Hmm... How old would Tyler be now? If the team is already taking on an adult trainee hero (Renka), and someone whose family were all on the wrong side of the law, would Tyler possibly be offered a spot on the team, or even just allowed to hang out and hold down the fort while she's still healing up?
Life Ore Death - DC Feruchemy [Young Justice]
- Thread starter Obloquy
- Start date
- Crossover
Well, she might be able to pull that off, once she figures out the use of Nicrosil.
Hye
Reader of The Long Words
- Location
- In the middle of a story
Heh. I looked up Norse speech, because I couldn't remember how exactly it sounded. After getting the sounds re-affirmed I started to try and read it out. In Norse. Now, as a Dane that isn't all that hard. But then I realized how stupid I was. There's absolutely no reason for them to be speaking Norse. Norway, like Denmark and Sweden, speaks English just fine.
The Prime Minister of Iceland in the 1940s?
It's not Paranoia if everyone is out to get you! Or you're Batman and anyone trained by him.
Edit: Forgot about there being a chapter after this.
Gasp! A Meteor Freak! I mean, a Meteor Infected.
You make it seem like this is a very important and good/bad omen
Another one. Seems like someone else has been watching "Smallville" recently. Or just looked up people and found these.
Hmm... Is this Cannon or made up? Because it would explain a lot.
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Chilling Interrogations - part 4
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 16 [Overview]
Outside the hangar where the Bio-ship waited, six people gathered in a circle to discuss their recent discoveries.
"Most concerning," Aqualad mused. "It seems that there is an overarching conspiracy. Perhaps we should put in a more thorough report to the Batman?"
"We should eventually, but we should wait and add in anything Superboy and Miss Martian dig up in Belle Reve, so let's write this up and I'll talk to him tomorrow or Friday, after we hear if they found anything suspicious."
Ferris frowned at Robin's comment. "Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all school's days, yes? But Conner and M'gann are not in school?"
"Yeah, I guess. Man, Zatanna, I think you and me are the only one on the team who aren't delinquents!" Kid Flash joked. "Don't you guys know how important your education is? You can't stop supervillains unless you have a high school diploma."
"I guess that would explain why you guys got so much more done the past few days," Zatanna agreed. "But aren't heroes supposed to set a good example? 'Cut school and beat up muggers, that's how you get it done!' Not such a good slogan for the Justice League to tell the world, am I right?"
"Sorry to break the whelm, guys, but my school just hasn't started yet," Robin volunteered. "What can I say, we have a long summer vacation." He coughed out something that sounded like 'homeschooling'. "Besides, Batman is a better teacher than any school has."
"Sure, if you want to learn to be a hairdresser," Artemis teased. She hesitated. "My school… I just transferred to a new school, and the paperwork is taking a while to finish up," she said. 'And it's under reconstruction from the robot rampage,' she didn't tell them, since that would have pinned her as being a Gotham native, when they thought she lived with her 'uncle'.
"As his apprentice, King Orin has taken personal responsibility for my education," Aqualad said simply.
To everyone's surprise, Ferris raised her hand to preface a contribution.
"Once I read and speak better, the Superman said he will help me with a Gee-Ee-Dee," she pronounced slowly.
"Awesome! Congrats on that," Kid Flash said, and they exchanged a high five.
"So Conner and Megan are the only ones cutting class?" Zatanna summarized. "For shame."
"Prior to the beginning of the mission, the Batman prepared an adequate excuse, and Black Canary spoke to the office of the school to have them excused. As their cover has had them recently move to Happy Harbor from elsewhere, I believe that they are supposed to have returned to their hometown as part of the moving process. Each of them has a packet of work in their room, provided by their teachers, that they will need to complete once they return," Aqualad elaborated. Kid Flash winced.
"Ick, make-up work. That's always worse than doing it at the time, no matter how much that sucks too."
"Eh, Miss Martian and Superboy know most of the stuff already. The Lit classes and maybe History or Civics are important, but it's more that they need to socialize with people who aren't freaks of nature like us."
"You think I'm a freak?" Zatanna asked Robin. She couldn't keep a straight face when he did his best to back pedal.
"To return to the subject at hand," Aqualad finally interrupted. Everyone turned to face him fully.
"Morozko hasn't heard anything and we haven't heard from Snow Owl yet, but we may need to look into this Floe guy. We should be careful if he's as powerful as they said, but if there're no bounties on his head either, he probably isn't a criminal, just a drifter or something," Robin rattled off. "Germany definitely has Blizzard, and they got really cagey about it so he's probably being held secretly, but they said they'd be willing to discuss introducing us to ask questions, but it's going to be really on the down-low. We're supposed to have a second meeting with an agent at Dachau on the eighteenth."
"That's cheerful," Artemis muttered sarcastically.
"It's supposed to be serious," Kid Flash pointed out soberly.
"Yes," she gritted at him.
"Keep the aster, will you?" Robin told them. "We also spoke to Ice and her brother, and he reported that he'd been approached by some people. I think it's more about government corruption than this is, but we got a few possible names and contacts to look over. And I think we should look at him more closely, too."
"Si-grid Nahn-zen," Ferris sounded out, "the Icemaiden, does not talk to people currently. The Ice said she would reach out, and we will talk again after she will do so."
"Does so, or has done so," Kid Flash corrected.
"After she has done so. Thank you."
"Also, we're not sure if it's connected to the female Iceberg, but Ymonra has seen increased drug trafficking recently. It's probably from Kobra, but one person seemed to insist that it was a woman who was 'the Cobra,' which doesn't sound like Jefferey Burrs since he's still locked up." Robin, Kid Flash, and Artemis all exchanged high fives for their involvement in that happening.
"It will be worth cautiously investigating," Aqualad agreed, "but I would not put it high on our list. Although there is a possibility that they are hunting Iceberg the same way people hunted Tyler Crenshaw."
"Yeah, what did you get about that, anyway? And was there anything on why the," Kid Flash hesitated, "why the woman who used magic got involved, or what she did? What should I call her, anyway? Because words like witch and enchantress have some bad vibes to them."
"If you do not simply address Madame Dorada by her preferred name and title, then I believe referring to her as a practitioner, or as a diviner, would be appropriate," Aqualad answered. "She became involved simply because her divination indicated that it would be beneficial for her to do so; if there are further motives, she did not see fit to share them."
"Hey, I was reading their files, and Tyler Crenshaw, Sean Kelvin, and Jesse Watts all got their powers from the same meteor shower, right? They're from the same area in Kansas? You think there's a connection?" Kid Flash asked.
"Actually, Tyler said her powers are something she learned from her father, except she was better at it. According to Madame Dorada, she actually uses some small amounts of magic. But she did say they got stronger, a lot stronger, so much that she went a little crazy with them, during the two months she and her friends hung around the area before they got arrested. I'd bet she was using magic, and then it got compounded onto a meta-human power that did the same thing," Artemis suggested.
"Hmmm…" Ferris hummed, but she didn't say anything.
"That's… interesting," Kid Flash finally decided on saying. "So we knew Watts and Kelvin were connected, and Crenshaw said maybe Luthor was or his business was or maybe not, but did Crenshaw have anything to say about Watts or Kelvin?"
"I didn't ask about Kelvin, but she recognized Watts as a guy who'd been part of a therapy group with her, and she thinks he may have helped her get a legit job when she got out, but he never talked to her about it if he did. It's worth asking him, maybe?" Artemis shrugged.
"Nothing that could help us find out what happened to Mister and Missus Kelvin?" Kid Flash pressed.
"I didn't know they were missing, so I didn't know to ask, but I'd bet money it was the same group that took them," Artemis agreed. "You have anything about the case you haven't shared?"
"They moved into their new house back in mid-June, so the timing works out, but they didn't disappear any earlier than September first, because people saw them there." Kid Flash sighed heavily. Artemis hesitated, she took a deep breath, then she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. They shared a sad nod, and then she pulled back.
"On a happier note," Zatanna volunteered, "Comet never was approached by anyone and hasn't been threatened or heard anything, but he promised to be in touch if that changed." She was a bit starry eyed. "He was just really amazing. He denied it, but if he'd said that he was an angel of the Lord, I would have believed him. It was like he just radiated care and compassion."
Robin coughed. "Sounds like a cool guy. Centaur. Angel person. Sounds like a cool person, I mean. Ice powers aside."
"Mm-hmm," Zatanna nodded absently.
"Any news on contacting Celsia at Dresner prison?" Aqualad asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." She checked the time. "It's on the East coast, so while they aren't supposed to have formal visiting hours anytime soon, they were willing to bend the rules for Justice League members and set something up at… six o'clock, their time?" she checked. Kid Flash nodded. "So, in an hour. Anyone want to come with?"
"I'm not-,"
"Trying to get rid of me. I know," she assured Kid Flash, "but you're bad at hiding how much you're chafing. Props for trying though, and I'm sorry you got stuck babysitting me for my dad, so just take the night off and switch with someone."
"I will go," Ferris decided.
"Robin and I will monitor the transfer to Belle Reve in the Bio-Ship, while Ferris and Zatanna interview Celsia. Kid Flash, Artemis, would the two of you be willing to search for news of Frostbite in Panama?"
They grumbled and eyed each other, but…
"Will do," Kid Flash decided.
"Yeah, he'll need me to translate, and if you guys are keeping the Bio-ship, I'll need him to travel," Artemis said.
"The let us enjoy a late meal before we resume our tasks," Aqualad concluded.
* September 16 [Ferris PoV]
We arrived on the West Coast in time to watch the sunset for a second time, so Zatanna and I delayed a few minutes to perch on a grassy hill and enjoy the view. We still arrived in time for our meeting.
"This is a prison?" I asked. I could see walls and security along the grounds, but not enough that I would have thought this place housed dangerous criminals.
"Minimum security. It's more focused on work programs and rehabilitating the people," Zatanna explained.
"Ah." I nodded, liking the idea. 'I could have used one of these a time or two in the past.' I followed her inside. "Should I have my uniform worn?" I asked. As far as I knew, Zatanna had no hero uniform because her father didn't want her to fight, but she had still changed clothes to something resembling her father's suit, albeit with her legs far more exposed.
Zatanna looked over my ensemble again with a more critical eye. I'd kept my scarf, and let my hair down from the high tail I wore it in for fieldwork. My green shirt had buttons and a brush of lace, but I'd decided to wear jeans instead of a skirt.
"No, I think that'll pass muster. I wore this because it's like my dad's and it's a bit professional. The jeans might look a little casual, but just stay confident, and the worst that'll happen is that someone laughs at us." 'That is good.' I huffed and nodded.
We had no problems with showing our cards to the guards, and it took only a brief explanation from Zatanna that we were following up on a previous communication for the supervisor to bring us to the building.
Two women sat together on the far side of the table in the room we entered. One of them wore a prisoner's uniform and what I had learned was a power-suppression collar. The other woman was holding her hand and dressed more like a civilian, with no collar and a visitor's badge. She had black hair and blue eyes.
"Celsia? Cat Staggs?" Zatanna asked the woman with the collar uncertainly.
"Just Cat, please. The part of my life where I was Celsia is over and done with," she insisted. "Are you from the Justice League? You look…?"
"I'm Giovani Zatara's daughter; we're sort of running errands the League can't be bothered with. This is Ferris."
"I am pleased to meet you," I recited, and shook her hand. To the other woman, I repeated, "My name is Ferris, and I am pleased to meet you. This is Zatanna."
"Amanda Deibert," she said with a worried smile. "Cat… isn't in any trouble, is she?"
"No, not at all," Zatanna assured her easily. "We want to keep you out of trouble, if anything. Just… On ginppordsevae." I felt something buzz across my hair. I sat down and cut to the chase.
"Has anyone wanted you to commit more crimes, or asked you to go to Belle Reve the prison?"
Catt drew back and blinked yellow eyes at me.
"I'm sorry?"
"Belle Reve! What's she done to deserve that?" Amanda objected.
"Nothing! Nothing, that's why we're asking," Zatanna answered. "Were you watching the news on the Fourth of July, when there were four different ice villains all acting up at the same time?"
"Yes, but Cat didn't have anything to do with that."
"That," I cut in, "is what we are afraid of." Amanda hesitated. Cat put a hand on her arm to calm her.
"Don't worry, Mandy. They're trying to say that they're on my side in this." To us, she asked, "What do I need to worry about?"
"One other cryokinetic was attacked and had to run for her life because she refused to join a… an alliance that planned the attacks. They would have framed her for crimes anyway. Two more are missing, and we think they were kidnapped after they refused," Zatana explained. "Did anyone try to get you to break out or threaten you, or Miss Deibert?"
"No one's threatened me," Amanda answered. She started to rub Cat's shoulders when the woman didn't immediately answer. "Cat? Have you heard anything like this?"
"Back a few months ago," Cat answered slowly, "there was that dust-up when someone tried to get me labeled a more serious threat because of my powers and my… well, I committed first-degree homicide. I thought it was either someone genuinely concerned, or worst-case it was some old friends of Aiden Roberts who wanted revenge. They were trying to get me transferred to Belle Reve. It made sense, since that's the place most meta-humans go to, but if you're right…" she trailed off.
Amanda slumped more completely against Cat. "God," she sighed. "How bad is this?"
"Well, since you're not in Belle Reve, I'd say you're still safe," Zatanna suggested. "Um, do you have any plans for after you served your time?" 'Ooh! Yes, I want to know more about what the options are.' I leaned forward attentively.
"I haven't made any specific plans yet. I probably can't go back to working in a nuclear plant, and I don't want to go into violent heroics," she smiled jokingly at us, "but there are a few public speaking possibilities about what happened with me. And if I do want to turn my abilities into something good, there are a few companies doing research to turn meta-human powers to more productive uses. Quicksilver Co.," I twitched and turned to see the same expression on Zatanna's face, meaning I hadn't misremembered the significance of the name, "has a cold gun for firefighters in the… is something wrong?"
"I…" Zatanna looked at me helplessly.
'How do we say this?' I wondered. 'We are probably safe with what we're talking about, but we don't want to spread information around too far, and I've been told that saying bad things can be punished by laws without evidence…'
I tapped into my duralumin-mind to better communicate with sincerity, and my zinc-mind to figure out what I was going to try to communicate.
"One of the others… she said she was attacked by someone working, maybe, with that company. We have suspicions, but no evidence. Be very careful if you want to take a job like that," I enunciated, my voice slow and low. "There is… a man in the Isis Foundation, in Metropolis. He has experience with rehabilitation and he is a meta-human as well. Jesse Watts?"
"That's right. He's an old associate of Superman's too, so he's got a lot to vouch for him. You might want to give him a call or arrange something," Zatanna said. Amanda was pressing things on her phone.
She looked back up and smiled softly at us. "Thank you." She turned, kissed Cat softly on the lips, 'What?', and pulled back. "I guess I didn't need to drop everything and run in. I was over-reacting."
"Don't apologize. I think it's sweet." Cat kissed her this time, and I glanced at Zatanna. She had averted her eyes, but wasn't freaking out, so 'I guess that isn't all that odd? Just intimate? I should talk to someone, but later.' "Ah, sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Zatnna told them. "And now these three remain, right?"
"People say that," Amanda told her with pursed, crooked lips, "but my Bible always had the third listed as charity."
We didn't get much more done in that interview, as we segued into other subjects, but it was enough.
* September 17 [Ferris PoV]
"Now that I think of it, I'm not really surprised," Artemis commented, under her breath and in unpracticed Arabic, as we moved through a sunlit alley in Ymonra. "You did say you grew up in Middle Ages era culture. Probably anyone who wasn't perfectly hetero-normative got burned at the stake."
I had associations with the word 'stake' very different from 'burning wood,' and I wasn't sure whether what had happened to the Final Empire's heretics had been any gentler. Still. 'Burning people while they're still alive. Cooking them? That would take forever,' I assessed. Part of me had shuddered, and other parts had wanted to dig up records of the people who had watched this, because it had probably seemed normal and right to them at the time.
"I never actually heard… much of anything about it. For or against," I confided, also in Arabic and under my breath. "With skaa I don't think anyone cared; among nobles, marriages were all about business arrangements and bloodlines. I… would not say we had no one, but the Final Empire missed a lot of the purity-before-marriage and marriage-is-a-sacred-vow-of-love ideas you have. There were books and stories, and an ideal, but no one treated it like it was supposed to be normal, just that it was nice if it did happen."
We were just getting a feel for the city and its niches at the moment, not actively searching anything out, so we were free to talk as we explored, and Artemis got a better lay of the land.
"That… well, it's not good, but it's… different." Artemis seemed a little rusty in the throat. "Weren't nobles concerned with keeping bloodlines pure, and the stuff about not having mixed babies? I'd think that tied into no sex outside of marriage."
"Not… really. Noble men of all kinds bedded skaa women, as long as they had the women killed to avoid children. Noble women were more careful, because they could end up killed for it, but as long as you knew which noble had fathered the child, especially if he had more allomantic power…" I trailed off, remembering comment made by a somewhat broken Alloutte Urbain.
"You mentioned allo…?" Artemis prompted. "I've heard that word before."
"Allomancy. The other form of investiture in Scadrial," I murmured to her. "It was the power of the nobility, that they were blessed with by the Lord Ruler. And I… remembered where I may have met a… is it the same term for two men as for two women?" I asked. We were strolling by the riverside, and there was no one nearby, so I did not bother much with quiet.
Artemis switched back to English. "Two people of the same gender are gay, or homosexuals. That's the same for two men, but you can also call two women lesbians."
"I see," I nodded and tapped my duralumin-mind again to speak in Arabic. "I just remembered where I may have met a gay man. He was married to a noblewoman, but was according to her more interested in the serving men and had a companion I now think may have been his lover."
"She was his beard? Ouch. I doubt it was a happy marriage." I ignored the unfamiliar slang: the context made its meaning rather obvious.
"She was in love with his brother, Liam, so while Liam was alive Lindon was happy to ignore that part of his 'husbandly duties'," I answered. "He was killed in the year of Ruin, and after the Catascendre the two never bothered to get back together much. The social norms were all rather dead, so there was no reason to." I shrugged. "I just never… thought about it that way."
"Huh." We reached a busier set of docks and turned off into a market street. I shifted a bit and hid my nervousness. "Do you notice anything?" Artemis asked me quietly.
"We are getting some odd looks. And are those law officers?" I asked, making sure to not point at the patrol.
"They are, but people aren't pulling away too badly. Khandaq is pretty dictatorial, but Ymonra is more of a tourist city because of all the temples and stuff, so it's less bad by a lot." Artemis glanced at the people, then at her own jeans, t-shirt, and denim jacket. "I'm getting a lot more stares than you, so don't worry. I'm just obviously blonde and Asian, and wearing jeans. With your skin and that long skirt, you could pass for a native if you covered your hair… provided no one noticed your face is off."
"Your face is off. I look normal for when I was home," I retaliated amicably. "…Should I cover my hair?"
"With what?"
"I can buy something from a store," I pointed out.
"Did you bring money? They use a different currency here, not dollars."
"I wanted to eat at a restaurant with Robin, before, but had no money. This morning I had him help me get some. We may need to buy things or bribe people. It is on the official charge." Smugly, I patted lightly at the fold of bills I'd concealed.
"Good thinking," Artemis acknowledged. "…You can get a headscarf if you want, I guess."
"Will this work?" I fingered the capillary scarf around my neck.
"Too small, probably. What's it for, anyway? You wore it like three days in a row now."
"Old tradition. Not my favorite, but I feel closer to home if I do. Today is the last day for a while," I answered vaguely.
"…You left behind a lot, didn't you?" Artemis asked astutely. I smiled.
"Yes, but I gained a lot as well." And that was all we said on the subject for some time.
* September 17 [Ferris PoV]
"Ohshitshitshit," Artemis hissed. She pasted a fake smile on her face and turned to face me more directly.
I tapped my tin-mind, zinc-mind, and steel-mind immediately, but after a few seconds no violence broke out.
"Yes?" I asked lazily, doing my best to stay alert.
"Don't make any fast movements, do not look at the other side of the river," Artemis ordered anxiously, using a long draft of her mint iced tea to cover her lip movements. I nodded once, slowly, and drained a swallow from my own cup. I held it up in front of my face contemplatively, but I couldn't see anything particular in the glass's reflection of the far riverbank.
"Fighting?"
"Not if we're lucky," Artemis breathed. She sighed heavily, closed her eyes, and signaled a waiter over to order a small, fig-filled pastry. "Okay, he's gone. I think we're safe."
"Who was it?" I asked gently.
"He was a ways away, but I think I just saw Kyle Abbot," Artemis explained. Her breathing hitched, and she shivered. "The guy is with the League of Shadows, and a seriously dangerous creep. I've heard he's a werewolf or something, but I never got any details. I only… saw his face the once, but it wasn't the type of thing you forget."
"Dangerous," I acknowledged.
"Yeah." She checked her watch and scowled. "We're six hours ahead of them, and we were planning to be here almost overnight, wasn't it? Crud. Let's go back to the hotel room and try to get them on email. We need to plan."
She took the pastry, I left money for our bill, and we exited.
"…seven," I corrected after I realized what was wrong with what Artemis had said.
"Huh?"
"Six hours ahead of mountain, but seven hours ahead of… where they are now." 'If there's an enemy around, there may be more, and I shouldn't mention Belle Reve or many details.'
"Right," Artemis hissed as we slipped down a side street. "Right. And it wouldn't be safe to send the-," I shot her a warning look, "-our ride until after midnight there. So they won't leave until it's our seven in the morning. Later if- if our friends find anything interesting." She yawned. "I should have thought more before I agreed to this."
I shrugged. I had thought about what our mission would fully signify, being without back-up while the others kept an eye on Superboy and Miss Martian, and I'd agreed anyway.
"Thank you," I added to the polite man who held the hotel door open for us.
We took the stairs up to the third floor, entered room 316, and she collapsed onto her chosen bed.
"Okay?"
"No, I'll be fine. I just got up at four in the morning to get here in time for this," she groaned. "Late nights? I can handle late nights. It's the early mornings that kill me." I plopped down beside her and stroked her hair consolingly. She tensed and almost pulled away, so I stopped. "I… no, please. That was nice. Unexpected, but nice." I pulled her hair out of her ponytail and resumed combing it with my fingers.
"I should do the computer?" I asked after a minute or two of quiet grooming.
"No, no, I will." She rolled away and sat up with a sigh, grabbing the computer. "I might need a nap later, though, if we're going to be up all night here."
My bronze-mind ring was charged enough to last me this night and at least one more, so I had no issues with letting her nap. It would give me more time to charge more of my metal-minds. 'Speaking of…' Since we were no longer walking around, I resumed storing speed and strength to plump up my reserves some more.
<Checking in already? > I heard Robin's voice ask.
"Yeah, something came up. Wasn't Zee going to be running ground control?"
"It's a school day for her and KF." I did a bit of math.
"Not before, but after ten in the night for us," I told Artemis.
<Bingo. They need their sleep, so it's just me and- uh- is this line secure? >
"It's an Ethernet cable if that makes a difference, and I've got those security programs you installed running. But there's only so secure it can get. But it's you and our team leader?"
<Yeah, me and… the boss. Number one and number two. > Artemis snorted at that for some reason, and she and Robin devolved into some chatter about how it 'wasn't meant like that', and 'that was gross'.
"Any news from our other friends?" Artemis finally asked.
<Something is going to be happening, > Robin confirmed, <and probably soon. They'll be back in time for school on Monday, I bet. But we don't know what. >
"Joy. Tell Conner I'll be happy to help him with his homework," Artemis offered. It sounded a bit flirtatious, and I wondered whether the flirtation was meant for inviting Conner or for teasing Robin.
"I as well. But I am best at math, and they also are good," I added with a shrug.
<Will do. I've got some gossip about Junior being a daddy's boy and crushing on Miss Em, but nothing concrete yet. >
"I could've told you that much. We have a problem, which is why we called," Artemis said more seriously.
<Yeah? >
"Oh yeah. Can you send me a picture of the League of Shadows agent Kyle Abbot?" Robin's voice whistled.
<That's a bad guy. Usually works with Whisper senior as her bodyguard, too, so they make a seriously bad pair. Do you want us to pull you out? >
"Not yet. Even if it was him, and I want the picture to make sure my memory isn't faulty, I don't want you guys to leave the other two alone, especially not when things'll start happening soon when everyone wakes up. You need to be there. And even if you left now, it would be two hours before the ship got here, and two more back. We'll lay low, investigate a bit, and wait it out."
<Okay. Remember, if everything goes down the drain, you can pull out and make for the nearest… escape. >
'The nearest Zeta Tube is in… Israel?' I remembered and nodded. 'I don't know how to get there, but Artemis should, and I can read a map. It would be… a four-hour trip at top traveling speed? Closer to six if we're being quiet, maybe?'
"We shouldn't need to." Artemis skimmed through the file. "Huh. This isn't just Abbot?"
<I sent you everything I could access on him, and on Whisper A'Daire senior, and possible other operatives involved. If you're going to try to tangle with them, you'll need all the help you can get. Try to stay out of trouble? I've met them, and they're dangerous. >
"Why do you keep calling her Whisper senior?" Artemis asked. "And yeah, it's Abbot; the face is the same, and the coat."
"Child? Like Icicle?" I suggested. I released my storage enough to easily move over to Artemis's side and look at the information. I waved to Robin's face on the screen as well, and he nodded back.
"I'd be shocked to hear someone as psycho as her had a kid," Artemis replied. She frowned. "Orrrr not so shocked."
<No one's sure – we've never confirmed a family relationship – but recently a woman with some resemblance has showed up in Intergang, working with Bruno Manheim, and she calls herself Whisper A'Daire. >
"Same woman, different cover?" Artemis suggested.
<No powers. Also, one of Ra's al Ghul's highest agents, playing second string to Ugly Manheim? No way, she has too much pride. So we're going with senior and junior until we can find out more. >
"Well, if I hear anything, I'll give you a shout," Artemis promised. "Probably a shout to back me up, but whatev."
"When Abbot is a werewolf, what is that werewolf like?" I asked. 'I heard half-a-dozen different versions of werewolf abilities, and we need to know which is which if we're going to do this.'
<Which? Got it. No need to lose the aster too quickly, he doesn't have a contagious bite and he can be injured by plenty of things other than blessed silver. Abbot doesn't need moonlight to change, I'm pretty sure, though he used to pretend that he did. He basically just reconfigures his body into that of a wolf, with more strength, reflexes, stamina, and claws. And better senses. He can smell and hear to track people, and he once used Batman's scent to track him through the night. Hey, is that what you do with your tin-mind when you keep track of where I am? >
It was impressive that he'd figured that out, and a little amusing that it'd taken him so long.
"Mostly," I admitted, but left out that I used hearing more. I knew that Robin knew Arabic, so I tapped my duralumin-mind again to ask him a question more complex than my unaided English could manage. "When you say he can change into a wolf, does he conserve his mass? And do his injuries carry over?"
The language change caught him off guard, but Robin answered pretty quickly.
<I… let me see. Okay, he's got a scarred eye that's still bad in wolf form, so he doesn't heal. > I relaxed, because that had been a worst-case worry for me. <He's been seen in shredded clothes so those don't change with him. It's hard to eyeball whether his mass changes or moves around, but… hey, this is odd. It looks like he's bigger and more muscly when he's half-and-half than when he's fully wolf or fully human. > I nodded slowly, processing the knowledge and building up an idea of how a fight could go.
'Where do my metal-mind stores stand?' I wondered, and double-checked.
Most of my smaller metal-minds, with correspondingly smaller stores, were rings I'd threaded into my hair, including my aluminum-mind and two duralumin-minds. As either small piercings in my nose and ears, or rings in my hair, I had a total of seven small tin-minds, storing night vision, dynamic vision, distance vision, color vision, hearing, scent, and touch. I also had one bronze-mind, one cadmium-mind, two bendalloy minds, and one small gold-mind, all as rings on my fingers.
My legs had steel-mind and iron-mind anklets, while there were brass-mind and pewter-mind bracelets around my wrists. 'I only brought an empty brass-mind though, because I expected to be storing only due to the weather here, so that only has what I've stored away since we arrived.'
Lastly, I had my earring with its atium bit, and the belt I wore under my clothes held a larger gold-mind, an electrum-mind, an aluminum-mind, and another steel-mind.
We were supposed to be covert, so I had not brought my armor or weapons, and I was not certain if Artemis had.
'I can deal with one serious engagement if I don't need to conserve, but if we end up having more than three fights, I may be in trouble. Of course, we may not fight at all, but whether or not we find the Iceberg here, I would not pass up an opportunity to interfere with Kobra or with the Shadows, and I doubt Artemis would complain.'
I participated piecemeal in the rest of Artemis and Robin's conversation until we said our goodbyes.
"You want to sleep?" I invited. "I will stand sentry."
"Thanks," Artemis said with a weak smile. "Wake me up in… two hours, 'kay?"
"Two hours," I agreed, looking at the clock. I took the computer to review our potential enemies, and considered.
* September 16 [Overview]
Outside the hangar where the Bio-ship waited, six people gathered in a circle to discuss their recent discoveries.
"Most concerning," Aqualad mused. "It seems that there is an overarching conspiracy. Perhaps we should put in a more thorough report to the Batman?"
"We should eventually, but we should wait and add in anything Superboy and Miss Martian dig up in Belle Reve, so let's write this up and I'll talk to him tomorrow or Friday, after we hear if they found anything suspicious."
Ferris frowned at Robin's comment. "Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all school's days, yes? But Conner and M'gann are not in school?"
"Yeah, I guess. Man, Zatanna, I think you and me are the only one on the team who aren't delinquents!" Kid Flash joked. "Don't you guys know how important your education is? You can't stop supervillains unless you have a high school diploma."
"I guess that would explain why you guys got so much more done the past few days," Zatanna agreed. "But aren't heroes supposed to set a good example? 'Cut school and beat up muggers, that's how you get it done!' Not such a good slogan for the Justice League to tell the world, am I right?"
"Sorry to break the whelm, guys, but my school just hasn't started yet," Robin volunteered. "What can I say, we have a long summer vacation." He coughed out something that sounded like 'homeschooling'. "Besides, Batman is a better teacher than any school has."
"Sure, if you want to learn to be a hairdresser," Artemis teased. She hesitated. "My school… I just transferred to a new school, and the paperwork is taking a while to finish up," she said. 'And it's under reconstruction from the robot rampage,' she didn't tell them, since that would have pinned her as being a Gotham native, when they thought she lived with her 'uncle'.
"As his apprentice, King Orin has taken personal responsibility for my education," Aqualad said simply.
To everyone's surprise, Ferris raised her hand to preface a contribution.
"Once I read and speak better, the Superman said he will help me with a Gee-Ee-Dee," she pronounced slowly.
"Awesome! Congrats on that," Kid Flash said, and they exchanged a high five.
"So Conner and Megan are the only ones cutting class?" Zatanna summarized. "For shame."
"Prior to the beginning of the mission, the Batman prepared an adequate excuse, and Black Canary spoke to the office of the school to have them excused. As their cover has had them recently move to Happy Harbor from elsewhere, I believe that they are supposed to have returned to their hometown as part of the moving process. Each of them has a packet of work in their room, provided by their teachers, that they will need to complete once they return," Aqualad elaborated. Kid Flash winced.
"Ick, make-up work. That's always worse than doing it at the time, no matter how much that sucks too."
"Eh, Miss Martian and Superboy know most of the stuff already. The Lit classes and maybe History or Civics are important, but it's more that they need to socialize with people who aren't freaks of nature like us."
"You think I'm a freak?" Zatanna asked Robin. She couldn't keep a straight face when he did his best to back pedal.
"To return to the subject at hand," Aqualad finally interrupted. Everyone turned to face him fully.
"Morozko hasn't heard anything and we haven't heard from Snow Owl yet, but we may need to look into this Floe guy. We should be careful if he's as powerful as they said, but if there're no bounties on his head either, he probably isn't a criminal, just a drifter or something," Robin rattled off. "Germany definitely has Blizzard, and they got really cagey about it so he's probably being held secretly, but they said they'd be willing to discuss introducing us to ask questions, but it's going to be really on the down-low. We're supposed to have a second meeting with an agent at Dachau on the eighteenth."
"That's cheerful," Artemis muttered sarcastically.
"It's supposed to be serious," Kid Flash pointed out soberly.
"Yes," she gritted at him.
"Keep the aster, will you?" Robin told them. "We also spoke to Ice and her brother, and he reported that he'd been approached by some people. I think it's more about government corruption than this is, but we got a few possible names and contacts to look over. And I think we should look at him more closely, too."
"Si-grid Nahn-zen," Ferris sounded out, "the Icemaiden, does not talk to people currently. The Ice said she would reach out, and we will talk again after she will do so."
"Does so, or has done so," Kid Flash corrected.
"After she has done so. Thank you."
"Also, we're not sure if it's connected to the female Iceberg, but Ymonra has seen increased drug trafficking recently. It's probably from Kobra, but one person seemed to insist that it was a woman who was 'the Cobra,' which doesn't sound like Jefferey Burrs since he's still locked up." Robin, Kid Flash, and Artemis all exchanged high fives for their involvement in that happening.
"It will be worth cautiously investigating," Aqualad agreed, "but I would not put it high on our list. Although there is a possibility that they are hunting Iceberg the same way people hunted Tyler Crenshaw."
"Yeah, what did you get about that, anyway? And was there anything on why the," Kid Flash hesitated, "why the woman who used magic got involved, or what she did? What should I call her, anyway? Because words like witch and enchantress have some bad vibes to them."
"If you do not simply address Madame Dorada by her preferred name and title, then I believe referring to her as a practitioner, or as a diviner, would be appropriate," Aqualad answered. "She became involved simply because her divination indicated that it would be beneficial for her to do so; if there are further motives, she did not see fit to share them."
"Hey, I was reading their files, and Tyler Crenshaw, Sean Kelvin, and Jesse Watts all got their powers from the same meteor shower, right? They're from the same area in Kansas? You think there's a connection?" Kid Flash asked.
"Actually, Tyler said her powers are something she learned from her father, except she was better at it. According to Madame Dorada, she actually uses some small amounts of magic. But she did say they got stronger, a lot stronger, so much that she went a little crazy with them, during the two months she and her friends hung around the area before they got arrested. I'd bet she was using magic, and then it got compounded onto a meta-human power that did the same thing," Artemis suggested.
"Hmmm…" Ferris hummed, but she didn't say anything.
"That's… interesting," Kid Flash finally decided on saying. "So we knew Watts and Kelvin were connected, and Crenshaw said maybe Luthor was or his business was or maybe not, but did Crenshaw have anything to say about Watts or Kelvin?"
"I didn't ask about Kelvin, but she recognized Watts as a guy who'd been part of a therapy group with her, and she thinks he may have helped her get a legit job when she got out, but he never talked to her about it if he did. It's worth asking him, maybe?" Artemis shrugged.
"Nothing that could help us find out what happened to Mister and Missus Kelvin?" Kid Flash pressed.
"I didn't know they were missing, so I didn't know to ask, but I'd bet money it was the same group that took them," Artemis agreed. "You have anything about the case you haven't shared?"
"They moved into their new house back in mid-June, so the timing works out, but they didn't disappear any earlier than September first, because people saw them there." Kid Flash sighed heavily. Artemis hesitated, she took a deep breath, then she reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. They shared a sad nod, and then she pulled back.
"On a happier note," Zatanna volunteered, "Comet never was approached by anyone and hasn't been threatened or heard anything, but he promised to be in touch if that changed." She was a bit starry eyed. "He was just really amazing. He denied it, but if he'd said that he was an angel of the Lord, I would have believed him. It was like he just radiated care and compassion."
Robin coughed. "Sounds like a cool guy. Centaur. Angel person. Sounds like a cool person, I mean. Ice powers aside."
"Mm-hmm," Zatanna nodded absently.
"Any news on contacting Celsia at Dresner prison?" Aqualad asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah." She checked the time. "It's on the East coast, so while they aren't supposed to have formal visiting hours anytime soon, they were willing to bend the rules for Justice League members and set something up at… six o'clock, their time?" she checked. Kid Flash nodded. "So, in an hour. Anyone want to come with?"
"I'm not-,"
"Trying to get rid of me. I know," she assured Kid Flash, "but you're bad at hiding how much you're chafing. Props for trying though, and I'm sorry you got stuck babysitting me for my dad, so just take the night off and switch with someone."
"I will go," Ferris decided.
"Robin and I will monitor the transfer to Belle Reve in the Bio-Ship, while Ferris and Zatanna interview Celsia. Kid Flash, Artemis, would the two of you be willing to search for news of Frostbite in Panama?"
They grumbled and eyed each other, but…
"Will do," Kid Flash decided.
"Yeah, he'll need me to translate, and if you guys are keeping the Bio-ship, I'll need him to travel," Artemis said.
"The let us enjoy a late meal before we resume our tasks," Aqualad concluded.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* September 16 [Ferris PoV]
We arrived on the West Coast in time to watch the sunset for a second time, so Zatanna and I delayed a few minutes to perch on a grassy hill and enjoy the view. We still arrived in time for our meeting.
"This is a prison?" I asked. I could see walls and security along the grounds, but not enough that I would have thought this place housed dangerous criminals.
"Minimum security. It's more focused on work programs and rehabilitating the people," Zatanna explained.
"Ah." I nodded, liking the idea. 'I could have used one of these a time or two in the past.' I followed her inside. "Should I have my uniform worn?" I asked. As far as I knew, Zatanna had no hero uniform because her father didn't want her to fight, but she had still changed clothes to something resembling her father's suit, albeit with her legs far more exposed.
Zatanna looked over my ensemble again with a more critical eye. I'd kept my scarf, and let my hair down from the high tail I wore it in for fieldwork. My green shirt had buttons and a brush of lace, but I'd decided to wear jeans instead of a skirt.
"No, I think that'll pass muster. I wore this because it's like my dad's and it's a bit professional. The jeans might look a little casual, but just stay confident, and the worst that'll happen is that someone laughs at us." 'That is good.' I huffed and nodded.
We had no problems with showing our cards to the guards, and it took only a brief explanation from Zatanna that we were following up on a previous communication for the supervisor to bring us to the building.
Two women sat together on the far side of the table in the room we entered. One of them wore a prisoner's uniform and what I had learned was a power-suppression collar. The other woman was holding her hand and dressed more like a civilian, with no collar and a visitor's badge. She had black hair and blue eyes.
"Celsia? Cat Staggs?" Zatanna asked the woman with the collar uncertainly.
"Just Cat, please. The part of my life where I was Celsia is over and done with," she insisted. "Are you from the Justice League? You look…?"
"I'm Giovani Zatara's daughter; we're sort of running errands the League can't be bothered with. This is Ferris."
"I am pleased to meet you," I recited, and shook her hand. To the other woman, I repeated, "My name is Ferris, and I am pleased to meet you. This is Zatanna."
"Amanda Deibert," she said with a worried smile. "Cat… isn't in any trouble, is she?"
"No, not at all," Zatanna assured her easily. "We want to keep you out of trouble, if anything. Just… On ginppordsevae." I felt something buzz across my hair. I sat down and cut to the chase.
"Has anyone wanted you to commit more crimes, or asked you to go to Belle Reve the prison?"
Catt drew back and blinked yellow eyes at me.
"I'm sorry?"
"Belle Reve! What's she done to deserve that?" Amanda objected.
"Nothing! Nothing, that's why we're asking," Zatanna answered. "Were you watching the news on the Fourth of July, when there were four different ice villains all acting up at the same time?"
"Yes, but Cat didn't have anything to do with that."
"That," I cut in, "is what we are afraid of." Amanda hesitated. Cat put a hand on her arm to calm her.
"Don't worry, Mandy. They're trying to say that they're on my side in this." To us, she asked, "What do I need to worry about?"
"One other cryokinetic was attacked and had to run for her life because she refused to join a… an alliance that planned the attacks. They would have framed her for crimes anyway. Two more are missing, and we think they were kidnapped after they refused," Zatana explained. "Did anyone try to get you to break out or threaten you, or Miss Deibert?"
"No one's threatened me," Amanda answered. She started to rub Cat's shoulders when the woman didn't immediately answer. "Cat? Have you heard anything like this?"
"Back a few months ago," Cat answered slowly, "there was that dust-up when someone tried to get me labeled a more serious threat because of my powers and my… well, I committed first-degree homicide. I thought it was either someone genuinely concerned, or worst-case it was some old friends of Aiden Roberts who wanted revenge. They were trying to get me transferred to Belle Reve. It made sense, since that's the place most meta-humans go to, but if you're right…" she trailed off.
Amanda slumped more completely against Cat. "God," she sighed. "How bad is this?"
"Well, since you're not in Belle Reve, I'd say you're still safe," Zatanna suggested. "Um, do you have any plans for after you served your time?" 'Ooh! Yes, I want to know more about what the options are.' I leaned forward attentively.
"I haven't made any specific plans yet. I probably can't go back to working in a nuclear plant, and I don't want to go into violent heroics," she smiled jokingly at us, "but there are a few public speaking possibilities about what happened with me. And if I do want to turn my abilities into something good, there are a few companies doing research to turn meta-human powers to more productive uses. Quicksilver Co.," I twitched and turned to see the same expression on Zatanna's face, meaning I hadn't misremembered the significance of the name, "has a cold gun for firefighters in the… is something wrong?"
"I…" Zatanna looked at me helplessly.
'How do we say this?' I wondered. 'We are probably safe with what we're talking about, but we don't want to spread information around too far, and I've been told that saying bad things can be punished by laws without evidence…'
I tapped into my duralumin-mind to better communicate with sincerity, and my zinc-mind to figure out what I was going to try to communicate.
"One of the others… she said she was attacked by someone working, maybe, with that company. We have suspicions, but no evidence. Be very careful if you want to take a job like that," I enunciated, my voice slow and low. "There is… a man in the Isis Foundation, in Metropolis. He has experience with rehabilitation and he is a meta-human as well. Jesse Watts?"
"That's right. He's an old associate of Superman's too, so he's got a lot to vouch for him. You might want to give him a call or arrange something," Zatanna said. Amanda was pressing things on her phone.
She looked back up and smiled softly at us. "Thank you." She turned, kissed Cat softly on the lips, 'What?', and pulled back. "I guess I didn't need to drop everything and run in. I was over-reacting."
"Don't apologize. I think it's sweet." Cat kissed her this time, and I glanced at Zatanna. She had averted her eyes, but wasn't freaking out, so 'I guess that isn't all that odd? Just intimate? I should talk to someone, but later.' "Ah, sorry."
"Don't worry about it," Zatnna told them. "And now these three remain, right?"
"People say that," Amanda told her with pursed, crooked lips, "but my Bible always had the third listed as charity."
We didn't get much more done in that interview, as we segued into other subjects, but it was enough.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* September 17 [Ferris PoV]
"Now that I think of it, I'm not really surprised," Artemis commented, under her breath and in unpracticed Arabic, as we moved through a sunlit alley in Ymonra. "You did say you grew up in Middle Ages era culture. Probably anyone who wasn't perfectly hetero-normative got burned at the stake."
I had associations with the word 'stake' very different from 'burning wood,' and I wasn't sure whether what had happened to the Final Empire's heretics had been any gentler. Still. 'Burning people while they're still alive. Cooking them? That would take forever,' I assessed. Part of me had shuddered, and other parts had wanted to dig up records of the people who had watched this, because it had probably seemed normal and right to them at the time.
"I never actually heard… much of anything about it. For or against," I confided, also in Arabic and under my breath. "With skaa I don't think anyone cared; among nobles, marriages were all about business arrangements and bloodlines. I… would not say we had no one, but the Final Empire missed a lot of the purity-before-marriage and marriage-is-a-sacred-vow-of-love ideas you have. There were books and stories, and an ideal, but no one treated it like it was supposed to be normal, just that it was nice if it did happen."
We were just getting a feel for the city and its niches at the moment, not actively searching anything out, so we were free to talk as we explored, and Artemis got a better lay of the land.
"That… well, it's not good, but it's… different." Artemis seemed a little rusty in the throat. "Weren't nobles concerned with keeping bloodlines pure, and the stuff about not having mixed babies? I'd think that tied into no sex outside of marriage."
"Not… really. Noble men of all kinds bedded skaa women, as long as they had the women killed to avoid children. Noble women were more careful, because they could end up killed for it, but as long as you knew which noble had fathered the child, especially if he had more allomantic power…" I trailed off, remembering comment made by a somewhat broken Alloutte Urbain.
"You mentioned allo…?" Artemis prompted. "I've heard that word before."
"Allomancy. The other form of investiture in Scadrial," I murmured to her. "It was the power of the nobility, that they were blessed with by the Lord Ruler. And I… remembered where I may have met a… is it the same term for two men as for two women?" I asked. We were strolling by the riverside, and there was no one nearby, so I did not bother much with quiet.
Artemis switched back to English. "Two people of the same gender are gay, or homosexuals. That's the same for two men, but you can also call two women lesbians."
"I see," I nodded and tapped my duralumin-mind again to speak in Arabic. "I just remembered where I may have met a gay man. He was married to a noblewoman, but was according to her more interested in the serving men and had a companion I now think may have been his lover."
"She was his beard? Ouch. I doubt it was a happy marriage." I ignored the unfamiliar slang: the context made its meaning rather obvious.
"She was in love with his brother, Liam, so while Liam was alive Lindon was happy to ignore that part of his 'husbandly duties'," I answered. "He was killed in the year of Ruin, and after the Catascendre the two never bothered to get back together much. The social norms were all rather dead, so there was no reason to." I shrugged. "I just never… thought about it that way."
"Huh." We reached a busier set of docks and turned off into a market street. I shifted a bit and hid my nervousness. "Do you notice anything?" Artemis asked me quietly.
"We are getting some odd looks. And are those law officers?" I asked, making sure to not point at the patrol.
"They are, but people aren't pulling away too badly. Khandaq is pretty dictatorial, but Ymonra is more of a tourist city because of all the temples and stuff, so it's less bad by a lot." Artemis glanced at the people, then at her own jeans, t-shirt, and denim jacket. "I'm getting a lot more stares than you, so don't worry. I'm just obviously blonde and Asian, and wearing jeans. With your skin and that long skirt, you could pass for a native if you covered your hair… provided no one noticed your face is off."
"Your face is off. I look normal for when I was home," I retaliated amicably. "…Should I cover my hair?"
"With what?"
"I can buy something from a store," I pointed out.
"Did you bring money? They use a different currency here, not dollars."
"I wanted to eat at a restaurant with Robin, before, but had no money. This morning I had him help me get some. We may need to buy things or bribe people. It is on the official charge." Smugly, I patted lightly at the fold of bills I'd concealed.
"Good thinking," Artemis acknowledged. "…You can get a headscarf if you want, I guess."
"Will this work?" I fingered the capillary scarf around my neck.
"Too small, probably. What's it for, anyway? You wore it like three days in a row now."
"Old tradition. Not my favorite, but I feel closer to home if I do. Today is the last day for a while," I answered vaguely.
"…You left behind a lot, didn't you?" Artemis asked astutely. I smiled.
"Yes, but I gained a lot as well." And that was all we said on the subject for some time.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* September 17 [Ferris PoV]
"Ohshitshitshit," Artemis hissed. She pasted a fake smile on her face and turned to face me more directly.
I tapped my tin-mind, zinc-mind, and steel-mind immediately, but after a few seconds no violence broke out.
"Yes?" I asked lazily, doing my best to stay alert.
"Don't make any fast movements, do not look at the other side of the river," Artemis ordered anxiously, using a long draft of her mint iced tea to cover her lip movements. I nodded once, slowly, and drained a swallow from my own cup. I held it up in front of my face contemplatively, but I couldn't see anything particular in the glass's reflection of the far riverbank.
"Fighting?"
"Not if we're lucky," Artemis breathed. She sighed heavily, closed her eyes, and signaled a waiter over to order a small, fig-filled pastry. "Okay, he's gone. I think we're safe."
"Who was it?" I asked gently.
"He was a ways away, but I think I just saw Kyle Abbot," Artemis explained. Her breathing hitched, and she shivered. "The guy is with the League of Shadows, and a seriously dangerous creep. I've heard he's a werewolf or something, but I never got any details. I only… saw his face the once, but it wasn't the type of thing you forget."
"Dangerous," I acknowledged.
"Yeah." She checked her watch and scowled. "We're six hours ahead of them, and we were planning to be here almost overnight, wasn't it? Crud. Let's go back to the hotel room and try to get them on email. We need to plan."
She took the pastry, I left money for our bill, and we exited.
"…seven," I corrected after I realized what was wrong with what Artemis had said.
"Huh?"
"Six hours ahead of mountain, but seven hours ahead of… where they are now." 'If there's an enemy around, there may be more, and I shouldn't mention Belle Reve or many details.'
"Right," Artemis hissed as we slipped down a side street. "Right. And it wouldn't be safe to send the-," I shot her a warning look, "-our ride until after midnight there. So they won't leave until it's our seven in the morning. Later if- if our friends find anything interesting." She yawned. "I should have thought more before I agreed to this."
I shrugged. I had thought about what our mission would fully signify, being without back-up while the others kept an eye on Superboy and Miss Martian, and I'd agreed anyway.
"Thank you," I added to the polite man who held the hotel door open for us.
We took the stairs up to the third floor, entered room 316, and she collapsed onto her chosen bed.
"Okay?"
"No, I'll be fine. I just got up at four in the morning to get here in time for this," she groaned. "Late nights? I can handle late nights. It's the early mornings that kill me." I plopped down beside her and stroked her hair consolingly. She tensed and almost pulled away, so I stopped. "I… no, please. That was nice. Unexpected, but nice." I pulled her hair out of her ponytail and resumed combing it with my fingers.
"I should do the computer?" I asked after a minute or two of quiet grooming.
"No, no, I will." She rolled away and sat up with a sigh, grabbing the computer. "I might need a nap later, though, if we're going to be up all night here."
My bronze-mind ring was charged enough to last me this night and at least one more, so I had no issues with letting her nap. It would give me more time to charge more of my metal-minds. 'Speaking of…' Since we were no longer walking around, I resumed storing speed and strength to plump up my reserves some more.
<Checking in already? > I heard Robin's voice ask.
"Yeah, something came up. Wasn't Zee going to be running ground control?"
"It's a school day for her and KF." I did a bit of math.
"Not before, but after ten in the night for us," I told Artemis.
<Bingo. They need their sleep, so it's just me and- uh- is this line secure? >
"It's an Ethernet cable if that makes a difference, and I've got those security programs you installed running. But there's only so secure it can get. But it's you and our team leader?"
<Yeah, me and… the boss. Number one and number two. > Artemis snorted at that for some reason, and she and Robin devolved into some chatter about how it 'wasn't meant like that', and 'that was gross'.
"Any news from our other friends?" Artemis finally asked.
<Something is going to be happening, > Robin confirmed, <and probably soon. They'll be back in time for school on Monday, I bet. But we don't know what. >
"Joy. Tell Conner I'll be happy to help him with his homework," Artemis offered. It sounded a bit flirtatious, and I wondered whether the flirtation was meant for inviting Conner or for teasing Robin.
"I as well. But I am best at math, and they also are good," I added with a shrug.
<Will do. I've got some gossip about Junior being a daddy's boy and crushing on Miss Em, but nothing concrete yet. >
"I could've told you that much. We have a problem, which is why we called," Artemis said more seriously.
<Yeah? >
"Oh yeah. Can you send me a picture of the League of Shadows agent Kyle Abbot?" Robin's voice whistled.
<That's a bad guy. Usually works with Whisper senior as her bodyguard, too, so they make a seriously bad pair. Do you want us to pull you out? >
"Not yet. Even if it was him, and I want the picture to make sure my memory isn't faulty, I don't want you guys to leave the other two alone, especially not when things'll start happening soon when everyone wakes up. You need to be there. And even if you left now, it would be two hours before the ship got here, and two more back. We'll lay low, investigate a bit, and wait it out."
<Okay. Remember, if everything goes down the drain, you can pull out and make for the nearest… escape. >
'The nearest Zeta Tube is in… Israel?' I remembered and nodded. 'I don't know how to get there, but Artemis should, and I can read a map. It would be… a four-hour trip at top traveling speed? Closer to six if we're being quiet, maybe?'
"We shouldn't need to." Artemis skimmed through the file. "Huh. This isn't just Abbot?"
<I sent you everything I could access on him, and on Whisper A'Daire senior, and possible other operatives involved. If you're going to try to tangle with them, you'll need all the help you can get. Try to stay out of trouble? I've met them, and they're dangerous. >
"Why do you keep calling her Whisper senior?" Artemis asked. "And yeah, it's Abbot; the face is the same, and the coat."
"Child? Like Icicle?" I suggested. I released my storage enough to easily move over to Artemis's side and look at the information. I waved to Robin's face on the screen as well, and he nodded back.
"I'd be shocked to hear someone as psycho as her had a kid," Artemis replied. She frowned. "Orrrr not so shocked."
<No one's sure – we've never confirmed a family relationship – but recently a woman with some resemblance has showed up in Intergang, working with Bruno Manheim, and she calls herself Whisper A'Daire. >
"Same woman, different cover?" Artemis suggested.
<No powers. Also, one of Ra's al Ghul's highest agents, playing second string to Ugly Manheim? No way, she has too much pride. So we're going with senior and junior until we can find out more. >
"Well, if I hear anything, I'll give you a shout," Artemis promised. "Probably a shout to back me up, but whatev."
"When Abbot is a werewolf, what is that werewolf like?" I asked. 'I heard half-a-dozen different versions of werewolf abilities, and we need to know which is which if we're going to do this.'
<Which? Got it. No need to lose the aster too quickly, he doesn't have a contagious bite and he can be injured by plenty of things other than blessed silver. Abbot doesn't need moonlight to change, I'm pretty sure, though he used to pretend that he did. He basically just reconfigures his body into that of a wolf, with more strength, reflexes, stamina, and claws. And better senses. He can smell and hear to track people, and he once used Batman's scent to track him through the night. Hey, is that what you do with your tin-mind when you keep track of where I am? >
It was impressive that he'd figured that out, and a little amusing that it'd taken him so long.
"Mostly," I admitted, but left out that I used hearing more. I knew that Robin knew Arabic, so I tapped my duralumin-mind again to ask him a question more complex than my unaided English could manage. "When you say he can change into a wolf, does he conserve his mass? And do his injuries carry over?"
The language change caught him off guard, but Robin answered pretty quickly.
<I… let me see. Okay, he's got a scarred eye that's still bad in wolf form, so he doesn't heal. > I relaxed, because that had been a worst-case worry for me. <He's been seen in shredded clothes so those don't change with him. It's hard to eyeball whether his mass changes or moves around, but… hey, this is odd. It looks like he's bigger and more muscly when he's half-and-half than when he's fully wolf or fully human. > I nodded slowly, processing the knowledge and building up an idea of how a fight could go.
'Where do my metal-mind stores stand?' I wondered, and double-checked.
Most of my smaller metal-minds, with correspondingly smaller stores, were rings I'd threaded into my hair, including my aluminum-mind and two duralumin-minds. As either small piercings in my nose and ears, or rings in my hair, I had a total of seven small tin-minds, storing night vision, dynamic vision, distance vision, color vision, hearing, scent, and touch. I also had one bronze-mind, one cadmium-mind, two bendalloy minds, and one small gold-mind, all as rings on my fingers.
My legs had steel-mind and iron-mind anklets, while there were brass-mind and pewter-mind bracelets around my wrists. 'I only brought an empty brass-mind though, because I expected to be storing only due to the weather here, so that only has what I've stored away since we arrived.'
Lastly, I had my earring with its atium bit, and the belt I wore under my clothes held a larger gold-mind, an electrum-mind, an aluminum-mind, and another steel-mind.
We were supposed to be covert, so I had not brought my armor or weapons, and I was not certain if Artemis had.
'I can deal with one serious engagement if I don't need to conserve, but if we end up having more than three fights, I may be in trouble. Of course, we may not fight at all, but whether or not we find the Iceberg here, I would not pass up an opportunity to interfere with Kobra or with the Shadows, and I doubt Artemis would complain.'
I participated piecemeal in the rest of Artemis and Robin's conversation until we said our goodbyes.
"You want to sleep?" I invited. "I will stand sentry."
"Thanks," Artemis said with a weak smile. "Wake me up in… two hours, 'kay?"
"Two hours," I agreed, looking at the clock. I took the computer to review our potential enemies, and considered.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Be interesting to see if the Team can uncover some of the Light as they link to this particular plot.
Chilling Interrogations - part 5
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 17
"You shouldn't have let me sleep so long," Artemis accused when she got out of the shower.
"You needed it. Should we have dinner soon?" I politely looked back to my notebook – where I had been working out a few formulae as an idle distraction – when Artemis began to put on her work clothes. They were not her hero uniform, but the denim and leather layers were dark enough to move in night and heavy enough to protect against basic wounds.
'I need to get to anyone who has a gun first, though,' I resolved.
"Let's wait a bit, or get take-out. We should be more ready to patrol around for Iceberg or any Shadows." She hoisted a pack and I saw that she had brought a bow and some arrows. "Are you going out in that?"
"Do I need to change?"
"Your top is pretty thin," she assessed, "and an ankle-length oh." I'd pulled up the hem to show her my stretchy jeans beneath.
"I can heal," I added, to explain the top.
"Yeah, you can. Are you carrying any weapons?"
"No," I admitted easily. 'I can always just pick up a trashcan lid or a fence post if I need to hit anyone with something.'
Artemis hesitated oddly, before she produced something. "Here."
"A knife," I observed. I thumbed the catch that made the blade spring out, and tested the weight.
"The handle's tough enough to break bones if you need to, and you might need the edge against any guys like Abbot."
"Pun fully intended?" I joked, pleased that I had understood the wordplay. Her face flattened my amusement.
'Apparently not.'
"Pun?" Artemis wondered. Then, "Oh, got it. We're speaking Arabic, but you probably thought I said something like 'it'll give you an edge,' in English."
'Listening to multiple languages while using duralumin-minds to translate is weird.' I sighed.
"Yes. Well." I released the metal-minds I was storing, put the computer to the side, and rose to my feet. "Shall we leave?"
"I'm right behind you."
It took us a little more wandering to get to the edges of the city's underbelly, during which we munched on a few kebabs from a convenient stall and kept our eyes open as we passed the alleys.
Once we found the general area, it wasn't hard to find a few people who might know more.
A woman who might have been a prostitute or might have been a gang's package-runner was our first source. There was no news of a woman throwing ice around, and she did her best to urgently warn us away from what we asked her about. I was rather impressed when she handed back our first attempt at a bribe for more information, and it took folding two more bills into her hand before she bent.
"They aren't just selling, they're hiring, and that's the scary part. They're throwing around enough money to get a bunch of men to sign up, and no one is quite sure what happens after that. There's one guy, calls himself 'Khinzir Dakhar,' who signed up and came back very scary. Killed three men when they tried to rob him. He does most of the recruiting now."
She hurried off after that, and our next two attempts weren't as successful. One man tried to threaten us with a knife; after I confiscated it, broke the blade with my bare hands, and let Artemis ask him a few questions, it turned out he didn't know anything useful. The other one was a lanky teen boy who got spooked when we broached what we were asking about and disappeared down an alley. We took to the rooftops, and no one sent gangs after us, so…
'He probably didn't turn us in or report to anyone, but we should still be careful.' I shared a nod with Artemis and we descended to the alleys again, a few dozen blocks from where we'd been.
Our fourth attempt to gather more specific information was a goldmine. The man told us enough to make clear that he knew more, and when he suggested I could buy more with my mouth instead of my purse, Artemis and I decided to stop playing nice.
After a trip three stories up, followed by two arrows that pinned him to the roof through the growing wet spot in his pants, he was more than happy to tell us everything he knew and a bit more that he could only guess.
Artemis gagged him and left him in a dumpster that I'd politely emptied of refuse, at which point we fell back to discuss.
"They've got people in bars and stuff, but the main activities seem to be the docks, that one warehouse, and the abandoned butcher shop. Should we hit one of them or search around a bit more?"
"Search for another hour and then try the warehouse," I suggested.
"The warehouse is big, and it's probably where they've got the drugs and stuff stashed, but it'll also have the most guards. It sounded like there were more shape-shifters than the two big names, and they'll probably be at the warehouse. We should hit the butcher shop first," Artemis argued.
"We can look at the butcher shop, but that is where the men are supposed to go to sign up. Many of them have not been seen again. That is not a good sign, and I think the leaders would be in the butcher shop.
"Usually, yes," growled an unfamiliar voice.
We'd bolted several yards away before he'd finished speaking. Artemis notched an arrow and aimed, and I had passed her up with my tapped speed before I remembered myself. I moved diagonally in front of her, protectively.
A man wearing pants and a leather jacket – I also noticed his feet were bare – clambered lumbersomely onto the roof. I already saw things were wrong with his proportions, especially his skull and jaw, and the changes were becoming more extreme.
'I guess the fleeing boy did report us after all. Pity.'
I tapped my hearing tin-mind for a brief moment, and confirmed our guest was the only other source of breathing in the immediate area. His figure rippled further, muscle filling out the jacket that had hung loosely around him before.
"So, do we call you a were-gorilla?" Artemis asked.
"You can call me death," he rumbled, and charged.
Artemis's arrow hit him faster than I could, and the expanding cloud of foam glued him into immobility.
'Well, I feel rather unnecessary,' I considered. Then he began roaring in frustration, and I got to be useful by clouting him on the head until he fell unconscious and shut up. "Someone is trying to kill us. I think that means we are doing the right thing?"
"Probably," Artemis agreed. "How about we swing by that butcher's shop, see how heavily guarded it is, and then decide if we want to hit there first, or the warehouse. Something tells me we're going to need to hit both before the day has dawned."
"Was that a pun on dawn and done?" I asked as we set out toward the river.
"No, I'm still using Arabic."
'Why am I only getting these when I'm not speaking the language anymore?'
We quieted down after that until we arrived at the old shop. The lights were on, and there were men scattered about. Several in the alleys and corners were doing some form of drug, and a few more were cloistered around the door, waiting to buy things. I couldn't help but notice that one police officer was visibly drugged, and another was included in the cue at the door.
"Lots of people, I'm not sure how many are guards for the place," Artemis whispered.
"Let's see what happens when the door opens," I suggested, because it was going to happen eventually.
Artemis agreed, and we settled down. No one appeared to be searching the area, no one noticed us, and when I tapped my hearing tin-mind to check I heard no one discussing anything of appropriate significance. I did do my best to memorize the faces of two men who were talking about a woman I would need to rescue from a memorized address before we left, but if she had been in that situation for two days already, then she would keep for another few hours.
After 32 minutes had ticked by, the door opened. One man whistled provocatively at the woman, and I hoped Whisper A'Daire senior would spit acid in his face, but she just smiled and ushered the men inside. Neither Artemis nor I moved down to engage her; we had seen at least two men guarding her back through the door.
"…Warehouse it is?" Artemis finally suggested.
"Let us not both fight people and luck," I agreed cautiously. "…But…"
"But?" Artemis prompted as we slid away toward where the warehouse would be.
"Mahfous Zone number 115-42," I recited as we picked up speed. "One of the men I overheard has a woman there we should visit and rescue. In case I will be knocked unconscious in the fight you should still go, or tell the rest of the Team to go."
Artemis paused. "Should we go there now?"
"Do you know where it is right now? Do you know where is safe to bring her when we are done? Can we afford to waste time and effort on one person when there could be a dozen more in the warehouse?"
Artemis blew out a slow, frustrated breath.
"Do we know she'll still be there, and alive to be saved, if we wait?" she countered.
"From what I heard, he intended to keep her there for several more days." Artemis didn't move. "Choosing between good and evil is easy. Choosing between evil and evil is less easy. Choosing between good and good is least of all," I advised her, and waited.
"…No. I think this is another thing like with Cheshire," Artemis finally answered, looking into my eyes. "The warehouse and the Shadows have been here for a while and should stay here for a while. We should find out where that place is, break her out while the guy keeping her is at the butcher's, bring her to our room if there's nowhere else safe, and then go check out the warehouse. Are you with me, or should we split up? I didn't start doing this to leave people behind."
I looked Artemis dead in the eyes, and she looked back. I thought.
"I am with you," I told her in English. "Lead the way."
We retreated at a faster clip back to our room, and Artemis brought up a map of the city on the computer.
"Hey, this isn't that far from the warehouse either. Pretty good, huh?" She laughed with no humor at all. "Let's do this."
It was two in the morning, local time, when we landed on the roof of the house beside our target.
I tapped into my tin-mind hearing for what might have been my last large use of the night, and my breath hitched.
"Yeah?" Artemis asked warily, fingering an undrawn arrow. I tapped all of my hearing, all of it, and enough zinc-mind acuity to process it all, to confirm what I found.
"You were right to come here first," I conceded. 'I have learned a lesson already about discovering things. Namely, I can always find out more that is unexpected.' I had overheard the waste-of-oxygen's boast that he had a girl for his friend to come over and sample. What he had not said was that she was a 'new' girl, and there were several less new ones also present, as well as a few other men acting as guards. 'So, more people to save, more enemies to save them from. We may need to put the warehouse off until tomorrow. No, not all of them are girls, either.'
"In Khandaq it is illegal to do slavery, yes?" I checked. If it was legal that wouldn't have stopped me, but I would've needed to re-adjust the plans that twisted together in my mind.
"It's illegal pretty much everywhere, but not always enforced. Wait, you mean-?" Artemis twitched toward the building.
I pointed down, under the wall that surrounded the targeted house, to where the cellar should be.
"I hear eighteen patterns of breathing that suggest sleeping, and the same slow heartbeats. Two or three should be pre-adolescent children, six are near our ages, and the remainders are adult. Even distribution between male and female, I think, but it is very hard to accurately guess that," I summarized.
"Shit," Artemis spat quietly. "Those… I don't know any words bad enough for them."
"Off to the side are two grown men with glasses of drink, one is smoking a cigarette, and they are playing a card game. They are probably armed. I will need to check the numbers more closely, but there are, I think, five men and two women sleeping in places on the second and first floors." I gestured with my hand, and tapped a tin-mind to enhance my vision as I peered through the only pertinent window on the visible side of the house.
'And I was right about that.'
"One man and woman are asleep in that room. I see a small handgun on the dresser and a rifle leaned against the wall as well." On his neck and her left breast, they each had a snake-and-bird symbol tattooed on, same as had been on the man at the butcher's neck. His had a red outline that hers did not.
'It's probably a symbol of membership. Or property ownership, in the case of the woman,' I judged, and passed it on.
I could hear Artemis grind her teeth, and I had already released my tin-minds.
"I want to bring these guys down. Do we have a plan?" I tilted my head and assessed.
"What arrows do you have?" I asked. She listed them off: 3 sharp tips, 6 blunt tips, 2 Tasers, 2 nets, 3 foam, and 3 arrows with knockout gas in total. I smiled. "Step one, find an open window."
I outlined the rest of the plan as we crept around the house, mapped what we could see of it, and found an open window on the far side where three men slept on cots.
Artemis fired a knockout gas arrow into the room. One of the men almost stirred awake at the impact, but the chemicals got to him first. I decreased my weight, jumped up to the sill, and clambered through.
I used my cadmium-mind to move safely and secure the room, letting the gas waft out the window. Artemis followed shortly with a rope grappled, and we moved the unconscious men into one pile. I tied them up with one of her grapple ropes while Artemis rapidly unloaded and disassembled their guns in near total silence.
To be absolutely safe, we dumped the parts in the men's laps and she used a foam arrow to stick them and the guns all in place. Silently, we slid out into the second floor hall and parted ways. Artemis would handle the pair we'd seen in the master bedroom, while I stored my weight as low as it could go and padded down the stairs for the other man and woman.
'Or, the other two men,' I corrected. Where I'd expected to see a woman asleep, I found a slender young man spread out on the couch in the sitting room. 'He's younger than I am,' I realized, mildly disturbed at seeing him with the same tattoo on his neck that had been on the other five I'd seen in the house. 'Unrestrained and a rifle laying out on the table. He is certainly involved.'
Part of me wanted to snap his neck and crush his skull while he was unaware. Another part saw my own past mistakes magnified back at me and wanted to beat common sense and decency into him.
I took the middle road and applied a chokehold Robin had taught me. I'd insisted on being taught that skill after he used it to incapacitate me during a sparring match, and I had taken to wearing cadmium-minds more often to counter such tactics.
He woke up just enough to try to struggle, before he collapsed soundlessly.
From upstairs I heard incoherent shouting and gunfire. I spun to race back up the steps.
From the cellar, I heard two voices and a wooden impact. I froze.
'Upstairs to reinforce Artemis, or down to get the other guards and stop their reinforcements?'
An underdressed man with a pistol ran out of the room off to the side. He stopped, swore, and tried to aim.
That decided me, and in response I tapped deeply into my steel-minds.
'Trust Artemis to handle herself and stop these threats.'
I had already sped away from my position when he fired his first shot, veering to the side and closer to flank and tackle him. The impact of the sound against my ears prompted me to store away my hearing, and my fist hit his face an instant after the second time his finger pulled the trigger.
I hadn't tapped strength or weight, so I didn't get to enjoy shattering his jaw, but his head snapped back and he would have toppled over if I'd given him the time.
I didn't feel like being nice, so I tapped a trickle of strength from my pewter-mind and punched him in his unguarded stomach. Then I snatched his gun out of mid-air and tried to remember how Artemis had disassembled it.
After wasting a few too many seconds, I just pulled on enough strength to bend the barrel out of shape, and I shoved it between a few couch cushions after I couldn't find a better place to throw it out of the way.
I looked up into the barrel of another gun.
'I forgot to stop storing away my hearing, didn't I,' I realized. The last two men hadn't gotten up from the basement more than three or four seconds before, and hadn't been ready to fight, but what concerned me more than the gun was the cell phone the second man had pulled out. 'You are not calling for reinforcements.'
I drained enough speed to leave my total steel-mind reserves under 3/5 of what I started with, and less strength, but moments later I had smashed their weapons, phones, and several of their bones before anything more could happen.
'And now I can help Artemis.'
I raced upstairs just in time to meet Artemis as she stumbled to the top of the steps.
I slid protectively in front of my friend and saw, 'Wait, why is she fighting back? Rusts, is there a woman willing part of this happening? That makes a depressing amount of sense actually – it would be a lot easier to grab people if a woman acts as bait to lure in other women. Given some noblewomen's attitudes about the rape of skaa, I'm no longer surprised.'
She had one of Artemis's arrows stuck in her right bicep, the wound weeping blood as she tried to reload her gun.
I raced forward as she tried to aim, ignored the impact through my stomach, and tackled her with enough tapped weight to make the floorboards splinter.
Artemis was right behind me, steel-mind or no steel-mind, and she applied the same chokehold I had.
The woman quickly went slack.
"I should've used knockout gas instead of a Taser, but I thought she was a victim until she went for the gun," Artemis explained shortly as she bound the woman's limbs.
"I would have too," I admitted while I checked her over for injuries. "Were you hit? I see blood."
"She nicked me twice, but her aim sort of sucked," Artemis managed with a crooked smile. "Don't bother with first aid, I'm fine." I raised my eyebrow and tried to press her down. "We have people who need more help."
'Oh, yes, there are genuine victims to rescue.'
We trundled down the steps, mostly secure that no further guards would be forthcoming, and down into the cellar.
One chair in the guards' room had been overturned when they raced up. The cards were still scattered on the table. I unbolted and opened the heavy door.
"Wake up, wake up!" I called cheerfully. "We are here to rescue you!" One child began to cry and was quickly hushed. I heard several mutters and whispers. A grown woman in the corner reflexively tried to keep two teenage girls behind her and out of sight.
By the time their eyes had adjusted to the light, I had scooped up a ten-year-old girl and begun humming a lullaby as I checked her for injuries. Artemis began with the badly beaten man on the other side of the room, and I moved to hand the girl back to the woman who had been holding her as they slept.
Her voice caught on the fourth syllable of her prayer, and she could only sob.
"Move into the other room, if you are able," I murmured gently. Louder, as people became brave enough to speak again, I called, "Is there anyone too injured to walk? Who needs medical attention the fastest?"
"God is great," murmured one gray-haired man. There was a susurrus of similar repetitions, and prayers, and thanks.
"Here!" a girl shouted. "Here, please, quickly! They hurt Anjah bad and she doesn't want to wake up!" I stepped over quickly, pressing lightly at the bruises that mottled the girl's face and checking whether her bloody nose was also broken. It wasn't, but two of her fingers were, and there was a worrying lump on the back of her skull.
"When you're done there, this guy got shot in the knee for trying to fight his way free," Artemis called from the far wall. "Hey, is anyone strong enough to carry him? Help me get him up on the table so I can check this under the light. Is there anyone with medical training?" Artemis hauled him into the guardroom with some help and I heard her set to cleaning the wound.
"I do not feel any broken bones, I think," I assured the girl as I finished pressing my fingers against Anjah's ribs. She had a few scrapes and scratches on her back and sides, but they were not notably inflamed and any bleeding had already scabbed over. I moved my inspection along, noted a bruise on her stomach, and I grimaced.
"Is she…?"
"She will in time, I think, become well again," I hedged. "But she does need to see a doctor soon." I tried to remember what Wonder Woman had told me about how to handle these situations. "We will try to get her to a doctor. When we do- what is your name?"
"Niritis," she answered.
"Niritis, when we get her to a doctor, they will clean her and give her medicine. The doctors should know, but to be safe, make sure that they do not throw away her clothing," I recalled what they should do. "Have it put in a bag and give it to police."
Niritis grimaced. "I can do that… but will the police help?"
"Yes," said one boy's voice firmly. I was done with my inspection, so I lifted Anjah and turned with the others to see who spoke. "My father and my brother both work in the police, and I am going to join them when I am old enough. They will hunt these people to the ends of the Earth to take revenge for these crimes."
I could see that not everyone was convinced, nor happy, but it was not my business until it eventually became my problem, and I already had more urgent problems to fix. I carried Anjah into the guards' room in time for Artemis to finished her triage, and we arranged those strong enough to help carry the weaker people up the stairs.
The young boy called the place where his brother and father worked, and police were expected to arrive within a few minutes. Artemis and I intervened to keep the freed people from harming the captured criminals too badly, and after that they spread out in the place and seemed willing to wait.
"I hate to say this, but we should probably get going," Artemis reminded me.
"Go?"
"This isn't like where we usually work, and there isn't as much co-operation with the police here," she explained. "Also, we're not supposed to be here, and we are supposed to be on a covert, secret mission. So we should disappear, fast. There's enough evidence here to get these guys taken care of anyway."
I did my best to process this. 'Well, I guess they do not know who we are or know we work for the Justice League, so any investigation will just find nothing about us.' Time wise, it was four in the morning.
"Let us go. Back to the warehouse?" I asked after we climbed onto the next door's rooftop. My metal-mind stores were lower, but not yet severely low, and I'd been storing away trickles when I remembered to after the fighting ended.
"We should think twice about starting any other fights tonight, but looking around is a good idea," Artemis agreed.
We were just in the process of leaving when two men confronted us, climbing onto the rooftop.
"So you two-," he spat a foul term that I didn't quite catch, "-are the ones responsible for messing up my payday."
I stilled, recognizing the first man as the one I spied on at the butcher's shop, and got ready for a fight. He clicked something on his gun, and the second man held out a hand.
"Don't worry about it too much, man. Like I said before, we can see that you had offerings to give, which is head and shoulders above most of our applicants. Keep a chilled heart in your chest, and don't shoot up the extra merchandise we have in front of us." He smiled and pulled off one glove, then the other. "Which isn't to say you can't rough them up a little."
'He's buying time,' I had the sudden premonition. I tapped my zinc-mind, and then tapped what little tin-mind hearing I had stored up in the minutes since I'd exhausted it. 'There's something skittering around down in the alley behind us,' I realized.
"You good to fight?" Artemis asked as her fingers edged toward her quiver.
"Three. One behind," I murmured in warning. "Below in the alley."
"Got it." She tilted her head toward me, and with a brief exchange of glances and nods we agreed on our pattern.
"But Langstrom should be enough to get them ready," the second man said, and tapped something on his belt.
There was a screech, a leather whumph, and I tapped my steel-mind to race after Artemis's fired arrow.
The second man, the established Whisper follower, almost grabbed at her Taser arrow with his hands, but he reacted fast enough to guard himself from my assault instead.
There was one gunshot, a crackle and a scream as the arrow electrified the first man with the gun, and Artemis swore foul words as she engaged the unseen enemy behind us.
I didn't use much strength enhancement, and I couldn't change from light to heavy fast enough for it to affect my attack, but I drove my fist into his jaw at painfully high speeds.
Fire lashed out at me and I jerked out of range. It had singed my clothes, but I was not burned. Unfortunately, the man with the flaming hand got his balance back in the pause and threw another lance of flame at me.
I quickly calculated the angle, judged that Artemis wouldn't be hit if I dodged, and slipped under and to the side. He growled something, and I saw his face and torso begin to swell and bristle, much like the were-gorilla had. Flames wreathed both his hands from the wrist up, and he hurled more burning gobs at me as his nose flattened and his jaw distended.
'I know how to handle heat, and my gold-mind is more than enough for the rest.' The bright lights had ruined my night vision, but they also left my target clearly illuminated. I shunted all the body heat I quickly could into brass-mind storage, tapped speed and strength, and ran straight through the burning wall.
I smelled myself start to cook, and two of my fingers broke when my fist hit a tusk instead his jaw, but the force staggered my enemy backwards. I tapped my iron-mind as much as I guessed the roof could support and bore him down, pounding as hard as I could without risking his death.
It wasn't enough.
I lost my hold when his other tusk nearly tore across my throat, and I had to store my sense of touch in a tin-mind and tap determination along with gold when he used a mix of brute strength and explosive flame to throw me across the roof.
It still ached down to my bones, a searing shock of pain.
My gold-mind reserve drained uncomfortably low from restoring the patches carbonized flesh where his hands had grabbed my arms. I caught my balance before I could roll over the edge of the roof and dodged another lance of flame he'd thrown at me. Halfway through my speed enhanced charge I veered to the side and reassessed.
"Take cover!" I'd heard Artemis shout. "Switch!" The flaming were-boar tried to incinerate the arrow she sent his way, and it exploded into a cloud of pink foam. "Alley!"
'She has that under control,' I judged when she drove her boot into the stuck were-boar's skull. 'She said the other enemy had dropped back into the alley?' There was not a fifth figure on the roof, so I cautiously approached the edge.
A long set of paled, clawed fingers gripped the corner, and I almost attacked, but paused.
And I froze in stark horror when it hauled its whole body into view.
'No. No no nonono this cannot be what I think it is think thinkthinklookarethesignsthereornotIneedtoknow!'
General human outline suggesting a human origin: present.
Unnaturally long fingers? I could not count the joints, there was too much darkness, but they were longer than human digits.
Papery thin skin covered in very fine hair? The hair was thicker than I anticipated, but some changes were expected.
Abnormally large ears? They were more pointed than round, but within tolerable limits.
Distended nose and mouth? Definitely present, along with fangs.
Three-forked tongue? I couldn't see, but the other characteristics were present.
Large and sensitive eyes? I couldn't determine if the pupils were the expected shape and size, but they looked close.
A cold resolve – utterly unrelated to my metal-minds – flooded through my stomach and veins.
'Uscule. It has to be, I've never seen one in the flesh I'm the only one who should know they exist and I need to kill kill it kill itkillitkillit now.'
The symbol of an unwanted catastrophe twitched and I brief flicker of electricity arced around its neck. I knew at least that there would be no Soothers to fight if they needed a collar to control it.
'This is Rusting the worst scenario, and I have no idea howhowhow it happened- No.' My mind spun as I worked out the likely path. 'I should have had Psimon killed to be safe before we left Bialya, but my memories weren't recovered until too late. I need to get the League to let me go back there, murder him, and hunt down anyone else he may have told what he learned, even if it means I spend the rest of my life on this world in prison.'
Having decided that, I offered a small prayer to the ones whose deaths had been used for this situation.
Then the mother-ashfall-fricking-Rusts-be-damned Uscule threw itself on me with a cry, and I began the first of what I expected would become too long a string of fights to the death.
* September 17
"You shouldn't have let me sleep so long," Artemis accused when she got out of the shower.
"You needed it. Should we have dinner soon?" I politely looked back to my notebook – where I had been working out a few formulae as an idle distraction – when Artemis began to put on her work clothes. They were not her hero uniform, but the denim and leather layers were dark enough to move in night and heavy enough to protect against basic wounds.
'I need to get to anyone who has a gun first, though,' I resolved.
"Let's wait a bit, or get take-out. We should be more ready to patrol around for Iceberg or any Shadows." She hoisted a pack and I saw that she had brought a bow and some arrows. "Are you going out in that?"
"Do I need to change?"
"Your top is pretty thin," she assessed, "and an ankle-length oh." I'd pulled up the hem to show her my stretchy jeans beneath.
"I can heal," I added, to explain the top.
"Yeah, you can. Are you carrying any weapons?"
"No," I admitted easily. 'I can always just pick up a trashcan lid or a fence post if I need to hit anyone with something.'
Artemis hesitated oddly, before she produced something. "Here."
"A knife," I observed. I thumbed the catch that made the blade spring out, and tested the weight.
"The handle's tough enough to break bones if you need to, and you might need the edge against any guys like Abbot."
"Pun fully intended?" I joked, pleased that I had understood the wordplay. Her face flattened my amusement.
'Apparently not.'
"Pun?" Artemis wondered. Then, "Oh, got it. We're speaking Arabic, but you probably thought I said something like 'it'll give you an edge,' in English."
'Listening to multiple languages while using duralumin-minds to translate is weird.' I sighed.
"Yes. Well." I released the metal-minds I was storing, put the computer to the side, and rose to my feet. "Shall we leave?"
"I'm right behind you."
It took us a little more wandering to get to the edges of the city's underbelly, during which we munched on a few kebabs from a convenient stall and kept our eyes open as we passed the alleys.
Once we found the general area, it wasn't hard to find a few people who might know more.
A woman who might have been a prostitute or might have been a gang's package-runner was our first source. There was no news of a woman throwing ice around, and she did her best to urgently warn us away from what we asked her about. I was rather impressed when she handed back our first attempt at a bribe for more information, and it took folding two more bills into her hand before she bent.
"They aren't just selling, they're hiring, and that's the scary part. They're throwing around enough money to get a bunch of men to sign up, and no one is quite sure what happens after that. There's one guy, calls himself 'Khinzir Dakhar,' who signed up and came back very scary. Killed three men when they tried to rob him. He does most of the recruiting now."
She hurried off after that, and our next two attempts weren't as successful. One man tried to threaten us with a knife; after I confiscated it, broke the blade with my bare hands, and let Artemis ask him a few questions, it turned out he didn't know anything useful. The other one was a lanky teen boy who got spooked when we broached what we were asking about and disappeared down an alley. We took to the rooftops, and no one sent gangs after us, so…
'He probably didn't turn us in or report to anyone, but we should still be careful.' I shared a nod with Artemis and we descended to the alleys again, a few dozen blocks from where we'd been.
Our fourth attempt to gather more specific information was a goldmine. The man told us enough to make clear that he knew more, and when he suggested I could buy more with my mouth instead of my purse, Artemis and I decided to stop playing nice.
After a trip three stories up, followed by two arrows that pinned him to the roof through the growing wet spot in his pants, he was more than happy to tell us everything he knew and a bit more that he could only guess.
Artemis gagged him and left him in a dumpster that I'd politely emptied of refuse, at which point we fell back to discuss.
"They've got people in bars and stuff, but the main activities seem to be the docks, that one warehouse, and the abandoned butcher shop. Should we hit one of them or search around a bit more?"
"Search for another hour and then try the warehouse," I suggested.
"The warehouse is big, and it's probably where they've got the drugs and stuff stashed, but it'll also have the most guards. It sounded like there were more shape-shifters than the two big names, and they'll probably be at the warehouse. We should hit the butcher shop first," Artemis argued.
"We can look at the butcher shop, but that is where the men are supposed to go to sign up. Many of them have not been seen again. That is not a good sign, and I think the leaders would be in the butcher shop.
"Usually, yes," growled an unfamiliar voice.
We'd bolted several yards away before he'd finished speaking. Artemis notched an arrow and aimed, and I had passed her up with my tapped speed before I remembered myself. I moved diagonally in front of her, protectively.
A man wearing pants and a leather jacket – I also noticed his feet were bare – clambered lumbersomely onto the roof. I already saw things were wrong with his proportions, especially his skull and jaw, and the changes were becoming more extreme.
'I guess the fleeing boy did report us after all. Pity.'
I tapped my hearing tin-mind for a brief moment, and confirmed our guest was the only other source of breathing in the immediate area. His figure rippled further, muscle filling out the jacket that had hung loosely around him before.
"So, do we call you a were-gorilla?" Artemis asked.
"You can call me death," he rumbled, and charged.
Artemis's arrow hit him faster than I could, and the expanding cloud of foam glued him into immobility.
'Well, I feel rather unnecessary,' I considered. Then he began roaring in frustration, and I got to be useful by clouting him on the head until he fell unconscious and shut up. "Someone is trying to kill us. I think that means we are doing the right thing?"
"Probably," Artemis agreed. "How about we swing by that butcher's shop, see how heavily guarded it is, and then decide if we want to hit there first, or the warehouse. Something tells me we're going to need to hit both before the day has dawned."
"Was that a pun on dawn and done?" I asked as we set out toward the river.
"No, I'm still using Arabic."
'Why am I only getting these when I'm not speaking the language anymore?'
We quieted down after that until we arrived at the old shop. The lights were on, and there were men scattered about. Several in the alleys and corners were doing some form of drug, and a few more were cloistered around the door, waiting to buy things. I couldn't help but notice that one police officer was visibly drugged, and another was included in the cue at the door.
"Lots of people, I'm not sure how many are guards for the place," Artemis whispered.
"Let's see what happens when the door opens," I suggested, because it was going to happen eventually.
Artemis agreed, and we settled down. No one appeared to be searching the area, no one noticed us, and when I tapped my hearing tin-mind to check I heard no one discussing anything of appropriate significance. I did do my best to memorize the faces of two men who were talking about a woman I would need to rescue from a memorized address before we left, but if she had been in that situation for two days already, then she would keep for another few hours.
After 32 minutes had ticked by, the door opened. One man whistled provocatively at the woman, and I hoped Whisper A'Daire senior would spit acid in his face, but she just smiled and ushered the men inside. Neither Artemis nor I moved down to engage her; we had seen at least two men guarding her back through the door.
"…Warehouse it is?" Artemis finally suggested.
"Let us not both fight people and luck," I agreed cautiously. "…But…"
"But?" Artemis prompted as we slid away toward where the warehouse would be.
"Mahfous Zone number 115-42," I recited as we picked up speed. "One of the men I overheard has a woman there we should visit and rescue. In case I will be knocked unconscious in the fight you should still go, or tell the rest of the Team to go."
Artemis paused. "Should we go there now?"
"Do you know where it is right now? Do you know where is safe to bring her when we are done? Can we afford to waste time and effort on one person when there could be a dozen more in the warehouse?"
Artemis blew out a slow, frustrated breath.
"Do we know she'll still be there, and alive to be saved, if we wait?" she countered.
"From what I heard, he intended to keep her there for several more days." Artemis didn't move. "Choosing between good and evil is easy. Choosing between evil and evil is less easy. Choosing between good and good is least of all," I advised her, and waited.
"…No. I think this is another thing like with Cheshire," Artemis finally answered, looking into my eyes. "The warehouse and the Shadows have been here for a while and should stay here for a while. We should find out where that place is, break her out while the guy keeping her is at the butcher's, bring her to our room if there's nowhere else safe, and then go check out the warehouse. Are you with me, or should we split up? I didn't start doing this to leave people behind."
I looked Artemis dead in the eyes, and she looked back. I thought.
"I am with you," I told her in English. "Lead the way."
We retreated at a faster clip back to our room, and Artemis brought up a map of the city on the computer.
"Hey, this isn't that far from the warehouse either. Pretty good, huh?" She laughed with no humor at all. "Let's do this."
It was two in the morning, local time, when we landed on the roof of the house beside our target.
I tapped into my tin-mind hearing for what might have been my last large use of the night, and my breath hitched.
"Yeah?" Artemis asked warily, fingering an undrawn arrow. I tapped all of my hearing, all of it, and enough zinc-mind acuity to process it all, to confirm what I found.
"You were right to come here first," I conceded. 'I have learned a lesson already about discovering things. Namely, I can always find out more that is unexpected.' I had overheard the waste-of-oxygen's boast that he had a girl for his friend to come over and sample. What he had not said was that she was a 'new' girl, and there were several less new ones also present, as well as a few other men acting as guards. 'So, more people to save, more enemies to save them from. We may need to put the warehouse off until tomorrow. No, not all of them are girls, either.'
"In Khandaq it is illegal to do slavery, yes?" I checked. If it was legal that wouldn't have stopped me, but I would've needed to re-adjust the plans that twisted together in my mind.
"It's illegal pretty much everywhere, but not always enforced. Wait, you mean-?" Artemis twitched toward the building.
I pointed down, under the wall that surrounded the targeted house, to where the cellar should be.
"I hear eighteen patterns of breathing that suggest sleeping, and the same slow heartbeats. Two or three should be pre-adolescent children, six are near our ages, and the remainders are adult. Even distribution between male and female, I think, but it is very hard to accurately guess that," I summarized.
"Shit," Artemis spat quietly. "Those… I don't know any words bad enough for them."
"Off to the side are two grown men with glasses of drink, one is smoking a cigarette, and they are playing a card game. They are probably armed. I will need to check the numbers more closely, but there are, I think, five men and two women sleeping in places on the second and first floors." I gestured with my hand, and tapped a tin-mind to enhance my vision as I peered through the only pertinent window on the visible side of the house.
'And I was right about that.'
"One man and woman are asleep in that room. I see a small handgun on the dresser and a rifle leaned against the wall as well." On his neck and her left breast, they each had a snake-and-bird symbol tattooed on, same as had been on the man at the butcher's neck. His had a red outline that hers did not.
'It's probably a symbol of membership. Or property ownership, in the case of the woman,' I judged, and passed it on.
I could hear Artemis grind her teeth, and I had already released my tin-minds.
"I want to bring these guys down. Do we have a plan?" I tilted my head and assessed.
"What arrows do you have?" I asked. She listed them off: 3 sharp tips, 6 blunt tips, 2 Tasers, 2 nets, 3 foam, and 3 arrows with knockout gas in total. I smiled. "Step one, find an open window."
I outlined the rest of the plan as we crept around the house, mapped what we could see of it, and found an open window on the far side where three men slept on cots.
Artemis fired a knockout gas arrow into the room. One of the men almost stirred awake at the impact, but the chemicals got to him first. I decreased my weight, jumped up to the sill, and clambered through.
I used my cadmium-mind to move safely and secure the room, letting the gas waft out the window. Artemis followed shortly with a rope grappled, and we moved the unconscious men into one pile. I tied them up with one of her grapple ropes while Artemis rapidly unloaded and disassembled their guns in near total silence.
To be absolutely safe, we dumped the parts in the men's laps and she used a foam arrow to stick them and the guns all in place. Silently, we slid out into the second floor hall and parted ways. Artemis would handle the pair we'd seen in the master bedroom, while I stored my weight as low as it could go and padded down the stairs for the other man and woman.
'Or, the other two men,' I corrected. Where I'd expected to see a woman asleep, I found a slender young man spread out on the couch in the sitting room. 'He's younger than I am,' I realized, mildly disturbed at seeing him with the same tattoo on his neck that had been on the other five I'd seen in the house. 'Unrestrained and a rifle laying out on the table. He is certainly involved.'
Part of me wanted to snap his neck and crush his skull while he was unaware. Another part saw my own past mistakes magnified back at me and wanted to beat common sense and decency into him.
I took the middle road and applied a chokehold Robin had taught me. I'd insisted on being taught that skill after he used it to incapacitate me during a sparring match, and I had taken to wearing cadmium-minds more often to counter such tactics.
He woke up just enough to try to struggle, before he collapsed soundlessly.
From upstairs I heard incoherent shouting and gunfire. I spun to race back up the steps.
From the cellar, I heard two voices and a wooden impact. I froze.
'Upstairs to reinforce Artemis, or down to get the other guards and stop their reinforcements?'
An underdressed man with a pistol ran out of the room off to the side. He stopped, swore, and tried to aim.
That decided me, and in response I tapped deeply into my steel-minds.
'Trust Artemis to handle herself and stop these threats.'
I had already sped away from my position when he fired his first shot, veering to the side and closer to flank and tackle him. The impact of the sound against my ears prompted me to store away my hearing, and my fist hit his face an instant after the second time his finger pulled the trigger.
I hadn't tapped strength or weight, so I didn't get to enjoy shattering his jaw, but his head snapped back and he would have toppled over if I'd given him the time.
I didn't feel like being nice, so I tapped a trickle of strength from my pewter-mind and punched him in his unguarded stomach. Then I snatched his gun out of mid-air and tried to remember how Artemis had disassembled it.
After wasting a few too many seconds, I just pulled on enough strength to bend the barrel out of shape, and I shoved it between a few couch cushions after I couldn't find a better place to throw it out of the way.
I looked up into the barrel of another gun.
'I forgot to stop storing away my hearing, didn't I,' I realized. The last two men hadn't gotten up from the basement more than three or four seconds before, and hadn't been ready to fight, but what concerned me more than the gun was the cell phone the second man had pulled out. 'You are not calling for reinforcements.'
I drained enough speed to leave my total steel-mind reserves under 3/5 of what I started with, and less strength, but moments later I had smashed their weapons, phones, and several of their bones before anything more could happen.
'And now I can help Artemis.'
I raced upstairs just in time to meet Artemis as she stumbled to the top of the steps.
I slid protectively in front of my friend and saw, 'Wait, why is she fighting back? Rusts, is there a woman willing part of this happening? That makes a depressing amount of sense actually – it would be a lot easier to grab people if a woman acts as bait to lure in other women. Given some noblewomen's attitudes about the rape of skaa, I'm no longer surprised.'
She had one of Artemis's arrows stuck in her right bicep, the wound weeping blood as she tried to reload her gun.
I raced forward as she tried to aim, ignored the impact through my stomach, and tackled her with enough tapped weight to make the floorboards splinter.
Artemis was right behind me, steel-mind or no steel-mind, and she applied the same chokehold I had.
The woman quickly went slack.
"I should've used knockout gas instead of a Taser, but I thought she was a victim until she went for the gun," Artemis explained shortly as she bound the woman's limbs.
"I would have too," I admitted while I checked her over for injuries. "Were you hit? I see blood."
"She nicked me twice, but her aim sort of sucked," Artemis managed with a crooked smile. "Don't bother with first aid, I'm fine." I raised my eyebrow and tried to press her down. "We have people who need more help."
'Oh, yes, there are genuine victims to rescue.'
We trundled down the steps, mostly secure that no further guards would be forthcoming, and down into the cellar.
One chair in the guards' room had been overturned when they raced up. The cards were still scattered on the table. I unbolted and opened the heavy door.
"Wake up, wake up!" I called cheerfully. "We are here to rescue you!" One child began to cry and was quickly hushed. I heard several mutters and whispers. A grown woman in the corner reflexively tried to keep two teenage girls behind her and out of sight.
By the time their eyes had adjusted to the light, I had scooped up a ten-year-old girl and begun humming a lullaby as I checked her for injuries. Artemis began with the badly beaten man on the other side of the room, and I moved to hand the girl back to the woman who had been holding her as they slept.
Her voice caught on the fourth syllable of her prayer, and she could only sob.
"Move into the other room, if you are able," I murmured gently. Louder, as people became brave enough to speak again, I called, "Is there anyone too injured to walk? Who needs medical attention the fastest?"
"God is great," murmured one gray-haired man. There was a susurrus of similar repetitions, and prayers, and thanks.
"Here!" a girl shouted. "Here, please, quickly! They hurt Anjah bad and she doesn't want to wake up!" I stepped over quickly, pressing lightly at the bruises that mottled the girl's face and checking whether her bloody nose was also broken. It wasn't, but two of her fingers were, and there was a worrying lump on the back of her skull.
"When you're done there, this guy got shot in the knee for trying to fight his way free," Artemis called from the far wall. "Hey, is anyone strong enough to carry him? Help me get him up on the table so I can check this under the light. Is there anyone with medical training?" Artemis hauled him into the guardroom with some help and I heard her set to cleaning the wound.
"I do not feel any broken bones, I think," I assured the girl as I finished pressing my fingers against Anjah's ribs. She had a few scrapes and scratches on her back and sides, but they were not notably inflamed and any bleeding had already scabbed over. I moved my inspection along, noted a bruise on her stomach, and I grimaced.
"Is she…?"
"She will in time, I think, become well again," I hedged. "But she does need to see a doctor soon." I tried to remember what Wonder Woman had told me about how to handle these situations. "We will try to get her to a doctor. When we do- what is your name?"
"Niritis," she answered.
"Niritis, when we get her to a doctor, they will clean her and give her medicine. The doctors should know, but to be safe, make sure that they do not throw away her clothing," I recalled what they should do. "Have it put in a bag and give it to police."
Niritis grimaced. "I can do that… but will the police help?"
"Yes," said one boy's voice firmly. I was done with my inspection, so I lifted Anjah and turned with the others to see who spoke. "My father and my brother both work in the police, and I am going to join them when I am old enough. They will hunt these people to the ends of the Earth to take revenge for these crimes."
I could see that not everyone was convinced, nor happy, but it was not my business until it eventually became my problem, and I already had more urgent problems to fix. I carried Anjah into the guards' room in time for Artemis to finished her triage, and we arranged those strong enough to help carry the weaker people up the stairs.
The young boy called the place where his brother and father worked, and police were expected to arrive within a few minutes. Artemis and I intervened to keep the freed people from harming the captured criminals too badly, and after that they spread out in the place and seemed willing to wait.
"I hate to say this, but we should probably get going," Artemis reminded me.
"Go?"
"This isn't like where we usually work, and there isn't as much co-operation with the police here," she explained. "Also, we're not supposed to be here, and we are supposed to be on a covert, secret mission. So we should disappear, fast. There's enough evidence here to get these guys taken care of anyway."
I did my best to process this. 'Well, I guess they do not know who we are or know we work for the Justice League, so any investigation will just find nothing about us.' Time wise, it was four in the morning.
"Let us go. Back to the warehouse?" I asked after we climbed onto the next door's rooftop. My metal-mind stores were lower, but not yet severely low, and I'd been storing away trickles when I remembered to after the fighting ended.
"We should think twice about starting any other fights tonight, but looking around is a good idea," Artemis agreed.
We were just in the process of leaving when two men confronted us, climbing onto the rooftop.
"So you two-," he spat a foul term that I didn't quite catch, "-are the ones responsible for messing up my payday."
I stilled, recognizing the first man as the one I spied on at the butcher's shop, and got ready for a fight. He clicked something on his gun, and the second man held out a hand.
"Don't worry about it too much, man. Like I said before, we can see that you had offerings to give, which is head and shoulders above most of our applicants. Keep a chilled heart in your chest, and don't shoot up the extra merchandise we have in front of us." He smiled and pulled off one glove, then the other. "Which isn't to say you can't rough them up a little."
'He's buying time,' I had the sudden premonition. I tapped my zinc-mind, and then tapped what little tin-mind hearing I had stored up in the minutes since I'd exhausted it. 'There's something skittering around down in the alley behind us,' I realized.
"You good to fight?" Artemis asked as her fingers edged toward her quiver.
"Three. One behind," I murmured in warning. "Below in the alley."
"Got it." She tilted her head toward me, and with a brief exchange of glances and nods we agreed on our pattern.
"But Langstrom should be enough to get them ready," the second man said, and tapped something on his belt.
There was a screech, a leather whumph, and I tapped my steel-mind to race after Artemis's fired arrow.
The second man, the established Whisper follower, almost grabbed at her Taser arrow with his hands, but he reacted fast enough to guard himself from my assault instead.
There was one gunshot, a crackle and a scream as the arrow electrified the first man with the gun, and Artemis swore foul words as she engaged the unseen enemy behind us.
I didn't use much strength enhancement, and I couldn't change from light to heavy fast enough for it to affect my attack, but I drove my fist into his jaw at painfully high speeds.
Fire lashed out at me and I jerked out of range. It had singed my clothes, but I was not burned. Unfortunately, the man with the flaming hand got his balance back in the pause and threw another lance of flame at me.
I quickly calculated the angle, judged that Artemis wouldn't be hit if I dodged, and slipped under and to the side. He growled something, and I saw his face and torso begin to swell and bristle, much like the were-gorilla had. Flames wreathed both his hands from the wrist up, and he hurled more burning gobs at me as his nose flattened and his jaw distended.
'I know how to handle heat, and my gold-mind is more than enough for the rest.' The bright lights had ruined my night vision, but they also left my target clearly illuminated. I shunted all the body heat I quickly could into brass-mind storage, tapped speed and strength, and ran straight through the burning wall.
I smelled myself start to cook, and two of my fingers broke when my fist hit a tusk instead his jaw, but the force staggered my enemy backwards. I tapped my iron-mind as much as I guessed the roof could support and bore him down, pounding as hard as I could without risking his death.
It wasn't enough.
I lost my hold when his other tusk nearly tore across my throat, and I had to store my sense of touch in a tin-mind and tap determination along with gold when he used a mix of brute strength and explosive flame to throw me across the roof.
It still ached down to my bones, a searing shock of pain.
My gold-mind reserve drained uncomfortably low from restoring the patches carbonized flesh where his hands had grabbed my arms. I caught my balance before I could roll over the edge of the roof and dodged another lance of flame he'd thrown at me. Halfway through my speed enhanced charge I veered to the side and reassessed.
"Take cover!" I'd heard Artemis shout. "Switch!" The flaming were-boar tried to incinerate the arrow she sent his way, and it exploded into a cloud of pink foam. "Alley!"
'She has that under control,' I judged when she drove her boot into the stuck were-boar's skull. 'She said the other enemy had dropped back into the alley?' There was not a fifth figure on the roof, so I cautiously approached the edge.
A long set of paled, clawed fingers gripped the corner, and I almost attacked, but paused.
And I froze in stark horror when it hauled its whole body into view.
'No. No no nonono this cannot be what I think it is think thinkthinklookarethesignsthereornotIneedtoknow!'
General human outline suggesting a human origin: present.
Unnaturally long fingers? I could not count the joints, there was too much darkness, but they were longer than human digits.
Papery thin skin covered in very fine hair? The hair was thicker than I anticipated, but some changes were expected.
Abnormally large ears? They were more pointed than round, but within tolerable limits.
Distended nose and mouth? Definitely present, along with fangs.
Three-forked tongue? I couldn't see, but the other characteristics were present.
Large and sensitive eyes? I couldn't determine if the pupils were the expected shape and size, but they looked close.
A cold resolve – utterly unrelated to my metal-minds – flooded through my stomach and veins.
'Uscule. It has to be, I've never seen one in the flesh I'm the only one who should know they exist and I need to kill kill it kill itkillitkillit now.'
The symbol of an unwanted catastrophe twitched and I brief flicker of electricity arced around its neck. I knew at least that there would be no Soothers to fight if they needed a collar to control it.
'This is Rusting the worst scenario, and I have no idea howhowhow it happened- No.' My mind spun as I worked out the likely path. 'I should have had Psimon killed to be safe before we left Bialya, but my memories weren't recovered until too late. I need to get the League to let me go back there, murder him, and hunt down anyone else he may have told what he learned, even if it means I spend the rest of my life on this world in prison.'
Having decided that, I offered a small prayer to the ones whose deaths had been used for this situation.
Then the mother-ashfall-fricking-Rusts-be-damned Uscule threw itself on me with a cry, and I began the first of what I expected would become too long a string of fights to the death.
Have to admit I'm puzzled as well. I initially thought she mistook them for a koloss created by merging four humans together using Hemalurgy to create a monster basically which would be BAD, but it seems like the description of what she's going for doesn't really match that.
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Good. I spent hours trolling through the DC wiki listings for cryokinetics, looking for obscure people from various continuities to mix in with a few OCs.
Same age as Superman? Late 20s to early 30s. Tyler might and may be allowed in the Mountain if there's a reason, but she doesn't want a position on the Team, and the JL wouldn't off one to her.
Also, age-wise, Red Arrow was 18 and Renka 19, so they weren't minors but they weren't 21 either, they were in that annoying zone where... yada, yada.
Maybe, maybe not in this YJ continuity. But that was where I got the name, which might be assumed. One of the fake names might be more important, or maybe not...
Made up, but I made it up thinking it was plausible. Ironic as it is, I've never watched Smallville, I just grabbed characters from there off the DC wiki.
Uscules are something I made up, that will be expanded upon later. They don't exist in Cosmere canon, but they potentially could exist, and Renka has reason to know what they are and freak out. This is, in fact, a very restrained and self-disciplined reaction from to her to what she thinks is the situation, compared to how she could have reacted. Artemis being present is a good influence on her.
The name (out of universe) comes from minuscule, by the way.
Uscule are the Tin equivalent of koloss, with four tin spikes. Renka, being a very knowledgable Hemalurge, knows what they should theoretically look like, but no one else does, except maybe Spook if she and he grabbed some Blessings from deceased kandra and experimented on condemned criminals. Whether or not that happened is questionably canon at the moment.
But since no one on Earth should know what they are or how to make them, she feels the possibility that someone is spreading knowledge of Hemalurgy to be bad.
But since no one on Earth should know what they are or how to make them, she feels the possibility that someone is spreading knowledge of Hemalurgy to be bad.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I'm fairly certain that this is, at most, a regular demon.
Well, given they mentioned someone called Langstrom, I'm guessing it's Robert Langstrom, aka Man-Bat.
Chilling Interrogations - part 6
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 17 [Artemis PoV]The were-bat had been a pain to fight. It had been almost too good a match-up, because it wasn't wearing any armor, so any of my sharp arrows could have killed the guy, but he was too tough for blunt arrows and I didn't want to get in range of his claws and fangs. He'd torn apart the one net I got him with, but I'd finally managed to poke a few holes through his wings, so I didn't have to worry about being dive-bombed.
Then the fucker dropped off the roof into an alley, and I had no idea which way to go or how to keep from leaving myself open.
I heard a *thwump* like a gas ignition and a wash of light and heat across the back of my neck. Mindful of the were-bat's ability to jump me again, I spun and saw Ferris get knocked flying and thrown into a roll by the fireball.
'A fire-throwing were-boar? Where are they finding these guys? Wait, fire! I've got the fireproof foam!'
"Take cover!" I shouted when she dodged around another gout of flame and charged the were-boar. 'What did we say to switch oppon-,' "Switch!" Ferris pulled back and I loosed my shaft. "The alley!" I added to let her know where the were-bat had gone, and I ran to engage the were-boar.
He tried to blast my arrow like I'd guessed, and got caught in the foam again. He didn't get his bearings back fast enough and I drove a jump-kick into his skull. I hit him a few more times to make him stay down, and it seemed to work.
I turned around.
'Wait she's not going to actually kill him, right?'
"Ferris, chill!" I shouted as I ran over. "You might actually kill him!"
Her head snapped toward me and 'I've never seen her face look like that and I hope I never see it again.' It was a little like her expression in parts of Bialya, but deeper and harder - a sharp reminder that she'd killed a lot of people in her past.
"Yes," she said flatly.
"What? No! Even if he's a Shadow, we don't do that!" I reminded her.
"Uscule," she hissed, and I had no idea what that meant. "Already dead."
She pretty clearly didn't mean the were-bat, since it was beaten but still breathing. 'Does she?'
"Do you mean the were-bat guy?" The pressure Ferris had been applying lightened.
"Were… bat?" she asked slowly. In the moonlight, I saw her look back down at the downed enemy. The hand not pressing down on his throat started to frisk his face and chest. She examined his fangs, his ears, his snout nose, and peeled back his eyelids. Then she moved down to frisk his ribs as though she expected to find… something. Something other than flesh and bone, I'd have bet, but I couldn't have guessed what. Then, she took a looong time examining his wings with her fingers.
Finally, she sighed. "Bats, like the Batman? I thought they were supposed to be small." She gestured for the size with her hand.
Relieved that no one was going to die, I chuckled.
"League of Shadows. If he was too small to fight, what good would he be?"
"Sneaking and spying in the shadows?" Ferris suggested with a similarly relieved laugh. Her hand finally left his throat.
"Whoa. Where did you get the suppression collar?"
"I… do not? He was, I think, wearing that before." She shrugged.
'Now I sort of feel a little guilty. The Shadows might be controlling this guy against his will. Except… I thought collars were supposed to turn powers off.' My breath caught in my throat. 'That's… actually a scary possibility. I don't know how they work, but I don't see why you couldn't make a collar that forced powers to be on all the time instead of off. I mean, a bunch of guys like Cam like to walk around with their powers all the time, but if it's… and we're even calling them were-animals, and the original were-wolves only changed under the full moon, but if you could make them be changed all the time, and a collar to control them… but aren't these changes supposed to be things Ra's al Ghul gave to the Shadows somehow? So why…?'
"What did you say, before?" I asked to distract myself. "You said, 'Uscule'? What's that mean?" Ferris didn't obviously react, but her neck and shoulder muscles tensed like a metal spring 'and that's almost always a sign of violence she's not seriously going to attack me is she?' She sagged down after another moment, and I relaxed a bit again.
"It is… sort of a creature from my home. From Scadrial. I have not seen one, but I know what they are supposed to look like. Big ears, big eyes, big nose, fangs, pale skin… I thought this was one. It… worried me."
'Well isn't that the understatement of the… well, okay, no, it's only the understatement of the week, tops.'
"How would something from Scadrial get to Earth? The same way you did?" I'd meant it to be light, and teasing; Ferris turned lightless eyes on me and I had to look away.
"That," she answered calmly, "is why I was worried." I cringed at the unspoken, 'you idiot,' she'd probably attached.
"Sooo," I changed the subject back to more important things as I heard the sound of Khandaqi police in the distance. "I think these guys came here from the butcher shop to collect the… merchandise." The word dripped off my tongue with all the venom I had. "Should we head back to the butcher's? Head on to the warehouse? Head back to our room and wait for pick-up?"
"…What time is it?" she asked. I told her, roughly. "Warehouse," she voted. "I want an hour to mediate while we, mm, 'stake out' it, but we should go before the Shadows realize they have lost three people. Will we give these to the police?"
I thought it over.
We ended up dumping the guys we'd beaten back over the wall, and we scrammed just as the authorities pulled into view. It wasn't too long or tough a trip to the warehouse, and there was nothing particularly threating or auspicious around the place, so we settled down to watch.
People went in and out in small trickles, but never more than two or three at a time, and we counted more people leaving than going inside.
An hour passed slowly, but it did pass. The sky wasn't beginning to lighten yet, but it probably wouldn't be too long before the false dawn started.
"Are we going in tonight?" I asked Ferris after a group of three men left the warehouse. 'By my count, there are now ten fewer people in there than when we arrived. I'm not sure we're going to get a better chance than this.'
"I want to go," Ferris affirmed. I started to stand up. "Wait." I did. "I should listen for heartbeats, I think."
"Right. That's a good idea." She closed her eyes, and I did my best not to breathe too loudly while I waited.
Ferris opened her eyes. "Eight heartbeats. The two patrolling as guards," she pointed at where they currently were in the building, "are probably men, as are the three grouped together at a central area. Two more are below ground-level; one is a woman saying something in an unknown language to another person of indeterminate gender. The last has been standing nearby those two long enough to begin fidgeting, and is probably another guard."
"Your metal-minds have enough to take them?"
"Alone? It would be problematic, I think. Together, if we do so quickly and quietly, I believe we can." She nodded. "You are more skilled than I am at stealth. Do you have a plan?"
"Aren't you more experienced?" I pointed out. 'She did survive a civil war and out-sneak a homicidal government for a few years, didn't she?'
"Self-taught by experience. You are better trained," Ferris pronounced carefully. My stomach swooped, but she didn't follow up with any accusations about my League of Shadows style training history from Dad. "Can you make a plan?"
"I… yeah." I did my best to plot everything out. "Where are the two guys moving around, and who is closest to the big door?" 'If we can go in the front that'll be convenient, but chances are we'll have to risk any booby traps at the windows.'
"Two are there. I believe all three men at the table are within view of the big door."
"That figures," I grumbled, following her pointing fingers. "…Are the two patrolling on the ground floor alone, or do they go up the stairs? How close are they to each other? Do they use radio check-ins?" It took us another few minutes of preparation to get an estimate of the guards' rounds. I selected a window on the second story, then we grappled and climbed over to it.
I filched back the knife I'd loaned Ferris, fiddled its blade under the windowsill, and 'yes, I recognize this style of trap! I know how to disarm this.'
I was almost done when one of the guards began walking down the hall with the window. We dropped down and hung carefully out of sight. I counted to twenty before I judged it safe enough to try again.
"And we're in," I confirmed. The window stuck a bit when I lifted it, but not enough to raise any alarms. I carefully double-checked for any devices once we were in, but there was nothing. 'Disposable base, I guess, so they didn't want to bother securing it too heavily. Sloppy of them. Dad would've had my guts for garters if I ever slacked on security that much.'
We prowled silently around the halls, walkways, and ceiling beams of the upper level. We waited until one guard was isolated and about to give his periodic radio confirmation.
"All clear on the top floor," he sighed boredly. The radio hissed.
<All clear confirmed. Continue. >
We let him get two more steps down the hall before we hit him. I winded the creep with a gut punch and disarmed him while Ferris put him in a chokehold that had him out in a few seconds. I stole his weapons and did a quick-and-dirty tie with what was handy, then we proceeded along the route.
The second patrolman went down the same way, though we didn't have the liberty of letting him radio in anything first, which put us on a time limit.
We ended up among the ceiling beams, beside the lights that shined down on the other four guards. It was a simple but effective set-up: Three armed men relaxed around a central table that was in clear view of the door, but near enough to a pile of crates for them to take cover quickly. The fourth guard stood far away, but within firing range of the table and in clear view of the guards but not the front door.
"How quickly can you take out those three?" I hissed, fingering my blunt arrows.
"From up here? No. Once my feet are on the floor, if I do not conserve speed… five seconds? Four?"
"You're my new favorite speedster," I complimented. "How quickly can you get down there? Can you do it quietly?"
"I can drop," she pointed out. I took a moment to imagine that. "Do it. On the count of three." I carefully lined up my shot, using two blunt arrows for extra impact. "One. Two. Three." She dropped away from me. One heartbeat later, I fired. Both arrows took the lone guard in the skull; immediately after he collapsed, I glanced down.
Ferris had opted not to fall feet first on the guys like I'd imagined. Instead, she stuck a perfect three-point landing just behind two of them, and as they started to spin around she moved.
Her muscles had swelled just enough to be noticeable, and she used that extra strength to grab both men by their necks, one in each hand, and then vault over the table with both of them to drive her knee into the last man's throat.
He toppled over backward in his chair, choking quietly, and she pinned all three of them down.
As long as there was no shouting or gunshots, I had other things to worry about, so I kept my net arrow aimed at the doorway that had been guarded.
'Twenty-eight… twenty-nine… thirty.' When no one had come up to investigate I relaxed my bow and slid down a coiled rope to the floor. 'Did the door twitch?' My bow and arrow were in my hand and aimed again before I'd finished catching my balance, and I had to drop to one knee to stay on-target. 'It's open. Shit. Was the door cracked open before or did the woman down below come up and peak through the open crack?'
No one had attacked us, but that only made it worse. 'This is a League of Shadows operation run by Whisper A'Daire. I'm good, and Ferris is good, and we're both dangerous, but why haven't we been nearly killed half-a-dozen times by now?'
"Ferris," I hissed, searching for the right words in Arabic. "Ferris, listen!"
"Yes?" she asked.
"No, listen with your tin-mind. Are the other two still there?" I didn't turn from the door to watch her, but I heard a rustle as she moved the limp bodies around.
"…Yes. The woman is talking much faster, but I still cannot understand the tongue. The other heartbeat is slower, as though she's still aslee-! Gone! I not hear the talking woman. No voice, no movement, no heartbeat. How-?"
I didn't take my eyes away from the door.
"The League of Shadows has its fingers in all kinds of pies," I commented. Because freaky stealth techniques and equipment? Those weren't even surprising, here.
"I have no more tin-mind to listen with." I heard Ferris inhale deeply. "I cannot smell… There is something I do not recognize, but smell is telling me nothing in particular." She walked up, closing in behind me.
"Don't let your guard down. Chances are, our lives are still in immediate, grave danger," I warned. My nerves were already taught to the edge, and she was not helping.
Dad's training had me paranoid with her at my back; all of my instincts were screaming at me that I was about to be attacked from behind and it took almost all my willpower to neither roundhouse kick her head off nor spin away and hit her point-blank with my arrow.
'No. No, Artemis. Ferris is a teammate. A friend. You can trust her with your back. You do not want to hurt her.' I was lying to myself as hard as I could, but I couldn't quite believe it.
My fingers twitched. My knees were nearly shaking. I felt like I couldn't breath, and I knew I had broken out in a cold sweat.
'If she touches me, I'm going to attack her no matter how hard I try to stop,' I knew with a sick certainty.
And then Ferris stepped past my back, to my side and into my line of view.
My coiled knot of anxiety loosened, and I actually sighed in relief.
"Is there one, or two? Did she escape?" Ferris mused to me. "Do we go downstairs to check? Do we do something about the drugs? Do we look for papers?" She motioned at the crates of drugs, equipment, and other indeterminate supplies around us.
I took a moment to think through my pounding pulses, now that I didn't have a veteran murderess behind me anymore.
"Well, we aren't dead yet," I observed less sarcastically than I would've liked. "There's nothing we can do to all of this stuff before the rest of the Team gets here unless we want to destroy it. We should look for papers, but we should look downstairs too. If that person left behind needs rescuing…"
'Could be a victim. Could be an agent cut loose. Could be a trap. Could be a hostage. Could be an experimental subject. …I hate trying to get in the heads of the Shadows. I'm too good at it, and I'm always thinking about how I'd kill me.'
'But I'm not dead yet.' I got myself under control. "Do we go down?"
"I will go first," Ferris volunteered.
"No. Together. Side by side," I insisted. 'We'll spring this trap together, or not at all. No one leading, no one left behind.'
Ferris nodded.
My arrow knocked the door open, but other than the impact and the hinges there was no sound. Step by step, we inched down the stairway, alert for traps. There was dust, and musk, and the lights were low, but we didn't find any traps and we didn't set any off. We reached a short stretch of hall at the bottom, and followed it to a storage room.
There were more drugs and machines, but the most important things in the room were the chair, and the woman in the chair. She was handcuffed to it, and her eyes were dull and shadowed, but we both recognized her face.
"It looks like we found Tora Drake," I told Ferris. "Hey, miss! Iceberg! Iceberg! Can you hear us?" I swept the vicinity again, but my noise hadn't stirred up anyone. Not even Iceberg.
"Is she-?" Ferris hissed. I grimaced. "Should I… get her?"
"Probably. Whisper might have some mind-control ability, so be ready in-case Iceberg attacks. But we can't leave her here. Iceberg. Tora Drake?" She stirred at me and mumbled something, but it wasn't coherent and she didn't stay alert.
"How do I get these off?" Ferris wondered, checking out the handcuffs.
"…You keep watch. I'll get those off." I'd known how to get out of the police's favorite four makes of handcuffs since I was nine, and the other versions – including standard Shadow issues – since I was eleven. They didn't have any complicated catches or trick traps, which only made me more worried.
'On the bright side, Iceberg is getting more coherent.' Ferris kept shooting odd looks at Iceberg as she stirred more and more. But I thought it was a good sign when she was aware enough to ask who we were, even if she stayed limp.
"I'm Artemis. That's Ferris. We're here to help you." I supported her over my shoulder and we moved out of the room. Ferris got her other arm, and Iceberg started to stand straighter. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"R-rem-member?" She tried to take a step on her own. "Remember. Tell. Can't. C-can't tell. Won't t-tell."
"Okay, okay. You don't have to remember anything yet," I assured her gently. "I don't know how badly you're hurt, but we're going to get you help, alright? You're safe now."
"Safe?" She stumbled a little and pulled away enough to stand mostly on her own. "I'm safe? I'm not safe. Never safe."
"You're safe with us now," I repeated. I grabbed my bow all the same. "We won't let them get you. Can you walk?"
"Get? Safe with us? You're not safe with us. Get you? Walk. Away. Get," she panted out in a cold sweat. Ferris stepped up and supported her as we climbed the stairs.
"We're getting you out. Don't worry," I repeated, keeping the rest of my mind on high alert.
We crawled back up the stairs, and I couldn't hear anything over the sound of my own thundering pulse.
'Is the door different from how we left it? Did it swing on its own? Has anything disturbed where we left the guards?' We reached the edge of the stairwell and snuck back into the main room.
A rustle.
My arrow hit snake-woman Whisper in the face before I'd realized she had dropped from the ceiling.
"Downdowndown!" I shouted, keeping my body between Iceberg and Whisper as I strung another arrow. Ferris slid out to attack in a rush, but she took a tumble to dodge away from the snake-woman's venomous spit.
"The queen bee lays her eggs!" Whisper called as her scaled tail swatted away my next arrow and lashed at Ferris. I strung my third shot as Ferris dropped to all fours.
"Shut her up!" I yelled.
"The sun dapples the sand dune!" I flicked my eyes up to where Whisper had waited in ambush, and I felt Iceberg tense as Whisper's words hit her brain.
"Shit," I hissed, loosed my shot, and rolled away to get out of probably-brainwashed Iceberg's range.
"Damn! Why won't this-!" Whisper shouted as she knocked Ferris back with her tail. She caught the sound of metal just an instant too late, and the light fixture my arrow had knocked free fell on the bottom half of her body.
The expert assassin didn't scream, but she was clearly hurt when she thrashed her tail free. I strung another shot.
"Duck," Ferris ordered, and she threw a chair from the table; it bounced off Whisper's raised arms when she couldn't evade. I saw her muscles bulge as she picked up a second chair, but Ferris was favoring her ribs, too.
"Why?! The dandelion blossoms-," Whisper hissed furiously.
Iceberg's frozen spear missed her head by less than an inch.
Whisper twisted inhumanly and slid toward an escape, but my last arrow caught her in the meat of her shoulder before she got out of sight. It didn't stop her, but she was swearing some very angry promises in five different languages as she disappeared into the night. I didn't let my guard down, but I checked on Ferris and Iceberg.
"Fine," Ferris waved me off, despite her bruises, and insisted on standing.
Iceberg was just standing there, looking at her frost-coated hands.
"Iceberg?" I asked carefully.
"Safe." Tora Drake smiled softly. "I am safe, aren't I?"
She toppled over in a faint.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* September 18 [Renka PoV]
A list floated on the projected screen behind Kaldur. The rest of us had lined up to discuss what had happened over the past few days - the people we met, the attempted breakout, and especially my unexpected adventure with Artemis - and the results of that discussion hung on the list for our perusal.
Points of Order
- Sean and Caitlin Kelvin have been abducted. Tyler Crenshaw was assaulted, almost framed, and pursued until she took shelter. Someone may have been applying pressure to Ewald Olafsson to provide an ice-user from his people. Tora Drake was captured by Shadows agent Whisper A'Daire.
- There is organization to the inmates of Belle Reve, led by Icicle Senior, and they have sufficient connections to the outside world to recruit unaffiliated criminals.
- The breakout attempt included thermal-tech weave uniforms that were smuggled into the prison. Furthermore, the prisoners knew beforehand both how many cryokinetics and of what power-level were needed to freeze and break the wall.
- They also knew where the wall was thin enough to break through, and where to break through between the male and female divisions, and where and how to deactivate the Warden's control of the collars.
- How did Captain Cold get his hands on a cold gun???
But we all agreed that there was one certain conclusion to draw from points 3&4, which also was supported by 2 and 5.
"There has to be a mole on the Belle Reve staff. Maybe even more than one," Robin mused.
"Yes. However, the list of suspects is still significant," Aqualad pointed out.
"But there are limits to how many people it could be. There would have to be one person organizing everything who has contact with both the criminals and the outside world. And they'd need to have enough authority to switch around the orders so that the changed uniforms would be delivered and they'd need to have access to the full blueprints of Belle Reve," Wally listed off.
"Wait," M'gann raised her hand for attention, "I thought Warden Waller was involved with it. Wasn't that why she was fired? Because she was involved?"
"Sadly, no, it doesn't work like that," Robin corrected.
"On Earth," Artemis began, "people tend to put a big emphasis on command, authority, and responsibility. If you're in charge of a group, then whatever that group does, for better or worse, you can be held responsible. Since Waller was in charge when people smuggled in the suits and nearly pulled off the jailbreak, it was her job to prevent it, so they fired her for not doing that part of her job."
"But the breakout was stopped! How is that fair?" M'gann objected.
"It wasn't just Waller's responsibility to stop the breakout – although if it was, it was still you and Superboy who stopped it, not Waller – but it wasn't her job to stop it, her job was to prevent the breakout attempt from happening in the first place. She couldn't prevent it, meaning she might not be able to prevent a second attempt, and that's why they replaced her," Wally summarized.
'Ah, that makes more sense. And fairly she was only fired. Back home, heads would have dropped for this.' I shrugged the thought away and said, "I want to learn more about the cold gun. How hard are they to make?"
"Very hard," Wally asserted. "I've looked over the schematics and it barely made any sense to me. STAR Labs has had the blueprints and the confiscated guns as models to work from, and they still haven't been able to fully reverse engineer a functional version, which is a shame because firefighters everywhere would love to have them handy. And on top of making them, they require almost constant maintenance, and each gun has a limited charge. Its central battery bleeds out energy, and no one has figured out how Cold re-fills them once they're used, so any version confiscated has to be used within less than two weeks or it stops working."
"Which means that he either had a gun prepared and smuggled in ahead of time," Robin concluded, "or he constructed one in Belle Reve to use. I'll need to go over the footage with a comb and see if I can find out which it was."
"So: uniforms, cold gun, and prison blueprints are all leads we can follow to see who's rotten on the Belle Reve staff," Artemis summarized. "Now can we move on to the missing people that need rescuing?"
"Yeah. We haven't heard much about what you guys did while we were there," Conner agreed.
"Yes," Kaldur said. "It was brought up that the prisoners in Belle Reve were not the only cryokinetics in the country. As an exercise, we assembled a list of people who may have been approached and recruited for the plan, and sought them out for a mild questioning. It was far more productive than we could have expected."
"Two civilian ice-users were kidnapped, a third was on the run for her life after almost being framed, and a fourth was being subject to League of Shadows brain-breaking, which may or may not be connected. If that weren't enough," Wally ranted, "there also may be some conspiracy in Norway that who knows if it's the same guys!" He panted for a bit. "Okay, I'm done."
"Try to stay traught, dude," Robin advised.
"Depending on how widespread this phenomenon is, feeling somewhat distraught may prove a sensible response."
'Kaldur has a point,' I considered. 'There can be situations extreme enough that gibbering in terror is the only thing keeping a person sane. But for me, this is not it. However, he said that two civilians were kidnapped, so I must break the news.'
"Three," I announced. The team turned to me. "This morning, from the Ice, I was by e-mail sent that the Icemaiden is probably kidnapped by the same people."
"Since when do you have an e-mail account?" Robin asked.
"I helped her set up an account about a week ago. She doesn't have a phone number or a mailing address, so I thought I could at least get her some way to contact the outside world," Wally answered.
"Yes, and thank you," I told him again with a smile.
"Returning to the matter at hand," Kaldur interrupted as he added my information to the list, "the situation has become severe enough that we should ensure the Justice League is aware of these events and can take appropriate action. I will include this in my report to the Batman about the mission. Are there any other matters to bring up?" I raised my hand. "Ferris?"
"If you can arrange it, I would wish to speak to the Aquaman or to Queen Mera about something. It is not very urgent."
"I will do so. Anything further? Miss Martian?"
"Miss Drake and the, um, the were-bat are still asleep in the Bioship. We should probably let someone from the League look at them? Uncle J'onn would be better at finding telepathic instructions than I would."
"Yeah, and the were-bat sounded a lot like Robert Langstrom, so we should check if he's gone missing."
"He has." We all were caught off-guard, jumped a variety of heights, and spun around to find the Batman entering from deeper inside the mountain. "Langstrom has been known to disappear on his own before, so I did not investigate too closely, but he vanished in late August. I have already contacted Martian Manhunter and asked him to inspect both of their minds."
"Good morning," I murmured as I stepped politely to the side. He shortly nodded as he passed me to stand beside Kaldur, who ceded the floor.
"So, ah-," Robin tried. Batman acknowledged him with a look, and then continued his speech.
"Congratulations to all of you. I focused my efforts primarily on ice villains when I performed my own investigation, as well as on which members of the Belle Reve staff may have been the moles. The targeting and abduction of several other cryokinetics, especially the ones living as civilians, had escaped my notice.
"Regardless of the reason that you discovered it, you have uncovered what may be a far larger organization than could have been anticipated. I will be mobilizing League resources to investigate the abductions of the Kelvins, as well as the abduction of Icemaiden, but I expect the Team to continue your own private investigations as well. You have exceeded my expectations."
We all leveled our shoulders and silently displayed our satisfaction with the review.
"Thank you, sir," Kaldur said. The Batman nodded, once.
"Aqualad. Ignoring League investigation into this matter, summarize for me what further actions the Team intends to take regarding this case," the Batman instructed.
"We must procure further medical attention for Tora Drake and Robert Langstrom, if he is the one in question, or ascertain who the were-bat is if he is not Mister Langstrom," Kaldur began. "We should re-visit Flores to discuss what paths are available for Miss Crenshaw to take from here on. Robin and Ferris should attend their scheduled meetings with Snow Owl and the German government. We also should undertake more thorough detective work to investigate the disappearances of the Kelvins and other civilians." Kaldur visibly pondered the matter for a moment. "…Ah. Lastly, we should not waste time before approaching potential targets, such as Mister Watts, and inquire if they desire any form of protective custody or guards."
It seemed to meet the Batman's approval, and he soon moved on.
"Well done, Team" the Batman acknowledged. "The League will prioritize investigating the abductions, contacts, and offering protection to potential targets, other than Tyler Crenshaw. As you already have a rapport, the Team should handle her, although the League will offer protection if that is the choice she requests. After Martian Manhunter has scanned the two held in the Bio-ship, we will discuss what options may be available to them. I suggest you focus your energies on the scheduled meetings, and on the search for Icemaiden. You will be informed of what action the League takes when it is decided."
Strunkriidiisk
THE LEGEND
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Where were the posts with references for Ferris/Renka's outfit and appearance, again? I feel like drawing her.
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
I wonder if there's any relationship between Tora Drake and any of the other drakes.
Oh, also,
This was pretty darn bad ass.
Oh, also,
This was pretty darn bad ass.
Chilling Interrogations - part 7
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 19 [Ferris PoV]I could barely breathe.
The morning air was cold and clammy on my tongue. Each breath felt like I was sucking in seawater, thick and slimy.
I could barely breathe.
As Robin and I trudged past the slabs of granite, I knew I had stored as much weight into my iron-mind as I could, but my steps still felt as though my shoes were shaped from lead. I struggled to keep my back unbowed, and my arms hung limply at my sides.
I could barely breathe.
The sunlight was clear, illuminating all too well the tragedies that surrounded us. Even so, a blurred fog hung at the edges of my eyes, and it wisped fingers that wavered and were never there when I noticed them.
I could barely breathe.
The sounds of our footsteps were muffled. The rustle of our clothes were muted. I thought that Robin had been saying something to me, but the noise warbled and scattered like ripples in a pond.
I could barely breathe.
Moans and murmurs filled my head without ever entering my ears. They whispered of sorrow and suffering and hope.
I could barely breathe.
I knew the sounds too well. I knew the scents, and I knew this type of sights. I could not escape the specter of the plantations, nor could I ignore the feeling of blood the congealed on my hands, much less the throbbing aches in my chest.
I could not breathe.
My lungs were filled with corpse-rot gas. The long-forgotten dead were outnumbered only by the long remembered dead, and they all stood together, shoulder-to-shoulder, with hand clasped in hand, as I staggered through their ranks.
I could not breathe.
I did not want to breathe.
My throat rasped, and I choked, stumbled.
"Ferris!"
Through a hazy veil, I was aware that Robin caught me, sliding my arm around his shoulders for support. He was warm and solid, and I leaned on him. My eyes blinked, and I wondered whether or not I was crying.
I could not tell.
"Pax."
A firm, calloused hand pressed against my brow. The specters thinned. My turmoil subsided. I could breathe, and I felt clean, and protected, and warm. I looked up to find soft, brown eyes, set in a round face that sported a rich, brunette mustache.
I moved 14 muscles in my face, and hoped it made a smile.
"Thank you," I sighed gratefully. I continued to lean on Robin, and against the wall I was pressed to, as my tremors slowly began to still. Even though my spine still itched, once the quivering of my finger and knees had ceased, I resolved to stand.
"What happened? Do I want to know what happened? Do you need a doctor?" Robin asked. "This place isn't exactly the most delightful… Hey… No, calling it lightful wouldn't work. Maybe it would be dis-lightful, or ab-lightful?" I gave him the chuckle he was searching for, but we both knew how forced that was.
"I apologize for asking to meet you here," the man rumbled. "I have seen many powerful reactions to this place, but none so consuming. Do you require any further aid?"
"No, no," I assured him as I stood. Testing my balance, I decided that I was not about to fall again. "Was that magic, or was it just you? And what happened in this place, to be like this?" I felt my metal-minds, and regretted that I had brought only the minimum. 'An electrum-mind would have been helpful, and I was more concerned with storing so I brought a nearly uncharged aluminum-mind. Pity. Resolve and ego would have been very useful.' I paid attention when a new woman spoke.
"You… do not know what happened here?" I caught a hint of scorn underneath her disbelief.
"Robin?" I prompted. I still felt unstable, and did not want to bother with any explanations deemed necessary. He huffed.
"Ferris isn't from Earth, she was born in another dimension. She only got here a few months ago, and she's still learning to speak English without help. History isn't high on her list, so she just hasn't gotten around to Dachau or the Holocaust yet." He shrugged helplessly, but I caught his hint of defensive challenge beneath that veneer, and I was grateful.
"Jah," the woman said softly, and that touch of scorn was gone. I stepped forward carefully and extended my arm.
"Ferris," I introduced. She was caught off-guard, so it took her a moment to reply.
"Donner," she greeted as we shook.
"Robin, the Boy Wonder," my teammate greeted cheekily, and she favored him with a chuckle as they shook.
"Please, call me Klocca," the man invited as I shook his hand.
"I still say you should have used Comet, or Klaus," Donner told him.
"Yeah, we know about secret identities, it's not a problem Herr Klocca," Robin agreed. "But, um, do you know what happened to Ferris just now? I've seen her blasted by radiation and stabbed and shot and she wasn't that badly off."
"You said she used a spell? I suspect her sensitivity to the spirits who linger here overwhelmed her."
"Tha-at," my voice cracked through my dry throat. "Yes. That sounds about right."
"For a woman still learning English, you speak excellent German," Donner complimented.
"Translation spell. But it is limited. If we can move-?"
"By all means," Mr. Klocca agreed.
"Ah, just a moment!" Robin pulled a small wreath of flowers out from his cape. "I know this doesn't go here usually, but if I may?" Mr. Klocca nodded his ascent. Robin politely laid the crown down on the stones, and I heard him murmur something in another language. The flowers, I noted, had a card attached that was a brown triangle; it was a symbol also on the façade.
"Never again," Mr. Klocca murmured in agreement, and Donner said something unintelligible as well.
"Alright, I'm ready when you guys are," Robin said. Mr. Klocca led us to a nearby plaque. On it, I recognized the words Never Again written in English, in translated (to my eyes) German, and I assumed in the other languages as well.
"If you will be patient a moment." Mr. Klocca coughed as he produced a small, golden pocket-watch. It was decorated with small, wriggling vines that may have formed letters I was unfamiliar with.
"It should go without saying, but please do not speak freely of our methods, nor of what we are about to entrust you with. Certain members of the Justice League already know, and it is expected that Superman and Batman will both be hold about what happens here, but we strenuously request that the Justice League not keep files with information about what you see here."
"I can agree to that," I told Donner.
"Batman probably already knows, so I'll keep it on the quiet side," Robin agreed.
"Excellent," Mr. Klocca humphed. He flipped open the watch, and twisted its winding dial once.
The world changed.
A glowing ring spread out beneath our feet, and everything outside the curtain of its circumference twisted and blurred. A moment later, we stood in a room with dull metal walls, and a brushed metal floor.
"Whoa." Robin looked around. I followed his gaze to the ceiling, and the covered lights set into the metal ceiling.
"Quite," Mr. Klocca chuckled. "I welcome you to the most secure facility in Germany: Zwellig. This is our answer to America's Belle Reve, although we do not publicize its existence as America does."
"Pretty secure. I can't even find the door," Robin commented. I only barely caught his disease because I sought for it.
"I like the walls," I added. They reminded me of the rooms in Hathsin where atium geodes were harvested in secret. I'd spent a few hours locked in one of my own accord, once, getting my head together after I had...
"Until the teams have separately all confirmed our identities and freedom from influence, they will not open the doors to us. It will be a few more moments. The exact methods they use are classified, of course."
"Does it involve telepathy?" Robin asked sharply, and I stilled when I realized why he was concerned.
"Too many people who enter here have secrets classified beyond any inspector's clearance level," Donner replied.
"Ah." They looked at me when I sighed. "I do not like telepathy," I explained, which they accepted silently.
We waited.
"It is done," Mr Klocca announced. Moments later, one wall opened seamlessly, and we stepped through single-file into a cobblestone hallway. Runes lit up on the walls as we passed, and I felt a prickling pressed onto my skin. At the end we came to an opaque wall of plastic. Several walls, I noted, when doors opened and we filed through the halls of plastic. Finally, we stepped through into an open space, where a handrail parted between us and a drop of three or four stories.
"You wished to speak with the mercenary Blizzard, yes? But your inquiry also mentioned the one known as Coldsnap?"
"Yeah, do you have him here? The last thing we heard about Coldsnap was that he was involved in something here."
"Yes, Coldsnap was in fact involved in an attempt to break Blizzard free from this very facility. When he was taken into custody, he already wore an inhibitor collar, and when it was removed he claimed he was compelled to his assault against his will. He has provided no troubles since, and less than a week later a woman who used the name Heatstroke turned herself in to us as an accomplice to Coldsnap. She committed no crime that we knew of and has similarly cooperated freely."
"If we could speak to them too, that would be a lot of help," Robin said.
"The collar is like something we have already encountered," I informed them with a frown. 'I need to find out more about how they are made. Those collars are becoming pewter's problem.'
"It may be arranged. Blizzard is this way, if you will." The four of us passed three uniformed guards on patrol before we reached a series of clear Plexiglas walls. A large mechanical suit, like that of Mr. Freeze from Gotham, was perched on a raised cot. The helmeted dome turned to us. Mr. Klocca rapped his knuckles on the glass, and then his finger sketched a rune in light.
"What do you want?" the mechanical voice rasped.
"Blizzard, a man tried to break you out not too long ago. Coldsnap. Have you ever met him before?"
"Why should I answer?" he rasped. I stepped forward, and I increased the rate at which I tapped my duralumin-mind.
"Blizzard, we do not think the people who wanted you to be free had your best interests in mind. Recently, people have learned to alter inhibitor collars to control the ones who wear them. This has been abused to, rather than prevent people from using their powers, force them to do so, and to commit crimes on the orders of the collars' controllers. The man who attempted to free you was so collared. You are, to my understanding, a criminal." I waited.
"Such titles have little meaning."
"Criminal means nothing to you, but what about mercenary?" I challenged. No response. Eventually, on instinct, I continued. "You are a soldier, Blizzard. Yes? A warrior who fights for the highest bidder. And yet, you choose your clients, and your causes. You may choose whether to accept your contracts. You are an agent, and a power unto yourself.
"Had you been freed," I assured him, "you would not be free. They wanted a greater slave, and a more valuable pawn. You would have no choice, no will, and no power. You would be a pawn, thrown away for a more expensive gain, just as Coldsnap was enslaved and thrown away in an attempt to gain you." I let the silence stretch on for a time. "I cannot say whether you will remain in this place, or whether you will one day leave. But I can control who will be waiting when you are freed. Do you know anyone who I may need to stop from enslaving you?"
The silence stretched on further, and I maintained and increased my tapping as it did.
Finally, before we turned to leave, Blizzard spoke a single name.
"Dekker," he said, and nothing more. We left.
"That was a good speech," Robin complimented me. "My usual techniques aren't really good for this situation."
"Thank you," I said with a smile. Mr. Klocca said something to Robin, who replied in German, but I did not understand either comment. I had spent more than enough of my duralumin-mind in that brief dialogue.
We continued through a maze of tunnels – I was certain that we doubled back on our path or looped in a circle at least twice – until we reached another set of cells. A man and a woman inhabited two cells side-by-side, sitting against the cell wall they shared. There were mechanical manacles on their wrists and ankles, and a mechanical band around each one's waist, but their necks were bare of inhibitor collars.
I tapped a trickle from my duralumin-mind in time to catch Mr. Klocca as he spoke.
"Coldsnap, there are people here to speak with you."
"I am listening," he said. I let Robin take the lead.
"You were captured wearing an altered inhibitor collar. Where did it come from?" he asked. "Who put it on you?"
"Firestorm and I have been doing work for hire over the past few years, staying afloat and searching for anything that might help us control our powers. We were in Greece when we received a job offer; we would have been working security at a research facility in Brazil."
"What were they researching?" Robin asked.
"The offer never said, and we never arrived to find out. Tickets for traveling were included in the offer. We contacted with our acceptance of the offer, filed onto the ship, and a few days before we were to make land in Brazil I woke up somewhere else. According to Firestorm-,"
"Just go with what you know happened. Leave out what you found out later, or what you learned from her." Robin glanced back and forth. "Actually, is it possible to speak with them separately?"
"It would take a little doing to arrange," Mr. Klocca said.
"They have already had some days to compare stories together," I pointed out.
"Yeah, okay, good point. Just leave out her side until we can ask her about it," Robin instructed. Coldsnap nodded dully.
"The next thing I new, I woke up somewhere else, bound to a medical table and gagged. They stuck me with needles and tubes, drew blood, gave me drugs… I don't have a very good memory of what happened from then. Eventually, I woke up wearing the collar, and they gave me shocks to keep me dazed and compliant when I tried to disobey. I was with several others, and we were taken to the target and told to attack.
"When I was supposed to kill one of the guards… she looked like Firestorm had, before the accident. I couldn't do it. The collar attempted to force me to submit, but I fell unconscious first. I woke up in an interrogation room here."
"How many others? Do you know what happened to them, or who was giving the orders?" Robin asked.
"The guards here," he nodded to Donner and Mr. Klocca, "would know more than I about the others. I never learned anything about the people holding the controls. Except," he recalled, "one of them was a large man who used martial arts to subdue another prisoner that fought the collar."
Robin pressed for a few more details while I kept my eyes on Firestorm. Then, he turned to her.
"It was the League of Shadows," she volunteered immediately. "I suffered from periodic seasickness – pyrokinetics do not like large bodies of water – and I was still awake when they came for us. I'd stepped outside to visit the all-night food service for something simple once there was nothing left in me to throw up, and I walked into the set-up of their ambush.
"They released a cloud of gas, and my nearest escape was away from the room where D-," she cut off.
"I don't mind. You can tell them my name. It's Darryl," Coldsnap volunteered.
"Got it. Keep going," Robin prompted.
"Where Darryl was sleeping. I don't know how or why, but even when I tried screaming, the entire fight was completely silent. In the end, I had to go over the side of the ship to escape."
"Didn't you say water was lethal to you? Shut down your powers?" Robin asked.
"No, I said that most pyrokinetics don't like water. But I never hit the water. I can't maintain it for very long, but if I turn the intensity high enough I can use my powers to fly like a jet. It left me exhausted, but I got to the shore before I collapsed."
What followed was the story of her shaking down the local underground, doing the math with a map for how far the Shadows could have traveled, and eventually tracking down a small base.
It was already mostly emptied out, but when she 'interrogated' the workers performing clea-
"Did you kill them?" Robin interjected sharply.
She hesitated, which I knew was a 'yes,' but did not offer any confirmation aloud.
"We cannot hold or try you for anything that was not done on German territory, or to a German citizen," Mr Klocca reassured her.
"…Yes. I found four of them and… I did whatever would make them talk. I killed one as an example, maimed the others, and then I killed them so they couldn't warn their bosses I was coming. By the time I made it to Germany, I couldn't trace where the Shadows had disappeared to, but the news was still buzzing about the attack Darryl had been forced to participate in, so I went to a government building. And here I am," she finished with a shrug.
We parted ways and walked back to an empty room.
"Is there any other business the Justice League would like addressed?" Mr. Klocca inquired.
"No, and this is a lot more than we were expecting. Knowing that the Shadows definitely were involved with this… thanks," Robin told him seriously.
"We are very grateful for your help," I recited with a short bow.
"As I said before, please do not include descriptions of your entry or our procedures in the Justice League archives, and if there were no computerized records kept it would be far better," Mr. Klocca emphasized. "Also, is it too much too inquire about the details of your investigation? I can form together an outline, of course, but-,"
"I'll put together a report for Batman to approve and send it over once he does," Robin promised.
I had my doubts about that course of action, but I held my peace.
"Do we exit the same way we entered?" I asked instead. 'I really do not want to feel that sick to my spirit-web ever again.'
"As a matter of fact, no," Mr. Klocca answered. I got the feeling that he was stopped from saying something else when Donner touched his shoulder warningly. "It is not a problem to arrange for you to exit through a different location. I am afraid that I have other duties to tend to, but Donner will escort you from here."
"I'll take them to Cupid and Blitzen?"
'There's definitely a theme... we passed a Dancer and I heard someone mention a Prancer and Robin is chuckling, but I don't know what it is.' I sighed and put it to the side.
"Of course you will," Mr. Klocca chuckled softly. "Off with you, then."
"Is there a way we can contact you? To send a report or ask for more information?" I inquired. Mr. Klocca walked off with a nod to Donner, who answered in his stead.
"If you send an email to any staff member of any German consul or embassy, include the word 'Sleigh' in the subject tag and it will reach one of us within the hour. To avoid wiretaps, there are no phone lines to this facility."
"That sounds like a good way to get viruses," Robin warned. Donner smirked smugly.
"The details of our defenses and firewalls are beyond your security clearance, but suffice to say that I am very certain of the strength of our security," she asserted as she led the way down the halls. She turned a corner to a dead end, and hesitated. "I apologize."
"You get us lost?" I asked. Robin snickered. Donner glared, but relented when I smiled amicably.
"I am not used to escorting guests. Usually," she began, and raised her head. Following her gaze, I looked up to see that the ceiling of the dead end stretched into a vertical hallway that connected several other floors. "Usually I would move from here to the fourth story up, but you are not able to do that. We shall need to take the hallway."
"I can jump, or be carried," I volunteered as I assessed the distance.
"My grapple gun can take me six stories up, no problem," Robin agreed.
"Is that so?" Donner asked. I caught a hint of challenge in her voice. "Then by all means." She bent her legs.
Robin fiddled with the grapple on his belt.
Allowing my breathing to fall into a meditative pattern, I focused only on storing my weight, even releasing my duralumin-mind. Then, when it was as low as I could safely go, I tapped my pewter-mind and felt my limbs tighten with force.
"Einz," Donner counted. 'I don't need to understand the language to recognize a countdown,' I considered, and decided, 'I'll just wait and jump after she does.'
"Zwei," Robin followed. They glanced at me. I did not bother to shrug, and was unwilling to interfere with my tapping.
"Three?" I tried.
Robin's grapple soared, Donner jumped, and I followed.
'It doesn't look like she has flight, but Donner's strength is at that crazy Earth level that's so common,' I considered as I got back to my feet after a rough landing. She nodded to us both and led us down the hall.
Several turns later, we came upon two more woman in uniform.
"Blitzen," Donner greeted warmly, and received a similar greeting.
"Donner," the other one said with a cordial nod.
I turned to Robin, because he had stopped in his tracks. "What is it?"
"Is there a problem?" Donner asked challengingly. Robin pointed at the unnamed woman, presumably the mentioned Cupid. She raised an eyebrow in calm challenge.
"Yesss?" she drawled.
"I know you've got a code name and we're not supposed to break your identity, but do these guys know because I recognize you I think?" She glanced around, gestured with one hand, Blitzen touched something on her belt, then Cupid gave a short nod.
"Speak. It is not so secret."
"Are you Jakita Wagner?" Robin asked. 'She was on the list, connected to one cryokinetic who was dead,' I remembered.
Her lips pursed into a thin line. "What business do you have with me?"
"It's… pretty low priority, but since we were looking into cryokinetics we wanted to ask you a few questions about Mister Elijah Snow, if you wouldn't mind."
"He has been dead for ten years," she responded severely.
"Yeah, that's why it was pretty low-priority," Robin acknowledged. "We could skip it pretty safely, but even if he kept out of the public eye, the Fourth Man-,"
"Where did you learn that title?" she snapped.
I kept calm, and Robin did as well, but I tapped tin, zinc, and steel in preparation for a fight. Donner did not take a very aggressive stance, but she was not happy.
Blitzen, while I was not looking at her, had either sped or teleported behind us both, and she remained standing there, which was why I focused my enhancements towards perceiving and reacting to any attack she might have made.
In the end, violence did not break out.
"Batman knows pretty much everything," Robin announced in a comically spooky voice, keeping his hands in plain sight away from his tools. More normally, my teammate added, "Besides, Bats apparently got some detective lessons from old man Snow before he died." Jakita Wagner's eyes bulged comically. "I'm not sure it means anything, but there was an identification phrase listed in his files? Should I…?"
Jakita Wagner jawed for a moment, and then regained her composure.
"You may stand down," she told the other two. "This has been an unexpected meeting, but unexpectedly fortuitous. I do not need to hear the phrase now," she informed Robin. "I am still on-duty here for some days, and I would prefer to discuss this matter in more privacy. I will contact the Justice League to arrange a meeting when I am off-duty."
"I have a private e-mail address," I volunteered. I rattled it off, Jakita Wagner recorded it, and we were escorted out without any further difficulty.
But, before we parted, Donner pulled me to the side to make a request.
"There are a few criminals, two in particular, who I have dedicated my life to bringing to justice. I agreed to join the government on the condition that they give me priority in any sightings and pursuits of those two. I still will hold to this, and I am loyal to my country whether or not I receive this information, but after six years I am beginning to worry that they may have escaped me. The Justice League has resources that reach wider, and they may approach this matter from a different angle. Would you be willing to forward to us any information the League has on them that you may access?"
"I would, but I am worried because you ask only me, and only in secret," I told her plainly. "Tell me why?"
Donner's expression did not change, but she hesitated.
"It is… a matter of personal shame to me: a matter of family honor. As such, I wish to cleanse this stain from my name personally. I saw Robin laid a wreath at the memorial. I would be ashamed to tell him of my reasons. If you do not know the story, it is less shameful to speak to you," she said, clearly even doubting her own decision to broach this matter.
'Donner has a good party mask, but her voice strikes me as sincere. I only barely caught a slight tremble, and she has controlled her reactions very well,' I assessed. 'I have been tapping connection for most of our interactions, so if it is important enough...' I pulled in a greater stream, no longer needing to conserve for the rest of the day.
It was fascinating to see Donner's expression faintly relax in response, confirming she had formed some connection with me.
"I want to here this reason, but I am willing. I… do not have he highest security clearance of my friends. May I tell others where to send it with the word 'Sleigh' if I do not tell them why?" I asked as a compromise.
"...That is acceptable." She nodded, once. "The two are Wolf Kreiger, an old man, and Albrecht. Albrecht Kreiger is either Wolf's brother, or his nephew, but he has a lengthened lifespan and may appear to be a young, blond man. His powers include strength, resilience, and flight. Wolf Kreiger is a much older man, and a powerful sorcerer believed to still be in possession of the Spear of Destiny, which is a… potent magical artifact. This matter is personal to me because," I caught only the slightest hitch in her voice, "Wolf Kreiger is also my great-grandfather, which I ask you to never reveal to another soul, living or dead. I feel responsible for stopping him."
"I am very good at keeping secrets. You have my word," I told her softly, before Robin and I departed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
* September 19 [M'gann PoV]
After dinner, and after I finished the last of my make-up homework, I went looking for Renka. She wasn't in any of the main rooms, and she didn't answer when I knocked on her door, but I knew she was still in the mountain.
Carefully, I opened my mind to what, before I met her, would have been my default state of receptiveness.
The waves of anxiety she was broadcasting nearly bowled me over, and it was hard to catch my default reaction and not reach out to soothe her like I almost ached to do.
'Arm hugs are better than mind hugs for her. Her mind has bruises, her arms do not,' I repeated to myself as I tracked her emanations. Out of an idle desire for practice, I translated the expression into English and winced. 'Hello Megan! I swear, I am never saying that out loud, it sounds ridiculous. Megan would complain about baby talk like in the episode - was it six or seven, I forget - the one where her classmate was sick and she caught it.' Renka was tucked away in a corner of the library at a computer station. She was perched precariously in the chair, with her knees pulled up to her chest. She had a search browser open and a word typed in, but she hadn't hit Enter yet.
"Hey," I said as I walked closer. She twitched her head at me in acknowledgement. I got the impression that it was the first movement she'd made in a while. "Is everything with you doing okay?" I asked as I peered over her shoulder.
"No," she said simply, to which I twitched nervously.
'Well, the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging it.' I couldn't make my optimism sound believable even to me. But Renka leaned in a little when I put an arm around her shoulder, so that was a good sign.
"What's 'Dachau'? Something bad?" I asked.
"Yes. I-it… Maybe?" 'Does she sound scared? Even when she was talking about slavery and abuses back home, she was more bitter or solemn than she was scared. It's probably not from Scarial if she wanted to look it up here, so…' "I do not know. That is the problem. I do not know and I do not think I want to know. Do not want to learn."
The wavering of her voice twisted something unpleasant inside me. It was like the first time I kissed Conner, except every good feeling from the kiss was a tearing, churning badness when I heard that. I wrapped my other arm around her.
"Do you… want to talk about it? With me?" 'Stupid M'gann, this is probably a human thing. She wouldn't trust you with anything like this. You don't deserve it.' "Or Black Canary? I know you talked with her before, too," I cajoled.
"I do not want to talk."
'Certainly not with M'gann,' the voice in my head that sounded like Dl'aav chimed. 'A Martian can never truly fit with humans, and a White Marti-,'
"Yet… I likely should talk, I think. Thank you," Renka continued heavily. My human body didn't have a preel, but my preel thrummed all the same. She sighed and turned to face me.
"Right! I can get Black Canary?" I offered as I pulled back.
"Why?"
"Um, okay! I wasn't sure if this was a human thing or not."
"It is a I thing, I think. Robin was not bothered, Mister Klocca was not bothered, Miss Donner was not bothered. Only me."
"I see… Bothered by what? Were those the people you went to meet with Robin?"
"Yes. We… went to a place the name of Dachau. It was in Germany. I do not know what, but a in the past, a very bad thing happened there. And again, and again, and more… I felt…" She hesitated. I saw Renka look at a specific ring, and at this range I could feel her make some choice. "Telepathy please?" I blinked at her. "Feeling M'gann has friend mind is better to feeling bad memories. Clean hurt, not rusty screw pain."
"If… you're sure. I don't want to hurt you."
"Please," she insisted, although she would not meet my eyes.
Like letting my human lungs breathe after sticking my head under the water, I relaxed my mind from its withdrawal.
[Is this okay?]
[Yes. Thank you M'gann. This is… it is like cauterizing a wound. I did not know I needed so badly this.]
[C-cau-?] Images of fire and the smell of burning meat flared through my mind. Renka had put a comforting, chilly hand on my brow before I had pulled too far away. [Stupid M'gann! Aren't you supposed to be comforting her? …Renka? Isn't cauterizing a wound burning it? Isn't that bad?]
She was giving me a careful look, and I hoped I hadn't said something wrong.
[Cleansing,] her mental voice corrected carefully, and her shoulders were a lot tenser than they'd just been. [When I went to Dachau… What does Earth refer to Cognitive Shadows as? Or, sorry, what does Mars refer to them as?]
[Ghosts?] I hazarded, examining the images of translucent minds that remained aware and present past the body's death. [You ran into ghosts? …I was about to think that ghosts aren't real, except we've seen other magical supernatural things. But Mars doesn't really have an idea of ghosts the way Earth does. Cognitive Shadows is closer to how we think of them. Do you mind if I borrow that term? It's connected to your Cognitive Realm, right?]
[Precisely,] she replied, her mind relaxing more against mine. She nestled into me physically as well, and I realized that she was still cool. I was about to think back that she didn't need to comfort me, but I got the wordless impression that she was comforting herself with it as well. I tightened my grip for a moment. […Thank you. Dachau… I did not meet or see any 'ghosts,' per say, but I experienced them. Something bad happened there, once. The place is a memorial to that atrocity, and while it soothes the awarenesses, it also gathers them together and keeps them there. It was… they were not hateful. But just walking through there… the pressure… It felt like swallowing cold sludge. Inhaling it, filling up lungs, trapped under filthy water.]
[That was them not being mad or trying to hurt you?!] I shuddered against her.
[Blizzards and floods and volcanoes do not hate. But even were they to actively try to help people, hurt could still occur. Even if one can manage to step on one ant and not crush it to death, while focusing on that ant, one cannot be sure that they have not unwittingly crushed others. It is why the greatest powers so rarely intervene directly, save when they are checked, or they don't care.]
[That sounds horrible,] I told her feebly.
[I have lived through worse. But I might not have minded not, at the time.] She probably felt my alarm once I deciphered her meaning, because Renka followed that with, [Not now. When I die, it will be for a reason. I am not eager to die any more…]
[Please be careful with your life,] I implored. [You and Conner both. He's hard to hurt, and you can heal, and you both should stop relying on that. Please, take more care with your lives.] She smiled at me, but I knew she would make me no promises.
[Why did you come looking for me? For which I am grateful, by the way,] Renka asked instead.
[That is… I came here because IpromiseIdidn'ttouchyourmindbutIcouldfeelyouwereupset-,] I cut off, but she only nodded at me patiently. [Right. But I started looking for you because I wanted to do some more experiments with my shape shifting speed.] We were in close enough connection that it also slipped out, [I wanted some comfort after what happened in Belle Reve.] I flinched, but Renka didn't let me pull away, no matter how humiliated I was by that childish admission.
[What happened in Belle Reve that I did not realize? Other than your and Conner's kiss?]
[How did you know about that?] She winced at my mental volume. [S-]"Sorry! Oh, I'm so sorry, did that hurt?"
[It is fine. For now. You sent me a snippet of memory earlier… with some other things. So, congratulations. Then… was it being frozen that upset you?]
[No. No, Martians are very resistant to cold temperatures. I didn't have any problems when I was with Uncle J'onn and we ran into that robot, Blue Bite. Fire is my weakness, not ice. But… I was frozen because I attacked Killer Frost to keep her from killing a guard. And I hadn't felt it at the time, but… other guards died, too. I let myself get frozen to keep cover, but if I hadn't maybe I could have saved them.]
[Or maybe they were already dead,] Ferris countered flatly, [or you did not feel them because they were out of your range and you could not know. Even so… no, I cannot tell you it was not your fault. But please, I want you to know – and I say this from experience – that you only bare a small part of the blame. The killers are to blame for committing murder. Icicle Senior and his cohort are to blame for organizing the breakout attempt. The Batman is to blame for sending you into that dangerous a situation without enough support. If he had chosen to warn the head of the prison of his suspicions, perhaps she could have avoided this. If he had more members of the League nearby to help you, the breakout could have been stopped. If the guards… no, that is unfair of me.]
[You mean there was nothing I could have done?] I asked, a tad testily, and more than a little desperately. Renka wrinkled her nose at me and blinked.
[Of course there are different things you could have done. There were also different things many other people could have done, and they had more reasons that they should do those things than you did. Do not let go of that guilt. Hold on to it, and remember. But do not be consumed. If you think about what you could have done differently, you must admit that you could have succeeded, or you could still have failed. Instead, turn inside your head, and thin-,]
Renka cut off with a hiss.
[What? What is it?] She waved her hands at me.
"The… telepathy was getting not nice. I am sorry. But… instead of what you could have done, think about what you should and will do in the future."
"I… see? Thank you," I told her. "I just… Killer Frost, her mind was so sick. Twisted, and jagged, and so hateful. It was like the only time she felt happy, the only time she had been allowed to feel happy, was when she was hurting people. It didn't… something made her like that and I don't know what, and I don't ever want to find out!" I shuddered at the memory of her thoughts, all sharp angles and apathy and predation.
"I know the want," Renka told me with a sick smile. I tried to smile back, because I recognized the similarities. She pushed me away lightly, and stood, and I was afraid I had upset her but her next words cleared that up. "I have an idea."
"What is it?" 'Oh thank Ma'azūm I didn't upset her she still wants to be friends.' I followed Renka, but she stopped after three steps. She hesitated, turned, and turned off the computer that had gone to sleep.
"It? Ah… It is safe to have ice on you for you?"
"Safe to freeze me? Yes, for an hour at least before I start to have bad problems."
"Then we will ask Kaldur to freeze ice, and you will practice using telepathy and telekinesis through the ice. For next time, yes?" I smiled at that, linked our arms, and together we went to find Kaldur.
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King Arthur
The Once and Future King
Think this is supposed to be told, not hold.
I'm genuinely not sure, is this supposed to be what or want?
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want, I think, in reference to Miss Martian's want of wanting to not know about what made Killer Frost like that.
Visiting ___ Episode 13
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
Episode 13: Visiting* September 21 [Renka PoV]
"Where?" I asked.
"Recently," the Superman told me, "a new hero by the name of Icon, and his sidekick- ahem, his partner Rocket, have been operating in Dakota City. The League likes to keep an eye out for new heroes, and Icon caught my particular interest. I've decided to go visit Dakota City and try to meet him, and get a feel for his character. Since he has a partner, I thought you might want to come along and compare notes as well."
"I do not mind being a sidekick," I reminded the Superman teasingly. "And I am happy to come. …May I, ah… Well. Is it good if I invite Superboy as well?" Superman coughed.
"Isn't Tuesday a school day? I didn't think he would still be in the mountain."
"Oh." 'Right, I forgot about that. After everything this past week- waaaaiit.' "Did you plan this on purpose?"
"No, no. I don't… mind Superboy. I'm just… I don't think I can be what he needs right now. Better to let someone else who can better help him step in. He doesn't deserve to spend his life in my shadow."
I raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Better to try and honestly fai- never mind," I dismissed. "Let us not fight this, so peace." He looked relieved. "What things should I bring?"
"Perhaps… I had planned on just a day trip, but Icon has been more active in the nights. Bring a change of clothes and a toothbrush, in case we stay overnight in Dakota City?" he suggested.
"Yes, sir. Will I have a fight?" 'How many combat-oriented metal-minds should I bring?'
"I don't expect a serious fight, but working together against a common enemy is a good way to measure a man's, or a woman's, character. Bring enough to handle a few muggers, a small gang, or an unexpected supervillain," he suggested. "Also, you don't have to call me sir."
'All of them it is,' I resolved. 'I'll keep the extras in my pack.' Aloud, I replied impishly, "Yes sir, Mister Almighty Lord Superman sir!" I skedaddled off to pack while he chuckled at me.
I did not have a pack in which to pack my things, but I remembered that Zatanna had brought many of her remaining things over in luggage. I would not have gone into her room without permission…
'Good, here it is,' I affirmed, opening a laundry closet door. 'I'm not sure if it's specifically hers, but I should probably leave a note for her either way. And a note to tell the others where I have gone to.'
I put on the black under-layer of my uniform, but decided against the brown armor portions for the time being. I put those and one change of clothes in the duffle with my metal-minds, and covered up with blue jeans, sneakers, and an autumn-leaf-colored knitted sweater. Finally, I put one hair tie in my hair and two more around my wrist like Zatanna had shown me to do.
I added, Wally, I have borrowed your Central City Swallows Baseball Hat to my note since he had left it on the couch again, threw the note on the kitchen table, and said a short good-bye to the Red Tornado when I passed him in the hallway.
"Ready!" I told Superman with a smile.
"That works as much better a disguise than I would have guessed," he complimented.
<Recognized: Superman, 01. >
<Recognized: Ferris, B06. >
"Metropolis," I assessed at a glance. "I thought you said we were going to Da-Coat-Ah?" Before he could answer, I realized, "There is not a Zeta Tube in Da-Coat-Ah, is there?"
"No, there is not," he confirmed. "The League puts the Tubes in significant or convenient areas in countries that give us permission, and as a courtesy we install them in the home cities of any League member, but Icon is not a member. I have train tickets for us for an hour from now. If you'll just-," he gave me a series of blocks and turns to follow that I noted down, "-you should come to Franz Afkeinz Memorial Park. I'll meet you there by the fountain after I change into more casual clothes."
I boggled. "You will give me your secret identity? I-," I jawed at him, flattered, slightly worried, and a little guilty about whether or not I was going to tell Conner.
He chuckled. "Who says I only have one secret identity?" I blinked at him. 'I want to see this,' I decided. "Get going," he chided me lightly.
I knew I probably shouldn't, but I wanted to be sure I would not be fooled in a bad way. So, I leaned in to give Superman a quick, one-armed hug; when my face was pressed into his shoulder I tapped into olfactory scenting from my tin-mind and inhaled. 'And if I have any doubts, I can use that to double-check, but I will not use it casually,' I resolved.
I stepped into the street and began navigating. I knew roughly where I was, and roughly where the park was, because I had patrolled on the roofs through this area several times before. But when did I become lost, a woman I asked happened to be taking her two sons to that same park, and she allowed me to walk beside her as we went. I parted from her with a wave, sat on a bench beside the fountain, and watched the four- and three-year-old boys laugh as they ran around with other children.
The sun was clean and bright. The breeze was brisk, but clear of all soot and ash. I knew I was not supposed to drink from the fountain, but it still was cleaner than most of what I drank in my life.
I took the chance to store away in some of my metal-minds, and then I basked in the beautiful outdoors.
"Ruff!" I turned my head at the sound, and a white dog with a harness and leash pressed his nose against me.
"Eh? What is it, Rip?" the man holding the leash asked. He was tall and broad, but his chestnut brown hair fell almost to his shoulders. Around his mirrored sunglasses, the skin I saw was the discolor of old scar tissue. But even though his back was bent, his hands looked strong, and his cheekbones…
"Mister El?" I hazarded. The dog nosed me again, so I held out one palm and scratched behind his ears with the other.
"Oh-ho! Fair is the day that we have met, young lady," he told me with a twang in his voice.
'Fair is… Ferris.'
"What name do I call you?" I asked carefully.
"Most people call me Carl, even though my mother pronounced it Kal-El," he slurred with a friendly grin. I chuckled at him.
'Now, what pun can I make to continue our game?' I wondered. A perfect one from when we had gone to a restaurant hit me. "Well, Mister Carl, I was meeting a friend here for lunch. Which do you prefer… super salad?" He laughed.
"I've never heard that one before. Congratulations," he chuckled once the guffaws died down. "Truth be told, I like my salads small and on the side, but people rarely let me eat them that way. Everyone's always warning me about my cholesterol."
I decided against asking what that word meant, and I stood instead. "Shall we go? And the dog…?" I didn't know exactly what I wanted to ask, so I let him add in the unsaid.
"His name is Rip. It's short for Krypto," he told me quietly as we began to exit the park. "I'm Carl Keanes, legally blind, with my seeing-eye dog, Rip. So, don't ask me to read anything in front of anyone." He was walking slower than usual, letting Krypto lead the way, and I moderated my pace to match. "Also, here. Would you like to wear these?" He passed me a set of gaudy plastic sunglasses with bright, glowing neon orange frames. "They should cover your distinctive eye-color pretty well."
"You are very good at this," I complimented, sincerely impressed. I slid the glasses on.
"My friend 'Bartholomais,' or Bats for short, gave me lessons. When he changes around he makes me look amateur and obvious," Superman explained as we waited to cross a busy street. "Toward the building with the large clock," he instructed. I changed direction obligingly, and Krypto pulled him in the new direction a moment later.
"Maybe I should ask for lessons?" I wondered.
"He's been known to give them on special occasions, but they are intense, several days long at a minimum, and he has a strict No Powers policy while you're studying under him."
"That is good. The better I am without… metal," I edited, "the more better I will become with it. I should ask, later."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," he chuckled.
~
The train was not as impressive as the Bio-Ship, but the nearness to the outside and the ability to watch through the window and feel the passing wind made it enthralling in its own right. We passed through several stops – I did not bother to keep count – and I considered the hours well spent by storing into my metal-minds and watching out the window.
When the announcement declared <Dakota City> I followed Superman off of the train and out of the station.
"I feel like a late lunch, don't you?" he suggested. I had been tapping my bendalloy-minds to ignore the slight hunger pangs on the train, but the chance to eat more and store a little was always welcome.
"Yes, please. Where?"
"You'll have to decide. I can't exactly read the signs, now can I?" he teased me. I sighed at him and did my best to read the buildings on the streets I randomly led us through.
'Perfect. Most restaurants have a No Animals policy, but there are tables outside so it should not be a problem.' When we were seated and had ordered, I asked, "What will we do after this?"
"To contact Icon? I'll change into my uniform and make an appearance stopping a mugging or something. That will alert the news stations, and if that isn't enough to let him know we're here, you and I can be seen around the rooftops in public areas. As long as we stay in sight, Icon will be able to find us at his leisure."
"Mm." I did not have further questions, so we chatted about inconsequential things until the food arrived. I mentioned Superboy again – I doubted he would have minded, but he had not given me permission to tell the Superman his name, Conner – and I was pleased that Superman did not immediately shy away from the subject.
"I'm glad he's settling in," he concluded after a bite of his mayonnaise smothered French fries, once I had finished relaying his new journey into the school and then into Belle Reve. A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "He's successfully doing more difficult things than I was most of my teenage years, and you can tell him I said that, too."
"I might, if I catch him in a bad mood," I baited.
"Don't you mean a good mood?" he asked me, as I had sought. I smiled as I shook my head slowly.
"No, in a bad mood. If he is in a good mood before I say, then he will not be in a good mood after, because he will be less happy because I am closer to you to hear you say that more than he is." 'I know I messed that up a little, but I think I got the point across.' "Yet, if I say when he is in a bad mood, he will, I think, feel better because he has impressed you." I punctuated it with a nod, a hum, and the theft of another one of his fries.
I avoided the half with mayonnaise, but he had only drizzled ketchup over the other half, and I had commandeered the table's mustard to make a dipping pool on my empty salad plate.
"Well, you would know more about his moods than I would," Superman conceded.
I gratefully conceded our brief competition to pay the bill, and we left the restaurant to find a nook beside the tallest building in the immediate area.
"Change here?" I plopped my bag on the ground, and reached for the hem of my sweater.
"Keep your clothes on," he implored me. He folded his sunglasses into the side pocket of his olive backpack, and looked carefully around, up, and even down. "I'll hold your bag. You just hold on." I did, and because I could guess his plan, I stored my weight to be obliging.
The world blurred into a rush of wind that peeled my eyes closed, and I might have let go if he were not also holding me. Four seconds later, my feet touched the roof of the thirty-six floor building. 'I still have not found out why English also calls them stories,' I remembered with a touch of irritation. 'Still, I doubt Superman knows, and it can wait for now.'
I stepped away and out of my sneakers, shucked off my sweater, slid my legs from my jeans, and bent over to unzip the bag. Superman had also turned his back to remove his clothes, and I rolled my eyes.
'I appreciate the gesture, but we both had our outfits on under our clothing,' I observed with some exasperation when the blue bodysuit was revealed under his shirt. But because he had expressed a desire for privacy by giving me mine, I made a point to turn my back to him as well while I changed.
Krypto had no such compulsions, and I paused in fastening on my torso armor to scratch his ears and dissuade him from sticking his nose in the way.
"Good dog. Go sniff Superman." He whuffled softly, and then jumped over me and soared to lick at Superman's cheek. "…Muh?"
'Of course the dog can fly. I have seen humans with powers, humans who turn into animals, and humans who turn into animals with fire powers. This should not surprise me.' It still had. 'Well, that explains how Krypto got on the roof without Superman holding him. …I know that Superman is an alien, but is the dog- but is Krypto an alien as well?'
"Hey… good boy… Sorry, did he startle you?" I realized I was still staring.
"No… Well, yes. I should not be startled. But I am confused." I finished the last attachments of my armor in an embarrassed hurry. "Is Krypto from Krypton? Like you? A Kryptonian dog? Is Krypto a dog?" I met Krypto's eyes as he lolled his tongue at me. "Do I owe him to say sorry because he can think and I did not think so?"
"Don't worry. Krypto is very intelligent – he can read and understand several languages, and he could probably write them if he ever bothered – but his mind is different, too. He likes doing things like this, and if he was upset, he would have let you know. He likes you, too, and he's a good judge of character." He scratched behind Krypto's ears.
"Ah." I accepted that Superman would not answer whether or not Krypto was from Krypton, and stepped forward to also scratch behind his ears and let him lick my face.
"Krypto… he's one of the sources for why I dislike genetic engineering and cloning."
'Oh, so he is going to answer that question.' I tuned in and gestured for him to continue.
"Back on Krypton, there were scientist who foresaw its coming destruction, but they were ignored by the majority. My Kryptonian birth father, Jor-El, was one of them. He did not hold with genetic 'meddling,' and he disapproved of his comrades who did, but he had to work with them because he did not have enough influence on his own to try to save the planet.
"One of his co-workers was running a series of genetic experiments, using infant and embryonic members of a native Kryptonian animal species. He volunteered one experimental subject to test that young living beings could survive the long trip in suspended animation in the rocket." I understood progressively less of what he meant by that, but I did not feel the need to translate, since I could request more clarification later.
I nodded slightly. "Yes?"
"So they sent the genetically engineered life form – the species was called a rùsq, I believe – in the rocket to this solar system. But because he was short on time and only needed to make sure the life-support systems were working, Jor-El did not calculate the rocket's trajectory too closely." He sighed. "So that rocket remained floating in space until it happened to catch a signal from Earth about me, and then it used the last of its fuel to redirect here. I tracked it down when it crashed, and the systems made Krypto look more like a dog than a rùsq so he wouldn't stand out while he grew up. Rùsq don't usually fly or have strength and resilience, or as much intelligence as he does, but those are from the modifications. He doesn't have any unusual vision or hearing, though."
"A long story. You," I told Krypto as I scruffled his ears and neck, "are a very lucky person." He licked me. "Will he be here to meet Icon, too?"
"No. I was…" the Superman hesitated.
"I do not need to know," I reassured him blithely, "I am only questioning."
"Well." He smiled at me. "I usually have Krypto stay with my Earth parents to keep them safe." My insides lurched when I processed exactly what he had just revealed to me. "I borrowed him for the day before I came to get you, but it's about time to be getting back, don't you think boy?"
"Ruffuff!" Krypto barked, and he bounded into the air and away.
While I watched Krypto go, I decided that if Superman was not going to say anymore about his secrets, then I would only say one thing before I did likewise.
"Thank you," I told him softly. I chose an appropriately close building to jump to, and together we took to the skies.
Visiting- part 2
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 21 [Superman PoV]'We made a bit more of a splash than I had intended; I hope Icon won't feel we were stepping on his toes,' I considered as I watched the setting sun with Ferris. 'Still, stopping that bank robbery on our own was the right thing to do.'
When I first expressed interest in Icon after the news report where he admitted he was not human, but had made Earth his home, Diana had been quick to warn me that he was probably not a Kryptonian, despite our similar 'flying brick' power-sets, since we looked nothing alike. I had held the same thoughts despite the hope in my heart.
I was surprised when Bruce spoke up in favor of my approaching Icon. The chagrin on Diana's face when he pointed out, "Both humans and Martians are species with a variety of races; we have no reason to believe that Kryptonians are any different," was a rare sight. Bruce also made it clear that he had no reason to believe Icon was from Krypton either, and had done only perfunctory research that did not point to either option.
From him, it was an admission that he still knew how much I longed for more ties to my lost origin, and he had left it untouched despite his paranoia because he had predicted I would prefer to find out for myself. It was probably the most touching expression of emotion I had received from him in the past two years, and it warmed my heart to remember how good a friend he was to me despite his constant emotional constipation.
The last touches of orange dimmed on the horizon, and the stars had begun to shine dimly in the sky. I hopefully stretched out my super-hearing, and I heard two energy trails hum closer to our location through the air.
'Good.' I felt warm satisfaction as I turned my head to meet them.
*Brrrzeep!*
A familiar sound reached my ears and washed all that away with annoyance. I couldn't help but groan.
"Oh no, not them."
"Not us? Man, talk about being rude, what kind of greeting is 'not them'?" A girl's voice complained sharply. I opened my eyes and realized that Icon and Rocket had arrived. And I had timed my complaint perfectly. "So tell me, who was the Big Blue Boy Scout expecting to meet him, flying around Dakota City like all that? Woody Allen?" Rocket had her arms crossed in challenge as she hung in the air in front of us. Icon didn't look upset, but that was because I couldn't discern any emotion on his face, other than patience. Ferris was looking between us, but had leaned back, content to not intervene.
'I did not want our first meeting to go like this. I'd better clear this up and find those robots.' I floated off the roof to meet them and extended my arms in reconciliation.
"Not you, I meant-,"
"Yeah, you said! Not us. So, who were you expecting to show up?" Rocket interjected.
"Rocket," Icon rumbled gently.
"Oh, don't you go protecting him, I want to hear him explain himself! Didn't anyone teach that man manners?"
'I said exactly the wrong thing, didn't I?' I let her harangue me a bit – I certainly deserved it – while I thought about how to fix both of my speaking mistakes.
"Are you familiar with the Blue Bot series?" I asked when she paused for breath.
"I- wai- what?" she stumbled. "No, never heard of it. Movie, book, or show and what does it have to do with you?"
"I believe," Icon said, "that the Flash and his partner fought an ice robot that identified itself as Blue Bite, mark four, less than a week ago. Wonder Woman also fought a teleporting robot that claimed to be Blue Beam, mark five, two days prior to now. Is that the Blue series you refer to?"
"Yes. I-," I cut off, because Ferris had tapped me and risen to her feet.
"Blue Beam, mark two?" she double-checked the names she'd encountered with me. "Blue… Boom? Mark one?"
"Yes," I confirmed. "It wasn't just those two. Over the past month, nearly every member of the Justice League has had to fight a robot that identified itself as 'Blue' something-or-other and a make-number. I've had to fight them five times, of which Ferris was present for two engagements."
"Uh," Rocket grunted, but she didn't say anything.
"My inappropriately timed comment, for which I must apologize," I avowed sincerely, "was because as I was listening to your approach, my ears recognized the sound of Blue Beam's teleportation. It's somewhere in that direction, but I lost the trail, and my words were because I was frustrated that an annoying fight was going to interrupt my chance to meet you." I smiled floated closer, and extended my hand first to Rocket. "I am Superman. It's a pleasure to meet you, Rocket. What I've seen of your work with Icon has been very impressive. I hope we can start over from my mistake." She blushed when she shook my hand.
"O-oh. Um, yeah, I'm sorry I went off on ya like that, but it sounded really rude."
"I certainly deserved it," I chuckled. "May we start anew? And you are Icon?"
"Superman," he greeted in return as we shook.
"Ferris!" my proto-sidekick called lightly from the rooftop. Rocket swooped past me and settled down to shake her hand, while Icon and I followed.
"Rocket. Nice to meet'cha. You made a lot of waves when you showed up working with Big Blue in July, and there's a lot I want to ask you if ya don't mind?"
"We should address the robots, first," Icon suggested. Both Rocket and Ferris got serious. "Where did you hear the teleport arrive?" I turned, trying to remember.
"It was this way." Ferris hopped onto my shoulder and I led the way through the sky.
"Hey. Are you two… together?" Rocket asked.
"I think, yeesss…" Ferris hazarded.
'She doesn't know what together means in this sense.' "We work together, and I'm helping her get her feet under her, but not like you mean, Rocket. Ferris's powers don't include flight, so she usually jumps between the rooftops, but this is faster when we have to travel a long distance."
"Ah. No, not together," Ferris agreed.
"Got it, got it. I was pretty sure you still had that thing with Lois Lane, but the way some of the rags have been talking… well, they never get anything right. I should have known better than to believe them," Rocket apologized.
"No offense taken," I assured her. "The transport was right here, but they're gone now." We settled into a stable hover over a three-story brick building. "I can't hear anything else."
"How dangerous are these robots?" Icon inquired.
"I would say, not very. Other than Wonder Woman's fight with Blue Beam, I don't believe any of the fights have taken longer than five minutes. It only took her that long to hit Blue Beam, but he went down after the first hit. According to reports, Blue Bite Mark One, Blue Bolt Mark One, and Blue Boom Mark Three all were taken down by untrained civilians."
'Granted, Ollie actually took down Blue Bolt Mark One in civilian guise when it tried to attack the mayor's office, but since his civilian identity was the one that took it down in front of the cameras, I can't admit that or leave it out.'
"So, we can each take one each? Competition to see who crushes their tin can first!" Rocket called.
"Actually, all four robots have only ever acted alone. If they didn't all use similar designations and designs, we'd have no reason to believe they were connected," I informed her. That appeared to take the wind out of her sails. 'I'm so glad I never had to deal with an enthusiastic battle junkie for a sidekick. Ferris has had her own problems acculturating, but nothing like what Barry, Bruce, and Ollie have complained about.'
"Well, that's just great. Dibs on whichever one is running around here!"
Icon didn't say anything.
"Dibs?"
"She wants to fight it alone," I explained to Ferris. "That-,"
*clank*
A metallic footstep. All four of us spun to face the sound.
*clank. clank. clank*
The robot stylized with the jagged, yellow-on-blue Blue Bolt pattern stepped into view from around the corner.
<Your challenge is heard and accepted, designation Rocket. >
"I thought you said the robots were He's," she complained as she touched down warily. The female voice and the masculine shape had confused me to, at first.
<Gender is an affectation of the flesh, designation Rocket. Blue Bolt Mark Eight is an android format, regardless of the voice synthesizer, but will answer to any pronoun. What do you suggest as the limits of the duel? >
"What, you're seriously just gonna duke it out with me, just like that?"
"From past experience, I'd have expected you to be a little more destructive," I inserted cautiously.
<As the Blue Bolt series' combat protocols improve with each retrieval of the prior, destroyed marks' data, so too does the understanding of culture and communication. Observed prototype models were needlessly hostile and destructive; Blue Bolt Mark Eight is set to attempt diplomacy before resorting to previously used inefficient-if-successful methods. >
"Meaning if Rocket decides not to fight, you will start destroying things," I summarized.
<Affirmative. >
"Well, that ain't going to be a problem," Rocket asserted. I wanted to warn her to be careful, or not to take the bait…
'If Icon doesn't feel the need to intervene, then it isn't my place to. Still, if the robots share some collective intelligence…'
"Does anything in your programming suggest a respect for law and order, and not fighting and committing crimes?" I asked.
<Negatory. Under the United States of America's legal codes, robots are not recognized as living beings, and thus lack the rights to commit or be the victims of criminal activity. As such, laws forbidding such activities do not apply to us. Were this matter rectified, then the Justice League would be bound to address why they passed the death penalty on Blue Bot series prototypical makes without arrest or trial. Designation Rocket, state the terms of the duel? >
I felt a twisting twinge of guilt at the second-to-last comment, as destroying the robots was like killing them, and I certainly considered Red Tornado a person.
"…Weird," Rocket said before she got her head back in the game. "Well, uh… How about, best out of three? We don't leave this place and we don't use lethal force, and the one to get pinned for a count of five or thrown out of the ring loses the round?" I wanted to object, to worry, to find out more… but everything seemed to be under control.
<Within acceptable parameters. Initiate the countdown: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. >
"Go!" Rocket yelled, and shot her hands out. An oblong bolt of kinetic force, glowing more brightly to my vision than to human eyes, rippled out at the robot. Electricity crackled around its arms, but Blue Bolt did not move to defend or evade.
*brrt-zzzt*
It teleported like the leaping of a spark, appearing several feet to one side. Mild electric charges- 'At least it doesn't appear to want to hurt Rocket in this fight,' -arced from its outstretched arm. Rocket levitated straight up, though she yelped in pain when one bolt still caught and danced along her leg.
"Try this on for size!" She fired another kinetic blast, and the same series of events – teleport, counter-attack, flying dodge – repeated, except that Rocket dodged completely. "How's about now!"
"Are you sure this is wise?" I asked Icon.
"…No," he confided as the same series repeated again. "However, the robot has couched this in a manner that our best option is to co-operate until it springs the expected trap. Or, perhaps we may be pleasantly surprised."
"I hope so," I muttered. Rocket finally changed tactics, and swooped down to engage it in melee. She drew back her hand to strike.
A torrent of electricity flooded from Blue Bolt. Rocket hit the ground with a scream, and it pinned her with one foot. I almost intervened then, but my eyes showed me that her nerves and organs were still functioning properly, and I heard the robot begin to count.
<One. Two. Three. Four. Five. This unit claims victory in the first round of three. >
It removed its foot to allow Rocket to catch her breath. After twitching and gasping a little, she stood.
"Well, you won that one fair an' square." She shook out her arms. "Alright, Ah'm ready for round two when you are."
< Initiate the countdown: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. >
She lifted into the air and began rapid-firing smaller force blasts.
*brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt* *brrt-zzzt*
Blue Bolt teleported out of the way, but it appeared unable to teleport into mid-air. It continued releasing smaller charges in retaliation, but Rocket kept rising higher and had more freedom to avoid them.
"Got ya!" she shouted, and swung her arms wide after quickly tapping her belt. Two waves of force followed the motion, projecting a V-shape open end first toward Blue Bolt. It had nowhere within its displayed range to teleport to, but Rocket could not dodge when-
*BRRZzzzzt*
-it chose to counter with larger branches of electric charge.
Rocket collapsed to the ground, hurt, but ultimately unharmed, while Blue Bolt was knocked across the field.
Blue Bolt rose up again.
<One. Two. >
"No-ope! I won this one," Rocket called, still prone on the ground.
<Three. Four. Five. Negatory, Designation Rocket. You- >
"I'm on the ground, but you are out of bounds. That don't have a time count," she countered, trying to stand. Blue Bolt was silent, and I expected denial and violence to break out at any moment.
<Affirmative. The count is tied with one victory apiece. >
I sighed in relief. 'Maybe I really am misjudging the robots. If the earlier models weren't programmed to be intelligent enough, or to know… But that still doesn't explain who is doing the programming.' I had no recourse but to wait, and observe.
*clank. clank. clank*
Blue Bolt stepped back into boundaries as Rocket stood back up again.
<Are preparations completed? >
"This one's for all the samolians, huh?" She fiddled with the belt again. "Ready when you are, tin can."
<Your insults are meaningless, meatbag. >
'Was that… did it just make a joke?' Robots had perfect poker faces, so I couldn't tell.
<Initiate the countdown: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. >
Rocket threw out her hands, and this time a bubble of force appeared around Blue Bolt. It attempted to move, but could not. It attempted to strike the force physically, and its hand rebounded weakly.
<Analyzing unrecognized use of kinetic energy manipulation. >
"Yes! I've been trying to get that to work for the last month!" Rocket cheered. The male-shaped robot's female-tinted voice spoke up again.
<This is a creative and unexpected use of kinetic force, but this unit is neither pinned nor out of bounds. Observations suggest it rapidly exhausts your battery charge and leaves you unable to move. >
"Eh…" Rocket trailed off, no longer smiling. Electricity arced out at her… and the branching arcs were grounded into the earth two-thirds of the way to her position. "So glad I measured that right. So you can't blast me and I can't hit you… but there's another trick to this bubble. It's a little tricky to set up… but…" I noticed she was sweating as she twisted her hands, and she appeared alter settings on her mechanical belt with careful twists and shimmies of her hips.
I looked away, embarrassed that I had so intently watched a teenage girl… 'shake her booty,' as the phrase was.
"It is a little awkward, when she does that style of manipulation," Icon noted sympathetically.
"…yeah… With a little… careful effort… I should be able to turn this into an inertia-less field," she explained slowly. "I need… to get the… se-settings right… but you should just fall over, and that'll be a pin."
<Information registered. This unit is grateful that designation Rocket has provided this information. >
"Eh?"
There was an electric hum and a series of metallic clicks as panels on its arms opened. Various antenna, wires, and other implements extended out. I got ready to intervene again, if necessary.
It turned out not to be.
I caught an odd whine on the edges of my hearing, and-
"Whoa!"
-Rocket flipped through the air. I rushed a few yards to the side and caught her, and then had to resist a noticeable force that still pushed on her after she was thrown out of bounds.
<Designation Rocket has left the specified boundaries. Experimental test of field projector has proved successful. This unit claims victory of the duels. >
"Y-yeah… yeah, I guess you win. So, now what?" Rocket asked as I left her down. "Thanks for the catch," she muttered to me. I smiled back and she tried to hide her slight blush.
<Processing. Processing. >
Blue Bolt didn't do anything for few moments. Ferris hummed worriedly.
"Do we do an action?" she asked me quietly.
"We wait and see, I suppose. Although, if diplomacy has been more successful…?" I raised my voice toward Blue Bolt. "What do you want now? You've had your fight, and run your tests, and you're still intact? Would it be possible to speak with the one that constructed you?"
<Negatory, > the female voice informed us. <The presence of designation Superman and designation Ferris is significant to designate category Blue Bot Series' arrival to this location. The revelation of the transport and arc range limitations is sub-optimal, but active tests of the field generator, sonic disruptor, and defensive radiance distortion effect have all proven successful. Calculations indicate that now is an optimal occasion to progress to the secondary goals of trialing collaborative technology use, which may over-lap with tertiary goal to invalidate designate category Justice League members. >
'I knew this was too peaceful to last.' I sighed heavily as Blue Bolt's generators began to thrum, and readied myself to take it down fast. 'Will melee brute force or heat vision at range be more effective?'
Beside me, Rocket fell into a rough martial arts stance, Ferris hummed as she readied herself, and Icon uncrossed his arms with a heavy sigh.
Then, we were treated to an unpleasant explanation of exactly how the sonic disruptor and the defensive radiance distortion effect had been tested on us that night.
*Brrrzeep!*
*clank. clank. clank*
Where before my vision and hearing had found nothing, a camouflage field shimmered away, and three other robots stepped into view. 'I knew I heard Blue Beam's teleportation. And Ollie confirmed that it could project an invisibility field, although I never imagined it could have fooled my x-ray and infrared vision as well. And if Blue Boom can generate sound waves, it isn't much of a stretch to believe that it can muffle sounds as well.'
"Earlier, you noted diplomacy was effective," Icon began. "Tell me, Blue Bot series members, if we agree to fight you four-on-four of our own will, would you consider agreeing to move this battle outside of city limits, so that we may avoid unnecessary casualties?" I held my breath and hoped, as the group seemed to consider the offer.
"We heroes will be more willing to use our full abilities for you to analyze if we don't have bystanders to worry about," I added. All four robots' eyes glowed, and my ears picked up the faintest whine of a broadcast signal.
<Under the new situation's reorganization of priorities, preservation of these units is no longer necessary. >
I was momentarily distracted by the disconnect of all four robots sharing the same male chassis and female voice. Then something in my chest wilted at the words, as I knew what was about to happen. Blue Boom, with a glowing pattern of circles, picked up from where the hexagonally decorated Blue Bite had left off.
<Updated protocols include attempting the destruction of designate category Humans. Casualties are optimal. Procee- >
I didn't wait to hear more. My eyes stung as I flared my heat-vision at Blue Boom, and flew in at high speeds to smash the others' exoskeletons with my fists. I smashed through the wall of ice that began to melt as it appeared and sadly but efficiently broke the group of robots.
I suffered a moment of uncertainty when my fists passed through them to no effect. 'Phasing? No, holograms,' I realized once I remembered Blue Beam's recent reported upgrade to project holograms and illusions.
Ice coated me in a casing at least a foot thick. My heat-rays liquefied and began to boil the ice in front of my eyes and I flexed my muscles to shatter it.
'It's reforming and refreezing, filling in the cracks as quickly as I make them. Blue Bite is continuously refreshing the ice coating, but that means that as long as I work to escape it can't focus on harming the others. I know! There's nothing pinning me to the ground; I'll fly up out of range and shatter the ice in mid-air.' Having so decided, I began to lift upwards.
First, the electric shock hit me, but my natural invulnerability made me largely immune to all but the highest voltage shocks. Natural lighting could injure me, I knew from first-hand experience, but little less than that would be effective.
However, as even children know, after the lightning comes the thunder, and vibrations travel better through solids and liquids than through gasses.
Blue Boom's sonic hammer pulsed through the ice, and it hurt. One of my eardrums may have ruptured, and the waves jangled my organs and rattled my bones.
I realized suddenly that I was in the air, and no longer being attacked. Looking down, despite my head swimming, I saw a trail of snowmelt and slush falling from my cape down to Earth. 'Of course. I was flying up, and the ice was less sturdy and shattered from the sound.' Then I recovered enough to remember that I needed to help, and I dropped like a meteorite, aiming to even the odds by pulverizing Blue Boom. The ring-decorated robot could use the most dangerous area-of-effect abilities, and if Icon also had enhanced hearing then it could worry him as well. Worse, I saw Rocket sway dangerously inside her own kinetic bubble, suggesting that she had suffered a damaged eardrum as well.
My fist passed through Blue Boom uselessly, and I killed my momentum inches before it would have pulverized and cratered the ground. Seeing Ferris unexpectedly break out of a half-melted ice block and tear off Blue Bite's left hand before Bolt's electricity forced Icon to pull her spasming body to safety despite the lasers that sniped at him, I knew my first target.
I flew an evasive pattern and raked the battlefield with a heat-beam targeting pattern to be safe while I assessed Blue Beam's location in relationship to its laser blasts. Despite its name, Blue Beam was shooting off a kaleidoscope of colored lasers as Rocket drunkenly ducked, rolled, and weaved.
'They're generating slightly off-center from its apparent body, and the scorch marks indicate that the lasers aren't faked.' I swung through the air with firm resolve. The holograms flickered when my heat-beams hit the real Blue Beam in its left shoulder, six inches from where it appeared to be, and my fist homed in to crush it once and for all.
*Dweep! Brrrzeep!*
*brrt-zzzt*
'Teleportation,' I mentally complained, but my backhand strike caved in the right side of Blue Bolt's chassis, despite my suffering the electricity it had teleported into range to blast me with. My one good ear had picked up both the sound of its departing teleport, and the distinct sound of its arrival, and I swung around to locate it dead-on.
My heat-beams melted off its left hand and arm as it raised both at me while I flew at it. I flew fist first through the red laser that flashed out from its remaining hand, and then I knew only pain.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So would that be red sun radiation to actually hurt Superman like that then, or merely a very powerful laser?
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Given Young Justice, normally I'd want to blame Ivo for this (and maybe actually him instead of one of his bots tinkering on their own.) This is a very different and honestly more interesting robot threat than usual, though.
Visiting - part 3
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Life Ore Death
* September 21 [Rocket PoV]'Aw c'mon! How does one of the coolest nights of my life drop down the crapper so quickly? I should have just smashed that first damn robot when I had the chance,' I reflected bitterly. I'd been concussed, beaten, and/or bruised too many times in the past, so I could still maneuver around despite whatever that ringed robot had done to my head. It killed my sense of balance, but the belt had enough of a charge left to push my body in the ways I directed it.
'And now I need to rescue the Man of Steel himself,' I realized, and spent enough of the belt's juice to fly over to where he had fallen, pale and shaking, against a brick wall.
"Don't tell me it pulled some of that kryptonite on you?" I pleaded as I hauled him behind a further off dumpster for cover. 'All the internet stuff said that Kryptonite glows green, and that light looked red, but what would I know either way?'
"R-r-re-red s-s-sunlight… radi- laser," he stuttered out weakly. I was relieved that he knew what he'd been hit with, but it still wasn't looking good. "Sa-same effect," he wheezed. " Weak-k. M-my belt… c-com-m-municator." His hand was shaking worse than an arthritic grandma's, but he tried to reach for it anyway. I grabbed the thing off his belt, flipped it open, and tried everything I could think of to make it turn on.
"No good." I pressed it into his hand and pulled away when I heard another laser fire and the crackle of more lightning. "That shock must have burned it out. I gotta go – they need my help. You stay safe here while we fix them right good."
"Y-y-," he tried to say, but I didn't have any more time to stay and listen if he wasn't about to die, because if I didn't jump in to help it was possible that Icon and Ferris could die.
'I didn't give him enough credit for being upset when these bozos showed up,' I lamented. 'This is on a whooole 'nother level from druggies, muggers, and gang-banger punks.' I hurt and I knew I was in a lot of trouble if they'd taken Superman down, but at the same time I felt a little more alive as I flew across the ground. This was what I had wanted and hoped for, in part. Big dangers that ordinary people couldn't take down. I was doing it. 'Even if it ends up bein' the last thing I do,' I decided wolfishly.
I hit the field again and found out we weren't in as bad shape as I had thought. Ring-bot with the sonic tech had toppled over, minus one arm and one leg. The jagged bot I'd been suckered into showing off against had somehow Star Wars style Force Pushed Ferris four feet off the ground and against a wall, but it had a gaping crater in its chest. Its thunderbolts kept crackling on and then shorting out whenever it tried to zap her, so it couldn't do much more than hold her there.
I propelled towards the streaked robot with the lasers, which wasn't actually firing any lasers. Rings was throwing out visible pulses of sonic energy from its good hand, hammering Icon just enough to keep him tied up trying to pulverize the ice robot. I was glad to note that despite the small lasers it was trying to fire from its eyes, not only had the laser robot had its left arm melted to slag, but from the elbow down its forearm was so much twisted scrap.
I flew straight at it.
*Dweep!*
'It teleported out of the way,' I realized, and I couldn't correct my course with the way everything was swimming. My force aura protected me from most of the hit when I clipped Rings, but we both went tumbling in different directions.
<Scenario has become infeasible. Initiating Reinforcements Arrangement in Ten. Nine. >
The voice rang through my head as I found myself staring at the silent, sparking, Blue Bolt robot. I was less than a yard from it, on the ground, and too
woozy to move.
<Eight. Seven. >
Its attempts to torture-shock Ferris had fizzled out halfway, but I was well within that range. I braced for the burst of bad!wrong!pain as Blue Bolt turned its head to face me and crackled.
<Six. Five. Four. >
Off to the side, on the far side of the robot, I saw Ferris's face suddenly unslacken, from confusion, into a look of sharp, decisive awareness. I didn't see what she did, but she dropped to the ground as some force twisted the robot's one good arm away and it over-balanced.
<Three. Two. >
Icon shouted something and there was more noise and I couldn't see what happened, but I did see that Ferris didn't give Blue Bolt a chance to re-correct. She slid forward at top speed and slammed it into the ground. Her hand grabbed me and I almost vomited as she lifted-
<One. Teleport Incoming. >
The world flashed white.
Everything flared like I was looking into the sun, and a blast of buzzing vibrations swept me heels-over-head and numbed me to my teeth. I might have been vomiting, but I couldn't tell. I knew I was flailing and thrashing my limbs around wildly, but I had no clue what I was hitting, which way I was going, or whether-
Everything thing went dim again, and the vibes stopped. I just breathed, waiting to find out whether we were winners, or dead.
Nothing happened. The world swam and my stomach churned, 'and my mouth doesn't taste like shit so I didn't lose my lunch at least,' I knew, but everything was a little grainy in front of my eyes. It was like I was watching everything in half black-and-white, and listening with my ears underwater.
I waited.
Finally, I stood up.
'I feel like I got worked over bad, but this isn't even the worst I've ever been off. I'd give it a solid third place, though. But I've lived through tougher, I will live through this, and I'm getting my feet under me and adapting and we will win.'
*clank. clank. clank*
My heart thundered, my mouth went dry, and I did my best to stand up straight and maybe face my death when the robot slowly walked into my blurred field of vision.
It was a new robot, not blue, but red. It had a red, feminine, armored body decorated with a yellow streak across her chest and right thigh, curving up to an air-bender-style arrow in yellow on her red head.
It was totally undamaged and unscuffed, and it stared motionlessly in my direction.
<Congratulations on your victory over the Blue Bot series, but we Red Robots are far superior. With the deaths of the other three meatbags, you are the last to remain. Have you any final words? >
My heart twisted into a knot.
'She's lying. I have to believe she's lying. So I'm going to beat her lying ass into scrap and prove it!'
"Yeah. Kiss my ass, you tin can!" I shouted. The belt activated as I moved my arms through the proper pattern. I drained one-third of its 3% remaining charge with a kinetic force bolt aimed at its center of mass.
<No. >
The robot dropped down and slid to one side, balancing in a beast-ish three-point-stance before she exploded forward in a discolored blur faster than my eyes could track.
But I'd already been halfway to crossing my arms, raising my emergency recharge shield, and 'Thank you Sweet Baby Jesus, she's trying to enter melee and that means kinetic force!' One more percent of power winked away as a shield shimmered into being less than an inch from my skin – the maximum of its defensive abilities on the very bottom edge of its reserve battery.
I hadn't even realized the robot had hit me until after its fist had been stopped cold by my barrier. I was barely aware of the power measure climbing another two percent back before the robot lashed out into another series of scary strikes.
Knife hands, elbows, fists, and feet smashed into the barrier six blows per second and kept coming. After less than ten seconds, the robot realized it was useless and pulled back, but that was long enough for the battery charge to rise back up a lot, and it was sitting solidly at a sweet sixteen percent power.
'And Icon punching my barrier with his super-strength can maybe recharge about two or three percent per hit,' I considered. 'No clues for guessing how thoroughly maimed and murdered I'd'a been were it not for this.' But the recharge shield would burn out if I had it active for more than twenty seconds in twice as many hours, so I quickly did my elbow twist to replace with my usual flight aura. I lifted a few inches off the ground, but with how badly everything was spinning, and the blurs that I couldn't really call vision, I knew better than to try to fly for real.
Instead, I threw out flurries of smaller, rapid-fire force bolts. They drained 1.5% per four shots, and a series of six in a row got me more breathing room while it dodged around, low to the ground and moving at high speeds. I dropped down to 13% square with the last two bolts on each side of where it was going, and then a larger bolt burned 1% to skim along at knee height to where the Red Robot was.
It didn't jump like I'd wanted, but it twisted crazily, spun like a ballet dancer on its toes as it threaded under and over my bolts, and that was enough. A force bubble materialized around it, and it held.
"Now I've got you," I mocked. Slowly, slowly I inched forward. If I broke my posture, the bubble would break with it, and the 2.3 seconds needed to re-establish it would end with me in pieces.
'But if I can just get within point-blank range, I can fire off a force bolt with all the power I can spare and smash it flat,' I knew. I inched further forward. The robot had only hit the barrier once, experimentally, and without an external source of energy the belt's battery was slowly ticking down again.
'C'mon… Come on… How do I get you angry…?'
"So how does it feel, Miss Superior Robot, knowing that your tin-can teammates are trashed? Oh, wait. Were they teammates, or were they more like children?" I challenged with as much malice as I could dredge up. I waited for an answer and edged closer.
<Few things make me angry, other than dfopj ewofj qoih, > it replied, voice distorting in my ears as my head swam. <In general I do not get angry. I get even. > It leaned forward limply, leaned too far forward, and I was suddenly aware that the battery was ticking down faster and I couldn't figure out why.
'Potential energy!' I remembered with a jolt from my Physics class. 'She isn't hitting the barrier, she's just slumped over, leaning against it, and letting gravity drag her weight through! I didn't know you could do that! I need to get her violent and pissed, now.'
"I bet it just kills you, knowing I'm about to crush your trash ass into so much rubbish. But hey, don't worry. We recycle. I'm sure you'll get to enjoy your new life as a car fender, or maybe you'll be made into water canteens. Or soup cans! Since you're a tin can, you know?"
'No, no, no! I'm throwing out the nastiest stuff my head is clear enough to think of,' I frantically considered as I inched closer again, 'and none of it is getting a rise! I'm almost in range, already in arm's reach if I broke my posture, but soon I might not have enough battery charge left to hit her with anything!'
<For a meatbag, you very casually speak of butchery, > the Red Robot commented. My blood was pounding in my skull as I inched a little further, and I'd broken out in a sweat. <I have lived through many things far worse than your paltry threats. They did not destroy me. You will not destroy me. >
'This isn't just the tension and stress, it's actually getting hotter!' I realized, beginning to panic. 'I'm almost out of power, and I'm within arms reach of a super fighter robot that is about to set me on freakin' fire!'
<Did you know that I already heard the weakness of the belt you stole? > it asked as the heat shot up higher, like I was reaching into an open oven without any mitts. <Energy other than force, like electricity or sound. Or heat. Your memories should have shown you this much. But despite the limits of your meatbag body you became arrogant. Do you wish to die slowly? I will give you the chance. >
'One chance!' I didn't have enough power left to destroy it, but if I broke the bubble early I expected it to attack me, so I turned on the emergency shield for its last several seconds, banking on and praying for a melee assault.
The robot wasn't violent enough. Its burning arms wrapped around me, and its weight dragged me to the ground, and I yelled like my skin was being melted and tried to 'work through the pain, s'god take it! I have to do this!'
My belt's power flickered out died, and I was left to fight the mechanical monster like a human being. 'But humans made robots, ya tin can, and I'll show you why we're the dominant species around here!'
'If I'm going down, then I'll leave the world like I came in: bloody and screaming.'
I barely noticed that the heat was dying down- 'I guess it doesn't have enough fuel for full fire.' –as I twisted and thrashed and tried to ward off the robot's arms as it pummeled and pried at my collarbone and skull. 'No clue why it isn't just throttling me.' I lunged as best I could and bit its fingers.
It tore free, and my teeth didn't ache nearly as much as I'd expected, but I but must have broken something because I tasted blood.
I'd caught the Red Robot off-guard at least, it appeared to be examining its own hand in confusion, and 'damn I really wish I had a smartass quip right now.' I tried to thrash harder and got one leg partly free.
It lurched down next to my ear almost like it was trying to headbutt me. Something tickled at my face but I had no clue what, something else made a wheezing blow-drier sound in its head right by my ear, and a third something I-don't-know-what pressed something warm, wet, and gritty against my cheek.
I got my free leg good enough to kick the Robot in its torso chassis, and that pushed it back enough for my other foot to kick it in in the face. 'Where is that smoke coming from?' I wondered as the robot toppled back, but it wasn't like I could have pointed out any fires in this mad, Technicolor-concussion crazy-world.
<fl ewopfj sapjfjl sa e;ofk;o wop! >
I crawled after the robot and did my damnedest to break it, but it barely kept me at-
The world flickered back to normal.
'Not normal, I'm still concussed, but the colors look normal even though I can't see straight and that buzzing is finally gone and I feel so good I might have gone to Heaven early and I'm smelling more smoke and, and, and, why is that Ferris gal under me instead of the robot…?' I blinked fuzzily and pinched at her face. She patted my hand away with her own, warm, flesh and blood hand.
I collapsed, and she rolled me off and over, and we both ended up looking at Superman. He was as pale and as shaky as I'd seen him before, doubled over and barely standing by leaning on a bent garbage can lid…
But he was Superman, and he was standing.
He was Superman, he was standing, and he was standing over the smoking, smashed, sparking remains of the two robots that he'd beaten to bits with a garbage can lid.
"Bwuh?" I wondered eloquently.
"Wh-who needs s-s'per strantth," he stuttered out with a weakly reassuring smile, swaying all the while.
Ferris said something that made no sense at all. She worked her jaw for a few minutes and tried again, while I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing.
"I… hate. Illusions," she said simply.
I suddenly felt very stupid. And worried. I wondered where Icon was.
'Oh, wait, sounds like there's buildings on fire. I bet that's what he's doing.'
I nodded to myself, and my head kept nodding, and I never realized it then but I just nodded off right like that.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Regrowing that finger is going to suck.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Did it actually come off? or was it just a bite wound that tore some flesh away but left the bone.