Justice League: The New Wave (IC)

[ChasNicollette]

Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill! (tags Thea)

When it came to magic Thea would be the first to tell you she was as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Hey, we all have our strong points and our blind spots.

What Thea didn't know was that the curse that struck her had been cast invoking the goddess Ixchel of the Mayan Codices. As a jaguar goddess of medicine and midwifery, the grandmotherly deity had been called upon to usher Thea back into life over and over again-- midwifing her back from the dead.

But it was still a curse, regardless of the potential benefits of having life after life after life, nine extra quarters in the arcade machine before the continue finished counting down.

And the nature of the jaguar seeped more and more into Thea with every return from the threshold of Ixchel's healing hands. And more and more of her humanity seeped... out.

With her elevated physical proficiencies and passion for predation, Wildcat had become a killing machine that The Bestowed could not easily match in their present debuffed state. Still worse for The Bestowed, accessing the mystic power that slithered sinuously through Thea's life-force and bloodstream could only help them after the moment of death. And of course, the moment of death would untether their Ravana fragments from their spirits and with that would go their ability to utilize blood-magic in the first place-- preventing their ability to access Thea's powers after their own deaths.

Catch-22.

However, the game changed significantly when a mammoth-powered Bestowed dropped from the sky to attack Beast Boy's pest patrol.

Even with her feline-enhanced attributes and ferocity, Thea would be outclassed by such an opponent.

And her new Rogue friends were a little preoccupied playing laser-tag with the bobbing, weaving, floating, 'porting spellcasters to immediately respond to this new threat.

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!

 

[ChasNicollette]

Kryptography. (tags Kiz)

"If you seek formal parlay, invoke it as such and bind yourself as such. If you seek subterfuge, you will not be the first. Neither will you be the most skilled." He twirled his finger, as if to say, 'Get on with it already.'

"Oh, no, not formal," the Magus-Bestowed replied archly. "Not formal at all."

Kiz' reading this bloodmage's soul would reveal that he was being quite honest about this.

Kiz had also recently likened The Bestowed's sanguimancy to necromancy, an apt connection-- they were certainly in the same family, particularly the flesh-crafting that The Bestowed could perform to heal themselves. But this particular Bestowed had been recruited by Kobra having already learned a thing or three about the black arts. He most certainly would have arisen as some minor but significant member of Zatanna's own gallery of rogues, or Constantine's, or a player in The Cult of The Cold Flame or somesuch confederacy of spell-weaving dunces.

Thus, he knew more about actual necromancy than some of his fellows.

Granted, Kiz' death-knight shield defended him against sanguimancy and necromancy alike. But there were more dead to be had in The Gem Cities.

Not far away to the south and east there were burial domes in Mounds View that had largely, respectfully, been undisturbed by the development of Central City.

The Slumbering Places of Kawatche tribesmen intimately connected by blood and spirit to those who lived in and around the nearby Smallville, Kansas.

And he... disturbed them.

Tapping into their ancient myths of a Traveler named Naman, and his archnemesis Sageeth...

...delving into their long-dead memories of that mythic messiah, and the power he was said to possess.

Using a weapon known as Palak the Starblade, a prophet of Naman had wielded a fraction of Naman's power. The blade was shattered now, and that prophet had perished. But it was enough. That memory still lingered in the world, and that death still cast its shadow from that small Kansas town.

A shadow just long enough.

This Magus Bestowed flexed his hands, and he grinned a slow grin.

In him flowed the strength of ten men, invulnerability of hide, super-speed, and the power to unleash fire from his eyes. Not enough to match the full power of the Amazon-trained Kryptonian woman in the throes of battle not far away-- but a greater measure of that power than his fellows had derived by attuning to her blood.

"Not so formal at all," he declared, and unleashed twin blasts of heat vision towards the waiting Void Binder-- his red-sun eyes a searing counterpoint to the void-bleeding eyes with which Kiz gazed at him.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Cannonball. (tags Arrow and Shanker)

Connor was in the zone. All his training had come to the fore and it was like he no longer had to even see his opponents to know where they were. His master had once told him about this state but he had never thought he would achieve it. He had called it 'being one with the universe'.

Connor could almost believe him. He was simply pulling an arrow out of his quiver and shooting without aiming or looking half the time. He would swivel his body, dragging an arrow out and let fly, before turning 180 degrees and shooting again. Sometimes he would swear he had shot at empty sky only to see an arrow thud home in flesh.

Of course he did not always hit. Against these opponents that was impossible, but it seemed like his shots were getting better. The more he fired the less he missed and that helped Kaldur out. The less he had to defend himself, the more energy he could put into doing whatever it was he was doing with the trident, and that Connor knew was more important.

He was also glad for the backup from whatever that shadowy serpent was. That thing killed Bloodmages faster than he did and he and Kaldur would probably be in serious trouble if it hadn't shown up. He would have to thank whichever mage had sent it after the fight, on the condition they survived of course.

Master Jansen would have been absolutely impressed by Connor's ramp-up of skill and effectiveness. The shots flowed out of Hawke's quiver like water.

Truly, the monks of Connor's order would have eschewed lethal violence whenever possible, but even in their pacifism they knew that innocent lives at stake needed to be defended no matter the cost. Thus they had slain the Blackadders that had attacked their temple in San Francisco. Thus Connor slew the bloodmages that currently bereaved and tortured the bodies and souls of Gem Citizens millionsfold.

But not far from them, one Bestowed had taken the initiative and changed the game.

Had injected himself with the metagenetic fluidic compound that transformed The Ajagar into Ajagar. And thus he had directly changed the composition of his blood...

...and one of The Bestowed fighting Shanker, Connor, and Kaldur harnessed that blood the way that many of his fellows had been harnessing the blood of the superheroes. And in this way, he, too, took on the powers of an Ajagar.

Phenomenal might, physical durability, and brutish cunning...

...his own shadow bloomed large under him as he came crashing down like a meteor with his fists over his head and a roar exploding from his lips, ready to pound the ground and drive both Kaldur and Connor headlong, separating them and forcing Kaldur to drop his debuff...

...Kaldur didn't have enough water left in his pack to deflect the mammoth-mage with his waterbearer, leaving Green Arrow and Shanker with only instants to react...

 

[ChasNicollette]

War of The Currents. (tags Static)

Static calmly stepped off his flying disc and grounded the shots of arcing energy. His expression remained cold as he continued to walk forward his disc hovering along behind him. He closed his eyes for a moment and focused, lifting his hand and with it came as many small shards of metal as he could manage.

In a single motion he launched all of the shards towards the bestowed. They rocket towards him, coming at him from multiple different angles. At the same moment he launched several bolts of energy towards the bestowed before stepping back on his disc. Distraction would prove his best ally. He could only focus on so much.

With a roar of exertion, this Bestowed did his best to simulate the spacial distortion effect that had been robbed from them by Clockwork's clock-workings-- in the process, he threw up a forcefield dome around himself that shuddered and quivered when the metal shards flew at him, forcing the attack to ricochet away.

He did not, however, have time or experience on his side when the barrage of energy blasts struck him... he could not retune the shield fast enough to optimize it against energy attacks rather than ferromagnetic projectiles. It insulated him somewhat, but power still leached through... stinging him and spasming him and forcing him to drop the field so that he could do his best to absorb the electricity instead.

Virgil floated a long piece of rebar alongside him as he continued to slowly drift forward. Still staring at the bestowed he was facing.

With a snarl, the Bestowed threw that absorbed electricity back out at Static-- specifically, he blasted it at the rebar, trying to use it to lightning-rod his attack into Static himself.

"FAITH TO KALI YUGA!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Staying on Track. (tags Velocity)

"Pull back Glider, you've done enough for now. I will take it from here," Carin told her as she smiled and let go of her hand.

"Th-thanks," Glider mumbled, and faded back from the speedster as Velocity rocketed forward.

Lisa hovered there for a moment, pink and gold tendrils wafting around her as she collected herself, literally and figuratively.

"There was... there was something else I had to do. Wasn't there?"

As she continued to run back and forth though she realized the futility of that plan. Glider had been able to control her tendrils, that was why the people hadn't been dragged across the ground or smacked into walls. She wouldn't be able to do that. What good would getting them out of the stadium do if they just ended up dead or horribly mutilated through the portal? No she needed some other way now, and she could only hope it presented itself.

While Velocity did not yet have sufficient power over the crackling energies of The Speed Force to affect the (heh) velocity of other objects around her-- she might someday enter The Speed Force and learn its mysteries, but it was not this day --she was not without her options.

Raven had the power to teleport whole groups.

Wonder Girl had superspeed on the level of Superman himself.

Martian Manhuntress also had amazing speed, but she had been busy undermining the psychic end of things instead, easily as important as physically removing the people from the stadiums.

In any case, Raven and Wonder Girl had both opted to engage the enemy directly rather than help gather up the confined millions-- but Velocity could still seek their help, now that Glider was off the board?

It might be worth a shot.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Through the Fire and Flames. (tags Nightwing)

It had taken Damian years to get put aside what he was taught by both his grandfather and mother. Years of training by his father and Dick. He knew he could kill if he had to, but he now considered that the cowards way out. Plus if he was to live up to Dick's legacy... Nightwing would never kill.

Though the pain that Rose was going through almost made him consider it as he began to fight his way to where he thought she was. His ruthlessness was ratched up to another level. He still wasn't killing anyone... but for sure when they finally woke up they'd wish he had killed them. His mind, will, and body worked as one as he made his way through anyone that got in his way.

Nightwing's progress through the packed-in crowds of Gem Citizens was made significantly easier by the combined efforts of Velocity and Glider (now just Velocity again); they'd cleared out approximately half of the inwardly-madding crowds.

Thus enabled to reach the seating area for the Central City Cougars football field, he would find Martian Manhuntress high above, tumbling out of a fireball blasted by the heat vision of two creatures that resembled more lethal, reptilian variants of Rose's Martian Manhuntress form...

...happily, The Glider would swoop out of seemingly nowhere to catch Rose as she fell, juuuuust barely preventing her from crashlanding on any of the beleaguered citizenry imprisoned below.

But Rose was still burning.

And those creatures were still a threat.

A detective of Nightwing's caliber would immediately be able to deduce that a couple of Bestowed had copied Rose's powers, and if they had her powers, they might also have her weaknesses...?

Indeed, they were already shying away from the patch of air they'd telekinetically ignited.

 

[LuckyVic]

...happily, The Glider would swoop out of seemingly nowhere to catch Rose as she fell, juuuuust barely preventing her from crashlanding on any of the beleaguered citizenry imprisoned below.

But Rose was still burning.

And those creatures were still a threat.

A detective of Nightwing's caliber would immediately be able to deduce that a couple of Bestowed had copied Rose's powers, and if they had her powers, they might also have her weaknesses...?

Indeed, they were already shying away from the patch of air they'd telekinetically ignited.

Nightwing could still feel some of what the Manhuntress had transmitted to him through her... SOS. He felt a fear of the flame. Now as he looked at her and saw her seemingly incapacitated and the two that had done that to her seemingly backing away from where they had set her on fire he knew what he had to do.

As he flipped into a better position he threw an incendiary pellet at each. He knew that upon making contact with them they'd ignite an spread on them like napalm.

He landed on his feet and looked to see what the results would become. Though if he was right it would be similar to what they did to her. In which case they were getting off lightly.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Master Jansen would have been absolutely impressed by Connor's ramp-up of skill and effectiveness. The shots flowed out of Hawke's quiver like water.

Connor could feel something building up inside of him with every shot he fired. He knew he was on the cusp of learning something big, something game changing but it was just out of his reach. Yet he did not let it bother him. He knew that it would eventually come to him. Something would lead him to the right path and it would all make sense to him. For now though he just continued to pick off the bestowed that appeared.

One of The Bestowed fighting Shanker, Connor, and Kaldur harnessed that blood the way that many of his fellows had been harnessing the blood of the superheroes. And in this way, he, too, took on the powers of an Ajagar.

Phenomenal might, physical durability, and brutish cunning...

...his own shadow bloomed large under him as he came crashing down like a meteor with his fists over his head and a roar exploding from his lips, ready to pound the ground and drive both Kaldur and Connor headlong, separating them and forcing Kaldur to drop his debuff...

...Kaldur didn't have enough water left in his pack to deflect the mammoth-mage with his waterbearer, leaving Green Arrow and Shanker with only instants to react..

Connor did not even need that instant. Even as the shadow had appeared he had been moving. Why he could not tell you or even why he was bothering to pull two arrows out of his quiver. He knew what was bearing down on him and that his arrows just did not have the strength to penetrate it's hide. Yet he knocked first one arrow pulled and released, then the second.

Yet as he drew back on the second, that feeling came again, more powerfully than ever before and he concentrated not only on his target, but his whole energy into his arrow and let fly.As it left his string it was as if a part of him had flown off and towards the descending Ajagar.

Connor threw himself flat, trying desperately to get out of the impact zone. Behind him was a loud explosion as the large body crashed through the asphalt and then created an impact crater several feet deep. Dust and debris was kicked up as Connor rolled and rolled, eventually springing to his feet, an arrow on his string, looking towards where a dark silhouette stood in the dust.

Slowly the dust settled and he sighed with relief. The Ajagar was standing in the crater, not moving with one arrow in it's eye and another buried from under it's chin straight through it's head. The wounds from that arrow looked slightly bigger than the actual arrow itself but Connor didn't care. As long as the thing wasn't moving he was happy.

Then he saw another shape move in the air and he got his head back in the game. That just happened to be the latest bit of crazy, there were still more bad guys around, and once again he was getting low on arrows.

 

[WiredIn]

Fry you up nice and crispy (tags Chas)

The moment the bestowed went to attack, Static launched the rebar at him. Seconds later he launched another and another and another, each one faster than the last. Static launched forward after his attacks and went to slam into the bestowed and grab hold of him. Trying to touch skin to skin.

He would see just how much this pretender could take. How much juice it would take to fry him. Make him pop like an over ripened grape.

 

[kizkiz]

Too much of a good thing (tag Chas)

"Oh, no, not formal," the Magus-Bestowed replied archly. "Not formal at all."

This Magus Bestowed flexed his hands, and he grinned a slow grin.

In him flowed the strength of ten men, invulnerability of hide, super-speed, and the power to unleash fire from his eyes.

"Not so formal at all," he declared, and unleashed twin blasts of heat vision towards the waiting Void Binder-- his red-sun eyes a searing counterpoint to the void-bleeding eyes with which Kiz gazed at him.

The Atlantean loved to talk. Kiz had given warning. It wasn't a threat. Kiz was prepared for a parlay. It would have resulted in something for the Atlantean. Instead the man at least had the decency to verbalize his intent. In war time, anything other than a formal parlay following the proper forms was to be viewed as another tactic to maneuver one's opponent. Understanding your opponents motivations was useful, but the Atlantean was a zealot and a fool, so Kiz didn't spend much more time than that to consider why the Atlantean would go to such efforts as to suggest talking only to buy time to attack. It wasn't like the man was the first person to try such.

No, when the man declined formal parlay and made his moves to invoke the slumbering dream of the Kawatche, and ride those tides in a way that exceeded what Ravana had gifted, Kiz had whole seconds to consider his options and weigh which abilities would manifest and how those abilities would be used. The Atlantean had demonstrated an extreme lack of patience, so Kiz banked on the sun's heat. Sure a deity's speed, strength, and endurance would be hard to overcome. But it wasn't easy to dodge something moving at the speed of light either.

Kiz's style was bold and brutal. Kiz had ample time to reaffirm his attunement not only to the moment in space and time behind the Atlantean, but also with the leyline that he'd coopted. He'd bent one of the Earth's arcane arteries and fashioned along its length a skein of Void script. The sole purpose of which was to pull. He could have compressed space and that would have had an approximate effect. Instead, he'd compressed time. An hour's walk became a handful of seconds. But it was still an hour's walk.

If Kiz had compressed space, then the Atlantean's fancy new solar vision would have just arrived in Englewood faster then light otherwise could without traveling any faster. Instead, what the Atlantean found was that an hour passed in seconds. The man's speed was no doubt super, but reactions required awareness.

So Kiz reappeared behind the man in-between the moments of when the man's eyes opened and the first ray of heat shot out. Like a spider walking upon its webs, Kiz was adapt at moving through distortions in time and space, especially those of his own making. Could someone gifted with Ravana's power, someone capable of distorting spacetime adapt and even compensate? Sure, if they realized everything and had a distributed intelligence and experience. And unless the Atlantean reacted, an hour passed in a second. An hour of firing heat energy powerful enough to incinerate flesh and turn water into steam. That was quite a lot of energy to discharge for the seconds it took to incinerate a man or the minutes it might take to turn a lake into vapor. However, Kiz had only ever seen two Solar Incarna discharge for longer than a handful of minutes. In both cases, the individuals had paid with their lives. Perhaps the Atlantean had access to enough energy to pay the price. There was the power and lives of other Bestowed.

Which was why several of the Nadeau arrayed around the Terminus of the leyline dove into the tunnel and used the same time distorting acceleration to reach the Atlantean in the same second-that-was-an-hour. Their beaks were their own kryptonite. They devoured in a way that surpassed even the god slaying, world eating appetite of Jörmungandr. Jörmungandr had god killing venom and the capacity to swallow most things. The Nadeau were the exact opposite but worse. They were inevitability. Their beaks pierced souls and ripped wriggling bits of a being's permanent essence. Their claws lodged deep. Morsel by morsel, they reduced endless things to nothingness. Kiz hadn't defeated them with force but rather by a promise. Something only those bound to a Void Binder ever learned. A terrible compromise that both parties were unable to reject.

And the fate of all those in Englewood who might be on the end of that epic discharge of solar energy? Well, Kiz never had high hopes for those in the stadium.

 

[TertiusHuman]

Animals are known to have a sixth sense of coming danger.

Actually it is just their awareness of magnetic fields and since all living tissue has an electric current, that would explain why animals can sense the approach of others and use their normal senses to react.

Thing is that humans have the same sense, but it is so underdeveloped that we hardly notice danger until it becomes that split-second decision.

Enter Garfield.

He infusion with The Red, even though not as fully capable as it could be, still is enough to give him that few split seconds more than a normal human would get.

When the big dude crashed down and did the Hulk-clap thing, Garfield had a split second to react. The swarm was luckily not spread out, so the change happened just as the shockwave hit him. He was still in mid-change, so he tumbled for a few feet and crashed to the ground.

An emerald furred Wolverine got shakily to it's feet. Snarled at the threat of the new founded Bestowed and charged, as it hit it's top speed, it changed into a green furred adult Wooley Mamoth. Whom crashed into the Bestowed Ajarjar at a speed of thirty miles an hour, which sounds slow until you place the driving force of six tons behind that thirty miles an hour impact.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Catching Fire. (tags Nightwing)

As he flipped into a better position he threw an incendiary pellet at each. He knew that upon making contact with them they'd ignite an spread on them like napalm.

He landed on his feet and looked to see what the results would become. Though if he was right it would be similar to what they did to her. In which case they were getting off lightly.

Those pellets flew straight and true.

Almost languidly, they sailed across the distance and intersected with their targets as though they had been inevitable.

Fire flared. Ignition gel coated them both and blazed to superheated life on contact with oxygen.

The Pale Bestowed both screamed, screamed on a shrill frequency heard by dogs and monsters and mind-readers, falling like buzz-bombs from the sky as they clawed helplessly uselessly at the fire.

Still struggling to focus, to think straight, Lisa Snart nevertheless had the wherewithal to wrap Rose up in her tendrils like a blanket, snuff out the flames.

"That's it, tanless," Glider shook her head. "I'm getting you out of here. I promised Kiz I'd do this if you fell, and I don't think a handshake with him is anything to fuck with."

Rose lay in Glider's grasp, sizzling and smouldering, whole gaping patches of her flesh having been gnawed away by fire. But she shook her head.

"No. No. I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet."

And she flung out a hand towards the two falling Bestowed who had copied the powers of Pale Martians-- and she saw in their minds, the burning agony of pyrophobic fear, the Curse of H'ronmeer...

...and as their minds boiled and quaked in primal terror, she could very easily see there, nestled in their dreamings like a tick burrowed into skin... could very easily see the spirit-presence of the Ravana-fragments embedded there.

And she reached out with her hand and she curled it into a fist and she yanked.

And with all the raw power of a Martian mind, she ripped those Ravana-fragments out of those two and hurled them in the direction of Kiz' Key Dagger for them to get caught up in that artifact's inexorable gravity.

The explosion of psychokinetic and spiritual energy that resulted from the forcible exorcism of those spirit-fragments was enough to blast the flame off of the two falling Bestowed.

So when they crashed to an empty patch of football field below, they were extinguished, and they were powerless, and they lay there in crumpled heaps, brainblown and comatose but alive.

Rose wasn't finished yet. In her mind's eye, she saw another Bestowed laying nearby, the one that Nightwing had knocked unconscious, and in his dreaming mind there waited another festering Ravana-fragment. With a cry of agony and triumph, Rose carved that fragment out of him, too, and flung this towards Kiz.

She gazed at Nightwing with eyes scorched nearly shut.

<Thank you,> resounded in his mind.

Then she looked up at Glider and nodded, and Glider soared away towards the ley-tunnel.

But even as she flew...

...Rose was healing.

Shapeshifting and rebuilding herself.

Even now, she wasn't beaten.

And then, a small handful of civilians turned and looked at Nightwing and registered his presence. They were awake, they were aware! They had been dislodged from their waking collective nightmare by Rose's telepathic influence, and they were shaken but they were coming back to themselves.

"Sir, are you a superhero?"

"What can we do to help?"

"Tell us what to do!"

 

[Wyldfire]

Hey, we all have our strong points and our blind spots.

What Thea didn't know was that the curse that struck her had been cast invoking the goddess Ixchel of the Mayan Codices. As a jaguar goddess of medicine and midwifery, the grandmotherly deity had been called upon to usher Thea back into life over and over again-- midwifing her back from the dead.

But it was still a curse, regardless of the potential benefits of having life after life after life, nine extra quarters in the arcade machine before the continue finished counting down.

And the nature of the jaguar seeped more and more into Thea with every return from the threshold of Ixchel's healing hands. And more and more of her humanity seeped... out.

With her elevated physical proficiencies and passion for predation, Wildcat had become a killing machine that The Bestowed could not easily match in their present debuffed state. Still worse for The Bestowed, accessing the mystic power that slithered sinuously through Thea's life-force and bloodstream could only help them after the moment of death. And of course, the moment of death would untether their Ravana fragments from their spirits and with that would go their ability to utilize blood-magic in the first place-- preventing their ability to access Thea's powers after their own deaths.

Catch-22.

However, the game changed significantly when a mammoth-powered Bestowed dropped from the sky to attack Beast Boy's pest patrol.

Even with her feline-enhanced attributes and ferocity, Thea would be outclassed by such an opponent.

And her new Rogue friends were a little preoccupied playing laser-tag with the bobbing, weaving, floating, 'porting spellcasters to immediately respond to this new threat.

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!

As the giant started to advance Thea started to circle around the new entry to keep him away from Cold and Heatwave. That was secondary to how to drop this new threat. She knew she stood no chance to beat it down. Anything like a sleeper hold was out. Maybe she could blind it. She had a feeling this was going to not end well.

Wildcat made her move. Fainting a low move she threw herself high, claws out. Her intent was to slash her opponent's eyes. "Twice in one day is too many times
To die" was all she could think about. But she figured that was going to be the case.......

 

[Wyldfire]

Animals are known to have a sixth sense of coming danger.

Actually it is just their awareness of magnetic fields and since all living tissue has an electric current, that would explain why animals can sense the approach of others and use their normal senses to react.

Thing is that humans have the same sense, but it is so underdeveloped that we hardly notice danger until it becomes that split-second decision.

Enter Garfield.

He infusion with The Red, even though not as fully capable as it could be, still is enough to give him that few split seconds more than a normal human would get.

When the big dude crashed down and did the Hulk-clap thing, Garfield had a split second to react. The swarm was luckily not spread out, so the change happened just as the shockwave hit him. He was still in mid-change, so he tumbled for a few feet and crashed to the ground.

An emerald furred Wolverine got shakily to it's feet. Snarled at the threat of the new founded Bestowed and charged, as it hit it's top speed, it changed into a green furred adult Wooley Mamoth. Whom crashed into the Bestowed Ajarjar at a speed of thirty miles an hour, which sounds slow until you place the driving force of six tons behind that thirty miles an hour impact.

Thea saw the shifter in action and aborted her move dodging to the side. She would make her move if the Bestowed survived.

 

[Varshanka]

Pain is my friend, and i'll show you it's face.

Slamming to the ground with ash billowing around her The Word of Vengeance gazed forth. Ripping the helmet from her head, burning eyes glared around her, flesh did not exist as she was. There was only the Burning.

And it was terrible to behold. Flames writhed and danced around her skull as dark shadowy embers spoke volumes of pain and despair that awaited all those that had the misfortune to gaze into those eyes.

Using the shotgun the infernal aspect blasted the ground around until there was naught but a flaming pit of ruin and boiling rock. Screaming it rage until the ground shook, the Rider stopped holding back and gave freedom to it’s full rage. Rage at the Commands that held. Rage at the failures of the past, and it’s eternally infernal damnation, for those failures.

Burning in Rage and Pain, the rider let more aspects of it’s true form come forth. Wings of molten black flame rippling from it’s back, once when it had been an Angel of Justice those had been purest white. But since the fall…

They had burned during the fall, set aflame that would never stop burning. The only time they didn’t burn, and hurt, was when the Mortal that was Host was in control. And that was not often with the evil in the world of Mortal man. Evil deeds called forth the Rider, demanded it respond and pronounce Judgement.

And in this place and time there was a lot of evil.

But that was kind of understating things.

 

[Varshanka]

Falling under the mass of numbers as the Rider vanished, and the Bestowed over ran her position, Karan was pummeled to her knees, the sheer mass of numbers using her powers against her more overwhelming than anything she’d imagined.

“She’ll fail.”

“She will not.”

“She’s weak.”

“Frail.”

“She doesn’t have his strength. His power.”

“Calm.. She will succeed.”

“She’ll fall. She’ll quit.”

“She won’t.”

“She’ll surrender to the darkness, and let it consume her.”

“She will have the strength to overcome.”

It would be so easy to just give up. Let them win. The world of Man didn’t want her to help them. Not when they did things like this. Not when they committed such evil deeds. Just give up rang through her skull with each punch. Each kick. Each burning spell that ripped into her flesh and soul.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t give up. Not with Rose out there, still fighting.

*****

The Rider vanished, wreaking havoc and chaos in it’s wake. Sending a furious blast of energy at Karan’s attackers before they could focus their attacks and actually work together better. And before they could focus their fury on her, Raven vanished from the battlefield, her hand on Karan’s shoulder.

Two could play the teleportation game.

Dropping the Kryptonian female between Kiz and his attacker, before either of them could react, stolen energy was returned to it’s rightful place. Golden bracers blocked the brunt of death energy, splashing and diffusing it. Enveloped by the red energy eye beams, stolen and copied, Karan felt the heat surround her. And she sucked it up like a bikini clad babe on a beach sucked up the sun and got a tan. Or like an alcoholic drank deep of a bottle of cheap bourbon.

Exploding into action, she ran, twisting and turning around Bestowed like they were standing as still as statues. She blurred even to the Rider supernatural perceptions, she moved like one touched by The Higher Powers and huge swaths of people began vanishing from the stadium.

 

[Varshanka]

Renegade's pain.

With her guts twisting and writhing, and her target vanishing, Renegade rolled onto her back and ripped open her black leather jacket. Hell it hurt. Almost like a gut shot. To bad a gut shot would have killed her faster. This was the Spanish Inquisition all over again.

Pulling a knife from her boot she dropped it as a pain spasm caused her to contort, her hand flexing and twisting with the pain. Scrabbling for the fallen blade she pulled up her shirt. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she changed with this shit inside her. And for someone as old as she was, she knew when something was foreign to her body.

Sliding the blade into her left stomach, just above her hip she dragged the razor sharp blade swiftly to the right. A chuckle crossed through her as she realized if she was committing seppuku. But sometimes one had to die in order to survive.

Coughing she felt blood explode from mouth and nose as another spasm ripped through her. Shoving her free hand into the ghastly open wound she dug around, pulling out coils of massive snakes, every one of them nasty and venomous. Not that she cared about the venom, not like it could really kill her. But damned it sucked getting bitten.

Fuck, everything was getting dim and blurry. She had to hurry. Death was creeping up on her, and fast.

Hands shook as she ripped, and threw, teeth clenched together as pain wracked her body. Reaching inside she felt around, nothing, nothing else that shouldn’t be in there. Everything in place.

Collapsing back onto the stone roof she felt the shivers of lingering death pass through. Fuck. Unconsciousness was next, then death eventually and renewal, sometime after that.

Fuck it. Death was inevitable. Faster was always better.

Grabbing her back up she held it to her temple, her hand shaking with pain. With trembling fingers she dug the barrel into her temple, making sure to not miss.

Bang!

Moments later the corpse twitched, glowing as wounds knit back together, and changed.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Velocity had changed her path. She had seen the battle between Kiz and the bloodborne near the entrance to the void tunnel and then she had noticed something odd. Kiz had used some sort of magic to bend time or speed himself up in a localised area because an attack from the Bloodborne that should have taken but mere moments was taking forever.

Caron could also see that energy was going to hit or come very close to the tunnel so throwing more people inside at the moment was not a good idea. However finding someone that could help evacuate large numbers of them all at once was.

She had a few choices. Wonder girl could travel pretty much as fast as her, but she would have the same problem of taking one or two people. Well maybe not. With her strength maybe she could carry a few more. Although how they would survive the ferocious speeds was a problem.

Miss Martian was supposed to have the same abilities as the Martin man hunter and he could travel almost as fast as Superman so maybe she could do the same. Although her best bet would probably be Raven. With her ability to teleport she should be able to get large amounts of people out. Just how many Carin didn't know, but it had to be worth a shot.

She raced towards the battle determined to find her, dodging around the near still combatants. She was making a sweep near where she had last seen Aquaman when she saw a problem. A large Ajagar was descending on him and it looked like he was not going to get out of the way in time. Rushing in she grabbed him and moved him to a safe distance away, placing him in cover but near the Green Arrow and whatever that shadowy dragon thing was so he would still have defenders.

With that she returned to her search. Raven had to be around here somewhere.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Microwave Goodbye. (tags Static)

The moment the bestowed went to attack, Static launched the rebar at him. Seconds later he launched another and another and another, each one faster than the last.

Roaring with effort and with fury, the bloodmage tuned Static's pirated powers to the task, slapping each length of rebar out of the air even as they sped at him with the lethality of crossbow bolts, but he was barely keeping up--

Static launched forward after his attacks and went to slam into the bestowed and grab hold of him. Trying to touch skin to skin.

...contact!

While most of the Bestowed was covered in a billowing hooded robe, Static's lunge was able to clap a hand onto his wrist.

He would see just how much this pretender could take. How much juice it would take to fry him. Make him pop like an over ripened grape.

As volt after volt after volt, amp after amp after amp stormed into this wannabe through Static's cling, the Bestowed snarled and attempted to discharge that energy even as fast as Static fed it to him, bolts of blood-red lightning stabbing out around them, carving up the landscape, blowing craters around them, making their little part of the battlefield nigh-unapproachable for anyone else.

But as much as that Bestowed released the energy being force-fed into him, he couldn't get rid of it as fast as Static channeled it. And after only a few moments of this furious exchange he began to... melt...

...his skin bubbling under Static's grip, his whole biology slagging into syrup, unable to maintain cohesion in the face of these titanic electromagnetic stresses.

He didn't even have enough structural integrity to scream one last hateful mantra as he puddled at Static's feet below the hover of the disk.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gravity Crush. (tags Arrow and Velocity)

The plummeting Ajagar loomed like the shadow of a rogue moon crashing out of orbit, and Aquaman gritted his teeth.

There was no time to switch The Trident's power to a forcefield-- even if doing so wouldn't doom so many of his friends to near-instant death as soon as the bloodmages got back their power to boil others' blood--

--there was only time to marvel, in an elongated instant, at the ridiculous courage and fortitude of this new Green Arrow. To even aim and fire in such impossible circumstances would be the stuff of legend. To dare to even try with such spindly twigs for projectiles bordered on the mythological.

And yet.

Yet as he drew back on the second, that feeling came again, more powerfully than ever before and he concentrated not only on his target, but his whole energy into his arrow and let fly.As it left his string it was as if a part of him had flown off and towards the descending Ajagar.

And then it hit bottom, and Kaldur didn't even have time to pray to Father Neptune, or venerate his king, or regret being unable to take his true father off of the board...

Connor threw himself flat, trying desperately to get out of the impact zone. Behind him was a loud explosion as the large body crashed through the asphalt and then created an impact crater several feet deep. Dust and debris was kicked up as Connor rolled and rolled, eventually springing to his feet, an arrow on his string, looking towards where a dark silhouette stood in the dust.

Slowly the dust settled and he sighed with relief. The Ajagar was standing in the crater, not moving with one arrow in it's eye and another buried from under it's chin straight through it's head.

It stood for a moment.

And then toppled like a redwood, a long slow timmmmmbeeeerrrrrr crash.

A crash that should, by all rights, have turned the young Aquaman to so much light chunk tuna.

And yet.

The Justice League chose its friends well.

Rushing in she grabbed him and moved him to a safe distance away, placing him in cover but near the Green Arrow and whatever that shadowy dragon thing was so he would still have defenders.

He felt that wrenching in his guts as Velocity dragged him one way and inertia tried to anchor him the other... but then when the dust came billowing settling down, Aquaman was alive and well and crouching behind a toppled-over RV for shelter, none the worse for wear.

If he had not spent years fighting alongside Kid Flash, he would not have known what had happened-- but as it was, he smiled gratefully to himself, and gritted his teeth to desperately maintain the blood-boil debuff.

And yet... a thought occurred to him, peering out at that unmoving husk that had once been a bloodbent mammoth-man. How had Arrow killed such a beast... with mere arrows?

With that she returned to her search. Raven had to be around here somewhere.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Going at it Tusk and Claw. (tags Beast Boy, Wildcat)

As the giant started to advance Thea started to circle around the new entry to keep him away from Cold and Heatwave.

Wildcat made her move. Fainting a low move she threw herself high, claws out. Her intent was to slash her opponent's eyes. "Twice in one day is too many times to die" was all she could think about. But she figured that was going to be the case.......

When the big dude crashed down and did the Hulk-clap thing, Garfield had a split second to react. The swarm was luckily not spread out, so the change happened just as the shockwave hit him. He was still in mid-change, so he tumbled for a few feet and crashed to the ground.

An emerald furred Wolverine got shakily to it's feet. Snarled at the threat of the new founded Bestowed and charged, as it hit it's top speed, it changed into a green furred adult Wooley Mamoth. Whom crashed into the Bestowed Ajarjar at a speed of thirty miles an hour, which sounds slow until you place the driving force of six tons behind that thirty miles an hour impact.

Thea saw the shifter in action and aborted her move dodging to the side. She would make her move if the Bestowed survived.

A mammoth-man getting run over by an actual mammoth was a wonder to behold indeed, but with a roar of maximum effort that Bloodmage-Ajagar grappled onto the gleaming emerald tusks of Mammoth!Gar and braced both feet hard against the ground...

...like a sumo-wrestling match for thunder lizards, the collision shook the earth, and as Gar's momentum shoved the Ajagar back its feet carved trenches into the ground.

As soon as it got its footing, its leverage, it would be able to bring its full strength to bear against Mammoth!Gar, and since Gar only weighed six tons, and the Ajagar could lift twenty...

...this could shortly be a problem for Gar's current tactic.

However.

Speaking of animal powers.

In her last transition back from death and into life, Thea Grant gained the eyes of a cat. And with that vastly enhanced vision, Thea would be able to see that as this Ajagar-Bestowed was grunting and straining against a mammoth, the armor-plates that were its tank-thick skin were shifting and bunching up around its legs...

...exposing the back of one ankle.

Achilles, meet heel.

Were her claws magically sharp enough to sever those tendons, cripple the beast, and allow Gar to trample all over him? Like that proverbial cat, perhaps she'd be curious enough to try... or die trying?

 

[Zet_Cross]

The Wave Beam's phased-energy matrix did not do overall as much damage as the Plasma Shot or a fully loaded-out Missile, but it did specifically damage organic targets-- even if it had to phase through material obstacles to get there.

Fully charged against a mid-powered living thing, it did more than disrupt neural pathways, it basically carbonized the woman's nervous system and stopped her heart mid-tick.

She ragdolled to the deck. The forcible transmutation of G.R.I.D.'s innards immediately stopped, and his healing factor quickly reasserted the integrity of his physiology. It would still take a few moments for him to get back up to full strength, however.

I shall reserve the right to say 'I told you so' at a later junction. You have more targets inbound.

Recommend continued application of lethal force, Milton.

After a momentary pause GRID stands back up and refocuses his efforts on the Bestowed. "How many more of those shots can we manage?"

20 more before you burn out the whole Cannon.

"Ah. Better make them count then." GRID chose to focus on any Bestowed approaching the stadium and the escaping civilians.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Gunning Right Into Danger. (tags G.R.I.D.)

After a momentary pause GRID stands back up and refocuses his efforts on the Bestowed. "How many more of those shots can we manage?"

20 more before you burn out the whole Cannon.

"Ah. Better make them count then." GRID chose to focus on any Bestowed approaching the stadium and the escaping civilians.

Engaging targets of opportunity was an effective approach, and many Bestowed died sizzling under his suppressive fire.

Constantly monitoring the ebb and flow of tactical data on the battlefield to provide a fluidly updated HUD for Professor Fine's edification, Lysl's sensor logs registered an anomaly on a nearby rooftop near the perimeter of the parking lot.

Additional sitrep: allied sniper designate 'Renegade' is presently undergoing autoresurrective metamorphosis.

Recommend providing tactical support until his/her/their ability to self-defend is restored.

 

[Zet_Cross]

Engaging targets of opportunity was an effective approach, and many Bestowed died sizzling under his suppressive fire.

Constantly monitoring the ebb and flow of tactical data on the battlefield to provide a fluidly updated HUD for Professor Fine's edification, Lysl's sensor logs registered an anomaly on a nearby rooftop near the perimeter of the parking lot.

Additional sitrep: allied sniper designate 'Renegade' is presently undergoing autoresurrective metamorphosis.

Recommend providing tactical support until his/her/their ability to self-defend is restored.

Not even pretending to understand what auto-resurrective metamorphosis is GRID rushed to Renegade's position to provide covering fire. Shooting down and Kali that approach.

 

[Wyldfire]

Tag Chas, Gar, Rogues. Anyone that can keep it and Gar from landing on her....

A mammoth-man getting run over by an actual mammoth was a wonder to behold indeed, but with a roar of maximum effort that Bloodmage-Ajagar grappled onto the gleaming emerald tusks of Mammoth!Gar and braced both feet hard against the ground...

...like a sumo-wrestling match for thunder lizards, the collision shook the earth, and as Gar's momentum shoved the Ajagar back its feet carved trenches into the ground.

As soon as it got its footing, its leverage, it would be able to bring its full strength to bear against Mammoth!Gar, and since Gar only weighed six tons, and the Ajagar could lift twenty...

...this could shortly be a problem for Gar's current tactic.

However.

Speaking of animal powers.

In her last transition back from death and into life, Thea Grant gained the eyes of a cat. And with that vastly enhanced vision, Thea would be able to see that as this Ajagar-Bestowed was grunting and straining against a mammoth, the armor-plates that were its tank-thick skin were shifting and bunching up around its legs...

...exposing the back of one ankle.

Achilles, meet heel.

Were her claws magically sharp enough to sever those tendons, cripple the beast, and allow Gar to trample all over him? Like that proverbial cat, perhaps she'd be curious enough to try... or die trying?

Thea saw the opening and thought of the times in the octagon she had missed this sort of thing. The thought flashed through her mind and instinct kicked in. In said instinct instead of hitting the palm triggers to release her claws she made a muscle tense in her hands. This provoked an odd sensation as between the first and second joints of her fingers, muscles she didn't know she had went to work and her fingernails extended out another inch from their already half inch length. No thought. Pure instinct, she lunged striking that opening she saw with these new claws..... Just before she hit the backs of the Mammoth mage's knees she curled into a ball and managed "Wave! Help" After that she slammed into the beast mage's knees knocking the wind and composure out of herself.

Kitty cat, meet brick wall.