Disclaimer: I do not own the Justice League/ JLU

Psychotic

Shields

Superman glared around the watchtower control room.

"You left that girl here by herself?" Wonder Woman repeated for maybe the fourth time in five minutes. "So where is she?"

Flash shrugged sheepishly. "She seemed in control. And you have to admit, she was right about my being a lot of help in that situation."

"Nevertheless, the fact remains that she is not here." Superman growled. "Meaning not only did you leave the watchtower under the supervision of a young new member on probation, you left it under the supervision of a young new irresponsible member."

"Uh… maybe she left a note?" Flash suggested desperately, then zipped up from the transporter deck to the main console before Wonder Woman or Superman could scoff at the idea.

When he got up to the console deck, he just stopped and stared.

"No note?" Wonder Woman asked rather maliciously, glorying in the knowledge that she'd been right not to trust the girl in the first place. Oh, but wasn't she going to make Batman eat his words? The prospect was delicious.

"You guys better come see this." Flash answered, still staring at the screen. Superman and Wonder Woman flew up behind Flash and took in the scene that met their eyes.

A government convoy just to the west of where they'd just been putting out the forest fire; it was under attack by a heavily armed group. As they watched, Psychotic flew out over the centre truck of the convoy, and flattened herself on its roof. Then the screen flashed white.

When the picture returned, there was only a smoking hole where the three trucks had previously been. Psychotic was nowhere to be seen. A large group of very confused and angry soldiers were left standing around a hole, and suddenly no longer under attack. It took them a minute to organize themselves into parties and move out in search of their ambushers and their trucks.

Superman, Wonder Woman and Flash looked at each other in amazement.

"Um…" Flash started, then ground to a halt, his mind a blank.

"Perhaps we should get down there?" Wonder Woman suggested. Superman nodded, and started entering co-ordinates for the transporters. He was barely halfway through when the comm. links buzzed.

"Watchtower," Superman answered authoritatively.

"This is Batman." Batman's dark, disturbing voice filled the control room. "Three military trucks have just materialized in Gotham City centre. I'm on my way now. Is someone up there asleep on the job, because I can't think of any other way that Flash missed this."

"They've just been teleported there by a hostile group who attacked the convoy those trucks were in." Superman informed Batman. "That's about all we know. Apparently Psychotic is with them."

"Psychotic?" Batman's tone was incredulous. "What is Psychotic doing with them?"

"I have no idea. We'll be in Gotham in minutes."

Superman cut the link, and re-entered co-ordinates. "Come on. It looks like we have another job to do."

---

Jay shook her head, trying to get the sick feeling of disorientation out. She raised her head a little and looked around. It seemed they were in the middle of a large city, though she had no idea which one. The only city she'd ever been in was Central City, and this place was way too dark and dirty to be there. She was having a bit of trouble focusing on any details in the gloom, but she could hear the rumble of the crowd approaching to see what was happening.

Jay pushed herself up to her hands and knees, and took another look from her new, elevated position. It seemed the trucks had been dumped in a city square, surrounded by tall, gothic buildings that towered all around. Around the edges of the square, on the pedestrian walks, people were gathered, staring in curiosity. The three trucks looked like they'd been dropped rather haphazardly; miraculously they were all still upright.

Psychotic did a quick scan with magic to check for any breaches in the truck seals. More luck- there were none.

Who's that? The question rang through Jay's mind as her vision was forcibly dragged to a crouching figure under the first truck. A man, crouched down trying to stay out of view. His most obvious feature was a glowing green skull.

Atomic Skull? What on Earth is going on here?

All three girls currently occupying Jay's skull had mirrored feelings of confusion. Still, it was the first obvious enemy Jay had come across. It would probably be a good idea to apprehend the villain.

Before she could, he let out a massive radioactive beam, sweeping across all three trucks and in one move breaking through seals and triggering a nuclear fission chain reaction in the unstable radioactive material contained inside them.

Psychotic acted immediately. In less time than it took to register what Atomic Skull was doing she had a shield up around all three trucks. But Jay hadn't had time to get off the middle truck. Her shield went up, with her on the inside.

Scenarios of her flesh burnt to a crisp by intense radiation flashed through her mind, before she registered the smaller shield protecting her body.

Wow.

Yeah, wow. Psychotic… how are you doing this?

Psychotic, realizing the impossibility of moving her body out of the danger zone had nevertheless put up a powerful magical shield to contain the nuclear explosion within a five meter zone all around the trucks, including the ground below them. In the interests of self preservation, she had also thrown up an equally strong but smaller shield around her body, thus preventing any fatal radiation from getting her.

This was taking all the concentration and energy she had to spare. This much magic was hard even for her. To all intents and purposes, she was out of any further intra-cranial discussion.

Uh, problem. Jay's other self took a quick look around, ignoring the strain of the magic on their body.

What, bigger than the one we've already got? Jay answered herself.

Part of the one we've already got. We've got a shield up around what is essentially a nuclear explosion, right?

Your point?

What do we do now?

Hope like hell that Psychotic can keep this up indefinitely.