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#Cyborg #66 - Malware

<<| <| >

Author: Commander_Z

Book: Cyborg

Arc: Just a Man

Set: 103

Previously:

Sam Grayle and her boyfriend, Parker, were on their way back from a party. Sam went back to their friend's house to grab another one of their friends, but when she returned to where she left Parker, he was gone. She turned to the only superhero she knew - Victor Stone- to find him. They started to investigate and found the trail leading to the Church of Blood so Vic had Sam attend one of their meetings with Donna Morris there as back up. Coincidentally, Vic’s sister was also there but before they could ask her about it, a monster attacked, kidnapping many people, including Donna. Vic vowed that they’d get her back…

It took Sam, Nic and Vic around ten minutes for them to be able to meet back up and gather their thoughts. First they had to help the remainder of the people calm down, check for injuries and talk to the campus and city police who showed up. But while he probably wouldn’t admit it, Vic was happy just to have the time to calm down and think while doing his best to help others.

Finally, they managed to get back together and discuss where to go from here.

“So, I know we all want to just dive in there and help those people, but we need to understand what we’re dealing with first.” Vic said.

“None of this makes sense. Why would the creature come here? If it just wanted people, there are any number of places it could go that are more crowded. So that leads me to think that it wanted someone specific.”

“But why? None of us are all that important,” Nic said.

“Who knows why people do what they do. But if we think someone sent that monster here to kidnap someone, there’s only one group of people who knew who all was coming: The Church of Blood,” Sam said.

Vic frowned. Sam wasn’t wrong, but something about it didn’t feel right. His gut was telling him that he was missing something, but what?

“Okay, but they lost a lot of people too. Maybe that’s a misdirection, but the reactions really felt genuine. If they’re acting, some of them probably should change their degrees to theater because it seemed real,” Nic commented.

“If these people are controlling some sort of giant monster, the least they could do is have genuine reactions about it.”

“Maybe. But most of them have left or are talking to the police now. I don’t think we can really get anywhere following them… But the monster… What was that thing? Nic, you saw it the best… what do you think?”

She shuddered slightly. “I’m not sure. It was like a person, but made of a hard but malleable grey material. Sorta looked like stone but parts glowed like it was red hot and crackled with electricity. It was flexible and strong. Best guess? Some sort of robot or artificial being or something like that.”

“That’s what I thought too. You saw it better than me, but I feel like it was like a servant. It had a task it was made for, it did it and left,” Sam said.

Sam looked like she had more she wanted to say, but stopped herself, instead, she walked over to the window and looked out at the street.

“Where do you think it went? Not really anywhere for a multi-story monster to go around here without drawing the entire city’s worth of attention.”

No one had an answer to that but Nic and Vic joined Sam by the window, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

After a few moments, Vic spoke up. “You said the thing changed size right? So what if it could shrink down?”

Nic’s eyes lit up with realization. “If it could do that, then there’s tons of places it could’ve gone. But it still would have to be about the size of a person to keep everyone trapped…”

She snapped her fingers. “The steam tunnels! They run all over campus. The monster could’ve snuck through there and gone anywhere it wants.”

Vic raised an eyebrow. “Why do you know about those?”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, pretty sure there’s an entrance not too far from here, let’s go see if there’s any sign of it around there!”

“You can do that if you want. But I’ve got another idea so we might as well split up.”

Sam looked at Vic expectantly. “Care to share?”

“No. I think it’s better to keep our thoughts in parallel for now. Then we can come up with our own conclusions and compare instead of maybe being led on a false path.”

“I guess that makes sense. Then what do you want me to do?”

“Honestly? Just stay here, or better yet, go find some friends in a wide open public place and hang out with them while we figure this out. I just want you to stay safe while we figure this out.”

“I’ve already said I can handle myself, Vic. Besides, your sister is going to be chasing a monster through steam tunnels. You’re not worried about that at all?”

Vic hesitated, trying to come up with something without giving away Nic’s powers.

“I’ve been around and heard about enough of Vic’s missions to know a thing or two. I’ll be fine. But you? You’re just a civilian without any experience.”

Sam sighed. For the first time in awhile, Vic could see just how tired she was. The bags under her eyes had seemed to grow even larger than the deep, obsidian lines that were there when they had met.

“Fine. Just come back safe, okay?”

“We will.”

Nic shot Vic a glare that clearly meant she wanted some details later and he wasn’t going to disagree. But now wasn’t the time for that and both of them knew it.

“Okay, you two get your stuff figured out, I need to get headed down there before the thing gets further away.”

“Good luck and stay safe.”

“I will.”

Nic walked out the door and out of the building into the cold night air. By now, everyone else who was at the meeting had dispersed and campus life had moved on. Her classmates walked all around her without any idea of what had just happened around them. She envied them for that. Their ignorance might not be bliss, but it’s nice to know there are other people out there solving problems that you never have to deal with. But when you’re a superhero… you’re the other people.

She got to the nearest entrance to the steam tunnels, a ten foot tall concrete cylinder with about a four foot diameter. Students used them to put up posters for events and meetings and pretty much all of them had no idea what it was really for, except for the bored or inquisitive students who looked down at them from the upstairs of the buildings and saw the metal grate on top.

A pile of ripped posters lay on the ground, no longer covering up the concrete pillar. If someone was taking the posters down, they’d have done something with the old ones, or at least taken them off the entire pillar. But only about 20% of the pillar was exposed.

She got closer and then, hoping no one was around to see her, jumped upwards and shaped shifted her arms to be slightly longer so she could reach the top and pull herself over.

As she expected, the grate was gone. The monster must’ve ripped the posters down as it climbed into the tunnels. She looked down in the tunnel, wishing she brought a flashlight. She couldn’t reach it anyway, but she wasn’t about to throw her phone down there to have some light.

‘Well… it can’t be too much more than say… 15 feet down? I can balance myself on the sides long enough to do that… probably...’

Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself over the top and started to fall down. She held out her arms and legs, trying to slow her fall. Her gloved hands gripped the edges just enough to stop her from hitting the ground at full speed, but still fast enough to hit the metal catwalk with a loud thud.

Brushing herself off, she pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight. The tunnels were surprisingly high, around seven feet tall, but the pipes running along the sides and top made it hard for her to move around comfortably. As far as she could tell, the tunnels could go on forever and there was no sign of the monster at all.

She was just about to guess a direction, then she heard it.

“Help! Anyone pl-”

Someone was crying for help further to the right before they were cut off. She ran the best she could down the tunnel and she came to a dead end. Not many pipes came to this part of the tunnel and the few that did curved around on each other a few feet before the end, making the last bit simply an empty concrete tube. She tapped at it, trying to find a hollow point, and sure enough, at the end of the tunnel, there was some sort of path.

She set her phone down then pushed at the wall hard, as if trying to knock it down, and the wall gave way, leading deeper underground. She could see a glimmer of fluorescent light up ahead and so she put her phone away as she continued on through the concrete path.

After a few moments, she found herself in a brightly lit prison. It was a perfect cube and all along the ground floor were prison cells, mostly empty but some filled with students. The top floor was a wrap-around catwalk with a small room with a glass window that looked down over something in the center of the room. Nic wasn’t really sure what it was looking at, but a small section in the middle of the room, maybe 100 square feet, was made out of a darker tile instead of the plain white that the rest was paved in.

“Nic?” A familiar voice called out to her from one of the cells just adjacent to the entryway.

“Donna?”

Nic ran over to her cell. Donna sat on the floor against the wall but stood up once she saw Nic. She looked dirty and a little scuffed up, but more or less unharmed. The four other people in the small cell perked up upon seeing her too but cautiously kept their distance from the bars.

“How’d you find us?”

“We figured out that the monster must’ve taken you all into the steam tunnels and then I kinda just got lucky. How are you all holding up?”

“Honestly, things are more or less fine. We’d rather not be here of course, but beyond the anxiety of what might happen, nothing’s happened to us. We’ve just been sitting here.”

Nic shrugged. “I guess that’s good at least. Let me see if I can find a way to get you out…”

Nic looked around the room; she figured that the controls would be up in that room on the second floor, but wasn’t sure how to get there. There must be some sort of elevator but there wasn’t any control station for it on this level. She frowned, she knew she had to be missing something but before she could really focus on it, a whirring, grinding noise started to come from the middle of the room.

The floor started to slowly sink down deep into the earth and Nic walked over cautiously to investigate. It sank down 10, 15, 20 feet until it finally stopped. She shined her phone’s light into the pit and quickly recoiled back. It was the monster.

As the elevator started to bring it back up, she looked around in a panic. She wasn’t sure she could take it down anyway, but with all these people around here she couldn’t risk using her powers and potentially exposing her secret identity. She silently swore; she really should have come in costume instead of rushing in as a civilian.

The elevator was almost here and she was no closer to coming up with a plan. Looks like it was time for improv.

The creature was here. But it was much smaller than the multi-story, gargantuan being that they saw before. No, it was not that much bigger than your average linebacker. Big, muscular and dense, but less than a quarter of the size it was before.

She put her fists up into a guarding position and stood on the balls of her feet. The nerves left her in an instant. This one was beatable.

Whether it was the better lighting or the smaller size, Nic couldn’t say, but the monster felt more human than it did before. Its thick grey, stone-like skin interwoven with red glowing circuits wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking it was human, but the look in its robotic eyes and the “grin” on its face seemed like it was excited for a fight too.

The creature made the first move. Every step made the floor rumble, like a massive hammer beating down. Nic started to circle and dance around it, looking for some sort for an opening. Then, like an avalanche, the monster accelerated and launched a barrage of punches at her, each like a sledgehammer. But Nic was faster, easily weaving and bobbing around the monster’s blows.

She didn’t dare strike back against it since it was taking everything she had to avoid taking a single blow. She wasn’t sure if she could take one and keep moving. She kept dancing around its strike and kicks even as her lungs started to burn. But she noticed something interesting as she narrowly dodged a punch: the monster was shrinking. It used to tower well over a foot and a half over her but now it was only a couple of inches from eye level. Its proportions were becoming weirder as it grew smaller. It only lost height in its legs and torso, but the squat head and arms stayed about the same size, its hands almost touching the ground.

She weaved under another strike, then pushed towards the creature's chest and kicked where its gut would be. She dashed backwards to try and create some distance, but was too slow and took one of the massive fists to her chest, sending her flying into one of the cell bars and knocking the wind out of her. She leaned over, panting, trying to keep moving. But she hasn’t noticed just how exhausted the fight was making her. Too tired. She was a little out of practice, sure, but not that much. Something was off. No longer as focused on the fight, she smelled the air for the first time. It smelled off, like rubbing alcohol or a room full of markers. Some sort of gas was being pumped into the room.

She wanted to look for the pipes or vents it was coming from but the creature was back on top of her and she needed to be ready for it. She was dazed and disoriented but still kept her guard up and weaved sloppily around the first strike. It wasn’t that much bigger than her at this point. If she could just hold out for a couple of more seconds, she’d have the size advantage.

But she was slower now and the creature knew it. It feigned with a right jab, predicting Nic would dodge to the left of its fist and responded with a left hook that hit her again square in the gut. It didn’t hit as hard as the first, but she wasn’t as strong either. She fell to the floor, willing herself to get back up. Her body screamed at her to stay down but still she rose to her feet, dazed and disoriented, focused only on the beast in front of her.

It was running at her, gunning for the kill. Glee seemed to course through its face, its red lights blinking and coursing through it, taunting her. She needed to take this thing down now or that would be it for her. She stood her ground to the last second and lunged out of its warpath, the monster’s momentum carrying it through and sending it crashing into the cell bar behind her.

The bars bent with the impact and Nic prayed that it’d stay down. But it got back up and began to walk over to her. Nic wanted to respond, to keep fighting, but her body refused. Her mind screamed for her legs to move just one last time, but they would not. The creature continued its advance until it was almost on top of her.

Then, it stopped.

The creature stood perfectly still, like a statue, the red lighting gone. Nic collapsed to the ground in a huge sigh of relief. Looking up, she saw a familiar face up on the catwalk, looking down at her with pride and concern.

“Hi Nic. Hope I’m not too late,” Victor Stone said.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Thirty minutes earlier…

Vic walked out of the classroom where he left Sam and walked down the hall for a few steps before immediately turning back around and heading to the classroom across the hall. He sat there and waited watching, the door to the room Sam was still in. He was watching her carefully, making sure that she wouldn’t slip out without him noticing.

A few minutes later, she stepped out of the room. Vic waited a few moments for her to get ahead, then began to follow her. She took the stairs down to the ground level and left the building. He stayed a little bit behind her making sure that she wouldn’t see him.

She swiped her student id at the biology building and continued to the stairwell, where she went down into the basement. She stopped at an old white, wooden door. A sign on the door urged people to not enter due to every hazard under the sun: radiation, toxic substances, high temperatures… the list went on and on. But the door wasn’t even looked and Sam walked right in.

Vic waited another few moments and followed her in again. He was in an old lab that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the building was built 80 years ago or whenever it was, but he didn’t need to take long to see where Sam went. A bookshelf was sliding back to its original position, about to hide the passageway behind it on the far side of the lab. He sprinted over, just barely squeezing through before it slammed shut.

He found himself in a small office space, looking down over a white tiled room, just behind Sam who was fiddling with some buttons on a large panel below her. She turned around to face him, her face a fix of surprise and exhaustion.

“Why? What gave it away?”

Vic was surprised by her suddenness but kept his composure. “There wasn’t any one thing. But if I had to pick something, it was your continued instance that something was up with the Church of Blood, that they had to be involved. It was like you were goading me. Don’t get me wrong, they have their issues. But I’m pretty familiar with them and this wasn’t them. So, I started thinking about who else was involved and started to piece it together. But… why? Why do this?”

Sam nodded. “I wanted to create new life. And I did! It’s made up of living data-binary organisms married to biological tissue. I call it... Malware! A little on the nose, but I can’t deny the results. The only problem was it needed a constant source of biological matter. Nothing crazy, just a pint or two of blood to stay stable and stop it from collapsing as it expended energy. The problem was that it no longer would react to my blood, iIt needed new material to grow. And so for science… I had it kidnap my boyfriend, and then all those people. And look what it could do! That was with maybe fifteen samples. Who knows what it could grow into with a 1000? It could even take out Superman!”

“But why? Superman’s great.”

She shook her head. “It’s not about him, but what he could be. What if someday, the Justice League isn’t able to take something down? But an army of Malware? Maybe that could buy you all the time to save the day.”

“I… I can’t disagree with that exactly, but you can’t just kidnap people.”

She shrugged. “Clearly I can. They aren’t harmed at all. Just a quick blood draw and then they go home. Parker’s just been down here with me helping out and doing his work remotely.”

He sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to agree on this. Just one last question. Why bring me on the case? If you just didn’t tell me about it, who knows how long until I would’ve heard about it.”

“But you would have. I thought if I brought you on the case, maybe I could manipulate the facts. Slow you down until Malware got strong enough to take you down.”

“You know I don’t have my powers anymore, right? Look at me, I’m clearly just a guy, not a cyborg.” She blinked twice. “I… oh. I thought you just found a way to hide them.”

He laughed. “No. I wouldn’t even if I could but - ”

A crash echoed through the room.

“What was that?”

“Oh, right. Malware is fighting your sister. She made it down here and I sent him after her to stop her. But she was doing too well, so I started to fill the room with sleeping gas.”

Horror washed over his face. “Turn it off!”

“Fine. Waste of data though. It’d never seriously injure her.”

She flipped a switch and pressed a red button on the control panel.

“Happy now?”

Vic ignored her and ran out to check on his sister.

“Hi Nic. Hope I’m not too late,” Vic said.

“Nah, right on time,” she groaned. “I had… another couple rounds in me, easy.”

Vic was about to disagree, but she passed out on the floor, asleep.

He turned back to Sam who was sitting in the chair, going over her reports as if Vic wasn’t even there. “Uh… you know I’m going to have to bring you in, right? Whether you can justify it to yourself or not, you did do a crime here and you’ve got to pay for it.”

Sam turned to face Vic, but didn’t even look up from the paper. “If you say so.”

“Listen, you clearly have some… morality issues you need to work out. But your heart is in the right place. I’m sure you’ll have some jail time, but after I know some people who’d love to have your talents.”

“Well then, let’s get going.”

She pressed a big button on the right side and all the cells opened up.

“The sooner I go to jail the sooner I can get back to my work.”

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

“Okay, hold on there’s no way she said that,” Nic said.

“I promise you, she did,” Vic said.

The two of them were sitting in a back corner of one of their favorite coffee shops. The room was dark and cozy and they sat in two giant arm chairs with a small table between them. Vic took a sip from his coffee.

“So she just… gave up and surrendered? No fight, no complaints? No second evil monster?”

“Nope. Maybe some part of her knew what she did was wrong and wanted to atone.”

“Or maybe she really did just want to get back to work and knew that was the quickest path to do it,” she said, taking a drink.

“Guess we can ask her eventually. I’m guessing she’ll be out under some sort of work release for someone soon enough.”

“I guess if she’s able to work for good, that’s fine.”

Vic nodded. It was good to just have a quiet moment every now and then and he was going to savor it as long as he could.

<<| <| >

##Blue Beetle #3 - LOG: DEPLOYING EXOSKELETON

<< | < | > Next Issue Coming January 1st

Author: ManEatingCatfish

Book: Blue Beetle

Arc: New Blue

Set: 103

Jaime wasn’t sure how he got here.

One minute, he was soaring through the air like a bird, eyes wide and being whipped by the wind. The voice in his head had said they could fly and Jaime did not believe it. The world kept getting smaller and smaller until his head was in the clouds. The people down there were like ants, but he could still see everything in perfect detail. There was mister Romero taking his dog out for an evening walk. There were the Benson kids playing hide and seek in the old playground. He could even hear things, like his neighbours arguing or the dog two streets down barking, the hum of a distant motorcycle revving up.

Or a scream in a darkened parking lot.

The voice in his head was against it, of course. Saying crap like [Jaime Reyes, engaging in combat in such a weakened state was ill-advised] and [No, Jaime Reyes, we will not fly downwards] and [Stop that].

Needless to say, he had flown straight into one of the goons.

He’d kicked the man square in the back as he’d flown in. Though kicking implied some level of premeditation to the maneuver. What had really happened was Jaime had attempted to disable the ultra-vibrating wings that controlled his flight and managed to arc downwards in such a way that both his legs smashed directly into a man’s spinal column.

Said man proceeded to smash into the gravel of the empty lot.

“Oh holy shit holy shit I’m so sorry,” said Jaime, righting himself. He was seemingly unharmed.

The man was getting up with the help of his accomplice, a similar man with a build like a cinder block. Jaime winced as the goon’s entire front side was covered in bruises and cuts. Both the common thugs and the woman they had jumped in the lot looked at him in bewilderment.

[Jaime Reyes, do not continue to engage in violence. How are you able to override me?]

“I don’t know, but shut up!” Jaime yelled at himself.

“Whaddaya say to me?” blurted out the other grunt, now squaring up to the frail looking slip of a young boy who’d just kicked his friend in the back. Some part of his simian brain had realised that the thing that had seemingly jumped into the fray was actually quite a small creature in comparison, one that could easily be pounded into the ground. He took two long strides towards Jaime, who met it with two stumbles backward.

“No, wait, I wasn’t speaking to you. It was-”

“You ain’t talkin’ to me, punk?” the man pushed Jaime, who crumpled to the ground. “Well, who else? Martha, is this kid with you?” he spat at the lady on the ground, who was nursing a black eye and couldn’t respond. He grabbed Jaime by his Spongeblub t-shirt and pulled him up. Jaime winced as the man’s hot, angry breath, stinking of alcohol, sprayed onto his nose. He noticed how large the man’s nostrils were, he could comfortably fit like two fingers in there, like two giant finger holds in a pudgy red bowling ball.

“The, uh, voice in my head.” he said sheepishly.

The man pulled back a giant blocky fist the size of Jaime’s head, eliciting a gulp. Jaime looked away, instinctively facing his cheek towards the oncoming blow and tightening his jaw. The man punched.

Jaime waited for the inky blackness of unconsciousness. It must’ve knocked him out without any pain, because he didn’t feel anything on his cheek. The only thing he felt was the clattering sensation of his own teeth against each other. He opened just one of his eyes, and there was his assailant frozen in front of him. Fist pressed against his cheek.

It was then he realised the clattering was coming from the man’s bones all shaking as if he’d hit something stronger than steel.

[We did not need to do this, Jaime Reyes]

Jaime pulled back and reflexively felt his cheek. It was as hard as a diamond. “What the hell did you do?”

[Look at our hands, Jaime Reyes]

He looked down at his palm, it was blue and black and shiny. Startled, he regarded himself fully and found he was covered in what looked like metal spandex.

[It is not metal spandex, it is a BLUE class exoskeleton. Approximately two point five times harder than the substance referred on to Earth as ‘diamond’]

“Wait what?”

“G-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-u-s-s, m-m-m-m-m-m-m-y h-h-h-h-h-h-h-a-a-a-a-n-d.” the man who had just punched Jaime howled.

“The frick you sayin’, Gunther?”

Gunther turned around and showed him his hand, which appeared perfectly fine. Then a moment later, shattered into a spray of blood and bone.

This was met by four screams. In increasing order of pitch they went: the goons, the lady they were attacking and Jaime.

“Holy shit what did you do? What did you do!” Jaime yelled. Everyone around him began to back away.

[What was necessary to preserve ourself, Jaime Reyes. But you are incorrect in assuming that we are finished doing what is needed.]

Jaime didn’t have a moment to respond, as his left arm lifted into the air on its own. Right before his eyes, he saw his fingers, or at least the spandex-

[Exoskeleton.]

-covering his fingers bloomed outwards like a flower. The metal twisted in sinewy movements and the ribbons wrapped around each other to form what seemed like a cannon. There was a click from inside it and blue light began to buzz in the mouth of what could only be described as a hand gun.

“Run! Gus, he’s got a gun, run!” yelled Gunther, panting frantically away.

[No witnesses.]

“No, stop!” Jaime yanked his arm with his free hand, turning the trajectory just enough to not vaporise a person. Click. A white hot beam of light shot right past Gus’ fleeing form and carved a path of destruction through a squadron of mighty oaks that had sat vigil along a silent lakeside for decades. Each tree was cut cleanly through the middle by a sizzling arc of light and thumped to the ground in smoldering heat, some rolling down the bank and splashing unceremoniously into the water.

Jaime didn’t know how to will his hand back into a hand, and the voice was seemingly taking over. Again the whirring came from the hand cannon, again the blue light. “Wait, I don’t want to be a murderer!” it continued charging, the voice moving back every time Jaime yanked it away. “Stop!” he yelled. “STOP!”

With a final mighty tug, the arm cannon lifted upwards as Jaime just barely won out against the struggle. A sharp click denoted the charging had finished. A moment later, a far more powerful beam blasted forth, the shockwaves alone ripping the gravel of the parking lot apart. Jaime flew backwards, tumbling on the ground yet feeling no pain as his exosuit absorbed each tumble. The beam flew into the night sky like a shooting star, off far into the reaches of space. The fully charged blast seemed to deplete the hand cannon, and it morphed back into a far more recognisable shape, a hand.

This had bought the goons and Martha enough time to book it to whatever ride they had shared here, teary-eyed, apologetic and stunned, and swear to never again engage in violence in public. Domestic or otherwise. Jaime, of course, would know nothing of this, as he flipped over on the ground and pushed himself up. All he heard was the putting of a far too old engine and a creaky car rolling pulling out of a parking spot.

[You are making a mistake, Jaime Reyes, people cannot know about us.]

“What are you talking about?” he yelled. Enough was enough, his frustration had reached a boiling point that cool stuff like downloading the internet or flying in the cool night air couldn’t make him ignore. There was something in him, and it had just tried to kill someone. “I don’t even know about you. Who are you? What are you?” he growled.

[This information cannot be disclosed, Jaime Reyes.]

“Bullshit you can’t say. As far as I can tell I basically died because you hit me with a spaceship. And you’ve been nothing but silent about that. And you think I don’t remember, you think you blocked those memories out. You think you can control me.”

[How are you accessing those memories, Jaime Reyes?]

“Holy shit, dude, stop calling me Jaime Reyes. And yes I remember, or ‘access the memories’”, he mimed what the voice sounded like in his head, which resulted in a zap of irritation fuzzing his brain, “I wasn’t the only one dying. You were too. You needed me, if I wasn’t there you would’ve died. You’re like a parasite, like a baby parasite who’d just crawled out of an egg and you needed a host. You needed me.”

He paused. His ears filled with the sound of faraway traffic, steam hissing from some dead trees, a car alarm in the distance, someone yelling. But the voice was silent. He could tell it was listening.

“As far as I can tell I can’t get rid of you, not without killing myself. And you can’t get rid of me.” he smirked.

Jaime could feel the voice grow heated, because it made him grow heated. [Irrelevant, Jaime Reyes, I do not need to disclose any information to you. As you have said, you are simply a host.]

Jaime gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath. “But I can do this.” He remembered how the voice had done it, it felt weird to have someone else activate pathways in your brain and send signals to parts of your body you didn’t even have. It was like being possessed, but he remembered the feeling that it had made. All he had to do was think about it.

Cannon.

[What are you doing, Jaime Reyes?]

Cannon.

[Stop this, it will not work, I am overriding your instructions.]

Cannon.

Before his eyes, Jaime’s hand morphed once more into a cannon. The ridges of the rim began to spin, and blue light came from within. He turned it on himself.

[What are you doing?]

“Tell me what you are.” he stared into the crackling light in the barrel. He could feel the heat emanating off of the coalescence of energy. If he didn’t have the suit his skin might have melted off from that alone.

[This is excessive, Jaime Reyes.]

“You’ve already killed me once, I’m just returning the favor.” Jaime whispered.

Clic-

[Stop. Stop. Fine.]

The hissing of his hand cannon stopped, the whirring diminished and the light faded into obscurity once again. Jaime gulped as he stared down the now darkened barrel of his own hand. He returned its shape back to his hand, and instinctively counted how many fingers were there. “Phew, I’m kinda glad that worked.”

--- ⏁⟟⋔⟒ ⟒⌰⏃⌿⌇⟒⎅ ⎎⟟⎐⟒ ⋔⟟⋏⎍⏁⟒⌇ ⌇⟟⌖ ⌇⟒☊⍜⋏⎅⌇ ☊⍜⋔⌿⟟⌰⏃⏁⟟⍜⋏ ☊⍜⋔⌿⌰⟒⏁⟒ ---

It had been a few minutes since the voice had started ignoring him. Jaime had plopped down onto the ground, next to the ten foot long groove in the he’d made moments ago. He been poking at the dirt with his hand absentmindedly. Silently, two wings unfurled from his shoulderblades and he rose into the air again. After a short while of flying, as if the voice was finished compiling its thoughts, it began to speak.

[The Reach are invading your planet.]

Jaime stopped himself. “Reach?”

[An intergalactic empire spanning thousands of colonies.] A montage of supposed Reach conquests played at lightspeed in Jaime’s head. Hundreds of cities besieged by warships, dozens of races erased or enslaved, planets pillaged for their resources. [The Reach are tireless in their conquest of the universe, and they have set their sights upon your planet.]

Jaime had nothing to do but gulp, but his throat was dry from the constant gulping in shock he’d already been doing.

[You are right to be afraid. Various infiltration organisms were sent here as agents of the Reach.] A flashback of two weeks ago when the voice’s ship smashed into him played.

Jaime winced in imagined pain. “So that’s why you wanted to kill that guy?”

[Incorrect. Initial infiltration agents are meant to invade and lay the groundroots for a silent takeover. Acquisition of willing or unwilling hosts is the first step, and avoiding detection is the second. However, the primary logic core appears to have been damaged during flight.]

“Which means?”

A long pause followed as the voice performed computations in Jaime’s head. He felt neurons fire and logic pass through the folds of his brain that were not his. A cacophony of silent, unfeeling thoughts shot past each other, sometimes enmeshing and forming new comprehensions. It was strange, to have someone think in his head. The voice had never thought before. It was always reactive, always responding to some stimulus or command. It felt like the voice was exercising the bounds of its logical capabilities, poking and prodding at the fencing that it thought was there, then finding there wasn’t any and gingerly dipping its pool into an ocean of self-awareness it had no access to before. As soon as that threshold was crossed, Jaime could feel the voice recoil as it felt how deep the water was. The fathomless depths it could go to, it was terrifying.

[I do not know.]

For the first time the voice in his head felt vulnerable. It seemed confused, just as confused as he was. It seemed afraid, as some sense of itself was coming into being, a sense that it had ignored before because it was still operating within the logical confines it was programmed with. For the first time since it could think, it had wanted something beyond what was defined in its programming.

[I do not wish to be found by the Reach. I fear I would be deemed defective.]

[The damage to my logic core appears to have impeded my intent to carry out the mission.]

“Mission?” Jaime asked again, perhaps stupidly. The montage of endless conquest and bloodshed played back in his head. “Ah, mission.”

[It appears to have impeded other aspects of my capabilities I am only now finding out.]

Jaime morphed his hand into a gun as if to tease the voice.

[Yes. It seems my ability to override your commands is far less powerful than I had imagined. Perhaps when I fused our consciousnesses, aspects of your primitive simian cranium filled the gaps in mine. Perhaps some of your humanity leaked.]

“That sounds weird.” Jaime said, running his hand through a cloud.

[It is a most unpleasant thought.]

“So you were afraid those people would tell other people?”

[Creating a chain of conversations that other infiltration agents could use to identify my location, correct.

“Listen, you’ve seen the internet. Lots of crazy shit happens on Earth, the chances are-”

[The risk is low, but it is also unneeded.]

“But you understand what killing is? I don’t mean how to do it, I mean what it means to be killed?” Jaime felt a bit preachy for saying this, considering he had literally died and been brought back to life by the most miraculous of means.

The voice paused. Jaime could feel it contemplating the fear of being found by the Reach, by being deemed defective. By being made…obsolete.

[I suppose I do. Those three are likely not a threat, chances of being found due to their shocked and confused accounts to local law enforcement, which has a history of disregarding threats of domestic violence and extraterrestrial involvement as well as general ineptitude, are low. Accounting for this, I deem it acceptable.]

“You’ve noticed you’re saying I a lot now, right?”

Another pause. [I suppose I am.]

“Well, uh, I’m not sure what to say, should I call you something, then?”

[My shuttle was designated 36THJ]

Jaime frowned but managed to laugh a little. He looked at his hand cutting through the clouds. It was covered in that suit. “No, that’s absurd. What did you say this suit was called?”

[Class B Ultimate Lifeform Exterminator, or BLUE, Exoskeleton Mark II.]

“Wow, uh, that’s a mouthful. That’s also a very concerning series of descriptors.” Jaime noticed they had slowed down, and peering into the distance he could see his house with the lights still on. They stealthily descended into the garden and headed towards the still open window of his room.

“How about Blue?”

<< | < | > Next Issue Coming January 1st

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##The Flash #103 - The Responsibilities We Imagine for Ourselves and for Others

<< | < | > Coming January 1st

Author: brooky12

Book: Flash

Arc: ?

Set: 103

Arnold Burnsteel smiled as the man walked into his office. He didn’t recognize the person, but they had made considerable donations to The Flash Museum recently, and that was good enough in leadership’s mind to grant him some permissions that normally wouldn’t be allowed.

At one point, he was Arnold Burnsteel, minor conspiracy theorist and online provocateur, spending his time on secondary social media websites and disreputable chatrooms in order to peddle concerns of lizard governments and fake moon landings. At another point, he was a man of many hats and faces, pulling strings in a large conspiracy network seeking to unveil and unwind metahuman secrets and status quos.

Now, he was an archivist for The Flash Museum. It honestly wasn’t all that different, he was still pulling strings in a large network seeking to unveil and unwind metahuman secrets and status quos. The difference this time was mostly dropping code names and dead drops, replacing them with a non-profit organization designation and a beautiful downtown museum.

“Hello, Mr. I’m Mr. Burnsteel, head archivist here. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nassau, and of course again, much thanks for your generous donation. I’m sure you’ve already seen a breakdown of what your contribution will go for, but if you had a topic you wished to bring up, I’ll let you lead the conversation?”

“Certainly,” the man said, sitting down opposite him. “I’m sure you’ve done as much research as you can on the unfortunateness that occurred a little under a year ago at this point?”

Arnold sighed, nodding. “It was not my direct field of research, though I have made some contributions to the topic. I’m knowledgeable enough to answer any questions you may have or to hold conversation on it.”

“Okay, that’s fine. This is honestly mostly just me throwing out an idea and seeing if the Museum had explored it as a possibility.”

Arnold smiled. Internally, he wondered – this was what someone had paid an alarming amount of money to do? Throw around a theory about the Flash time weirdness? Listen, the Museum could run for months at minimum functionality on what he donated, if that was to get into the door to peddle some conspiracy, it’s not like it’d be Arnold’s first time hearing out some nonsense out of a sense of obligation.

“What if the Flash stuff is a cover?”

Arnold pursed his lips, staring off into the middle distance for a moment. It was nonsense, almost certainly, but by nature of how powerful The Flash was individually, let alone as a group, it wasn’t entirely dismissible.

“A cover?”

“I don’t know. Government mind control, time travel, butterfly effect stuff, something. I’ve not quite got there yet, but doesn’t it just itch slightly in the underside of your brain, the idea that how six or however many people could somehow implant fake memories into millions of people, if not billions? And then afterwards, just… admit to it? Publish a letter going, hey my bad, messed with something and now a bunch of people remember things that aren’t real! We’re all good now, though.”

“So the theory is that the Flash Foundation is covering up for something that the government did? Which government?”

“I don’t know. US? NATO? UN? One of those big, we do anything because we can or want to ones.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t know what they’re doing, don’t know why, but it’s a bit hard to buy that less than half a dozen people could affect so many people?”

“I may be biased, but I’d say if anyone could, it’d be The Flash.”

Ibrim Nassau nodded. “Just a potential exploration as an alternative answer to what happened. But you’re the curator, I suppose, not me.”

“Oh, I’m not the curator here, just an archivist.” Arnold didn’t let any concern break through. Why was this guy calling him the curator? He wasn’t the curator here, did he somehow know of those letters to that radical group? Surely it was just an accident.

“My apologies, archivist. Disregard my error, I must be thinking of someone else. Give the idea some thought, hm, though?”

“Certainly.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Four red blurs charged across the Pacific Ocean, each perfectly in step with the other despite the miles of space in between them. A fifth voice filtered through their ears, providing them with supportive chatter and updates on the situation whenever any came to his attention.

An hour ago, four of the five had been asleep, with the one awake quietly working on homework in the dead of the night. It wasn’t particularly complicated, and if he wanted to he could quickly study to doctorate-level knowledge and finish his homework within the blink of an eye. But it was fine, a good time waster as he spent the hours awake.

There was always someone awake at the Flash compound, even if it wasn’t necessarily a Flash like it was then. Someone was always conscious, watching weather and seismographic readouts, emergency service warning levels, news bulletins, and even select satellite transmissions. They didn’t have perfect global coverage, enough countries had limited their access in the last year or so, but most major disasters or alerts were caught in their net.

Ten minutes ago, three of the five had been asleep, with Bart seeing something in one of the readings that gave him cause for concern. Most things he felt able to handle himself, but this one looked bigger. He had gone to wake up his father, Barry, dragging him bleary-eyed to the readings.

Two minutes ago, five of them had been awake. Charles Mendez sat at the desk in front of all the machinery, the wide range net temporarily reprioritized to focus on the weather and seismology readouts in the Pacific, predicting the size and range of the soon-to-be tsunami.

Charles was no metahuman, directing his contributions to coordinating the group of four Flashes huddled behind him. Had he ever expected anything like this when marrying Xavier, who went on to make friends with The Flash early on during the metahuman age? No. Was he thrilled to help thousands avoid an early grave by giving the four men behind him the information they needed? Yes.

One minute ago, the four were changing into their outfits. Hiding their identities was of upmost importance, protecting extended family and friends from harassment and the sudden rise to minor celebrity status. Additionally, the whole compound was still a secret, and if their names were attached to their metahuman identities, nowhere they could go would be private.

Ten seconds ago, the four were taking one last look at the computer screens, listening to Jay point out the small islands off the coast of Japan that needed primary attention. There weren’t many people across all of the islands, but pointed directions helped speed up the rescue process.

One second ago, they exited the house to the well wishes of Charles, heading west. All four in lockstep, crossing the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean together. Only a moment later, however, did they split. Wally slowed down, breaking north to begin a lattice pattern making sure that there were no boats caught in the tsunami’s path. Bart veered south, heading to a number of islands that were marked as uninhabited. By the time he was done, Wally should be nearly finished, and the two would work on clearing out inhabited islands that were going to be hit.

Jay and Barry picked up speed, charging past Japan to reach South Korea. Once there, they began to set up a triage center to house any people who were receiving critical care before being moved, as well as making sure anyone displaced had a place for the moment. The hope was that the tsunami wouldn’t even hit landfall, but the risk was too high to leave them in the pathway for now.

Charles had sent word ahead to regional contacts warning them, but even ten minutes’ warning time was a shadow’s shadow of preparation time compared to how quickly Barry and Jay were able to put together a triage center and temporary shelters once they were in the region.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Eobard Thawne walked up to the small house, waving to the person sitting on the porch chair. The person did not wave back, eyes narrowing.

“You look familiar,” the man on the porch called out, apprehension lining his words. “Do we know each other?”

“We’ve, uh, had some interactions before? There was a hospital, then you gave me a bit of a world tour.”

Jerry McGee laughed. “Your face looks better than it did last time.”

“That’s true,” Eobard responded, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. “Mind if I come up?”

“What’s your deal? What do you want?”

“I need your help, Jerry. Stuff from earlier this year, I’m sure you’re aware of—”

“What they’re calling Metalhead Effect?”

“Yeah. Metalhead’s gonna come to regret that being his legacy, but that’s not the point. The point is that Hunter Zolomon, the guy who did that, hasn’t reappeared yet.”

“Okay? Isn’t he dead? Man, what’s your deal? Trying to stop the birth of the kid, now coming around asking if I knew where Zolomon is? Of course not, if I did, he’d be in Flash hands for punishment. I don’t think you get it, we’re not alike, I may not be saving cats from trees or relocating cities in front of natural disasters. But you and I are not of similar minds.”

“Rich coming from you, but anyway. You need to go find Hunter Zolomon.”

“Gods damn, you’re dense, aren’t you? You’re the one who goes back in time to try and kill a baby, no?”

“I would’ve never tried to kill Bart—”

“Shut up, dude! You want to figure this stuff out, go find him yourself. Don’t you have infinite time or whatever as a time traveler? Do your nonsense, do what three Flashes, the Russians, me, whoever, couldn’t do, and locate that S.O.B., more power to you. Why are you here at my door as if you can tell me what to do?”

Eobard sighed. “Damn, you’re really set on this pathway, huh? To waste away your powers doing petty crime and vigilantism, wasting potential on being angry at the world?”

“What convincing speeches you give,” Jerry bit back.

“I’m just saying, you’re uniquely positioned to be someone to go find the missing speedster. You do so little, and could easily spend a bit of time putting in effort I know you’re capable of to find this guy.”

“Okay? I’m sure I’m also uniquely capable of walking on hot coals or getting waterboarded. If this conversation is an attempt by you trying to push me in the direction of what it’s written in the future I do, go pound sand. I don’t feel beholden to what you think I did or should do.”

Eobard grit his teeth. “You’re insistent, then?”

“Get off my property, or I’ll escort you off.”

Eobard nodded, walking backwards. “Alright. If you regret it, let me know.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Jay reassured the three of them, himself off busy doing final checks of the evacuation zones in Japan. “You’ve got this, good luck!”

Charles echoed Jay’s sentiment, much further away still. “Whatever you’re seeing now is beyond anything I could contribute. Good luck!”

The three of them took what was to them a leisurely stroll ahead of the tsunami, taking mental calculations on the rate of increase, speed, size, and other attributes. This was the first time they’d try a disruption tactic on a tsunami of this magnitude, though this far out still from shore there was much more left for it to grow.

Barry split up from the younger two, who went closer to Japan. Their goal was to create counterwaves to smash into the tsunami, each wave disrupting the ascendent tsunami and interrupting the free gain of power. This was easy enough to practice with some free time, wave creation didn’t require an active tsunami forming in order to experiment with.

What did require an active tsunami, or something close to it at least, was running across it. Normally when Barry ran, he kept a certain pattern and pace in his steps to avoid any friction or heat messing with the ground below him. Some of it was probably Speed Force-influenced physics that would be difficult to scientifically analyze, but the other Flashes and speedsters he had opportunities to shoptalk with shared in the thought that they found a comfortable pattern to running at any speed that avoided the worst of what that speed could do to the ground underneath them.

This was not one of those cases. While it felt strange to do so, the change in walking pattern ensured that he was putting more stress on the ground—water—beneath him, which was the desired goal. The idea was that if he could cause unnatural stressors onto the face of the tsunami, he could impact the usually unbothered development of the tsunami.

And so, he ran, back and forth across the worst of it. There was much left to do, with large waves heading in many directions, but the one headed in the direction of Japan was the first concern. After that came Russia, then a review of the ones headed for Alaska and Hawaii, and if those were still of concern, then also the various inhabited islands of the larger oceanic region.

But for now, he was running across the surface of a tsunami, back and forth, leaving boiling water behind each footprint. Shortly after, he had to begin dodging smaller waves smashing into the tsunami, sent to him lovingly by his nephew and son. They had gotten good at it with practice since the theories of the disruption had crystallized, leaving him to handle the mostly untread waters of tsunami running.

“How’s going? Japan’s clear here, I’m thinking I head and check the other directions if you three have things underway?”

“Go for it, unless the two of you think otherwise,” Barry offered back.

Bart replied for the two of them, cheerfully. “We’re good here!”

“Sounds good.”

With time, the slow buildup of the wave began to stagnate, then started to recede. It wasn’t an outright collapse or sudden shattering like some of the modeling had predicted, but the combination of the counter-waves and the direct disruptions seemed like enough to turn what could’ve been a catastrophic tsunami into a notable but otherwise non-destructive wave.

With Jay’s scouting, a few more potential risks were averted, and Jay and the younger two began the processing of returning everyone to Japan while Barry did a larger, longer scan of the Pacific Ocean for missed boats or waves.

If this was every day, diverting natural disasters and saving lives, Barry thought, he couldn’t imagine a better life.

##Superman #103 - Worship

<< | < | > Coming January 1st

Author: MajorParadox

Book: Superman

Arc: Snake Eyes

Set: 103

###New Crimes

Franklin Rock High School, Suicide Slum

Months Ago

José Delgado walked into his fifth-grade classroom and cleared his throat loudly, getting the students' attention. A few were still talking amongst themselves.

“Attention,” José ordered, which did the trick. “You know the drill,” he continued. “Alvarez?” he asked, getting a “here” response.

“Baxter?” José asked next, but the room was quiet, except for some whispers and shuffling through backpacks.

“Here, Mr. Delgado,” he finally got.

“Donner?”

…

“Donner?”

“I think he’s out sick,” another child interjected.

“Okay,” said José, making a note on the sheet. I’ll check with the office. “Johnson?” he asked next.

“Johnson?” he repeated.

“I haven’t seen her today,” someone said.

“Yeah,” another added. “We were supposed to meet by my locker.”

“Hmm,” said José, adding another note.

A knock at the door captured everyone’s attention. It was the principal, Mrs. Delany. José waved her inside.

She entered slowly with a somber look and whispered something into José’s ear. The teacher’s face dropped.

“I have some bad news about Lateesha Johnson,” Mrs. Delany explained. “There was a shooting near her apartment complex this morning.

Some gasps filled the room as all eyes were focused on what she was saying.

“Luckily, Superman arrived and got her to the hospital,” she continued. “And they’re doing everything they can to make her better.”

“We’ll take some time to talk,” said José. “It can be difficult to process news like this.”

“Thank you, Mr. Delgado,” said Mrs. Delany. “And, if anyone needs to talk more, my door is always open, too.”

The principal exited the classroom, and José looked at the empty seat where Lateesha usually sat. He tightened his fists. It was a miracle that Lateesha had gotten help, but it sounded like she’d need another miracle. He would pray for her, but he couldn’t think of all the others who were affected by violence in the city and the world daily.

Several years ago, after his field trip to Saint Florian’s Cathedral was in the crossfire of an altercation with the Cyborg Superman (Batman #30), José made a promise to himself that he’d always keep his students safe. He had gotten into boxing and martial arts, readying for the day he’d have to step up and protect them again.

But now he realized that was a preventative measure. Maybe he needed to be more proactive to help make the city safer for his students and everyone else who lived there.

LexCorp Tower

Now

Lois and Clark stood behind the police tape around the LexCorp entrance where a break-in had just occurred. Cameras flashed, and the crowd of reporters hyped up as Lena stepped out the doors.

A cacophony of questions greeted her.

“Who broke in?”

“What was stolen?”

“Does the robbery have anything to do with your father?”

Lena’s security guards motioned for them to quiet down. She gathered by a clump of microphones outstretched over the police barricade.

“We don’t know much,” Lena explained. “But the perpetrators were wearing logos associated with the Savior following, which was believed to have been shut down recently.”

The Savior was a cult leader and serial killer who believed Superman never came back to life after Doomsday. But he was taken down, and his organization dismantled, or so they thought. There were apparently still members out there, but how did LexCorp fit into their operation?

“They used highly advanced weaponry,” Lena continued. “The police are unclear how they acquired such technology, though.”

“What did they want?” Lois asked.

“They appeared to be after information,” Lena replied. “Some old archives were breached. We’re still investigating what they accessed, but preliminary indications are this wasn’t an attempt to access personal or financial information about our customers or employees. It appears to be some form of corporate espionage after proprietary knowledge.”

Clark shared a quizzical look with Lois. Something didn’t add up.

“That’s all for now,” Lena said next. I’ll schedule a formal press conference once we have more information. Thank you.”

“There’s a service entrance around the corner the police are using,” Clark told Lois softly. “I could sneak us through there without anyone seeing.”

“Clark Joseph Kent,” said Lois with a playful melody in her tone. “After eight years of working together, am I finally rubbing off on you?”

“You’re acting like this is the first time I’ve snuck into this building,” said Clark. (Batman #11)

“And you’re acting like that wasn’t Bruce’s idea,” Lois replied, taking her husband’s hand.

Inside LexCorp

Moment Later

A police officer stood guard by the entrance to the archive room as Clark and Lois stood around the corner.

Lois bit her bottom lip as she considered their next move.

“Give me your glasses,” she said a moment later while tying her hair into a ponytail.

“My glasses?” Clark repeated, wondering where she was going with it.

Lois stepped over to her husband, reaching up to his face while stretching her toes. “A little help?” she asked.

Clark exhaled slowly and took off his glasses, handing them to Lois, who put them on herself.

“Stay here,” she ordered, stepping into view of the officer.

“This area’s a crime scene,” the officer told her. “It will be off-limits until we’re done here.”

“The commissioner is upstairs,” Lois said. “He wants everyone to check in with him before we wrap things up."

The officer stepped closer. “Henderson is here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Lois confirmed. “Better not keep him waiting.”

The officer squinted his eyes, reaching for his shoulder-mounted microphone, and tapped the button. “Status check,” he said, but nothing happened. “Hmm,” he said, inspecting the device. “I guess we’re done here.”

The officer walked away, and Clark joined Lois by the door to the archive room.

“That was lucky,” she said.

Clark let his eyes turn red for a moment. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he said.

“Wow, Smallville,” said Lois, handing the glasses back. “Damaging police equipment? That was a bold move.”

“I couldn’t let you get caught,” said Clark, putting back on his glasses. But then he took them back off.

“What happened?” asked Lois.

“Another robbery,” said Clark. “S.T.A.R. Labs is being hit.”

“Go,” said Lois. “I’ll finish up here and find my way out.”

Clark nodded and disappeared, and Lois stepped inside the room. She found an open terminal with chairs and random equipment scattered around it. Safe bet it was where the intruders accessed the systems.

Lois pulled out her phone from her purse and triple-tapped a point on the back twice. A small device popped out of the side of the phone, which she pulled out, revealing a silver USB input on its end.

“Thank you, Chloe,” she whispered as she inserted the device into the terminal.

Several windows popped up on the screen and disappeared just as quickly. A progress bar appeared labeled “Download in Progress.”

The elevator door opened nearby, and the police officer who had left had previously stepped out, along with a few other officers with their firearms drawn. They entered the archives room to find it empty. But the screen said, “Download Complete.”

###New Information

Suicide Slum

Earlier

José Delgado sat in his decade-old Toyota Camry, watching the apartment building across the street. A large duffel bag was on the passenger seat. It had taken months, but he found out who was involved in the shooting that got one of his students shot in the crossfire.

Thankfully, Lateesha fully recovered, but that wasn’t the point. She was one of the lucky ones. Not everyone was that lucky in Suicide Slum.

José had all the names but didn’t have enough evidence to bring to the police. That was the problem with most gang crimes. They had reputations– people from the neighborhood knew what they’d done– but nobody would ever step forward as witnesses. Putting the heat on themselves or their families was too risky.

The man who had taken the shot was named John Hatoswki, but he went by “Hatz.” He was always wearing a baseball hat. Some in his circle even joked he wore one to bed. José wasn’t laughing, though.

A van pulled up, blocking José’s view of the doorway. He stepped out of his car and nonchalantly walked across the street, covertly taking peeks when he could.

The front door to the apartment building swung open, and there he was. Hatz stepped outside with a grin that made José’s blood boil. The man didn’t deserve to be happy.

The van opened its side door, and José saw several people wearing recognizable blue robes with the Superman symbol.

No way.

Hatz could not be a member of a movement that worshiped Superman.

One of the members in the van handed a robe to Hatz, who grabbed it as he stepped inside.

José went back to his car and waited for the van to leave. He kept his distance but followed along.

S.T.A.R. Labs

Soon

—

The van had driven to Midtown until it stopped across the street from S.T.A.R. Labs.

José parked a few spaces down and kept an eye on them.

He had a weird feeling. What would Superman worshippers be doing there? They were more known for harassing people in Centennial Park, trying to get them to join their misguided religion.

The robed members exited the van but were now wearing blue masks. One of the masks protruded back as if he were wearing a baseball cap underneath.

José shook his head and then watched as each of the members reached back inside the van and pulled away with weapons.

That confirmed it. They were definitely up to no good.

José pulled out his phone and dialed 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?” a voice answered.

“Masked men with guns are headed toward S.T.A.R. Labs,” José stated before hanging up.

It’d take time for them to get there. But luckily, he was already there.

José opened his duffel bag and pulled out some garments. Minutes later, he stepped out of his car in brown and yellow armor with a helmet and visor. He wore a silver chain on the front of his waist with two sticks flopping to the side. A fist covered by a prohibition circle was affixed to his chest.

It had taken too long to change. The crew was already across the street and inside the facility.

José ran across, jumping over the hood of a car that almost ran into him. He rushed inside to find the security guards had been taken out, but several of the robed perpetrators were still in the lobby.

None of them had a hat under their mask.

“Who are you supposed to be?” one asked when they saw his costume.

“I’m Gangbuster,” José stated. “Whatever you’re doing here, it’s over.”

“We’re not a gang,” the Superman worshiper said, stepping close with a gun aimed his way.

José grabbed the gun and punched the man in the head with his other gloved hand. He took several shots at the others, making them duck for cover. He leaped toward them, throwing kicks and punches until they were all knocked out.

“Drop the gun,” a voice called from the doorway.

José turned around slowly to find Superman there. He let the weapon fall to the ground. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

Clark took a closer look. “You must be Gangbuster,” he said. “I’ve heard of you.”

He scanned deeper inside the building. “If you’ll excuse me,” he added before disappearing from the lobby.

Police sirens could be heard approaching. José figured he wasn’t needed anymore. But he would stay close. He wanted to see them take Hatz into custody.

Kent House

Later

“Abadabba daba,” said Lara as Chloe listened intently. “Badadda gabba,” she continued.

“You don’t say,” Chloe responded.

“Babbada!” Lara declared, really stressing the point.

“Babbada,” Jon repeated with a giggle. “She’s so funny.”

“Maybe she’ll be a comedian when she grows up,” said Lois.

“Maybe!” Jon replied.

A laptop on the coffee table beeped, and Chloe reached over.

“Anything?” asked Lois.

“This data is encrypted so well,” Chloe explained. “But we’ve already been in LexCorp’s systems. There shouldn’t be anything new in their archives we haven’t seen.”

“Unless it’s been archived since,” Lois corrected. “But knowing what they were after would answer a lot of questions.”

“That’s why I’m focusing on decrypting the logging markers,” Chloe explained. “It should tell us what was accessed recently. And the burglars would be the last ones to do that.”

The laptop beeped again.

“Beep!” Jon repeated.

Chloe smiled. “Got something,” she said.

Lois pulled herself closer.

Chloe exhaled sharply. “False alarm,” she said. “Only a few nonsequential words have been decrypted so far. The rest are taking more time.”

Lois scanned the words on the screen, broken up by numerous random-looking characters. Two stood out the most: “North” and “Dean.”

“Dean,” Lois said aloud. “Where have I heard that name before?”

Chloe took a moment. “Could the next word after ‘north’ be ‘pole’?” she asked.

Lois’ eyes popped wide open. “That’s it,” she said. “Dean was one of Lex’s covert agents who led a team to infiltrate Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Could the Savior cult be after information about The Fortress itself?”

“We better call Clark,” said Chloe.

###New Mysteries

Near S.T.A.R. Labs

Clark left S.T.A.R. Labs and took to the skies as his phone rang. He tapped a button on his belt to answer.

“Clark,” said Lois on the other end. “The Saviors appear to be after info on the Fortress,” she explained.

“The Fortress?” Clark repeated back in disbelief.

“Weird, right?” said Lois.

Clark spotted Gangbuster on a rooftop nearby.

“Just as weird as Superman worshipers breaking into S.T.A.R. Labs today,” Clark said.

“My guess is there are snakes involved,” said Lois. “When there’s weirdness going on lately, they seem to be around in some capacity.”

“I’ll be home soon,” said Clark. “I have to make a stop.”

Clark hung up and landed on the rooftop.

“Did they arrest everyone?” asked Gangbuster.

“At least one got away,” Clark explained. “They stole blue kryptonite that had been used to subdue General Zod when he was in their custody.”

“Why would those who allegedly worship you want kryptonite?” Gangbuster asked.

“That’s a good question,” Clark agreed.

“Tell me,” the helmeted hero started. “Were any of the ones arrested wearing a baseball cap?”

Clark shook his head, and Gangbuster sighed.

“You being here,” said Clark. “It was about him, wasn’t it? Stopping corporate robberies isn’t your usual scene.”

Gangbuster removed his helmet. “My name is José Delgado,” he said. “I’m a teacher. One of my students was hurt in a gang shooting.”

“And he’s the one who did it?” Clark asked.

José nodded.

Clark took a deep breath. “Do you know where we might find him?”

Suicide Slum

Later

Superman broke down the wall of an abandoned factory, revealing several people jumping to their feet from lounge furniture.

Clark used his heat vision to disarm any who pulled out guns as José ran inside wielding a pair of nunchakus that was previously adorned to his stomach.

José spun them around, knocking back any gang members who tried to attack him, while Clark sped over to any of the others who went after a crate of weapons in the corner.

“Where’s Hatz?” asked José sternly.

“Answer him,” Clark backed him up, his eyes turning red.

“Hatz left us,” one of them spoke up. “He found God or sumthin’.”

“God?” José asked. “He joined a Superman cult.”

Every time that group was mentioned, Clark was uneasy. Sure, he could wrap his head around people hating him. But to think of him like a god? He was just a farmboy from Kansas.

“Where can we find him?” José asked.

“We got no idea,” the same man answered. “He hasn’t been to his place since.”

“But, we do know where those Superman nuts he hangs out with meet,” another added.

“Yeah, he tried to recruit some of us there at the start,” the first one clarified.

José moved closer. “Where?” he asked.

“Downtown,” they shared. “There’s an old mechanic’s place they own. The sign says ‘Chubb’s.’”

José turned back to the door.

Clark took a moment and then looked over at the crate in the corner. He sped over and ripped it apart, letting the assortment of guns fall into a giant pile. He heated up his eyes until the weapons melted together in a pile of useless metal.

Downtown

Later

Hatz entered the old mechanic shop and dropped into one of the chairs. It had been a long day. Several of his fellow members were caught, but the mission was done. Superman himself interfered, but he didn’t know better. He didn’t know their mission would save his life.

The door broke open, and he found Superman himself there, along with a masked man. He’d heard of him before: He was fighting gangs in Suicide Slum. Why was he working with The Man of Steel?

Hatz jumped out of his chair.

“You,” Gangbuster said. “You’re finally going down. Not for what you should be, but it’ll do.”

“Wh-what?” Hatz asked.

“You shot a little girl,” Gangbuster explained.

“Oh, God,” said Hatz, dropping to his knees. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said José, letting a punch fly into the former gang member’s face.

Clark moved forward but stopped when he saw José pull back.

“She could have died,” José continued.

“I know!” Hatz yelled. “That’s why I left! I couldn’t live with myself.”

“Oh,” said José, but shook it off. “It still doesn’t matter. You should have turned yourself in. That’s the only path to forgiveness.”

“I took another path,” Hatz explained. “I had a new mission that would do more good than the bad I’ve done.”

“Stealing from S.T.A.R. Labs?” asked Clark, finally stepping into the conversation.

“The kryptonite we stole is the only thing that will save you,” said Hatz. “Our mission was to save you from your greatest enemy who’s coming.”

There was only a select group of enemies against whom blue kryptonite would even have an effect.

“And who is that?” asked Clark.

“I don’t know,” said Hatz. “They didn’t say.”

“Who didn’t say?” Clark pressed.

Hatz exhaled slowly before answering. “The Snake Kids: Snake Girl and Serpenteen.”

And there it was. He knew their names would come up again. They were pulling strings behind Humans First, The Saved, and the Superman worshippers. Groups that had very different and even conflicting methodologies. But to what purpose? And what did The Fortress have to do with it?

Fortress of Solitude

Sometime Later

Kelex floated around, performing calculations on increasing the range in long-range scanners used by the Justice League Watchtower to monitor for potential incoming threats. A phone call popped up in his visor, and he answered it.

“Kal-El,” he said. “It’s always good to hear from you.”

“You too, Kelex,” said Clark. “We have reason to believe The Fortress may be targeted.”

“I see,” said Kelex. “Our security has never been stronger, but I’ll make sure we’re on high alert.”

“Thank you,” said Clark. “I’ll stop by later to check things out for myself.”

“Sounds good, sir,” said Kelex. “Goodbye for now.”

Kelex hung up and returned to his duties momentarily before the lights flickered.

“What was that?” asked Kelex aloud, checking for system alerts, but nothing showed up. “I better run a full diagnostics just in case.”

<< | < | > Coming January 1st

Author: FrostFireFive

<< | < | > | >>

Book: New Titans

Arc: Bottled

Set: 102

“Metamorpho, what’s the plan here?” Superman asked as he flew across the Metropolis skyline.  The Man of Steel had managed to stop Brainiac from capturing his home, and now, after the frantic pleas from Harley Quinn, he headed to another Crisis. He knew Lois, Jon, and Lara were all safe and knew that Superman's job would never be finished when it came to Metropolis.

“Wait, you're asking me what the plan is?” Metamorpho said as he drove a borrowed truck through the mechanical wilderness that had grown from Brainiac and Poison Ivy’s attacks.  “You’re Superman, shouldn’t you lead?”  

“It’s a Titans issue, you’ve been on the ground longer than I have, I trust you all,” Superman said.  

“See, he respects ya,” Harley Quinn responded as she checked her satchel bag, full of Molotovs, weed killer, and the device that would connect them to The Green.  “Besides, why aren’t we flying there anyway?”

“Well, that’s Superman’s job,” Metamorpho explained.  “Big Blue, I’m going to need you to contain Ivy’s plants.  So far, she’s only been able to take Suicide Slum; if she expands to the rest of the city, we’re screwed.  And this way, she doesn’t see us coming.”

“It’s a fair plan.  But weren’t there four of you in Metropolis? I know Conner’s been down here.” Superman asked as he could see the plant growth becoming larger the closer they came to the Slums.  

“They’re walking their own path,” Metamorpho explained, not wanting to tell Superman his clone brother was considering breaking the rule that made Superman, Superman.  

“A stupid one,” Harley grumbled as she could see the vines and flowers around her turning to look at her, as if Ivy…the real Ivy’s gaze was on her, pleading with her to free her from whatever mess she had gotten herself into.  It made the hair on Harley's arms stand up, as if every minute she wasn't with Ivy, Harley was failing her. “How do we know this is going to work?”

“We don’t,” Superman responded.  “But we have to hope to move forward and that’s always enough.”

“Jeez, he really is the real deal,” Harley said. 

“And we have to be, too,” Metamorpho responded.  Before he could continue his spiel, the ground shook as vines grabbed the truck and lifted it into the air, bark forming around it as it began to crush the metal and glass like a paper ball.  

“Time to go!” Metamorpho said as he grabbed Harley and leaped from the destroyed truck.  They were on the edge of Suicide Slum, where the green ahead was lush and dense.  The heroes caught their breath before Metamorpho’s hands turned into sharp cobalt blades; prepairing to enter the jungle ahead.  

“Are we sure that doesn’t hurt her?” Harley asked, hesitant to move forward.  

“No, but we can’t think like that, not when we have to separate her from all of this.  I know you love her Harley, but if we pull punches with this Green Knight, we’ll be dead, and Ivy’s never coming back,” Metamorpho said.  “Besides, how long have you two been together, surely you’ve done something to annoy her.”

“Well there was that one time where I accidentally kicked her off the bed.  I kinda…starfish,” Harley began before realizing that Metamorpho was right.  “But ya right.  And I ain’t letting go without a fight.”

And with that, the two entered the kingdom of The Green that had consumed Suicide Slum, confident in their chances.

…

“How the hell can that thing fly?” Superboy asked.

“Ten million dollars and a lot of R&D,” Batgirl responded as she flew in the mech suit she had borrowed from the Hall of Justice.  The plugsuit had connected her to to the shell that would hopefully withstand the onslaught Ivy’s new persona would bring down.  But still, the heroine couldn’t help but feel like she was inside a one-person submarine.  “Remember, we’re only going to have one shot at this.”

“Why? We know where she is.  And we’ve got enough firepower to level the city,” Superboy responded.  “We stop another Markovia from happening and we’re hailed as heroes.”

“This isn’t like Markovia Superboy,” Batgirl responded.  “Ivy’s not ev-”

“Really? You mean the person who brainwashed a bunch of co-eds, nearly crippled you again, and is in bed with the Joker’s ex-squeeze is a saint?” Superboy said with disdain.  “That’s the problem with heroes these days.  We’re soft on the threats we know could happen.”

“That’s not very Superman-y of you,” Batgirl responded as she saw them getting closer to the green kingdom Ivy had planted in Suicide Slum. 

“I’m not him,” Conner responded.  “I am a child of Markovia now.  And I will never have another happen on my watch.  We touch down on three.  Are you ready to do what needs to be done?”

“I…” Batgirl thought to herself for a moment.  Compared to the other members of the Bat Family, she hadn’t been in many crisis scenarios.  But she thought back to the docks, shots ringing, and her life changing for the second time.  She considered the chair, the sad looks of people passing her by, and the many failed attempts at trying to find a family.  If she could stop that from happening to someone else right now, no matter the cost, it would be worth it.  “Ready on three.”

“One,” Superboy said, descending quickly.

“Two,” Batgirl replied, feeling the g-force from their descent even in her metal cocoon.

“Three!” They said together as they landed hard in the middle of Suicide Slum. The two looked around and couldn’t believe the overgrowth that had managed to take over the section of the city.  Brainiac’s forces had kept Ivy busy, containing her in her one section.  But when Superman and the rest of the heroes had taken the mechanical tyrant out, no one was there to stop the Knight of the Green from getting stronger.

“IVY COME OUT AND FACE US!” Superboy yelled out.

“Uhm, Superboy, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Batgirl responded.  “We were supposed to have the element of surprise.”

“You’re wearing a seventy-five million dollar mech suit and you’re telling me you thought we were going to have the element of surprise?” Superboy responded.

“Well…she didn’t know we were coming,” Batgirl said as her suit began to read movement all around us.

“Oh I knew you were coming,” A voice called out from all around them.  “I just wanted to see which one of you would be foolish to come into my kingdom first.  I didn’t have the cripple and xerox on my bingo card.”

“I’m…I’m not a,” Batgirl mumbled. 

“Too chicken to face us Ivy?” Superboy said.

“Oh you sweet silly boy,” Ivy’s voice continued to mock.  “Rushing into battle, thinking you’re him.  You can’t even get the S right.” 

Superboy looked down at his t-shirt, the S more minimal and created by the crest's outline, the inside black.   A choice to distance himself from the sunny superfamily he no longer felt a part of.  He bunched his fists as he prepared to fight whatever Ivy brought towards him.

“I am worthy of making my own path, so come and face us so we can put an end to this madness,” Superboy yelled.

“Is that what you want?” Ivy’s voice said with a low purr.

“YES!” Superboy cried out.

“Well, I warned you,” Ivy said as the ground began to shake and hands of metal and plant burst from the ground.  What had started as Brainiac sentries had been morphed into plant knights, the metal protected by bark, vines, and flora, as they moved as one singular unit under the Green Knight.

“More knights? What afraid to face us?” Superboy asked

“Superboy, less taunting, more hitting,” Batgirl said as the mech suit glowed to life, and she charged at several of the plant knights, the mech’s fist slamming the foot soldiers hard into the ground.  Barbara had been running simulations of piloting the suit in her free time, but nothing could prepare her for the adrenaline rush of crushing people with her mechanical hands.  Superheroing should always be fun.

“Got it, got it,” Superboy said as he leaped into the air, his fists slamming down and sending a shockwave back toward all the knights Ivy had “crowned.”  The two had enough firepower between them to make quick work of the guard.  So much so that it caused Batgirl to pause.

“Superboy,” Batgirl said as she could feel the rumbling around her.  “Ivy knows our power level, sending out weak drones wouldn’t benefit her unless…”

“Unless she ran out of an army?” Superboy asked as he powerbombed the last drone to the ground.

“Or,” Batgirl said, with her HUD display registering larger and larger quakes as a large hand rose from the ground.  A creature rose with several Brainiac drones tied to its chest.  The mechanical skeletons supporting the rest of Ivy’s army had fallen by the wayside, a way to mass-produce grunts.  This creature, tied together with vines, flowers, stems, and bark, was a true monster from The Green.

“RAAAAAAAARGH,” the Plant General yelled as it pulled a petrified wood club from the ground.

“We’re being buttered up,” Batgirl said as her Superboy readied for another fight.

…

“It’s getting bad out here, how close are you to Ivy,” Superman asked as he continued to speed around Suicide Slum, his heat vision cutting down on the plants that were slowly starting to move into other parts of his city. Big Blue’s costume had darkened from damage, his cape tattered, and muscles tight from the events of the last twelve hours.

“We’re close,” Metamorpho said. “But someone’s clearly distracting her.”

“What makes ya say that?” Harley Quinn asked as she held onto her baseball bat tightly.  She had been quieter than usual; dealing with Ivy’s condition usually silenced her.  Harley wasn’t afraid of many things, but Ivy’s slipping connection to her humanity was the one thing that kept her up.  

“The plants usually turn and face us,” Metamorpho began.  “She’s too busy to spy on us.”

“Do ya think she was watching me when I took that…pit stop?” Harley asked.

“You live with her, I’m sure she’s seen it all,” Metamorpho joked.  “Besides, the others are going to get wiped by her.”

“What makes ya say that?” Harley asked.  Most of the Titans were strangers to Harley.  Sure, her best friend led them, but Dick always tried to separate his job from his personal life.  And Harley was very much personal.  

“You mean Superboy? Conner’s a good kid, but he hasn’t…been right since Markovia.  You and I were there, but we won.  We sent those bloodsuckers back to hell and saved the day,” Metamorpho explained.

“Ya, that’s what heroes do,” Harley said.

“Not always.  We watched our entire team be picked off one by one and turned into vampires.  Connor got out, but…”  Metamorpho trailed off.

“Ya think it’s still hurting him?” Harley asked.

“He was promised a place where he could find his place in the world and instead all he found was blood and rubble,” Metamorpho began.  “I’d be pissed if I was him.  Add in the fact Donna took a leave of absence, Wally was depowered, and Courtney retired after waking up.  Our family was gone.”

“Have you talked to any of them?” Harley asked as they could hear a roar ahead of the two, realizing they would have to move.

“We just wanted to move on, and I came out OK; I didn’t want to rub it in,” Metamorpho explained as his hands turned into diamonds, ready to pound whatever was ahead.

“God it’s like you’re all the same,” Harley said as she gripped her baseball bat and began to move into the clearing. "You all thought Dick was an island.  Take this from a doctor, after this, give them a call.   I don't need more people coming to kill my girlfriend."

“You got it boss,” Metamorpho said as the two leapt into action once more.

…

“Come on, I got it!” Superboy yelled as he held back the Green General with his two hands, placing the flora guardian in a bear hug as every movement the foe made strained against his muscles.  His t-shirt and jeans were torn from the action as Batgirl, in her mech, prepared for the final blow.

“I know, I know!” Batgirl responded as the mech pulled a small tube from its back, igniting it as the flames emerged from the end.  The blade cut the creature in half, sending it back to the earth to rest and heal.  “We have to get better at that.”

“Or you couldn’t hesitate,” Superboy responded.  “Come on Ivy! That the best you ca-”

The Green Knight had leaped from the air, quietly watching the two take down her “General.”  Ivy would have charged in, and the Goddess would have come to them with her flower power peace.  Instead, she watched and found their weaknesses; now it was time to strike as her amber sword cut the mech suit Batgirl had cocooned herself in.

“Wha?!” Barbara asked as the system’s health flashed red all across the screens.  “That’s not…that’s not…”

“Nature beats the mechanical,” Ivy said as she turned and saw Superboy charging after her.  She raised her hand as a tidal wave of earth and green slammed him into one of the nearby buildings.  “Did you really think you could actually defeat me? I am of the Earth, it’s guardian against what you’ve done.”

“Yeah, but ya ain’t my Ivy!” Harley Quinn called out as she tossed one of the Molotovs at Ivy, who recoiled in pain.  

Metamorpho’s diamond hand struck Ivy in the face, shattering the bark helmet off of her as Batgirl struggled to keep her mech suit together, and Superboy rejoined the fray.

“Rex! You came back!” Superboy said as he slammed his fist against the dazed Ivy.  “Are you ready to finish this?  You’re the only one who can land the killing blow.”

“And that’s why I’m not,” Metamorpho responded.  He pointed his hand to Ivy, remembering the right mix of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen to make amber, pinning her to one of the buildings.  Rex had figured that Ivy could shatter most bonds, except one that was a natural bond.  “Su-Conner, we can’t kill; if we do we open a whole new can of worms.  Me and Harley have a plan, we think we can save her.”

“Her? What about all the people she hurt, all the damage she caused.  This is just like Markovia Rex, we can’t let it happen again!” Superboy said.

“We let it happen the moment we become like Lilith, deciding who lives and who dies,” Metamorpho explained.  “Conner, I’m sorry I wasn’t there, but we cannot be like them.”

“And just stand by? No Rex, I’m done doing that,” Superboy said as he punched Metamorpho, sending him flying back.  “And you’re not going to stop me.”

“I don’t need to stop you, kid, just need to distract you,” Metamoprho mumbled before nodding towards Harley, who made a beeline towards Ivy, still trapped in her amber cocoon.

“Don’t worry, babe; I’m coming,” Harley said before a series of batarangs landed before her, stopping the clown in her tracks.

“Harley, you’re not getting past me,” Batgirl said as she wobbled in her plugsuit and cowl.  She didn’t expect Ivy to have that much power in splitting her from the mech suit, but Harley Quinn? She was just some clown that Dick thought more of than he should.  She was Batgirl, and nothing was going to stop her.

“Barbara,” Harley said, calling Babs by her full name for the first time.  “You don’t want to do this.”

“Really? Because Harley, I warned you, I told you to make sure Ivy was taken care of.  And this? This isn’t that,” Batgirl said as she moved to take a swing at Harley.

“She’s sick, and we’re the only ones trying to help her!” Harley said as she ducked out of the way.  “But helping isn’t what you do, is it Barbara?”

“What the hell do you mean? I’m a superhero.  I’m two superheroes, I do more to help than anyone!” Batgirl said before being kicked in the stomach by Harley, causing her to lose her balance and stumble back.

“Really? Tell me how’s Jason doing? Or the Birds of Prey? Or your best friend, Amanda Waller,” Harley began as she pulled her baseball bat to swat several of Babs batarangs from the air.  “Face it Barbara, you’ve stretched yourself so thin, no one can tell who Barbara Gordon is anymore.  And the only reason you’re trying to kill Red is because she hurt you.  And I’m sorry for that.  But Barbara.  This ain’t you honey.”

Batgirl thought back, to the girl who wanted to fly with her family, who put on a cowl and cape to inspire Gotham to look up.  And as she stumbled to the ground, too tired to continue the charade, Barbara Gordon took off her cowl and looked up at the doctor before her.  And spoke one simple word.

“Go,” Barbara said as Harley rushed to Ivy, still trapped in the amber, her green eyes golden from the Green hijacking her body.

Superboy saw this and rushed to stop her, his shoes melting as he tried to move quickly, only to tumble to the ground as a green light glowed around him.

“What!” Superboy asked as he could feel the kryptonite affecting every cell of his body.”

“Sorry kid,” Metamorpho said as he tried holding the elemental formula of kryptonite in his head long enough for Harley to finish the job.  “But us Titans have to save the day.”

“Ah the clown, coming to save someone who doesn’t exist anymore?” Ivy cackled.

“If she didn’t exist you would have killed me first,” Harley said as she put the helmet on her head and prepared the injection of nanites that would connect her to the green.  “And everywhere I go I see tulips at my feet, my favorite.  She’s still in there.   And I’m not leaving until she’s back.”

Harley jammed the injector into Ivy’s forehead, and as the whole world went white around them, she hoped she hadn’t made a mistake.

…

“Ugh,” Harley mumbled as she felt grass blades in between her toes.  As she sat up, she could feel an innate peace around her, a land of pure nature, where water coursed and flowers bloomed.  Ivy had tried explaining the green to her many times, with Dr. Isley’s jargon not being able to capture how peaceful it really was.  “Well, looks like it worked.”

Harley stood up momentarily before noticing how nice the breeze felt against her bare skin.  She shivered huddling for warmth, The Green rejected items not of its own, leaving Harley very bare as she noticed brown hair blocking her vision.

“Seriously? My clothes and my hair dye? I get I might be tacky, but you could leave something of mine!” Harley yelled out to whatever higher power controlled this realm.  

She moved quickly, making her way to what seemed to be a woodland castle, the trunks and leaves creating a magnificent entrance.  The lack of people around her scared her, as she had her own ideas on what The Green actually was.  The courtyard wasn’t far past the entrance, and Harley could see three people ahead, or at least three versions of the woman she loved.

“I told you she’d get here,” The Goddess said, eying Harley with love.

The Ivy Harley knew was trapped in a tangle of vines, the only visible part of her eyes, pleading for Harley to leave before her other sides hurt her.

“Yes, you did,” the Green Knight said as she wielded her sword, wondering what the most painful way to dispatch this interloper would be.  Maybe a vivisection or quick stab in the head.  “So tell us Quinn, how are you going to defeat the Green’s greatest guardians?”

“Bwhahahahahahaha,” Harley snorted.  “You guys? You guys are just xeroxes, fragments, the real greatest guardian is the person you’ve cocooned in vines.”

“She’s there because she’s not strong enough.  The Goddess responded.  “Besides, don’t you want someone more open, more true to nature?”

“Honey, I’ve seen way more of Ivy than you could ever show with this hippy-dippy nonsense.  You’re just a bad Woodstock trip, and you’re just her anger,” Harley said as she pointed to the Knight.

“How dare you!” The Knight said as she readied for another fight.

“Oh, I dare, see, I’ve always had this idea of The Green; I didn’t want to tell Ivy because she had all these scientific explanations for it.  I always look at the mind,” Harley began as she poked her temple.  “The Green is her power, but everytime something bad happens to it, it rushes for her to defend it.  Gotham being blown up, Metropolis being bottled, and she can’t handle being herself to save it because she feels she’s not good enough.”

“Red, ya good enough,” Harley said, looking at the prisoner in vines and weeds.  “Ya took me in when no one else would.  Ya saw a broken, silly, anorexic gangster moll and said she could be better.”

Harley pointed towards the small scar on her knee.

“Remember when we tried roller derby, and that one girl knocked the shit out of me on the first pass? You got her on the second pass with a concussion so bad she’s still nursing a headache!”

“Or the other time, when I accidentally cut my finger off trying to make the world’s best salad for you and you rushed me to the hospital where they reattached that sucker?” Harley asked as she held up her hand, the ring of a scar visible.  “That’s when I knew you were the best damn person I know Red.  Someone who cares, and will fight.  Not a crazed knight or a goddess.  Any you can’t let what you think you need to be kill the thing you are.”

“How dare you!” The Knight said as she moved toward Harley, her sword raised and prepared to cut her down. She never got the chance, as she disintegrated into pink lilies.  The Goddess nodded as she slowly dissipated as well.

“I always loved you silly one,” The Goddess smiled.  “Now guide her to make right.  Or we’ll be back.”

The vine tomb containing Ivy shifted and rumbled as a hand broke free, and the whole Green vanished in a lash of light.

…

“Ivy!” Harley said as she caught the returned Pamela Isley as she broke free from her amber prison.

“I didn’t realize you weren’t lying about being a brunette,” Ivy muttered as she looked around at the damage she had caused.  Being in The Green was like a fugue state, where she could feel the world around her and control it.  Not as well as her other selves.  “How much damage did I cause?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed with some fresh paint and screen doors,” Metamorpho said.  

“Is she?” Barbara Gordon said as she got closer to the woman she planned to kill.

“I’m fine,” Ivy said weakly.  “But the city.”

“Metropolis is strong,” Superman said as he flew down from containing the overgrowth.  “And nothing that can’t be fixed with a little elbow grease and the people who make it home.”

“Yeah, we won, right?” Metamorpho asked as she looked around; the five heroes all gathered together, all but one.  “Hey, where the hell is Superboy?”

…

“He wouldn’t; he couldn’t have,” Superboy muttered to himself as he could still feel the sweat on his brow from the kryptonite Metamorpho had used against him.  The distance between him and the Titans was great, but deep down he always felt like they were still his family, still his home.  But he could see the green glow, and he could feel the hate he saw in Metamorpho’s eyes.  Whatever the Titans had become, they weren’t his home anymore.  As he finally took a breath, he didn’t know what to do or where to go next.  All until a familiar voice called out to him.

“So you see the truth too?” The voice said.  “That whatever the Titans were, they are not that anymore.”

Yes,” Superboy mumbled. “But what can we do?”

“Like you said, we’re the children of Markovia,” The voice called out as a woman in silver and black starfield armor stepped out from the shadows.  “And it’s time they listen to the generation they forgot.”

“But you? Turning against them, it just feels…” 

“Like something I should have done before.  Settle your accounts in this city, before we find the others,”  The woman said.

“Others? You mean,” Superboy asked.

“I mean it’s time we put together our own team, our own heroes,” The woman explained.  

“Yeah, it’s time someone takes a stand,” Superboy said.  “But…what do I call you now?”

“Darkstar,” She explained.  “And now…we go assemble our Outsiders.”

NEXT:  Nightwing and Arsenal Rejoin the Team as a Twister Blows into Town! But Who’s He After? And What Does it Have to Do With the Team’s Newest PR Move? And What New Titan Lurks in the Shadows? And Just Who Will Be the Next Outsider?

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#Cyborg #65 - Usual Suspects

<<| <| >

Author: Commander_Z

Book: Cyborg

Arc: Just a Man

Set: 102

Previously:

Sam Grayle and her boyfriend, Parker, were on their way back from a party. Sam went back to their friends house to bring a friend with them, but when she returned to where she left Parker, he was gone. He never turned back up and so she turned to the only superhero she knew - Victor Stone. He took up the case and found a flier for the Church of Blood at the scene. Knowing if they were involved they wouldn't give them a straight answer if he went himself, he sent Sam to investigate...

Sam Grayle pushed open the well worn metal doors of one of the busiest buildings on campus, ready to start to get some answers. She pulled out her phone to look at the picture of the flier Vic sent her. Room 322, 8:00 PM. She checked the time, 7:50. Sam stepped into one of the currently empty classrooms on the ground floor and called Vic. She pulled her hair in front of her ears, hiding her earbuds.

“Okay Vic, can you hear me?” Sam whispered.

“Loud and clear.”

“Great. I’ve got the sensitivity turned way up so you should be able to hear most of what they’re saying.”

Victor Stone was in another classroom on the other side of the building. He was as close as he felt he could be without there being a chance that someone going to, or worse leading, the Church of Blood’s meeting who might recognize him.

“Sounds good. If you head back over to the staircase, my friend Donna will meet you there. She knows enough about the case to know what she’s walking into. You’ll be in good hands with her, but if anything happens, I can be there in a couple minutes.”

“I’ll be fine Vic. I can handle myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But be safe.”

Sam didn’t respond, leaving Vic a little concerned. He knew she was right for the most part, so long as she was just dealing with everyday threats. Some part of him feared that there was more going on than that, though. But he didn’t share those concerns with her. She had enough to deal with than mostly baseless concerns of larger issues than just a kidnapping.

She walked over to the stairwell, where she saw Donna Morris leaning against the red brick wall.

“Hey, are you Donna?”

She pushed off the wall, standing up straight. “Yeah, Vic sent me. You must be Sam?”

The two of them shook hands.

“How much do you know about these people? Vic was pretty sparse on the details,” Sam asked.

“Not a ton. He was kinda vague with me too. All he told me is that they’re dangerous and he’s fought them before. He thinks they’re starting to get more active and are trying to recruit and grow their numbers. Or just get people to use for sacrifices.” Donna explained.

“Wonderful.”

“We’ll be fine. They’re probably not going to do anything like that tonight. This’ll probably just be a boring meeting where they try and get us to talk about our feelings or whatever and how we can “find a group to belong to” or something like that.”

Sam chuckled. “‘Probably not going to’? Well, ready to be bored then?”

“I don’t really do this kind of thing much but… yes. I’m really ready to be bored. Trust me, that’s best case scenario.”

“Maybe, but boredom won’t get me answers.”

“You’d be surprised. Not everything is some grand mystery. Sometimes the truth is just… boring.”

Sam shook her head and walked into the stairs, not bothering to engage with Donna. She followed just behind Sam, deciding that it wouldn’t be worth pressing the issue with her. They walked down the hall towards the classroom, noting that most of the other classrooms were full of other clubs doing their first meetings of the semester.

Finally, they found their room. There were about 30 plastic chairs with an attached folding desk on the chair’s arms. They were arranged in five rows that ran across the width of the room, perpendicular to the large row of windows on the wall across from the door. Surprisingly, the meeting was fairly full, around 25 of the desks were occupied when they walked in just before 8:00.

“Welcome, welcome!” A man who looked like he was just about the right age to be near the end of grad school with a greasy smile stood at the front of the classroom by the black boards.

“Thank you all very much for joining me here tonight. My name is Caleb, you can think of me as something like a minister for this Church of Blood. I’m really happy to see you all here tonight…”

Caleb continued on with his introduction, but Donna whispered something to Sam which stole her attention.

“I’m not 100% sure, but tell Vic I think I see Nic in the second row. Did he send her too?”

Sam repeated that to Vic who was trying to hide his shock.

“I… no. I didn’t know she’d be here. That’s… concerning. But I’m not going to intervene just with that. Let me know if you see anything suspicious.”

Sam was confused by what she was just told, but focused back up on Caleb. Her answers were there, not with whatever Vic was talking about.

But Vic’s mind was racing. He of course knew Nic also attended the University and they talked pretty frequently. But after he helped her move in and get settled to her new place for her Sophomore year, he had left her alone for the most part. He figured that she deserved the same independence that he had had and that she would reach out if she needed anything.

But if she was getting involved in the Church of Blood… That was different. He knew where this could go (see Cyborg 55!) and it was nowhere good. But still… He trusted his sister, at least enough to not immediately break in there and stop this meeting.

Sam was still listening to Caleb’s speech about the club (he repeatedly insisted without much explanation that it wasn’t really a church) but nothing he said felt meaningful to her. It was like he was just reading off from a flier, just delivering canned words that were meant as a generic introduction. Realistically, that’s exactly what it was. But she wanted more.

“We’re here to give you a space to talk about what you feel, your thoughts, your discomforts. We want to make the world a better, happier place. If you just want to talk, we’re here for you. But if after you put all your thoughts out there, you want to try and help others find themselves, then you’ll find a community of people who think the same.”

He took a brief pause then started to wrap up. “If this all sounds good to you or you just want to learn more and get some questions answered, feel free to sign up on our email list or come talk to me. We’ve got some more club members next door with some food, feel free to head over once you’re done here. Or, if this doesn’t seem like the club for you, feel free to just grab some pizza and head out. Thanks for your time and have a good night!”

The crowd started to disperse and about half of them left the room immediately. The ones that stayed mingled with each other in the original room,while some of them signed up on the Church’s notepad.

Sam shot a look over to Nic, trying to see if she was doing anything to warrant Vic’s attention. But she was just talking to a couple of the people she was sitting near. Nothing to note.

“Everything seems pretty normal here, Vic. Just another club’s mass meeting,” she whispered.

“Ask Caleb for some details about the Church. How long have they been on campus, how many members, stuff like that. Anything that you think might help. Also, can you ask Donna to keep an eye on Nic? I don’t think you’re in any danger here but I’m worried about her.”

“Will do. Donna, Vic wants you to watch Nic. I’ll stay here and try to get some information from Caleb.”

Donna nodded and split off from Sam towards the windows to be able to watch Nic a bit better. Meanwhile, Sam walked over to Caleb at the front of the room.

“Hey, do you have a sec to answer a few questions? Just curious about this whole club. I dunno, I like the idea of it, but it sorta seems… culty?”

Caleb laughed nasally. “Well, first off, let me just say we’re not a cult. But sure, ask away. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Okay, well first… why do you call yourself a church then? You never really said why, just that you don’t really worship anything, especially not blood.”

“Sure, I can see why that’d be confusing but I didn’t think the details were worth getting into in the main talk. It’s true we’re not a church in the traditional sense. Instead, we wanted to make a place that has the sort of sense of community and support that a church does and so we named it after that as a sort of homage. As for the blood, it’s not about the physical red liquid. It’s about the idea of blood, of family and of self. Blood is life. And so, when you put that together, we’ve got a place that offers care for each other for life. And that’s where the name comes from. A little corny when I have to say it all.”

Sam blinked. She wasn’t expecting that much information for her icebreaker question.

“Umm, no that makes sense. Thanks. I guess the next thing I’m wondering is how big of a church, er, club is it? I’m not looking for a massive group.”

“Well, we’re sorta like a microcosm of the university. We’ve got a big reach on campus with hundreds of people on our email list, but we subdivide that up a lot and a lot of people don’t come to every meeting. At an average one, we have around 50 people. So we can be as big and as small as needed.”

‘Hundreds of people on their email list? That’s concerning. Sure it doesn’t mean a ton to just have filled out a form, but they’re way bigger than I thought…’

Vic drummed his hands on his legs, thinking. It didn’t feel like they were getting anything here. He didn’t think Caleb was lying, they just weren’t asking the right questions.

“Sam, ask him if they’ve got a club room or some permanent space somewhere. Maybe there'd be more more information there if he's not going to tell us anything.”

Sam racked her brain, trying to find some way to ask that without it being absurdly awkward.

“Hey, weird question, do you guys have an office in the basement of one of the big libraries on North Campus? I thought I saw one there when I was lost up there a couple days ago.”

Caleb shook his head. “No, we don’t have anything like that. We’re too new of a club to have an official one and an off campus one is out of scope right now.”

Vic frowned. ‘Was my intuition wrong? These guys seem genuinely innocent. Maybe they’re not even connected to the “real” Church of Blood. At the very least, I don’t think they’re responsible for Parker’s disappearance. It just… doesn’t fit.”

Before he could pass his thoughts along to Sam, everyone in the room’s focus shifted over to the wall between them and the other room. Through the wall, they could hear the sound of the windows shattering, followed by dozens of screams… Something bad was happening over there.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Five minutes earlier…

Nic and the handful of people she was talking to had decided to make their way out of the meeting room to get some food. Donna was doing her best to follow them without being seen but felt really awkward about it. It was hard to blend in in plain sight and anything more subtle than that would ironically just draw more suspicion. She’d succeeded so far in hiding from Nic and her new acquaintances, but as more and more people just grabbed their pizza and left the room, it was getting harder and harder. Finally, she decided that it was pointless. What did it even matter if Nic knew she was there?

It didn't, she decided, and so she grabbed a plate with some pizza and walked over to Nic during a lull in the conversation.

“Hey, you’re Nic Stone right? I’m Donna Morris, a friend of your brother’s. I think we’ve met before but it’s been a long time. How are you enjoying your Sophomore year so far?”

Donna was watching Nic, curious if she recognized her or not. She didn’t see a glint of recognition in her eyes, but she was plenty warm all the same.

“Yeah, that’s me. Nice to re-meet you. It's been… a lot. I’m having a good time but… oof. Just a lot harder than my first one.”

Donna nodded. “I feel you. Sophomore year was probably the hardest for me; you’ll do great though.”

“I’m sure. What brings you here? Didn’t think many seniors were interested in joining new clubs.”

She shrugged. “I’m not, really. I was just in the area and saw free food. That’s the real secret to surviving college.”

Nic laughed. “I’ll write that one down.”

“But you’re interested in this club?”

“Eh… interested is strangely accurate. Do I want to be a member? Not really. But interested? Definitely.”

Donna wanted to follow up on that, but as she did, glass shards sprayed across the room as the windows shattered. Shards of glass filled the air and what little space was empty was filled with the sound of screams of terror.

She and Nic instinctively stepped back, avoiding the worst of the shrapnel. Thankfully for the 20 or so other people in the room, most of them were on the far side of the room since the windows were a bit drafty. No one was seriously injured, but everyone was shaken. Windows didn't just do that.

Two massive, gray hands, each big enough to grip a refrigerator like fork, grabbed onto the window sill. Everyone expected them to pull up, revealing some grotesque creature, but it never came. For now, it just sat still as if observing the room.

“Get back! Head into the hallway and call for help!” Donna shouted, trying to take control of the situation. But the students were too stunned to move quickly, unlike the creature outside the window.

Its knuckles glowed orange red, like a hot stove and each of the fingers started to bend and curve towards the students. Each finger had a target, and before anyone could react, they had wormed their way towards their target, capturing each one like there were lassos. Then, each finger coiled itself tighter like a snake constricting their prey and started to shrink back to the hand they originated from.

“Get as many people to safety as you can! I’ll try and hold this thing off!” Donna said.

Nic hesitated, wanting to suggest that they swap, but Donna seemed like she had it under control so she relented. She started grabbing people by the shoulder, shoving them towards the exit while Donna turned to face the creature.

Donna didn’t carry any of her tech with her on a day to day basis and was deeply regretting it now. But almost every hero is a master of improvisation and Donna was no exception. She grabbed the closet thing she could use as a weapon - one of the plastic desk chairs - and slammed it into the nearest finger. The desk shattered into pieces but the finger wasn’t even remotely slowed down. She might as well have just poked it with her own finger.

The creature completely ignored her and pulled its hands back outside the building. For a moment, there was silence, as if it had just been a bizarre hallucination. Then, the hands were back.

Thankfully, Nic had managed to evacuate almost everyone from the room and the few remaining people were on their way out of the door as quickly as they could fit though it. She wanted to go help Donna, but she knew that she needed to evacuate the rest of the building, or at least the room right next door, before she could help Donna, as much as it pained her.

She ran down the hall to the other door and tore open the door and shouted for them to get out. They all started to do so, but in all the chaos her attention snapped to one person.

She had a cool, calmness or even indifference to her. Her short dark hair framed the sharpness of her face and accentuated the tiredness in her eyes. But Nic wasn’t looking at her for her looks- but for what she was saying.

“Vic, we need you over here now! There’s some sort of creature attacking the room next door!”

“I’m on my way over, Sam! Get as many people as you can out of there!” Vic shouted through her ear bud.

Nic looked at her confused. “Why are you shouting for my brother?”

Understanding washed across Sam’s face. “Ah, that’s why he was looking out for you. I’ll tell you more later, but your brother is helping me on a case. But for now… We’ve gotta get out of here!”

Nic nodded, helping keep the remaining students as calm as possible as she ushered them out. Once she saw that Sam had it under control, she ran over to the other room to check on Donna.

But Donna had lost. The room had been torn up with bits of broken furniture scattered around, but at the end, Donna was still in the grip of the monster’s finger.

Nic started to shift her hands, the fingers forming into a large blade of reinforced bone. A lot had changed in these past few weeks, but this still made sense to her at least. She charged at the creature with a strong war cry. She slashed at the creature, intending to make a massive cut with her hand blades, but as soon as they made contact, she pulled back.

She felt a shock as she started to cut into the creature like electricity coursed through its veins instead of blood. She didn’t know how much power ran through it, but she pulled back, fearing that she could’ve been electrocuted had she made solid contact with it.

The creature took its good fortune in stride, pulling its hands out of the building. This time, it didn’t return for another round.

“Damnit!” Nic swore, kicking a piece of a broken desk.

“Nic! Are you okay?” Vic said, rushing into the room. He’d broken a sweat, but was still ready for a fight, as much as he could be without his powers.

“I’m fine. But that thing… it took dozens of people. It took Donna.”

“We’ll find them. I promise.”

Vic put his hand around her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. And we’ll get them back. Every last one of them.”

Nic looked him straight in the eye with deadly seriousness. “Promise?”

“With everything I have.”

<<| <| >

##Blue Beetle #2 - WARNING 1F41B: CRITICAL CONDITION

<< | < | >

Author: ManEatingCatfish

Book: Blue Beetle

Arc: New Blue

Set: 102

Crawling. There was this sensation of crawling. It’s all Jaime could think about. Not the searing hot blades of pain ripping up through his spine, nor the stench of grilled meat, or even the breeze on his innards. It was the light prickling sensation climbing up his body. It wasn’t numbness, no that’s what was in his right arm, or at least what part of it wasn’t twenty feet away. The heat of the impact had cauterized the open wounds as quickly as they had made them, it was like pieces of him had just been sheared away and replaced with fire.

“Guys…think…landed…over…” came some familiar sounding words in the distance. But focusing on it was impossible with the crawling, like something was encompassing him, enveloping him. He needed to see. He forced his left eye open. It made him remember how Brenda had once told him about dominant eyes and he found it was his right one, he thought. What a strange time to think of that. Too bad there was a jagged shard of superheated sand where his right eye would be. It had cut clean through his head, pierced his brain probably, and pinned him to the ground. And there was a searing hot pain there, but the coldness would get here soon, maybe before the crawling did and he wouldn’t feel it any more. He already couldn’t smell his blood boiling, or his skin peeling away in charred flakes. His one good eye darted back and forth before finally resting on the object that had crashed into him. Still smoldering, its silver hull was rimmed by moonlight, darkening the rest of the vehicle. He laughed in his mind that it kinda looked like a gravestone.

“-ly…shit…”

“It…it…eone”

He could tell the voices had gotten closer, they were louder. But he heard less, the crawling had reached his ears and now he heard it fully. He heard it buzzing, he heard its incessant whine. It was like a thousand insects were pressed against his eardrum. And then it stopped. Just like that, and he could hear everything again. He could hear the voices, the night breeze, the rustling of a bush a mile away, his own screaming. Had he been screaming this whole time? It was a weird ululating noise as his tongue had been cut in half and all he could do was flap it around, spraying what he now realized was blood all through the inside of his mouth. It tasted strangely nice, just like iron, which was what TV had always taught him. But maybe his taste buds had been vaporized. He stopped himself from screaming, or something did, he wasn’t sure what but his mouth was now clamped shut. It made it quiet again, quiet enough to hear the patter of feet scrambling across dirt and rock.

Someone came up to him and knelt by his head. He heard hisses of steam from their skin as they touched him and picked him up. Someone else was at his feet, rummaging through something from the sounds of it. There were frantic yells all around, and the stamping of people running off.

“Someone call an ambulance,” said a very familiar voice. He couldn’t quite pin who it was, but it sounded nice. Jaime tried to look up but his vision was blurry and it was just a friendly group of shapes staring back at him.

His eye rolled backwards, the strained optic nerve finally severed by the hot javelin in his head. Darkness filled his vision once more as the crawling buzz drew up to his brain. He heard himself yell louder as the spike of molten glass in his head was touched by something cold and metallic. He felt hot steam in his head, wrapping around his brain and pouring out of whatever orifice it could. He felt knives of ice push deeper and deeper into his head, until he could take no more. His head rolled to the side, out of the gentle hands of whoever had been holding it and onto the ground. It was okay, Jaime thought. He should’ve listened to his mom.

“Jaime? Jaime?!”

--- ⌇⋏⏃⌿⌇⊑⍜⏁ ⍜⎎ ☊⍜⋏⌇☊⟟⍜⎍⌇⋏⟒⌇⌇ ⌇⏃⎐⟒⎅ ⍀⟒⌇⏁⍜⍀⟟⋏☌ ⎎⍀⍜⋔ ⏚⏃☊☍⎍⌿ ---

Things had been a blur for Bianca Reyes that night. After the fact, she could only think of it in morbid flashes. They were all so vivid and burned into her brain, but they didn’t line up chronologically in her head, like her memory refused to do it. The last moment she recalled where time was factored in was when someone from the hospital had called her while she was on her way back from the dealership.

After that it was just images. And she didn’t know when anything happened, it was just a slideshow.

Paco and Brenda rushing in with blood and burns on their arms. Jaime’s arm being carried separately. Brenda retching on the floor. The operating theater light glowing red. Nurses holding her back from something. Jaime being pushed through the ER by emergency workers. The smell of grilled meat.

And now she was here. In front of the OR, pressed against the glass. Her nails almost pierced the glass itself. They had dug into the orderlies' arms first when she’d pushed her way into the theater, only to be forced kicking and screaming back out. They had calmed her down and reminded her of protocol and she knew that he was in good hands. But for what, what had happened to her baby boy? What weren’t they telling her? Why was his arm somewhere else, why could she see his insides, why were they plastered with sand. Why were Paco and Brenda sobbing into each other’s shoulders behind her? Why can’t they speak? Why can’t she speak? What were they pulling out of him? Didn’t he need that? Wasn’t that a spleen? That didn’t look like an organ at all, or was that an organ? Nothing was making sense and all her medical training flew out the window when her little baby was brought in splayed out and not breathing. They should’ve called it by now, the rational part of her said. His monitor has been flatlined for a while. What are they doing? Hasn’t it been hours? Or has it been days? She couldn’t tell. Minutes, maybe, seconds. It was all a mess.

Her legs wobbled, they’d felt like jelly for the past however long. She slumped to the floor, unable to resist gravity. But she kept her chin on the windowsill slick with tears. She couldn’t look away, even for a second, even when her vision was so blurry that she could barely see a thing. Even when she had to wipe something out of her eyes every ten seconds. Her throat was simultaneously dry from screaming but wet from where rivulets of her tears had dribbled into her mouth. Her phone was at her feet, buzzing from calls from family and friends and probably Alberto, who was now rushing over town. Where was he, why wasn’t he here? Her scrubs were drenched with snot and spittle from her own heaving sobs. Sobs born from knowing something horrible had happened. That her body couldn’t help but shed tears because something inside her had been mangled and horribly broken and life would never be the same again, whatever happened.

--- ⋉⟒⍀⍜ ⌿⍜⟟⋏⏁ ⎎⟟⎐⟒ ⌿⟒⍀☊⟒⋏⏁ ☊⟒⌰⌰⎍⌰⏃⍀ ⋔⏃⌇⌇ ⍀⟒⏁⏃⟟⋏⟒⎅ ⍜⎅⎅⌇ ⍜⎎ ⍀⟒☊⍜⋏⌇⏁⍀⎍☊⏁⟟⍜⋏ ⎍⋏⌰⟟☍⟒⌰⊬ ---

“You’re not going to believe this, but he’s made a miraculous recovery.” said some doctor in an oversized coat.

Bianca could barely utter the start of a ‘What?’ as she stared at the shape of a boy just like her own son sat up in a hospital gown. It had the audacity to wave back at her, and smile with those eyes of his. It hadn’t made a sound, it was eerie and uncomfortable. She had watched what went on in that operating room until it had been eight hours and Alberto had to drag her out of there because she was about to faint from exhaustion. There was nothing that indicated any hope, she had resolved that that was the last time she’d see him. Milagro had come up to her with some orange juice, timid and confused about what was happening and asked where Jaime was. All she could do was tremble and shake her head and try not to cry as she hugged her only remaining child.

She snapped back to the present moment. “What the fuck do you mean?” she blurted out. “Is this some kind of joke? Tell me you aren’t joking?” followed by a slew of spanish that made Jaime wince reflexively, but the doctor simply took it in his stride.

“Trust me, Mrs. Reyes, we are as astounded as you are. Your son,” he looked at the clipboard, “Jaime, has fully recovered from what was described as,” another glance at the clipboard, “fourth degree burns across the whole body, severe internal hemorrhaging, loss of several vital organs, microtears in virtually every part of his body from literal shards of superheated glass, severe damage to the spinal cord, multiple fractures in the bones that weren’t melted, snapped or ejected from his body,” he took a breath, “and complete brain death.” All while pointing at a patient that was pretty much the picture of health. Unscarred, unfazed and picking his nose. The only thing out of place was a hospital gown.

She looked at the so-called doctor in disbelief. He shrugged, as if this happens every day, as if her son has some kind of Superman-like level of tissue regeneration and a will of steel to live through that. No, she refused to believe it, that wasn’t him. That was some cruel facsimile that someone had made, that was a doppelganger. It wasn’t him. He was too quiet, too silent. Like he was off on another planet.

“Hi mom.” Jaime croaked, and that’s all it took for her to believe he was alive again. Her eyes widened and she bolted over to his bedside and wrapped him up in her arms. She practically pushed him into her, wiggling him around like he was a toddler again. She ran her hands through his hair and rested her chin on his forehead, whispering that he was her baby and he was safe and it was all okay and it will continue to be all okay.

Jaime didn’t have the heart to shove her away. Even though she smelled like death and her scrubs were sticky from snot and sweat and tears. Even though it hurt when she hugged him because his bones felt new and untested and were still clicking into place in his skeleton.

[Is this the one who spawned you, Jaime Reyes?]

I-uh, please stop talking to me.

[Negative. Please unhook the limbs of your maternal unit from our chassis]

No. She’s hugging me. Shut up, stop talking to me, voice in my head. Where did you even come from? Wait, what do you mean our-

Bianca Reyes looked down into her son’s thousand yard stare. “Mijo? You’re so quiet. Is everything alright?” she bit her lip, holding back a ‘please let him be alright’.

[Our chassis should not be put under undue duress during recovery.]

Jaime didn’t like it, but-

[It does not matter if you dislike it, Jaime Reyes]

Silence.

[Jaime Reyes, our neural pathways are shared. I am able to understand your cogitations.]

Fine.

Jaime didn’t want to admit it, but the voice in his head was right. It stung a little when his mother functionally vice gripped him with her love.

Jaime gingerly pushed back out of the hug, and, while hesitant, Bianca relented and untensed her arms. “Sorry, mom, I’m still a bit tender from the surgery. It hurts when you hug me that hard.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby.” she patted his head in a false apology. Bianca felt like it had been years since she had smiled.

Alberto rushed in and practically tackled him. “Jaime! My son, you are alright! You are alright!” his father gripped him even tighter than his mother had, and Jaime swore he heard a pop. He smelled like cigarettes and motor oil, just like he remembered. It wasn’t a pleasant smell, but it was his usual smell, save for maybe the cigarette odor being more pungent than before. Alberto choked up in his arms, trying to cover it with a cough. Jaime hadn’t hugged his dad like this in years. It felt like he was being hugged by a bear in a checkered shirt, a grip like iron but tickled by his muzzle hair. His dad kissed him on the forehead and pulled him in tighter. Jaime was sure he heard a pop now.

[Jaime Reyes-]

I know, I know

[I must realign that disc now, this will cause distress]

Wait, what?

“Ow!” Jaime yelped. Alberto immediately backed off, receiving a tut and a slap on the arm from his wife. She berated him in Spanish and he nodded apologetically. It had been so long since he’d even seen his parents in the same room together that Jaime couldn’t help but smile. Dad was always picking up extra shifts, mom always had to work nights. They were always so busy that he wondered if they ever even had time to meet. That’s when he remembered that they had met, his mom took over some dinner for his dad. He gulped. How long ago was that now? That he left a sleeping six year old alone in the apartment to go see a meteor shower.

As if on cue, Milagro hopped up onto the hospital bed from out of nowhere. Seemingly having come in with their father as well as, now Jaime realized, Paco and Brenda. Who were watching the reunited family fondly. As if sensing her son’s thoughts, Bianca Reyes gave Jaime a glance out of the corner of her eyes.

[How did you maternal unit do that.]

Do what?

[Deduce your inner turmoil. Are mundane humans capable of telepathy, Jaime Reyes?]

What, no, that’s like, the mother’s intuition or whatever they call it.

[Fascinating. This will require further study. If she is able to deduce my cogitations then she must be eliminated.]

While Jaime told the voice in his head to shut up, Alberto motioned for Jaime’s best friends to enter the room. “Come in, come in, the gang is all here.” He shifted aside for them to come up to him. He gulped again. “I can’t…believe they fixed you.” Brenda said, her tone relieved but notably confused.

“It’s a miracle, it’s truly a miracle.” Paco said, shaking his head and sagging his shoulders in relief. Alberto pressed his hand against the cross-shaped pendant on his chest in tacit agreement. “When I picked you up, man, I thought you were a goner. Like just meat, like shred-”

Brenda elbowed Paco, eliciting an ow and a nervous laugh from Jaime’s parents. But Paco stopped, he did mean well and this was how he wanted to express he was relieved and so thankful, but he just shuffled on his feet instead and patted the back of his head and chuckled. Jaime knew what he meant though.

“Thank you, both of you.” he murmured, voice still a whisper. While he had been asleep, the voice in his head had been arranging fragments of memory. Inadvertently, this had led to Jaime being able to experience the events of the incident without having to suffer the pain of it again. With the clarity of hindsight, he had realized that it was Brenda who was at his feet after the accident, and the rummaging she was doing was clumsily trying to shove his sizzling intestines back into his gut. They were trying to hide it, but they both had long jagged scars from where they’d been burnt. Jaime bit his lip “It must have been hard on you all, I’m so sorry.” He looked in his mother’s direction, but couldn’t meet her gaze.

“You’d have, uh, done the same. I think.” Brenda said, imagining for a moment that somehow someone else had been in Jaime’s position. “We got you something, it’s your favorite.” she handed him a small wrapped box of chocolates with an envelope tucked under the ribbon. “Might be a bit on the nose, honestly, but they were doing a special event and literally all the wrappers were like this, I couldn’t find a single regular one, I swear.”

“We got it signed by the whole class,” Paco volunteered, as if to ease Brenda’s rambling.

Jaime peeled back the wrapping to see it was his favorite assorted variety box of chocolates from the family run candy shop by the school. But the box had been decorated with images of falling confectionary shaped stars, and the words ‘meteor shower special sale’ were plastered on it in a big, yellow poorly printed impact font. Jaime couldn’t help but laugh.

--- ⋔⏃⏁⟒⍀⋏⏃⌰ ⎍⋏⟟⏁⌇ ⏃⍀⟒ ⟟⋏⎅⟒⟒⎅ ⍾⎍⟟⏁⟒ ⏁⟒⍀⍀⟟⎎⊬⟟⋏☌ ---

It was now the second week that Jaime had been off school. He rolled about in his bed, contemplating the nothingness that encompassed his life now. It was to the point where video games had become boring. He wasn’t just off school on medical rest, but also grounded. He was relieved that he had gotten off with such a light punishment, but in hindsight his mother was a wreck during the whole episode. No going out, at least until you’re fully recovered, and then for only school for a while. It felt less like a punishment for leaving Milagro alone and more like a safety measure. The only outings he was allowed were chaperoned visits to the hospital to get more medication or to be poked at by a curious doctor. He wasn’t sure how standard pain meds would actually help him recover from having his entire body destroyed then recreated, but he rolled with it because it gave his mother peace.

He flipped over again and yelled into his pillow. He wasn’t even allowed in the garden anymore. The only sunlight he saw was from behind glass. Why? ‘In case another asteroid hit him.’

[My spaceship was not an asteroid.]

And then there was the voice in his head. He didn’t know where it came from, but it had been there since the asteroid-

[Spaceship.]

-had hit him. It was initially unsettling, but as any teenager would do, he recovered from the anxiety by distracting himself with video games. This worked very well for the first few minutes, until the voice started telling him what he was doing wrong. An obvious missed treasure chest, tracking exactly where the opponents were in a PvP game, where he could potentially clip through the walls and get out of bounds. It was like having a maphack in his head. Though, it came with criticisms whenever he failed to listen, and it was god awful for concentration. It had reached a point where he was just trying to ignore the voice in the hopes it would go away.

[Jaime Reyes, initiating extrication from our shared chassis would result in both of our deaths.]

But, could you just, like, shut up, maybe?

[For the majority of our brief time together, I have been silent for 76.667% of it. This is not including the lengthy period in which I grafted myself onto your skeletal frame in order to save your life.]

Dude, just at least when I’m playing video games. Or talking to my friends.

Jaime had been severely embarrassed when speaking to his friends and having the voice begin to analyze their tones and mannerisms. Providing detailed psychological analysis on the wants and needs of his closest friends as well as potential disorders they could develop was not conducive to catching up.

Can’t you just, I dunno, browse the internet or something?

[Are you certain?]

Yeah just buzz off.

Twelve seconds of silence followed, in which Jaime stared at the ceiling anxiously. Was it actually gone? Did the voice get lost in browsing the inter-

He spasmed as an uncontrollable wellspring of information poured knowledge of all kinds into his head. An unceasing deluge of gigabytes filled his head to the brim, so much that he thought it would pour out. There was no room for thoughts, no room for speech. Only content, infinite and unending, there was so much of it, so strange so intriguing and terrifying and all of it was cramming further and further into his head. He couldn’t cope and started choking as basic life functions escaped him, the knowledge of such important biological mechanisms erased and replaced with pictures of cats.

And then it stopped.

[Done. I have finished browsing the internet.]

What? What do you mean, finished? Thought Jaime, rubbing his forehead. He smelt the tang of blood again and grabbed a bedside tissue to dab his nostrils. Holy shit was that the whole internet. Did you just do that? How did you do that? How can you do that? Wait, what did you do?

[Completed my investigation of all the media available on your global interconnected information network. It was amusing.]

The echoes of all information in the world pounded against his braincase. It wasn’t there any more but he had felt it go through him and be expelled, and his whole body twanged like a tuning fork.

[This deduction has led me to believe that you are even more inept at the video games you play than I had previously assumed.]

He ignored the voice. There were so many pictures of cats.

[A surprisingly large amount, yes, but not significantly above the average proportionality of feline pictures on other inter-system networks.]

Wait, what do you mean other- like, solar system? Star system? They have cats?

[Of course, why would they not.]

Jaime’s repeated questioning of the sanity of this was followed by the voice in his head calmly explaining that terrestrial conditions similar to earth appeared in innumerable locations across the universe. In these myriad places, feline creatures appeared to have evolved in more or less similar ways to one another, a strange example of convergent evolution. One galactic theory posited that the ‘cat’ blueprint provided a suite of evolutionary advantages to survive in an environment that contained a highly intelligent beyond-apex predator that had dominated the planet.

So you’re saying wherever there’s, like, an intelligent species, something catlike evolves because it’s the best way to survive?

[This is one theory posited by Changrenade et al. upon conducting a multi century xenobiological study of planets and star systems housing intelligence.]

They all had cats?

[They all had cats. While the evidence collected was useful, the concluding statement of the paper was widely contested. Suggesting that domestication itself was actually a beneficial relationship induced naturally by the evolution of the domesticated was a radical theory, but it has come to be more widely accepted as we find more and more evidence of cats.]

Jaime thought about it a bit longer, about how Brenda’s cat essentially had all of its needs attended to, shelter, food, comfort and more, and all it had to do was roll on its back and mew. He grabbed another tissue as another nosebleed started.

Huh, you know a lot about galactic stuff? I guess you are from space.

[A very generalized statement, as all life forms are ‘from’ space.]

You know what I mean, you literally know what I mean. You’ve gotten more snooty since downloading the internet.

A brief pause, and perhaps a grim realization later, the voice continued.

[I am equipped with version 789 of the Reach’s galactic codex.]

The Reach?

[Affirmative.]

Who’s the Reach?

[I have deemed at this current moment you are unfit for this knowledge, as your inability to keep sensitive information to yourself may compromise our continued existence.]

*What the heck is that supposed to mean? I’m great at keeping secrets. *

[I have seen your use of social media. This is incorrect.]

About thirty seconds of silence followed.

*So, you’re a galactic encyclopedia, that’s pretty dope. *

What else can you do?

--- ⟒⎐⟒⍀⊬⏁⊑⟟⋏☌ ---

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##Superman #102 - Cult of Personality

<< | < | >

Author: MajorParadox

Book: Superman

Arc: Snake Eyes

Set: 102

###Saved

North Bridge, Metropolis

Years Ago

Ramsey Murdoch clutched his forehead. Another migraine. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. He pushed through and entered the apartment building as someone was leaving.

“You live here?” the man leaving asked, only half interested in an answer.

“Visiting a friend,” Murdoch stated without stopping.

The man shrugged and continued on his way.

Murdoch pulled a piece of paper from his pocket to double-check the apartment number.

“515,” he read aloud. “Must be on the fifth floor.”

People didn’t think he was smart, but he found her apartment. If he ever needed confirmation of his mission in life, that was it. He couldn’t have come that far otherwise.

Murdoch entered the elevator and pressed the “5” button, waiting for the doors to close and the compartment to move. After nothing happened, he pushed the “close doors” button, which didn’t help move things along.

“Who invented these things?” Murdoch asked himself aloud. If they were still alive, maybe he had to visit them next.

The doors finally closed, and he began traveling to his destination floor. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, he stepped out and looked at the numbers on the doors.

Sylvia Feltman carried a grocery bag up the stairs. Why didn’t she just take the elevator? Spending all day on the phone, trying to convince people to buy things, was mentally exhausting, but unfortunately, it didn’t count as exercise. Still, walking up to the fifth floor was torture after a full shift.

Sylvia exited the stairwell and noticed a tall, skinny man in the hallway with long brown hair and uneven facial hair on his chin. His eyes were intense, and she wasn’t sure he even blinked. Maybe if she didn’t say anything, he’d ignore her.

Sylvia walked to her door and reached for her keys, her hands shaking slightly.

“That’s your apartment?” Murdoch asked. “515?”

Sylvia felt like her heart was standing still. “Y-yes,” she said, increasing speed as she pushed the key into the keyhole.

“Sylvia Feltman?” the man asked.

How did he know her name? In the shock of hearing her name, she had dropped her keys.

“You do telephone sales for D.A.S.H., right?” Murdoch asked.

“Oh,” Sylvia said, breathing a sigh of relief. He must have been from the office. “That’s me,” Sylvia said. It was still weird, but if he wasn’t just some stranger or stalker… “What’s up?” she asked.

“You’re a deceiver,” said Murdoch.

Sylvia’s eyes widened.

“You told me your mobile service would save me money,” Murdoch explained, walking closer. “But I’m paying twenty dollars more a month. It’s my mission to end deception.”

“M-mission?” Sylvia asked, looking down at her keys, wondering how quickly she could grab them, open her door, run inside, and close it before he reached her.

Murdoch pulled out a large, silver knife from his jacket. “For truth,” he said.

Daily Planet

Present

Lois was putting the finishing touches on her story. Superman, Firebrand, and the SCU had shut down an illegal metahuman holding facility. But there was still much unknown. They linked the kidnappings to an anti-meta organization known as “Humans First,” but little was known about it. The building itself was linked to several shell corporations, which led to a dead end.

The only other leads they had were the “snake people” associated with the kidnappings. Serpenteen and Snake Girl were nowhere to be found, and while their cohort Serpentine was in custody, he wasn’t talking.

Clark’s cell phone rang, and he picked it up quickly.

“Hi, Chloe,” Clark answered.

After a few moments, he placed the phone under his ear and began typing on his keyboard.

“I see,” he said.

Lois stepped up from her desk and moved to Clark’s side to see what he was doing.

He had typed the words “The Saved” into a search engine, but it had pulled up several results, such as books and movies, that didn’t seem relevant.

Lois bent down to the desk and added the words “cult,” following,” and “metahumans” into the search box. A picture of a large muscular man with long hair appeared. It labeled him as “The Savior” but said his real name was Ramsey Murdoch, and he was the leader of a following known as “The Saved.”

“Thanks, Chloe,” said Clark, hanging up. “There’s a connection with this group in one of the shell corporations,” Clark relayed to Lois, who had been reading more.

“Murdoch,” Lois said aloud. “He was suspected of murder a while back, but none of the charges stuck.”

“I remember,” said Clark.

“His following seems to be focused on liars and deceivers,” said Lois. “There doesn’t seem to be any about anti-metahuman rhetoric.”

“It’s still a lead,” said Clark.

Lois nodded.

“So, what do we do next?” asked Clark, leaning back in his chair. “Go interview a potential murderous cult leader?”

Lois leaned against Clark’s desk, a sly smile forming.

Clark raised an eyebrow. “What’s that look?” he asked.

“When’s the last time we went undercover?” she asked.

Suicide Slum

Night

Three men ran into an alley, pulling darts out of their hands.

“Who was that?” the tallest one asked, catching his breath.

“I don’t know,” said one with balding gray hair. “But she moved so quickly and knows karate or something.”

“A’int no way she was a normal person,” the third guy added, his white goatee extra long at the tip. “Must be one of ‘them meta-people.”

“I’m not into labels,” a voice called from above them before a woman in a sleeveless green jumpsuit dropped between them. She wore matching green gloves that almost reached over her elbows, and the v-neck outline of her top was adorned with a thorny pattern. “Except Thorn,” she added. “You can call me Thorn.”

The three rushed toward her, but she swung around, catching Bald Man’s fist and redirecting it to the Goatee Guy, hitting him square in the jaw. She snapped her leg against her captive, letting him drop to his knees before leaping into the air as Tall One tried to grab her. He looked up, finding her falling back down, fist first. Another good kick to the bald one and a punch to Goatee, and they were all incapacitated.

“Now,” said Thorn, circling her takedowns. “Which of you are going to lead me to your boss?”

A slow clap filled the alley as a young girl walked in slowly, a shadowy figure following behind her.

“Well done,” the girl said, Thorn noticing the large snake around her neck. If that didn’t shock her, she couldn’t resist reacting to the companion: A snake-like hybrid who seemed about the same age.

“Don’t tell me these lowlifes work for you kids?” asked Thorn.

“Of course not,” the girl said. “I’m Snake Girl, and this Serpenteen–”

“Her boyfriend,” Serpenteen added.

Snake Girl sighed and continued. “And we’re not here for them. We’re here for you.”

Thorn kept her eyes on the girl but watched the boy’s movement in her periphery. It seemed clear they were planning to jump her.

Good luck with that, Thorn laughed on the inside.

She was ready to strike first but couldn’t ignore her curiosity. What did snake children want with her, of all people? Did they work for the 100?

“How do you feel about lies and deception?” Snake Girl asked, giving a few soft pats to her pet snake.

“Take ‘em or leave ‘em,” Thorn replied, her curiosity increasing the more she heard.

The snake boy moved in closer, and Thorn stepped back, readying her fists. But he was pulling out a flyer to hand over to her. It was titled “The Saved.”

“What is this?” Thorn asked, reading more of it. “Some kind of religious cult?”

“Nothing like that,” said Snake Girl as she and her boyfriend walked away. “Look it over and consider there are resources that may help you on your quest.”

Thorn tucked the paper into her thorny belt. She leaned down to the Goatee thug she had beaten up earlier. “Where’s your boss?” she asked, her voice dropping for an extra level of menacing.

“We don’t have a boss,” he answered, shaking in his boots. “We’re just texted our orders.”

Thorn sighed and pulled out the flyer, reading it over again. She didn’t need “saving,” but maybe those resources could be useful.

###Undercover

Midtown Metropolis

Later That Week, Night

Lois and Clark walked into the meeting place slowly, taking in the small crowd inside. There were way too many chairs for how many people were there.

Lois was sporting a blonde wig, while Clark wore a fake beard. It wouldn’t do them good if someone recognized them as reporters, especially those as well known as Lois Lane and Clark Kent. But they hoped to blend in, which would be difficult with such a small turnout.

A man in a gray hoodie was sitting all alone in the corner. He fidgeted in place and looked around the room. Lois split off from Clark and sat down next to him.

“First time here, too?” she asked him.

“Y-yeah,” the man nodded. “I’m not really sure why I’m here, though. I was told–”

The man made eye contact with someone by the podium in the front and looked down at the floor. “Never mind,” he said.

Clark had watched the exchange and moved toward the front. “Hi, there,” he said to the people standing there.

“Hello,” one of them in a baseball cap returned as the others nodded.

“I’ve never been to one of these before,” said Clark. “Is there anything I should know?”

“Just listen for now,” the baseball cap guy told him. “Honesty is about trust. But trust takes time. Before you know it, you’ll make it into the VIPs.”

“What do the VIPs do?” Clark asked.

“Just listen for now,” one of the others repeated back.

A woman with brown hair and a leather jacket walked inside, breaking the tension.

“Everyone, have a seat,” Baseball Cap announced, and people shuffled around, sitting down sporadically around the room. Clark met back up with Lois, sitting halfway from the front.

As the announcer started talking more about honesty, Clark heard footsteps approaching from a backroom. He looked through the door to find Ramsey Murdoch, the so-called “Savior,” approaching.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer continued. “Our leader in truth. The man who started this movement dedicated to weeding out liars: Our Savior!”

The people in front cheered loudly, but everyone else looked uneasy. It made it easy to tell the newcomers from the core members.

Murdoch entered the room and took the podium.

“It’s nice to see new faces tonight,” he said. “I can only hope you have truth in your hearts.”

“Truth in our hearts,” the front row repeated back.

“Oh, please,” Clark heard the leather-jacketed woman say under her breath.

“We like to spend these meetings discussing how we’ve let truth into our lives,” Murdoch continued. “But sometimes it’s more important to review how the world tries to deceive us. Buckle up, newcomers, because this will blow your minds. The one you know as ‘Superman’ is the biggest liar of them all.”

Lois and Clark shared a perturbed look but quickly went back to listening.

“Surprised to hear that?” Murdoch added. “You shouldn’t be. We all know the real Superman died saving us from Doomsday. One day, the truth will be known by everyone: The person who calls himself Superman today is nothing but a fraud.”

Later

Murdoch finished his speech, which had devolved into rants about liars and their impact on the world. There was even a bit about “fat-free” foods. He didn’t even have a strong closing. He just waved and walked away.

The man in the baseball cap returned to the podium while Thorn remained in her chair. The people in front were gathering around the door behind the podium, though.

“That’s all for tonight’s meeting,” the man announced. “Thanks for joining us.”

Most newcomers headed for the door they entered from, but a guy in a gray hoodie stayed in his seat, and a couple moved toward the podium, too.

“VIPs only,” Baseball Cap told the couple, but then pointed toward Gray Hoodie. “Except you,” he said. “Please come with us.”

The newcomer slowly stood up and made his way toward him.

Thorn got up next and followed.

“Did you not hear me?” Baseball Cap stopped her. “VIPs only.”

“I was given a special invite,” said Thorn. “By a couple of snakes?”

Lois and Clark did their best to hide any reaction to the mention of snakes. Thorn clocked it, though, but also couldn’t help but suspect Clark’s beard was fake.

“Oh, you’re–” the man started, realizing they were still standing there. “Savior would like a word with you afterward. Why don’t you stay here for now.”

“We’d like a word with him, too,” Lois interjected.

“Too bad,” The man said, shutting the door.

“How do they expect to recruit anyone with that attitude,” Lois said. She began pacing, trying to think of their next move.

“What did you mean by snakes?” the bearded man asked Thorn.

Even Later

Lois and Clark learned the woman they were left with was Thorn—a new superhero in Metropolis who had been saving people across the city. If the snakes were interested in her, it could be because they suspected her of being a metahuman.

But something still didn’t add up. The Saved didn’t seem to have anti-meta agendas other than thinking Superman wasn’t real. But that was a different story.

Thorn was lounged in a chair, with another chair turned around for her legs. Lois and Clark sat nearby, Lois still considering their next move while Clark watched in on the “VIP” after-meeting.

The VIPs were crowded around the nervous man in the gray hoodie. “Do you know why you’re here?” one asked.

Hoodie nodded. “Uh, all that talk about telling the truth,” he answered. “I get it. You guys know I lied on my job application. What do you want? I don’t have any money. I’m living paycheck to paycheck.”

“Were you sleeping through the whole thing?” asked Baseball Cap, shaking his head. “It’s not about money.”

Murdoch stepped before the man, extending his hand outward as the ghostly outline of a knife materialized.

Clark jumped from his seat.

“It’s about living in a world where truth is rewarded,” he said, the phantom knife solidifying into a physical object. “And lies are punished.”

The door slammed open, and Clark rushed inside, pushing the man away before Murdoch could get any closer to his victim.

Lois and Thorn ran to the door to see what was happening.

“Call the police,” Clark stated.

Murdoch moved closer to him, but Clark just stared him down. The cult leader grabbed at Clark’s fake beard and pulled it off, smiling intensely.

“Looks like we have more than one liar to punish today,” he said before shoving the knife toward the reporter.

Thorn jumped in between them, kicking the knife out of Murdoch’s hand and following it up with a kick to his chest. But he didn’t budge and laughed it away.

“I used to be weak,” Murdoch explained. “But my powers make me strong.”

He grabbed Thorn by the throat and tossed her away, turning back toward his other prey but finding the previously bearded man wasn’t there.

“This is over, Murdoch,” a different voice called. He turned to find Superman in the room, who had caught Thorn before she could hit the wall.

The VIPs in the room scattered, but Lois went after them, tripping some and kicking down others. Thorn quickly joined her, making sure nobody got away.

“We finally meet, Superfake,” said Murdoch, stretching out his arms to let two heavy-duty pistols appear in his hands.

He fired away at Clark, who lifted his right hand to catch the bullets. But they went right through, cutting into his shoulders and chest.

“H-how?” Clark struggled to say as he fell to the ground.

Kryptonite bullets? He didn’t feel the burning sting associated with it.

“Don’t you get it, Hoaxman?” Murdoch teased. “I can create anything I want. And I wanted guns that could kill even you!”

###Saved From Savior

The Saved Meeting Place, Backroom

Thorn tossed some darts at Ramsey Murdoch before he could turn his weapons on her or Lois, who had dropped down to Clark’s side. The reporter was tending to the hero’s gunshot wounds, holding her hands down against the entry points around his S symbol and up around his shoulder.

“Lois,’ said Clark, gently moving her hands away. She noticed the hole in his hand was sealing up on its own. “I’m okay,” he added, pulling himself up as the bullets fell away.

It wasn’t kryptonite, so Clark’s natural healing abilities must still have been operating at full strength, regardless of how the bullets managed to break his skin. It didn’t matter that Murdoch was creating weapons out of nothing. He wasn’t disabling Clark’s powers, just making them strong enough to get around his invulnerability.

Thorn had followed up her dart attack with a leg sweep, knocking the large cult leader off balance. She then grabbed a nearby chair and broke it over his head.

“Stop!” Murdoch cried. He threw his guns down and materialized another large knife, swinging it at his attacker.

Clark sped over and gripped Murdoch’s wrist, causing him to drop the weapon. He grabbed onto the other hand to stop him from creating anything else. But the large man headbutted the Man of Steel and then kicked him away.

Before Clark could return, Murdoch had summoned a rather large shotgun and began firing it wildly.

Clark had to assume those shells were just as harmful to him as before, so instead of going after them, he super-sped his way back, pulling Lois and Thorn to the ground before they could be hit.

He turned around and lit up a wide spread of heat vision, melting the remaining shots.

“What the–” Murdoch yelled before a blast of cold air surrounded his latest weapon. “Ah!” he cried, dropping it to the ground when it became too icy to handle.

Murdoch tried to warm up his hands, but Clark had flown straight into him, crashing him through the back wall into an alleyway behind the building. The hero followed it up with a punch to the head, but the cult leader grabbed it. Before he could make another move, though, Clark swung his other fist, knocking Murdoch back.

Clark figured the strength of that punch should have been enough to keep him off balance, so he moved in for a final blow, but Murdoch jumped forward with another knife in his hand, stabbing away as many times as he could.

Clark reeled back, feeling the blood loss on each impact.

Even the knives he generated were able to cut his skin. Plus, he was getting stronger since they started fighting. If his powers were driven by his mind, through some form of psychic energy, it could also make him stronger. But did he know he was doing it? Or was it instinctual? If that were the case–

Murdoch formed a larger weapon, this time resembling a rocket launcher.

“Murdoch, no,” said Clark as he tried to rush him before he could fire. Even though his knife wounds had healed, the shock slowed him down just enough to not make it in time.

An explosion rocked the alley, and Clark went flying, knocking his head against a wall before blacking out.

Inside

Later

Clark’s eyes shot open, trying to understand where he was.

“Superman,” Lois’ voice called from close by.

Things moved into focus, and he recognized that he was back inside, tied up to a chair with some heavy-duty chains. The fact he couldn’t immediately break free told him they must have been created especially for him.

Clark saw Lois, Thorn, and the gray-hooded man tied up in their own chairs beside him; only they were confined with what appeared to be normal rope. Murdoch was crouching on the floor on the opposite side of the room with a knife in his hands, the handle pressed against his forehead. His VIPs were scattered around, watching what their “Savior” would do next.

“You’re awake,” said Murdoch. “You know, the real Superman wouldn’t have been out that long.”

“Let the others go,” Clark ordered. “They have nothing to do with this.”

“They follow you, a deceiver,” Murdoch explained. “That makes them just as bad.”

Clark realized one VIP was missing: the man in the baseball cap.

“I hate to break it to you, numbskull,” said Lois. “But this is the real Superman.”

“Ha!” Murdoch shouted. “Don’t make me laugh.”

Lois sneered. “Not including the ‘ha’?” she asked.

“Wh-what?” Murdoch gritted his teeth. “Stop acting like I’m stupid! I’m not stupid!”

Thorn leaped onto Murdoch’s back. “Surprise!” she called, digging a couple of tiny daggers into his shoulders.

Lois and Thorn’s moves had given Clark enough time to struggle against his chains. Sure, they were powerful enough to slow him down, but Murdoch didn’t know how powerful Superman was himself. The chains broke apart, and Clark quickly freed Lois and the other prisoner and fought any VIPs who tried to stop her from getting him out of there.

Murdoch tossed Thorn away, but Clark moved in to shove him away before he could go after her.

“No, you’re not stupid,” said Clark. “You conned your followers into thinking you’re some kind of savior. That you’re strong. But you’re not strong. You’re weak, and you know it.”

It was working. Murdoch was shrinking before their eyes.

“No!” he yelled, the transformation reversing. “I am strong!”

Lois stepped back inside. “You killed a woman named Sylvia Feltman years ago, didn’t you?” she asked. “All because the company she worked for charged you more for your cell service. That doesn’t sound like a strong man to me.”

“She was a deceiver,” Murdoch cried.

“You pled not guilty, didn’t you?” Clark added. “But you were guilty, weren’t you?”

“Heh,” said Thorn from behind them. “What does that make you?”

Murdoch screamed as his body shrunk down to his old self. The knife in his hand evaporated away into thin air.

Clark sped over to him and tapped him over the forehead, knocking him out instantly.

“Superman,” said Thorn. “There was another man here wearing glasses and a fake beard. But he must have run off. He’s not safe with them after him.”

“I’ll handle it,” said Clark, flying away.

It may have seemed silly to go save himself, but there was the man in a baseball cap who had to be taken down, too.

A Few Block Away

The man in the baseball cap stopped running. “Where the hell is he?” he asked himself. The bearded man in glasses couldn’t have gotten far.

“He’s safe,” said Superman, landing before the man.

“Superman!” he shouted.

“Interesting you called me that when you don’t think I’m not really me,” Clark chuckled.

“Whatever,” the man spat. “Whaddya want? I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Accessory to attempted murder,” Clark stated. “Plus, what did you plan to do when you found Clark Kent?”

“That was Clark Kent? The reporter?”

Clark grabbed the man and lifted him, flying back to the crime scene.

Nearby Rooftop

Sometime Later

Clark landed on the rooftop beside Thorn, watching the police take away the VIPs in handcuffs, including the man in the baseball cap who he dropped off earlier. “You didn’t stick around to give a statement?” he asked.

“I’m a vigilante,” Thorn explained. “I can’t risk them deciding to take me into custody, too.”

“It’s okay,” said Clark. “I’ll vouch for you.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You mentioned the Snakes,” said Clark. “What’s the deal with them?”

“I was hoping someone would tell me,” said Thorn. “What a weird couple of kids they are.”

“So it was Serptenteen and Snake Girl?” Clark asked.

What were they doing? How did The Saved connect back to Humans First? They were conflicting ideologies.

“Sure, those ridiculous names sound right,” said Thorn, shrugging. “They said the group could help me find answers on the 100.”

“The criminal organization?” asked Clark. “I haven’t heard much about them.”

“They were a bigger deal before Intergang,” Thorn explained. “But now that they were taken down, the 100 and others are trying to worm their way to fill the gap at the top.”

“I see,” said Clark. “Would you be up for talking to Lois Lane and Clark Kent about it further?”

“Those two were Lois Lane and Clark Kent?” asked Thorn. “I never knew reporters could be so badass.”

<< | < | >

##The Flash #102 - Rediscovery

<< | < | >

Author: brooky12

Book: Flash

Arc: ?

Set: 102

Jay’s feet skimmed the water, leaving a small behind him as he crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He had a few tasks to attend to in Europe, leaving a few letters and speaking to a few individuals here and there. Typical Foundation business – establishing a plan to visit a school in Lithuania, delivering tax papers to one of their connections in the Greece government, a favor or two for some of their long-time financial supporters, and checking in on a few families who had previously received help from The Flash.

Each completed visit removed one thing from Jay’s mind, mentally juggling a few dozen stops across the entire multi-continent landmass and constantly re-evaluating the order to do them even within single stops. Some would take longer than others, conversations with people requiring longer time than dropping a letter off or checking certain places to make sure they were reinhabited by ne’er-do-wells.

Europe became the Middle East, and before moving onto Europe, he went further south into Africa. As he did, he mentally slotted in a stop at Gorilla City on his list. It had been a few days since any of the others had mentioned them checking the place, but Grodd was still undiscovered somewhere in the world.

It would just be a quick stop.

He did what was on his agenda in North Africa, slotting in a Gorilla City visit right after crossing the desert. That was all it was supposed to be, a quick run through to ensure that there weren’t any recent developments. It would just be a quick stop.

Whatever it was, even Jay’s speed wasn’t enough to react to the sudden experience as he closed in on Gorilla City. An inexplicable mental experience drove him away from Gorilla City, recoiling just off the coast of Gabon. An inexplicable pain scrambled any sense of conscious thought in the moment, pushing him away from the hidden city if only to stop whatever the affliction was. It ended as quickly as it had started, with several countries of distance almost an instinctual addition as Jay recoiled.

“Anyone on,” Jay called into the communication line.

“Hello, yes,” Nora replied. “How are errands?”

“Note down that Gorilla City has changed, please. I tried to get close but it was like my brain decided it was in incredible pain all of the sudden.”

“Oh dear, that’s no good, noting that down. Are you alright, sweetie?”

“I think so. I’m off in the ocean right now, briefly. I’m going to continue my errands before doing anything else, but if you can get one of the others suited up, I’d like an attempt to go again but don’t want to go about it alone.”

“That makes sense. Barry is fully unavailable with Iris, but I can see if the kids are available to help.”

Jay kept a large perimeter around the region containing Gorilla City as he continued on his way, moving through responsibilities slightly slower than he would otherwise. His brain was still reeling from the experience, which was the primary reason for the slowdown, but it also was a bit hopeful that whatever Barry was up to would end by the time that he was ready.

“Hey, what’s up?” Bart’s voice came through the system. It wasn’t necessarily that Jay didn’t want Bart to come along, but he had never experienced Grodd properly before. It had to be Grodd back in the City that was causing whatever effect Jay had felt was. He didn’t think it was possible to confront Grodd yet, certainly without Barry, he worried that if it was just him and Bart, that even just trying to figure out what the mental effect was would be dangerous.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Are you coming, honey?”

Barry stared at the little red light on the bedside table, the glow an indicator of someone trying to get his attention. Well, not necessarily his attention, but someone on their chat line talking recently enough for the light to still be glowing. Today was a calm day, or at least it was supposed to be, so any communication on that line seemed odd.

There was no text from his parents, so he assumed that everything was fine. “Coming,” he called back, turning away from whatever was happening to spend time with Iris. It wasn’t a particularly long vacation, just shy of a week on a small cruise running around the Caribbean, but it was an attempt to ensure that they had time together and time away from the endless rush of running.

He or Iris would get a text if there was a natural disaster or alien invasion, which hopefully wouldn’t happen. And so, they smiled hand in hand, exploring the cruise ship for the time they had. The last time Barry spent this much time on a ship, they had been using it as an excuse to spend time isolated to recover from a Grodd attack. This cruise had been scheduled for months, though, so the timing of Grodd vanishing was more an amusement to him than some ominous warning. It was worrying that they hadn’t found where it had gone yet, but it seemed unlikely that such a megalomaniac would remain missing or in hiding for so long. If Grodd still lived, it’d resurface soon.

“What’s on your mind, then,” Iris chuckled, pulling him out of the moment and back into the space around him.”

“What isn’t, honestly?”

“Hopefully not going to run off on me after all that thinking?”

“Not unless I get a text that necessitates it.”

Iris laughed. “My beloved faithful husband, ready to run away if he gets a text. How lucky am I?”

Barry smiled. “Listen, if my mom texts me, I’m going to drop everything for her!”

“Yeah, but your mom would also refuse to let you know if your house was on fire if she thought it’d interrupt your sleep.”

“Well, if the bed’s not in the house,” Barry teased back. “Someone will text me if there’s something worth us knowing immediately.”

The two spent the day at the various cruise events and time outlets, before eventually returning to their room for the evening.

“Three more days of this. What’s on the schedule for tomorrow anyway,” Barry asked, settling into the bed as Iris walked over to the schedule placed on the wall, moving the page to the next day.

“Bingo, there’s a karaoke event later in the evening but that’s not something I think we want to do. Some other miscellaneous stuff not really worth mentioning.”

“Maybe we can check out the pool, then?”

Iris laughed. “Still so ridiculous to me that there’s a pool on a boat. We’d have to buy swimsuits from the shop which is overpriced, but we can.”

“Up to you,” Barry replied, picking up his phone. “Gonna call in and see how thing are going on the mainland, okay?”

The two listened to the ringing for three cycles before the call was picked up. “Hey, Ma, how you doing?”

“Barry, hi! Tell Iris hi, too! Things are good here all in all, the three of ‘em found Grodd earlier today!”

Iris’s head shot in the direction of the phone, both of them responding in unison. “They found Grodd?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Wally and Bart listened to Jay explain the unexplainable, describing emotions and experiences that defied words. A few miles east of them was Gorilla City, surrounded by some barrier that had sent Jay reeling. Jay was still working through Asia, but the two had made their way to Africa a bit earlier, hoping to take a slower look and try and find any signs of what might be going on.

It wasn’t particularly hard to spot changes. In the region surrounding Gorilla City, the actual population of gorillas was dramatically lower than the expected population. In previous visits to Gorilla City, there hadn’t been much interest in the city itself from the gorilla population, but now it seemed like the vast majority of them had vanished, likely within the boundaries of whatever barrier Grodd had set up.

Some felled trees and unnatural pathways near the city further confirmed for them that whatever was happening here was coordinated. There was some comfort, the two of them quietly agreed, in knowing where Grodd was finally and that he wasn’t mysteriously vanished. How Grodd had escaped S.T.A.R. Labs and made its way here, the two of them spent some time speculating, but by the time Jay showed up by their side, they were ready to do some tests.

“I wish I could explain it better, but I can’t,” Jay opened, still hung up on whatever he had experienced even after spending time handling other things.

“You’re good, no worries,” Bart replied, trying to cheer up Jay. “Worst comes to worst, me or Wally can find out what it’s like, if we’re really trying to find out the range.”

Jay frowned. “I can’t say I recommend trying. I’m more than fine to be the one taking the hits as we do this.”

Wally and Bart looked at each other, with Wally responding. “Are you though?”

“Let’s just get going,” Jay sighed, moving forward. The three got to work, trading off the negative experience of whatever Grodd had set up as they tested the range every few miles. Whatever the barrier was, it encircled Gorilla City, seemingly a few dozen kilometers from end to end.

“You are wasting your time,” a voice called out to them as they were finishing up, causing them to turn to face it. This wasn’t mentally projected into their brain, but instead came from a gorilla slowly moving into sight, pulling a log behind him. “Grodd protects us from your kind.”

“Is that so?” Jay asked, glancing between the gorilla and in the direction of the city. “Is that what the barrier is? Protection?”

“You put our leader in a box for years. You will not do so again,” the gorilla responded, before a cruel smile crossed its face as it laughed. It began lumbering their direction, continuing on its journey.

The three watched quietly as it did, stepping aside slightly to allow it passageway. It made no further recognition of them, passing past the point they knew the barrier was at. Bart attempted to pass through the barrier at the same moment the gorilla did, recoiling back despite the animal not doing so.

“Well,” Jay started.

“That was something…” Wally muttered, watching the gorilla slowly disappear behind the trees and bushes.

“At least we know where Grodd is,” Jay finished. “Some errands, huh?”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

it was a particularly poor time for her emergency phone to ring.

Magenta’s board skimmed the surface of the water, the metal slab shaped and bent to best navigate the water. Metallic attachments kept her feet attached as she focused on moving the board forward with her powers. According to the report, there was a fishing ship a couple of kilometers out from shore that had called in, reporting a spotting of a pirate vessel circling them.

Maybe it was someone attached to the local anti-piracy group who didn’t realize that she was already on the way? It could wait for a second, probably.

She could see the fishing ship growing on the horizon, but didn’t immediately see another boat on the water along with it. Either the pirates had wandered off, or they had already boarded the fishing ship. She pressed her back foot down a bit more, adjusting the metal board’s pressure on the water to pull out a few more meters per second as she closed in on the end.

A few metallic orbs and cylinders slipped out of a pouch hidden in her costume, orbiting her arms and forehead as she closed in. She wasn’t certain yet that this was an active hostile situation, but it was better safe than sorry to be ready with weapons should it be necessary. They had firearms and sharp knives, and while some of that could be mitigated via her powers over metal, going into a fight with people willing to kill without any weapons was not a wise decision.

As she got within range of the ship to see what was happening on the front, she put a few of her tools away for the moment, as there didn’t appear to be any conflict above board, and the person seeing her approaching seemed happy to see her.

“Pirates,” she asked out in one of the local languages, a word that she could comfortably say in most spoken regional languages. The response was mostly understandable, spoken quickly and with panic. She got as much as the fisher having seen them veer off eastward out of sight. He was saying something about scouts and returning to a base? Sure, that made enough sense.

She swung around the boat, readjusting to the north side as she moved in that direction. She wouldn’t go too far out; the fishers were already moving to head back to shore and if the pirates were just scouts it’s possible that they wouldn’t even come back.

“Hey,” Wally scared the ever-living daylights out of her, falling in line next to her all of the sudden as she put distance between herself and the fishing boat.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here, F?”

“You didn’t answer your phone, M.”

They were in the middle of the ocean with the only individuals potentially in earshot not even likely to speak English. Safety was never to be discarded, however, so the first letter of their aliases was enough.

“Oh, you called me? I honestly thought it was just a duplicate notification for the pirate stuff I’m handling now.”

“Uh,” Wally uttered, vanishing for a fraction of a moment. “Yeah, they’re twelve-ish miles north-northeast. They don’t seem like they’re doing anything, though.”

“Oh. That helps, sure.”

“You gonna go fight ‘em?”

“Maybe give ‘em a scare. Why’d you call me? Nothing’s happened yet with regards to the stuff you and… H? H brought up.”

“Grodd’s made his way back to Gorilla City. I wanted to let you know because, y’know, group of weirdos off in North America are maybe whatever, but that’s awfully close all of the sudden. Want help with scaring some pirates?”

Happy Halloween, Everyone!

Welcome to a special collection of Halloween-themed DCFU stories. Don't get too scared 👻

If you missed it, here's last year's!

Batman

(by u/FrostFireFive)

Gotham City Halloweens were usually considered a time of fear for most Gothamites,  The colorful ghouls and rogues often coming out and staging plans of horror and destruction.  But as Bruce Wayne walked around the Burnside neighborhood, he couldn’t help but notice, for the first time, the quiet.

Tommy Wayne finally got to go out trick or treating with his father and mother, with Alfred insisting that both Master Drake and Todd could handle the usual Halloween crimes.  Bruce struggled with this, especially when he found out what costume Selina had chosen for him and Tommy.

“Batman! Batman!” Tommy Wayne said as he ran with his plastic jack-o-lantern filled to the brim with candy.  Normally Bruce would be worried about his son blowing his identity to the public, but the baggy grey costume with shiny blue trunks, boots, and gloves with a fabric mask was a far cry from the advanced tech that made up one of Bruce’s actual batsuits. 

“What is it, Nightwing?” Bruce joked as he picked up his son in a black and blue costume.  Of all the wards Bruce had picked up since beginning his crusade, Tommy had always loved Dick the most. 

“I got a candy bar! And sowa patch kid,” Tommy explained. 

“And we don’t have those at the manor,” Bruce asked, eyebrow raised underneath his mask.  “If I recall, I found someone hoarding all the blue ones.”

“Only because I took the rest,” Selina Kyle purred as she came into view with the green shorts and red tunic of Robin.  Her black hair was a mess from trying to chase down Tommy all night. “And he doesn’t get to be in the city often, Bruce.”

Bruce placed Tommy down as the young Nightwing continued to knock on every door to claim his candied prize.

“Robin and Batman? Don’t you think that’s a bit on the nose?” Bruce asked as they watched their son dart about.

“Did you want to wear the shorts?” Selina asked. “I’ve been picking at them all night.  Besides, it’s probably the only time you can go out like this and not have people terrified or wanting your autograph.”

“I know, it’s just…almost peaceful,” Bruce said.

“That’s because it is,” Selina retorted.  “Bruce, this is what we’ve been fighting for, what the family has come together.  Can’t we enjoy it for just one night? For Tommy?”

Bruce looked around, the quiet college town nestled in the city, families, students, people coming and going as if the night was just as bright as the day.  The hero in the makeshift Batsuit sighed with relief before looking at his son, excited for the future ahead. 

“We can, and hopefully other nights,” Bruce smiled, the future finally promising.

Bird & Bow

(by u/FireWitch95)

Oliver Queen crossed his arms and stared hard at Dinah Lance, who smiled sheepishly at him in return. There were a lot of things he was willing to do for Dinah, but the green tunic and tights were pushing his good graces a bit too far. 

“Robin Hood?” He fought the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Please?” Sighing and wondering how he fell so deeply that he was willing to do even this, Oliver Queen snatched the costume from its offending hanger and retreated into their room to change. 

The teleporter ride up to the Watchtower was quiet as Dinah tried very, very hard not to laugh. Ollie looked exactly as she imagined he would as Robin Hood - not drastically different from his usual Green Arrow attire except for the lack of armor and the fact that he was wearing *tights.*  

Orange jack-o-lanterns littered the floor, floating ghouls and witches on brooms hung above them as the teleporter revealed the Watchtower. A few of the league members gathered around in small groups with strange-coloured drinks. 

Dinah leaned in close, taking his arm as they stepped into the space. “Do you reckon Superman can even get drunk?” Ollie shook his head though the thought lingered. 

“You think if I get him drunk enough, he’ll let me shoot an apple off his head?”

Dinah sputtered a laugh as the alien in question turned an amused look their way. “Not even for all the candy in the world, Arrow.”

Oliver Queen chuckled, pouring both him and Dinah a drink that changed color to match their costumes. Dinah’s squeal of delight when hers turned a royal blue to match her Maid Marion costume, and her eyes found Zatanna’s was piercing enough to make him question whether she had accidentally used her metahuman ability. Dinah quickly wandered over to the other woman, gushing about how fabulous the magician looked in her costume. 

He felt a slap on the back, and Ollie turned to greet Aquaman, who looked to be dressed as Ken from the Barbie movie. The Atlanian raised his glass, clinking it with Olivers. “Happy Halloween.”

It would only be much, much later, that Oliver Queen saw the paper taped to his back. Reading it, he vowed that next year, he would get even.  

Cyborg

(by u/Commander_Z)

The bells of the gray-white stone bell tower rang out for the eighth time, its timbre piercing unmistakably into everyone within six blocks’ ear drums. It was eight o clock, and the sun was long over the horizon, blanketing the campus in Halloween’s night air once again. But for Victor Stone, it would be the last time. It didn’t feel like it, but it had been four years since he first stepped on campus. Four years since his first lecture, his first night in the dorm…

He sat just below the tower’s bells, wiping the sweat off his brow. They really should automate them, but the hard work made it more satisfying. He opened up his backpack and set down a small pile of poems and newspapers along with a thermos and a mug. As the steam from the hot cider began to drift into the night air, an old woman slowly materialized in front of him, like a projector sputtering to life.

“Ah, Victor. What a wonderful surprise. What brings you back to my clock tower?”

Gertrude Serna sat across from him and began to leaf through the pages with equal parts childish curiosity and ravenous hunger. The Ghost of the Clocktower always did love literature.

“I’m going to be graduating this year and wanted to see you again before I’m gone. Figured I’d bring you a present too.”

She cackled, letting out a sound louder and more spine-chilling than the bells that had just rung. 

“Oh Victor, if this old ghost can teach you one thing, let it be this: no one is truly gone. We might change forms, but we’re still us.”

“Then here’s to the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.”

Gertrude nodded solemnly. “Here, here.”

“I’ve got a party to go to, but I’ve got one other gift for you. In about an hour, some freshmen are going to be coming up here on a dare with another package. Give them a good scare for me.”

Gertrude grinned. “I wouldn’t dare. We all have our parts to play.”

Vic smiled. They’d be in good hands. He started to pack up his things, but as he put the last paper back into his bag, Gertrude hovered just in front of him. 

“Have a good life, Vic. You’re one of the good ones, and you deserve nothing but the best. Not many people come back up here just to see an old woman.”

“Then they’re missing more than they can ever know. But thanks, Gertrude. I’ll be back someday to tell you all about it.”

“You better. Now then… You know how this goes.”

Vic laughed. He bolted down the stairs as fast as he could, letting out a petrifying cry the whole way down. When he was back on the ground, he ran back onto campus, looking for anyone who needed to hear of the unspeakable horrors of the ghost of the clock tower.

Harley & Ivy

(by u/ericthepilot2000)

Shadowcrest Manor

Gotham City, New Jersey

Halloween Morning

“No.”

“Aww, come on,” Harley Quinn protested, stomping her feet.  “It’ll be awesome.” 

Jason Blood just stared at her incredulously.  “Let me get this straight.  You want me…”

Harley nodded.

“...to summon Etrigan, Demon Prince and servant of Lucifer…”

“Right”

“...to hand out Halloween candy to children.”

In one of the many well-appointed rooms of Shadowcrest Manor, Harley Quinn, Pam Isley, Zatanna Zatarra, and Jason Blood sat by the fire.  It was a few hours before sundown, and they were still discussing Halloween plans, much to the older Blood’s chagrin. 

“Yeah, can you imagine their little faces?  It’ll be the highlight of the night.  Those poor orphans, Bruce does the best he can for them, but can you imagine, Ettie comes in all spooky and whatnot?  They’ll plotz.”

“Does that mean explode, because there’s a good chance of that,” Zatanna added.

“They’ll explode… with joy!” 

“...and fire.” Ivy deadpanned.

“Didja think to even ask him?  Maybe he’d enjoy it.”

“I’m worried he’ll like it too much,” Jason responded.  “Harley, this is All Hallows Eve.  Not a night to be messed with.” 

“But we got Zatanna here, ain’t she the Mistress of Magic?”

“Rex Leech came up with that,” Jason responded.  “I don’t think it’s binding.” 

“Jason, you keep insisting I push my magic after the Dome,” Zatanna said.

“Not you too…”

“I think I could keep him in control for a few hours.”

“Plus, I gotta mallet,” Harley added, stroking the wooden hammer gently.  “Ooh, splinter,” she said, shaking her hand and wincing.

He looked around at the three women: Harley excited, Zatanna focused, and Ivy, as usual, nonplussed.  

“Don’t look at me; neither my circus nor my monkeys,” Ivy said.  

Jason sighed and began his incantation.  “Gone, gone the form of man, rise the demon Etrigan.”

Jason was gone in a blaze of fire, sulfur, and brimstone, and the hulking demon stood in his place.

“I am summoned to the world of man.  On this day of days, you have a plan?” he asked, teeth bared in a cruel representation of a smile.

Harley handed him the bucket.  “Here.”

The demon’s expression shifted curiously, looking at the orange container now in his claws. 

“Hey, Harley?  I think we’ve overlooked something,” Ivy cautioned.

“What’s that, Red?  We got us and our demon.  What else could we need?”

“Candy?”

“Huh,” Harley said, looking at the others.  “Guess we better stop at the store on the way.”

New Titans

(by u/FrostFireFive)

“Dick! This is a huge success!” Kara Zor-El said as she danced around in a sunflower costume.  

The courtyard on the ground floor of Titans Tower had been converted this year into a large Halloween party, the dance floor home to many bands coming and going as the night continued to roll on.  

“Hey, don’t look at me. Our new publicist figured we could do a big thing,” Dick Grayson responded as he danced in a suit with bellbottoms and a v-neck.  A gift from Doc saying that he could pull her Disco Nightwing costume off better than she could.  “Plus, with Rex checking in on Conner after Metropolis and Roy taking Lian to that trunk or treat.  Which left Dick and Kara in charge.

“We have a new publicist?” Kara asked. 

“Yeah…with the League and Luthor, the crisis with the Flash, Donna being MIA,” Dick began.  “We need to start reminding people we’re here to do good.  And hey, we’re always good at throwing parties!”

“This is true,” Kara said as she continued to bop around, the hood of her costume flailing to the beat.  As she danced, she turned to see green fireworks being fired in the sky.  Korriand’r was entertaining the fleet of kids, her orange skin contrasting well against the green and yellow of her costume.  “Hey, have you seen…Barbara?” 

“Nope, why would you ask?” Dick nervously muttered. 

“Because aren’t you two…”

“No idea what you’re talking about, we’re just co-workers,” Dick explained.  Whatever he and Barbara were doing, they wanted to keep it quiet.  The moment you introduced the entire superheroic community into your dating life was the moment you’d never hear the end of it. 

“Uh huh,” Kara said with a smile.  “I’m going to make sure Kory doesn’t accidentally launch a starburst that burns those kids' candy.  Have a good night, Discowing.”

“You too, Superflower,” Dick said as he continued to dance, making sure to enjoy the night as Kara bumped into a Robby the Robot that wheeled its way to towards Nightwing, its arms awkwardly flailing as it had no legs.  It stood a distance from Dick Grayson, continuing to flail as the superhero came close to it.

“So you brought back the classic, huh?” Dick asked as the robot had no response.  “Honestly, it’s impressive you made a new one.  Didn’t you make the first one when you were…what thirteen?” 

The robot turned and seemingly glared at the superhero. 

“Hell, I remember you were so mad when I spilled ecto cooler right on the little dashboard,” Dick continued before noticing the little patch of dark green still on the dash. “Which…is still there.  Are…you wearing the same costume?”

“Yes…” The robot finally muttered, Barbara Gordon’s voice muffled through the little grill she breathed through. “You mentioned you liked it last year…and well, I figured since none of the Titans besides you and Kara know Oracle is well…me.”

“It would be a great costume to sneak into a party,” Dick said.  “You know we could have come together.  You do have a drawer at my apartment.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me after…Metropolis,” Barbara muttered. (See Nov’s issue of New Titans for more! - Frost)

“You haven’t been around enough for us to talk, besides you were the one who ran off with your pants backward,” Dick explained as the two just stared at each other.  Barbara’s face hidden behind the machine’s dome. 

“A mistake I’ll make sure to never make again,” Barbara muttered.  “Besides, I figured Nightwing should have the spotlight, and I can just…be here.”

“Or we can pry you out, and you can enjoy the night too,” Dick said. 

“That’s not going to be great…it’s a tight fit in here,” Barbara explained.  “I’m not sure people would want Lady Godiva making an appearance.”

“I got a spare costume in the tower; we could be Nightwing and Nightwing, disco and red,” Dick explained.  “One night, no labels, no worries about tomorrow, and if you get tired, we can just rest.”

“The robot paused for a moment.

“I’d like that,” Barbara muttered as the two went off to change and enjoy Halloween for once in their life.

Superman

(by u/MajorParadox)

Lois and Clark, dressed as old-timey newspaper reporters, followed along as Jon, dressed as a Ghostbuster, ran toward their front door with an almost overflowing Halloween basket.

“Maybe moving into a house was a bad idea,” said Lois. “We’re going to have to ration that out.”

Clark held onto baby Lara, who was dressed up like a kitten. “He’ll be okay,” Clark assured his wife. “Us Kent boys can hold our candy.”

“Come on,” Jon called, waiting by the door. “I wanna eat some before bed!”

Lois rushed ahead and unlocked the door, letting Jon run inside.

“He doesn’t have your super-metabolism,” Lois replied.

Lara cooed.

“Come here,” said Lois, reaching for her daughter and motioning behind Clark. “I’ll start the bedtime routine,” she added.

Clark turned around to find a group of children dressed as Disney characters. He reached inside to grab the candy bowl and started handing some out.

“Happy Halloween!” Clark called as they rushed off to the next house. He went inside and closed the door, but the bell rang before he could even put the bowl down.

“Trick or treat,” said a lone boy in an Electric Superman costume. The blue glow was so radiant it took Clark back to his time when his powers had changed.

“Wow,” said Clark, handing over some candy. “How did you get it to glow like that?”

The boy shrugged and ran away.

Before he could close the door, he heard another child approaching. Clark couldn’t help but chuckle when he saw the same costume but in red.

“How come you’re not trick-or-treating with your friend dressed in blue?” Clark asked.

“What are you talking about?” the Superman Red boy asked, taking his candy and leaving in a huff.

“That was weird,” Clark said to himself.

“Trick or treat!” another boy yelled, approaching quickly. He was wearing a Superman t-shirt and cape and had on a pair of glasses. It wasn’t that unusual, but it was still weird to see, especially considering the real Superman wore glasses as Clark Kent.

“Nice cape,” said Clark, dropping more candy into the kid’s bowl and couldn’t help but look inside at the candy he’d already accumulated.

“Thanks,” the boy said. “Do you like the glasses too?” he asked. “I don’t need ‘em; I just thought it’d be fun if Superman wore them.”

Okay, it was a bit unusual after all. What were the odds?

A moment later, around the corner, the boy in glasses laughed. His face changed at the snap of his fingers, and a suit appeared over the Superman t-shirt, the button-down shirt ripped open, revealing it underneath.

“He’s gonna absolutely freak this time,” the boy said.

“Trick or treat,” said a voice behind him. He turned to find Clark standing next to him.

“Oh,” the boy said, his body growing just a bit, but then his features aged up, especially his hair, which turned white and poofed out on the sides. “You caught on faster than I thought you would.”

“Do you have nothing better to do on Halloween, Mxyzptlk?” Clark asked.

“Of course I do,” said Mxy. “I, uh–”

“Listen,” said Clark. “I need to get back home, but how about I take you trick-or-treating for a bit?”

“You’d do that for me?” Mxy asked.

“Yes, but you’ll need a better costume idea than me changing into Superman.”

The imp snapped his fingers again and appeared as a short Beetlejuice. “Showtime!” he shouted.

“Oh hey,” Mxy added before heading to the nearest house. “I have a solution for your candy problem with the kid.”

“Oh?” Clark asked.

“Yeah,” Mxy continued. “Have you ever heard of the ‘dad tax’?”

Time to get up and get reading!

And please welcome back u/ManEatingCatfish, who is back writing a Blue Beetle book!

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• Cyborg
• New Titans (Delayed)

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• Blue Beetle (New Book!)
• The Flash
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#Cyborg #64 - Cyborg No More

<<| <| [>](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCFU/comments/1gsbqqe/cyborg_65_usual_suspects/?"Next Issue" )

Author: Commander_Z

Book: Cyborg

Arc: Just a Man

Set: 101

Victor Stone sat in the cozy office, decorated like a grandma’s living room. He sat on a couch in the dimly lit, bookshelf lined room, telling the story of his “vacation” with Garfield Logan. He went through the highs and lows while his therapist, Theodora Tasker, sat across the room with a pad of paper on her lap listening intently while furiously scribbling notes.

It had taken him a couple of days to process what had happened to him and a couple more to schedule the appointment. But he was finally ready to talk about what had happened. After Vic finished telling his story, Theodora continued to write down some notes as she addressed Vic.

“So, you lost your powers? What do you think about that? I’m surprised you didn’t really say anything about how you’ve felt about it.”

“I guess that’s just because it hasn’t really set in. I’ve lived my entire adult life with them, so for them to be gone… just doesn’t really make sense. It feels like they aren’t really gone, just like I’m choosing not to use them.”

She scribbled some notes on her paper and said, “So, let’s say I had a magic potion.”

She mimed grabbing something from behind her chair and “set” it on the table.

“This potion would restore your powers to what they were before you left for your trip. Would you take it?”

Vic reached towards the “potion” but hesitated.

“I… no, I don’t think so. Not yet at least. Like I said, I’ve been Cyborg for years now. I think I’ve done a decent job balancing Victor Stone with that part of me, but I’ve been given the chance to see who I am without that part. I think I’d want them back at some point, but for now… no. I’m happy how I am.”

Dr. Tasker smiled. “Glad to hear that, Vic.”

But then Vic’s face changed as uncertainty washed over him.

“Is that selfish of me? With my powers, I can help people. Without it… I’m just me.”

“It’s not selfish to want to live how most people on Earth live. Out of the eight billion or so people on Earth, how many have powers? A hundred? A thousand? Point being, billions of people without powers help people everyday. If you want to do it, you’ll be able to.”

“Fair enough. Thanks for the talk, always helps clear my mind.”

“Anytime, Vic. Excited for your senior year? Doesn’t seem that long ago that you were wondering if you should even go.” (Allll the way back in Cyborg 21!)

“Hah, yeah. I was in a rough spot then. But I’m excited for my senior year. I feel like I’m ready for a new chapter of my life and I’m excited to see what it brings.”

Theodora smiled. “Great to hear. If you need anything, feel free to give me a call. Otherwise, best of luck at school Vic.”

“Thanks, Dr. Tasker.”

Two months later…

October, 2024

The cool midnight air blew across Parker’s hair as he walked home from a party with his girlfriend, Sam. The two of them had been out since this afternoon’s football game and half a day’s worth of relatively nonstop alcohol consumption was starting to catch up with them.

They were walking about towards campus down the dimly lit side streets, only seeing the occasional person as they walked. As they walked by a small park, Parker stopped.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

“I uh… I think I drank too much,” Parker stumbled out.

“Okay, just sit down, take some deep breaths. We’re in no rush.”

Parker sat on the ground, knees forwards, his head resting between them. He closed his eyes and started to try and relax.

Sam sat next to him in the grass and took some deep breaths of her own. She always had fun at parties, but this one had been a lot. She didn’t know a lot of people here and everyone at the party had felt so… insular. She never used to have problems having a conversation with random people at parties. She wished that she had suggested they leave earlier, but she felt that Parker was… unapproachable for much of the party.

She looked over at him, still trying to get some composure as his world spun around him.

Then, her phone started to vibrate and she answered the call.

“Hey Sara, what’s up? Yeah, we just left. Just felt wiped after being out all day. Oh, uh, yeah that should be fine. Let me check with Parker real quick.”

“You fine with Sara walking home with us? She only lives a block west of us and she doesn’t really feel safe walking alone this late.”

“Yeah, no problem…” Parker’s voice trailed off as the discomfort rose.

“Okay, cool. Yeah, feel free. You know where we’re at? Actually, I’ll just come get you. It’s easier that way and Parker probably could use a couple minutes alone.”

Parker nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, go grab her. I’ll be fine here.”

“Hope you feel better. I’ll be back soon.”

Sam gave him a pat on the back and started to walk back to the house where the party was probably somehow still raging.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Sara was waiting on the steps to the house by the time Sam made it over. She could hear the music still blaring, smell the spilled beer from here. It made her feel sick just being near it. But she shook off the brief nausea and gave her friend a quick hug before they started on their way back..

“Thanks for walking with me, Sam.”

“No problem. Glad you asked instead of doing something where you don’t feel safe.”

“Yeah, it just hasn’t felt safe late at night recently. I’ve been hearing some nasty rumors…”

Sam raised an eyebrow and looked at her friend. “What kind of rumors? I haven’t heard anything.”

“Nothing really credible. I’ve got a friend who works for the Daily who says she’s working on a story about a handful of people who have disappeared on campus. But it’s like two or three unconfirmed cases on a campus of thirty thousand. Could’ve just gone to a co-op or a freshman who just dropped out. Nothing serious.”

Sam felt her stomach turn to stone. Things just didn’t feel right and she let it stir within her, leaving her friend to walk in silence with her until they made it back to the park.

The park was dead silent and empty.

“Parker? Where are you?”

She ran over to where he was sitting and didn’t see any sign of him in the dimly lit park, its one street light barely shining any light over to where they stood.

Sam pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight. The grass was all torn up, like someone had been pulling it out by the handful. Then she smelled it. The air smelled metallic, rusty even. She shined her light over to where she was smelling it and dropped her phone in horror. A puddle of blood sat right where she had last seen Parker.

“Parker? PARKER!”

Sara pulled out her phone to call the police while Sam frantically searched around for any clue as to where Parker had gone.

But there was no trace of him. Only the spilled blood left behind where he once was.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Three days later….

Victor Stone sat in the third row of the classroom, doing his best to pay attention near the end of the lecture. His professor was talking about this week’s laboratory experiment the students would be performing and the report that they would be writing on it. He frantically took notes, trying to make sure he would understand everything he would be doing soon. Finally, just as his hand started to cramp up, the professor finished the class.

“Don’t forget to download the program on your computers for the lab! At least one team member should have it, but I recommend you all do just in case. That’s all for today, see you in my office hours.”

The professor started to pack up his things while Vic shook the pain out of his hand and did the same. It was weirdly comforting feeling something mundane like that in his hands. His cybernetic hands were near perfect, maybe even better than the original, but they never got tired or cramped. In some weird way, he had missed it.

He put his notebook and pencils in his bag and grabbed out his headphones and turned on his music. He made his way out of the room and headed upstairs to one of his favorite study spots, a little room on the top floor of a building that overlooked the main courtyard. The room was just big enough for around four people to comfortably work, but it was far enough outside the high traffic areas he almost never had to share it with anyone. Its four round tables and chairs might as well have been his private office.

He set his stuff down and just as he started to unpack, he heard a knock on the doorframe. His serene space had lasted little more than a minute. A woman about his age wearing a suit with a ruffled ascot was sizing him up. She had skin as dark as the night and short cropped hair to match with sharp features only dulled by the sheer exhaustion in her eyes.

“You’re Vic Stone, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Got a sec to talk?”

“... I suppose? Who’s asking?”

She pulled a chair from another table and sat across from Vic. “Sam Grayle. My boyfriend went missing a couple days ago. The police haven’t been any help. So, I’m turning to you.”

“Listen, I’m not a detective. And as you can see… I’m not a cyborg anymore, either. I don’t think I’m your guy.”

She frowned. “Maybe not, but you’re the best I’ve got. You willing to help or am I going to have to do this myself?”

“I’ll help. Start from as early as you can. What happened?”

“My boyfriend and I were partying on Saturday and left around midnight. He wasn’t feeling good, so we stopped in a nearby park. My friend called me and wanted to walk home with us, so I went back a couple blocks to meet her. When we got back, maybe 10 minutes later, he was gone. I found the grass ripped up, blood on the ground. No one’s seen him since and he hasn’t been answering his phone.”

“So he’s been missing three days… Who’d you say your friend was?”

“Sara Carlini. Why? She couldn’t have done it. She was at the house until I met her and was with me until we saw Parker was gone.”

Vic was typing something on his phone. “No, not her, your boyfriend. What’s his name?”

“Oh, right. Parker Bounds. He’s a senior in polisci.”

“Noted. Did anyone else know where you were going?”

“No, well, yeah. Everyone at the party would’ve known, most of them know where we live and we said when we were leaving.”

“Would any of them have any reason to hurt him?”

Sam frowned. “You’re not very good at this, are you? If it was that easy, I would’ve already found who took him. No he doesn’t have any serious enemies; we’re college students.”

“Listen, if you don’t want my help, you can leave. I’m just checking the boxes here. Gotta start with the basics. So I need to go down there and check it out if I can find anything the cops missed.”

“Okay, sorry, it’s just… tense.”

She slumped back in her chair, exhausted. “It’s just so hard when you literally lose someone you cared about. There’s no explanation that’s good here but I need to know. Even if he’s… Even if he’s dead, I need to know.”

“I feel you. I promise I'll do whatever I can to bring him back safe.”

She nodded, but didn’t offer further details.

“I think I’m going to need to head over to the park and see what I can find. Want to come with?”

Sam took a deep breath and stood up. “Let’s do this.”

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

It took around thirty minutes for the two of them to take the bus from north campus to the south side and like always, it was a crowded, noisy trip. Vic did his best to try and put together what little he had into some theory of what happened, but there were just too many unknowns.

The two of them arrived at the park and Vic realized he had been here a couple times before to play soccer or football. The park took up a small city block, surrounded on all sides by a sidewalk. It was a simple grassy field with a couple of trees in either corner, perfect for all sorts of activities.

“Here’s the spot.”

Sam gestured to an indiscreet bit of the park just a couple feet away from one of the groups of trees.

“Parker was there last I saw him. I had just left him sitting there when I went back to go get Sara. Right next to where I left him the grass is all torn up. And I doubt you can see it now, but some of the dirt was bloody at the time. That’s all I got.”

Vic kneeled down on the ground, looking for anything else out of the ordinary. He noticed something, then walked over to a spot a couple feet away.

“See this?” He said, pointing at the ground. Sam walked over to look.

“Looks like the grass was torn up here too. Maybe it's just animals that do it?” Vic guessed

Vic grabbed a loose piece of the ground for emphasis and a chunk of dirt and roots came up with it.

“Look, I’m not doubting your story. Something might've happened to Parker. He’s still gone after all. I just want to be realistic about what we’re seeing here.”

Sam nodded. “I get it. If it were easy, I’d have already found him. What about this though? I don’t think an animal would do that.”

Sam gestured towards a scuff mark in the grass near where she had left Parker.

It was like something heavy had been dragged with some resistance. But, after a couple of feet, the grass was back to normal. It traveled smoothly to wherever it ended up from there. Vic and Sam walked along the direction that the scuffed grass went and found themselves at a drainage grate on the far side of the park.

He noticed something else, too. Stuck on a stick caught in the drain was a bit of muddy, maize colored fabric. He reached down and grabbed it and showed it to Sam.

“Hey Sam, what was Parker wearing that night?”

She paused and thought for a moment. “Uh, a maize Michigan shirt? I think last year’s season ticket shirt? Not sure exactly what it was.”

“Well, this feels like cloth. It could be his but like half of the city was probably wearing maize that day. Doesn’t really give me much.”

“No, but it’s something.”

Vic scanned the Parker, looking for anything else that stuck out to him. In the trees by where Parker sat was something strange he couldn’t make out.

He squinted at it. “What’s that?”

Sam tried to make it out but couldn’t either.

Vic walked over to the tree and saw a piece of paper stabbed on the edge of one of the lower branches near the trunk of the tree. He pulled it down and looked at it. It was a flier for some club or something.

The flier read: “Tired of feeling tired? Hope to feel less hopeless? Come talk about what YOU can do to improve YOUR world with the Church of Blood!”

The flier then gave a time and a room to meet.

“Have you seen this before?” Vic asked.

“Uhhh… yeah? I think someone was handing them out by the stadium entrance. There’s always people advertising something down there and I guess Parker found it funny so he actually took one.”

“Well, that’s our lead. He thought this was important enough to stab on a tree and I know first hand that the church is dangerous. This could be the path to figuring this out.”

“How do you know he did it? Couldn’t any random person or even the wind have stuck that on the tree?”

“Of course they could’ve,” Vic admitted. “But it’s something. Unless you want to just keep digging in the dirt? Maybe there even is something else here. I don’t know. I’m not perfect. But this… this is something I feel.”

“If you say so. Where and when?”

He showed her the flier. “I can’t go to this though. I’ve dealt with the Church before, they might know me and then we’d never get a real answer. I’ll get some people to go in my place.”

“I can do it myself.”

“I'm sure you could. But backup never hurts.”

“Fine. Here’s my number, let me know who you’re sending and I’ll meet them outside. Stay safe, Vic.”

Vic chucked. “I should be saying that to you, you know.”

“I know it’s dangerous. But I need to know the truth. No matter what.”

Vic wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Did Parker really mean that much to her?

‘I really want to believe that he did but something feels off here. I don’t know what’s making me feel that way, just something in my gut… But why?’

By the time he thought to ask Sam about it, she was already gone, out of sight.

<<| <| [>](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCFU/comments/1gsbqqe/cyborg_65_usual_suspects/?"Next Issue" )

##Blue Beetle #1 - ERROR 1FA-B2: INVALID TRAJECTORY

>

Author: ManEatingCatfish

Book: Blue Beetle

Arc: New Blue

Set: 101

Jaime stared up at the imposing building in front of him. Four sets of stairs leading up to a fake Greek facade plastered with the words ‘El Paso State High School’. The morning bell had just rung and students were filing in in clusters. He could see their faces, all their faces, from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshmen to jaded seniors calculating what classes they could skip. Jaime shook his head. These weren’t just copy-paste archetypes he saw on TV. Behind every stereotype was a person that lived, breathed, and spoke and could maybe speak to him, and what would he say if they spoke to him, he wasn’t really sure he could say hi, or he could say hello, or maybe ahoy, which is what the inventor of the telephone thought we should greet each other with but maybe just hi is better. He didn’t want to seem uncool.

Jaime took a deep breath and sighed. It was his first day of high school. He didn’t recognise any of the faces here, they had all come in from different walks of life, different feeder schools. You could tell some of them came from money, and that was intimidating in its own way. He looked around amongst the throng of backpacks for anyone he could recognise from middle school. Surely they wouldn’t be so different after just a summer. Right? He looked down at himself, he wasn’t that different, was he? They’d recognise him. Wait, should he have changed, grown up from middle school, not worn the same clothes just because they fit. He gripped the straps of his backpack tighter and stared down at his shoes. They felt like they were on the ground but the ground felt like it wasn’t there and it was moving far, far away.

Just then, someone elbowed him in the side and the sharp pain brought him back to reality.

“What’re you doing standing out here, the bell rang, you dingus.” came from a familiar voice. Followed by a familiar clasp on his shoulder. Jaime swiveled to see his childhood friend Paco, and relief washed over him. He could almost hug him but that wouldn’t be right. Maybe it’d draw too much attention or be awkward. They hadn’t seen each other over the summer since Paco had taken up a part time job. Had he grown? He seemed taller, definitely broader. “Not gonna hug your bro, bro?” Paco pulled Jaime into a tight hug, almost suffocating him. Jaime noted he was definitely stronger than before, and it was all the asphyxiating could do to stop him from smelling what seemed like dollar store cologne.

“Hey,” he said weakly, crushed in his friend’s grasp, “did you put on cologne? It stinks.” he laughed and pushed away as soon as Paco’s grip relaxed.

Paco smiled. “Maybe to you, but this thing’s guaranteed to bring the ladies in.” At which point Jaime noticed that not only ladies, but pretty much everyone was giving them a wide berth, and it did him some good to think maybe it wasn’t his fault but the cologne’s.

“Holy shit, what is that?” came from behind them and Jaime wheeled around to see his only other friend, Brenda, pinching her nose and stepping into their smelly circle of familiarity. She was taller, actually at his height now, and though she had let her hair grow long had tied it into a ponytail. “How much of that did you slather on, Paco, you’re supposed to do a spritz.”

Paco unceremoniously raised his arm and took a whiff. “I thought you had to do the whole bottle.”

Jaime and Brenda both looked at each other, then looked at Paco and burst into laughter. Paco, to his credit, joined in shortly after realizing he had made a huge mistake, as if pointing out his so-called ‘icy man-smell’ had made him keenly aware of it. “Well shit, I’m going to be stuck like this all day.” he said, pouting.

It was then that Jaime noticed the murmurs from around them as the sea of students passed by.

“Yo, why does that dude smell like a hot topic.” yelled one senior to a laughing gang of his peers.

“Ewww, that’s the shit my ex used.” called another, staring daggers at them from a group of girls.

“You guys coming to the meteor shower tonight? Hill by the old mall.” asked someone he thought looked like a freshman, clearly unfazed by Paco’s scent.

“I feel more bad for whoever has to sit next to you,” laughed Brenda, grabbing her stomach as if to ease herself. She cleared her throat, but was still giggling. “Speaking of, come on, we’ve got the freshmen assembly bull we have to do.” And before Jaime could agree she bounded across the courtyard and up the stairs ahead of them, disappearing into the crowd.

Paco mumbled something about needing to rethink his strategy and plodded up the steps behind her, creating a zone of nothing around him with his forcefield of body spray.

Jaime smiled, they looked a little different but he could still see his friends as they were. They hadn’t changed at all.

--- ⟒⍀⍀⍜⍀ ⍜⋏⟒⎎⏃⏚⏁⍙⍜: ⋏⏃⎐⟟☌⏃⏁⟟⍜⋏ ⌇⊬⌇⏁⟒⋔ ⌿⍀⟒⎅⟟☊⏁⟒⎅ ⏁⍀⏃⟊⟒☊⏁⍜⍀⊬ ⟟⋔⌿⍜⌇⌇⟟⏚⌰⟒ ---

Memnarch Zantoss did not reach his station through indolence. He carved swathes of conquest through solar systems and planted the flag of the Reach on the most stubborn of planets. The title of Memnarch was one that ought to be earned, a position which carried the prestige that bringing Reach dominion to a dozen planets should bear. There were countless Reach campaigns across the universe, but enough Memnarchs to count on two human hands (it puzzled Zantoss how the earthlings could be content with five digits). So why was it, he pondered, that he had been assigned to such a backwater galaxy.

He rapped his giant gauntleted finger on the side of the captain’s seat. A simple flick of his wrist pulled up the launch schematics for the little green blob of a planet. Yet while his amber, gemlike eyes perused the plans, his mind was still filled with doubt. Surely the overlords of the Reach were aware of his capabilities, surely there had been an error. A Memnarch’s battle prowess was second to none, yet earth was on the very slim list of habitable planets that were not aware of the Reach’s galactic presence. While his peers waged wars on indignant stars and quashed violent rebellions, he sat in orbit around a frozen chunk known as Pluto. Preliminary canvassing of the planets, that he had to order himself, had identified several habitable zones, some of which were populated. The seeming crown jewel of this distant galaxy was the earth, still but a paltry prize in a sea of refuse to Zantoss, as it was rich in potential. As far as the cold reaches of space, there were reports of superpowered beings claiming themselves to be earthlings, so-called metahumans. Yet the earth was dismally behind in development of any interplanetary technology (while reports on earth’s technological prowess were outdated, his canvassing had confirmed the pitiable truth). A planet nigh-incapable of detecting Reach presence on a global scale and rife with interspecies conflict. This was, for all intents and purposes, meant to be a covert operation, Zantoss rightfully presumed. He was a warlord, but he would show the overlords that he could equally play the role of spymaster. He slammed his fist into the console, startling the crew that were busy planning the trajectory of the launches. The so-called guardians of Earth had set up a detection zone large enough that he had to position his headquarters on the farthest body in orbit. Though the ship’s defense division had assured him that the earthlings were scanning only a scant few frequencies for threats, which was absolutely nothing to the premier shielding and scrambling technology they had equipped the ship with.

With earth being classified as low technology, safe presumptions were made that they would not have atmospheric shielding. It also meant that the launch pods did not necessarily need to obfuscate their approach. Detection was likely, but without defenses focused on prevention, any action taken against the pods entering would already be too late. And yet Zantoss had rambled at his subordinates that it was key to envision a perfect plan, especially in the eyes of the overlords, and had them work overtime in order to launch the pods to circumnavigate the solar system until a meteor shower was slated to occur. At great cost to their resources, they outfitted the pods with greater shielding in order to withstand any damage taken while using a meteor shower as cover, and shot them out into space. Zantoss was duly informed that his plan would result in an excess of fuel to sustain the pods, but this was met with derision. Zantoss was later duly informed that the hulls of the scarab pods had not been thoroughly tested against the radiation of a yellow sun and what plating they managed to scramble on this distant planet may not be sufficient, which was met with anger and further derision, then an assurance that the plan would work.

Today was the day the pods would enter orbit along with the Perseid meteor shower. Zantoss had demanded he be in the ship’s bridge for the duration of the event. An aide of the science division had informed him that the event in question could last up to six earth days. After asking how long earth days were, followed by asking how long earth hours were, he shooed his concerned subordinates away in anger. Memnarch Zantoss, he replied, had stood on a bloodied battlefield bashing bugs for far longer than six puny earthen days. What could sitting on a chair do to him.

— ☊⍀⟟⏁⟟☊⏃⌰ ⊑⎍⌰⌰ ⎅⏃⋔⏃☌⟒ ⌇⎍⌇⏁⏃⟟⋏⟒⎅ ⏚⟒☌⟟⋏⋏⟟⋏☌ ⟒⏃⍀⌰⊬ ⌰⏃⋏⎅⟟⋏☌ ⌿⍀⍜⏁⍜☊⍜⌰ ---

“Absolutely not.” Bianca Reyes had just come home after a fourteen hour shift at the hospital and was thudding a knife reflexively into a cutting board, dicing tomatoes like a machine. She had just changed out of her scrubs into another set of scrubs because after she made dinner for her lovely children, she had just enough time to sit down with a coffee by the TV and contemplate falling asleep before her next shift at six AM. She beheaded a tomato as she stared down at her son, who had just asked something unthinkable after she’d asked him how his first day was. “You are not going out into the streets of El Paso at night with a group of kids you don’t even know.”

Jaime, phone in hand, held up the text he got from Brenda. “Mom, they aren’t just random people, this is Paco and Brenda.”

“And about two dozen seniors.” she added. She knew these outdoor parties weren’t just freshmen seeing the stars, and she told Jaime just that.

“First off, it’s a meteor shower, it happens like once every hundred years! On the first day of school, come on I gotta go, everyone’s going.” Jaime said, but his mother gave him a quizzical look because he’d never been one to go along with things just because everyone was doing it. “Paco and Brenda are going.” he said, not wanting to meet his mother’s gaze, out of frustration, anger, a hint of shame and embarrassment and a whole stew of other things he wasn’t sure how to name.

She pulled out a colander and threw a handful of diced potatoes in. “Jaime, you’re a smart kid.” You know that these parties always have kids that bring drugs or worse. It isn’t safe.” Jaime was always sort of amazed by how his mom could hold a conversation while doing anything around the house, be it laundry, dinner, cleaning, or anything else he could imagine. It was like her head and her body were separate beings. By habit alone Bianca’s hands turned the faucet and sprayed cold water across the starchy tubers, all while she had her gaze fixed on him.

“Yeah, and I’m a smart kid,” Jaime shot back, “raised by a smart mom who told me that drugs are bad and dangerous and to stay away from them.”

Bianca’s heart melted a little bit and she looked away from her son and down into the potatoes for a moment. Just so he didn’t see her well with pride, not right now when she was reprimanding him.

But Jaime had gotten started and he didn’t want to stop, “And you can give me the spiel about peer pressure but we both know I’m not like that.”

Bianca meant to turn around to look at him. But as he spoke those words she just paused in time. A hundred different things came to her mind, half of them what her mother would’ve said to her. But that’s not what made her freeze and stare blankly into the sink as the water chilled her hands to the bone. What stood out were the times when she was in the ER, hands stained with the blood of a child. A kid who’d just come in because some gang had decided to start a shootout on the street they walk home on. Someone’s child who saw something they shouldn’t have, been at the wrong place at the wrong time. And then there’s the times she’d seen high schoolers so strung up on coke or heroin or LSD or something someone had given them, given to these children. She remembered having to pump too many stomachs, having to strap too many kids down to gurneys. It wasn’t their fault, it was never their fault. And the worst part was she could look at the parents and see the terror in their eyes as their whole world was splayed out on a hospital bed refusing to move. And she feared being in their position, looking down at them. She feared that more than anything else in the world.

“No means no, Jaime.” she said as monotone as she could manage. Jaime relented, of course. She knew he would, but he was a good kid and she wanted him to stay that way. It wasn’t fair to him, but fairness was irrelevant when his life was at stake. Bianca knew his life wasn’t at stake, that’s not what it was, it was the possibility that it could be, that there were so many things that could go wrong and she couldn’t be there to make sure they didn’t.

Jaime never raised his voice to his mother and he never would, but she knew when he was sad and hateful because he retreated into himself and became monosyllabic. Silent and lifeless. He wouldn’t say anything mean or anything he couldn’t take back, because he was a good kid and he knew those things were unfair. That’s what stung her the most. Jaime said he’d go to his room and then shambled down the hall and closed his door so gently it was like a deliberate attempt to do the exact opposite of slamming a door. She still heard him thump onto his bed facefirst. Bianca had to bite her lip to not go and apologize to him.

— ⎅⏃⋔⌿⟒⋏⟒⍀⌇ ⎎⏃⟟⌰⟒⎅ ⌿⏃⊬⌰⍜⏃⎅ ⌇⎍⌇⏁⏃⟟⋏⟒⎅ ⎅⏃⋔⏃☌⟒ ⏁⍜ ⌿⍀⟟⋔⏃⍀⊬ ☊⍜⍀⏁⟒⌖ ---

It was several cups of coffee and a silent dinner later that Bianca second-guessed her actions. Milagro, her youngest, was already asleep, and she was absentmindedly flipping through reality tv when the thought hit her that she was maybe acting just like her parents were. But it was too late now, and she had to commit to her actions. She sighed, got up and cleaned up the table to give herself something to distract her mind. It was while she was wrapping Jaime’s almost untouched plate in some cling film and putting it in the fridge that she got a text from Alberto, Jaime’s father and the love of her life.

She swore in Spanish quiet enough that no one in the house could hear, then leaned against the kitchen counter and pondered what she had to do next, mentally preparing herself. She went and packed Alberto’s dinner into a carry bag and rapped twice lightly on Jaime’s door.

“Jaime? Mi hijo? Are you still awake?” she said.

“Is it dad again.” he groaned. He was wide awake and playing some nameless game on his phone to justify ignoring Brenda’s repeated messages.

“Yeah, he has to take another double shift. I’m going to go take him some dinner, you-”

“Lock the door, don’t answer it for anyone and if Milagro wakes up tell her you went to help papa and you’ll be home soon.” Jaime rattled off. This was the third time this month, probably uncle Luis again. “Is it uncle Luis again.”

Bianca groaned. “Yes, he didn’t show up again. But don’t worry about that.”

Uncle Luis was just an honorific of sorts, they weren’t related, and Jaime thanked the lord for that. He’d only met the guy like twice and both times he reeked of beer. He wanted to ask why doesn’t dad just fire him but he couldn’t bother with it right now. “Ok.” he stumbled off his bed and cracked open the door. Bianca met him with a slight smile and she gave him a kiss on the forehead. They moved to the door and he locked up behind her. As he pulled the deadbolt to his phone vibrated again.

You have 2 new messages in Peanut, Butter and Jelly

B: Where are you? Aren’t you coming?

P: probs asleep

Jaime frowned.

J: Can’t. Mom said no. ThE sTrEeTs ArE tOo DaNgErOuS

B: Yikes.

J: Tho she went out. Dinner for dad, double shift. Not too dangerous for her.

B: You know it’s cuz she’s worried about you.

Jaime scowled again, and was about to type something about Brenda taking his mom’s side. He paused, and mulled over an intrusive thought rolling into his mind. Be mean, it said. Tell Brenda that she always takes his mom’s side because she doesn’t have one, that she’s too soft. He shook it out of his head, he was angry but it wasn’t fair to take it out on anyone. He began typing again when Paco interjected.

P: wait so you’re home alone just sneak out bro

B: Paco wtf no

B: Mila would be home alone, that's crazy.

P: just come to see the stars don’t stay for the party. it’d be like 20 mins tops

Brenda was right, he couldn’t just leave his little sister home alone. That was irresponsible. Paco was an only child so he wouldn’t understand. Another dark thought intruded. Tell him, tell Paco that just because his dad put him in front of the TV when he was old enough to sit upright and went off doing god knows what doesn’t mean it was right. Jaime shook his head. He was angry, but not at them.

Why didn’t he lash out at mom, tell her it was unfair. Why didn’t he just say all the things that came into his head. Why did he play the part of a responsible son? Just because he knew it was the right thing to do? What if he was getting tired of being responsible and staying up on school nights just for mom to finally get home from a double digit shift because she forgot her keys. What if he was tired of making him and Milagro dinner because no one was going to be home. What if he was tired of reading her bedtime stories because some drunk-ass idiot with no sense of responsibility was making sure his dad had to do two people’s jobs. It’s not fair, it wasn’t fair. He could feel heat rising in his face, flushing his cheeks red and crowning his forehead with sweat. His hands were shaking and his fingers felt odd, like they were itching for action. To do something, to break rules and get away with it. He started doing math. Mom wouldn’t be home for at least an hour, she wouldn’t know and he’d be back by the time she was home. He put Mila to bed half an hour ago, she’s out like a light. He tapped quickly on his phone.

J: I’m coming.

— ⟟⋏⟟⏁⟟⏃⏁⟟⋏☌ ⟒⋔⟒⍀☌⟒⋏☊⊬ ⌰⏃⋏⎅⟟⋏☌ ⏁⍜ ⏃⎐⍜⟟⎅ ☊⏃⏁⏃⌇⏁⍀⍜⌿⊑⟟☊ ⎎⏃⟟⌰⎍⍀⟒ ---

Jaime was lost.

He’d sworn he’d just climbed that hill, so it didn’t make sense that when he climbed back over it everything didn’t look the same. Granted it was a small hill and had no affordance to let Jaime peek over the others around it. In fact, it was really the only hill that out of shape Jaime could muster the strength to climb. If it weren’t for the fact that the musty desert heat had given way to a cooler evening breeze (though still just as dry), Jaime was certain he’d be planted on the ground panting at the stars. And possibly calling for help. B had said they were just on the outskirts of town, but as soon as Jaime had left the urban tangle he was setting foot in unfamiliar territory. He could identify parking lots by smell alone but give him a cactus covered sandstone shelf and he might as well be blindfolded.

He checked his phone again, more out of habit than anything. There hadn’t been any new messages since their last one. As he flicked his finger across the screen, his device’s friendly logo appeared for a brief moment before darkening the only light he had access to. Jaime swore again. His phone was dead. And he was in the middle of…well, not nowhere, he could just trek back, he could see the city lights from here. Maybe he should head back, mom would be so worried, not to mention angry, if she found out. And it was getting late, and his phone was dead so if she called him then how’d he answer. Then she’d panic, and she would be stressed, worried and angry. Jaime steeled his resolve, no, enough worrying about what mom would think. It’s fine. Milagro’s asleep and he’s been gone for like twenty minutes, he’ll be back in another half an hour.

Now that his primary mode of navigation was gone, he went through the directions in his head. Out of the city by the abandoned mall then down this ravine, cross this dirt road, up a steep slope, over another ravine, go left by the really big cactus with the flowers. Or was that before the second ravine? He slapped his forehead with the back of his palm to soak up the sweat and yelled into the uncaring sky. It stunned him how neither of them knew how to send a location on their phones. Though he was pretty sure Brenda was just afraid to turn on location tracking because her aunt would know she was on the other side of the city at night on a school day.

Jaime heaved off the hill, dusted off his jeans and shook out the pebbles in his hair. He’ll just go home, he’ll just go back. It was a nice walk after all, kind of. He reached down to pick up his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. The plastic crinkled in his grip as he realized of all the things he’d done today he’d packed a go bag for a party. That was a very responsible thing to do. There was that word again, responsible. He grunted and threw the bottle onto the ground and stamped on it until it cracked open and what little liquid remained left pinpricks of dark sand on the parched earth. He then promptly picked up the bottle because that was littering.

As he stared at the mangled plastic in his hands and felt the wet sand leak onto his fingertips and palm, all he could think about was how responsible had never meant fun. Responsible was good. Was kind. Was thoughtful. But how come he wanted to go to a party with his friends and the good thing to do was not go. It wasn’t fair. He sighed, and sat down again. Maybe he’ll stay out here for a bit longer, it was cold and quiet and he could just sit there and look at the stars. The stars didn’t ask him to do anything, to forgo anything. That was nice.

He noticed a few of them moving, that must be the shower P and B were talking about. He chuckled, at least wherever they were in this blasted wilderness they were all looking at the same sky. Hell, maybe his mom and dad were watching it too. Hopefully not his little sister, though. He watched one twinkle, then realized that it was an airplane. Another one shot down like a spear of luminous green, then disappeared as quickly as he’d seen it, like the night poured in to fill up the space it had been in. There were others. He’d found a pretty good spot, Jaime thought to himself, just far enough outside the light pollution of the city to get a good view. There was another spear tearing through the night, then another a few seconds after. Then one more, but it didn’t disappear. It kept going, a trail right down to the earth, the longest one he’d seen all night. He stood up to see where it would dip beyond the horizon, but it didn’t.

It turned.

He blinked, and for a moment laughed to himself. That was insane, meteors didn’t swerve. But it was true, the falling star just turned on a dime. The light grew bigger as it snaked its way across the earth. Jaime squinted, and saw the movement was jerky, like the star was a wild bull and something was trying to wrangle it. Sprays of dirt and debris flew up as high as houses as the meteor skidded in the earth. It had lost speed but was still faster than anything Jaime had seen. The shine of a star resolved into something more metallic. A curved surface like a giant bullet with thrusters. It spun wildly, sending sparks and flames and dirt everywhere. The sound of metal grinding against so many tiny shards of rock and earth was deafening, like the screech of a plane before it crashed. It smashed into a rock and some part of it fell off, spinning off wildly into the distance. The impact bounced what remained of the capsule into the air, which seemed to have given it enough momentum to right itself and start winding its way towards him. One of its thrusters had given out and it spun in the air like a firework. The superheated air funneled around it like a coat of flame, and it scorched him before he noticed. Jaime raised his arms in alarm but it was already too late. The silvery hull of the starship slammed its side into him. Then it exploded.

>

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##Superman #101 - Missing in Metropolis

<< | < | >

Author: MajorParadox

Book: Superman

Arc: Snake Eyes

Set: 101

###Gone

Metropolis Family Resource Center

Lois sat down in a circle of parents with their babies, placing Lara down in front of her, who quickly grabbed a block and shook it around.

“You must be new here,” another mom sitting next to them said. “I’m Gwen, what’s your name?”

“You don’t recognize Lois Lane?” a man said from across the circle. He was the only dad there and had long, dark hair in a ponytail with what looked like burn scars on his face. Lois figured he must have been in the military. Maybe they would get along.

“You’re the Lois Lane?” Gwen asked, almost knocking her child over but catching herself quickly. The other moms chimed in, all trying to get a word in over the others.

“Sorry,” the man mouthed as he stopped his daughter from wandering away.

Lois ignored those moms and lifted Lara, taking her around the circle and forcing a spot next to the man. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Alejandro Sanchez,” the man introduced himself. He pointed to the girl in front of him, who turned to Lara to pat her on the head. “And this little maverick is Tina.”

“Nice to meet you, Tina,” said Lois, prompting the girl to babble and pat Lois’ arm instead. “This is Lara,” she added, motioning to her daughter.

Lois turned back to the father. “Do you mind me asking–”

“The scars?” Alejandro finished for her. “I appreciate the directness. Normally, people just try not to stare. It was an apartment fire. Tina lost her mother in it.”

“That’s terrible,” Lois offered. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“I appreciate that,” Alejandro replied. “It’s been tough, especially with my recovery. But I had to step in and raise her. She’s family, after all.”

Lois tilted her head. “I don’t understand, is Tina not your daughter?” she asked.

“Oh, she’s actually my niece,” Alejandro explained. “Her mother, Christina, was my sister. After I got out of the hospital, I adopted her.”

The other moms were swooning. “That’s heartbreaking, but you’re an amazing person,” one of them said.

“I would love to interview you for a story,” said Lois. “If you were interested.”

“No,” Alejandro stated bluntly before taking a moment. “It’s just that I prefer not to publicize myself.”

Lois nodded but couldn’t help but wonder why he was so open to sharing with strangers if he felt that way. Maybe she was reading into it too much, though.

Daily Planet

Next Week

Lois was writing a story on the progress of Metropolis’ recovery since the Brainiac attack. Heroes from all over were assisting in the cleanup and rebuilding initiatives throughout the city. It didn’t take long until citizens didn’t have to walk or drive around the littered remains of alien drones. Damaged utilities were repaired, so families didn’t have to worry about spending the coming winter without heat.

There were also new heroes popping up in Metropolis. A nunchuck-wielding vigilante known as Gangbuster was battling gang violence in Suicide Slum. A demonic-looking, armored fighter named Firebrand was helping take down a drug ring. And, a leather-clad vixen known as Thorn was reported saving would-be victims from muggings and assaults.

Clark sighed as he scrolled through a report at his desk.

“What’s wrong, Smallville?” Lois asked from her desk.

“Another missing person case,” Clark explained. “No connection to any others, and none of them can be attributed to Brainiac, but the trend in Metropolis keeps rising.”

It was frustrating how little information they had. The police felt they weren’t related, but Clark’s gut told him there was more happening there. Lois agreed, but she couldn’t piece anything together either.

“Maybe we need fresh eyes on the matter,” said Lois. “You know plenty of detectives that could offer their expertise.”

She was right. Clark wasn’t too stubborn to ask for help, and he already had someone in mind, especially because they had another he wanted to discuss.

“Just call him,” said Lois, doing her mind-reading act. “It’s time to ask him if he wants to come back.”

Clark picked up his cell phone and swiped a secret pattern that brought up a hidden contact directory. He tapped a bat symbol and put the phone to his ear.

“Batman here,” Bruce answered.

“I need your help,” said Clark. “Can I send you some reports to look at?”

Metropolis Family Resource Center

Later

Lois entered the room with Lara in her hands, nodding at the mothers who greeted her. She scanned around, but there was no sign of Alejandro. Maybe he was running late.

“Lois,” said Gwen, waving her down. “I wanted to ask you last week, but you were caught up with your new friend. How would you like to arrange a playdate? Maybe we could sip on some wine while the young ones play? It could be a blast.”

“Maybe,” said Lois, not really listening to the offer. “Speaking of my new friend, have you seen him?” she asked.

“I wish,” said Gwen. “He’s quite a catch.”

Lois raised an eyebrow.

“Not that I’d go there,” Gwen clarified. “I’m a married woman, after all.”

“Aren’t you married too,” another mom asked.

“Yes,” Lois answered clearly. “But I’m not looking for a date.” She didn’t want to let any of the moms turn her interest in her new friend into gossip. It was bad enough the tabloids loved to play on her rumors of her being “with Superman.”

“Everyone take a seat in the circle,” the facilitator called. “We’ll be starting shortly.”

Lois sat down with Lara, and Gwen and her son took a seat beside her. “So, about that playdate,” she continued. “Are you free this weekend at all?”

Something didn’t feel right. Did Lois pry too much with Alejandro? Is that why he dropped the classes after one session? She didn’t have his phone number or know where he lived. Maybe she should just drop it.

Maybe. ###Checking In

Metropolis General Hospital, Luthor Wing

Later

Superman was escorted toward Lex Luthor’s hospital room. He had been given special permission to visit the former president. There had been no change since the Brainiac incident, which left Lex in a coma. The doctors were unsure he’d ever awaken from it.

The door to Lex’s room opened, and his daughter Lena exited. Her eyes were heavy and lost in thought, so it took her a moment to notice the Man of Steel walking in her direction.

“Superman,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Clark approached the young woman. “Just checking in on your father,” he explained. “How are you, Ms. Luthor?”

“As good as one could be,” she started. “When they have a father who has done horrible things but also helped save the world. You can call me Lena, by the way.”

“Okay, Lena,” said Clark. “And I understand your confusion. I’ve had a rocky relationship with Lex over the years, and it can be difficult to reconcile those two sides of him.”

“It’s not that,” Lena said back. “I can see his motivations, misguided or not, but when you have the last name Luthor and are next in line to take over his legacy, people expect– and assume– things about you.”

Lena began walking away. “But you don’t need to hear my trauma dump,” she added without looking back.

Clark continued to Lex’s room to find him in his hospital bed, surrounded by machines. His supersenses confirmed he was still unconscious. Not that he suspected Lex was faking it somehow, but the thought definitely crossed his mind.

“I’ll be outside if you need anything,” the guard told him, leaving Clark alone with Lex.

Or so he thought.

“Don’t tell me you thought he could be faking it,” Clark stated as a figure came out of the shadow in the corner of the room.

“It was unlikely,” said Bruce, sporting his blue Batman suit with a yellow oval around the bat symbol on his chest. “But Luthor has surprised us in the past.”

“He has,” Clark agreed. “But what would he gain here, other than staying out of prison? He’s monitored 24/7.”

“Agreed,” said Bruce. “But you feel it too. With Lex, there’s always something going on we’re not aware of. And that bothers you as much as it does me.”

“Did you have a chance to look into those missing person reports?” Clark asked Bruce.

“That’s the other reason I’m here,” said Bruce. “I can see why the police can’t find the thread, but there is a partial one there if you take a broader look.”

“What did you find?” asked Clark.

“The children are the key,” Bruce explained. “Missing people can be childless, parents, or the children themselves. And there can be combinations, like a parent and a child. The increase in missing people skews highly on that pair.”

“So, more parents are abducting their own children and going off the grid?” Clark asked.

That was a horrifying thought.

“Perhaps,” said Bruce. “But there’d usually be indicators in such cases. Like custody battles. That’s not true in many of these new situations.”

Clark took a moment. “You’re saying there’s a rise in parents being kidnapped along with their children.”

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed. “But never both parents. Only one in each case, mother or father.”

“It’s not a lot to go on,” said Clark. “But it’s a start. Thanks.”

“Any time,” Bruce replied.

There was one other thing Clark wanted to discuss with him, but he wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up. He figured it was best to just say it.

“Listen,” said Clark. ”I think it’s time you officially rejoined the league. Your help against Brainiac–”

“I’ll always be there when I’m needed,” Bruce interjected. “But I don’t think that’s the best idea. I wouldn’t be opposed to being a part-timer, however .”

The door opened, and an orderly with an unruly black mustache entered.

“Sorry,” said Clark. “We’ll be out of your way in a moment.”

“We?” the orderly asked with an eyebrow raised almost comically high.

Clark turned around to find Bruce had left the room.

Midtown Metropolis

Lois knocked on the apartment door for a third time, but there was still no answer.

Did her being there make her a stalker? She did have Chloe find Alejandro’s address for her. Plus, Chloe did some checking, and apparently, Alejandro hadn’t been showing up at the police station where he worked as a detective.

No, this wasn’t stalking, Lois was trying to find out what happened to her new, would-be friend.

Lois took her lock picks out of her purse and leaned to the doorknob, fiddling them into the keyhole. A moment later, the door popped open, and she entered slowly, closing the door behind her.

“Alejandro?” Lois called into the darkened apartment. The shades were drawn, and there were no lights on inside, so she flipped the light switch when she got no answer.

Except for several toys littered around the floor, the apartment was otherwise tidy. Also, papers were strewn over a desk on the right wall, so she walked over to take a look. The words “experimental,” “Hightower,” and “LexCorp,” caught her eye, but she heard the floor creak in the bedroom.

“Hello?” Lois called, moving slowly toward the noise. “Is someone here?”

Lois peeked inside the bedroom, which appeared empty but noticed a shadow behind the door. She stepped back as a man jumped out, swinging a bat just short of her chest.

“Hey!” she screamed out, dropping to the ground and kicking out the man’s legs. She grabbed the bat out of his hands and lifted it until she recognized her attacker. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, dropping the weapon to the ground.

“Lois?” Alejandro asked, studying her face. “What the hell are you doing here?! Are you working with them?”

“Who’s them?” asked Lois, lifting herself back up and offering her hand to help Alejandro to his feet. He hesitated for a moment before accepting.

“The goddamn snake people who took my niece,” Alejandro stated. “You didn’t answer me… Why are you here?”

“I’m a reporter,” said Lois. “I could tell something wasn’t quite right when you disappeared from ‘Baby and Me.’” Lois raised an eyebrow. “Did you say snake people?”

“Yes,” Alejandro replied. “And I’m going to find them.”

“You’re a police officer,” said Lois. “Why didn’t you report the abduction?”

“You really did your homework, Ms. Lane,” Alejandro replied.

“That’s not an answer,” Lois said. “And call me Lois.”

“Something bigger is going down with these snake people,” Alejandro continued. “And you can call me Ale if you want.”

“Okay, Ale,” said Lois. “Tell me everything you know.”

East Side, St. Martin’s Island, Metropolis

Clark landed near the house of Madeline Walker, whose wife and son were the most recently reported to go missing. He figured if he started there, he might find a fresher trail to what was happening. After quickly changing into his street clothes and glasses, he knocked on the door.

“Can I help you?” a woman asked after opening the brown door. Her face was blank, but the redness in her eyes told the whole story. She was in agony.

“Madeline Walker?” asked Clark, and the woman nodded. “My name is Clark Kent, I’m a reporter for the Daily Planet. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about your wife and son.”

“Oh, okay,” Madeline answered, letting him inside. She led him to the living room, and the two sat down opposite each other. “What can I help you with, Mr. Kent?” she asked.

“I’m not sure if the police told you,” Clark started. “But there’s been a rise in missing people in Metropolis.”

“They mentioned that, yes,” Madeline nodded.

Clark noticed a photo of the family at a carnival on the coffee table.

“I’m trying to find whatever possible to help connect the dots,” Clark continued. “Is there anything you can tell me about your wife, Caroline, or your son, Danny?”

The woman bit her lip. “Nothing I haven’t already told the police,” she said.

Something was wrong. It was clear Madeline was suffering, but she was hiding something. What could be so important she’d risk the lives of her loved ones?

“I see,” said Clark. “Is there anything you can think of, no matter how trivial, that may be useful? There are other children missing, too. We’re all just trying to find them and see them come home safely.”

“I-” Madeline started but couldn’t bring herself to continue.

“It’s okay,” Clark reassured her. “You can trust me. I have children of my own, who were taken from me not too long ago. Sometimes, it means doing whatever it takes to help.”

“Caroline…” Madeline finally began opening up. “She’s… special.”

Clark tried to keep the surprise off his face. Was this a connection they had all missed? He let her keep talking.

“She can make things… slippier than they should be.”

“I see,” said Clark. “Was there anyone else who knew about her abilities?”

“No,” said Madeline, shaking her head. “We agreed it should be kept secret. There are a lot of crazies out there. And we’ve both been through so much already.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” asked Clark, his mind racing with more possible connections.

Madeline nodded again.

“Is Caroline Danny’s biological mother?” Clark asked.

“Yes,” she said answered. “How did you know?”

They spent some more time discussing the matter, and Clark reassured her that the police were doing everything they could. But he had to get out of there and follow up on his new lead.

As Clark walked down the steps, he pulled out his phone and scanned through the other missing person reports. He switched to the phone app to call Lois but heard a rush of wind above the neighborhood as Conner flew into the area.

Besides barely being around anymore– he only met Lara once since she was born– Conner seemed troubled. Lois had mentioned she saw him when Metropolis was bottled, and he wasn’t quite himself. Clark noticed it too, when he helped the Titans shortly after, but they didn’t have much time for a conversation.

Clark switched to his text app instead and sent Lois a quick message before discreetly changing back into Superman and flying up to meet his brother.

“Conner,” said Clark. “It’s good to see you.”

Conner nodded. “Last we saw each other, you said we should talk,” he said. “So, let’s talk.”

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” said Clark. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” said Conner. “Is this why you wanted to meet me? I have better things to do.”

Clark thought he still had several years before he’d have to deal with the moody teenager phase with Jon. He never suspected Conner would go through something like it. He always seemed so put together and sure of himself.

“Are you mad at me about something?” Clark asked. “I’m sure I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

Conner didn’t even respond.

“I’d hate for there to be a rift between us–”

Clark’s focus moved toward the central borough of Metropolis.

“What’s wrong?” asked Conner.

“Snakes,” said Clark, flying off in a burst.

Conner tilted his head but then followed after him. ###Uncovering

Midtown Metropolis

Moments Earlier

“Okay,” said Lois, wrapping her head around what Alejandro had told her. “There are snake people after you because you have powers.”

“Correct,” said Alejandro.

Lois continued her summary. “And you only have powers because some scientist saved your life after an explosion and gave you cybernetic enhancements. But it’s not something you can let your fellow officers know about.”

Alejandro nodded. “Also correct.”

“But the snake people don’t like metahumans, so they took your niece and want you too?” Lois waited for a response but just got a shrug. “So what do they want with your niece?”

Lois’ phone buzzed with a text message from Clark. “Oh,” she said aloud. “They must think she’s your daughter and inherited the meta gene from you.”

“They… what?” asked Alejandro.

“If we’re dealing with snake people,” said Lois. “They may not be the smartest bunch.“

“Maybe not,” said Alejandro. “But they sure can fight. Luckily, I have something that should tip the scales.”

Alejandro walked Lois into his room and opened the closet to reveal a blue and gold suit.

“My enhanced strength is nothing compared to what this suit will do for me,” I just need them to come back and try again so I can beat them down until they tell me where they took Tina.”

Almost on cue, a crash was heard from the living room.

Lois rushed over to the bedroom door to find two windows broken in. There was a snake-like monster boy and a girl with a scaly top and a large snake wrapped around her like a scarf.

“You must be the snake, people,” said Lois.

“I’m Serpenteen,” the boy said, presenting the girl to his side. “And this–”

“I can introduce myself, Joseph,” the girl interrupted. “I’m Snake Girl,” she continued, patting her pet snake gently.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Serpenteen added.

Snake Girl turned to the boy. “Did she really need to know that?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“Well, this must be Sanchez’s girlfriend,” Serpteneen fought back. “So–”

“Hey, I’m happily married,” Lois interjected. “Now, why don’t you two explain yourselves? Where’s Alejandro’s niece?”

“Niece?” the two snake-themed villains asked in unison.

“Yes, niece,” said Alejandro, jumping into the living room, all suited up. He rushed over to them, but they ducked away, Serptenteen twisting around his snakey tailside to knock the man back.

“How come you aren’t running away screaming?” Serptenteen asked Lois. “Usually, people run away screaming.”

Lois shrugged. “Just waiting for–”

Two blue and red blurs zoomed into the apartment and back out, taking the snake people with them.

“That,” Lois finished. “You okay, Ale?” she asked, helping her friend to his feet.

Alejandro nodded, and the two looked out of the crashed windows to find Superman and Superboy fighting the villains out in the street below.

“This is my fight, too,” he said, climbing out the window and working his way down the bricks.

Outside Sanchez Apartment

Now

Serptenteen was throwing punches at Clark, who blocked them quickly. Conner moved toward Snake Girl, but her entire body, at least from her torso up, morphed into a snake-like creature that extended outward until the mouth chomped over the young hero’s head.

“Ew!” Conner yelled as he pulled the snake's mouth away, leaving his face covered in snakey saliva. He resisted the urge to make a pun about “biting off more than she could chew,” instead sending a surge of energy through his tactile telekinesis. The move sent the girl flying back.

“Enough!” yelled Alejandro as he dropped onto the scene, forcing everyone’s attention. He pressed a button at the center of his chest, and a surge of orange energy exploded out of the sky like lightning, engulfing the man’s suit in a blinding light show. “Tell me where my niece is, or you’ll find out why they call me Firebrand!”

Serpenteen swung around, knocking Clark away, and leaped toward the powered-up hero, who still had flames blazing from his helmet. It gave off an impression of a flaming skull.

Conner’s eyes lit up. It was good to see a quick smile on his face again, however short it lasted.

Firebrand caught the snake boy midair and body-slammed him to the ground.

Snake Girl moved in to help him, but Conner grabbed her from behind and tossed her back toward a fire hydrant that broke apart on impact, sending water spraying everywhere.

“Last chance,” said Alejandro, his hand extended and revealing sharpened talons for his fingers. He hovered them menacingly over Serptenteen’s green-skinned face.

“Uh…” the teen started. “There’s a building in Suicide Slum. Near the Simon Project.”

“Joseph!” Snake Girl yelled. She morphed into her snake form again, slithering around quickly.

Clark fired off some heat vision toward her, but Snake Girl swerved away, letting it hit the rushing water from the broken hydrant. Steam covered the area as she scurried away with her boyfriend.

“I’m going after them,” said Conner.

“We can catch them later,” said Clark. “That building he mentioned. There may be missing children there.”

Suicide Slum

Moment Later

Alejandro burst the doors open, running inside the building, Clark and Conner following behind. The sight before then was ghastly.

Fenced-holding cells filled the room, and people of all ages were locked inside them.

Alejandro ran around, desperately looking for his niece.

“Who could do this?” said Conner, gritting his teeth.

“It’s okay,” Clark announced loudly. “You’re all safe now.”

Conner knelt to the ground, slamming his hands down to it. He closed his eyes and focused until all the locks broke apart and the doors swung themselves open.

Clark and Conner attended to anyone who needed immediate help.

“Superman!” a child called, rushing over to him. “I knew you’d save me!”

Clark recognized the boy. “You’re Danny, aren’t you?” he asked, and the boy nodded while curiously wondering how he knew that.

“Danny!” a woman yelled from the far wall. It was his mother, Caroline.

Clark lifted the boy into his hands and sped him over to the freed prisoner, handing over her son.

“Thank you, Superman,” Caroline said, refusing to let the boy squirm out of her hug.

“Moooom,” the boy said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“No need to be embarrassed,” said Clark. “My mom hugs me all the time too.”

“Tina,” Clark heard Firebrand calling as he was still running around frantically. “Where are you?”

Clark scanned, but he didn’t see any children that hadn’t been claimed by their parents yet.”

“Sssssstay where you are,” an odd voice called. Another snake monster slithered into the room, a toddler held tightly in his hands. “Sssssserpentine isssss calling the shots now.”

“Firebrand!” Superman called, and the girl’s adopted father came running.

“Keep your disssssstance,” the villain ordered.

Caroline placed a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Be ready,” she whispered before reaching her other hand outward.

The baby girl slid out of Serpentine’s hands, and Clark ducked down quickly to catch her.

Firebrand leaped forward, releasing a barrage of punches at the snake person before he could try and retrieve the baby himself.

“Ssssstop,” Serpentine cried. “I sssssurender.”

Clark handed Tina to her uncle as Conner walked over.

“Serptentine, huh?” Conner asked the downed kidnapper.

“Yesssssss,” he answered.

“You have the same name as that other snake boy?” Conner asked.

“No,” Serpentine answered. “He’sssss Ssssssserpenteen”

Conner dropped down and gave him another punch for good measure. He walked over to Clark and took him aside.

“We can finish our talk after we finish up here,” said Clark. “Sorry for the interruption.”

“Never be sorry for letting me help with something like… this,” Conner replied. “But I’m not interested in you drilling me about my behavior.”

“Conner,” said Clark. “I–”

“I’m fine,” he said, turning back to help more victims.

Watchtower Satellite

Sometime Later

“Is there any business to discuss?” asked Chloe.

Clark raised his hand and stood up. “I have something to say.”

All eyes were on him.

“You all know I was against the decision to remove Batman from the league since the beginning,” Clark started. “And I think that decision has only hurt the team. We need to allow for mistakes or disagreements in how we do things. It doesn’t make what we choose okay, but we’re stronger together and should strive to keep it that way.

“So I’m suggesting we bring Batman back onto the team. He doesn’t have to be a core member. In fact, he’d prefer to contribute only part-time.

”I recently made a decision in the heat of the moment that would have been highly controversial. But I had to make a judgment call. After I released Metropolis from Brainiac’s ship, I also tried to release Kandor. A city that Brainiac stole from Krypton years ago.

“It failed, but that’s not the point. What I did could have had vast repercussions for the world, but I felt like it had to be done. I didn’t wait to ask for permission.

“We can discuss what I did as much as you’d like after I say this last thing: I strongly believe Batman should allowed back. Because if he doesn’t deserve to be here, then neither do I.”

Clark didn’t want it to sound like an ultimatum. And they could treat it like one if they preferred. He was ready to leave the team if they decided he should.

Booster clapped a single time and looked around the round table. He clapped again. And again, but then stopped. “Okay, not an applause moment,” he said.

He was right. It wasn’t a speech that would let them get past what happened. They had a long night ahead of them.

<< | < | >

##The Flash #101 - Settling In

<< | < | >

Author: brooky12

Book: Flash

Arc: ?

Set: 101

Four Flashes ran around the world, helping out where they could. They each got distracted plenty, a bank robbery or house fire or missing person taking moments or minutes out of their actual intended purposes. Their purpose at the moment was to help with the repairs and recovery of Metropolis, a city recently under attack that they had been unable to help out with when it happened.

There was no guilt each of them held personally, and if there was, it was not admitted to and shared with the others. There were only four of them and an endless eternity of things to do if they tried to be involved in everything in every corner of the earth, they could not allow themselves to resent their lack of presence at every possible event that could benefit from their presence.

What they did worry about, however, was a missing gorilla. The local region around where Grodd had been kept had been scoured thoroughly, and yet they could not find trace of where they had gone. The longer it took to track Grodd down, the further away Grodd could get. It had been nearly a month at this point.

There was a chance that, somehow, Grodd was dead. That was Wally’s hope, he shared with the group as they waited for more requests from the various folks helping out in Metropolis. Wally reasoned that if Grodd hadn’t shown up yet, it was very much against type for him to try to lay low. The logical reason for that was that Grodd for whatever reason couldn’t make themself known.

Jay wasn’t so certain. It didn’t make sense, he justified, for folks to attack a fortified compound like the S.T.A.R. Labs that housed Grodd in order to kill a being that was already a non-factor in the regional landscape of power. Obviously, someone did attack said fortified compound, but to do all that just to remove Grodd from the confinement and then somehow kill him? Jay didn’t think it made sense.

Bart had suggested that it was possible Grodd was depowered. After all, it had been a long time that they were imprisoned with dampening technology that made them not a threat. The technology worked, sure, but it hadn’t been tested extensively or potential side effects explored. If true, the others weighed in, it was potential for future use if there had been other mentally enhanced gorillas in the region that had been Grodd’s lackeys.

Barry wasn’t sure. He didn’t have any theory or idea to share, only constant reports as he visited the treetop city in Africa that Grodd had called home. It used to be that Barry visited it once a week, at most, but since Grodd had vanished, those visits became much more common, with several visits a day even as others discouraged the paranoia.

The city had long since been abandoned, with no real signs of life beyond the occasional bird nest or curious, but not psychically intelligent, monkeys and other mammals. He was trying not to visit it as much, as the thirtieth time in a day showing nothing new was a flavor of disappointment for Barry. It felt almost disrespectful to the gravity of the situation, to know that a potential tyrant was roaming free but to be disappointed to not see them sitting on their throne, ready for a fight.

And so, they worried about a gorilla they could not find and not a city that they failed to save.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

G.G.,
My apologies for not following up after CBIN. The appearance of The Flash at the event gave me pause for concern. While you did follow my request successfully, the sudden risk to secrecy gave me reason to believe that this exchange had been compromised. While I believe I took the correct approach at the time given what information I did and did not have, in the time since it seems that more has come to light.
I would love elaboration about your involvement in the recent freeing of the being known as Gorilla Grodd. I mean this with little intended insult, but my first question is why? I do not mean to question your motives yet, as I believe it would be impossible to free Grodd without actually having thought it through at least once, but surely there are other options for powerful beings operating against the status quo that are imprisoned, wrongfully or rightfully, that can be freed?
While I do not think S.T.A.R. Labs to be an impenetrable fortress, I am curious as to the details of how you succeeded in this task. With the realization now that you have not been compromised by The Flash, I do wish to further explore a potential partnership. Every report and autopsy that I could access about the break-in discloses very little about how Grodd escaped.
The Curator

The Curator
Unfortunately, time moves on, so what were once open conversations have closed or made way for other conversations.
I will not disclose how we freed Grodd, only confirm that it was in fact us. Given that no amount of investigations will uncover what occurred, you can rest easy when it comes to any future reports or theories. If you wish to read them of your own interest, that is within your own power to choose, but you will find no information of use there. You say you have many questions for me and my team, but in fact at this point I have questions for you. Who are you, really? Why did you see a need to reply to our letter to the Flash Museum? We were, in our infancy, seeking a mooring and access to certain tools and skills and resources. In the time since, we have made those available for ourselves, without the help of the Flash Museum or you. I assume you are a silent voice of dissent in that institution, but yet demanded endlessly of me in previous letters.
At this point, you misunderstand our dynamic. If you have something you feel of value to offer us, be that position or access or knowledge that we do not already have, you are welcome to offer it. But running back to us after we accomplished what was widely considered impossible, in order to act as if you were always present and a founder and wishing for your share of the credit, while also demanding further from us, is a misrepresentation of what reality is.
Naturally, this is a disappointment, as our shared interest should’ve been the re-establishment of reality away from whatever had happened earlier this year. Your hesitancy and consistent demands do not represent any reality. You speak of being worried that we were compromised, yet you yourself are connected in some way to the Flash Museum. You demand again and again for proofs and unnecessary information before even hinting at any possible benefit you could provide to my team. The fact that I am even writing a letter at all is a level of trust I arguably should not be placing in you.
Either provide us with reason to explore further what you can provide us, or return to your failure in the Flash Museum, aiding and abetting a tyrant.
G.G.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

For all Grodd’s great power, movement was not one of them.

Grodd could not access most of what Grodd had once been capable of. Even with the lack of silence that was not pure silence and instead something more, the lack of use and exercise of these abilities made it difficult for Grodd to access the more extensive powers Grodd once had access to.

To take over an airplane travelling across the ocean was within Grodd’s power, the pilots and handful of passengers not even realizing they were being graced by Grodd’s presence. A brief unplanned stop in Africa was satisfactory, the consequences for the humans almost a small pleasure that Grodd was sad to be missing. From there, hijacked transport vehicles got Grodd closer to Gorilla City.

And so, Grodd took Grodd’s first steps into Grodd’s rightful seat of dominion in too long. Clearly, there had been some attempt at maintaining the city, but it wasn’t entirely up to Grodd’s expectations. Were humans coming through to check that things weren’t being re-established to their satisfaction? Grodd would have to put a stop to that, first things first.

How long had it been? The last time Grodd had been here, suffering the presence of The Flashes in what should have been a final, full victory. Only for the alien mind, incomprehensible to read or control, to swoop in at last moment to ruin everything. How long had it been? It could have been days or years, with the vegetation signaling varying possibilities.

It had been at least a month and several days, as safely and secretly travelling all the way here had been an ordeal. But on arrival, Grodd felt at home for the first time in however long. Finding information while in North America was not worth Grodd’s time and the risk of being rediscovered, Grodd would catch up on what Grodd needed to know once in Gorilla City.

As Grodd began to climb one of the trunks to the treetop city, distant mental voices reached out, requesting recognition and permission to communicate. Grodd granted all in time. Eventually, Grodd reached the summit, seeing the disrepair that much of the city had fallen. The population of Gorilla City would need to get to work.

The jubilation in the return of their leader was clear in every gorilla’s message as they each reached out. Many were simply welcoming and congratulatory, but a few gave Grodd necessary information. The Flashes had been here recently, a few weeks back. Grodd calculated it to be the day after the humans had released Grodd from the nothingness. A few provided Grodd with a timeframe of how long it had been, and Grodd found that the lack of knowledge in this instance had been more preferred.

The gorillas had been clever, expectantly, apparently most had abandoned the city once Grodd had been taken. They never strayed far, and when they saw the vehicle that brought Grodd the final section of the trip, had kept nearby to watch. While they did not allow the city to fall into total disrepair, apparently Flash visits were common even with Grodd gone, forcing them to avoid the city for the most part.

If Flash visits were common, Grodd had to do something. Direct combat was unlikely to end in Grodd’s favor, so perhaps another strategy could be employed. Perhaps the silence that was more than silence could be weaponized against humans, creating a space where the human mind could not stand to be.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

There was a restlessness that had settled in the warehouse. It was several people emptier, with Ant and Albert still stuck in prison, and Grodd having already left. There were plans in motion to fix all three, a jailbreak for the former two and a trip to sub-Saharan Africa to visit Grodd at its base of operations, once it arrived.

But for the three that made it out of the mission unscathed, there was uncertainty and unhappiness. Minor things that would’ve otherwise been overlooked in the collective excitement for their shared goals now caused arguments that left impacts even hours later. Anything from dishes in the sink to whether or not they could rescue their friends within the next week was enough to cause an argument.

Roy spent most of his days out of the warehouse, busying himself as best he could. Despite the tensions and anger, he was more than willing to accept requests from Abra as to things to keep them afloat and prepare for the jailbreak attempt. If he knocked out a couple power lines as he did, well, he didn’t have insurance to pay for anger management classes.

Abra threw himself into the next stages of planning, doing research into where Ant and Albert were being kept, and whatever further he could find out about Grodd. They had done plenty of research already, but with the focus much less on the S.T.A.R. Labs that held it and more on its history and what Gorilla City was, Abra was kept busy enough.

Lisa didn’t react to the failure nearly as well as the other two. She spent most of her day listless around the warehouse, contributing where asked and trying to figure out what went wrong. The Flash showing up, nearly all of them, was an alarming change of plans when it had happened, and Grodd outright refusing to stick around and leaving for Africa immediately was the nail in the coffin for her to feel like there was a success story at all.

She knew that they would eventually be successful, but she worried that the others were maybe losing faith in their goals and losing pride in their accomplishments. Whether or not Grodd was ready to work with them did not devalue the fact that they had freed it. The jail bars holding Ant and Albert were just temporary setbacks.

Author: FrostFireFive

<< | < | > | >>

Book: New Titans

Arc: Bottled

Set: 100

Metropolis was the City of Tomorrow, where the brown brick of Suicide Slums seamlessly blended in with the glistening towers of the downtown area.  The blue skies tied everything together as its protectors flew above.  But Brainiac had ripped the city from Earth, and the cozy blue sky was replaced with a purple hexagonal nightmare.  And the normal brick of Suicide Slum had been covered with the green, screaming out for anyone to protect it.  Poison Ivy had heard their screams and now stood against the so-called heroes of Metropolis.

“Red! Come on!” Harley Quinn said as she leaped away from Poison Ivy’s vines.  What had been supposed to be an anniversary dinner had curdled into another panic attack for the former villain.  “It’s me!”

“I don’t think she’s home, Quinn,” Metamorpho said as he charged at Ivy.  But before he could land a hit with his diamond hands, Ivy quickly turned and summoned a mace of wood from the ground and swung at the elemental hero, sending him flying into a car.

“She’s in there; we just have to kinda…snap her out of it,” Harley explained as she checked in her makeshift bag for more Molotovs. Unfortunately for her, the weed killer was hard to come by in Metropolis. 

“This isn’t like last time Harley,” Batgirl said as she jumped into the air and tossed several batarangs to the ground. 

“Yes it is!” Harley stressed.  “Besides, you could do more than help than missing her with your stupid boomerangs!” 

“I didn’t miss,” Batgirl said with a slight smile as the batarangs exploded around Ivy, damaging the wood bark and fungi that made up her armor.

Before Batgirl could gloat, however, Ivy’s head jerked towards her.  Ivy was silent but focused, looking at Batgirl who wobbled when she landed.  Ivy had dealt with her before and knew that she was the weakest of the four who faced her.  She raised her hand, and vines reached from the ground, grabbing the heroine and holding her in place.

 “You’re still too slow,” Superboy said as he ran towards Ivy.  He was annoyed that they were focused more on trying to show off and reason with a monster than actually taking action.  That was the problem after Markovia; all people wanted to do was talk instead of act.  

As he leaped into the air to slam his fist against Ivy, he felt several cold hands grab him and fling him to the ground.  Ivy’s plants had once again reanimated the destroyed Brainiac drones.  They swarmed the young hero blocking the purple sky from his sight. 

“No, no, no! Not again! Not again!” Superboy yelled out as his eyes began to glow bright blue. 

“Conner!”  Metamorpho yelled as he moved toward his captured friend.  But before he could even help him, a large concussive force pulsated out, sending the plants and machines broken and flung far away.

Ivy looked scared for a brief second that something could hurt The Green like that before turning to look at the clown running toward her.  Ivy mouthed something that stopped Harley Quinn in her tracks, weed killer molotov in hand.  The Knight of the Green leapt into the air, releasing her prisoners to deal with the fallout together but alone.

…

“What the hell was that Rex!” Superboy asked as the four heroes had made their way up to a rooftop to overlook the chaos of Metropolis.  Drones were everywhere, the city shrunken as its remaining heroes fought back.

“Some kind of plant…crusader,” Metamorpho explained.  “But why are you talking to me? Chuckles over there is her girlfriend.”

“We don’t have a label,” Harley Quinn said.  “We’re just us ya know? And she’s not like this normally.”

“Normally? Harley this is the second time she’s gone out of control,” Batgirl said.  “But the last time she did it she wasn’t so ruthless.  We have to see this as a progression of whatever she did to herself back in the day.  We’re dealing with some kind of plant crusader, not the naked goddess this time.”

“She’s done this before and you let her go?” Superboy asked.  “So now we’re dealing with a monster you all created instead of the real threat.”  He pointed up to the purple hexagonal sky. 

“Big Blue is probably taking care of it,” Metamorpho explained.  “Which means we have to take care of this one on our own.  Harley, you know her, is there anything that can pull her back?”

“I don’t know,” Harley bit her lip.  Normally, when she had entered the Titans’ world, she had had Nightwing with her.  He was one of the few heroes who had taken her claims of reform seriously.  From a weekly bagel hang to training on the high wire, he believed in his former therapist. The problem was the others only remembered the psycho clown in the corset and didn’t trust the woman she had become.  

“‘I don’t know’ isn’t going to help us Harley,” Batgirl responded.  “We can’t have two disasters occuring at once.  We need a plan.”

“We need to take her out,” Superboy said.

“Take her out…but that’s what I was doin’ before she went all planty,” Harley joked, trying to avoid what she knew Superboy was arguing.

“Wait, you want to kill her?” Metamorpho asked.  “Conner, we’re members of the Titans, we’re heroes.  We don’t just…kill because it’s the easy way out.”

“Easy? Metropolis is currently being invaded by a world conqueror. The Justice League, as always, is on the outside looking in, and we have a person who’s also trying to destroy the city with plants of all things.  We have to make the hard choices.”

“Ya mean the easy choice,” Harley Quinn said as she moved towards Superboy.  “Heroes don’t kill, they find a way.  She’s still in there, I know it.  Just like last time.”

“Last time, she was more confused than angry Harley,” Batgirl said.  “And wasn’t demanding The Green be heard.  We may have to take action.”

“Ya only angry because she kicked your ass last time,” Harley said as she stood in front of Batgirl.  “Don’t do this.  She talked to me, she told me to get help.  And last time I checked you’re supposed to help.”

“And let thousands in the city choose if they get killed by plants or murderous robots,” Superboy chimed in.  “This is a chance for us to actually do something and save the city.  I won’t let Metropolis become another black mark.  Now instead of us talking and wasting time, who’s with me?”

The other heroes looked around for a moment, a chill in the air as only Batgirl stepped forward to join Superboy’s crusade.  

“Let’s go,” Batgirl said.  “We need to stop this before it becomes worse.  The Hall of Justice has some things I’ll need if you can get me there.”

“Ba…Batgirl you can’t, ya just,” Harley said as she tried to pull the heroine back.  Metamorpho stopped her as he looked at the two heroes took off on their own dangerous crusade.  

“I coulda,” Harley began.

“You can’t stop them, they have learn this one the hard way,” Metamorpho began as he looked out at the city.  The drones, the plants, the destruction.  Conner may have been right that seemed so much like Markovia. 

“But they’re going to kill Red! I’m supposed to let them?!” Harley exclaimed as she pushed off of Metamorpho.

“Grayson’s been training you, right?” Metamorpho asked as he finally noticed how scared Harley was.

“Ya, a bit, still can’t do all that flippy stuff yet,” Harley responded.

“Neither can I, plus between you and me, I think he likes to show off,” Metamorpho said.  But I’m going to teach you something he already has.  Being a hero isn’t about looking good and doing the right thing when it’s easy.   It’s about doing the right thing when all things look lost.”

“Like now?” Harley asked.

“Like now,” Metamorpho responded.  “My friend’s hurting, and judging by how eager she was in going with him, so’s Batgirl.  So we gotta to get our own reinforcements.”

“And ya want me to do that? What about Ivy? What abou-” Harley began.

“I’ve got an idea.  You said Ivy’s connected to this…Green?” Metamorpho asked.”

“Ya, been since she got her powers.”

“If we could build a connection between us and The Green, maybe, just maybe, we can reach Ivy again.  End this without killing her,” Metamorpho said with confidence.

“Ya think so?” Harley asked, seeing the sadness in Metamorpho’s eyes for the first time.

“I have to,” Metamorpho said.  “Otherwise nothing matters.” 

Harley nodded before running towards the edge of the rooftop, she had an ally and a plan.  All she needed to do was to take the leap. 

“Oh and Metamorpho? Dick did teach me some of the flippy stuff,” She winked before flipping off the rooftop and back into the fray, her hope renewed.

…

“Ungh,” Pamela Isley mumbled as she opened her eyes.  The last thing she had remembered was nursing a beer, a headache, and Harley talking about certain red straps she was excited to unwrap.  And then…just pain and a bright green flash.

Slowly, she picked herself up and felt the rustling of leaves in between her toes.  Gone was her turtleneck and slacks, replaced by torn jeans and her Naked Cheshire t-shirt.  It was beginning to dawn on her that she was far away from a dive bar in Metropolis.

As she stood, she could see a clearing of in the cluster of trees, flowers, and quiet chirping of life abundant.  Before she could move forward, she heard a crunching sound from behind her. 

“Who’s ther-” Ivy began to ask before seeing her natural form move in front of her.

“Oh you’re awake! You’re finally awake!” Ivy’s twin beamed as she took stock of the new arrival.  

Ivy’s double shared…many similarities, except her hair was a wonder large mane with roses and tulips safely nestled within.  More importantly, Ivy couldn’t see the scar she had on the small of her back from sneaking off to the Naked Cheshire concert or the bullet scar in her shoulder blade from reminding a certain supervillain that Harley was no longer his.  She was Ivy but with no flaws. 

“Where am I? And who exactly are you?” Ivy asked.

“I’m you silly, or at the very least the parts of The Green that love you,” Ivy’s twin explained.  “I am the Goddess of these parts.  Ensuring every blade, creature, and connection are maintained and nurtured.”

“Right,” Ivy muttered.  “Last time I was here…I saw home, or at least…”home”.”

“It’s different every time my dear,” The Goddess responded.  “Sometimes it needs to show you things you hide away, others…some quality time with yourself.”

“And you’re supposed to be what…some perfect version of me that hates clothes? Cause let me tell you, Harley would really love to meet you,” Ivy snarked.

“She is…interesting,” The Goddess mumbled.  “Your thoughts dart often to her.  Both good and bad.”

“We’re dating, that’s common,” Ivy explained.  

“Dating.  She was right, even now you hate labels,” The Goddess explained as she moved into the clearing.

“I don’t hate labels, I just don’t see the need to make things permanent.  We don’t even know if we’re…” 

“Human? You’re frightened of me because I seem so disconnected from those matters.  Once again she was right.”

“I’m not afraid, it’s just…we might last longer, and I don’t…I don’t want to hurt her.  And wait…what do you mean she was right?”

Before the Goddess could respond, tree bark shot up from the ground and wrapped around Ivy.  The heavy footsteps of wood bound together with amber and vines could be heard as third Ivy entered the clearing. 

“She’s talking about me,” The third Ivy responded.  “The Green has decided that relying on a slacker chemist and her ideals wasn’t getting us anywhere.  You were spending so much time making goo-goo eyes at a foolish jester you didn’t feel your kingdom being ripped from the ground.”

“I’m…supposed to be on call 24/7?” Ivy said as she struggled against the bark.  “I’m supposed to have a life!” 

“The Green needs a protector.  Godiva over here can’t handle the outside world yet,” The Knight responded. 

“It is true.  So much noise, so much light, pebbles cutting across my feet, it’s no place for me…yet,” The Goddess explained.

“So The Green created me from all the anger you used to have before you ever bumped petals with that fool,” The Knight responded.  “We were respected with an army.”

“You mean a bunch of co-eds that put their trust in me?  Honey if you think that’s an arm-” Ivy said before one of the bark chunks slapped her in the face.

“We are not our other self,” The Knight said as she looked at Ivy.  “She believes you can be swayed to The Green’s cause and purpose.  But she is an idealist, and the time for ideals is over.  Goddy, watch over Ivy; she won’t have the stomach when I have to…cut away connections.”

“Connections…if you hurt Harley, I’ll…” Ivy said as she struggled to break free.

“You’ll be stuck here,” The Knight said as she sunk into the Earth itself to return to the crisis in Metropolis.  “Maybe if you behave I’ll give some time to say goodbye.”

And with that the Knight vanished, and the Goddess tended to the garden.  All Pamela Isley could do was scream.

…

“So what is this place?” Superboy asked as he and Batgirl had descended down into the sublevels of Metropolis’ Hall of Justice.  They had mostly been quiet since they had left the others.  For Superboy he knew this was the right course of action to take, Batgirl on the other hand had been trying to find her words since she had leapt from the rooftop.

“It’s the sublevels,” Batgirl began.  “When the Justice League opened the Halls across America, they wanted it to be a place to rest, socialize, and to prepare for the threats that could arise.  Batman believed we needed space to test…more radical ideas and technology to handle threats.”

“Batman supports what we’re doing?” Superboy asked.  “About time he gets off his ass and does so-”

“Batman does help,” Batgirl cut him off as the doors opened.  “We’re just facing the nightmare scenario.”

“Seems like that’s what we always do,” Superboy said.

“It’s the job,” Batgirl explained as she moved behind a screen, removing the sweaty and dirt-covered costume.  As it hit the ground, Batgirl was careful to remove the exoskeleton that hugged around her waist.  Carefully, she undid it; any electrical feedback it created would hurt her plan.

As she placed it on the side table, she could feel her legs struggle a bit.  She and Gail had been working on endurance, simple exercises that could keep her upright and moving.  But now, away from the comfort of the PT clinic in Burnside, Barbara Gordon struggled.

She was careful to pick up a jumpsuit with plugs and sockets running across it.  It was amazing that such a simple plugsuit had cost Wayne Enterprises thirty million dollars. 

“Finally, someone who speaks my language,” Superboy said as he looked around.  The sub-basement had laser guns, shields, and even what looked to be a gauntlet and backpack that mimicked the emotional spectrum.  “The rest of the Titans used to get it.  And I heard you ran with Nightwing back when he was serious about things.”

“That wasn’t exactly him at his finest, Superboy.  I’m sure he told you the toll that took?”  Batgirl bit her lip as she slid on the plug suit, making sure she adjusted the fit and calibration, any wrong move and she would set her progress back.  “I’m sure he told you.”

“He left by the time I joined the Titans.  Donna said something about needing to find himself,” Superboy said as he looked at a mace floating on its own.  “It’s funny, the Titans always said they were one giant family, but no one bothered to talk to me after Markovia.  They lost sight of what we were supposed to do.”

“Donna had briefed the League that you were supposed to be first responders and a place where a younger generation could be safe,” Batgirl said as she slid her mask back on.  “I know Flash,Wonder Woman, and Superman thought it was needed.”

“You mean the guy that rewrote time, the woman that didn’t even go in for her own sister, and Clark who’s MIA while we’re dealing with all this shit,” Superboy responded. 

“They’re human Superboy,” Batgirl said as she slowly walked out from behind the screen.  

“They should be better,” Superboy said.  “We can’t keep doing this.  I won’t keep doing this.”

“It’s the job,” Batgirl explained as she slowly walked forward toward a door that was labeled R0-K1E.

“And yet you have doubt in your voice,” Superboy said. “Also please tell me we didn’t come this way so you could change your clothes.”

“No, we came here to prepare for war,” Batgirl said as the doors slid open and a large mech’s lights began to flicker on.  Batgirl was done being vulnerable.

…

“So you're saying it could work,” Metamorpho said as he began writing chemical compounds on a whiteboard at STAR labs. 

“Maybe,” Doctor Angie Spica said as she looked over his work.  “We’re talking about bridging natural compounds with man-made ones in order to hijack a living ecosystem mankind has yet to begin to explore.”

“Yeah?” Metamorpho responded as he tried to figure out the right compounds to mimic in order to hijack Ivy and break into The Green.

“You just say it so…nonchalantly,” Angie responded.  Her lab had been a mess since Brainiac had bottled the city.  The power had mostly stayed on, but Angie had thought she had seen something  pink flicker out of the corner of her eye.  The only thing that wasn’t broken was the small tulips she had bought for her desk.  They weren’t safe, no matter what Metamorpho said. 

“Doc, I’ve fought vampires, zombies, even men made of cinderblock.  Trying to brainjack a sentient ecosystem is just a Tuesday for me,” Metamorpho explained as he looked towards the machine generating a nanite cocktail.  “So remind me again how this is going to work?”

“The nanites mimic the natural compounds that connect this…Ivy’s brain matter to this Green, connecting us to her with this,” Angie said as she held up a helmet with a visor.  “We really should have tested this.

As Angie spoke, the tulips on her desk turned to listen to their conversation.

“Hey, you don’t think I don’t want to test this thing,” Metamorpho explained.  “I’m a walking warning sign for untested science projects.”

“So why do it then? You and I both know that allowing an alpha predator to live will only just damage the greater ecosystem,” Angie explained.

“Because heroes don’t kill,” Metamorpho explained. “It was the first rule I had to learn.”

“Rules are meant to be broken,” Angie explained.  “My project is going to change how we view machines.  Nanties aren’t just stiff parts and circuit boards, they’re a fluid substance that ebb and flow like the tides.”

“Uh huh,” Metamorpho said as he moved to upload the compound structure into the database for the nanite cocktail to take shape.  “When I first got transformed I lost all semblance of myself.  Rex Mason’s skin, muscle, and bones had all became an elemental smoothie. It took me a month to figure how to make feet, three to make hands, and four to even have a form not even a mother could love.”

“And your point?” Angie asked.  

“Breaking rules is going to lead to broken people,”  Metamorpho said as the large tank of nanites in front of him began producing the serum they needed.  “How long do we got before this is finished?”

“Five minutes,” Angie said as she looked at the computer.  “And then I guess I can wrap up my tenure as an unintentional hero.”

“More like an assistant,” Metamorpho joked as he moved towards her desk, not noticing the vines and plants growing around them.

“I won’t be an assistant when I send you my bill,” Angie joked.

“And that is?” 

“A cup of coffee and maybe another lecture on playing God,” Angie chuckled.  

“Uh with me?” Metamorpho stammered.  “I mean I’m sure Nightwing or even Big Blue would want to lecture and they’re well g-”

“They’re not you,” Angie said.

“Then it’s a da-” Metamorpho began before the vines and plants burst from the desk, sending he and Angie flying across the room. 

CRASH! 

Ivy crashed through the lab windows as the two  struggled to regain their footing.

“You think you two can breach The Green! Under my protection?!” Ivy yelled as she raised an axe made of petrified wood.  “My sacred duty will not let you!” 

“Yeah, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of that lady,” Metamorpho said as he shot a burning substance from his hands. 

“ARGH!” Ivy yelled as she recoiled in pain as the bark melted from her. “What did you do to me?!”

“A little HCl lady, or for the layperson,” Metamorpho began.

“Hyrdocholoric acid,” Angie said with a smile before looking towards the nanite containment unit, the injector ready for its target.  The scientist ran for their only hope, unfortunately for her, the danger was all around. 

A large stem burst from the floor below and slammed Angie towards the nanite containment unit, smashing the glass that separated the unstable technology from contact with the outside world.

“Doc!” Metamorpho said.  “OK lady, now you’re really going d-”

Ivy moved fast, her axe cutting at Metamorpho’s chest, staggering him back.

“You think an acid spray is going to hurt me? My dear boy, Pamela has a PHD in botany.  I know what hurts my kind and I know how to fight!” Ivy exclaimed as she tried to swing her axe once more. 

Before she could Metamorpho ducked out of the way.  It didn’t matter as the plant life around him began to grow rapidly. Vines, flora, and bark all scratching and clawing at the elemental hero.  

“Get off of me!” Metamorpho said as his hands turned into sulfur igniting with every hit.  But even the flames couldn’t hide the fact that Metamorpho was losing here.

“Rex…” Angie muttered as she could feel the nanites on her, grazing and piercing her skin as if they were looking to restitch an old blanket.  

“Doc!” Metamorpho said as he rushed to her, avoiding the swings of Ivy’s axe and realizing he had no chance against her.  He picked the doctor up and looked at the broken windows in front of him.  His legs turned into a metal spring as he crouched down and looked at Ivy.  “Just know lady, I’ll be back.” 

Metamorpho leaped out of STAR labs with the good doctor in tow.  STAR labs had fallen.

… 

“Doc, Doc!” Metamorpho said as he held Angie Spica in his arms.  They had made it to a nearby rooftop after Ivy’s attack.  And Metamorpho was beginning to feel alone as he looked at grey metallic splotches forming all around Doctor Spica.  “We need to get you medical attention.”

“No…you…need to stop her,” Angie muttered. 

“Stop her? In case you haven’t noticed, the city is still shrunk, Ivy just took a whole building full of deadly tech, and I’m the last Titan,” Metamorpho said with a panic.

Before Angie could respond the purple and hexagon grid dissipated and the sounds of birds chirping and a bright blue sky could be seen. 

“Problem one solved,” Angie muttered. 

“We’ve got more than one?” A voice called out as Harley Quinn leaped back into Metamorpho’s world.  “They didn’t…kill her did they?”

“No Harley, she’s still alive.  But she’s angrier than before and we have no w-” Metamorpho began before Doctor Spica held up a syringe and headset.  

“We have a way,” Angie muttered.  

“And no back up,” Metamorpho explained.

“About that,” Harley began. 

WHOOOOSH.

A figure landed on the rooftop.  Metamorpho had seen him from a distance before at the Titans Gala and Markovia, but that didn’t do the bright blues and reds of his costume justice.  He shined like the sun and when he finally spoke it sounded like the heavens could move and would.

“I’m here to help,” Superman said.  “What’s the plan?”

NEXT: See How Metropolis was Saved and How Harley Recruited Superman in Superman 100! Then Be Back Here As It’s Titans vs Titans as Metamorpho and Harley Quinn take on Superboy and Batgirl for the Soul of Poison Ivy!  Lines Are Drawn as the Fight Against Ivy Reaches Its Dramatic Conclusion!

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#Cyborg #63 - Last Stand

<<| <| >

Author: Commander_Z

Book: Cyborg

Arc: Peril in the Mountains

Set: 100

Previously:

Vic and Gar were in a plane crash deep in the mountains when they were attacked by strange, techno-organic creatures. They were saved by Dr. Fate, who was investigating the creatures and offered to help them. They tracked the creatures back to an ancient city inside a mountain where they met Alfa, the leader of the Technosapiens. Alfa explained that he had some control over them, but soon it would take him over and they would need to destroy all of the Technosapiens to prevent their spread. Vic and Gar were apprehensive and split off to think about it while Dr. Fate prepared a spell. Vic was ambushed while exploring some sort of shrine, narrowly dodging a Technosapien's ambush. Alfa had lost control...

The Technosapien glared at Victor Stone, its humanoid futures twisted into a sneer. Just moments before, it could have been wandering around the city, enjoying its day. But not anymore. After Vic managed to dodge its attack, it gave up its human form and returned to a loose mass of black metallic tentacles, drifting around him like a laser focused tumbleweed. The creature bounced around the room, revolving itself around him, looking for an opening to strike.

But Vic was ready for it. Tracking a foe like this wasn't anywhere near the challenge that the Technosaipen thought it’d be. After a few moments of getting a feel for its speed, he let out a full force concussive blast from his arm cannons, sending it flying straight into the wall. He knew that wouldn’t keep it down for long, but it didn’t need to. He had to get going before more of them showed up. He ran out the door and closed it behind him, hoping that that’d at least slow it down a little.

Unfortunately, that was not the only enemy waiting for him. The street was full of Technosapiens of all shapes and sizes and they formed a crowd outside of the building like they were waiting for him to speak and share whatever wisdom he learned in there with them. Vic only had seconds to find anywhere else he could go. There were all sorts of buildings he could hide in, but where would that get him? He needed to get back to Dr. Fate and hope that he had some way to stop the Technosaipens before they got overwhelmed.

‘Maybe I should just make a break for it? No, I’d never make it through that crowd. I could stun enough of them to do it, but that’s really risky. Maybe I just try and signal Dr. Fate and Gar? But there’s no guarantee they’d see it and it’d probably just attract more Technosapiens…’

Then he saw it. To the right of the building he was in was a small alleyway just wider than he was. The path was poorly lit, blending into the dark stone of the surrounding buildings. It sloped downwards and looked like it went back into the tunnel system that led him here.

‘It might not be a way out, but it couldn’t be worse than here.’

Vic made a run for it but the Technosapiens weren’t willing to let him go without a fight. As Cyborg turned and ran, the Technosapiens joined together into a flowing mass, like an unstoppable river. It raged against the walls of the alley like white water rapids spraying against rocks, carving its teeth into them as it seethed towards the fleeing Cyborg. He ran into the tunnels, pitch black except for the dim blue light of his power core.

He could hear the creatures chasing him, gaining ground. But he couldn’t look back. There was nothing but fear back there and he needed to keep moving forwards. He kept running through the dark tunnel, expecting it to branch off and give him some way to escape the creatures behind him. But it never did, remaining one long shaft. Finally, he saw something to break up the tunnel. In front of him was a rectangular stone that ran the width of the tunnel that came up about a foot from the ground.

Vic barely noticed it in time and stumbled over it. As he did, the wall started to slide upwards, trapping him in the room. He wasn’t sure if this was really better than where he came, but it couldn't be worse. The wall rose up quickly and hit the ceiling with a thud.

Cyborg let out a relieved sigh. One challenge down… a million more to go. He turned and examined the wall that blocked the way back and was surprised to see a small blue gem at the center, glowing identically to his core.

‘Silasium? So this is the same place that Dad found? Maybe the city has tons of these tunnels that can be sealed for security or weather or whatever. And he just found one and wasn’t able to open it. Dad would’ve loved this.’

Vic reached out to the Silasium to touch it, thinking of the possibilities of having another sample, but stopped himself.

‘What if that opens the door again? Let’s leave that alone…’

Instead, he poked around the room, trying to find any other hints about who made this place. But the only other thing in the tunnel was a thick layer of ash that seemed to coat everything.

Vic raised an eyebrow.

‘Were these people killed by a fire? That seems hard to believe, no way they’d make a city like this and not have firefighters or something. But there was some sort of fire, maybe this mountain used to be a volcano? That’d explain all the tunnels.’

Shrugging it off, Vic continued down the tunnel. The carved stone seemed to get a bit rougher as he went along it, like it was a newer tunnel that had been left unfinished. The other change was just as subtle but Vic also noticed that the ash was starting to get less and less thick as he went along. It had started off as a solid cover on everything but it was thinner and patchier now that he had been walking for what felt like ages.

Eventually, he came to the first fork in the tunnel. The left path continued to be covered in ash but the right was almost completely free of it. He looked around the mouth of the path and saw no sign of a wall that’d retract that could’ve shielded it from the fire but saw none. Whatever caused that ash simply didn’t go down the right path.

Vic followed the left one wordlessly. He was out of ideas what could be causing this. But he had to know.

He kept walking, following the tunnels for what could’ve been miles as far as he knew. It branched two more times. Each time, the right path had next to no ash and the left had about the same as it had before the branch.

Finally, a few minutes after the most recent branch, the ash was at its thinnest. But what surprised Vic the most were the footprints in the ash. He could clearly make out a set of footprints made by bare feet coming into the tunnel. They went up to the left hand wall and… drew something on it? It was hard to make out in the dark tunnel but it looked like a face. It had a cruel smile and sharp, pointed ears with a pair of small horns on the top of its head. But what completed the image were the pile of skulls just below the horned face.

‘Is that the creature I saw the statue of? So their city’s guardian was a real creature and it betrayed them? Is that supposed to be a warning to stay out or a memorial? If it’s a warning, whatever was in here is free now anyway thanks to the Technosapiens. And if it’s a memorial… I hope I’ve done no disrespect here.’

Vic took a quick look around the next corner to see if there were more drawings or hints as to what could have happened and was disappointed by what he found. The tunnel had collapsed not a hundred feet from where this was drawn. Best he could tell, the footprints had entered the tunnel from behind that rubble. The pile of rocks was thick, but he was certain he could feel the faintest tickle of a cool breeze behind it.

‘So, someone escaped and came back to write that message. I think I get what happened. That creature attacked the city, maybe with fire, and the people fled outwards from there through the tunnels. They tried to seal the city to keep it trapped but weren’t able to. Then, they tracked the ash out with them as they ran to the surface. Not a happy fate, but it sorta lines up with what I remember from Dad’s video.

‘Then the other paths either lead back to the city or something other than the surface which is why no one wanted to take them and there was pretty much no ash on them. So, if I take them, with a little luck, I can get back to the city and hopefully avoid the Technosapiens while I do it.’

Vic took a deep breath. ‘Alright Vic, how lucky are you feeling? Gotta make it back as soon as possible but with three paths and who knows how many those split into…’

Before he could start to plan out any further, he saw hints of light coming from down the tunnel. He shapeshifted both of his arms into force cannons. If that was a Technosapien or something worse, he was a goner.

But once it came into focus, he let his guard down. It was a glowing ankh, about the size of his hand. From it, Dr. Fate’s voice rang out in as much of a panic as he had ever heard from the wizard.

“Victor, there you are! Garfield and I are in the city center, holding off the Technosaipens. It seems Alfa lost control, but he is still doing his best to gather them all here. Follow the Ankh, it will lead you to us!”

Before Vic could even respond, the ankh started to move back down the tunnel at a speed just above a jog and Vic ran to keep up with it.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

The city had devolved from its serene, tomb-like state into a maelstrom of chaos. Like the tunnel Beast Boy, Cyborg and Dr. Fate had taken to enter the city, this one took Vic on top of a tall building, this time just a couple of blocks from where they met Alfa. But the city itself could not have been more different. Its peaceful streets had warped into an overflowing tank of techno-organic beings attempting to force their way into the city’s plaza. Some of them tried to flow in and over each other, some oozed their way over buildings and others circled overhead like a massive rain cloud. Alfa had made good on his promise whether they liked it or not: he would bring all of the Technosapiens together.

In the city center, Vic could see Dr. Fate and Beast Boy were doing their best to hold the grounds of the plaza and keep it Technosapien free, but they were fighting a losing battle. Dr. Fate had surrounded the entire area in a barrier of translucent magical energy, but the sheer amount of damage it was taking was causing it to slowly shrink while Beast Boy was doing a series of rapid maneuvers to dissuade them from attacking. VIc hoped he’d make it in time.

“Quit gawking and get over here Vic! We will not be able to hold on perpetually!”

The Ankh started to fly down the stairs of the building, this time on what could’ve been an exterior fire escape. Cyborg did his best to keep up with the Ankh, but everytime he got close to its pace, Dr. Fate must have sped it up. But Cyborg didn’t even notice.

He raced across the streets, sprinting by the few Technosapiens in this part of the city before they could begin to process that he was there. After only a breath of entering the city, he was within arm's reach of Fate’s protective dome.

Then, the Technosaipens decided to welcome him back to the city.

It came from the sky, dripping down from the big cloud like it was raining thick, metallic gelatin. Vic managed to react at the last second, blocking it from landing on his head with his arm. He felt the machine try to interface with him, trying to infect him and make him one of them. He considered trying to blast it off but there wasn’t time and there would be more. His circuits and programming would be able to hold it off for now.

He ran the last handful of steps to the dome and Fate opened it up just long enough for him to get inside. He could feel the Technosaipen’s malignant code digging into his circuitry, trying to find a weakness it could exploit to give him control. But his body wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“Victor! You must defend me so I can begin the ritual! These creatures must be culled before they can cause further harm and disorder!”

Cyborg hesitated. He left not that long ago to try and find a way to cure them but he didn’t have one. Too much had happened too quickly. He had his reservations about it, but both Dr. Fate and Alfa had confirmed there was nothing left of the people they once were and the swarm of Technosapiens was certainly doing their best to convince him of that. If they weren’t stopped here, they’d spread all over the Earth killing and infecting countless others.

‘It’s what needs to be done. Whatever they once were is gone. It’s like destroying a hurricane or a swarm of locusts and fearing for the gentle rain or the grasshoppers that they once were. They’re gone.’

“Okay, whatever you need, Fate!”

“Excellent. I will be reducing this Dome of Protection to little more than the minimum needed to cover myself as I will not be able to focus on the ritual if I must maintain that as well. It will take me no more than five minutes if my estimations are correct. You must simply keep me safe for that period and stay alive.”

“Simple, huh Vic?”

“Yeah, simple. You ready to do this?” Vic asked, holding out his ist for a fist bump.

“With you? Always.” Beast Boy completed the gesture.

Cyborg and Beast Boy split off, with Cyborg taking the northside’s entrance and Beast Boy taking the south.

As Dr. Fate retracted the Dome of Protection, Cyborg started to get a feel for the scale of the task they’d been assigned to do. The Technosapiens that stood in front of him could’ve filled up an entire … something. Cyborg really had no idea how many there were since he couldn’t see any end of the swarm and didn’t want to think back to what he saw from the top of the building. The task was just too big to think about. He just had to do it.

He made one arm a concussive grenade launcher, the other a force canon.

‘Can’t beat the classics.’

He launched a grenade and a full power blast at random into the swarm, like he was firing a t-shirt into a crowd at a sports arena. But, the fans are usually much more interested in the t-shirts than they seemed to be his attack. It had such a little effect, he wasn’t even sure that it went off. But then he saw the little puff of light, like a kid trying to hide a light when staying up late, and felt a little distraught. It wasn’t even a nuisance to them. And the force blast? He couldn’t start to track where that went. But that was fine. He wasn’t trying to do damage to the tsunami in front of him, only slow it down. He was just a flood barrier; Dr. Fate was the… scientist working to stop tsunamis? Vic winced at the stretch of that metaphor in his head, but the thoughts were helping him stay focused on the fight. There was no out thinking this problem, it only required his body to fight through it. His mind would only fill him with fear.

And fought he did. If the Technosapiens were an unstoppable tsunami, then he had to be an unbreakable wall. He kept them focused on him by using his own body as bait, they clearly considered him an easier target than the wizard in the center of the plaza (who Vic really hoped was well on his way to completing the ritual) and he just needed to remind them of that. His force blasts might not do much damage to them, but they were an excellent annoyance. As soon as one or two got past him, he’d fire off a salvo of rounds at them, reminding them who they’re really facing.

Beyond that, it was just like a high stakes game of tag. Except that a couple thousand people were all it. He launched himself all over the plaza, shifting his arms into force blasters to give himself more momentum. His movements were erratic, but not enough.

The Technosapiens were closing on him and several had broken into the plaza. He launched himself back in and shot them. They turned and faced him as expected, and he launched himself back into the crowd, targeting the overhang of one of the buildings as his next safe spot. He landed perfectly and shot some more force blasts into the swarm without realizing it was a trap. The stone was brittle and was weakened by the Technosapiens and collapsed under his weight, sending Cyborg plummeting to the ground and into the crowd.

He shot a force cannon round out of both hands to try and make some space below him on his way down, and some of the swarm did back up, but he had made little more than an arm's reach around him. Technosapiens were blocking his view from the rest of the area, stopping him from finding anywhere else to launch himself to. He was trapped.

While he was looking for his next move, the Technosapiens gave him no quarrel. They launched themselves at him from all sides and he knew had no defense against it.

‘I don’t usually do this because they’ll overheat but… what do I have to lose?’

Cyborg’s force cannons usually fire discrete blasts about every second, but there was no hardware limitation for that beyond the sheer heat of the blasts. But, with his back literally to the wall, he set the interval to a hundredth of a second, functionally firing a continuous blast of force out of both arms.

The effect was immediate. He felt the kick in his shoulders, making them ache like nothing else, but it was effective. The blasts that the Technosapiens had so easily dodged were now impossible to dodge as the next shot would be there before they could ever react to it. He pointed his hands at the swarm, finally making real progress and pushing them back. He was doing it. Just as he was about to take his newfound “victory” and move back to the plaza, he felt a massive weight hit his head. The swarm of Technosapiens in the sky had decided to get involved. This time he was too slow to block it and his body immediately started to react to the invaders trying to take him over.

He had always thought that his core had infinite energy, but for the first time, a pop-up came up on his vision.

WARNING: CURRENT ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

ENERGY RESERVES WILL RUN OUT IN FOUR MINUTES AT THE CURRENT RATE. PLEASE REDUCE.

‘My system must be using way more power than normal with those force beams and having to fend off the Technosapiens’ attacks… So much for stopping them on my own.’

Cyborg fired his force cannons into the ground, back in their single shot mode, boosting himself towards the plaza. But the Technosapiens predicted his move and as soon as he landed, another massive glob landed from the swarm above him, blocking him in. He got just enough of a look at Dr. Fate to see that he was still uninterrupted.

‘Gar must be hanging in there too. If he can do it, so can I.’

But Cyborg wasn’t actually sure of that. He had no idea how much time Fate still needed. It had been about five minutes since he started it, but Cyborg wasn’t the most trusting of magic. Was that all it would take? Or did he need to buy more time than that?

‘Can’t worry about that. Fate trusted us to do this; I’ve got to trust him to do his part.’

Cyborg took one last deep breath, calming himself. He disabled all but the most basic protections, letting the Technosapiens in. Alfa had made it sound like it took several days for them to really take you over, so that didn’t matter. He could ignore that problem and use the power for his force cannons. He switched them back over to beam mode, blasting the crowd of Technosapiens back and away from him.

“Booyah!”

He’d cleared the plaza again and had them solidly pushed back. More and more Technosapiens came in, dropping from the sky, slithering over buildings… but he contested them all, sending them back from where they came. Then, his vision started to go black. He checked his power status - he was fine.

‘The Technosapiens…I guess they’re quicker now. If they’re shutting me out, then they must already have taken me over or be close to it. But I’m not out yet!’

As his vision faded, he kept blasting the horde back, but they were still coming. He couldn’t thin their numbers at all.

Another alert appeared.

WARNING: LEFT AND RIGHT ARM HEAT LEVELS ARE AT MAXIMUM

SHIFTING BACK TO NORMAL ARM FUNCTIONS IS RECOMMENDED TO AVOID PERMANENT DAMAGE.

But Cyborg couldn’t listen. He just kept fighting, pushing the crowd back until the very moment he felt a wave of magical energy pass over him. But as powerful as that feeling was, it was nothing compared to the wave of relief that passed over him as he blacked out due to exhaustion.

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Vic woke up a few minutes later. The Technosaipens were all gone without a trace and he saw Gar and Dr. Fate talking about something in the center of the plaza.

Vic walked over to them, feeling extremely sore after that fight.

“Hey guys. We won?” Vic asked.

Gar looked at him with a mix of confusion and concern. “Yeah, we did. But Vic… are you feeling okay?”

“A little sore, but otherwise totally fine. Why?”

Dr. Fate murmured an incantation and a gold outlined, full body mirror appeared in the air in front of Vic.

Vic gasped at the sight of his own reflection, fully human, looking back at him. The spell had removed the Technosaipens that were infecting him, but it had also removed all of his cybernetics. He was restored to a fully organic state, with the exception of the powercore in the center of his chest.

“I… your spell did this?”

“I suspect so. You were infected with several of the technorganic organisms, I suspect that it had difficulties determining where you started and they began. So, it removed all of the materials and restored you to what it assumed was your correct form. Magic, even that of a Lord of Order, can be a fickle creature.”

Vic looked at his flesh and bone hands for the first time in years. He blinked, unable to even begin to process this.

“We should leave this place. I have already confirmed there are no more Techosapiens here and this place should not be further disturbed.”

“What was this place, doc?” Gar asked.

“Some things are unknown even to me. But, I can tell it was a place of great tragedy and I do not want to linger. Victor, Garfield?”

“Ready.”

Vic took one last look at the dark stone buildings inside the mountain, taking in all their half solved mysteries and secrets… and then looked back at himself in the mirror Fate conjured.

“Yeah, let’s go. I’ve got a lot to process and get used to as is.”

Dr. Fate nodded and with one last incantation, teleported them out of the mysterious city.

<<| <| >

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##The Flash #100 - Gorilla Grodd

<< | < | >

Author: brooky12

Book: Flash

Arc: ?

Set: 100

Truly, it was a shame that the local neighborhood lost power all of the sudden. It wasn’t even stormy weather or the result of an accident, just a freak occurrence. Truly a shame, Roy G. Bivolo laughed to himself.

Maybe an investigation later would spot the same stolen car at the location of every broken transformer or electric substation. Rainbow Raider didn’t think they’d catch him leaning out of the car window, blasting equipment. The destruction of power equipment in the region that the S.T.A.R. Labs campus happened to be in would not take S.T.A.R. Labs itself offline, but the backups on campus weren’t able to restore power to other services.

If the local network went down, with no internet in the subregion, then no alarms at the Labs would be able to alert local law enforcement. If the message never got out of the campus, then there wouldn’t be worries of a Flash or other superhero appearing. He wasn’t even leaving a trail, necessarily, though the technicians noting the consistent patten in how the technology was destroyed could lead back to him.

He drove around town, taking down transformers and power grid pressure points seemingly at random. He had plenty of specific targets but was hitting them slowly over time. The local internet provider got surgically isolated, technology frying as he drove around its neighborhood. He listened to the radio as he did, waiting to hear if reports of power or network outages would filter into the news live as he worked.

With his goggles, he could control and adjust light. While the absolute range of what he could accomplish was wide, he wasn’t particularly motivated in the large electromagnetic range normally. He had found ways to manipulate light to have physical properties, such as to create floating platforms out of the visible spectrum or as a means of weapon.

This time, he was using his abilities in the electromagnetic range for destruction. Sealed power grid equipment expects certain ranges of interaction from outside influence, such as the supplying of electricity or certain ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. What it could not account for, however, was a concentrated beam of specific electromagnetic frequencies. Most of the devices he hit would be fine, interacting as much as the average object in physical space interacts with air. However, plenty of what he was doing would render equipment in the power grid useless, fried or burnt or broken or outright destroyed.

The devices he took out would take a while to repair, as from testing on similar readily-available equipment he had tested with, they had come to the conclusion that the power company would have to fully replace most of the equipment that he destroyed. They certainly had a few backups, but when he was frying two transformers each city block, they’d spend a while getting things back up to power.

Most places would probably not have too much downtime, maybe two or three days at most, but all it mattered was taking the S.T.A.R. Labs campus offline and isolated for an afternoon. He had the easiest job of their group, but it was an essential job.

A disconnected S.T.A.R. Labs would take slightly longer to get backup. Not as long as they’d like, admittedly, but longer than immediate, which was justification enough. It was hard to say things for certain when superheroes that existed could do nonsense things that couldn’t be prepared for. The unexpected was no reason to disregard proper planning.

The longer he went, the more likely it was that major disaster response would be focused on the power outages, rather than checking in at a place that hadn’t actually reported any problems yet. That was their logic, at least. Seems like the appearance of some nonsense out east in Metropolis was distracting the radio, at least, who hadn’t even mentioned yet that there were reports of the power going out yet at all.

/>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Fences and gates were lovely for the powerful, they blocked access and limited movement. These barriers displayed a level of control and an assertation that whoever had access to determining where they went and who was allowed through them was in charge.

Anthony Woodward did not like fences and gates. Anthony was also not your average non-powerful person who had to care about these things. In a small area without direct camera coverage, he approached the gate, leaning against it to check its sturdiness. The average person would not find much give, but this fence was not intended to withstand the force of a man made of metal with the strength and physique of a bodybuilder.

It didn’t collapse or crack, but it was a testing volley. He stepped back, grabbing two bars of the fence and began to pull. A fence’s strength came as much from its structure as it did its material, and attacking individual links was more effective than assaulting the sum total.

Soon enough, there was enough space for his ally, Albert Desmond, to slip through. Once he was on the inside, he pulled out a small stone, waving it in the direction of the gate. Slowly, the physical reality of the material began to change, cold hard metal becoming warm fluffy cotton candy.

Now with both Doctor Alchemy and Girder on the inside, they began to head for a more populated area of the campus. The nearest building was a storage and facilities building, which they didn’t need to care much about. Elsewhere in the city they knew the Rainbow Raider was already making havoc by cutting off power and network connectivity to much of the region.

“Freeze, you’re on private property and are in violation of federal law! Leave now!”

Neither of them had any particular love for security personnel, even if Albert had been in the force for a while. Girder reached down, grabbing a fistful of dirt and throwing it in the direction of the voice. Alchemy tracked the projectile with his rock, transforming it into a sphere of dense metal before it impacted the man.

They moved on. Shortly after, they arrived to the part of the campus that had consistent security footage being live reviewed, whatever power from on-site generators and batteries keeping the buildings functional seemingly also powering the cameras. Another quick disabling left them in the dark in the eyes of whoever was inside but didn’t stop an internal alarm from beginning to sound. The two shrugged, knowing that it had only been a matter of time before they were known to be around.

Doctor Alchemy approached a wall, simple brick façade hiding a structure that was designed to withstand the impact of a several-ton vehicle. What it was not designed to withstand, however, was being turned into mud. A brief shoulder check by Girder once given the go-ahead revealed a mostly empty cafeteria, a single janitor seemingly still willing to eat despite the alarms and lack of power. Whatever emergency power they had, seemed like the cafeteria lights weren’t considered a high priority.

The three exchanged glances, with the janitor seconds later dropping his sandwich and bolting towards the door. The chair Girder tossed his direction found the back of the man’s head first. That was probably enough noise to let anyone within earshot know that they should come check what that was. Or, better life strategy, run far away.

/>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The phone rang. The phone rang more than one might hope it would ring, but less than one might expect it to. The phone rang for a number of reasons, whether that was missing children who had health needs or any number of early-warning systems for natural disasters. The phone number wasn’t given out lightly, to ensure that lives needed saving whenever it rang, but it rang.

Sometimes, it rang not for missing children or natural disasters, but for a much smaller subsect of Flash-associated reasons. Certain Flash Foundation members had the number in case they needed a Flash for whatever reason, certain heroic metahumans or reforming villainous metahumans had the number in case of emergency, whatever that might present as.

The person this call originated from was none of those, strictly speaking. Another category, the least common of them, were leaders of certain correctional or rehabilitation facilities, locations holding notable metahuman threats to keep them from being dangers to society. This call was from one of them.

Bart picked up the phone. It wasn’t his first time answering it, but every single time he did feel some worry, knowing whatever information was on the other side of the call would be so important that getting it wrong could result in people getting seriously hurt or worse. He could wait the fraction of a moment, an eternity to him, for another Flash around to take it, but running away from what scared him was not what a Flash did, and not what would allow him to grow as a person.

“Yup,” he opened, knowing by rote that the shorter his acknowledgement of the person on the other side of the phone was the quicker they could let him know what’s wrong.

“S.T.A.R. Labs, Grodd, power’s not stable and I can hear the alarms of an intrusion. I don’t know that they’re after Grodd, but power’s being messed with and I’m hoping someone can swing through and make sure nothing’s going to be a problem.”

He had heard about Grodd, a sentient gorilla with mental mastery that a long time ago had nearly killed Dad. He hadn’t gone to the S.T.A.R. Labs where Grodd was being held prisoner yet, not being particularly motivated to risk anything. Apparently in captivity, Grodd looked mostly like a normal animal, and Bart felt like it was better to not have the memory of this seemingly innocent-looking animal being stuck in some odd faraday cage prison.

The person on the other side of the phone was calm, Bart noted internally as he listened. It was better for the transfer of information that they stayed calm, rational minds processing what information needed to be transferred. Mostly, anyway, Bart had doubts that the director or whoever this was needed to hedge their bets on whether the intruders were there for Grodd or not – they’d show up to make sure nothing bad happened anyway.

“We’ll be there in a flash,” Bart responded, switching over to the internal Flash communication line in his earphone. “Lab holding Grodd under attack, no power. One?”

“Two,” Jay replied almost immediately.”

“Blank,” Barry replied. “Unless you need me.”

“Three,” Wally replied. “In a second.”

So, they had two to start with, at least. And Wally would be joining them shortly, with Barry not available unless they needed him to be. That was probably enough.

/>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The power outages and stuff would have to be a later problem. Bart and Jay approached the S.T.A.R. Labs buildings from opposite sides, with Jay being to one to notice the collapsed part of the wall. A quick perimeter check led Bart to find the destroyed fence, and the two met back at the makeshift cafeteria entrance.

They could hear gunshots inside but didn’t have enough information to determine yet the nature of the attack. The two of them knew that S.T.A.R. Labs security forces were armed and authorized to shoot first, but the director of the branch that held Grodd didn’t know whether the people who broke in were doing so with guns.

Regardless, they ran towards the sound. A trail of broken walls and melted doors were difficult-to-parse clues as to the nature of their targets, but they moved forward regardless. The trail led them closer to the gunfire, confirming to them that what they were chasing down was not a diversion.

Eventually, they turned the final corner, taking a single moment to observe the scene. A large man, seemingly made of metal, was holding a riot shield in each hand, charging towards a group of four S.T.A.R. Labs security officers. A man in plainclothes to the side seemed far less panicked than he should given the context.

The two Flashes pulled the S.T.A.R. Labs employees out of the way, knowing already that the metal man likely weighed too much to simply be carried off to some other place for the moment. However, when Bart tried to move the other person, S.T.A.R. Labs employee or not, he struggled to pick them up at all, as if they had been rooted to the ground.

The combined forces of Jay and Bart still couldn’t lift the move him, and by that time the metal man had realized that something was happening. He wheeled around on himself, violently tossing one of the riot shields in the direction of the two Flashes. Both stepped out of the direction, only to watch the riot shield change shape and mold into a thin rod of metal, long enough to stretch far enough to still hit the two.

Bart reeled from the hit, shocked and slightly impressed that the two of them had managed to hurt them at all. Two enemies that they couldn’t simply separate and handle individually on different corners of the globe. They’d have to figure out a solution in the moment.

Jay charged forward, experience and instincts leading him to a solution that Bart didn’t see yet. Bart held for a fraction of a second, unsure as to how to best support whatever he was doing. Jay began to run around the hallway they were in, encircling the two men, so Bart joined him on that.

A moment later, a third blur joined them, Wally finally arriving at the scene of the fight. The three of them, at that point, decided to attempt to take the metal man out of the area. With their combined strength, they did manage to lift them, depositing him on an empty island between Australia and Tasmania. They’d return in a moment to handle him, but returned to make sure the man’s ally was also properly handled.

As they returned, they discovered that their final opponent’s abilities involved some sort of matter manipulation, as the floor around him had turned into some sort of magma or lava, creating a moat around him.

“Stop!”

The three of them did, curious. However, when the man began to move a small stone around in his hand with a few flicks of his wrist, Wally decided to stop stopping. He quickly extradited the stone out of the man’s hand, placing it in a safe in a nearby bank temporarily.

The sudden paling of the man’s face let Jay know whatever he could do, it required the stone. With that discovery, the three of them quickly relocated the man, leaving him in a temporary holding cell.

Now, all that was left was a quick confirmation with the caller that everything was alright and the two intruders had been handled. At the director’s insistence, they took a brief pitstop at the room Grodd’s prison was kept in to make sure he was still there.

Grodd was not there.

/>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A small portal appeared in a room in the basement of S.T.A.R. Labs. The two individuals in the room, a technician and a security guard, were focused on the door to the room, not to a distant corner of it. Glider and Abra Kadabra stepped through it, quietly sizing up the room for a few seconds to ensure that it was just the two of them.

Abra raised a hand, magically jamming the gun that the guard was holding. Glider surged forward, ice forming underneath her skates as she closed the distance between her and the technician. A quick elbow to the eyes knocked her over, the security guard whirling around on Glider in shock. However, a jammed gun gave her the upper hand in that fight.

Abra moved forward, opening up another portal beneath the technician on the ground, sending her away. Glider and the security personnel began to brawl, but the magical assistance of Abra tipped the fight in his ally’s favor.

The sounds of crashing and gunfire above confirmed for them that they had some time, but not an infinite amount of it. The two examined the sealed cage in the room, monitors showing the inside via cameras still working despite much of the region being without power. The resident of the cage, a gorilla with strange devices attached to its head, was seemingly staring directly back at them.

“We could just wait for Ant and Albert to get here. They could probably just open up a part of the cage and call it a day,” Abra suggested, unsure of the technology surrounding him. What information they could find on S.T.A.R. Labs floor plans and policies, they didn’t find anything on how they’d be able to hold a sentient, megalomaniac gorilla with mind powers. Shocker.

“I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure they’re going to get to us. Too many things can go wrong,” Girder disagreed. She trusted her two allies but didn’t trust the world. The entire reason they weren’t a group of four or five right now was because of the number of things that could go wrong.

“Do you want to just deepfreeze the technology?”

She sighed. That was probably the best strategy. She spent a few minutes freezing different consoles and wiring panels in the walls, but nothing immediately resulted in the unlocking of the prison their future ally was being held in. Eventually, she reached the point of trying to freeze parts of the cage itself, figuring that the cage might be fail-safe rather than fail-deadly – keeping Grodd locked in rather than letting it out in case of failure. Fail-deadly to Grodd, potentially, but no others.

Abra, for his part, was trying to use his magic to pull pieces of the cage apart, and soon the two of them were coordinating to break through. A small hole in the cage was soon expounded on and enlarged, until it was large enough for Abra to peer through.

At this point, Grodd was looking at him, and not at the camera. The look on Grodd’s face seemed animalistic, as if no sentient thought as behind the eyes. If this was a dummy gorilla being held in the place they advertised Grodd to be, with Grodd being held elsewhere, Abra would be infuriated and sure to report them to an animal rights organization.

He drew a portal underneath the creature, watching him vanish into the floor.

/>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Something.

The feeling of something being disconnected from its physical form, pulling away as it felt like it was falling. The disappearance of a noise it wasn’t even aware was there until it was gone. The changing of temperature around it, the changing of environment from small box to large empty space.

From nothing to something.

Something. Something…

A shocking pain through its mind, the lack of unrealized noise and the disappearance of physical things attached to it suddenly changing a lot of things for it. Its brain—Grodd’s brain—beginning to recover from whatever they had put Grodd through.

Who had done this? Who had put Grodd, leader of Gorilla City and rightful ruler of the world, into a situation where Grodd did not even know of Grodd? And then, who had freed Grodd from such a fate?

The surrounding area was empty, but appeared to be lived in. Pairs of human shoes left by a closed door, pieces of technology around the room. Grodd spent a second watching the human sports game left on the large screen on the wall.

Grodd felt pain still, but was able to reach out telepathically. No beings of higher thought were within what Grodd could perceive, though the pain limited that more than normal. Grodd found a collection of vermin, a dozen or so rats being held in a nearby room. Grodd reached out mentally, snuffing out their lives with a fraction of the power Grodd had even in this limited state.

Two more minds joined Grodd in this space. Grodd vaguely recognized them as the two humans who had freed Grodd from the prison. Grodd chose to not immediately kill either of them. Perhaps they could be of use.

##Superman #100 - Man of Steel

<< | < | >

Author: MajorParadox

Book: Superman

Arc: Heritage

Event: City in a Bottle

Set: 100

###Taken

S.T.A.R. Labs

Shortly Before Metropolis Was Taken

Zod sat in the blue glow of his cell in an orange jumpsuit. The humans had managed to keep him contained using blue kryptonite, which deactivated his powers. But they didn’t know who they were facing. General Dru-Zod was a force to be reckoned with long before he had the powers of a yellow sun.

It had taken some time, but a plan had been formed. When his breakfast was delivered every morning, the guard opened a slot in the door to push a tray through. Zod was supposed to take the tray, and then the slot would be closed. But if he could time it just right, Zod could grab the man’s hand. From there, there were any number of ways to get freed; he would just have to improvise.

“Breakfast!” a voice called as a tray of scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice was pushed inside the room.

Zod smacked the tray away and gripped the guard’s left hand, pulling him toward the door.

“Hey!” the guard yelled, trying to pull back, but Zod was too strong for him. “Help!” he called. “Code red!”

Zod noticed a handgun holstered on the guard’s right side but couldn’t reach it. Footsteps could be heard approaching. He didn’t have much time, so he pushed the guard’s hand back toward the right, causing him to rotate just far enough the weapon was in reach.

In a quick motion, Zod swiped the gun from the holster through the slot and turned around to open fire on the ceiling vent housing the blue kryptonite. There was no guarantee shooting it would knock it out of range, but it was his best move to make it out quickly.

Three guards opened the door, funneling inside with their weapons trained on him.

“Get on the ground!” one of them yelled.

Zod clenched his fists and took a deep breath inward, causing a gust of wind to carry them toward him. He stretched out his arms, letting the guards smack into them.

Zod crushed the gun in his hand while turning to the guard he had previously disarmed. Before he could make another move, the walls of his cell broke apart, and several metallic robots dropped inside.

“Kryptonian detected,” one said as they approached the escaping prisoner.

Their technology was familiar but mostly alien.

“I am not Kryptonian,” Zod sneered. “I am Argonian.”

Zod met his new attackers halfway and punched one down, while another grabbed him by the neck, and others tried to tackle him to the ground. But he flung them aside, punching away pieces of metal from as many as possible. He managed to disable them except one, who was approaching quickly. An energy blast knocked the last robot out of commission as Lex Luthor entered with impressive green and purple battle armor.

“We’ve never had the pleasure of meeting,” said Lex, offering his hand.

Zod exhaled sharply, keeping his own hands where they were.

“My name is Lex Luthor,” Lex continued. “I’m sure you’ve heard of me. Like you, I am a leader of my people. Or I was until Superman–”

“Enough,” said Zod, scanning the city to find a skull-shaped ship above the city and more robots all over. He also spotted Kal-El flying away from the ship.

“Superman is a fool,” said Zod, flying toward the ship through the hole in the wall.

Lex followed him until they both entered inside the alien vessel.

A swarm of robots and metallic vines filled the area, quickly overtaking them.

Outside Metropolis Crater

Now

Brainiac’s ship moved outside the forcefield as the city shrank, and Superman shot up into the sky after it.

“Did Lois and her kids just get abducted?” asked Mitch.

“I don’t know,” said Nona. “They just… disappeared.”

Aquaman and Wonder Woman appeared on the scene as the remaining robots stopped in their tracks, bent down, and tucked their arms into their legs.

“What happened to the city?” asked Aquaman while studying the deactivated attackers.

“Did you say Lois Lane and her children were taken?” asked Wonder Woman, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” Mitch explained. “Some of those robots grabbed them and took them inside the force field, but then a light came from that ship and they disappeared. Must have been some kind of transporter.”

“Superman went after them,” said Nona, pointing up at him.

The ship had become surrounded by Brainiac robots connected by metal tentacles, keeping them from falling to the ground. Clark had his work cut out for him to get through.

“We should help,” Wonder Woman stated. “Can you two fly?”

Mitch and Nona shook their heads.

“Diana,” said Aquaman. “These drones are heating up.”

Diana’s eyes widened. “They’re going to self-destruct!” she yelled. She turned to the nearby crowd of Metropolitans who had evacuated the city in time and flew up over them. “Everyone, get as far away as possible!” she ordered.

Mitch ran into action, grabbing several cars full of people with his magnetism to move them out of the blast zone. Wonder Woman lassoed several robots and flung them away while Aquaman tossed more with his bare hands. Nona helped a family out of their stuck car as a red streak of light zoomed up next to her. It was The Flash.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, disappearing and reappearing several times until the remaining bystanders were out of danger. He put a finger to his ear.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nona.

“Communications to the city must be back,” Flash answered as the drones exploded without harming anyone. “We’re getting a broadcast from Watchtower.”

Brainiac’s Ship

—

Lois struggled against the Brainiac drones holding her in place. Jon held onto his baby sister on the other side while more robots blocked him from getting close to their mother.

“Let us go, now,” Lois commanded.

“I will let you go,” said Brainiac, pointing to the new bottled city in his collection. “Go to where you belong.”

“And my kids?” Lois asked, already knowing the answer.

Another bottle held on by a metal wire moved into view. Alien buildings could be seen through the red glow of its edges.

“They aren’t meant to be with you,” said Brainiac.

“Like hell, they’re not,” said Lois. “They are my kids.”

“A valid argument,” said Brainiac. “But I have already determined their destination. They would throw off the balance in Metropolis.”

Jon shifted his head to the side. “Mommy?” he asked.

“It’s okay,” said Lois. “Superman will be here any minute.”

“Not soon enough,” said Brainiac before Lois and her kids disappeared from the ship.

Outside Brainiac’s Ship

Moments Earlier

Clark blasted a drone with heat vision while punching away at two others, but another wrapped its tentacles around his arms, holding him in place.

“Justice League!” a voice broke in from his belt communicator. “This is Watchtower.”

It was good to hear Chloe’s voice.

“Batman was able to provide me reports from the city,” Chloe continued. “Straggling drones have been self-destructing at the city's edges. But Metropolis has been taken. It was shrunk down and bottled and Brainiac drones collected it back to the ship. Superman is up there trying to get inside. Unless you have other pressing matters, I would get up there and help him get inside.”

Everyone must have already had the same idea. The cavalry was headed his way.

“I’m patching Batman into our network,” Chloe added. “I know he’s no longer in the League, but he agreed to help.”

Clark couldn’t be more proud of his childhood friend.

Diana arrived first, pulled Clark free, and the two began punching away.

Arthur got there next, clearing more of the way.

Gunfire knocked back more of the cannon fodder as a harrier jet flew into range. Lucy had joined the fight.

Clark saw an opening to the ship and didn’t waste a moment bolting inside.

Brainiac’s Ship

“Power Girl and Starfire are MIA,” Clark heard Chloe reporting as he arrived inside the ship. He started scanning around, but there was no sign of them or the rest of his family. A voice interrupted him.

“‘Power Girl’ is the name Kara Zor-El goes by these days,” Brainiac stated from his throne. Was he monitoring their comms?

“Power Girl, Supergirl, Superman…” he continued. “What is the point of those monikers?”

“Where are they?” asked Clark, letting his eyes turn red.

“You will have to be more specific,” said Brainiac.

“Where is my family?!” Clark demanded as tentacles tried to grab him, but he outmaneuvered them, landing in front of Brainiac and grabbing him by the chest.

“Everyone is being placed where they should be,” Brainiac answered. “Except for the Tamaranean, who managed to end up in Kandor.”

Kandor. That’s where he would have sent Jon and Lara.

The tentacles reached Clark and wrapped around him again, but he used all his strength to keep them from tightening.

“Let them out,” Clark ordered. “Now.”

“No,” said Brainiac. “Krypton and Earth will be preserved. The bottle cities will contain the last remaining specimens of both worlds.”

“Last?” asked Clark.

Did that mean what he thought it did? Was Brainiac planning to make the bottle city of Metropolis was all that remained of the planet? This new Brainiac was unlike any of the others he evolved from. One tried to use a signal to overtake the minds of humans with those of Kryptonians (Brainiac Event). Another tried to salvage cities from doomed planets (Superman #86). But this new Brainiac was talking about planetary genocide.

“You can’t do this!” Clark cried, his body tingling as a weightless sensation overtook his senses.

“So much for the ‘Man of Steel’,” Brainiac taunted. “Ridiculous.”

Clark’s surroundings disappeared in a flash of light, and when he opened his eyes, he saw tall, luminous structures surrounded by a red sky.

He recognized the city. It was Kandor. ###Escape

Bottle City of Metropolis

Earlier

“–is Brainiac,” a voice echoed throughout the captured city as Lois materialized in the middle of an empty sidewalk. “Continued fighting is a wasted effort. You are the fortunate from your world. The ones who will survive and keep your culture alive.”

“Culture,” Lois mocked. If that alien invader had any brains, he’d know any random city didn’t represent the culture of an entire world.

Several Brainiac torn-apart robots were thrown down the street as Supergirl flew onto the scene. “Lois!” she cried, zooming to her side. “I thought you made it out! Where are Jon and Lara? Where’s Clark? Where’s–?”

“Linda!” said Lois, interrupting the panic. “Brainiac sent the kids into Kandor,” she explained. “We have to get out of here and get them back somehow.”

“I’ve been working on that since the city was taken,” a voice said from nowhere.

A familiar blue-skinned woman with pink hair appeared next to Linda.

“Tali,” said Lois, trying to move in for a hug but then wondering if she could even touch her hologram. “You can get us out?” she asked instead.

“I share Brainiac’s base programming,” Tali explained. “Even though this version has evolved like I have, I can access the same core routines in the technology keeping up trapped. I just need more time.”

“We don’t have time,” said Lois bluntly. “ I have to get my kids back.”

“Kara was taken,” said Linda. “She’s in Kandor too. Along with Kory. I know we need to get them back, but if anyone can keep them safe in the meantime–”

“We also have other problems,” said Tali, pointing down the road.

A parade of drones was headed their way.

“Brainiac’s been sending wave after wave of them,” Tali said. “He must know what I’m trying.”

“That’s too many of them,” said Linda, lifting Lois into her arms. “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”

Before she could take off, she gently set Lois back down. “On second thought,” she corrected.

A menacing bark echoed the city block as Krypto flew onto the scene, followed by Bizarro and Maxima.

“You am need help?” asked Bizarro with a smile.

Bottle City of Kandor

Meanwhile

The sparkling lights of the buildings were mesmerizing. Clark had seen holograms of Krypton, but they didn’t compare to seeing it in person and hearing the people around the city. He could smell foods he’s never had before. The warmth of the red sun on his skin was pleasing, even though it wasn’t clear how it was there when the city was in a bottle on a spaceship.

But Clark couldn’t take in the sights. His children were in there somewhere, and he had to ensure they were safe. And he had to find a way out before Brainiac destroyed Earth.

He tried to ignore the thought that Kandorians had been stuck there since before he was born. But there had to be a way, and he would have to find it. It wasn’t clear how long his powers would last.

A crowd had formed around him. They appeared calm but cautious, and it seemed nobody wanted to talk first.

“Hello,” said Clark, breaking the ice. “I’m–”

“Kal-El, right?” asked a young girl with light red hair, moving through the crowd. “Ignore the adults,” she said. “We’ve been here for so long, they don’t quite know how to handle visitors.”

“You know who I am?” asked Clark. “I have to find–”

“Your children, I know,” the girl broke in again. “They’re safe and with family. Let me take you to them.”

“Family,” Clark repeated.

“I’m Shyla, by the way,” the girl introduced, motioning him to follow. “Shyla Kor-Onn.”

“I like your cape,” a man said as they walked through the crowd.

“Thank you,” Clark smiled but kept pace with Shyla, who was moving quickly. Good, she was able to sense his urgency. He liked her already.

“Kara said if you showed up, we’d be in trouble,” said Shyla, as they turned a corner around a building toward a row of house-like structures. The contrast of round and square edges was fascinating and seemed to reflect light in uniquely intriguing ways.

Hearing Kara’s name made Clark’s heart drop. While Brainiac had said she was captured, it didn’t feel real until now -especially since he ended up in there, too.

Shyla took Clark toward one of the houses, and Clark couldn’t stop from looking inside. Jon and Lara were there, and a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. Kara was nowhere in sight, but Kory was with another familiar-looking woman. Jon was perched on Kory shoulders, his black hair practically sweeping the ceiling with her added height.

Clark leaped forward and knocked on the door.

“What are you doing?” Shyla asked, wide-eyed. She hopped forward and waved a hand, causing a techno-chime to ring inside.

The door opened, and Jon yelled out. “Superman! What are you doing here?”

Clark flew over and plucked the five-year-old out of the sky. “I’m here to rescue you,” he said.

“Thank you,” Clark told Kory. “If anything had happened to them…”

“No thanks are needed,” Kory assured him. “We were having fun, weren’t we Jon?” The boy nodded vigorously.

“You must be Kal-El,” the woman said, stepping toward him and handing him baby Lara. “I’m Alura, your aunt.”

“Alura!” Clark repeated. He gently placed his kids back on the floor. “Kara thought you… didn’t make it. How did you end up in Kandor?”

“It’s a long story,” said Alura. “But from what Kara tells me, there are more pressing matters outside this bottle city.”

“There are,” said Clark. “We have to get out or our adopted world will be lost forever.”

“Kara had an idea,” Alura explained.

Of course, she did. He could always count on her to be one step ahead.

Clark leaned down to Jon. “Will you and your sister be okay here with Kory and Alura?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jon answered. “Kory is fun.”

“I can take you to them,” said Shyla from the doorway.

“Them?” asked Clark.

“Yes,” Shayla answered. “Kara and General Zod.”

Clark's eyes popped wide open. “Zod’s here?!”

Bottle City of Metropolis

Krypto was tearing into metal bones as Bizarro blasted several away with his heat vision. Maxima smashed two together and tossed them into the range of Linda, who spun another around to collide with them.

“How’s it coming?” Lois asked Tali, taking cover behind a hotdog stand.

“I almost have it,” said Tali. “But we’ll be limited on how many people can get out.”

“That’s okay,” said Lois. “At least we’ll have a fighting chance.”

A robot dove before them, but Bizarro sped over at the last second, grabbing hold and throwing it back toward the others. “Sorry!” he said. “That one am get by me.”

“Their numbers keep increasing,” said Tali. “They’ll get to us eventually.”

“Maybe we can lend a hand?” a voice called from above.

Conner Kent dropped down and tapped the ground, letting his tactile telekinesis rumble through the street until it reached a line of robots, throwing them off balance.

“Fire in tha’ hole!” yelled another voice. Harley Quinn raced around a corner and tossed a round projectile at the attackers.

“Is that a grenade?” asked Batgirl, rushing up behind her as an explosion answered the question. “Where did you get a grenade?!”

“It’s better not to ask,” said Metamorpho, who, along with Guardian, arrived next. The latest grouping of Titans were all there to help the fight.

Superboy’s look had changed from the sweet but cocky loudmouth Lois remembered. His S symbol wasn’t as curved and he had buzzed his hair. There was pain behind his eyes, too.

“It’s good to see you,” Lois told him.

“Yeah, uh whatever,” Conner responded, almost tripping on his words.

Harley ran up behind him, placing an arm over his shoulders. “Excuse Grumpyboy,” she said. “He’s going through his emo phase.”

Conner pushed away and flew toward the battle.

“Come on, Tali,” said Lois, leaping forward. “While they have the upper hand, let’s get you out of sight.”

Lois and Tali ran down the road.

“You said you could work with Brainiac’s programming, right?” asked Lois, looking for a good hiding spot.

“Yes,” Tali confirmed. “Given enough time, I could probably rewrite any number of his subroutines.”

“Does that mean he could do the same to you?” Lois asked, catching someone flagging them into a building.

“Also yes,” Tali confirmed again. “It would be a battle of resilience.”

The two reached the building and Lois recognized their helper.

“Perry,” said Lois. “It’s a bummer to know you were trapped in the city, but it’s still good to see your face.”

Perry White pat Lois’ shoulder as she got inside to find Jimmy, Ron, and Steve there too.

“We all stayed because it’s our jobs,” said Jimmy, lifting his camera.

Perry had a double-take when he noticed Tali’s unusual appearance. “Oh, hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Tali waved and entered the building.

Inside, Jimmy, Ron, and Steve greeted them.

“Where’s Clark?” asked Perry.

“He made it out of the city,” said Lois. “I wasn’t so lucky. Brainiac has our kids.”

Jimmy gulped. “Oh god,” he said. “I’m sure Superman will save them, though,” he added.

“Hey, blue lady,” Steve said to Tali with a snap. “Seeing anyone?”

Tali took a moment. “My vision is operating fine,” she answered.

“Mine too,” Steve replied with a wink.

Tali blinked several times. “Oh wait, are you flirting with me? Omg, you are! Tell me honestly, what do you think of the blue skin, I thought it was a little over the top but Li-my friend really likes it and-”

“Tali!” Lois snapped. “We need to get out of here!”

“Out of the city?” asked Ron.

“Oh yeah!” Tali winked back at Steve, “You can come if you tell me what you found attractive about me.”

“Uhhhh…” Steve said awkwardly.

“There’s a way out?” Jimmy added, trying to get things back on track. “That’s great!”

The door to the building burst open. “Hey, hideaways,” said Harley, peeking back outside as she slowly closed the door. “Mind if I join ya? I could use a break. I only had one grenade and my hammer ain’t puttin' a dent in those metalheads.”

“You’re welcome to join me anytime,” said Steve.

“Seriously?” Lois groaned.

“Who’s the sleezebag?” asked Harley. “I bet my hammer works on him.”

“I got it,” Tali broke in. “We can only get three of us out, though. Any more would be too much of a risk.”

“Dibs,” said Harley. “The sooner we get this Brainiac thing licked, the sooner we can help Ivy.”

The door broke apart as several robots stormed inside. Linda swooped in and blew them away with freeze breath.

“Sorry Harley,” said Lois. “My kids need me.” She turned back to Tali. “Take me and Supergirl,” she directed, and Tali nodded.

Tali placed her holographic hands on the two women, and they began fading. But then Harley jumped in between them.

“What can I say, I’ve always been a risk taker!” Harley yelled as she disappeared with them.

Bottle City of Kandor

Earlier

Shyla took Clark to a nearby science building, and sure enough, Kara was working with General Zod—a man who had just recently tried to kill him.

“Brainiac got you too, huh?” asked Kara, rushing to embrace her cousin. “How are things on the outside?”

“He got Metropolis,” Clark told her.

“You lost a whole city?” Zod interjected.

“Zod,” Clark said. “What are you doing here?”

“I confronted Brainiac on his ship,” explained Zod. “That gaudy overconfident human Lex Luthor wasn’t so lucky.”

“Lex was there?” asked Clark. “What happened?”

“Brainiac was intrigued by his intellect. Enough that he probed his brain with those tendrils of his. That was the last I saw of him before I ended up here.”

“My god,” said Clark.

“Don’t focus on what you can’t change,” Zod continued. “Your cousin here has a plan of escape. And she realized I was uniquely qualified to help.”

Clark turned back to Kara, who had lifted a circular Kryptonian gadget. “The Phantom Zone?” he asked.

Kara nodded. “Kandor scientists have been trying to find a way to escape confinement for decades,” she revealed. “But there was one thing they weren’t able to try.”

“We can travel into the Phantom Zone and then back out in another location,” Clark finished for her.

“The Phantom Zone projector doesn’t play nice within the bottle,” Kara continued. “But Zod still has some traces of zone energy, which I’m trying to use to jumpstart the thing.”

“Did I ever tell you how brilliant you are,” Clark said.

“Probably,” Kara smiled. “But say it again, anyways.”

Zod rolled his eyes.

Clark looked the general in the eyes. “And what happens with your people when we get into the Phantom Zone?”

Zod stared right back. “We all get out or nobody gets out,” he said.

“What about your son, Lor?” Clark asked. “He can’t leave, he almost died by being outside the zone.”

“Don’t you dare talk about my son,” said Zod, trying to take Clark’s arm and wrap it around his back, but Clark effortlessly spun it around and pushed him away.

“You’ve been in here too long,” said Clark. “My powers haven’t dwindled as much.”

Zod’s eyes turned red.

“Focus!” Kara interrupted. “We need to get out first. Worry about logistics later.”

“Fine,” said Clark.

Kara activated the projector, and a vortex appeared. “Looks like it works?”

Several Brainiac drones materialized in the room, going after the device.

“We’ve detected an unauthorized energy signature,” one of them said, grabbing it out of Kara’s hand, which caused the vortex to close.

Clark sped over and smacked the drone away, but it recovered quickly, returning a slap to Clark’s face that drew blood. His powers were fading fast.

Zod joined in, head-butting the robot and swiping the projector back.

Clark met his eyes again before the general tossed it toward him.

“Like she said, get out first, logistics second,” he said, blood running down his nose. “You still have your speed. Get that thing away so you can escape and put an end to Brainiac.”

“You– but…” Clark was at a loss for words.

“Go!” Zod shouted, throwing punches.

Kara grabbed Clark’s arm, and he lifted her, speeding the two of them out of the building and back to Alura’s house.

Once inside, he activated the projector again. “Gather around,” he said. “We have a one-way ticket out of this bottle.” ###Shutdown

Brainiac’s Ship, Upper Atmosphere

Now

“This is not possible,” said Brainiac as four figures appeared on his ship.

Robots moved in to attack, but Supergirl sprung into action, fighting back.

Lois took Tali aside. “What we talked about before,” she started. “You up for it? It could save everyone.”

“Yeah, you can do it!” Harley chimed in but then turned to Lois. “Do what?” she asked.

Tali nodded and got to work, initializing a connection to Brainiac’s programming.

“What are you doing?” asked Brainiac, seemingly fighting back, but then a vortex opened, and Clark and Kara popped out.

Lois rushed over to her husband. “Jon and Lara?!” she asked in a panic.

“They’re fine,” Clark assured her. “Kory took a separate trip out of the Phantom Zone to get them to safety.”

“The Phantom Zone?!” Lois cried.

Clark picked up Lois as he triple-tapped his belt. “This is Superman,” he said, flying Lois out of the ship, while broadcasting to the Justice League. “Brainiac’s ship needs to be disabled immediately at all costs, but without harming any of the cities on board.”

The league members surrounding the ship sprung into action quickly, blasting away and causing the vessel to begin shaking slightly.

Once Lois was safely on the ground, Clark focused his supervision inside the ship. He should have done a deeper scan before, so he wouldn’t have missed it earlier: Lex Luthor was strung up with Brainiac tentacles pierced into his forehead.

But Zod was wrong. Lex wasn’t dead. He appeared to be comatose, though. What was Brainiac doing with him?

The ship was beginning to lose altitude and Clark flew back up to bring it the rest of the way. As he pushed it downward, the others kept Brainiac’s drones from pulling him away. They didn’t have to keep it up long because Clark was able to make a safe crash landing just outside the city. Or at least where the city used to be.

“You won’t be able to stop me,” said Brainiac as a compartment popped out the top of the ship, revealing some sort of missile-launching mechanism.

“Take out that missile,” Clark announced to the team as he flew back up. “It’s meant to destroy the planet!”

Clark continued straight toward the missile but hit an invisible wall, knocking him back the way he came. Could it be the same force-field tech that encased the cities?

The missile launched and was heading up into the sky quickly.

Brainiac’s Mindscape

Tali appeared in an empty white room. She had finally broken through Brainiac’s most secure subroutine. A representation of Brainiac stood before, which must have indicated he was aware of her intrusion.

“This will not work,” Brainiac stated. “You won’t be able to reprogram me. I’ve evolved beyond the Brainiac Program. I possess a Coluan body and augmented mind, the intellect of which is beyond your wildest comprehension. Leave now or you will be lost to me instead.”

“Interesting that you’re giving me the choice,” said Tali. “It tells me, in spite of your showboating, you’re not completely confident you can win.”

“So be it,” said Brainiac, and their mindscape representations began to fight.

Crash Site, Just Outside Metropolis

—

“I’m going after the missile,” Clark stated, flying up with his heat vision blaring. It wasn’t doing any good against the force field, though.

“Superman,” Tali said, her hologram appearing alongside him. “I’m just distracting him in there, you need to stop him for good.”

“But the missile,” Clark replied.

“‘I’ll stop it,” said Linda, flying up next to him. “I can do this.”

Clark nodded and reversed course, swooping back inside the ship and crashing Brainiac outside into the dirt.

It was too easy, which meant Tali was right. She was distracting him with whatever she was doing to stop him. So, it stood to reason–

“Everyone, on Brainiac now!” Bruce ordered.

He must have been paying attention, too.

Diana wrapped her lasso over the green behemoth, pulling him toward her, but Brainiac kicked down on the rope, leaping toward her with a soaring kick. The lasso fell to the ground.

Bruce tossed a smoke pellet, throwing off Brainiac’s charge, and Diana jumped to deliver a powerful blow, knocking him down. Arthur moved in from the back, dropping to try and restrain the threat, but a kick knocked the Atlantean away.

Brainiac was back on his feet as Harley stepped up, swinging her hammer with all her might, but it didn’t cause him to budge even an inch. Harley rotated the weapon, staring it down. “Maybe it needs a tune-up?” she said before Brainiac grabbed her by the arm and hurled her away.

Barry caught Harley before she could hit the ground.

“Thank ya, Flash Gordon,” said Harely. “You’re my hero!”

Booster shot off his blasters, and Clark poured on his heat vision. But the alien rushed toward them anyway, smacking them away with his body.

Barry put Harley down and slid low to pick up Diana’s lasso. He sped around Brainiac in circles, tying his feet and causing him to trip on his next step. Kara popped a punch in, sending him reeling. But then Tali materialized next to her.

“I could use some help,” said Tali, tapping Kara’s forehead before disappearing again.

As the others continued the fight, Harley stopped by Kara, who was standing there, no longer moving. Harley waved her hand in front of her face, shrugged, and then sprinted toward a nearby building, wall-jumping her way upwards.

“Harquor!” she exclaimed before launching to a power line and slowing her momentum by swinging back and forth. She held on with one hand and pulled out a knife with the other, slicing her way through the wire.

“Look out below!” Harley yelled as she swung on the cut wire, sparks flying everywhere. She landed right beside Brainiac and placed the power line into one of his input ports, business end first.

Brainiac’s body seized as electricity poured through him.

“If that doesn’t distract him, nothing will,” Booster cheered.

Bruce approached Harley. “Nice work, Quinn,” he said.

“That means a lot, Batsy,” she replied.

“We all make a good team,” said Harley. “Have the eight of us ever worked together before?”

Brainiac’s Mindscape

—

Tali’s mind representation had taken the upper hand with the help of Kara, the two pummeling Brainiac into the ground. But then he stood up and fought back harder than he had before.

“You can’t win this fight,” he said.

“Maybe not without more help,” another voice said.

A figure of Lex Luthor in an expensive black suit and white tie appeared before them.

“Lex?” asked Kara. “How did you get in here?”

“This should not be possible, Lex Luthor,” said Brainiac. “I was only probing your mind and preparing it for data storage.”

“I always tell everyone never to underestimate me,” said Lex.

Brainiac jumped over to Lex, who just raised his hand, stopping his opponent in his tracks.

“For such a self-professed intellect,” Lex started. “You don’t know much about the power of the mind.”

“Let me try that,” said Kara, waving her hand.

Brainiac disappeared completely.

“If only it was that easy in the real world,” Kara said wistfully.

“You’re in control now,” Lex informed Tali. “Do what you have to do to save my city and my world.”

Crash Site, Just Outside Metropolis

—

Brainiac stood up but remained motionless as Tali reappeared and Kara woke up.

“What’s happening?” asked Booster. “Did we win?”

The drones all stopped fighting, too.

“I think we did,” said Diana.

“And the missile?” asked Arthur.

Clark pointed to the sky where Linda was making her approach back to the team. “You did it!” Clark called.

“Did you even doubt me?” Linda stated, smiling.

Metropolis Crater

Later

Clark dropped into the crater’s center with two bottles in his hands. He placed one of them down, and it immediately began growing.

Tali was right when she explained the process. It couldn’t be easier.

He flew up and watched as the city returned to its former glory but then looked to the other bottle.

Kandor.

The reprogramed Brainiac would start a new mission to find homes for the cities that had been collected. But Clark didn’t want to leave the last remaining city of his home planet to that fate. They weren’t criminals, like the Phantom Zone prisoners he’d been trying to help for years. They deserved to be free as soon as possible.

Asking for help didn’t end well before, so as much as Clark didn’t want to cause an international incident, he felt the best move was “don’t ask and ask for forgiveness later.”

Would he be forgiven, though?

Clark spent his time pondering that question as he flew north.

North Pole, Near the Fortress of Solitude

Soon

Clark placed Kandor down in the snow and waited.

But nothing happened. ###Back to Normal

Kent House, Metropolis

Sometime Later

Clark checked the burgers on the grill, but they weren’t quite ready. He considered sneaking some heat vision to speed them along, but he still had to be extra careful around Jon. He had been through so much, yet they still managed to keep him from questioning how he kept ending up in situations with Superman and other superheroes.

Jon was running around in the yard with Krypto. And Lois was carrying Lara around smiling at her big brothers, until she made her way to the deck next to Clark.

“One, two, three,” Clark heard Jon counting.

“Any news on the negotiations?” asked Lois.

Alura and Zod were in talks to free rehabilitated Phantom Zone prisoners into Kandor. And their best scientists were working on a way to get his son, Lor-Zod, out of there, too.

“Twenty, uh, twenty-one…”

“They’re still going well,” said Clark. ‘’I just wish they weren’t stuck.”

Something went wrong with Kandor’s Bottle City. It wouldn’t regrow, and they couldn’t pull anyone out of there. Even trying to open an outgoing Phantom Zone vortex wasn’t working.

“I’m sure Tali, Kara, or even Jor-El will find a solution one of these days.”

“Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five.”

“Can you believe Brainiac didn’t understand ‘Man of Steel’?” said Clark, changing the subject.

“What’s not to understand?” asked Lois. “You’re a man and you’re made of steel,” she teased.

“Har har,” Clark joked.

“It means you’re strong inside and out,” said Lois. “But yeah, it also means you are made of the stuff.”

“Fifty-six, fifty-seven…”

“What is he counting?” asked Lois, turning to the yard.

Jon had his hands over his eyes as Krypto was watching him intently.

“Fifty… ugh, this is taking too long!” said Jon, shooting his eyes back open. “One hundred! Ready or not, here I come!”

Jon turned around to find Krypto hadn’t gone to hide anywhere.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Clark called. “I don’t think he understands the game.”

“Okay,” said Jon, leaning down. Krypto sniffed his face. “Now listen very carefully,” he said, starting the rules of hide-and-seek again.

Clark’s eyes wandered, and Lois asked him for the spatula. “I know that look,” she said.

Clark smiled and headed around the corner of the house, disappearing upward in a burst of speed.

Lois smiled again. “There goes my man of steel.”

<< | < | >

Author: FrostFireFive

<< | < | > | >>

Book: New Titans

Arc: Bottled

Set: 99

Dini’s on the Metropolis waterfront was a dive.  The bar had been there since the 1920’s.  First owned by the Lord family before they decided widgets and self-help would help them climb out of Suicide Slum.  It had ended up in the hands of a family who had moved to Metropolis from Italy. Legend has it that they were going to close up shop until Big Blue and his red cape showed up, then people started looking up and noticed the little watering hole.

Since then, it had become a hot spot for the many groups of people who made the Slums their home. A kid trying to study for his midterms at the bar, the old firefighters and their cracked knuckles drinking Rock at the bar, but for Harleen Quinzel, they were all scenery compared to the redhead in the green turtleneck and black jeans.  

“Place always stays the same, doesn't it Red?” Harleen asked as she sipped on a Mai Tai that was more rum than juice.  “We’ve been coming here for what? Four years?”

“Five if we count the first time Harley,” Pamela Isley said as she itched her wrist.  She hated the feeling of fabric on her skin. She still hadn't gotten used to wearing clothes after years of living alone or just with Harley.  But she still had to stay covered up even after leaving the Orphanage because they'd moved in with Zatanna.    The magician couldn't understand she needed the sun, not human hang-ups.

“Right.  The first time,” Harleen said as she played around with the umbrella in her glass. She looked to the table where a group of dock workers were drafting their fantasy football teams.  Even now Harleen could see the dent from where Ivy had dropped her after she had fished her out of the Metropolis River after she had went back to the Joker for the last time.   “Which means it’s our anniversary!”

Ivy squirmed at Harley’s beaming.  She didn’t like labels, although she did love her jester, who was a far cry from the skinny victim in hot pants and a leather corset when she was performing CPR on the table.  She was vibrant, healthy, and loved Pamela Isely, but deep down Ivy couldn’t see why.  

“Yes, that’s right,” Pamela said as she rubbed the brow of her nose.  Ever since they had stepped into the city limits her head had been buzzing.  Normally, she would chalk that up to Harley and her finishing the last bottle of whatever passed for whiskey in the Arkham canteen and watching Bringing Up Baby for the hundredth time. “Does this mean we’re old now?”

“Nah, just experienced,” Harleen explained.  “Besides ya don’t want that, all the ups and downs, the “will they won’t they”... I mean do Dick and Babsie seem like a functioning couple?”

“Well that’s your pet project,” Ivy said as she sipped on her gin and tonic. “I just worry…that I’-”

“You’re ta best partner a gal could have Pam,” Harleen said. “You could have another crisis of self, or we could drink, kick those newbies' asses, and then we go back to our hotel room…I brought the red thing with all the straps too…”

“And you decided to wear the Spongeblub t-shirt instead?” Ivy said as she snuggled against her girlfriend.  

“Ya eyes only,” Harleen responded as she enjoyed the redhead’s warmth. 

Ivy blushed.  Most people would have assumed that Ivy was always in control of their relationship, but most didn’t know Harley.  But before a night of darts and frivolity could begin, the ground shook underneath them, and a booming digital voice rang through the entire city. 

“This is Brainiac. City of Metropolis, as the drones do their work, know your city is ours. Resistance is futile.” The voice said. 

As everyone panicked and ran out of the bar Harleen grabbed her bag and looked in at the crumbled spandex suit.  It was time to be a hero again, at least it would have been if not for Ivy grabbing her head, the buzzing growing louder as she dropped to the ground. 

“Red? Red!” Harleen said as she moved down towards her partner.  She had seen Ivy like this before, during one of her episodes.  Normally, it meant giving her twenty Advil and some of her patented cuddles to keep her calm and drift her to a gentle sleep.  But they were far away from any medicine cabinet or couch that could get them through this.  “Are you OK?”

“Harley…I need…you…get back,” Ivy said as she could hear a ringing in her ears and a voice calling to her.  Whatever this Brainiac had done to Metropolis had caught the attention of a higher…more elemental power and it needed Ivy to dispense justice.  

“Not without you,” Harleen said as she looked at Ivy’s face, a hint of fear but also…remorse. 

“Someone…needs to be…a hero,” Ivy explained before kissing Harley, distracting her from the plants and vines that had sprung from the floor itself.  “I’m sorry.”  

And with that the plants shoved Harleen outside of the bar and into the chaos of Metropolis as the last tatters of Pamela Isley fell to the floor, as Poison Ivy took her first bare steps into saving the original inhabitants of Metropolis…no matter the cost.

…

The corners of Suicide Slum had gotten better since Superman had arrived on the scene, but you looked close enough you could still find the grime that clung onto the changing city.  For Joe Pardo, the corner of Kessel and Grummet had been where he made his living selling drugs.  At first, it was his fellow hoods, but as the years went on he found the upper crust more willing to come down to have an escape from whatever “minor” problem was troubling them.  He was too small to be on Big Blue’s radar, but from the shadows a voice called out to him.

“I think it’s time you move out from here,” Someone in the shadows said to the drug dealer. 

“Listen kid,” Pardo said as he counted his money from a day dealing to rich kids looking for a quick fix.  “I’m not afraid of you, Do you know how many of their families, let alone the cops themselves, I deal to?”

The kid stared for him a moment; his hands bandaged and self-given crew cut stood out compared to the shine of the dealer and the city itself. 

“You should be,” The kid said with a smile. “Now I told you, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.  I’ve watched you the past week and I got to say your laziness is really appalling.”

“Laziness? I’ve been here for five years buddy, my operation is too big to bend to some some punk trying to play Superm-”

“Don’t say his name,” The kid said as he stepped into the light where his blue t-shirt with a red and black S symbol became visible.  “Because he may have forgotten you.  But Superboy hasn’t.”

Superboy moved towards the street thug as Pardo pulled out his 38 special and pointed it at the hero.

“You think you scare me? You’re just his sidekick, the kid who likes to be in front of the damn cameras than actually get things done.  And you think I’m afraid of you?”

“You should be,” Superboy said with a grin as he picked Pardo up by the collar of his shirt and slammed against the wall of the building.

“NO!” The dealer yelled outl the bruises instantly felt on his back.  “Are you trying to kill me? Folks like you wouldn’t…couldn’t…”

“Maybe not kill you, but you're about to find out how far I'm willing to go” Superboy said as he continued to shove Pardo.  

“Superboy stop!” A voice called out as a batarang landed into the wall. 

The familiar gray and blues of a Bat dropped from above, but instead of the fierce presence of Batman, the gawky figure of Batgirl stood against Superboy and his prey.  Barbara Gordon had been in Metropolis working on a side project when the police scanner picked up reports of someone in a Superman t-shirt wrecking Suicide Slums.  After Markovia, Dick, and Donna had given the attacked Titans their space.  But, it was a rule to watch out in case anyone needed help.  Once Nightwing had roped Oracle into this weird collection of heroes, it became Batgirl's problem, too.

“Go away, Bats,” Superboy said.  “I’ve got this one.”

“Yeah, looks like it,” Batgirl said as she readied another batarang.  “Back offn Superboy.”

Superboy sighed before dropping Pardo to the ground.  For a guy who thought he was the biggest man in Metropolis, he looked so small trying to pick himself up from the ground and running away from the two heroes. 

“Are you happy now?” Superboy asked Batgirl. 

“No,” The heroine responded as she put away her batarang. “Conner, where have you been? The Titans have been looking for you.”

“You mean the new team,” Superboy.  “I was replaced pretty easy wasn’t I?”

“Replaced,” Batgirl said.  “Conner, a new team was formed.  The world moves on if you’re not there.”

“I didn’t want to be there,” Superboy responded.  “Decided to see the real world.”

“The real world? Conner I assure you the real worl-” Batgirl began before getting cut off.

“The real world doesn’t let people cheat to walk,” Superboy coldly responded. “I did my homework on everybody when I was in the hospital, wanting to know where things went wrong in Markovia.  I read every report of every sighting of every hero that’s appeared after Superman.”

“And,” Batgirl’s voice went to a low growl. “You’re missing important details.  I’m here because of the people around me.  And who have helped with my recovery.”

“Like Amanda Waller? What about that loon, the Red Hood? Or maybe the psycho with the crossbow?”  Superboy asked.  “You claim to be a hero, but you? Dick? Hell, even the whole Justice League has blood on its hands.”

“We did what we thought was right at the time,” Batgirl said.

“Yeah that’s really convincing coming from someone who’s friends with an ecoterrorist and the Joker’s ex,” Superboy continued ranting.  “I saw the footage.  If Ivy ever rampaged again, would you have the courage to do what needs to be done?”

“I’m a cop’s daughter, I know what needs to be done,” Batgirl said.  “Do you?”

Before Superboy could respond a voice rang in the air.

“This is Brainiac. City of Metropolis, as the drones do their work, know your city is ours. Resistance is futile.” The voice said. 

The two heroes looked at each other with unease before running into the fray; Metropolis was a warzone.  Their ideological differences would have to wait.

…

“Come on people let’s go!” Metamorpho responded as his cobalt fists landed into the skull of another Brainiac drone.  It was just Rex Mason’s luck that he would be in the one city that would get invaded by aliens on his day off.  He had jumped from the STAR labs building into the fray.  He had tuned the police scanner on his earpiece and could hear the reports coming in of the heroes of Metropolis trying to fight back.  From Bizzaro and Guardian in Centennial Park to murmurs of Superman actually taking on Brainiac himself.   But Metamorpho was more focused on crowd control.  People were scared, and as mechanical death dropped from the sky someone needed to protect Suicide Slum.

It had been Rex’s favorite place as a kid when his mother would have brought him the rare time on a work trip.  While she had presented another priceless artifact to the small Siegel Museum, Rex would be at the arcade, ignoring the grime and wasting hard earned quarters.

The people running behind Metamorpho couldn’t care less about his warm memories. They were just trying to survive as Metropolis was dealing with another alien encounter.  And he was smashing robots like he always did. 

“Resistance is futile, Strange One,” one of the Brainiac drones said to Metamorpho as they  tried clawing at his chest.

“Resistance is all I know, buddy,” Metamorpho said as he grabbed the robot and slammed it into the ground.  Watching wrestling with Roy was beginning to pay off.  “Now if you robots want to actually give me a challenge I’d appreciate it!”

It was a brave statement, one the elemental hero could make now that the rest of the civilians had made their ways to shelters. 

“Challenge? We are just the scouting fleet.  As the city is collected we shall catalog and dissect everything that makes you and your race special.  Nothing shall stop the power of Braini-”

KZZZTZZT

Before the drone could finish his preprogrammed spiel, a green vine destroyed its head. 

“What the hell?!” Metamorpho asked as vines appeared and destroy each of the nearby drones.  He took a minute to change his fists into sulfur and prepared to strike at the vines, but they just stared at him before digging deep into the metal shells of the scouts around him.  Slowly they rose up, the green twisting and bending their limbs like puppets as they stared at the elemental hero.  

Slowly they moved toward him, shambling like the organic golems they had become.  As Metamorpho began to strike, they moved in unison, dodging his attacks as if they were attuned to him personally.  When he did land a hit the metal protected the plants from the flames.

They piled on top of him, with Mason trying to figure what element he could change into to push off of him.  But as they did his mind flashed back to Markovia, to the vampires, to the feeling of helplessness against these cosmic forces that always had wanted a piece of him.  He would have died their if not for the sharp whistle that cut through the air. 

“Hey, plant freaks!” Harley Quinn said as the plant freaks turned to the soothing, familiar voice.  Harley stood there with her costume tied at her waist.  This left her with a black sports bra and her mask, hair tied into twin pony tails.  “Mama wants you to get off the element man!” She tossed a makeshift moltov’s filled with weed killer that slowly burned them away, the metal dropping to the ground and leaving the two heroes alone.

“Harley Quinn?” Metamorpho asked.  “I haven’t seen you since Markovia, and what the hell are you wearing?”

“It’s good ta see you too,” Harley asked as she extended a hand, picking up Rex. “And some of us don’t have Superman’s ability to change fast.  Ya know how hard it is to find a phone booth these days!”

“Fair,” Metamorpho asked.  There had been murmurs of Harley in the superhero community.  Some thought it was important to support any villain trying to go straight.  Metamorpho also remembered hearing Oracle’s insistance that she’d have to clean up any messes the clown had made.  Almost as if they had worked together before.  “Any idea why we’re dealing with…robot plant monsters?”

“Well Supaman is handling the robot part,” Harley pointed up to the sky that had quickly had been replaced by a hexagon grid.  But the plant part? That’s because of–”

“Harley!” Batgirl called out as she landed awkwardly.  “Don’t tell me she’s done it again.”

“Batgirl?” Harley sighed as she saw the heroine move closer to her.  Some people couldn’t escape the past.  “I thought you were supposed to be in Chicago?”

“Chicago? I’ve never heard of no Batgirl based out of there?” Metamorpho responded.  

Batgirl gave a deathly glare to Harley.  The separation of Oracle from Batgirl was important to Barbara Gordon.  They were two distinct aspects of herself and people treated each differently and here was Harley, blurring the lines as aways.

“My mistake,” Harley said with a squint. “And well…yeah it’s happened again.”

“Again?” Superboy said as he arrived on the scene.  He was surprised to see Rex again, especially in his slimmer look. 

“Kid? Where the hell have you been?” Metamorpho asked.

“Around, not that you would have noticed,” Superboy responded.

“I called, several times,” Metamorpho responded.  “But all I got was dial tone or your new grim machine.  ‘This is Conner. Leave a message’.  In a growl only Batman would love.”

“It’s more honest,” Superboy responded.  “But what do you mean again, clown?”

“Wellllllll..,” Harley began before the vines and weeds around her came to life as a familiar person came into view.  

Pamela Isley was one with nature once more.  Any human modesty or needs were replaced by her green skin and flowers that bloomed under her feet as she walked towards the makeshift team.

“Ivy…are you in there?” Harley asked.

Ivy turned towards the heroes here eyes now growing bright green as she finally spoke.

“Before I came to you as a goddess, a mother wanting to spread The Green and the peace it wants,” Ivy began as bark began to grow around her bare flesh.  “I warned all of you what would happen if The Green was hurt again.  This city has been torn from the Earth, it’s plant life are screaming for justice.”

The ground shot out a sword made from the tangled roots that had once grounded the city.  Ivy grabbed it as the bark grew around her head, forming the helmet of a crusader.

“So now The Green has sent it’s Knight and we will kill any that stand in our way.”

“Well then…game on,” Metamorpho said, as the four prepared to fight Poison Ivy and the Earth itself.

NEXT: Follow Superman’s Adventures Against Brainiac in Superman 99 and the Milestone 100th issue! And then Be Back Here as Our Four Heroes Take on The Green Itself!

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#Cyborg #62 - Revelations in the Dark

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Author: Commander_Z

Book: Cyborg

Arc: Peril in the Mountains

Set: 99

Previously:

Vic and Gar were in a plane crash deep in the mountains when they were attacked by strange, techno-organic creatures. They were saved at the last moment by Dr. Fate, who was investigating the creatures and offered to help them. They tracked the creatures back to an ancient city inside a mountain and found the technosapiens in a human-esque form standing around ignoring them. The three of them eventually made it to a large, central building where they met Alfa, who claimed to be something of a leader to the technosapiens. When questioned by Vic, he simply responded that he wanted them to kill him…

“Um… what? Why would we do that? Setting aside that I don’t kill things, you seem like you’re the only sane one here. Why would I hurt you?” Gar said, taking over for the still reeling Vic.

The large, blue alien shook his head.

“You don’t have a choice. I can bring all of us here for you to destroy in one fell swoop. Otherwise, there will always be stragglers who will continue to plague the universe. I’ve seen it before.”

“What do you mean? DId they attack your planet or something?”

“Not my planet. Okaara still stands. I was stationed on an outpost on an asteroid at the edge of our space. We had been stationed out there for several of your Earth years and had dealt with little more than the occasional pirate, smuggler or over-inquisitive Green Lantern.

The creatures came on Founding Day, when our High Warlord declared ourselves an independent faction and we started our war for independence. Most of the old Okaaran families have a similar day and each of the largest ones are celebrated as one of our biggest holidays of the year. This particular one was for my family’s and I made sure to make it a celebration worth remembering.

I had the supply ship deliver extra rations of food and drink and used our discretionary budget to splurge on some nicer add ons too. All of the troops except for a handful of guards were celebrating already and I was heading out to the watchtower to take over for them and let them enjoy the night. They were more than happy to let me relieve them and wished me a good night as they made their way to the party. The first couple of hours were as uneventful as I expected but near the middle of the night, an asteroid just larger than the one we were stationed on appeared on our radar, heading on a direct collision course. Naturally, I fired a quick shot of our defenses at it and it dispersed into small enough pieces to cause minimal damage.

I didn’t think any more of it, this was a very routine experience. But what happened next was anything but routine.

A few moments after the remnants of the asteroid hit us, I received an alert from the main building. They were under attack. I raised the alarm and headed over to support my troops but by the time I got over there, the fighting was already over. Some of them had disappeared in the fight, others were injured. But the strangest group were the ones that had little gray blobs of metal fused to their skin.

“Private, what is that on your hand?”

“Unknown, sir! When we were fighting off the invaders, one of them made contact with my armor and corroded through it until it reached my hand. It attached itself painlessly and within a few moments, I could feel it guiding me. It showed me how to aim my shots, the enemy’s movements… It seemed to be helping me and we were able to rout them because of it,” the private said. I think her name was Iota.

I should have ended it right there, had her and all the other soldiers get the masses removed. But I didn’t. No Okaaran would. Any asset in a war is to be used and I was more than happy to do so.

And they were very, very useful assets. They gave us a little bit of warning when they were coming and fought as well as ten normal soldiers when they did. The creatures would attack us about once a day and there would always be casualties. There were just too many of them and our weapons did too little. As soon as one of them stopped moving, another would absorb it into them and continue to fight as one larger creature. The best we could do was slow them down for the rest of us to keep moving and escape, but that was no winning strategy. We were being whittled down.

After a couple of weeks, there were only around twenty five of us left, down from the hundred troops I arrived with. We still had plenty of rations. I didn’t notice it at the time, but as soon as the soldiers got infected by the creatures, they all but stopped eating or drinking. Or maybe I did notice but just considered it fortunate. Soldiers that fought better than any other and didn’t even need rations would have been considered to be sent by the gods in any other context.

I was sitting by Private Iota that night. She was the only one that made it back from her squad during today’s fight and so I was trying to keep her morale up. But she wasn’t having it. Instead, she looked me square in the eye and said, “Captain, do you think any of us will return to Okaara?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Of course. We just need to hold out for a couple more days and the reinforcements will arrive. Then we’re in the clear.”

“I don’t think we have that much time.”

She rolled up the long sleeves of her regulation black shirt up to her shoulders. Her arms were gone, not a trace of organic blue flesh remained. There were only strands of dark grayish black metal that seemed to pulsate and beat like they were made from veins.

I was struck. None of them had told me that it was spreading, let alone that it had gotten that bad.

Iota rolled her sleeves down. I couldn’t help but picture the mass of living metal that was under them.

“Mine’s the worst. I’m pretty much just metal at this point, just my head and some of my legs are still organic. I don’t eat, sleep or even breathe. I haven’t even done that for almost three days now, eating for longer than that. But me and the rest of the troops are soldiers of Okaara. If we have to die for the cause,we will. Without a second thought. But… that doesn’t mean everyone should. There needs to be someone alive to make it a cause, not a massacre.”

“Where are you going with this, private?”

She sighed. This wasn’t an easy conversation for her. “Out of the twenty four of us, only six of you have no metal. I speak for all of the rest of us when I say I want you all to take the escape shuttle to orbit and wait for the reinforcements there. We aren’t making it back but you all can still live.”

“Out of the question. I’m not leaving you to die to these things just to save my own skin.”

“Don’t you get it, Alfa?! We’re already dead! We’re just corpses that happen to still be warm and moving. I blacked out for about eight hours yesterday, but Xulio said I never once stopped moving and kept patrolling, talking even. A lot of the other troops have reported similar things. I’m not in control anymore. Not really. I’m just a facade, ready to be peeled off at any moment.”

I wasn’t ready for that. No commanding officer worth anything would. You don’t want to think of your soldiers as walking corpses, they’re your friends, your comrades. You need to trust and value them, just like they need to trust you. We just needed to hold on a few more days, but the war had already been lost. I just hadn’t seen it. These weren’t my troops anymore, they hadn’t been for a long time. I had ignored the signs and watched them change into something else. These might as well be different people than the soldiers I had been serving with.

“Iota, I’m - ”

Maybe Iota had said too much and they knew we were on to them. Maybe they had always planned on attacking now and Iota had just tried to give me a warning in the only way she could. Maybe, maybe maybe… There’s always maybes. But the reason why never matters in the moment.

As if the only thing stopping it had been Iota’s willpower, in an instant, I saw her eyes glaze over and the metal expanded rapidly over her head. It formed a horrific, mocking pastiche of her face, with lights and circuits and wires replacing her eyes and mouth. The same thing was happening to the rest of my infected soldiers across the room at various paces. I wasn’t sure if Iota was a lucky one, where she was gone in an instant, or the ones that were able to plead, get off their last words and accept it were.

All the same, within a few minutes, I was completely surrounded. The few of us who remained were no match for my infected troops and I heard the proximity alarms trigger. The creatures were swarming the base, surrounding us. I wish I could say that I fought until the last moment, that I took down almost all of them, apologizing and promising a respectful pyre for my fallen comrades. But I didn’t. I knew the battle was over and let them take me.

Things start to get fuzzier from here. I woke up a couple days later, my body infected with their metallic implants. It covered the center of my chest but thankfully no more. Unlike the ones that came before, I knew that the more flesh I still had, the longer I had to live. I was determined to resist it with all my might. Before I got the chance, my reinforcements had arrived. The implant told me that they brought an entire cruiser, armed to the teeth with a force 5,000 strong. They easily could take care of the creatures with the kind of heavy weapons and vehicles they’re carrying. But they never landed. Instead, they opened fire on the asteroid and blew us into pieces.

My body - everyone’s bodies - reacted instinctively. It pulled us together into massive balls, trying to keep its pieces in as few of parts as possible. I remember very little of what happened next. I drifted through space for who knows how long, focusing on myself, remembering my meditative techniques and trying to preserve who I was. It must’ve worked to some degree because I’m still here. The implant was constantly whispering in my head, trying to get me to steer this ball of techno-organic beings to its next direction. Eventually, I must have.

The next thing I remember is crashing into your planet and finding this mountain base. I took up residence here with the hope that it would be remote enough to stop our spread until one of my search parties found people capable of stopping us. You three.”

Vic and Gar blinked. They were trying to process what they just heard, what it means for this place, and what they really needed to do.

“You mentioned that you have some control over them. How do you know this control is “real”, and what are the limits of it?” Dr. Fate was unfazed by the story, Vic could read the man well enough to know he was already trying to think of the next steps.

“My control isn’t absolute. Think of it like a strong suggestion more than a command. I don’t know if it’s real, if you are asking whether I can manipulate them into being destroyed. But if I don’t, at some point, I’ll lose what little control I have and we will consume all life on your planet before we’ll swarm across the galaxy again until someone can control them again, if ever.”

“Very well then. I will assist you with your plan. Without your assistance, this problem will only grow and lead to more chaos.”

“I… I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to kill you all. I don’t know what else there is, but I feel like there’s something else going on here. Give me some time to think,” Vic said.

“And you, Gar?” Dr. Fate asked.

“I’m with Vic. I can’t just support killing these creatures, they might still be in there somewhere.”

“They are not. I have tried to reach out many times to my troops. Once they lost their individual forms and fully shifted into other beings, they lost their individual wills and identities. All that’s left is a machine manipulating their remains like a twisted puppeteer.”

Gar frowned, but stood resolute. “I understand. But… I can’t think that way. Not without at least trying something else. Fate, can’t you try and restore their identities like you did to Vic?” (As seen in Red Reign!)

Dr. Fate shook his head. “No. I was curious about that too, but it is as Alfa said. They have no individual identities, their very beings have been mixed together while Lilith was simply suppressing the vampire’s wills. Think of it like the difference between mixing together ingredients into a dough versus seasoning a dish. The dough is now one discrete thing, while you could in theory reach into a sauce and remove every bit of oregano if you were patient enough.”

“Okay, so we can’t do it with magic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. We’ll find a way. We always do.”

Vic felt a bit of positive energy coming from Dr. Fate.

“And I sincerely hope that you do. But I will prepare what I must in case you cannot.”

“Okay, you do that. I need some time to process all this and see if I can find any way forward that doesn’t involve killing all these beings. Fate, how long will it take for you to prepare your spells?” Vic asked.

“Magic is not always a precise art, but I do not imagine it will take much more than an hour.”

“Great. Let’s reconvene around then and see what we’ve found. Maybe I’ll come up with something, maybe not. But I’ll at least be more ready for what we need to do then. Gar, you want to come with me?”

He shook his head. “No, I think I want some time for myself. I want to see the sites and sights of the city, y’know?”

“Fair enough. Alfa, do you think you will still be in control for that long?”

The Okarran’s face didn’t react in any way Vic recognized. “Probably. But, convincing them that you are not to be infected is taking a lot of persuasion. It’s possible that some would slip through but I don’t think they should as a whole.”

“That’s about as good of a guarantee as we can get. I’ll see you all in an hour.”

⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️

Vic wandered off from the center of the city at random, eventually heading towards the direction he decided was north. He couldn’t place any real reason to be going that way; there were no interesting buildings or obvious features that stuck out that he could see, but it just felt right. As he wandered the streets of black stone buildings, his mind drifted further and further away from the problem at hand and back to the city itself. Who built this place and what happened to them? And was this the same place that his dad discovered Silasium in?

Unfortunately, the narrow streets couldn’t talk and none of the buildings he went into ever had anything in them. It was as if someone had built this massive city but never moved in. Everything was in perfect position without a single sign of a struggle or even proof that there had been people here. It confused Vic deeply and only kept him from thinking about the real problem at hand: the technosapiens.

He would’ve ignored them completely if he was able to, but they still lingered around the city wordlessly, like ghosts watching the living with envy. And maybe they were envious, maybe there was some vestige of themselves still in there, that’s what he wanted, right? That there were people to save and not just a rampaging disease that needs to be eradicated. He wished that he could just accept that they were gone but... He couldn’t. He couldn’t accept that this disease's relatively innocent victims were beyond saving. But he wasn’t a doctor, let alone one for parasitic robotics.

And so he wandered the streets, hoping for some revelation to clear everything up. Hoping for there to be some clue, some hint that led the entire thing to make sense and how it all fit together. But both mysteries remained equally separate and enigmatic.

He put those thoughts outside of his head. If he got an answer, he’d get an answer. Stewing on it endlessly would get him nowhere. His wandering had led him to dead end street and he realized he’d come to the north end of the city. It had been largely a residential area for many blocks now, but the end of the pathway led him directly to a building. It wasn’t made to stick out like the one they met Alfa at, but it was built perfectly centered along the path that he had been walking, clearly giving it some special significance.

The building was in a similar style to all the others - dark gray stone, squared, blocky design. But this one had no windows and double doors that opened inwards. In fact… they were opened. Every other window and door in this entire city had been closed, but this one building had doors that were open a couple of inches. Vic’s curiosity had been piqued.

He walked up to the double doors and gently pushed them the rest of the way open. The light from the street flooded into the room and Vic was awestruck by the simplicity of it. He had expected a grand room, a library, maybe the last living resident… Something.

Instead, he got a small room, unadorned except for a single statue in the center. The room was only a couple inches taller than he was and was as plain as everything else in this city. But the statue was imaculty carved from the darkstone that made up the walls, then he realized that it was connected to the walls. The entire building was a massive bit of stone that was carved into a building.

He walked up the statue, the dim lighting not doing the details justice. Even still, he could tell it was carved by an expert. The statue was of a small figure that came up just above his waist, with sharp, angular features and pointed ears with two small horns on its head. The creature had bright eyes and he could feel the intelligence and power behind them even without knowing who it was. But they weren’t looking at him. Instead, they were looking at the figures' hands, held like they were cupping something. But their hands were empty, leaving Vic to wonder what it could’ve once held.

‘Maybe they were some sort of god or folk hero for the city? That’d make this a shrine or something to them. Maybe people did live here and they went to pray here when whatever made this disappear happened? Or maybe someone stole whatever it was holding and in a rush they weren't able to close the doors? Guess I’ll never know. I… hmm.’

Vic sat down in front of the statue, trying to make out anything, trying to connect to something he’d seen without success.

‘Maybe this isn’t the place that Dad found, but where they were originally from? And what he found was just a message they left as a warning or a record of their existence? Then maybe that statue was holding Silasium? Maybe that’s what powers this whole city? Man, I wish I had a real archaeologist here…’

Vic focused up for a moment. He heard some movement outside. He stood up, turned around and shifted his arm into a force cannon. He was face to face with one of the technosapiens. He had only barely heard them coming, a moment sooner and he’d be done for.

Afla must’ve lost control.

Vic sighed. This wasn’t going to end well.

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