Justice League: The New Wave (IC)

[ChasNicollette]

You can't spell 'funfair' without 'unfair.'

Quickly he pulled and shot three normal arrows at the balls he was juggling. At any given time there was a point where each was out of his control, having left his hands and flying through the air. That was the point at which he shot knowing where the ball was going to be in the arc and where to place his arrow.

Connor Hawke's aim was immaculate. One. Two. Three. The arrows drilled into the bouncy-balls, knocking them from their orbital arc around Carny's hands and sending them ricocheting away.

Without missing a beat, Carny snagged the Viewmaster from the air with one hand--

As the third arrow left his bow, he reached over his shoulder and drew another one and let fly. This was another one he had developed with the help of the Atom. It contained a super adhesive foam that covered a person entire body but still enabled them to breathe through it. The one arrow head contained enough to cover 4 or 5 people so it should be enough to deal with him.

--and held up the other, palm out, firing a stream of blue electro-plasmic fire from one of those joybuzzers he'd been playing with earlier, vaporizing the glue-bomb arrow even as it zeroed in on him.

"Oh, now, the chutzpah on you, Loxley!"

"Even that twat Deadeye never shot me in the balls as his opening move!"

"Fortunately," he smirked, "my balls bounce back!"

And where the bounce-balls had landed after having been hit by Arrow's arrows...

...they were still bouncing. And every time they hit the ground, they-- split? They doubled. Replicated. And on top of that...

...with every bounce...

...they were bouncing higher, harder, faster?

In seconds there were hordes of bounding and rebounding balls, like a storm of murderous Flubber, hopping skipping jumping between Connor and Carny, moving fast enough to break bone on impact if Hawke got too close.

...blocking Connor's view, blocking his shots, or at least making them nigh-impossible.

At which point Carny whirled, whooping, and started running towards the funhouse building.

"More balls where that came from, Fletch!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Without a Trace.

Zooming in she began running super loops around him creating a mini tornado around him.

Faster and faster she ran, her plan was to either cause him to be sucked up into the vortex, or suck the air from his immediate area and cause him to black out.

Vincent "Tracer" Cade was possessed of a furious bloodlust.

But he could also be... patient.

Waiting juuuuust long enough to pounce. And kill.

He was also... heavy.

Not only was he taller than any human man had any right to be, but he was built like a brick outhouse and all muscle... and his bones were hundreds of pounds heavily bonded with Indeliblium.

That and his incredibly efficient metabolism would keep him from passing out for significantly longer than a baseline human...

...giving him juuuuust long enough to rake the ground around him with claws and nails, carving troughs in the moon rock...

...and unleashing a scatter of shrapnel and dust, kicking them into the whirling vortex around him in a cloud.

Now, Velocity's Speed Force aura would absolutely keep the grains of dust from sandblasting her corneas, but her vision would still be momentarily occluded, and at speeds like she was traveling, seeing where she was going was crucial...

 

[Wyldfire]

Aquagirl blinked at that message across her watch. Sure, it would be good to have the ultra girl getting her back-- Rebel seemed like good people-- but hijo de puta, why the Hell was this new RoboBat sending a minnow against an orca?

Lorena flexed her hands, tried to remember the things that Mera had taught her, tried to remember her combat training-- Aquaman had fought Superboy before, right? That thing at Pearl Harbor? That was... sort of the same thing as this, right? ...except she didn't have a pod of humpbacks with her.

She tried to catch Jo's eye, toss her a quick bro-nod, if Rebel was down with this then she could be steely too...

Jo returned the nod and when Barracuda went after Renegade Rebels eyes exploded with near full force flash vision. Let's see how chicken of the sea likes fire....

 

[ChasNicollette]

Seacide.

Jo returned the nod and when Barracuda went after Renegade Rebels eyes exploded with near full force flash vision. Let's see how chicken of the sea likes fire....

With a snarl of... disappointment... she'd been looking forward to smearing what passed for Renegade's brains across Moonbase Ex with her kneecap...

...Barracuda threw on the brakes in mid-air, her ankle-wings flaring, and snapped up her arm to catch the flash-vision heat blast on her wrist-guard much like Karan would do with her vambraces forged by Hephaesta...

...but it was clear she wasn't happy getting that close to that much radiant energy, moreso than just the inconvenience of it.

"Very well. It seems that I am not the only one with teeth."

"Let me punch yours to the back of your throat!"

Abandoning Renegade where she'd fallen, Barracuda flew then at Rebel, full-tilt with a spinning backhand punch that might swat the head off of the backwoods brawler's shoulders...

 

[Wyldfire]

With a snarl of... disappointment... she'd been looking forward to smearing what passed for Renegade's brains across Moonbase Ex with her kneecap...

...Barracuda threw on the brakes in mid-air, her ankle-wings flaring, and snapped up her arm to catch the flash-vision heat blast on her wrist-guard much like Karan would do with her vambraces forged by Hephaesta...

...but it was clear she wasn't happy getting that close to that much radiant energy, moreso than just the inconvenience of it.

"Very well. It seems that I am not the only one with teeth."

"Let me punch yours to the back of your throat!"

Abandoning Renegade where she'd fallen, Barracuda flew then at Rebel, full-tilt with a spinning backhand punch that might swat the head off of the backwoods brawler's shoulders...

Tough. Just stay tough an keep filet a fish busy so Aquagirl can do her voodoo. "
Yeah, I got teeth. Got tits an ass too," she braced and took the blow with raised forearms. "That all ya got, or are ya a sprokin blowhole?" keep th mouth goin girl. This one's got a temper. Tempers make mistakes. "Din't yer momma never tell ya not to go out in Public with that fishy smell on ya?"

 

[Zet_Cross]

Dr. Mortimer Gorgonzola snarled in startlement, astonished as the spherical G.R.I.D. raced towards him, but instantly reacted by rearing up one of his mighty prehensile extensible tentacles and bringing it smashing down, aiming to punch G.R.I.D. like spiking a volleyball deep into the moon-rock.

"Don't give me that half-baked Freudian pseudoscience-- you're as bad as that insipid, inferior Bug, prattling nonstop nonsense! Well, I will splatter you like I never got to splatter him!"

Morph Ball GRID jumped into the air as the tentacle came swooping down, landing on the appendage and using one of his new upgrades Spider Climbed across the arm towards the 'good' doctor. In his place however he left a little present for Gorgon to scoop up in his place; an energy bomb courtesy of another upgrade, the Morph Ball Bombs.

 

[Wyldfire]

And GRIDS move led to Thea making her move. She had kept quiet as a cat and been positioning herself for an attack. Thea hadn't spent the last couple of weeks just on her back, she'd been figuring out some of her new abilities. The main being a combat/hunting instinct. She slung herself at the tentacled baddie. Making a move to take him by his hamstrings....

 

[TertiusHuman]

So when G.R.I.D.'s data came through, and Batman's rundown, Atmos was able to glance down at the phone's alien screen and crow, noisily, with little care who might hear him--

"YES! A PLANETARY THREAT! At last, an opponent worthy of my fury!"

He shot a blazing grin at Beast Boy. "My verdant zoological comrade, soon you shall know the glory of fighting alongside an Uncanny Amazer!"

"'Uncanny' indeed," Doctor Diehard glowered, eyes narrowing to slits, as though that adjective held some importance to him.

Garfield looked at Atmos and shook his head, "And I thought that I talk too much."

He rolled his neck, his joints cracking slightly and walked towards Doctor Diehard.

"Now I know that you would like to blame us for the destruction of your Earth and I for one can actually understand that it will be for the best to find the culprit. But I can assure you that lashing out towards the first person you see, does not make you right and it definitely doesn't mean you have found the culprit. It makes you as evil as they come and bearing that in mind, are you really as evil as they come?"

He pointed towards the ground, indicating the Earth below them

"Or are you just under the sway of another like the Titans? Are you sure that you are in full control of your own mind?"

By now his hair stood on end from the electromagnetic forces around him, his talking gamble had brought him within striking distance, but he also wondered if he knew sufficient animals to actually attack Doctor DieHard

 

[ChasNicollette]

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week.

Tough. Just stay tough an keep filet a fish busy so Aquagirl can do her voodoo. "
Yeah, I got teeth. Got tits an ass too," she braced and took the blow with raised forearms. "That all ya got, or are ya a sprokin blowhole?" keep th mouth goin girl. This one's got a temper. Tempers make mistakes. "Din't yer momma never tell ya not to go out in Public with that fishy smell on ya?"

"You should be less concerned with my aroma, harlot," Barracuda snarled, keeping up the pressure on the invulnerable Rebel using her own speed and strength, and then breaking the pattern by attempting to reach around Rebel's blocking arms and crack the heels of her hands against Rebel's ears... "than with the stench of your blood in the water!"

As Rebel distracted Barracuda, Aquagirl furiously debated what to do.

By far her most powerful attack would be to reach into the nearby pool with her potent hydrokinesis and try to smack Barracuda off this rock with a maximum-pressure column of water...

...but didn't G.R.I.D.'s scan thing say that Barracuda's kryptonite might be her hydration levels?

Did that mean too much water hurt her, like drowning? Or that if she dried out she got weaker?

Trial and error, then.

Aquagirl flung out her hands and concentrated, attempting to exert her powers on the moisture in the air around Barracuda, and in her skin... tried to pull the water molecules away from the subaquatic powerhouse...

Barracuda grimaced, and shot a look at the waterbender that could split an ice shelf in twain. "I feel your mind, heretic sea-witch."

And with a burst of her superhuman velocity, she snapped across the intervening distance between herself and Aquagirl, a vice-like hand instantly around Lorena's wrist and exerting crushing force...

Lorena cried out and dropped to one knee, tears coming to her eyes at the unexpected, unprecedented pain. "Nyaaahhhh!"

Her metahuman body was adapted to ocean depths like any Atlantean native, but she could still only endure such pressure as this for so long...

"This weakness is what passes for Atlanteans on your world?" Barracuda sneered. "You would not survive five minutes in the depths of my ocean."

Lorena gritted her teeth, pushed through the pain... "Puta," she grimaced, "I'm from San Diego, I only work in Atlantis."

 

[ChasNicollette]

"I tell you somebody's fooling around with my chances on the dangerline..."

Morph Ball GRID jumped into the air as the tentacle came swooping down, landing on the appendage and using one of his new upgrades Spider Climbed across the arm towards the 'good' doctor. In his place however he left a little present for Gorgon to scoop up in his place; an energy bomb courtesy of another upgrade, the Morph Ball Bombs.

Gorgon hissed with fury as G.R.I.D. rolled up his telescopic tentacle at an angle perpendicular to gravity, and spat with indignation as the little spheroid bomb went off in the dexterous grasp of the tentacle, rippling shockwaves throughout the length of the arm and setting off alerts in Gorgon's bionic interface-- but without causing any appreciable damage.

With fury aforethought, Gorgon unleashed another such tentacle, aiming to swat G.R.I.D. sideways off of his limb--

--but then his extrasensory danger-alert "Gorgon-sense" trilled in his brain like a klaxon--

She slung herself at the tentacled baddie. Making a move to take him by his hamstrings....

--so instead Gorgon leaped straight up a vertical thirty feet, and as he hurtled upward he fired a strand of super-strong chemical webbing at G.R.I.D.'s morph ball, nearly impossible to break but easy to cut, and if he scored a hit with that webbing he would whiplash G.R.I.D. around like a wrecking ball and sling him directly at Wildcat...

 

[Wyldfire]

"You should be less concerned with my aroma, harlot," Barracuda snarled, keeping up the pressure on the invulnerable Rebel using her own speed and strength, and then breaking the pattern by attempting to reach around Rebel's blocking arms and crack the heels of her hands against Rebel's ears... "than with the stench of your blood in the water!"

As Rebel distracted Barracuda, Aquagirl furiously debated what to do.

By far her most powerful attack would be to reach into the nearby pool with her potent hydrokinesis and try to smack Barracuda off this rock with a maximum-pressure column of water...

...but didn't G.R.I.D.'s scan thing say that Barracuda's kryptonite might be her hydration levels?

Did that mean too much water hurt her, like drowning? Or that if she dried out she got weaker?

Trial and error, then.

Aquagirl flung out her hands and concentrated, attempting to exert her powers on the moisture in the air around Barracuda, and in her skin... tried to pull the water molecules away from the subaquatic powerhouse...

Barracuda grimaced, and shot a look at the waterbender that could split an ice shelf in twain. "I feel your mind, heretic sea-witch."

And with a burst of her superhuman velocity, she snapped across the intervening distance between herself and Aquagirl, a vice-like hand instantly around Lorena's wrist and exerting crushing force...

Lorena cried out and dropped to one knee, tears coming to her eyes at the unexpected, unprecedented pain. "Nyaaahhhh!"

Her metahuman body was adapted to ocean depths like any Atlantean native, but she could still only endure such pressure as this for so long...

"This weakness is what passes for Atlanteans on your world?" Barracuda sneered. "You would not survive five minutes in the depths of my ocean."

Lorena gritted her teeth, pushed through the pain... "Puta," she grimaced, "I'm from San Diego, I only work in Atlantis."

Jo might not remember the limits of her invulnerability, But after that earboxing she was glad for it. She wasn't dropped or crippled but it hurt like hell and then the pressure was off her. Aquagirl. Shit. Jo saw her target, switched and squinted. A tight beam of flash vision lanced out at the small of Baracuda's back. No warning this time. All business.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Magnetic Personalities.

Garfield looked at Atmos and shook his head, "And I thought that I talk too much."

"I speak loud," Atmos roared at this jest, it was a good burn, "but my actions speak louder!"

He rolled his neck, his joints cracking slightly and walked towards Doctor Diehard.

"Now I know that you would like to blame us for the destruction of your Earth and I for one can actually understand that it will be for the best to find the culprit. But I can assure you that lashing out towards the first person you see, does not make you right and it definitely doesn't mean you have found the culprit. It makes you as evil as they come and bearing that in mind, are you really as evil as they come?"

"Little Boy," Hans "Doctor Diehard" Lekter spat, "we have followed the evidence to its source. And what you call 'evil' I call a proportionate response to the oppression of genocide and injustice!"

He pointed towards the ground, indicating the Earth below them

"Or are you just under the sway of another like the Titans? Are you sure that you are in full control of your own mind?"

"My mind is protected by heavy-duty psionic cladding," Diehard replied derisively, rapping his knuckles upon his helmet, "and I am free from the shackles of the genonormative kleptocratic military-industrial complex that has programmed you to defend it! Can you say likewise?"

"If you insist on enforcing an absolute, obsolete system, then you are part of it, and are as easily torn down!"

With that, he flung out his hand, and a dozen of the metal beams from the construction site not far away hurtled at Gar at the speed of rail-gun rounds...

...but then Atmos swooped in out of nowhere, defending Beast Boy by unleashing furious nuclear blasts that reduced the reinforced alloy to dust and ash...

...then whirling with fists crackling with energy, he lunged to try and punch Diehard's helmet clean off...

"Friend Beast Boy defends the innocent life of this planet, just as I would defend every last citizen of Xanthu and their allied United Planets! Have at you, terror-monger!"

...but Atmos' fists crashed thunderously, sparkingly against an incredible dense intense electromagnetic forcefield, spherical around Diehard, and Diehard simply scoffed.

"Ah. And you seek to best me with electromagnetics as your weapon? Child, I am The Elder of Electromagnetism... and you are but a lightning bug."

Diehard clenched his hand into a fist and Atmos screamed in surprise and agony, shockwaves sputtering through his nuclear-powered form and its EM-based containment field-- suddenly he was splayed out in mid-air like The Vitruvian Man, his limbs being pulled in four different directions, his body threatening to rip asunder...

"By. By-- the Nova's-- EYYYAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Out with The Tide.

Jo might not remember the limits of her invulnerability, But after that earboxing she was glad for it. She wasn't dropped or crippled but it hurt like hell and then the pressure was off her. Aquagirl. Shit. Jo saw her target, switched and squinted. A tight beam of flash vision lanced out at the small of Baracuda's back. No warning this time. All business.

Barracuda whirled, tossing Aquagirl away like a ragdoll and blocking that flash-vision with her wrist-guards crossed low before her...

...she really didn't want those heat-lasers to hit her...

...Aquagirl rolled in the moondust when she hit the ground, but she was still conscious, and she was free of Barracuda's grasp, thank, uh, Neptune...

...she immediately started trying to heal herself, recover, regroup, but for at least the next few moments Rebel would be on her own...

 

[Wyldfire]

Barracuda whirled, tossing Aquagirl away like a ragdoll and blocking that flash-vision with her wrist-guards crossed low before her...

...she really didn't want those heat-lasers to hit her...

...Aquagirl rolled in the moondust when she hit the ground, but she was still conscious, and she was free of Barracuda's grasp, thank, uh, Neptune...

...she immediately started trying to heal herself, recover, regroup, but for at least the next few moments Rebel would be on her own...

"Fine, yer good at blockin beams..." Jo widened her eyes just a bit. Widening the beams to wide cones. "Let's have us a crab bake."

 

[TertiusHuman]

Garfield crouched down, gathering himself and then a green hued red kangaroo jumped, not at DieHard, but straight upwards, kicking out his legs behind him into a half somersault. At the zenith of his jump, Garfield flashed into human form wearinga grin and in a lazy English accent stated: "Tally ho, old chap."

As he started descending, the green hued Blue whale made it's first appearance since the bridge incident, the huge tail coming hard towards DieHard. Garfield knew that DieHard had a forcefield surrounding him, but the idea was to break the hold on Atmos and to do that you forced your opponent to focus on a new threat. And in this case, Garfield was being a 171 ton threat.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Can't spell "Electromagnetic Levitation" without "Malevolence."

"Fine, yer good at blockin beams..." Jo widened her eyes just a bit. Widening the beams to wide cones. "Let's have us a crab bake."

Barracuda slapped her wrist-guards together in front of her face to protect her eyes, but the effect was immediately visible-- her skin was starting to poach-- steam billowing from her flesh as moisture flashed to vapor--

"RRRRRRRAAAAAHHHHH!"

Garfield crouched down, gathering himself and then a green hued red kangaroo jumped, not at DieHard, but straight upwards, kicking out his legs behind him into a half somersault. At the zenith of his jump, Garfield flashed into human form wearinga grin and in a lazy English accent stated: "Tally ho, old chap."

As he started descending, the green hued Blue whale made it's first appearance since the bridge incident, the huge tail coming hard towards DieHard. Garfield knew that DieHard had a forcefield surrounding him, but the idea was to break the hold on Atmos and to do that you forced your opponent to focus on a new threat. And in this case, Garfield was being a 171 ton threat.

Diehard's other hand shot straight up, palm open, fingers spread, and he gritted his teeth--

"Hrrrrrrrhhhhh..."

--exerting magnetic forces, manipulating the magnetic fields of this Earth itself to provide counter-force to local gravity. Even though Garfield wasn't metallic, even though only relatively trace amounts of iron and ferromagnetic minerals were dissolved in Gar's blood and fluids, sheer manipulation of pure EM force would still be as an unbreakable wall--

--as Gar!Whale hit that wall, Diehard grunted with the impact, visibly straining, but indomitable, refusing to surrender--

--his other hand flung Atmos screaming at Rebel, almost as an afterthought, aiming to interrupt the heat vision effect and get Barracuda's back--

"SPROOOOOOCK--!"

And then did something else.

That hand clenched so hard you could almost see his veins jutting through the metallic skin of his uniform.

And then the ground below rumbled.

And a moment later, The Space Needle loomed up from beside the rim of Moonbase Ex, uprooted, hauled up from the ground, hundreds of thousands of pounds of it, and with the yawning sound of straining metal it rotated to aim at the whale in Diehard's grasp.

Like a harpoon. Like a harpoon the size of The Space Needle.

"'From the heart of Hell,'" Diehard quoted Moby Dick through clenched teeth, "'I stab at thee.'"

And then smirked. "'...old chap.'"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Armor Wars. (with apologies and thanks to LuckyVic's Batman)

As, to his annoyance, Raven pursued her vendetta against Dreamslayer rather than listening to his tactical recommendations, Batman squared off against Lord Havok.

Havok regarded him with body language that suggested a sneer. "I suppose you fancy yourself like unto the parable of two samurai facing across the bridge. Do they have that fable on your world?"

Batman gazed back without flinching, his sensors gathering data as they had been all along. "My mentor preferred to think of himself as a samurai. But I have always felt more kinship with the shinobi."

Havok snorted. "A shinobi. Out in broad daylight? How droll."

"Normally, it's cloudy here," Batman replied evenly, feigning politeness, and again a reference to Princess Bride might not go amiss here.

"Ah. Of course." Havok nodded as if this were riveting conversation-- and then he was done putting up with wasteful prattle, and unleashed an energy bolt from the clawed fingertip of his armor.

Batman dove to the side, evading the beam, rolling...

...lunged for Havok...

--while Havok's armor obfuscated sensory analysis of its potential capabilities, the forcefield Havok had utilized earlier had registered quite plainly, no longer potential but practical--

--and Batman's own armor had a lot of options regarding electromagnetics. Not nearly as many as Diehard, perhaps, but perhaps enough.

In the instant before he threw his punch he retuned his suit's EMP emitter to deliver a split-second burst modulated to the shield's exact amplitude and opposite wavelength, destructive interference, momentarily interrupting and canceling out the signal of Havok's field-- though Havok's field was incredibly powerful and this taxed the Batsuit's internal reactor considerably--

--Batman's fist crashed into the protective projection and the field exploded in a shattering of light and sparks, giving Batman just an instant's window to get inside its perimeter before it could snap back...

"Intriguing," Havok grunted.

Batman snapped an enhanced kick at Havok's faceplate, laser-focused and determined, soft moves at first to test this wild card's defenses...

...but Havok's gauntlet came up, and emitted-- a fist constructed out of pure golden energy? Not unlike a Green Lantern construct?

--grabbed Batman's kick around the ankle, and flung him back away with disdain.

"None. May touch. HAVOK."

Batman grin-grimaced bitterly as he landed in a crouch. "We'll see about that."

 

[Wyldfire]

Barracuda slapped her wrist-guards together in front of her face to protect her eyes, but the effect was immediately visible-- her skin was starting to poach-- steam billowing from her flesh as moisture flashed to vapor--

"RRRRRRRAAAAAHHHHH!"



Diehard's other hand shot straight up, palm open, fingers spread, and he gritted his teeth--

"Hrrrrrrrhhhhh..."

Diehard's other hand flung Atmos screaming at Rebel, almost as an afterthought, aiming to interrupt the heat vision effect and get Barracuda's back--

"SPROOOOOOCK--!"

Jo heard the incoming Sprock and moved at speed, catching Atmos out of the air. "Hey sweetie long time...." she started and then got a confused look on her face. Th hell? She din"t know this dude other than Ruby turnt into him. And how'd he know her lil made up cuss word? Later fer all a that. "Trade dance partners?" And she was a blur heading at the walking magnet, leaving Atmos with Crispy critter. Righr at his shield she pulled a high speed double shift full strength with velocity behind it to throw the blow and tough fer whatever happened next.

 

[TertiusHuman]

So the whale was doomed to die once more. But Garfield had done what he had set out to do. The Space Needle harpoon sank into thin air, from the surface bounded a severely pissed off emerald skin Bengal tiger, who landed in a crouch and launched at DieHard a second behind Jo.

The snarl would have been fearsome if something like a tiger could faze any of the combatants, but in mid-air the tiger shimmered to the more fearsome tiger. The Sabretooth.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Fundamental Forces.

Jo heard the incoming Sprock and moved at speed, catching Atmos out of the air. "Hey sweetie long time...." she started and then got a confused look on her face.

Atmos shuddered from the repercussions of Diehard's depredations, but he nodded gratefully up at Rebel... and then bewilderment crossed his face as vague memories of Atmos' life cross-fired with Ruby's. "...Nah? Grife. You got... ow... comelier? I like you better without the stubble. And with the... other things."

"Trade dance partners?" And she was a blur heading at the walking magnet, leaving Atmos with Crispy critter.

"What?" Atmos blinked, still recovering-- but Rebel was gone.

And Barracuda was weak, but not backing down-- she blurred to punch Atmos in the center of his chest, knocking him on his ass. "By the absence of much of your trunk, fool, I wager you are already damaged beyond my power to add or detract. But I am willing..." she threw another cross, viciously bashing Atmos' face, "to test that theory."

Righr at his shield she pulled a high speed double shift full strength with velocity behind it to throw the blow and tough fer whatever happened next.

Rebel slammed into Diehard's field and he roared as his shield crackled... and shuddered... and held...

...but he was unable to maintain his grip on the shapeshifting whale and it slipped through his fingers...

But Garfield had done what he had set out to do. The Space Needle harpoon sank into thin air, from the surface bounded a severely pissed off emerald skin Bengal tiger, who landed in a crouch and launched at DieHard a second behind Jo.

The snarl would have been fearsome if something like a tiger could faze any of the combatants, but in mid-air the tiger shimmered to the more fearsome tiger. The Sabretooth.

Diehard roared back in the smilodon's face, and unleashed a bolt of shattering lightning, aimed to strike Beast Boy from the air mid-pounce.

And without missing a beat, Diehard whirled and flicked his wrist... twisting the colossal Space Needle in the air and hurling it straight at Rebel with a sneer. "Catch."

If she dodged it, the titanic structure would tumble headlong to Seattle below...

...how far out had the authorities managed to evacuate the city again?

As Barracuda threw another punch, her fist... faltered... wavered... thudded ineffectually against Atmos' face...

"Whuh-- what?" she mumbled, sweat beading on her brow and evaporating...

...and Aquagirl, cradling her wrist and glowering, stepped back into the fray, her other hand outstretched and glowing. "I've just confirmed my theory, cazón."

Dehydrated, deprived of life-giving water, Barracuda slumped to the surface of Moonbase Ex. "You... little... bitch..."

"The only bastich here is you," Atmos grinned, and held up a searing fist... unleashing a furious nuclear blast right to the center of Barracuda's chest, flash-burning a crater over her heart and blowing her back...

"Atmos, no!" Lorena cried out in horror...

...as Barracuda hurtled away, skidding...

...and landing right into that waiting pool.

Sploosh.

And she emerged a moment later, grinning, levitating, refreshed, dripping wet...

...that crater healing up with a fresh layer of skin as though the injury had never been.

"Round. Two."

 

[Lunaramblings]

As The Sandman called forth more and more power from the Mantle, from The Dreaming, he started to change... flames began to creep up the edges of his long black coat, the eyes of his face mask becoming endless pools of black beyond black. The Sandman shifts nearly instantaneously from where he stood, his form growing and shifting. As he launches himself between Raven and the avian inferno screaming her way. A storm of lunar sand, somehow familiar but foreign to The Sandman as his consciousness merges with it, kicks up around Raven, the storm whispers to her...

"The Stone you wear as a Bindi. It is an Opal Dreamstone. Crafted by Morpheus. Meant to hold his soul should he need to localize is power. You should be able to use it to entrap Dreamslayer. Holding him fast. Whatever you do, do not break it, or there will be no way to stop him. We must use the stone to ensnare him. I will draw her fire, keep her busy. Use the stone."

As the flames smash into the back of The Sandman his back is melted, superheated into glass. As the golem of Sand begins to harden, The Sandman Shatters his outer layer, pulling in more and more sand and earth, both Earthbound and Lunar.

"Hey Red, that all you got? I've had beach days hotter." The Sandman folds in on himself, reversing his facing and moving toward Shadow Suparna, bringing to bear a storm of geokinetic debri, buffeting her.

"Dreamslayer, perhaps you chose the wrong puppet. If this is the best she can do... well I am not impressed. You really are a pale imitation of my My Liege."

 

[TertiusHuman]

Again the animal sixth sense saved Garfield. The lightning bolts missed him, but only because he dove underneath them to land on the ground in the form of a raven. A heartbeat later a Wooly Mammoth stood where the hawk had landed, he twisted his head and then swung that massive trunk at DieHard with all the power he could muster.

<Right now ANY help will me awesome!>

 

[ChasNicollette]

Man is a Rope Stretched Between The Animal and The Superman.

Again the animal sixth sense saved Garfield. The lightning bolts missed him, but only because he dove underneath them to land on the ground in the form of a raven. A heartbeat later a Wooly Mammoth stood where the hawk had landed, he twisted his head and then swung that massive trunk at DieHard with all the power he could muster.

Diehard scoffed as the trunk thunked hollowly against his forcefield, causing nary a ripple where Rebel's ramjet slam had caused the equivalent of a tectonic shift.

And with a wave of his hand he unleashed a photokinetic blast, pure infrared, the equivalent of a wide-beam heat-vision pulse.

"Please. Pachypax was such a dead-end of a neo-human even The G-Men didn't want him, much less my Fraternity of Zen Men."

<Right now ANY help will me awesome!>

 

[ChasNicollette]

Like a Dream You Try to Remember But it's Gone.

As the flames smash into the back of The Sandman his back is melted, superheated into glass. As the golem of Sand begins to harden, The Sandman Shatters his outer layer, pulling in more and more sand and earth, both Earthbound and Lunar.

"Hey Red, that all you got? I've had beach days hotter." The Sandman folds in on himself, reversing his facing and moving toward Shadow Suparna, bringing to bear a storm of geokinetic debri, buffeting her.

Shadow Suparṇa's face twisted into a scowl, thrusting out hands and scattering the storm of lunar-terrestrial flotsam and jetsam with a ferocious will counter to Sandman's own.

"I have eaten suns," she spat in Dreamslayer's voice. "You are but dirt beneath my heel."

"Dreamslayer, perhaps you chose the wrong puppet. If this is the best she can do... well I am not impressed. You really are a pale imitation of my My Liege."

"'Pale?'" Dreamslayer scoffed, using Shadow Suparṇa as its mouthpiece. "That's rich, considering how your boss is whiter than white bread soaked in half-and-half."

"But let me tell you something, son."

"Louise 'Suparṇa' Marino was possibly the most powerful neo-human on the face of Angor. More powerful, maybe, than even Doctor Diehard. So strong and so loyal that even when all the other Zen Men left to become Geno-Men, G-Men, she stayed behind with Dr. Lekter-- the only one of his children that didn't go prodigal. When I saw in the mind of Professor Felix Fate, Magus Maximus, the prophetic nightmare that warned of the end of the world with seconds to spare, Lekter demanded that we bring her along when we escaped to Moonbase Ex. Of course, when the shit hit the fan, she wanted to be with her estranged husband One-Eye, so she astrally projected down to Angor so she could possess his body and die joined with him."

"So now she's just a shadow of herself. An empty vessel. Shadow Suparṇa."

"And Diehard's given me all that power to play with, to use against the world that killed her soul by killing our world."

"Instead of spitting sand like a stiff Mojave breeze... you should probably be shitting all the way up and down inside that fancy flamin' coat."

And with that Shadow Suparṇa unleashed a telekinetic blast primed to shatter and scatter The Sandman to the four winds.

 

[Varshanka]

The Rider

And she emerged a moment later, grinning, levitating, refreshed, dripping wet...

...that crater healing up with a fresh layer of skin as though the injury had never been.

"Round. Two."

Snarling The Rider watched as the psychopathic monstrosity know as Carny shambled into a funhouse, why it was on the moon had it’s own discussion. But that was neither here nor now.

And there was time for insanity after. For the moment The Rider aimed it’s flaming sword at Barracuda, and unleashed enough Hellfire to vaporize it’s life giving puddle of dampness to nothing. And with that much Hellfire there was always going to be overflow – onto anything standing in/on/around that puddle.