ruined that whole stealth thing ninjas were supposed to have going for them.

“NO GOD BUT GOD!”

“Sorry, I think we’ve already reached our apocalypse quota for this year. Feel free to try again later.”

Her words were delivered with a grin as she took the energy he had been feeding into her and siphoned off a chunk of it to wrap around her clenched fist. It wasn’t enough to kill the guy, just enough to render him unconscious so that she could bring him to the proper authorities. Shifting her stance from damsel in distress to punching powerhouse , she rotated her torso just so that when she let her fist fly, it landed square into his green clad cheekbone. His sword scrapped her field for a moment as his body weight pressed down into her, but then he went flying some thirty feet away, skidding across the asphalt. She unbent her knees, satisfied in job well done, and turned to make sure the murderer was down when a large hand engulfed her head.

“No god, but God.”

It was an annoying drawback to have, needing to expect your opponent in order to fend him off. There had been no warning screens from the crowd, hopefully meaning that they had all ran to safety or to get help. Now she was stuck in the grip of someone or something that spoke as if he was laboring to catch his breath, ponderous and slow. Rocket had been unable to deflect his first surprising blow, but she knew to expect his others now and trusted in the inertia field to keep the second hand from getting to the rest of her body. This didn’t keep the hand on her head from squeezing her skull like a vice with enough force to make her gasp in pain. Instinct had her slapping at his hand, small kinetic bursts that only seemed to make him try even harder to punch through her field and, presumably, tear her apart. Even with years of experience and training, it was hard not to panic especially when even the slivers of light that she could see between the giants fingers pressing viciously into her skull disappeared into utter darkness.

“Fear not, milady! I shall aid thee in this most valiant quarrel.”

Those words, spoken with all the forced projection of a high school Shakespeare production, were out of place enough to break her from the deadly spiral that had been her incoming panic attack. It took a few seconds to click, it had been years after all, but she knew that voice.

“Palisade?!”

She couldn’t see a damn thing, but neither could the guy holding her head and it was apparently pissing him off by the roar he gave. Her faint amusement at Palisade, of all people, coming to her rescue turned into a wide grin when the cloud of darkness that surrounded them finally made her captor let go. Raquel made sure to tumble quickly out of range before the big guy got his bearings again She was going to need some serious headache meds before she went back to work, but that shouldn’t be too far away. All of that pounding, by what looked to be someone that had been tapping the venom just a little too hard, had her inertia field charged and ready to take this big guys out of commission. Still, it didn’t seem she was going to be able to punch him out like his sword-wielding buddy over there. At least, not with causing some considerable damage to the brownstone buildings on this block. Extending her field around this mammoth’s head, Raquel created a bubble and started dissipating the kinetic energy inside of it, slowly siphoning out all movement until the very particles in the air could no longer vibrate. In short, she choked him until he stopped fighting it has large frame went slack and fell to the ground. She couldn’t keep that bubble up for long and thankfully she didn’t usually have to. Sirens off in the distance signaled that help was arriving, giving her time to question exactly why the young armored man was here.

“I thought you had gone off to Hartford.”

“Doth thou dare question mine loyalties? No matter how far a knight may wander, he will always cherish that place which housed the halcyon days of his youth.”

She kept quiet and patiently waited for the blond to finish his long-winded excuses. He was not exactly her friend or even someone she considered an equal. More like a bumbling idiot that everyone was stuck with as, even without a scrap of competence, the guy was still weirdly powerful in his own right. Everyone had been pretty happy when he had not shut up about getting a free ride out of their dump of a town. Seriously, while she had been trying to make up for the time she had lost while on maternity leave, this self-important windbag had spent months messing with their own heroics and yammering on about getting into one of the more prestigious literary colleges in the country. Still it seemed that time had taught him some kind of humility because he stopped yammering when it was apparent by her raised eyebrow that she wasn’t buying it and even had the since to look sheepish.

“It’s my mom’s birthday.”

She snorted at that and shook her head, before pushing herself off of the ground with a few well-aimed energy dispersals. It seemed like everything was more or less wrapped up here for the day, but it would be sloppy of her not to run a couple of passes around the block to make sure no one else was trying to harold in ‘The Age of Darkness’.

“Some birthday present.”

"We've got dozens of strange signatures all across the city. I've got reports of men rampaging through the city, killing anyone and everyone. I've called everyone who can help. Get out there."

What had seemed like an all-clear in her neck of the woods apparently was not. Now that she was high enough, Raquel could see what had Hardware worked up enough to send out a call for arms. Paris Island Bridge was burning and as she watched the smoke and distant flashes of light denoting the battle that already raged there, small flashes of green flared to life all over town. Starting as a few at first and then quickly becoming more rapid and prevalent, it was very clear to her that the slaughter that had happened at the church only moments ago was just the tip of the iceberg. They were all under attack and, short of finding a new bang baby that could control time, there was no way they could save everyone. With that realization, the one thing she never let herself think about during a fight, the one thing that had been blocked from her mind even when she felt like she was passing out earlier, came unbidden to her now, making tears prick her eyes.

“Amistad.”

 

[Varshanka]

Save me... (Karan) (Tag (Rose/M'Gann)

New York.
********​

"What are we thinking?" Rose wondered of Karan as Metropolis rushed up to meet them.

“We.. we are thinking that we want to finish what we started.” Karan replied as she looked at the city below, and the MetroPD Station in particular. Still holding Rose’s hand she rolled under the gorgeous red hair and alabaster skinned delight to the eyes and the brain.

“As for boundaries, I don’t have any. Your boundaries on the other hand….”

"Roof?"

“Hmm.. yes the roof would be a good place to ki.. land.” Kara corrected, though she would much rather just keep flying. But duty called, and psychopathic killers were on the loose. The team need to group, re-group, collaborate. Cuddle together over some hot chocolate. Make a plan of action on how to fight the - crazy gorgeous girl -- monks. Or was it Ninja’s. Were ninja’s even real or were they just movie monsters?

Landing on the rooftop of the MetroPD HQ she looked over at Rose. And blushed, recalling some of the things she’d been thinking about. “Umm.. what I say in my head does not get held against me?”

 

[ChasNicollette]

The Brains of The Outfit. (tags for G.R.I.D.)

Keystone City, Kansas.
The Outskirts.
********

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l325/chasnicollette/3db3776f-5929-4efd-9c2a-80a29e3df114_zps6pixfgsm.jpg​

I told you it would not work. "You may be a twelfth level intellect but it never hurts to try the impossible sometimes."

For a hyper-rational AIOS derived essentially verbatim from the cybercerebral neuropsychic imprint of a Brainiac of Colu, Lysl seemed quite irritated by that reply: On the contrary, attempting the impossible can prove demonstrably deleterious. For instance, the kinetic force-aura that protects us from collisions while utilizing The Speed Booster has been severely overloaded by impact with this barrier. Further use of The Speed Booster is not recommended until after The G.R.I.D. Armor's next repair cycle.

She then appeared to take a moment to recalibrate her sense of detachment, and continued: According to your sweep by The Scan Visor, this barrier proves... problematic at best. Utilizing folded space and ambient matter as a perimeter obstruction of this magnitude-- completely enveloping not one but two proximal population centers --could result in a spindling and mutilation of local spacetime if maintained overextensively.

The barrier provides a transmission medium for a related teletransportation effect utilizing the same phenomena of folded space and ambient matter, enabling greater transception distance of said effect without localized transmission/reception points. This technology should be at least a century beyond current terrestrial standards. It represents an understanding of Erdel Gate instrumentation that would defy the thinking of even the greatest minds currently on-planet. This may merit further investigation.

She paused, and her tone sounded about as I-told-you so as she ever got, which was considerably: Recommend immediate circumnavigation of the forcefield perimeter to enable a wider scanning sample and thereby narrow down possible weak points. Additionally, you may connect with local authorities once they are dispatched to investigate this phenomenon. However, you will need to perform this circumnavigation at maximum baseline footspeed as someone has rendered The Speed Booster temporarily inoperable.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Kiz. Kiz. Boom. Boom.

Central City, Missouri.
********

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l325/chasnicollette/885d4b5c-da73-43f9-ad19-bbb2b540c325_zps3n19hypo.jpg​

He called a small clutch of the Nadeau to him then. They circled high overhead then split off in different directions. A three moved on towards Eaglewood.

Englewood was zoned residential. As the Ravens soared overhead, they would see the neighborhoods laid out beneath them...

There were pockmarks of destruction here and there. But by and large there were few signs of the sort of rampant, pell-mell destruction Kiz had seen in New York City. Whatever conquest had happened here, they had established their beachhead with ruthless efficiency.

No civilians were on the streets of Englewood.

The houses were dark; there was no power.

A pair went south and three west.

Directly south was Mounds View. This region of the city was comparatively undeveloped-- the city planners had proven somewhat respectful of a variety of burial mounds left by The First Nations.

There was, however, the local airport, Hardwell Fields, and this had been surgically crippled. The control towers were badly damaged, and various aircraft were rent wing from wing and scattered all over the cratered runways. There would be no escape that way, even were the skies cleared of the force-dome.

West was more problematic.

The closer that that particular trio of Nadeau got towards The Missouri River, the boundary between the two Gem Cities, the more difficult it became for them to navigate, even with whatever mystical enhancements made them better scouts and relays. The yellow-green energies that crackled there exuded phenomena of spacial disruption and displacement-- any attempts to fly towards that storm at any crow-flies altitude would prove hazardous at best. They would need to return to Kiz, like Noah's postdiluvian Raven, dejectedly bereft of intel.

But they would report, like the others, no sightings of the human residents of Central City.

Another landed on a nearby abandoned freight car on the railroad.

Again depending on how elevated the awareness was of these blackbirds, this one might perceive a... ripple... in the air, perhaps too quick for the threshold of human visual acuity... more on the spectrum of a ghostly manifestation, an astral projection... and it seemed to be following Kiz himself.

Four others perched on abandoned buildings and roof tops around the museum.

These would be treated to the sight of the venerable, landmark Flash Museum dissolving in the mystical conflagration unleashed by Serrah's serpent-regurgitated napalm. They would also be treated to the scuttling hysterics of the reinforcement troops that would swiftly arrive to investigate this impertinence, this act of defiance!

But only moments after this mad frenzy of activity began, a commanding figure would arrive--

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l325/chasnicollette/kobra%20lieutenant_zpsnmbgznqn.png​

--issuing forth orders like a metatron, the mouthpiece of a god.

At his direction, the milling melee of Kobra troops quickly fell in line, and then dispersed in systematic fashion to search for the perpetrator of this disruption.

Kiz continued on following the the railway out of town.

As Kiz walked, with his captured Bestowed across his shoulder, that aforementioned astral ripple would billow overhead, then down in front of him. It was not quite quick as a Flash, but nevertheless perceptible to Kiz because of his Void Binder attunement to such stone-skips across the spacial matrix.

That spacial ripple then unfolded like a lotus blossom, depositing three figures immediately in Kiz' railroad path.

Captain Cold and his partner-in-crime, Heatwave, armed with their respective cryonic and thermic energy weapons. If the Robert Frost was formidable despite its limitations, all the more so were these more specialized weapons-- and their wielders were masters of their craft.

And she who carried them here-- The Glider --translucent golden and saffron and sunset-pink. She was as much ghost as she was metahuman, simultaneously inhabiting astral frequencies as well as material ones.

And she said: "Len. This is him. He's the one who gave Kobra's goons the hot foot at the museum."

And Leonard Snart, Captain Cold, stepped forward, gazing up at Kiz. Not much impressed him-- he was too cool for that shit. "Yeah? He doesn't look like much."

"I should get to give him a 'hot foot,'" hotblooded pyromaniac Heatwave growled. "If anyone got to burn down that popsicle stand, it should have been me!"

 

[kizkiz]

Central City, the Outskirts: Kiz, Len, The Fish, and Crazy Eyes.

Kiz gave no sign he was aware of the astral ripple trailing in his wake, then above, then besides, then before, then in his wake again. It reminded him of a fish. Stupid enough to think it could out swim its death and too stupid to ignore the nearest shiny babble be it bait or hook. He was fast. He had the reactions of a gun slinger, even if he detested technology as much as he disdained magical crutches. No Kiz had gun slinger hands, hands that could kill better than any gun and the reactions to use those killer hands to maximum effect. Besides, each of the Nadeau was the equal to one of the black adder. As Kiz walked along the rail, digesting the news from the Nadeau.

He walked with his head high, shoulders back. After the shuriken injury, Ulark wrapped himself tight. Kiz kept his massive hands out, swinging in the cold breeze. A gunslinger walked with his weapons out when he expected trouble, to inform the world that there would be no further warning that death would come to those that got in his way. A gunslinger's weapons were threat, warning, and promise. No words were necessary. Words were tools of other men. And Kiz had trained in Midworld with the sons of Gilead while chasing an apocalypse bound within a black ball.

He got his timings for their reinforcements, the magnitude of their response, and the shape of their response. He expected some unseen aerial defense, but so far Serrah had gone unmolested. As a childe of the Dreaming's Nightmares, she was proof against blood magics and many other lesser arcanum. He wondered if their "teleportation" allowed them to attuned along fourth and fifth dimensional coordinates, anything less would preclude them from attacking Serrah if they didn't possess some form of flight or missile. He knew earthlings had progressed far from gunpowder cannons. But if Kobra had hellfire missiles and rocket propelled grenades, why hadn't they used them in New York? The terrestrial governments of this world could fission the atom, if only very heavy atoms like plutonium, yet those same governments lacked this sophistication of technology on display here. Present earthling gorilla warfare and terrorism theory called for sensationalism as much as destruction.

He didn't dwell long, as he'd been chewing over the same thoughts until they were deep ruts in him mind. Neither did he let the astral fish niggle his attention any more than was prudent. If the enemy had a theme, it was heavy handed, rapid waves of onslaught. This sort of hide-and-seek behavior was not present in their foot soldiers, but many generals controlled expectations until the enemy was complacent, then wrapped those expectations around their foe's neck. So Kiz didn't dismiss the prospect of an ambush, instead he kept his attunement to the horizon with each step. It gave him a headache to invest so much of himself into something only to throw it away with the next step, but pain was a constant companion in his life. It was better not to grow numb to the pain.

The lotus was a special pattern amongst Void Binders, as special as spirals and fractals. When a lotus vomited a man in a blue parka, another in a singed army jacket, and the fish resplendent in gold, saffron, and pink, well that was something to pay attention to. All the more so, because he could tell he was getting horny when the fish appeared. She was gossamer and grace, flowing like a flutter of silk on a warm spring breeze. Granted it'd been far too long since he'd had any sort of release and the mental haze from not sleeping in four days wasn't helping. The Time Shear could be a real bitch.

And the Fish said, "Len. This is him. He's the one who gave Kobra's goons the hot foot at the museum."

She talked funny for a fish. Not an angelic wet dream, but more like some guttersnipe used to nuzzling through life's trash for the next meal. He'd dealt with worst. He employed worse.

The blue parka man, Len, which implied a degree of familiarity between the two, spoke. He tried to act nonchalant. His bearing and tone conveyed as much. Still, these three cowered in some astral pocket carved by the Fish, while Kiz had burned down an entire museum filled with over sixty people. "Yeah? He doesn't look like much," Len said. Kiz doubted the relationship between the pair was romantic, at least not in any Victorian sense. Kiz had seen and experienced a much vaster spectrum of relationships, but not since the Roman's had he seen such on Earth. Another puzzle to pick through. At least was something new to occupy his mind.

The Shroud of Ulark was proof against the elements, but what he'd seen of Agent Chase's gadget gave an indication that mankind could produce a cold deeper than anything Ulark was able to cope with. Len was dangerous. Most casual killers were dangerous, and no one handled a gun so casually that wasn't a killer.

Then the man with crazy eyes spoke, and Kiz decided he'd kill this one first if it came to it. A gunslinger always let his hands rule judgements of war, but they always shot the one with crazy eyes first. "I should get to give him a 'hot foot,'" Crazy Eyes said. Then growling with the petulance of a spoiled child, he added, "If anyone got to burn down that popsicle stand, it should have been me!"

Both Fish and Crazy Eyes deferred to Len. So Kiz kept himself orientated towards Len, even as he prepared to kill Crazy Eyes. What he was so pissed about, and why he'd love to be given cause that these were people who should be killed instead of used, was the Nadeau. They wanted blood. Their hunger for it was endless. It'd been far too long, at least two worlds, since Kiz had unveiled them. He'd come all this way, beneath this dome with the hope that finally there was a cage and food sufficient for them. It was like riding around in a motorcycle with a nuclear bomb that demanded it be detonated, and if you ignored it too long, it'd find a way to go off on its own. Very little held them back at this point.

"You are wrong," Kiz said, flexing his sausage thick fingers into fists. Instead of punching, Kiz hooked his thumb behind his back and pointed to where in the distance, high above, Serrah spurted napalm down upon the gathered second responders. One of the Nadeau, the one perched on the sideways rail cart seven feet to Kiz's left, cawed in laughter and anticipation. "I can introduce you, if you'd like to spend all night trying to figure out whose dick is bigger. Or you can follow me up yonder, I'll carve us out a decent hole to pass the night in."

He slapped the ass of the blood mage. She didn't stir at the rude gesture of familiarity, but it wouldn't be long. He'd only given her a small concussion when he'd knocked her out. "But choose quick, if I have to knock this girl out again, there won't be anything left of her brain to use."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Highway to The Danger Zone. (Rose/M'gann/Hotline)

“We.. we are thinking that we want to finish what we started.” Karan replied as she looked at the city below, and the MetroPD Station in particular. Still holding Rose’s hand she rolled under the gorgeous red hair and alabaster skinned delight to the eyes and the brain.

“As for boundaries, I don’t have any. Your boundaries on the other hand….”

Rose laughed faintly, gazing down at Karan as she slid underneath her in the air.

"Full disclosure: I'm a recovering agoraphobe. My boundaries are going to take a little work."

“Hmm.. yes the roof would be a good place to ki.. land.” Kara corrected.

"Both, actually," Rose couldn't help but agree. "But first things first. 'We work before we play.'"

Landing on the rooftop of the MetroPD HQ she looked over at Rose. And blushed, recalling some of the things she’d been thinking about. “Umm.. what I say in my head does not get held against me?”

Rose's touchdown wasn't as effortless as Karan's, there was definitely more knee-bend, a little more stagger with the momentum, but she was definitely better than she had been.

She grinned lopsidedly. "I'm not so good at the telepathy thing. It's more, uh, I think the term is 'surface thoughts?' But yours are like neon signs."

"I might hold them against you. Especially that one with the hot chocolate, that sounds pretty nice, and-- entry level. Just, you know--" she gave Karan's hand a squeeze. "Later."

And later would have to fend for itself.

Because above them, there came the sound of rushing water.

Rose glanced up in a startlement--

--and saw...?

And saw The T-Car in amphibi-mode driving on a river suspended high in the skies over Metropolis, the river snaking out before it and behind it like a winding road, dispersing into water vapor behind them-- and condensing out of the air ahead of them. Considering how dry the air was in February, this was no mean feat.

Kaldur'ahm's arm was out the window of The T-Car, The Champion's Trident singing with power, as he summoned water in sufficient volume to keep the presently aquatic automobile both afloat and aloft.

And Ruby Reed clung to the steering wheel with her tattooed knuckles white, and she was grinning her ass off all the while.

The river swooped low beside the rooftop of NJLHQ and The T-Car drove onto it, effortlessly converting back to terrestrial mode as it touched the dry surface.

Kaldur dismissed the water, and both he and Ruby climbed out, Ruby holstering her phone as she did so. "Okay, Kal, that was a trip. And I've had a flying carpet. And a flying horse."

"Yes, I remember Wingy. Next time, if you prefer," Kaldur replied blithely, "I can suspend us on a forcefield of rainbow light?"

Ruby shuddered involuntarily, pointed at him sharply. "A rainbow road? You got a sadist streak, Aquaman."

Kaldur smirked and glanced between the other two women, the Kryptonian Amazon and the pale Martian hybrid. "Enough banter. Time is of the essence. What do we know of the situation?"

"Not much," Rose confessed. "We're under invasion by some kind of superterrorist army? I'm still only good for surface thoughts-- but Captain Metropolis down there really wants us to get on the jet and get going."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Rogue Elements. (tags to Kiz)

Central City.
********​

"You are wrong," Kiz said, flexing his sausage thick fingers into fists.

Heatwave's lip curled, and his hands flexed on his, heh, firearm, delighted at the prospect of violence. He was, after all, the hero/protagonist of his own story-- why should he not play the role to the hilt?

Instead of punching, Kiz hooked his thumb behind his back and pointed to where in the distance, high above, Serrah spurted napalm down upon the gathered second responders. One of the Nadeau, the one perched on the sideways rail cart seven feet to Kiz's left, cawed in laughter and anticipation. "I can introduce you, if you'd like to spend all night trying to figure out whose dick is bigger. Or you can follow me up yonder, I'll carve us out a decent hole to pass the night in."

"Trust me," Heatwave growled, eyeing the chimera in the distance. "It wouldn't take all night."

Cold scowled, chucking back the hood of his parka. "Mick. Can we just skip to the part where you admit you like his style and compare napalm and white phosphorous recipes?"

Heatwave harrumphed. "Maybe."

He slapped the ass of the blood mage. She didn't stir at the rude gesture of familiarity, but it wouldn't be long. He'd only given her a small concussion when he'd knocked her out. "But choose quick, if I have to knock this girl out again, there won't be anything left of her brain to use."

"Oh, so it's her brain you want to use," Glider remarked, a slow-burn smirk across her lips, her form floating and bobbing, her tendrils spilling around and above, like a koi spirit-- except maybe not so coy. "How chivalrous."

Captain Cold rolled his eyes dismally, you see what I have to put up with, here? Aloud, he groused to Kiz: "Don't mind my sister, pal, she and her boyfriend Mirror Master just had a falling out and she's... prowling. At some point, you and I are gonna have words about roasting off the map a tribute to our respected fallen adversary, but right now we got more pressing needs. Most of the rest of The Rogues are scattered, in hiding, or... worse. You got some power in your corner, and we've got no interest in waiting this thing out in a hole in the ground. We're taking back our city. You in?"

...in the distance, now that Kobra's Lieutenant had attained some sort of order and demanded that contingents find the one who started this, he commanded a half-dozen Ajagar to leap into the sky with the power of their legs and attempt to bat Serrah from the air.

Did they really need bombs and fire when they had walking, breathing weapons of mass destruction? The Ajagar, the Pythons, were not as powerful as their genetic forebear.

But en masse they could lay waste to nations.

Serrah's fire seared their skin, but they did not burn quickly, and kept roaring and swatting at her as they single-bounded for the flying amalgamated nightmare.

 

[TertiusHuman]

Well that was...quick

"Hi, my names Velocity. Guess you must be a good guy as well considering," she began, gesturing around at the carnage around them. "Look we can stay here and try to take out as many as we can, or we can go to the source and take them out there what do you say?"

She smiled at him then shook her head, "Well actually I am going with or without you. I am just giving you a chance to tag along. If you want to come though you have to change into something pretty small. I will be running faster than I have before and you are going to have to hang on tight."

He looked at the female who halted right in front of him, since he could not really speak as an ant, he transformed into his humanoid form.

"Well hello, name's Garfield. Since there is enough of these guys to crush me with a lucky shot, I guess running is a great idea. Hope you have nothing against geckos."

Since the only place to actually hold on and not be swept away from the speed she clearly can get up to, he jumped towards her, landing on her shoulder as a gecko and moving towards her lower back. Using the setae on his feet to cling to her suit, "Hi Ho Silver away!!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Wen Kroy, Wen Kroy. Os ecin yeht deman ti eciwt.

New York.
********​

As the literal bloodbath tsunami'd towards them, they had only instants to react.

Helligan was amazing at top-down big-picture Sherlockian leaps.

But Chase was a warrior.

Chase instantly processed the fact that Kiz could look at a place and be there in the blink of an eye. So she didn't need to worry about him.

Her partner, while a trained law enforcement professional, didn't have the deeply-embedded background in being a Badass Normal in a world of gods--

--you had to think so fast that your brain knows every shortcut.

Chase tackled Helligan, no time to be gentle, and Helen cried out with a noise of surprise and dismay--

--Chase threw Helligan down beside the fallen, frozen Moonwing, propped her up like a shield even as she felt her hand go numb at the touch of Elivágar's handiwork, and hunkered down behind the heroine's corpsicle like she was a bunker...

...The Robert Frost came up over that bunker and she pulled the trigger and blue light stormed out, managing to turn a patch of the onslaught to slush and helping to minimize the backsplash...

...they hid behind the frozen dead and hoped the heat of bloody hell would not boil them.

"DOOLB OT SEHSA!" a voice rang out, blowing the bloodwave to ash even as it was about to wash over the two DEO Agents.

The billows of fine grey-white powder descended, washing the street in a fine layer of soot. Here and there, people started coughing, hacking-- good. It meant they weren't dead.

With admitted surprise that they, themselves, weren't among the number of the deceased, Chase and Helligan looked up from where they'd huddled with the cryonically preserved body of Moonwing--

--to find John Constantine standing there with a breathtakingly beautiful dark-haired woman, rolling up the sleeves of her magician's outfit and looking furiously determined.

"Right, then," she set her jaw grimly. "Let's show these Slytherin wannabes how they do things at Ilvermorny."

John Constantine lit a cigarette. He looked right as rain, compared to how he'd looked only moments ago when Kiz had been beating the tar and nicotine out of him.

And he grinned delightedly at the looks of utter bewilderment on the Agents' faces.

"Me last resort trump card," he noted with satisfaction. "Zatanna Zatara on speed dial."

"Won uoy ewo em a rovaf," she pointed out.

John looked less pleased about that.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Interlude: Titanning the Noose.

Punto de Tiburon.
Santa Prisca.
Now.
********​

The Redwing swooped low into VTOL mode and hovered above the choppy tides of the northeast Caribbean Sea at the bottom of a tall, craggy cliff face. Drifting sideways up to the rock, The Redwing fired off a series of piton lines to anchor into place, and then the cockpit slid up.

In the pilot's seat sat Timothy Drake.

And at the moment... he was Batman.

http://i.imgur.com/sg7sTU4.jpg​

Up until now, he had been Robin, then Red Robin.

But things had changed, of late.

Drastically.

With Batman in The Redwing were his fellow Titans: Superboy-- hybrid clone of Superman with human DNA, Kon-El, The Boy of Steel; Wallace Rudolph "Wally" West, Kid Flash; and Koriand'r, the solar-powerhouse alien princess known as Starfire.

"Titans," Batman growled. "Go."

And in an instant his cape retracted, and he sprouted actual red wings under his arms, and shot up into the air, climbing the cliff in moments.

Kori watched him go, green eyes mystified, and Superboy and Kid Flash exchanged a look. Kori shot up after Batman, a blazing contrail behind her, and at that cue Superboy and Kid Flash followed-- Superboy soaring with his tactile-telekinetic flight powers, Wally climbing the cliff wall with such effortless speed he cleared it without blinking.

Moments later, Batman dropped through the skylight of a nearby abandoned chemical plant, his cape billowing around him once more as he landed in a crouch.

Touching a key on his left glove and activating a wrist-projected holographic touchscreen PDA, he began scanning the environment as he picked his way through the rubble of the long-dead plant.

The other three touched down behind him.

"Originally a facility owned by Axis Chemical, then Zesti Cola, over the last fifteen years this plant has been a drug processing hub owned by Edmund 'King Snake' Dorrance, a British national whose knighthood was revoked because of his laundry list of criminal activities. Currently, Santa Prisca's de facto government is in turmoil because of a civil war between factions loyal to Dorrance and those loyal to Dorrance's bastard son, the villain known only as Bane. Even with all the territory seesawing back and forth between them over the years on this tiny, godforgotten rock, Dorrance's people have hung onto this plant with an iron grasp, never letting it fall into Bane's hands despite numerous other tactical losses. And recently, instead of their own strain of the super-steroid drug Venom, this facility has started cranking out something else, but from the looks of things this machinery hasn't been active in months--"

But they'd stopped listening.

"Look," Superboy murmured to Kid Flash. "Are you gonna ask him about the suit, or should I?"

Wally scowled. "Like I don't have enough on my mind already."

"We all have a lot on our minds," Starfire pointed out, then looked at the back of Batman's head. "Red Robin. Why are you Batman?"

Batman didn't glance back at her as he tapped a series of keys and narrowed his white-lensed eyes. "Someone has to be."

Kon squinted. "Well, yeah. But I guess we thought-- Damian--"

Bat!Tim shot Kon-El a grim look. "If Damian wants it, he can have it. Dick is... gone with the rest of the real Justice League, Jason is a nutcase, Bruce can... barely walk-- but so long as Damian is still suiting up as Nightwing someone has to be Batman. Gotham needs The Bat, the world needs The Bat. Why are we even having this conversation? You didn't blink twice when Kaldur crowned himself Aquaman."

"I blinked twice," Wally pointed out. "Just, you know, quickly."

"Kaldur's different," Superboy shrugged. "Atlantis is a monarchy, lines of succession come with the territory, whether it's a throne or a trident. With the rest of us... things get a little greyer."

"What's grey, exactly?" Batman wondered, turning to face his teammates more fully, deactivating his PDA for now. "Cadmus literally made you to be Superman. And now... what?"

"Now it's different," Superboy shook his head, pained to admit this. "Now it's real. And I don't have half the power that Superman had. And I don't have half the... heart. He was always The Big Blue Boy Scout. How am I supposed to step into those boots? Like, literally, he was-- is-- I don't know-- like one and a half shoe sizes bigger than me, apparently I didn't get that gene."

Batman grunted, then looked at Wally. Just looked at him.

And Wally grimaced. "Look, buddy. You don't have to start in on me with this. Dick is my absolute best friend and I don't think he'd be prouder to see anyone take on the cowl while he's out. I just wanna make sure, with all the stress you've been under, you're in the right headspace--"

"You're going to talk to me about headspaces?" Batman snarled. "With all the denial you've been in?"

Kid Flash damn near exploded, blurring across the intervening space and grabbing Tim by the front of his black and red uniform: "BARRY. ISN'T. DEAD. He's not even with them, they saw him in California two weeks ago fighting that Fast Forward creep with-- apparently-- that new Silver Bullet kid, whoever he is. He's just flying under the radar for some reason, some big important League reason, for all we know that's where all The League is but Barry was fast enough to pop out from cover for a minute and then go back to what he was doing-- once I find Barry-- or catch up with this Silver Bullet newb-- I'll know more, and it'll be fine, it'll all be fine."

Tim just met this outburst with grim silence, at first, and then stated, simply: "If you don't start suiting up in red, someone else will. Are you really going to let that happen? You've been earning this since you were ten years old. Now you need to own it. We all need to own our legacies. Become who we were born to be. Who the world needs us to be. We can't trust the fate of the planet to amateurs. Kaldur and Damian-- and Ruby-- they'll do the best they can saving The Justice League from Lex Luthor. But while they're busy with that-- saving the Earth is up to us."

Superboy scowled at this exchange. "Harsh, 'Bats.'"

"Boys," Kori called, swooping low overhead and hovering-- she'd gone on recon while the trio had been swapping testosterone. "I think I've found something."

Wally released the front of Tim's Batman uniform, slowly stepped back giving Drake a long, hard look. And then zipped off in the direction Kori had indicated.

Superboy tsked noisily, and flew after.

Batman narrowed his eyes. And stalked to follow.

********​

Kori landed next to a series of vats. "Here. My sensorium is not as advanced as a Kryptonian's, but I am sensitive to certain wavelengths of electromagnetic energy."

Batman cued up his PDA again, and grunted. "Good work. Yeah, there's some interesting readings coming from right... here." He glanced at Superboy. "Kon."

Superboy scoffed. "You're not the Bats of me."

Tim glared at him dourly. "Just do what needs to be done."

Rolling his eyes, Superboy hunkered down over the floor, and touched the half-gloved fingers of one hand to the tile. He closed his eyes for a moment, extending his tactile-telekinetic field, enveloping components... "Got it."

And with a heave of that tac-teke, he activated a hidden trapdoor... a massive hatchway folding up from the floor to reveal... a bunker underneath the factory.

Wally blurred down the ramp at superspeed, zipping this way, that way, checking for traps, hidden goons. "Clear!"

The others descended.

Kon swore luridly at the sight of it. Beakers and diagnostic units, centrifuges... rows and rows of empty test-tubes and jet-injectors.

"Fraggin' bastiches, guys," Superboy shook his head, hands in his hair. "You know what this looks like?"

"Yes," Batman nodded.

"Like Barry's lab on steroids?" Wally wondered.

"No, like Cadmus. On, like, a shoestring budget. Pretty sure these Crays over here were actual Cadmus property before they were sold off as government surplus and replaced with upgrades."

Batman had found a small, dried-on patch of something purple under one of the centrifuges. He swept over it with the PDA, and it paused for a moment before bleating that its analysis was complete. "DNA," Batman murmured. "Baran Flinders?"

He stood, and extended a link-cable from his glove to a nearby terminal, running a sweep of its hard-drive. It had been wiped, but his suit had enough processing power to reconstitute files...

His mask lenses widened. And then narrowed to slits. "Guys. Kon's right. This is a genetic research lab. They've used this to distill the metagenetic essence of our old enemy Mammoth and produce it on a massive scale. And that's... that's not the only thing that's been engineered here. We have to get this information back to the mainland, stat."

"Not just that information," Superboy hesitated. And used his tac-teke to reposition the ramp that had lowered to get them down here, which would form part of the ceiling once it was shut.

And engraved into the underside of that expanse of ceiling was a scaly, reptilian symbol.

Batman growled. "Kobra. Now we know who's been funding King Snake's war effort."

"I hate snakes," Wally groaned.

In that instant, explosions shook the bunker-- the vats near the hatchway spontaneously started blasting apart, rocking the entire decrepit factory--

--and emerging from those vats, evidently not being used for chemicals anymore, came an army of gleaming, faceless robots.

Kobra Servitors.

Armed, and supremely dangerous.

As Kori's hands lit up searing lime green beside him with the power of her starbolts, Batman snapped out a red-and-black batarang from somewhere in his suit's wrist.

"Titans. GO!"

 

[Varshanka]

"Nevermore" Quoteth the Raven

Well she wasn't attacking it so it must be friendly he reasoned. Picking up the pace he killed a ninja as it tried to materialize in front of him and then as he was one block away he thought he better make his presence known before he got his head blown off.

"Friendly coming in, no need to take my head off unless you really didn't like our ride," he chuckled as he jogged the last little way. Looking around at her body count he whistled. "Very nice job, remind me never to tick you off. So anybody have any ideas about what's going on?"

Looking over at him the Riders leather on leather ensemble shifted and changed, hardening as chainmail oozed over her skin, hard plates of glowing hard soul steel shimmering into place over that. A length of chain shortened and stiffened become a sword once more. As more chains formed a shield with a demons face.

As it’s gaze settled on his face the glaring demon faced helm covered her visage. “Robin Hood.. lose your merry men?” It asked with a voice that echoed from the deepest part of The Great Pit.

Looking over at him the other girl simply lifted an eyebrow and gave a sort of sideways nod in his direction. “You two have met before I take it?” she asked. “My name is Raven.. and no it’s not one of the Riders.. pseudonyms for me.”

“As for what’s.. going on.. psychometric anomalies on a truly vast scale indicate that these.. individuals are working in conjunction with a very large group of allies and are killing people in the tens of thousands. Perhaps even in the hundreds of thousands.. Why is unknown, how is by science.. not magic. Perverts.”

“I need a moment to.. converge the energies and see if there is an epicenter to this.” The scantily dressed raven haired beauty informed them as she began chanting in a language that made the Rider snarl and glare at her.

 

[Zet_Cross]

"Not like the Speed Booster would be useful in this instance anyway. I kinda need to pay attention to my surroundings right now and I can't do that going Mach 10." GRID starts running (at a human speed) parallel to the force field, keeping the Scan Visor active the whole time so not to miss anything.

 

[kizkiz]

Central City: Kiz, The Fish, Len, Mick (tag Chas)

"Oh, so it's her brain you want to use," the Fish remarked, a slow-burn smirk across her lips, her form floating and bobbing, her tendrils spilling around and above, like a koi spirit-- except maybe not so coy. "How chivalrous."

Kiz shook his head when the Fish spoke. "No..." Kiz searched for a term that would make sense to these simple minded people. "I'm going to rip the demon festering this one's soul..." His head whipped around, as he tracked a few blackadder getting close. "...Leaving a gaping hole where it's taken root." He said it without boast, more like someone talking about going out to get a few weeds out of the garden before afternoon tea.

The man in the parka, Len, rolled his eyes like a petulant child. He had less control over the other two than Kiz had assumed. At least Crazy Eyes, Mick, came to heel. Len said, "Don't mind my sister, pal, she and her boyfriend Mirror Master just had a falling out and she's...prowling."

"I do not," Kiz said, fighting down the annoyance. These people loved to talk with imminent harm on its way. He only planned to give them a few more breaths before he moved on. He was starting to think it would be best to let the blackadder find these people and assume Mick had made the fire or somehow they were connected to the museum.

"At some point, you and I are gonna have words about roasting off the map a tribute to our respected fallen adversary," Len said.

Kiz had seen so many cities burned to ash, kingdoms trampled to dust, and empires shattered to ruin, to give Len's words anything but a tight grin. Len wasn't doing much to convince Kiz to linger.

"But right now we got more pressing needs. Most of the rest of The Rogues are scattered, in hiding, or... worse. You got some power in your corner, and we've got no interest in waiting this thing out in a hole in the ground. We're taking back our city. You in?"

"It's been what two hours? Three?" He swung around, squinting up at the flaming Ajagar leaping like fleas to smack Serrah from the sky, "There's no sign of anyone else within 10 miles of here. If your Rogues live, they do so on the fringe. I'll send my birds out to scout further. Or you can swim around in the belly of your sister for all I care."

Kiz gestured like he was giving the Nadeau hand commands instead of mental ones. The raven-like nightmares took their time alighting into the air, but they did set out skirting around the perimeter in both directions. The Nadeau on the rail cart turned its head and cawed at Kiz. Kiz shook his head, "No killing yet, that comes later." It raised its beak, brought it down in a shake, and then set off into a lazy circle overhead.

Kiz squinted back along the railway, scowled, and started jogging towards the Granite Hills. "You want to get out when this is over?" He slapped the blood mage again. "It'll take an hour, but I plan to pry this one's Rakshasa from her Ātman and bind it. If you got a better plan, spill it, otherwise keep up." With that Kiz set off at a sprint down the tracks, when his foot hit the third wooden cross plank, his body rippled and he reappeared near another overturned rail cart 30 feet down the track. He darted around the cart and tossed the blood mage on the ground.

The blackadder were getting closer, fanning out in groups of threes. Several of the groups were jogging along the railroad. Kiz peeked around and up at Serrah.

>>Lead them on a chase through the tall buildings. Be patient. Defense. I'll call you soon.<<

The flaming giants were getting good at swatting at Serrah. There'd been two close hits that he'd seen.

He made a small tear through the fabric of creation with his right forefinger, and the void seeped through. He etched some glyphs over the blood mage's belly, pulling aside her robes with ease. The black nothingness, absence of everything, clung to her skin and did not fade. He pried open one of her eyes to check her pupil dilation. Satisfied, he continued on with her over his shoulder, attuning and blinking from hiding place to hiding place.