Justice League: The New Wave (IC)

[Varshanka]

Wondergirl has a potty mouth

"'Frail' means woman," Tracer grinned his deadly, pointed, Indeliblium teeth.

"Fer obvious reasons. But seein' as yer Martian concubine just got flambeed, m'thinkin' maybe ya got more pressin' business ta attend."

Grabbing Rose, Karan held the love of her life, hoping se understood she was never alone, and Karan was right here with her. And with a glance she sliced the air with fire from her eyes. Twin beams of violent ruby light targeting not His face or chest. But his teeth. Teeth of metel. Metal teeth. Metal skeleton by his claws. And Metal got very hot very fast.

“Burn for ME!” she yelled at him. “Asshole...”

 

[Varshanka]

Renegade is out for Vengeance...

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...

Rising from the ground Renegade walked forwards her body healing in moments from the beating. That which didn’t kill her didn’t matter. And that which did kill her, just pissed her off. The closer she got the faster she ran, even when The Rider unleashed the Hell storm of Fire she didn’t stop. If anything she ran faster, driving forwards through the fire to attack Barracuda with her teeth and hands.

 

[Varshanka]

Raven

"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."

“It’s not a Bindi, it’s a prison for my father.” Raven murmured, locking eyes with The Sandman.

Casting her gaze back at The Dreaming Darkness she continued casting whatever spell she was planning, but the tone, the inflection was changing. “I’ll pray for you,” she whispered the haunting chant of her rhythmic song fading into the moonscape. “But from thy prison, you shall walk – nevermore.”

Prisons were places for bad people, or things. She knew this wouldn’t be the end of the fight, but hopefully this would remove one combatant. Stepping forwards she took every spell, every shred of energy cast near, at, or around her and funneled it into the magical psytrap that she had created.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Octorok.

--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...

Gorgon's webbing latched onto G.R.I.D., and he lashed the armored hero towards Wildcat...

...but in mid-air, G.R.I.D. popped out of the Morph Ball shape, Space Jumped and tucked into a flip...

...the flip activated the Screw Attack and the crackling kinetic envelope severed the webbing...

G.R.I.D. landed in a crouch next to Wildcat, firing off a missile even as moondust puffed around his boots.

"Newsflash, Admiral Ackbar. You sprung a trap on us, but now you're trapped in it with us!"

With a roar of fury, Gorgon tentacle-swatted the missile away, letting it explode out in the air over Seattle...

...and backflipped to land upside-down, clinging to the panoramic windows of the citadel from which The Extremists had emerged when all of this had first started. His tentacles writhed about him like serpents.

"Nuisances! I will not brook nuisances!"

And he fired webbing from both hands, attempting to glue both Wildcat and G.R.I.D. to the ground at their feet-- whilst simultaneously lashing out with a tentacle each, hoping to take them out if they jumped the spurt of adhesive.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Backlash.

Grabbing Rose, Karan held the love of her life, hoping se understood she was never alone, and Karan was right here with her.

Thanks to Sandman taking the heat for her-- quite literally-- Rose had a moment to recover. Her body began to heal almost instantly, there in Karan's arms.

<"I'm here,"> M'gann murmured. <"I'm here, she's here, we both love you in different ways.">

<"And I'm going to tell you a secret. Yes, you're Martian. But you're more than just Martian. You are much, much more than that. You need to remember that if you're going to survive this. Your grand'father'... well. That's a long story. Just remember. Fire is a Martian weakness. And you are more than just Martian.">

Rose shuddered and gasped for breath as she blinked open eyes that had been seared shut with ash. She awoke.

And with a glance she sliced the air with fire from her eyes. Twin beams of violent ruby light targeting not His face or chest. But his teeth. Teeth of metel. Metal teeth. Metal skeleton by his claws. And Metal got very hot very fast.

“Burn for ME!” she yelled at him. “Asshole...”

Karan's heat vision blasted Tracer out of the whirlwind that Velocity had trapped him in, blowing him skidding away across the surface of Moonbase Ex. His skeleton, teeth, claws, all bonded and implanted with Foremost Indeliblium, were so indestructible as to functionally have no melting point. But oh, they could get hot. So very, very hot...

...his skin started to bubble, his nerves started to fry...

...he roared with pain, spasming and frothing there on the ground, but he healed as fast as he burned, and even in his agony he started laughing...

Even as recently as a couple of weeks ago, Karan's firing off her heat vision right next to her would have caused Rose immeasurable agony, but now... now... Rose only winced... a little... as Karan unleashed white-hot heat.

And Rose was able, just a bit at first, in the face of this heat-- to exert her telekinesis, something that would have been impossible before-- to try and protect this Sandman from Shadow Suparṇa's telekinesis the way that Sandman had defended her from Suparṇa's pyrokinesis...

But even as he juggled The Space Needle at Rebel and tried to fry Beast Boy with a heat-blast, Doctor Diehard glanced over at Karan with an amused smirk. And squinted at her.

"They brought an Ognessonian? How wonderful. I haven't gotten to torture an Ognessonian since Hyperius went missing months ago."

And with that-- with that, he reached out with his incredible power and began to tap the bio-electric force-aura that provided the lion's share of Karan's invulnerability... and through that her vast reserves of solar power stored in her body's very cells. And-- just like Static had done to recharge himself off of Karan in Keystone-Central-- he began ripping that energy out of her. But unlike Static, he did it forcefully, brutally, gleefully... knowing that if he pulled enough energy out of her fast enough, he could really kill her...

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.

Barracuda was at full strength, at full speed, and as the hellfire rolled towards her like a wave, she blurred out of the way with gritted teeth.

There was a lot more to that pool than a puddle. It was as deep and as broad as an Olympic pool, even more so, and it was fed by massive storage tanks that would recycle the water of Moonbase Ex and let it sustain life-- and Barracuda-- for years at a time without needing to be refilled or refreshed.

But certainly a massive volume of that water blasted to steam in an instant-- all the water that Barracuda could have accessed from the surface-- gone in a column of steam that would rival the clouds of Mount Saint Helens.

With a sharp gesture by her uninjured hand and a cry of fierce effort, Aquagirl blew that steam-cloud out towards the nearby coastline, blowing it out to sea, preventing any chance of that steam condensing again into the liquid water that sustained Barracuda's incredible power levels.

Rising from the ground Renegade walked forwards her body healing in moments from the beating. That which didn’t kill her didn’t matter. And that which did kill her, just pissed her off. The closer she got the faster she ran, even when The Rider unleashed the Hell storm of Fire she didn’t stop. If anything she ran faster, driving forwards through the fire to attack Barracuda with her teeth and hands.

Barracuda was no longer in the fiery furnace. No longer anywhere near it. She soared out of reach of Renegade's primal melee attacks.

But there were other targets that Renegade could engage.

Chasing down Carny?

Helping finish off Tracer?

Going after Gorgon with Wildcat and G.R.I.D.?

Meanwhile, Atmos soared up from his place on the ground and came right at Barracuda with more of those nuclear blasts, chasing her as she tried to evade him-- "Know the fear that is injustice facing an Amazer, despot!"

But the Rider's display of perdition's pyrotechnics had not gone unnoticed, either.

"None. May touch. HAVOK."

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

But then Havok glanced away from Batman, ignoring him.

"Later for you."

And jet boots and a jetpack flared to life, propelling Lord Havok into the air... and landing him in front of The Rider with arms crossed over his chest.

"I am the master of all disciplines of science, and skilled in martial techniques from the darkest reaches of history. And now I seek to conquer that which defies mental cognition and physical battle-- the supernatural. My armor was forged in Tibet from my flawless designs by mystic smiths across the spectrum of schools of magic, engraved with runes of Enochian, Ancient Lemurian, the hallmarks of The Sons of Ivaldi... and implanted with splinters of The True Cross, on which The Son of Deity was slain for the sins of Angor."

"Face me, Rider, and know that even The Wrath of Deity must quail before The Wrath of HAVOK!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn.

Casting her gaze back at The Dreaming Darkness she continued casting whatever spell she was planning, but the tone, the inflection was changing. “I’ll pray for you,” she whispered the haunting chant of her rhythmic song fading into the moonscape. “But from thy prison, you shall walk – nevermore.”

Prisons were places for bad people, or things. She knew this wouldn’t be the end of the fight, but hopefully this would remove one combatant. Stepping forwards she took every spell, every shred of energy cast near, at, or around her and funneled it into the magical psytrap that she had created.

Suddenly faced with this change in tides, faced with the knowledge that an artifact existed here that could entrap it, Dreamslayer lost its mocking tone--

--and Shadow Suparṇa gnashed her teeth in concert with this, snarled even as she waged war with Sandman and Martian Manhuntress.

Its puppet neo-human thus occupied, Dreamslayer attempted to attack Raven directly...

...flooding her imagination, her dreaming mind, her spirit with all manner of depravities...

...the tortures of Trigon, the monstrous tortures he would one day unleash upon the world once he was inevitably freed from The Fire-Opal Dreamstone, the chakric gem...

...the-- terrible sick things that Trigon had done to Raven's mother as Raven was being conceived...

...the terrible sick things that Trigon would do to Raven once his vengeance and conquest were realized, eternities of torment and payback...

...all of it, nightmarish visions from Azarath to Zinthos, specially designed to break the supercharged spirit of The Raven Woman who sought to chain him...

...even as tiny shreds of Dreamslayer began to fragment off, tear away, and float like ash to fall forever into the gravity of that Dreamstone.

 

[TertiusHuman]

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."

The heat hit Garfield and felt like it would not just cut through him, but burn him alive as it did so. Through the pain Garfield saw DieHard focus on somebody else. But the pain...

He morphed to human form and collapsed, his clothing on fire, his skin blistering and he saw who DieHard was attacking.

"NO!!!"

On pure instict Garfield reached through the pain and suddenly a green dragon towered over DieHard. One of the creatures that Danni/The Rider have shown him in hell, it was an abomination, a creature not meant for this world. But it was an animal, though not part of evolution, it was still part of creation and Garfield had seen it with his own eyes. Wings flared as it unleashed fire close to the heat of hellfire itself and massive front paws swung from overhead to pound DieHard into the ground.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Puff.

"NO!!!"

On pure instict Garfield reached through the pain and suddenly a green dragon towered over DieHard. One of the creatures that Danni/The Rider have shown him in hell, it was an abomination, a creature not meant for this world.

Well. That gave Doctor Diehard pause.

Not a lot could. But that did.

"...Raytheon?"

Wings flared as it unleashed fire close to the heat of hellfire itself and massive front paws swung from overhead to pound DieHard into the ground.

The fire poured down around him and he clenched his teeth and a vein stood out in his neck--

--his shield quivered with the impact, but held--

--he used photokinesis to convert the heat of that breath into electricity, like a thermocouple, managing to reinforce his shield with it--

--his link to Karan's solar energy stuttered but re-established--

--his grip on The Space Needle became that much more tenuous--

--and with a defiant roar he jutted his head sharply to one side and summoned a half-dozen metal beams from the construction site and hurled them at Dragon!Gar like black arrows at Smaug!

 

[ChasNicollette]

Finding Ruby.

Meanwhile, Atmos soared up from his place on the ground and came right at Barracuda with more of those nuclear blasts, chasing her as she tried to evade him-- "Know the fear that is injustice facing an Amazer, despot!"

Now that Atmos had his wits about him, his nuclear energies were swiftly boiling off the water that Barracuda had absorbed from her quick dip.

She flew to escape him-- "Begone from me, you foul pollutant-factory!"

--the Pacific Ocean was only seconds away from her even at her current reduced flight speed, if she could get past the docks and into the drink, she could fend these "Justice Leaguers" off indefinitely, she could fend off twenty thousand such Leagues--

--but Atmos lunged with remarkable speed, grabbed one of her ankles in flight and hauled with reverse thrust, dragged her back, kept her from getting away from Moonbase Ex.

"You know aught of which you speak, subversive sub-mariner! Atmos' power is clean-burning-- fusion-based! And with my fusion powers, I will turn all of your precious hydrogen atoms to helium! No longer shall your power threaten the people of this good galaxy!"

"That's it, roquero," Aquagirl grimaced, again holding up her undamaged hand, exerting her power to accelerate Barracuda's hydration decay-- "hold her steady..."

"NO!" Barracuda roared. "I am a neo-human Atlantean, and a queen! I shall not be drowned on dry land like some common carp!"

And with her free leg she whipped around, kicked Atmos across the face with nearly all the strength she had left, shattering his grip on her leg and sending him reeling, diving headlong...

...Aquagirl's eyes went wide...

Atmos hit her like a runaway torpedo and they sprawled in the dust...

...and just to make matters worse...

SssshhCLICK!

Hypertime fizzled and Atmos vanished, leaving Ruby behind.

"Ah," Aquagirl coughed.

"...shit," Ruby agreed.

Distracted from her escape by the prospect of a vengeful kill, Barracuda drilled down at them out of the sky, teeth glinting, malice aforethought-- and fists thrust ahead like twin battering rams.

"Imperia Regina," she leered.

 

[Lunaramblings]

As The Martian Manhuntress helped to buffet the Teke attacks of Shadow Suparna, The Sandman kept pushing forward.

Step after heaving step. His body being torn asunder, reforming and torn asunder again. But The Sandman is not a being of the Material, Waking World. Not for a long time now. Despite the pain and the torture of his body being destroyed second after second, his mind was unflinching. His soul was willing to give his all to stop Dreamslayer and his puppet and their friends.

Somewhere along the way, after one disintegration or another, he finally truly understood his original Mentor. Wesley Dodd. The original Sandman. He had always told Sandy that he wasn't the hero, the people that they helped, who got up and kept going even knowing how broken the world was, having been through the darkness, they were the hero. Wesley used to say he was just the messenger. The Sandman understood now.

He could be torn asunder and rebuilt all day. Whatever he faced, he had the gifts to stand toe to toe with it and fight for the world. But the normal humans below, they were the ones that kept the world going. They were what kept him moving now. For the families, the children. For every person that didn't have the ability to stand on this moonbase and throw punches. They were his strength. His HOPE.

Finally closing with Shadow Suparna, The Sandman reaches out, attempting to place one of his gauntlets on her head as he reaches into the dreaming mind of the empty vessel. With Dreamslayer distracted, perhaps he can shut her down. Or at least draw Dreamslayer's attention back to him so Raven can finish what she had started.

The Sandman tries to push all the hope he had in his soul into the vessel before him. Trying to counter the control of Dreamslayer. Calling to the Dreaming, calling for as many precious dreams as he could pull forth to reinforce the Hope he tried to pass into the slumbering vessel before him.

"Hope is a waking Dream."

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

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...

Carin was momentarily blinded but she quickly whirled her hands, creating a small whirlwind in front of her face, blowing the dust away. She had continued to run in the same circle she had been, knowing there were no obstacles in her path but if anyone had thrown one in her path she could be in trouble. Luckily it seemed no one had.

Grabbing Rose, Karan held the love of her life, hoping se understood she was never alone, and Karan was right here with her. And with a glance she sliced the air with fire from her eyes. Twin beams of violent ruby light targeting not His face or chest. But his teeth. Teeth of metel. Metal teeth. Metal skeleton by his claws. And Metal got very hot very fast.

“Burn for ME!” she yelled at him. “Asshole...”

Carin saw the light from Karan's blast coming at hit the brakes. She watched as Tracer was blasted out of her whirlwind and began to burn from the inside. Getting an idea she rushed across the battlefield and grabbed four arrows from Green's quiver. She just hoped he noticed next time he reached for one.

Running back she plunged them through Tracer's wrists and ankles, avoiding bone and pinning him to the ground. She was able to plunge them in deeply but she kept at least half the shaft poking out. She didn't want it to be too easy for him to pull it out or pull his arm off of it.

She knew it would not stop him for long but maybe it be long enough for someone like Karan to get to him and do enough damage to take him out of the battle.

With that done she looked around the battlefield for someone else she could take on.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

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--



--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!"

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.

Connor was hard pressed to see through all the bouncing ball's in front of him but he was still able to catch the occasional glimpse of the retreating back of his foe. Arcade ran into a building and disappeared.

He snarled as he reached over his shoulder and calmly selected an arrow. As he did so a puzzled look came over his face. He was sure he was missing a few arrows but that was impossible. He knew exactly how many arrows was in his quiver and how many he had fired.

Well that was a puzzle for another time. For now he fired the arrow he had drawn and then another. Two net arrows shot out and cleared a large area. He walked forwards and then after a minute of observation he dashed forward dodging and weaving until he was through.

Sighing he jogged towards the doorway of the building and poked his head inside. If someone called Arcade and acting as loopy as he had, had made his way specifically here, obviously this place was booby trapped and rigged. Looking around he noticed that everyone else seemed to be occupied so taking a deep breath he began to slowly walk inside.

 

[Varshanka]

Wondergirl

--and with a defiant roar he jutted his head sharply to one side and summoned a half-dozen metal beams from the construction site and hurled them at Dragon!Gar like black arrows at Smaug!

Wondergirl felt Rose slipping from her arms as the weirdest draining sensation washed through her. It felt like she was a dead battery. Like she’d ran a billion miles and had nothing left to give. Her fingers twitched and she felt the rope under her fingers.

She needed to stop him. She needed to save Rose. Throwing the Lasso of golden fibre at Doctor Diehard, willing it to encircle him. Willing him to stop. To help them.

 

[Varshanka]

The Rider

"I am the master of all disciplines of science, and skilled in martial techniques from the darkest reaches of history. And now I seek to conquer that which defies mental cognition and physical battle-- the supernatural. My armor was forged in Tibet from my flawless designs by mystic smiths across the spectrum of schools of magic, engraved with runes of Enochian, Ancient Lemurian, the hallmarks of The Sons of Ivaldi... and implanted with splinters of The True Cross, on which The Son of Deity was slain for the sins of Angor."

"Face me, Rider, and know that even The Wrath of Deity must quail before The Wrath of HAVOK!"

“I SERVE THE TRUTH!” The Rider bellowed. “I have looked upon It’s face and you are not thee.” And Rolling it’s neck as wings of fire billowed forth the Rider stepped forwards. “Your god is a false diety. And not from this realm.” It could feel the burning pain of the fragments f the cross – much like Magdalena’s coin at hurt. But that only served to enrage the Rider even more. And best of all?? This was a Mortal, that had committed Murder. A Mortal that had spilled not so innocent and Innocent Blood.

With a flick of it’s wrist the Rider brought it’s sword to bear. A screaming blade that ignited the air with it’s fury as it swiveled around, aiming to cleave the Sinner from crown to crotch.

 

[Varshanka]

Renegade

Scowling as her foe evaded her grasp, she continued her run, and leaping she aimed for the furry froth mouth foe with claws. A longfang that walked like a man. Landing on it’s back, Renegade shifted sloughing away lean muscle and speed for something stronger and messier.

Grabbing his foe’s hair Renegade pulled backwards, seeking to sink teeth into a nice thick jugular.

 

[Varshanka]

Nevermore

Suddenly faced with this change in tides, faced with the knowledge that an artifact existed here that could entrap it, Dreamslayer lost its mocking tone--

Dreamslayer attempted to attack Raven directly...

Horrors beyond human comprehension flooded her mind, terrors to turn demons into gibbering puddles of terrorized flesh screamed across her soul.

But Raven had a secret.

She’d walked through Hell before. She faced things that made the The Dreamslayers machinations look like a child playing with mommies makeup kit.

"I'm always with you, Raven. I'm not a one-sided coin. I'm there wherever there's death. But I'm there wherever there's life, too. I'm with you. I always will be."

"Remember. You get what everyone gets. You get a lifetime. And yours... isn't over yet. Not yet. Your friends need you... and I'll be here when you're ready. Until the very end of time, and maybe after."

"For now. You have a job to do. You should do it."

“Always, and Forever.” Raven whispered, speaking to both Domina and the Dark side of Dreams. Hard to be afraid of dreams, torture, nightmares, or the darkest most evil boogiebeing in the deepest recesses of space/time when you weren’t worried about what came after.

Pain was fleeting, it’s what came after that scared the living shit out of people. Mortals at least. But when you were half demon it took more. And after going on a date with Death? Well, after that there wasn’t shit that could scare you. Oh, you could still be startled, get the heart pumping and the adrenaline to rush forth. But Fear? True holy fuck me to hell fear?

No.

Cause when all was said and done, Death was waiting with open arms for Raven. And when it was destined to happen it would be a welcome home, and a soft kiss Raven would be giving – and getting.

As for Dreamslayer? He’d get Hell.

Forever. Unending. No peace. No respite. No victory.

Just failure.

 

[TertiusHuman]

Garfield noticed the shield growing stronger after the fire breath, he felt danger approaching, so he did what most people believe men can't do...he multi-tasked.

Again he rose those massive paws and brought them down with all the power he possessed as he twisted his serpentine neck and belched forth a wall of flames. The flames were hot enough to melt the beams, but not vaporize them, not from that short immersion.

What struck Garfield was like a sheet of half-molten iron, it folded on itself upon hitting him and then fell to the ground, the thick hide and scales serving to safe him from the blunt impact and heat. The head whipped around and he took a bite at DieHard's legs, aiming to keep him in place for the lasso, but also placing more strain on the shield and hopefully break his attack on Karen.

 

[Wyldfire]

He fucking threw the space needle at her. Jo was good and pissed now. She stayed tough until the impact was over. But once she got her hands on the structure she shifted gears and went strong. Jo had yet to find an upper limit on her strength, but she had been able to lift everything Papa had asked her to. She yanked at the needle, planted her feet and heaved. Not so much lifting as redirecting and addind velocity to it. She shifted westward and hurled the thing.

She put an arch on it so it would go farther. As it hurrled into the distance Jo switched to flight and watched it go. She had to make sure it would make the distance. As inevitably would happen and chunks fell off she would shift her flight pattern and vaporize the chunks with her flash vision then stop falling and fly after it. Jo was scared as hell when they cleared the coastline. What the hell was she? The thing crashed a few hundred yards or so out and Jo turned back. Time to show mister magnet how bad he fucked up...

 

[ChasNicollette]

I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead...

...and I knew nothing.

Sandman's walk of pain was impressive indeed.

Through fire and force, buffered only by the efforts of a still-recovering Martian Manhuntress, he strode not into the eye of a storm but into the event horizon of a psychokinetic singularity.

Shadow Suparṇa's face twisted and knotted ever deeper with Dreamslayer's fury and vexation.

No matter how far or how fast she scattered the grains of The Sandman, even if she reduced him to mere silicon atoms, still he re-emerged instants later, reconstituted and reassembled.

Finally closing with Shadow Suparna, The Sandman reaches out, attempting to place one of his gauntlets on her head as he reaches into the dreaming mind of the empty vessel. With Dreamslayer distracted, perhaps he can shut her down. Or at least draw Dreamslayer's attention back to him so Raven can finish what she had started.

The Sandman tries to push all the hope he had in his soul into the vessel before him. Trying to counter the control of Dreamslayer. Calling to the Dreaming, calling for as many precious dreams as he could pull forth to reinforce the Hope he tried to pass into the slumbering vessel before him.

"Hope is a waking Dream."

But the door on which he knocked rang hollow.

Oh, there were residual memories.

Biological engrams still encoded on the brain.

But the neuropsychic net, the soul, the spirit of the being that had once been Louise Marino, The Suparṇa... it was gone. She was gone.

All that was left was the shell of the woman. The reptilian hind-brain and the neurological wiring for her subconscious were like a control panel and a playground for Dreamslayer. But the woman was gone.

She'd given up her life to die with her true love, estranged though they might have been.

Giving her hope was a lovely gesture.

But. It seemed. That was all it was.

A gesture.

And-- and a door once opened opens in both directions, does it not?

In opening his Dreaming to her, would he not subject himself to the crawling primordial archetypes of a collective unconscious with all its evolution stripped away? What lives in the mind of a brain-dead person? What netherworldly autochthonic pantomime paradigm informed Dreamslayer's hard-clenched hold on Louise Marino?

What shadows lived on in The Suparṇa?

That blackness reached for The Sandman's mind... to turn that living desert into a wasteland.

 

[ChasNicollette]

The Father Lode.

Again he rose those massive paws and brought them down with all the power he possessed as he twisted his serpentine neck and belched forth a wall of flames. The flames were hot enough to melt the beams, but not vaporize them, not from that short immersion.

Wondergirl felt Rose slipping from her arms as the weirdest draining sensation washed through her. It felt like she was a dead battery. Like she’d ran a billion miles and had nothing left to give. Her fingers twitched and she felt the rope under her fingers.

She needed to stop him. She needed to save Rose. Throwing the Lasso of golden fibre at Doctor Diehard, willing it to encircle him. Willing him to stop. To help them.

What struck Garfield was like a sheet of half-molten iron, it folded on itself upon hitting him and then fell to the ground, the thick hide and scales serving to safe him from the blunt impact and heat. The head whipped around and he took a bite at DieHard's legs, aiming to keep him in place for the lasso, but also placing more strain on the shield and hopefully break his attack on Karen.

The dragon was supernaturally powerful-- and Diehard had a lot of multitasking of his own going on at the moment, what with Space Needles, dragons, and two Kryptonian-level females, oh my-- his field flickered again, this spheroid around him-- but with his indomitable will-- will that could rival the greatest of The Green Lanterns-- he held.

And as that lasso sliced through the air towards him, him held steady by Garfield the Dragon--

--he recognized it.

They had spent two weeks gathering intel on this world that had attacked them. And that had been thirteen days more than they had needed.

Between Dreamslayer's power to behold the imagination of the corrupt, Marino's unbeatable telepathic power, and the various combined technologies of Havok, Carny, and Gorgon... they had learned much, and quickly.

Carny's holography had been more than enough to fool two whole teams of Titans into thinking they'd gotten the go-ahead from the penultimate echelon of DEO authority.

And he knew this lariat.

Knew that it was capable of compelling truth from those within its girdle. Of inflicting persuasion on the weak-minded. Knew that there were no limits to its length or its strength.

Diehard's nostrils flared, and a rivulet of the molten metal that had just splashed around the feet of the dragon lunged up in a long, thin, mimetic polyalloy tendril, hooked the lasso in flight, and flung it-- aimed to loop it around Beast Boy instead--

--gambling that it would force Garfield to assume his true, humanoid form, as no falsehood could stand The Fires of Hestia and The Light of Truth.

He fucking threw the space needle at her. Jo was good and pissed now. She stayed tough until the impact was over. But once she got her hands on the structure she shifted gears and went strong. Jo had yet to find an upper limit on her strength, but she had been able to lift everything Papa had asked her to. She yanked at the needle, planted her feet and heaved. Not so much lifting as redirecting and addind velocity to it. She shifted westward and hurled the thing.

She put an arch on it so it would go farther. As it hurrled into the distance Jo switched to flight and watched it go. She had to make sure it would make the distance. As inevitably would happen and chunks fell off she would shift her flight pattern and vaporize the chunks with her flash vision then stop falling and fly after it. Jo was scared as hell when they cleared the coastline. What the hell was she? The thing crashed a few hundred yards or so out and Jo turned back. Time to show mister magnet how bad he fucked up...

What the Hell was she, indeed.

She had the power of an Ognessonian Evovae like Hyperius-- but not the signature solar energy profile-- indeed, Doctor Diehard was a connoisseur of energies, but he could not recognize for the life of him the color or flavor of the energy that flowed back and forth in her to provide her with such powers.

But he no longer had juggling The Space Needle to worry about.

And that was a massive load literally off of his mind.

And he had established access to the vast solar reserves of an actual Ognessonian Evovae-- or whatever they called the local equivalent in this universe-- Kryptonian, that was it-- so he had at least as much power at his disposal as this anomaly girl.

Thus-- he threw that power at her. Tapped the solar cells in Wonder Girl and used it to fuel a singularly massive storm of lightning bolts that he hurled from the palm of his hand at the onrushing Rebel.

The Elder of Electromagnetism was not some penny ante thug to be crushed by brute force. He was force, a Fundamental Force of his Universe.

"ENOUGH!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Beast Mode.

Carin saw the light from Karan's blast coming at hit the brakes. She watched as Tracer was blasted out of her whirlwind and began to burn from the inside. Getting an idea she rushed across the battlefield and grabbed four arrows from Green's quiver. She just hoped he noticed next time he reached for one.

Running back she plunged them through Tracer's wrists and ankles, avoiding bone and pinning him to the ground. She was able to plunge them in deeply but she kept at least half the shaft poking out. She didn't want it to be too easy for him to pull it out or pull his arm off of it.

She knew it would not stop him for long but maybe it be long enough for someone like Karan to get to him and do enough damage to take him out of the battle.

With that done she looked around the battlefield for someone else she could take on.

Tracer lay there for a moment, essentially crucified to this rock from the satellite of a dead Earth.

SNAKT. Sheathed his claws.

And he ran his tongue around his teeth.

"Goddamn speedsters. I always did hate fightin' Diehard's kid Jackrabbit."

"Fine, then. Frails play rough here."

"I can play rough."

He gritted his Indeliblium teeth and with jutting sinew and bulging veins he hauled his left arm up the shaft of the pinioning arrow. The agony was indescribable, especially to one of his enhanced senses, but he didn't cry out, or cry-- he just gushed red and blazed his eyes...

...tore his arm right through the waiting nock of the arrow and the feathered fletchings, flexed his hand...

...and reached over and ripped out the arrow pinning his right wrist, not even bothering to snap it off first, just ripping it through and out, broadhead and all, like he'd done it a hundred times.

Lunging forward with both hands, he hauled the remaining arrows out of his ankles at the same time.

Waited all of a second.

And then stood up, his ankles already having healed well enough to support him.

"Now then, let's get some red on these claws--"

Scowling as her foe evaded her grasp, she continued her run, and leaping she aimed for the furry froth mouth foe with claws. A longfang that walked like a man. Landing on it’s back, Renegade shifted sloughing away lean muscle and speed for something stronger and messier.

Grabbing his foe’s hair Renegade pulled backwards, seeking to sink teeth into a nice thick jugular.

Renegade came out of nowhere, primal and enraged, and Tracer grinned.

"Not so frail anymore, bub."

"You'll do."

He pointed a fist at the man's head that was tearing at his neck with teeth that had been under-designed by unfeeling evolution for the ripping into of meat.

And popped the claws from the back of that fist, aiming to drive all four of them through the fella's skull and blow brains and blood out of the back of his head.

SNIKT.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Sanctorum.

“I SERVE THE TRUTH!” The Rider bellowed. “I have looked upon It’s face and you are not thee.” And Rolling it’s neck as wings of fire billowed forth the Rider stepped forwards. “Your god is a false diety. And not from this realm.” It could feel the burning pain of the fragments f the cross – much like Magdalena’s coin at hurt. But that only served to enrage the Rider even more. And best of all?? This was a Mortal, that had committed Murder. A Mortal that had spilled not so innocent and Innocent Blood.

With a flick of it’s wrist the Rider brought it’s sword to bear. A screaming blade that ignited the air with it’s fury as it swiveled around, aiming to cleave the Sinner from crown to crotch.

With deceptively casual effortlessness, Lord Havok held up his forearm across his brow in a defensive posture--

--and a rune engraved into the forearm of that armor lit up with a searing cold blue light and projected a defensive circle that parried the blade on contact--

--a rune inspired by The Ninth Circle of Dante's Inferno, the region therein known as Judecca, the frozen waste in which the most terrible and backstabbing traitors were destined to be imprisoned, including Judas Iscariot. Havok had parried a sword of hellfire with a shield of hellice.

"How delicious the irony, that I should be the one to lecture a supernatural being in theology. Deity-- whom you call 'God' or 'The Presence'-- is not confined to realms. Deity oversees all the Universes in Creation, 'Hear, O Israel the Lord thy Deity is One Deity.' Do you not see? The Deity that sent Their Son, Yeshua the Anointed, to die on Angor-- is the same God of Truth that sent your Jesus Christ to this 'Earth.' No heresy do I preach, foul spectre."

Hands curled into claws, crackling with that same hellish cold, he struck at The Rider with the precision of a martial arts master-- though one who had learned from books and computer simulations rather than through traditional study.

"You are fallen from but one host of countless hosts, each assigned to guard one thread in the loom of worlds. One wonders what other secrets Deity has kept from you about the nature of Creation. The nature of Hell. The nature of... Heaven."

"Perhaps the Silver City is not lost to you after all, O Avenger of The Supernatural?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Two Men Enter.

Connor was hard pressed to see through all the bouncing ball's in front of him but he was still able to catch the occasional glimpse of the retreating back of his foe. Arcade ran into a building and disappeared.

He snarled as he reached over his shoulder and calmly selected an arrow. As he did so a puzzled look came over his face. He was sure he was missing a few arrows but that was impossible. He knew exactly how many arrows was in his quiver and how many he had fired.

Well that was a puzzle for another time. For now he fired the arrow he had drawn and then another. Two net arrows shot out and cleared a large area. He walked forwards and then after a minute of observation he dashed forward dodging and weaving until he was through.

The nets rapidly stretched and strained as the bouncy-balls continued to multiply within their confines... but it appeared there was a limit to their multiplication and kinetic energy after all... some of the balls started to reach a form of critical mass, exploding with startling fire and percussion...

...but Connor was already well clear, propelled by a moment of clearheaded, clear-hearted focus and a body at its athletic peak.

Sighing he jogged towards the doorway of the building and poked his head inside. If someone called Carny and acting as loopy as he had, had made his way specifically here, obviously this place was booby trapped and rigged. Looking around he noticed that everyone else seemed to be occupied so taking a deep breath he began to slowly walk inside.

One of the best parts of any funhouse is its hall of mirrors.

And Connor would immediately find himself in a room the size of a cathedral-- far too big to fit inside the structure he'd stepped into--

--where every wall, floor, and ceiling tile reaching on and on and in and in was a mirror, presenting an infinity of dizzying, nauseating reflections.

Many of those reflections were Connor.

And then, into dozens of those reflections stepped the image of Carny, grinning, hands in his pockets.

"D'you like it?" he giggled. "I've always been good with toys. But not so long ago, I entered into a deal with Dr. Aurichalcum for a repository of Nehiyawoc technology he'd recovered from a crash site under New York. Amongst the portion I got me were fleets and fleets of nanites... and a marvelous little box called a 'portable warzone.' It's a dimensional pocket in which I am lord and unequivocal master of its rewritten laws of physics."

"To wit: welcome to Planet Homicide, you chlorophyllic caveman! Do not attempt to adjust your set! I control the horizontal, I control the vertical! Time, gravity, heat, light, atmosphere, I'm the admin of this little forum and you're just a newb with 'Virgin' under his username. So come and get me, Verdant Virgin!"

"Thunderdome is go!"

He whooped, and whirled away, all his reflections vanishing with him-- if any of them had been real at all...

 

[ChasNicollette]

End-Time Gravity Mechanics.

“Always, and Forever.” Raven whispered, speaking to both Domina and the Dark side of Dreams.

First crumbs of Dreamslayer had begun to tumble into the chakric gem.

And now-- like gravity falling into the heart of a collapsing galaxy--

--bigger chunks began to fall off of it, not just the tatters of its clothing but actual pieces of its incorporeal form.

It clawed hands at the air, struggling in panicky revulsion--

--if it had had a mouth, it would be locked open in a scream--

--and Raven's mind would find itself bombarded--

--not with visions of Hell or Damnation or Azarathian Apocalypse--

--but what was the only thing an Endless feared?

The End of Time. And the Night that followed.

When a universe ended... so did its Endless.

So did everything except Necro-- Death.

Even the end of the universe wouldn't keep Raven with her ladylove.

And that. Thought. Gripped Dreamslayer in unending dread and flooded Raven's subconscious with it on the way way waaaaaaaaaay down...

 

[Wyldfire]

The dragon was supernaturally powerful-- and Diehard had a lot of multitasking of his own going on at the moment, what with Space Needles, dragons, and two Kryptonian-level females, oh my-- his field flickered again, this spheroid around him-- but with his indomitable will-- will that could rival the greatest of The Green Lanterns-- he held.

And as that lasso sliced through the air towards him, him held steady by Garfield the Dragon--

--he recognized it.

They had spent two weeks gathering intel on this world that had attacked them. And that had been thirteen days more than they had needed.

Between Dreamslayer's power to behold the imagination of the corrupt, Marino's unbeatable telepathic power, and the various combined technologies of Havok, Carny, and Gorgon... they had learned much, and quickly.

Carny's holography had been more than enough to fool two whole teams of Titans into thinking they'd gotten the go-ahead from the penultimate echelon of DEO authority.

And he knew this lariat.

Knew that it was capable of compelling truth from those within its girdle. Of inflicting persuasion on the weak-minded. Knew that there were no limits to its length or its strength.

Diehard's nostrils flared, and a rivulet of the molten metal that had just splashed around the feet of the dragon lunged up in a long, thin, mimetic polyalloy tendril, hooked the lasso in flight, and flung it-- aimed to loop it around Beast Boy instead--

--gambling that it would force Garfield to assume his true, humanoid form, as no falsehood could stand The Fires of Hestia and The Light of Truth.



What the Hell was she, indeed.

She had the power of an Ognessonian Evovae like Hyperius-- but not the signature solar energy profile-- indeed, Doctor Diehard was a connoisseur of energies, but he could not recognize for the life of him the color or flavor of the energy that flowed back and forth in her to provide her with such powers.

But he no longer had juggling The Space Needle to worry about.

And that was a massive load literally off of his mind.

And he had established access to the vast solar reserves of an actual Ognessonian Evovae-- or whatever they called the local equivalent in this universe-- Kryptonian, that was it-- so he had at least as much power at his disposal as this anomaly girl.

Thus-- he threw that power at her. Tapped the solar cells in Wonder Girl and used it to fuel a singularly massive storm of lightning bolts that he hurled from the palm of his hand at the onrushing Rebel.

The Elder of Electromagnetism was not some penny ante thug to be crushed by brute force. He was force, a Fundamental Force of his Universe.

"ENOUGH!"

Jo shifted to tough as the shit storm of lightningy death hit. The flash and blast was magnificent. Jo hit the ground with enough force to produce another explosion and a huge crater. God it had hurt. Her hair was singed and frizzed from the discharge, her top barely holding together, and her pants were tore up as well. She didn't wanna get up it hurt that kinda bad. But Jo was pissed. Deep down, ready to Sprock shit up, 'Bor rat pissed. She hauled herself up before the dust cloud had settled and jumped out of the crater with strength and shifting to tough on landing.

"Now ya did it ya prick. Now ya made me mad," she stalked forward. "Know what else ya did Sparky? Ya showed me I don't have ta hold back. Ya showed me I can cut th hell loose with ya. Cause you can take it."

And with that she blew at him. She cut loose with her breath to freeze him. Let his sparky ass try ta pull an Ayla on her again. See if he realizes she ain't just a dumb bruiser.